Thoughts swam in Sam's mind as she swirled through the depths of unconsciousness. Formless creatures of shadow and mist taunted her, teased her about certain death headed her way. Voices born of disembodied souls laughed at her small successes, reminding her of the long way to go – and the greater dangers still lurking in her way. So she'd been able to avoid the sharp sting of a mutt – what would happen when the Gamesmakers decided to up the ante, or actual tributes got involved?
Stupid girl! You're too dumb to be a victor. Too WEAK.
President Octavian dove out from the mists, grabbing Sam by her arms and refusing to let go. "What a great opportunity we have here in the Games, you tributes…to represent your districts, what an honor! I'll be sure to send my regards as you go back home in a box!"
"Let me go!" Sam shouted at the ghostly figure of the youthful president, straining at his grip. "Please, let me go!"
"That's not how it works. You're just a tribute. Entertainment. A stupid peasant from the districts," Octavian laughed hauntingly. "I have all the power here, Samantha! My word says who lives and dies – if I don't like you, I kill you! Don't you like how that works? You're already dead! It's great television!"
"No, no, please," Sam pleaded.
"I think so! Samantha, Sam…stop, you'll hurt yourself!"
Sam woke with a start, her eyes searching about rapidly. No evil President Octavian to kill her. No ghosts. Just a dream…a stupid dream. She wasn't dead. Yet. Just a starry night sky, a crescent moon hanging lazily in the dark. Storm stood over her as he shook her shoulder, his eyes showing relief as she awoke.
"I thought you were having a seizure or something," Storm exhaled.
Sam looked about, pulling on her arms that refused to move as she wanted them to. Twine tied her wrists together to a rock, holding her in place – she realized her shoulders hurt bad, as well. The tube in her side had been pulled out, replaced with a large bandage that swathed her entire chest area in wrappings.
"Why am I tied to a rock?" she garbled up in inquiry.
"You were trying to pick at your bandages while you were out," Storm said sheepishly, quickly loosening the twine and letting her wrists go. "Sorry. Gannet said we had to keep you from hurting yourself. Another kid walked by this afternoon…dunno which, I think he's the guy from 11. Didn't see us, and it's been hours, so I assume he missed us. You were gone for a little over a day."
That didn't sound right to her. A day? Her dreams had only made it feel like an hour…and the encounter with the mutt was far too fresh in her mind. For that matter, why did she even feel as good as she did now? It wasn't that good, but she figured she'd be passed out from blood loss and pain.
As if reading her mind, Storm held up a clear, empty hypodermic needle, examining the interior and tossing it to the sandy grown. "Someone must really like you in the Capitol. That floated down this morning by parachute; gave you a shot of it then. I guess it's some sort of healing remedy or something, since when we went to wash off your bandages and put them back on, your wounds were already starting to get pink stuff around them. Probably cost a fortune. It's weird…the Capitol's okay sending us that kind of thing when we're in their arena, but they can't for the districts normally? Oh, here, saved you some of today's food…you haven't eaten in a while, so just take it slow."
"Thanks," Sam took a piece of cooked fish and the water bottle that he offered, letting her eyes fall to the ground. She owed him more than simple thanks…after all, he'd pulled the mutt away, distracted it long enough for him to pick her up and get her out of trouble. That much she had remembered. "Thanks for that and…for saving me back there. I guess yesterday."
Storm dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "You woulda done the same for me. You did for Gannet, but she was the one treating you, so I guess you two are equal. Heck, you distracted it when it was about to squish me. You don't owe me anything."
"No, I do," Sam began, trying to get up to sit but groaning in the throbbing from her shoulder. She relented and fell back to the sand.
"You don't," Storm reiterated, lying down next to her and reassuringly placing his hand on hers. "You're just fine how you are."
Something about the way Storm said the line sent shivers down Sam's back, more than the cold night was able to elicit through her jacket. For all his idealism and pent-up anger at the Capitol, maybe Storm did have a soft side to him. The way he clutched his fingers as she shook in the cold, moved closer to her to keep her company in her most vulnerable…it struck her as very different than the selfish idea she'd come up with for his personality.
