I'm back! :-D So I'm not quitting and... yeah. Here we go.
I feel like this song is really appropriate... Sorry for running away from you guys!
I ran away from you
That's all I ever do
And though I started here
I ran away from you
I'm gonna come on in
And see it through
I ran away from you
That's all I ever do
"Ran Away from You" by Coldplay
D7- 17- (Decon Crow)
It is day eight. Well into it, in fact. Nothing special has happened. The fire Damien and I approached last night was abandoned. Likely it was a trap and we narrowly missed some sort of snare a tribute set up, but other than that no sign of tribute activity has been seen. I hear a loud bang, like the wall falling down again but farther off. I wonder what's happened but don't think on it long.
Interrupting my thoughts on the bang is the announcer of the Games, voice clear and cheerful as can be as the words ring out over the arena: "The feast is at midnight," and nothing more is said.
Damien looks at me skeptically. "Do you think it's a trap again?" he asks me, but I don't know, so I simply shrug.
"I say we sit," I say. "I don't want to be walking in the wrong direction and have to turn around."
He frowns at me, not getting what I'm saying. "What is sitting going to help?"
I roll my eyes at him and stop walking, looking around for a nice spot to hide for a while until the feast begins. "They'll either point us in the direction of the others," I explain, "or point the others in the direction of us." I find a cozy-looking tree and begin to climb it, though slightly clumsily. I work my way up to it and make sure the leaves hide me. "Can you see me?"
"No, but—"
"Just get up here!" I tell him. "The tree is fine."
D9- 17- (Asher Lightwood)
I wake up with a start and realize I'm in the woods. How I got here is a mystery, but I'm just happy to be alive. I sit up, pushing leaves and sticks off of me—it's almost as if I was being camouflaged into the trees by whoever brought me here—and take a look around. I see Aeris. She's still asleep, on her side with leaves and sticks over her. I have no supplies except a couple hunting knives and water. None of our food from the stream made it to the woods, apparently.
I lean over to Aeris and shake her lightly. She doesn't move. I frown and say, "Hey, Aeris, time to wake up." Still no movement. I begin to worry until she blinks and shoves a bug off her.
"Five more minutes," she groans to my relief. I smile at her and she looks up at me. "Oh. Asher. Hi. How did we get here? What day is it?"
I look around. There's no way I could indicate what day it is. "I don't know," I admit to her. "After day seven, as to how we got here—"
"Seven?" she exclaims, her eyes widening. I raise an eyebrow and she brushes everything off of her, standing up on shaky, stiff legs. She looks around, panicked.
"What's wrong?" I ask her, frowning.
She looks over at me. "I was out for four days?" she asks, bewildered.
Now I'm confused too. I look to her with a frown and shake my head. "I don't know… You may have been," I tell her. "Why? What are you talking about?"
Aeris raises an eyebrow. "It was day three, idiot!" she exclaims.
"Wait, what? You don't remember anything after day three?"
A part of me is happy for this because I don't want her to remember all the weird things that were happening to her in here, up at that mountain. But another part of me is worried because if she doesn't remember something as simple as that, will she begin forgetting other things to? I really hope not, because apparently I just got her back and I really don't want to lose her yet again.
She shakes her head. "What are you talking about?" she asks.
I smile slightly. "Never mind, Aeris. It's hard to explain."
She doesn't seem to accept this, but for now she lets it go and looks around at the woods. "So how'd we get here?"
I shrug. "I'm not sure. I fell asleep in our cave and woke up here," I tell her.
She nods. "Yeah," she says, "me too."
D12- 18- (Krumr Strongthews)
The feast is at midnight.
Carlyn tells me to sleep. She'll wake me up if something comes to move us to where the feast will be. I don't oblige at first, but then she whispers softly in my ear, telling me if I go to sleep that I'll get a big kiss when I wake up, and who am I to say no to Carlyn anyway? I lie down and glare at her slightly, which makes her smile widely and kiss my forehead. She'll pay for that one later.
The world is kind of foggy and I don't know where I am at first. I drift against my will, things coming into view when I float close enough to them. I frown when I come upon a big building made of bricks. It's familiar, but at the same time I don't recognize where I've seen it. Did I see it in the Capitol? Did I see it while I was flying past it in one of the districts on the way to the Capitol? It's hazy, but still I can see that it's much too disheveled to be from anywhere but District Twelve. My home.
"Krumr." The lulling voice turns me around with its strength in my mind.
