A sharp, throbbing pain in Sam's left hand let her know she hadn't fallen to her death off the ridge. Sounds of rattling metal and high-pitched screams above simultaneously alerted her to the presence of danger nearby – that, while Fresco and the others might have disregarded her as a corpse by now, the battle around the Cornucopia still raged for the spring of supplies, weapons, and death-dealing material that would determine life or death out in the arena. With a blink of her eyes and a realization of her surroundings, Sam quickly ascertained her situation.
The fingers of her left hand had subconsciously grabbed hold of a sturdy root protruding from the red stone face of the cliff; it left her dangling by a thread, but she hadn't died yet. Below, seventy feet of sheer drop fell away vertically to a sloping mound that ran down to the canyon floor. All together, the Cornucopia stood more than eight hundred feet above the canyon floor. Sam would have some hiking – and based on her current predicament, climbing – to do if she wanted to get down to the bottom.
Beating rays from the sun already brought forth beads of sweat from Sam's forehead, but she couldn't remove the insulating jacket while hanging from the root – she'd just have to bear it until she found a way down. Fortunately, a number of slits and gaps in the rock face provided a cumbersome but possible means of scaling the cliff down. Sam identified the nearest handhold, a jagged inlet in the rock, and took a breath of faith as she pushed her free had towards it.
For an inexperienced climber, the girl quickly found an aptitude for climbing. Whether or not that was because she had found herself stuck in a life-or-death situation where going up meant certain death on the business end of a Career's weapon seemed likely, although she made decent progress moving from nook to nook, spreading her weight amongst three limbs and using the fourth to find a new place to step and continue to drop. The red rocks of the cliff supported the girl's weight easily, although the glare of the sun as it moved across the sky provided an annoying – even slightly painful – nuisance.
Well Sam, you're in the thick of it now, she thought as she reached a narrow ledge, using the inlet to take a small break and cramming herself into the meager shade. How many are already dead up at the Cornucopia? 10? 11? Laredo, Storm, Gannet among them?
To be fair, Sam didn't particularly care who else had died at this point. Her first priority was getting down to the lower levels – where the sun would only provide problems for a few hours during the worst of the hot day. The dry desert air had swelled to at least one hundred degrees, and she quickly shed the cumbersome jacket and tied it around her waist, just above the pack. Might as well see what that has in it…
The backpack would have given better provisions, if only she'd been faster! Now Troop, if he wasn't already dead, was running amok with it. Sam opened the two pouches of the waist pack, careful not to scatter the contents on the cliff ledge as she examined her bounty. For starters, a short and stout collapsible blade – not enough to actually hurt anybody, but it'd be able to cut through wood and similar materials. Decent catch there, especially if the temperature in the desert dropped at night and she needed to make a fire…which the second item handily indicated. Sam stared at the black rock for a short moment before putting two and two together – a flint! No need to worry about grinding a piece of wood against another for wasted minutes on end to produce an ember, as the fire starting station during training had shown. She hadn't been particularly good at that, anyway.
"Little bit of twine…one cloth bandage…that's it," Sam murmured softly to herself as she checked the remaining contents. Obviously, the pack wouldn't have much, but nothing in terms of food or water meant she'd have to be proactive early on. The twine was a good sign. It wasn't a rope and wouldn't let her take action against another tribute – if she could even steel herself to do that – but it would come in handy for multipurpose uses.
Boom! Too soon – why were the cannons already going off? Boom! Boom! Blast after blast from the harbingers of death sounded off across the silenced canyon air. Sam left a tally going through her head as each cannon shot sounded out – five, six, seven. Abruptly, the series of shots ended on the eighth blast – only eight dead? A relatively bloodless Cornucopia – maybe everyone had bugged out, and thus the short time since the initial gong. So, eight dead – sixteen tributes left standing, and fifteen between her and going home. The odds…still not in her favor.
A chill swept over Sam as she huddled in the growing shade of the narrow rock ledge. Dead. Eight families would be receiving pine boxes with the bodies of their children and siblings soon. No coming back from that. How did she think she'd get out of here? Hostile climate, aggressive Careers (and they'd probably all survived) and good number of tributes still roaming about, on the warpath. The weaker ones had likely been weeded out by now, leaving the strong behind.
Sam reminded herself that she represented the "weaker" crowd, so perhaps assuming too fast would be a mistake.
She wrapped her arms about her knees, casting a long look over the canyon from her vantage point. For being a desert, a light stream did run right down the middle of the geography – of course. As Dallas had said, the Head Gamesmaker couldn't have people dying of dehydration. Too boring. Scrub vegetation cropped up here and there between eucalyptus trees, all woven onto the canvas of red rock that made the majority of the picture before her. Well, water was taken care of – food would be next.