"We're gonna catch colds out here," Storm noticed Sam's goosebumps crawling up her arm, looking about for some source of heat. "C'mere. Gotta stay warm somehow. I don't think it'd kill the Gamesmakers to turn up the temp."
"What about Gannet?" Sam asked.
"She's smarter than me," Storm pointed off a few feet, where Gannet lay buried in a clump of eucalyptus leaves, effectively forming a bed spread and blanket. "So I'm just gonna do things the old-fashioned way. Besides, I have first watch tonight."
Storm moved over to Sam, picking her up easily and wrapping his jacket around the two of them. Crude, but effective – body heat would have to do to ward off the chilly desert air. Sam tightened herself into as small a ball as she could, wincing through the pain of her shoulder. It was still cold, but she'd manage…and Storm's muscular body blocked out the bursts of wind that traveled down the canyon. She was glad she'd teamed up, glad she hadn't rejected him out of fear or anxiety…it would be terrible to be alone now.
"Aren't you going to be tired?" Sam piped up after a few minutes of silence.
"We didn't do much today besides make a new spear out of a straight piece of eucalyptus wood and the spare spearhead, and Gannet had most of the watch last night. She's handier than I originally gave her credit for," Storm shrugged, holding her tightly to his chest. "Besides…you sleep when you're dead, right? Just seems a lot more applicable when it's hitting you in the face."
He'd said it was for mutual warmth, but Sam found something greater in his embrace as the two huddled together under the desert evening. He could have just left her to die, or let her lie on the desert now, worked to keep himself going…yet he took the time and attention to make sure she was alright. Sam had stopped questioning his motives, but now it was her own feelings she needed to ponder. This boy from District 12…maybe it was the imminent prospect of death that heightened things, but she felt warmth within her that only now had revealed itself.
"What kind of chance do you think any of us have?" Sam tried to push the conflicting emotions away.
"I dunno," Storm sighed. "Still got four Careers, not to mention whatever the Gamesmakers want to throw at us. Nobody died today, and the last one was Troop showing up on yesterday's 'evening news,' so ya gotta think they're cooking up something to keep things moving with fourteen kids still kicking. But…"
He looked down on her, his eyes taking a far more serious look. He ran a finger through a strand of her dark hair, curling it around and sliding it behind her ear. "But…if it comes down to the three of us, I hope you're the last one standing."
Sam looked up at his face, unsure of whether she was still suffering after-effects of the scorpion strike. Was he serious, or just deluding her?
"What do you mean?" she ventured cautiously.
"District 12's no place to live a life, Sam," Storm laid out his feelings. "My mother and sister both died years ago from a fever that ran through the area. My aunt and one of my uncles got laid out by it, too. My father's always got this vacant look on his face…he's lost just about everything but me and my uncle Rory. He's always had that. Back when he was a kid, his best friend at the time, a girl named Katniss, was reaped into the Games a long time ago. She didn't make it back. I think my father might have given up right then, decided that this life wasn't all it was said to be. I dunno if she, the Katniss girl, was unlucky or lucky."
"I see starving kids on the streets, skinny crying babies, coal miners like my dad who just go off to the mines without a single hope for a future besides getting through another day. There's never going to be a better tomorrow for them. Sure, if I came back I'd have money as a victor, and Rory makes sure my dad and I are always fed and stuff. But what good does that do? District 12's always going to be the butt end of nowhere. There's always going to be those starving kids dying in front of us from hunger. We can't stave it off. Can't fight it. Can't beat it. Do I really want to go back to that? To have to live my life with the nightmares from this arena that are sure to stick with me if I'm the victor, and forced back to a place where everything around me is in poverty while these people in the Capitol live with luxuries District 12 can't even sniff?"
"Besides," he concluded. "I've got to admit it to myself out loud. I might be able to kill some faceless person like the kids from 11 or whatever, or those murder-crazy Careers, but someone like you, bright and with all the good things the rest of us don't have…I couldn't do it. I can't do it. Won't. I didn't come into the Games that way…I figured I'd just play along. But now that I'm here, I don't really want to play this stupid game anymore. The Hunger Games don't end at the arena, Sam. District 12 knows them every day. If this is the way human beings are supposed to be, than I don't call myself human."
