Chapter 15: Fired Up
After wandering through the arena for a few hours, exploring their surroundings and searching for other tributes to kill, Diamond and Silver have set up a new camp by the lake they used as refuge from the tracker jackers. The winds went away, so it started to warm up in the arena, though not by much. They were tired, hungry, and ready to end the day. They dumped their stuff on the ground and were about to sit down for dinner, when they noticed something silver glistening in the sunlight as it drifted in the sky. They stopped and stared at it, squinting their eyes for a better look to try and figure out what it is. They stood there and watched it float to the ground, wondering about it until they could actually see it.
It was a little silver parachute, with an even smaller pot attached to it. When it appeared in view, the siblings realized that the parachute was heading their way. Their eyes brightened with excitement as it drew closer, and they started jumping up and down, reaching up to catch it. With one big leap, Silver grabbed the parachute and pulled it down.
"All right! My first sponsor gift!" Silver exclaimed happily, when Diamond snatched the parachute away from him.
"Uh, no. I'm like, pretty sure that thing's totally for me," Diamond said, starting to open the little pot. "I mean, like, duh." Before she did, however, Silver took it back.
"No way, Diamond! It's definitely for me," Silver argued, tearing open the pot while discarding the parachute. "Why would anyone be sending you sponsor gifts?" Diamond angrily ripped the pot out of Silver's hands.
"Because I'm special," she answered haughtily. "Why would anyone send you anything?"
"Because I'm awesome!" Silver protested, pushing Diamond and seizing the sponsor gift for himself. Diamond gave him a harder shove, taking the sponsor gift from him before he fell to the ground. Diamond broke open the pot and searched through it, before finding something. Silver clambered back to his feet in time to see Diamond pull out a small pack of crackers. They glanced at the crackers for a minute, then at each other for another moment, before Diamond rolled her eyes and shoved the crackers into her brother's hands.
"Here, it's for you, dork," she muttered, bending down to search their backpacks for other food. Silver smirked and nodded in approval as he started eating the crackers. Diamond eventually settled for some dried fruit, something she sometimes ate in her salads for lunch back home in District 1. Diamond sat down next to their supplies, with Silver joining her while still grinning victoriously at having gotten the sponsor gift. The sun was going down, so the arena started to grow dark as the pair of siblings silently planned their next move. Diamond mostly could care less, though a part of Silver – one he wasn't quite aware of in that moment – couldn't wait for what would happen next.
The sun went down, and the stars came out. Caius and Rosemary were sitting by the fire they started, the flames protecting them from the cold. The fire created a small light in the sky, mixing pitch black with a tint of orange. They were lucky they were practically in the middle of nowhere; otherwise the fire would probably call attention to them. Caius had received a small bag of marshmallows as a sponsor gift, so he found two long sticks so that he and Rosemary could roast them.
"If only we had chocolate and graham crackers," Rosemary joked, inching her marshmallow closer to the fire. "Then we'd have smores." Caius laughed as he withdrew his from the flames, pausing to let it cool off.
"Yeah." Caius blew on his marshmallow before eating it, his mouth growing to the size of a blowfish from eating one of the jumbo-sized marshmallows.
"Thanks for sharing by the way," Rosemary said graciously, leaning over to grab another marshmallow. "This is awesome." Caius smiled and blushed.
"You're welcome. Anytime." The two allies repeated the same process for some time, taking marshmallows, placing them on their sticks, and hanging them over the open flames before they were cooked enough to eat. To them it didn't even feel like they were in the Hunger Games right now. They were just two friends hanging out in front of a fire on a cold winter's night, laughing and making small talk over roasted marshmallows. They felt cheerful and at ease, feelings they thought they'd never feel inside the Hunger Games arena (at least not until they won, assuming they did). "I really like you, Rosemary." Rosemary blinked in surprise, her ears perking up as she turned towards Caius.
"Really? You do?"
"Yeah," Caius answered, nodding confidently. "You're very helpful out here, you're a sweetheart, and you're just really fun to be around." Rosemary could feel herself blush, a rosy tint appearing on her otherwise pale cheeks. She giggled and turned away shyly.
"Aww, thanks Caius. You're sweet," Rosemary said, inching closer and gently resting her head on the District 2 male's shoulder. Caius beamed as he set his stick down and wrapped his arm around Rosemary's shoulder. They stayed like that and let themselves lose track of time, enjoying each other's company. They even ignored the Panem national anthem and the recap of the dead tributes because they were in their own world. Finally Caius lowered his head as he leaned into Rosemary's. He lingered there for several moments before closing the gap and kissing her. Rosemary's cheeks burned as he kissed her, but she returned the romantic gesture, a smile on her face when they eventually broke the kiss.