They really could have put something in this pack…nothing to do but start down, now.
Sam looked at her hands for the first time. The rock face had cut them up, leaving red welts and scratches leaking dots of blood from wounds. She'd have to worry about those later, however – if she didn't get down from here, there'd be nothing left but a long, slow death. The Careers undoubtedly had pitched camp up top by the Cornucopia, probably figuring this cliff signified a quick drop and end to anybody who'd come down this way. If they thought she was dead, all the better.
Sam gritted her teeth as she belted the pack and continued the climb down, trying to balance more weight on her feet so as to take pressure off her hands. The cliffs alternated between vertical faces and gentler sloping hills that gave Sam time to catch her breath and slow her descent as she picked out the paths of least resistance. The sun had already passed high noon, beginning a long trek into the evening. However, Sam knew the desert posed its own sort of quandary there – with the sheer rock walls, darkness could come fast. She'd have to find some place to eke out a shelter before the night came on. Here with little real vegetation and no cover outside of massive rocks, things would grow cold very fast.
So that's why they gave me the jacket, I guess. Foresight is 50/50…
As Sam neared the end of the climb, willing herself to the finish to ease the pressure on her torn hands, a long and loud male cry roared across the canyon. Sam slipped as it resounded, falling the last ten feet into the canyon's dirt and crumpling to her rear. The familiar Boom! of the canyon thundered once more – nine down now. Fifteen tributes left.
Water in the creek kept up a constant flow as Sam checked out her local area – no tributes nearby, no rustling noises. Safety at last – or at least the temporary illusion of it. The moving water meant it'd be safe to drink, which by now she craved despite the sun's retreat over the cliff top. With nothing to hold water, however, Sam only could afford a passing drink as she scoped out places to spend the night. Moving too long would accomplish nothing but run her into a fellow tribute – possibly an armed one. Meanwhile, the nearby rocks showed off several small, low-slung caves and wind-swept dugouts that would provide dark cover and shelter from the elements in the first night in the arena.
Better get a fire going before dark, Sam thought to herself. Put it out before nightfall, but get the warm coals at least. No telling how badly the temperature will drop here...and that's better than nothing.
Scrub provided ideal dry flora for kick-starting a fire, and Sam picked out a small yet accessible rock indentation forty feet up from the canyon stream. The flint and knife paid off handsomely, rewarding the girl for her decision to risk acquiring the waist pack – without it, she doubted she would have had any warmth besides what the jacket had provided. In no time, Sam had a small, clean fire going with a minimum of smoke – perfect for snaring some warmth in the waning hours of day, but not so much as to attract attention.
All of the sudden, Sam felt overwhelmed by the events of the day. Eight – now nine – tributes already had died, their young lives cut short by sadism on the behalf of Capitol audiences. They could certainly see her now as she tucked her chin onto her arms, wrapping them about herself – what to think of the girl with the training score of five, who'd survived the opening event? Did she look weak, staring blankly over a fire, contemplating mortality and the ethics behind it? Did any of them care, or were they too preoccupied watching Fresco, Royal, and the other Careers drink blood and laugh at their killings…or whatever it was Careers did?
Little Gannet. She'd probably never stood a chance, and Sam figured she'd be seeing her face as one of the first up to bat in tonight's morbid slideshow of fatalities. The whole notion of an alliance had been a fairy tale anyway; who would want to team up with her? Gannet and her scores in training combined still came out two lower than Royal's, and only tied the lowest-scoring Career, Io from 2. Sam privately wished her family some peace, certain they'd be seeing their small daughter with the ocean-green eyes returning home to District 4 shortly.
Only the good died young. Well, maybe some of the bad too. After all, who's going to miss Hadrian…
Sam rebounded on her way of thinking. No doubt Hadrian had a family too, and unless he managed to carve his way through twenty-three other kids, he'd be going home before tearful siblings, parents, and friends – just like she would unless fate decided to cast its die with her. Where would they put her body? Buried beside her mother in the family plot, she supposed…the mother she'd never known, dying in her childbirth. How touching that the Capitol would ensure that sacrifice had been in vain.
A desert spider crept along Sam's foot inside the squat cave, prompting her to stick out her tongue at the arachnid. "Ugh, go away. I'm not your friend."
Another thought quickly filled her mind. She'd found no food, and the rumbling in her stomach came as a quick reminder that she needed something besides the brief breakfast that had occurred in the Slaughterhouse before the Cornucopia entrance. Had that only been today? It seemed like a lifetime ago…from narrowly avoiding Royal's arrow and Fresco's tomahawk to making her way down into the canyon and securing this cave, Sam felt as if she'd spent the better part of a week getting this far.