Sam let the words filter down into her. Storm had essentially just conceded that he had no desire to win, and thus survive…that he'd had enough of living at all. She wanted to run, to shake him and tell him he was thinking too shallow, too idealistic and zealous. Yet she looked within herself; she wanted to win, sure, go home and have a nice life, play with Clara and Clay and sit tight with Jake under the summer moon. But that all seemed so trivial compared to Storm's reasoning. District 10 had more than its share of poor people – it was third in tesserae recipients in Panem, including the likes of Clay – but compared to the bleak picture Storm painted of District 12, it seemed like paradise.
Maybe there were fates worse than death on your own terms.
"I didn't really have any dreams growing up," Storm apparently hadn't finished his line of thought, as he kept his eye skyward and neglected anyone besides Sam who could be listening. "Because my uncle Rory's a victor, he gave some of his money to us, and we had more than most people. Still, I didn't have a lot of options. Didn't really pick up any good skills…figured I'd just go work in the mines like everyone else. That's all we have. Sure, my dad taught me how to set a snare, shoot an arrow. Most kids in 12 never get that far…but what does that do? Makes me little better than the animals."
"Thing is, when you see these Capitol types in their hovercraft and eating their five-course meals, you have to wonder what came before. If this is what we were always meant to do…to be so unequal, for the rich to subjugate the majority. Just doesn't seem like there's anything to have faith about. Nothing to put your hope in. I can't blame anyone for giving up in the game of life."
Sam sniffed in the air as quiet descended upon the two. The night wind had died down, leaving the chirping of a cicada as the only harmony in the silent evening.
"You see those seven stars?" Sam pointed up to a bright constellation, letting Storm have time to follow her outstretched finger. "That's the drinking dipper. My brother, Jake, showed me when I was little. If you go to the end of it, the drinking side, and go to the last two stars, you can draw a line. Take your three fingers and put them three times back to back…then you get to the North Star, Polaris. That way, you're never lost. You always know which way is North, and can find your way home."
Sam let her arm fall back to the ground, keeping her eyes tracking the points of light above. "We have big grassy prairies in District 10 that our animals feed on. You can go lie down on them at night during the summer, and it's warm and the sky is just filled with stars, everywhere, as far as you can see since we don't have a lot of trees except for one wood. The great milky river of stars runs through them, making it almost like an artist's canvas full of twinkling paint drops. When I was little, Jake and I would go out and just watch them for hours. I wanted to reach up and grab them all, stick my hand in the river in the sky. Just touch them…they always seemed so happy and different than everything else. Like they hadn't been put there on accident."
She sighed, bringing up the memories from a happier time as tears threatened to return. "Now I know I can't do that. Nobody can touch the stars. Never will, even if I make it out of here and go home alive. That was always my dream, and now it's just…gone, I guess."
Storm looked over at Gannet's sleeping form. "I wonder how it is in the other districts, like 4. Water, fishing, seas…I'm not dumb enough to call it an easy life, but that's gotta be better than being stuck like we are, out in the forgotten areas of Panem. Maybe not so many starving kids in the streets."
"She doesn't deserve to be thrown into here like the rest of us," Sam joined his gaze over at the sleeping girl. "She's not really fourteen. Probably never even saw it coming…I watched her Reaping, and I don't think she ever thought someone wouldn't volunteer for her, since District 4's full of Careers. I wonder how many people she has waiting for her back home, watching now."
"All of us do, in one way or another," Storm laid his head back down, playing with a piece of Sam's hair. "Twenty-three can't come home alive. The twenty-fourth won't, either. Maybe they will in their body, but not in heart and mind."
Storm let the words carry over the two for a minute before he finished off his thoughts. "But I hope you get the chance to touch those stars one day, Sam. I've only known you for a few days, but I can't think of someone better than you to do it."
Sam didn't reply; all that had to be said had been spoken. She pulled herself closer to Storm's chest and body, curling up in the strong arms he offered. Everyone she'd ever known could only look on from far away in District 10, but at least for one night in this horrible arena, she felt safe and sound.