"We may have just met, but I feel as though I've known you my whole life. Where have you been all my life?" Caius mused. "I love you." Rosemary gasped, her eyes widening as she stared at Caius in shock. But she smiled as he kissed her again.
Diamond and Silver were working on starting a fire when the national anthem started playing. Diamond was stacking firewood while Silver was trying to light a match, both of them glancing up at the sky every now and then while the faces of the second day's casualties were displayed in the sky. One by one Diamond and Silver caught glimpses of the girls from Districts 3, 4, 5, 8, and 9, as well as the boy from District 12, totaling six deaths on day two. They snickered to themselves when the girl from District 9 appeared, taking a moment to reminisce before continuing on with their tiring work.
"I can't get this stupid match to work," Silver muttered in annoyance, while Diamond ran off to grab more firewood. He ran the match over the box several times, but it produced no flame, so he tossed it behind him, discarding it like he had nearly a dozen others. He pulled out another match and tried again, while Diamond returned with a huge stack of wood in her hands.
"I hate labor!" she complained, dumping the wood with the rest she had gathered. "Especially like, hard labor!" She bent down and started stacking the wood into a neat pile, when Silver finally struck a match successfully. He sighed with relief as he dropped the match onto the pile wood, creating a mini bonfire.
"We got fire!" Silver cheered, as he and Diamond sat down in front of it to warm themselves. They rubbed their hands and held them out in front of the fire, when they jumped at the sound of thunder. They looked up at the sky to see blue and purple flashes of lightning, and that's when it started to rain. Luckily the trees blocked most of the rain from hitting them, but Diamond and Silver looked down to find that the rain had soaked their fire, extinguishing it. The siblings groaned as their fire went out, leaving them only with a pile of soggy wood.
"Aww man," Diamond moaned, pouting in disappointment, her lips starting to turn blue.
"Oh come on!" Silver complained, throwing his arms up in frustration. "That is so not fair! Ugh, stupid Gamemakers." More thunder crashed as it rained harder, as if the Gamemakers were expressing their rage through ominous weather, and Diamond and Silver started to get soaked. Desperate for body warmth, they inched closer and huddled together as they shivered uncontrollably.
"Omigod, it's like, soooooo cold!" Diamond complained, leaning into Silver and resting her head on his shoulder. "Maybe we should like, go to sleep or something."
"In this weather?" Silver asked her incredulously. "Ugh, no way." Despite his thinking, however, Diamond and Silver managed to fall asleep later on, curled up next to each other while the storm raged on. He was still shuddering as he closed his eyes, and Silver knew that he and his sister could probably agree on one thing – it was going to be a long, painful night.
Regan had been searching the arena for Caius all day, blindly following the path Oliver showed her. She stopped for a break to watch the death toll recap, but she was on the move again. Luckily she wasn't tired, because she didn't want to rest until she found her district partner, and she wasn't going to. Regan didn't know how far she had traveled, but it felt as though she covered at least half the arena. Regan hoped that Oliver was right, more for his sake than hers. Not that it mattered though, since she was going to kill him either way next time she saw him, and it was going to be very satisfying. Oliver just bugged her to no end, not only because he was from an outlying district, but because he was such a dweeb. She hated dweebs. A lot.
"Dweeb," Regan muttered under her breath, as the boy from District 3 came to mind. "All right, where is Caius?" She gave up on where Oliver told her to go and turned in another direction. She walked in that direction for some time and miles before she saw flickers of light in the distance. Even if that light didn't lead to Caius, she couldn't help but be curious about it, so she picked up the pace and followed the flickers, pushing past trees and kicking bushes aside. The light grew brighter and hotter as Regan drew closer, and when the smoke reached her nose she recognized the light as fire. Regan grinned. She was either going to find Caius or some wimpy tribute she could kill. "This is great," she said as she pulled back some tree branches. She blinked in surprise, however, when she seemed to find both.
There was Caius, her district partner, sitting by the fire that drew her to his spot. But there was the girl from District 12, sitting by his side, curled up next to him with her head on his shoulder. They were talking and laughing as they roasted marshmallows, and Caius even had his arm around her waist. Regan watched them in utter confusion, her eyes widening when Caius pulled the girl closer to him, and her jaw dropped to the ground when she saw them kiss.
Regan stood there in shock for several minutes, before that shock quickly turned to anger. Her fists clenched and her eyes narrowed as she glared at the lovey-dovey pair. The fire reflected in her eyes to match her fury, and her fist was so tight she nearly snapped her spear in half. That was her boyfriend that chick was canoodling with! Well, her ex-boyfriend, but her boyfriend nonetheless!
"Oh I see how it is," Regan said through her teeth, unable to take any more of their horribly obnoxious love-fest. Screw you, Caius… Angrily she pivoted on her heels and stormed off, leaving her district partner behind. Still not tired, she stormed through the woods with only one thing on her mind.
Revenge.