Title: Awake and Sing
Author: A Crazy Elephant
Summary: Or "Let the 10th Annual Hunger Games Begin!"
Category: Action/Adventure/Drama
Chapter Word Count: 2,869
Disclaimer: The Hunger Games universe and related characters do not belong to me.
Author's Notes: Back again! I apologize for this particular chapter – I know it drags a bit. Things will pick up in the next chapter, I promise. Hang in there.
Chapter Fun Facts: Boiling water is actually an effective purification method, but only in the event no other purification system can be devised. Again, they're supposed to be in the ruins of what was once Chicago. The canal is actually the Chicago River and the shoreline is what's left of Grant Park.
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8 - Arena
I run for the red pack.
A headlong dash. Completely oblivious to the others around me. I manage to pick up a small bundle just bigger than hand on my way for the pack.
A hand jerks me back by the hood of my coat just before I reach the red bag. It pulls me up sharp. I spin awkwardly out of the grip and down to the ground. Slide into the pack as my attacker, Boy 5, trips over my fallen form. I have a hold on the red bag now and I turn my attention to the ruins. Boy 5 has recovered quickly, but he's still on the ground. He catches my ankle as I struggle for my feet. I kick out with my free foot.
My boot connects with his face.
He releases me with a howl I care barely hear over the rising screams from the mouth of the Cornucopia. I stumble back to my feet and run. The screams and cries ring in my ears like Julius Flickerman's voice around us on the disks.
I try not to cry. I just keep moving. Zigzagging out into the ruined city. Farther and farther out until the screams begin to fade. Over the overgrown streets. Through trees and the husks of buildings.
I stop only when I can't hear the sounds of slaughter anymore. When the only thing in my ear is the ringing from Girl 9's explosion and the roar of tree frogs and locusts and the other wild things in the terrain.
I stop in what at one time might of been the crawl space below a house. Now, it's only a crumbling cement ring set three feet into the earth. The further from the shore, the trees have thinned a bit. The ruins are closer together here with only the odd maple sprouting from the crumbled sidewalk or from an overgrown back garden. The cover of the rubble isn't nearly as dense as I'd like. But it's enough.
I make sure nothing is crawling around in case the Gamemakers have gone with poisonous fauna again this year. Once moderately certain nothing slithering or crawly will kill me, I drop down into the corner of the ruined walls. Press my back to them in the event one my fellow Tributes followed me I won't be too terribly exposed.
I evaluate my collections.
The small pack turns out to be an awl. Wrapped in a plastic tarp, it's larger than the ones Grandfather uses to carve pipes. Just small enough to fit in my hand.
The red pack reveals about as much. A space blanket in a neatly folded square. A small metal canteen, which is, of course, empty. A compass on a line. A magnesium strip for starting fires.
All things considered, it isn't a bad haul.
Honestly, between the two packs, it's a damn good one. No weapons, of course. Those would have been packed neatly right in the mouth of the Cornucopia. I was not stupid enough to think I'd come out of there alive. Flynn might, but I certainly wouldn't have.
But I am alive. At least for now. And that's not nothing.
I'm still shaking and the memory of the explosion and the screams threaten to bring up the tears I've kept down all day. I push down the lump in my throat anyway.
I have more important things to think about now. Like locating and boiling some water before night falls. Finding a decent campsite for the night. I don't have time to cry or worry about the others.
I repack my supplies. All but the compass, which I loop around my neck. I may not be able to spear fish, but years on Grandfather's trawler have taught me to navigate. I know how to use the stars, but the compass makes things infinitely easier.
From the compass and a vague memory of my trail here, I know that I am only just north west of the Cornucopia. There is the great lake on the east side of that, but there's at least three hundred yards of open ground between the lake and the cover of the city as far down the shore as I could see. Surely someone who got hold of a weapon or two this morning will have staked out the shore. Waiting for someone foolish or thirsty enough to break cover and go for the lake. There has to be something else. A stream. A river. Something. The lake has to be a last resort.
I decide to double back to the shoreline, to reorient myself with the Cornucopia and the lake. Just to be sure. Besides, if there are any streams or rivers feeding into the lake, I should be able to see their mouths from the shore. As I stand to go, the cannons begin to sound.
One, two, three –
It almost sounds like the worst of storms back home. Where we'd huddle by the fire, counting the seconds between the lightening and the thunder.
I count here too. But it doesn't tell me how far off the storm is.
– four, five, six, seven.
The cannon quiets.
Seven. Seven dead. Seventeen left to play. I get moving.
