Author's Note: Let me start by celebrating a few things. First, DOUBLE DIGITS IN CHAPTER NUMBERS! Secondly, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to "tracelynn" for following and reviewing this story. As for your suggestion to providing a list of the dead tributes at the end of each chapter, I think it is a good one. Here's the list of the living as of now, not including what happens in this story: Osher, 2; Edgar, 3; Opthalmius, 4; Cleo, 7; Ridgen, 7; Ellk, 10; Triticum, 11; and Rustica, 11. Thirdly: I have a new story on FIctionPress! (A site owned by the same people as this one, but meant for original fiction that you can bring your Fanfiction account over to.) It's called THE GRAY SPACE TRIALS and I'm pretty happy with it so far. This chapter, by the way, is going to be a special that has the POV of every tribute still standing.
Chapter 10: The Scent Of Death
Number Of Different POVs: 8
ELLK'S POV (DISTRICT 10 GIRL)
The cool forest soil leeches the heat out of my body. I rub it into the pores of my skin while I plan my trap. I know for a fact that the District 7 girl, Cleo, is camped near me and I'm itching to spill some blood. The Hunger Games have gotten to the final eight and I don't have any kills on the board. Just the thought makes me angry. I might be from District 10, but I've been training my whole life to knock those Career Tributes out of their little safety zone and they've managed to kill off half their allies already. I can't believe that these were the Games I had to volunteer for; no wonder I haven't had any sponsors.
All of these plans are running through my head as I take a nice, long drink of water that I got from the Cornucopia when I threw myself into the thick of the fight. That's when the Gamemakers decide to strike.
I hear the danger before I see it: the crack of falling, splintering trees, the sounds of fear in animals that only a farmer can hear, and the long, low growl that fills the arena. Instantly I'm on my feet, running, not stupid enough to have deluded dreams about slaying that beast.
But my best isn't enough. I get a glimpse of the monstrous mutt that's on my trail. Twice the size of the average adult, the monster appears to have leather for skin, but leather that's been already cured. Its eyes are that of a cow, but glowing with anger instead of passive acceptance of death. It has horns that look ready to impale me. I'm running as fast as I can, and I've trained for this my whole life with one of the victors, but I can't last forever, especially since it attacked before I had a chance to eat.
I realize that my throat is burning harder than it should be, especially since I had a drink of water. That's when the heat registers: the Gamemakers have been raising the temperature during my chase.
I'm not going to survive this, not if the Gamemakers don't want me to. And I know that, with the heat how it is, they want another death. At any other moment, I might wonder about their reasoning, especially with three deaths yesterday. But my entire being is consumed by the need to survive; the need to flee.
My muscles are burning, but I hardly notice the pain. A fist crashes down next to me and picks up a tree by the roots. It comes tumbling down in front of me. One of the branches slices across my arm, a deep gash that demands treatment. But I don't have the time to do that. Had the mutt just aimed a little better, I would be dead. And I have no doubt the Gamemakers want it to spare me. They want a fight, but I don't have a weapon. So I keep running.
When I'm about to give up hope, I see a silver parachute. Somehow I find the strength to leap up and catch it. I discover a fine steel knife of the perfect weight and a handle that feels like home: leather. But it isn't enough to take out the giant mutt that's pursuing me without hesitation.
Suddenly, to catch it by surprise because I'm going to die soon if I don't, I spin around and, using the added power behind the sharp movement, I drive the knife to the hilt into the mutt's calf. Blood spills out, but not the crimson, human color. No, this blood is oily, slick, and the color of the sky at midnight.
I dance around the beast's leg, taking sudden jabs at it, hoping it will bleed to death. No such luck; the mutt doesn't seem to notice the pain. But it does react to my fighting. I know for a fact that every citizen of Panem is glued to their screens, some cheering me on, others knowing that if I survive their loved ones have a less chance of making it home, some only thinking about the money they have riding on the fight that could end my life.