As soon as I see her, a bow appears on my shoulder and I raise it, the arrow knocking. She screeches and grows fangs and talons. I know it's not her, but still I don't want to shoot because it used to be. I can feel how prominent she is inside the beast. I don't want to kill her. It's my fatal weakness, the one person I cannot possibly kill. She will likely get me killed, digging out—clawing out—shrapnel of my mercy that I would have had had I grown up normally. But I didn't, and now that mercy, that sliver of humanity, is all but nonexistent. I try to shove the bow away when I glance into her eyes and find that it's still her, but my instincts, my viciousness, is taking over my compassion.
"Carlyn!" I scream. "Get out of here." But it's too late! The arrow is shooting toward her and the bow shrinking away. "No!" I shout as she collapses to the ground again, proving her prior ugliness to be an illusion. She has returned to her fully beautiful, usual self, but she is dying. Her eyes scream angrily at me, shriller than that of the shriek she emitted as I shot her, and that was shrill as it had been like a bird's caw.
"You killed me," she mocks painfully.
I shake my head. "Carlyn, I'm sorry!"
"The deed is done, Strongthews. You are a monster."
I shake my head more. "I am," I say to her. "There's no changing that."
"I can't live with your monstrousness, Krumr. You're going to kill me," she snarls, an evil grin spreading across her face. "But you're okay with that, aren't you? You'll get over it. Because you are not capable of such useless things as emotions." She cackles. "Get used to this death then, Krumr. 'Cause you and I both know the Capitol hates you."
I wake up and look at Carlyn, poking her lightly. She looks at me and frowns. "O…kay. I'm afraid to ask, but… uh—what was that for?"
I scowl at her. "Fuck you."
She raises an eyebrow, shocked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me," I snap. "Fuck you."
"Uh, and what's that for?"
"Pissing me off." I shrug and stand up. "I'm not mad at you, though. Come on, you're right—let's go."
She groans. "I hate you."
"No, you don't."
D2- 16- (Stone Zhunder)
Gleam and I lead the group today. Daphne is still a mess and I'm pretty sure she'll always be. It really does get in our way. Gleam and I had been hoping we could hold off her death for a while, but it's become apparent that it needs to happen before the feast tonight. She throws us off, especially since everyone, even the two of us, look to her for leadership out of the habit we quickly developed since the Games began.
Azaleigh still cries about Jackson, who we found was smashed by the wall. There's no return for her pretty little boyfriend. Vixen is despondent, saying that he was a close friend of hers and that she needs to grieve with Azaleigh. Honestly, I think I would be happy if we eliminated all the Careers but each other until the end of the Games, but I don't think we'd be able to pull that off without getting injured.
During break, we decide in a whispered, we'll kill her. Stab her in the back, literally, from behind. We'll tell Aza and Vix not to be alarmed; we're just ridding the group of this unnecessary burden, and that it's a favor we're paying them. They're still allowed to stay with us until all the non-Careers are gone. We just really, really need to get rid of Daphne.
Break comes. We sit down and get food from our packs. We stashed the wheelbarrow a ways off with booby traps that Azaleigh and Gleam sat up surrounding it. We put a bunch of supplies in our packs so we could survive without our wheelbarrow and stuff while it was hidden back toward the wall. I casually eat a package of dried fruit, and then look at Gleam.
"Hey," I say, squinting into the woods. The others turn and look. "Did you see that?"
She looks at me and nods. "Yeah," she says, frowning. She stands up and I do too. "Hey, we'll be right back, guys."
"I'll go with you," Daphne says, grabbing a knife.
I smile at her and Gleam. "Perfect."
"Us too," Vixen says, standing.
"Stay back," Daphne orders. "Actually, all of you stand down. I'll be back in a minute."
We look warily at her and then at each other. Gleam shrugs to Daphne, but I know it's also to me too. We can make it work. Of course we can. "Okay," she says.
At least now we'll be able to fill the Aza and Vixen in before they go berserk and try to kill us after we do them a favor by killing Daphne, doing all the dirty work for them! And I know that if we don't inform them now, they'll go crazy because of their imbecility. They can't see what a good thing this is of us to do, how convenient it will be when our supposed "leader is gone." Ugh, I really wish we could kill them.
We wait a long time for Daphne to come back. She must really be an idiot if she's still looking for the tribute. But eventually I realize that that's not the case. She ran away. She somehow found out what we were planning and planned on her own. I grumble and pack up my supplies, preparing to tell the others and have them go in the direction we were heading. We have a feast to kill her at. But I find that she's taken one of my knives and a bit of food. When Gleam begins to pack up, equally furious in realization, I see her face turn even angrier when she discovers some of her own supplies gone.
"That bitch!" she bellows. "And she knows how to get through to the wheelbarrows and shit, too!"
Azaleigh looks alarmed. "What?"
I look at her, scowling. "Daphne ran away and stole our stuff, that's what!"