This time, I take care to conceal my tracks. Treading lightly. Not breaking every single branch as I pass. Not barreling through the brush. Just as the survival instructors suggested. I'm still a bit winded from the run and my throat burns for water. I push on anyway.
The closer I get to the shore, the more I keep to the rubble. The shore is obviously near because the trees have thickened out again. The twisted heaps of buildings are farther apart. The roar of the tree frogs and the locust fades to a low hum. I can even hear the water lapping at the rocks on the shore.
I end up less than a mile above the Cornucopia. Still within earshot. I'm not stupid enough to wander out past the ruins of the city and the tree line. I climb up a pile of rubble just below one of the crumbling walls to peak over.
Someone is holding the shore.
Flynn is holding the shore. He's picked up a pike and is looking determined. He's got Lace and the 2s with him too. Alliances are not uncommon. They happen every year, but this is surely the first year so many of the strongest competitors have teamed together. It's either a genius strategy or will end swiftly in a brutal bloodbath.
Lace and the 2s are looking victorious. Hungry. Lace has gotten her hands on a set of throwing knives. Phaedra's picked out a short sword and a bow. Pentheus has knives too, but his real prize seems to be a mace. Together with Flynn and his pike, they look positively lethal.
They've staked out the Cornucopia as a home base. Piled most of the supplies deep in the golden horn. The grass is still red.
"Where'd that psychopath from your District run off to, Lace?" Phaedra asks. Her yellow jacket is all ready splattered with blood and her dark hair shines in the sun. She terribly pleased with herself. Like a cat with a fresh kill.
"I didn't see, but I sure hope it's close by." Lace says with a laugh. "I've been waiting all week to gut that lunatic."
"How about you, Moses?" Pentheus growls at Flynn. "Where's that little mouse from your District? We missed her this morning."
"Hiding, I imagine." Flynn shrugs. "Maggie's small, but she isn't stupid."
"We'll just have to pay her a visit, then won't we?" I don't like the snarl on Pentheus' face. Flynn shrugs noncommittally.
"Let's get to Doil first." He suggests. "He's a major threat. You saw what he did to that girl from 6. That kid from 7's a problem too – I saw him in training and he managed to get out with an ax."
"He's right." Phaedra snorts. "The mouse can wait." I've heard enough. More importantly, I've seen what I needed. Just north of my hiding spot is a dip in the shoreline. A cut out in the rocks and the grass where the water pushes into the ruined city.
A stream.
I carefully climb down and head back the way I came. I want to put as much distance between me and Flynn's pack as I can. I don't think he'd kill me, at least not right off. We're decently friendly and he would have to face everyone at home when he won if he skewered me early on. But there is no such social pressure stopping any of the others from gutting me as quick as they please.
Several hundred yards into my retreat, I veer north. I still hike out, away from the shore, but I want to run into that stream. Along the way, I pick up dried grasses from the crumbled pavement of the streets. Crunchy leaves and dry twigs. I do not need to waste daylight collecting tinder.
I stuff the twigs and the leaves into my pockets, my pack. The grass I start twisting into baskets while I hike. I'll need something to hold water while the metal canteen boils a batch.
I've got two small woven bowls by the time I hear the stream. I tuck them into my bag and pull out the awl. It isn't really a weapon, but it's at least got a point on it. There are 12 others apart from myself out there that don't have access to lake. Odds are, I'm not the only one to have spotted the stream.
I slow my pace as the stream nears. I also see that the stream isn't a stream at all, but an ancient canal. With sharp drops rather than rocky shores. I'm trying to keep as much to the buildings and trees as I can, but they all thin out. Leaving six yards of crumbling concrete and zero cover on either side. Just like by the lake.
I'll have to chance it.
I hike a short ways up stream. The cement walls disintegrate into giant slabs of concrete, falling into the water and eroding the shore the farther I go. Good for reaching the water. For drawing out Tributes into the open.
I find the easiest looking access route. Rotting cement slabs with enough grab for me to make a clean get away if the need arises. I pull out the canteen and the baskets under the cover of a twisted, bombed out building. Make sure my pack is secured tight across my back and my awl is stashed in my belt.
Then I run for it.
My throat is still burning from the first run and my hikes. I try dearly to ignore it as I fill the canteen. I stash the canteen into a pocket.
A cannon sounds as I begin to fill the little woven basket. It makes me jump and I nearly lose my grip on the thing. I catch it before the basket is lost to the current. But I fill it as quickly as I can. Slam the second upside-down on top like a lid and dart back to the cover of the rubble.