The anger behind that thought surprises even me. I use it as a flame to drive me up into a jump; I might as well go out fighting. Time seems to slow down. I'm in midair. I drive my knife into the side of the mutt, twisting it in a motion that sparks a cry of pain, the first sign from this creature that it has feelings. I'm falling now, the power behind the jump gone. The claw of the mutt reaches out and my shirt snags on it. The thing lifts me up and for the first time I see its face: glowing yellow eyes, the pleading eyes of a cow, but hardened into anger. And then a cruel, vicious grin spreads across its face in anticipation of murder.
It rakes the claw from its other hand across my face. I taste blood. Then the malicious smile grows even larger as my confused brain tries to stab its hand with the knife. The mutt gabs me in its hand, squeezing harder and harder until I'm going to pass out when it suddenly takes its teeth and bites off my leg. Pain explodes in my body. I see a glimpse, behind me, of Cleo's horrified face. "Run!" I shout. "Run!" I don't know if she hears me, or if I even made a sound, because at that I moment I pass out, never to awaken again.
EDGAR'S POV (DISTRICT 3 MALE)
I'm running home and my mother is there, embracing me. I look into her eyes in surprise, for I thought she was dead from the factory explosion that destroyed so many lives. She caresses me lovingly. I smile. My younger sister, Lucendi, fast as she was—no, is, for I see right now, doesn't get there before my mom. She grabs my calf and I smile. "Hey, Luce. How are you doing?" I ask her. She smiles up at me. I bend down to scoop her up but my hands go right through her. Confused, I try again. I look down at my arms and realize I'm disappearing. Fading away. My mother and Lucendi are trying to grab me, to keep me here, but I'm leaving them against my will. Soon I fade away completely. In the background, I hear a cannon shot.
OSHER'S POV (DISTRICT 2 MALE):
Opthalmius. What a drain on resources—my resources. I don't know why I even let him live as long as I did. But that ambush was a stroke of luck. I got Blon's weapon and two tributes off the board. I don't know where Ridgen went to, but he shouldn't be a problem. That sound of the cannon could have been him anyways. I know that I shouldn't jump to conclusions, that he could survive, that it could have just as easily been one of…the others. 11 still has as much hope as anybody, and they don't usually make it this far. So I shouldn't underestimate anybody, especially at this stage in the Games.
I want someone to come charging through the underbrush right now so I can kill them. Blon was too easy, too weak. The others left, whoever they are, would be the kind to run, not fight…most of the time. I just hope it comes down to me and an opponent that I can beat, but not someone too easy. The last thing I want is a victory moment where I just snap a neck. I want to see rivers of blood from my opponent; I want them to know they've lost just before death. I want to destroy.
When trouble comes, I'm ready. The girl from District Seven clearly worked up the nerve to come down from her hideout. I jump, expecting an easy attack, but out of nowhere is a stabbing pain in my gut. My hands are warm and sticky with blood and it isn't hers. She rushes me on the attack, not pausing. Of course not; she would exploit my moment of weakness., not wait for it to pass. I meet her with a thrust, aiming towards the heart, but she blocks and turns my own blade on me.
A searing pain hits me in the side but I hardly notice. Instead, I lash out at her and feel contact. I drive the knife in further, twisting it, hoping for the pain to knock her out. No such luck. The girl cries out in pain, but the whimper lasts less than a second before she comes back full-force. At any other time, if my life weren't on the line, I would be impressed by her endurance. But my life is on the line, and she's attempting end it.
As she's running, I score a low hit, but she jumps, and instead of the smooth slice through the gut that I was aiming for, I get a light but long cut down the thigh. And then her blade is on me, in my eye, and I'm blinded by the blood. As I stagger backwards, she takes the opportunity to attack. I feel her knife in a thousand places, and then she's gone, fleeing the scene of her crime.