She needed food, however…well, the training did have edible insects for a reason…
Sam scrunched her face as she popped open her knife and caught the spider with the blade, pinning it to the ground. "I really…really just do not want to do this..."
Oh, but the Capitol will LOVE this! Watch the scared-to-death girl eat a bug! Even District 12 isn't this uncivilized!
Sam beheaded the arachnid as quickly as possible, closing her eyes and ramming the twitching backside and legs of the spider into her mouth. Blech! An explosion of terrible flavor harkening back to the smell of festering pig guano on her father's ranch filled her mouth with all sorts of horrible thoughts. Sam fought back a choking sensation, forcing herself to swallow the unpleasant yet nutritious arachnid and closing her eyes tightly. It was better than killing other tributes, at least…not a lot better, but still better.
With a sigh, Sam put her back against the wall and spread out the fire in the cave's sand with her boot. The sun had since set, and darkness declined rapidly – with the temperature dropping in accordance. She unwrapped the jacket from about her waist and threw it over her shoulders; whatever heat it managed to hold in, it'd be better than nothing. The fire wouldn't last long now, but the coals would remain hot – giving heat without giving away her position. After all, the Careers would probably be out and about at night with everyone else sleeping or struggling to find warmth in the cold desert evening.
The Capitol anthem jarred her from a trance as she looked out over the canyon, signifying the "end of the day" inside the arena and the tallying of the killcount so far. Well, she'd made it one day – better than none, even if her chances hadn't improved drastically. Time to see where the competition stood…and which tributes would never get to see their families crying over their bodies, wishing the Capitol had never drawn them into this great game of death.
Io! A Career dead on the first day? The girl from District 2's picture shocked Sam – how in the world had that happened? Not only did the typical Careers not go that fast – indeed, like the past year when all six from the three districts had made it to the endgame – but 2's legendary warrior prowess would never accept that kind of early bowing out. This was a first.
Io's picture gave way to a slow, haunting montage of children slain by forces outside their control, painstakingly displayed in the sky to the powerful Capitol music that accompanied the visages. Both the girl and boy from 3 – not really surprising. District 3 succeeded from behind computers and tools, not wielding swords and spears. The boy from 5 who Sam had watched Hadrian gore – so Gannet had made it; probably without anything of use, though. She was simply too small for the Careers to want, and no way would she have lasted in the bloodbath up on the mesa. The girl from 6, both from 7 – so much for allying with Ash, huh Storm? If you're even still alive. The boy from 8 and the confused-looking boy from 9 she'd sat next to the prior night at the interviews – Koobus, that had been his name – rounded out the dead. The outlying districts had done particularly well – nobody from 12, 11, or 10 gone. That meant Storm still wandered about somewhere – but so did Laredo, and who knew what he was up to? Better yet, who cares?
A wave of sleepiness descended on Sam as she slid back against the cave wall. The night's rest before back in the Capitol had done little to recharge her energy, and the tension of the day's action and her close calls with fate had drawn what little fight she had in her out. The emotional drain sapped everything out of Sam as the first stars began coming out – she didn't even have enough battle left in her for tears. No, those had all drained out at the Reaping or back in the Capitol. Now, she just had to keep moving.
Keep moving, and damn what anybody in the Capitol thought.
As she began to drift off to inevitable sleep, the coals from the dead fire glowing with rosy embers, the familiar constellations in the night sky crept out into view. Sam reached her right hand up with her eyes half-closed, positioning three fingers against the back of the drinking dipper's tail and moving it three times away – there, on the end of her ring finger, a small, lonely star hung in the sky. North – Polaris – and somewhere far away on the prairie she'd grown up on, she knew the only people who cared about her in this game of demons would look on that star and know she was safe.
You can't help me now, Jake. I'm on my own…but thank you for being there for everything before, if I never have the chance to say it again. Please, when I come back...please, just move on. I'd cry if you died inside for me.
Hungry, afraid, and alone, yet comforted by the stars, Sam succumbed to the seductive calls of sleep.
An hour later, she awoke with a start to bright orange light – had the fire kicked up again? Sam's eyes caught a blazing chunk of wood at her feet, along where her coals had now kicked back up. Standing behind the light stood a tall boy, clear over six feet in height, holding a spear like a walking stick and spitting into the flames.
"Good, you're awake," Troop spat, his eyes alight with fire and shadows dancing across his long, dour face. "Just wouldn't be proper to have to kill you in your sleep."