Sixteen left to play.
They're burning through us quickly this year. Eight in one day.
In case I'd forgotten, the cannon is a warning that I am not safe anywhere I go.
But I'm burning daylight so I try not to think about how dry my mouth is. About the recent cannon or where the others might be hiding out.
I move quickly. Carefully as not to spill my basket of water. Away from the canal until I can no longer hear it. Then, I pick another ruined building. Start a fire with the magnesium and the dry tinder I've collected.
I boil the canteen first. Just stick it right into the coals while I keep a lookout from what's left of a window.
It's all so quiet. Bird and bug and tree frog songs echo through the buildings and the trees that have overtaken the city. It strikes me how easily the rest of the world fell away. How quickly I've stopped thinking about, well, everything that isn't Arena related.
All I can think about is what must come next. Boil the water in the basket. Find something worth eating. Establish a camp for the night. Stay the hell away from anything like a person or an animal.
It's kind of comforting.
I'm not on the verge of tears. I don't have time to cry or worry or feel sorry for myself. I scarcely have time to be afraid. I just have to do.
When the canteen's finished boiling, I fish it out of the coals with a stick. Let it cool a bit and use a handful of moss like an oven mitt to switch out the freshly cleaned water with the canal water.
It takes all I have not to chug down my cleaned water. I so badly want to and my mouth is bone dry. But I congratulate myself on excellent self control and drink only a little as the second batch boils. I distract myself from the temptation of water by collecting more of the tall grasses. I start in on a rectangle. The hope is that as I hike and collect still more of the grass, I'll be able to create a cover in a more neutral color for my red bag. I'd prefer not to have a bright red target literally on my back as we proceed into these Games.
When second round of water finishes boiling and cooling, I dump what's left in the bowl into the canteen. Repack the bowls and the canteen and the start of my grass bag-basket. I stamp out the fire, covering it in earth and a stray brick or two to hide my tracks.
Now, I need to start looking into shelter. I need to put a least a little more distance between the fire pit and me. But it's all ready late afternoon. I wasted a lot of time reorienting at the shoreline.
I don't regret it. If I hadn't, I might have never seen the canal. I wouldn't know about Flynn's pack. Both are valuable pieces of information.
That doesn't change the fact that it took hours of sun and countless calories.
I follow the sound of the canal, away from the shore. The more distance I can put between me and the lake, the better. I continue collecting and waving grass for my bag-basket along the way. I'm trying to select inconspicuous hunks from here and there, as not to leave a breadcrumb trail for any would-be hunters. But the red of my pack is something that needs to be remedied and soon.
Twilight hits before I find a decent shelter for the night.
The trees are all too thin to sleep in like the survival instructors encouraged. I'm not keen on just any old space in the open either. There's no telling what sort of creatures will come out when the sun sets. But then I spy it.
It's one of the ruined buildings. Metal mostly, warped and rusting and filled with piles of cement and ruined bricks. One metal wall has sagged down over one of the taller heaps of rubble. The effect is a small, metal cubby perhaps six feet up. Like a little metal cave large enough for perhaps two.
The sun is nearly gone when I scramble up the slope to the top of the rubble mound and the small shelter. Inside, there's nothing but ground cement. It's certainly not going to be the most comfortable night I've ever spent, but I suppose I've used up enough good fortune today that I can surely put up with it.
I flatten out the pieces I've been working on for my bag basket. Flatten the plastic over that. I pull up my hood, zip my coat and shake out the foil space blanket. It'll be a noisy night too. The rustle of my blanket and the tarp is much louder than I'd prefer, but they're all I've got. I'd rather risk discovery than hypothermia.
Just as I'm about to settle down, the anthem of Panem rings out. The sky is briefly illuminated with the seal before a message reading "The Fallen" hovers overhead.
Then the faces begin to appear. The eight dead Tributes.
Both 3s, Boy 5, Girl 6, Girl 7, Boy 8, Girl 9 and Boy 10.
The announcement of Boy 5's end shoots a pang of guilt through me. I kicked him. Wounded him at least enough to distract him. Get him killed. Girl 9 was gone before the gong. Girl 6 I knew was out thanks to Flynn. The others are not particularly surprising either.
Keepsie had called the end of the 3s straight off. Girl 7 and Boy 8 were both Twelves. Too small. Too slow. Boy 10 was a lot of talk, but little skill.
It doesn't matter.
My dreams are filled with cannons and my face in the sky.