I still can't see and I'm afraid to move, afraid to walk into another tribute. But a tribute knows my general location and that I'm weak enough to be taken out and hurt enough to bleed to death, so I have to move. For all I know, she's going back to get her ally to help finish me off. But I doubt it. Just now, if she'd wanted to, one quick slice across the neck, or through a vital organ, could've ended it for me. So she probably choked, probably couldn't kill. If she's too weak to kill, I'll do it for her. I will survive this injury and I will find her and torture her to the point of death, and then I will finish her off, not leave her like she has left me.
The first thing to do is stop the blood. I know pressure will help, so I press on them as long as I can. There is always a sponsor out there who is willing to help a persistent Career Tribute, someone they have money on. So I look up, defying death, staring it right in the face, and hope beyond hope that medicine, that all-important savior, will come down to me. Nothing descends from the skies, not that I expected it to, at least not at first.
When nightfall comes, I see two faces in the sky. I suppose the other cannon shot came during battle when I was too preoccupied with my own life to hear the end of someone else's. One is Ellk, the girl from District Eleven, who I thought might have had a chance at victory, if not a large one. She seemed too strong to be taken out so easily. The other face is Edgar, the boy from Three. I wonder vaguely how he died: was he killed or did he die of natural causes? He ran the opposite way of me, so he could have found anything.
By midnight most of the bleeding has stopped. I doubt I will ever be able to see out of the eye that Cleo stabbed, a severe disadvantage in the Games. But with the blood washed out of the other one, I can see some things. Still, I don't see how I can survive. But I will—I have to. I have to become the victor of the 60th annual Hunger Games and, therefore, become unforgettable, I am sure of my survival by the time that sunrise comes.
OPTHALMIUS'S POV (DISTRICT 4 MALE)
I could have sworn that some big hand held the moon and dropped it out of the sky, causing the dawn to come faster than I thought possible. But these are the Hunger Games, and anything can happen.
The first thing I notice is that yesterday's intense heat wave has yet to leave and that the air is more humid than ever. Why are they in such a hurry to finish the Hunger Games this year? An intriguing but irrelevant question that I have no time to dwell on.
I have to escape, but whatever they did is surprisingly effective. I can't get out by ramming my body into the bars, so I try to snap the wood. Sawdust and splinters escape into the air, making me double over in a coughing fit. When I recover, I find that they have run metal through the logs that they must have gotten from a
The heat is intense and the thirst threatens to kill me. I need to find water, or escaping this cage will do me no good. Unwillingly, my mind flashes back to random pieces of memory from District 4. It seems unreal that I was there just a few weeks ago.
The water laps at my ankles as I teach the younger kids how to swim. One of them, an especially bright little toddler named Squammiger, or Squammi for short, dives under for so long I'm sure he's died when, suddenly, he springs up out of the air and spits water at us. The toddlers freak out, but I just smile. Squammi is definitely going to grow up to be a victor.
I remember acutely that the scent of the breeze carried over from the water had been in the air then, but now I can only smell the scent of death. The scent of death which is everywhere in this horrible prison, this place that seems to suffocate even in the forest, where I should smell nothing but pine.
I know I'm going to die here, I know that District 4 will have no victor, not this year, that the hopes of an entire district were dashed the moment that the cage fell down around me.
Right now, I'm as good as dead, so I might as well not die in this slow, painful way. I bash my head on the exposed metal again and again, inviting death. I don't even get to hear the cannon boom for me.
RUSTICA'S POV (DISTRICT 11 FEMALE)
I'm dead weight. Well, living weight. Pruna's been dead for a while, and I'm going to be next. I should be dead, not Pruna, because I do nothing but consume our valuable resources. No wonder Triticum seems angrier every day. But these are not the kinds of things a tribute says in the arena. So I will have to act before Triticum does. I will have to kill the boy who saved my life—not my fault he was too merciful to survive. If it helps me, I won't turn down his mercy. But he doesn't get mine.
What did I just think? How can I, Rustica, the girl with the bad leg, kill my own district partner? I'd be a pariah when I returned to District 11—if I do. No, when I do, because I will.
The sword that Triticum got in a silver parachute, probably given to him by a rich, bloodthirsty sponsor that knew he'd put up a good fight with it, is lying next to him carelessly as he faces away from me. I sneak up on him as best I can, the agony exploding in my leg with each step, but just as my fingers close around the blade, he grabs it lightning-fast and stabs me in the ribcage with it, missing the fatal hit only because I jerked to the side just in time to prolong, but not save, my life.
TRITICUM'S POV (DISTRICT 11 MALE)
I stand over her writhing figure. What have I done? Is all I'm good for in the Games killing off my allies? "You tried to break our alliance, Rustica," I say, unsure of where the words are coming from.
She gets out a wheezing, raggedy breath. "Why… are you … doing this… you've... won… already…" I can't answer her myself, so I continue making this help-less girl's dying moments miserable.
"We were helping each other out, helping each other survive. But no, you had to break the alliance and you tried to kill me, tried to put me in the position you are in. How does it feel, Rustica? How does it feel?"
I don't get a reply. She just moans in pain and then her cannon sounds, the noise ringing throughout the arena, echoing my deed. What an interesting time that Claudius must be having right now, talking about my "nice boy" disguise, ensuring that I will get either loads of sponsors or none, depending on the angle that I get portrayed in. But there is no time to worry about that, not now. I have to worry that, based on this cannon and the others that I've heard, I'm now in the top four, which means that there are three other people in this arena, and all of them are after me.
CLEO'S POV (DISTRICT 7 FEMALE)
I still hear Ellk's last words echoing through my mind: "Run!" Is everyone in this arena, even the most fearsome killers, better people than I am? Even Ellk, who could've escaped with her life had she just headed towards me, or pointed me out to the beast, used her last moments to save me. Am I so despicable that the District Ten version of a Career is a kinder person than me?
No. I can't afford to think like this. Some people are stupid, and they die for it, and other people, people like me, are smart and they are rewarded with life. But just being smart isn't always enough—it will be.
I still have the image of Osher, stumbling away from me, bloody in a thousand different places and blinded in one eye. Letting him live was stupid; he's going to try to torture me to death the next time we meet. That's how the Careers work; that's how they think.
I am a coward. No, no, no! Not now. I can't do this, not it the final four! Warm heat bleeds out of the bread and into my body, the essence of life taken from the scent of death. I bite into the loaf, not bothering to slice it with my hands, and let the flavors sink in. I somehow manage to keep myself from eating the whole loaf at once; there is still half left when I'm done eating. My mind drifts off into a peaceful slumber, the first one I've had in years, and I manage to forget that I have blood on my hands—at least until dawn comes, its rosy color painting the sky.
I manage to break the spell by gulping down a huge glass of water. Then, with my hand gripped tightly around my weapon and my food by my side, I leave the spot I'm in to go search for another tribute, to get another kill.
RIDGEN'S POV (DISTRICT 7 MALE)
Only the best survive. I see, in the distance, the figure of another tribute with his supplies spread out around him, a weapon in hand. The only gift I've gotten in the arena was that metal cage. I don't know who gave it to me or why, but I'm thank-ful nonetheless. Blon was mostly dead weight anyway; no, worse—Blon posed an important threat to me: his stupidity. He got himself killed; Opthalmius is dead, and I made it to the top four. If Cleo did as well, there is a half-and-half chance of District 7 winning this year.
I could take on Osher. I might be able to eliminate a very big threat in this year's Games. If I succeed, and I might because he's injured and unsuspecting, it would greatly increase my chances of winning. I'm about to do it when I remember: Only the best survive. Even when injured, compared to me, Osher's superior strength and training make him the best compared to me. If I want to survive, I will need a different tribute to take him out, preferably Triticum, so that the more significant threat will also be injured.
Just then, Claudius Templesmith's voice rings out across the arena. "Attention all Hunger Games tributes. There will be a feast at Cornucopia tomorrow at sunset. This feast will have not only food fresh from the Capitol, but also a variety of well- made weapons, each one suited to a different one of your strengths. That is all."