Day 12- The Games (Day 5)

The next morning I wake to see a silver parachute lying next to us. I decide to check what's in it before I get to excited, but a few seconds later I'm letting out a cry of delight and shaking Tamla awake.

"Hmm? What?" she groans, struggling to force her eyes open.

"Medicine!" I announce excitedly. "They've sent you medicine Tamla!"

Her eyes light up and she's suddenly totally awake, and smiling. "What is it?"

I hold up a red syringe and a tub of paste. "I guess this is blood," I say, "seeing as you've lost so much. And this…" I read the instructions, "says apply to cut. So I guess it'll help close it or stop infection or something."

"Hit me then," she says with a smile. I remove our makeshift bandage from her wound and dab a generous amount of paste over it.

"Ahh," she cries out, "that stings."

"Sorry," I say. "Do you want to do it?"

"No, you can see better," she says. "Just take it slow."

I nod and slowly wipe paste over the rest of the long cut. I can actually hear the flesh sizzling and, amazingly, see the wound start to knot back together, until eventually only a long pale scar remains. Then I find a vein and inject the syringe full of blood into her, hoping I've done it right.

Nothing bad happens so I assume I have, and within an hour or so she's back on her feet and almost, if not completely, fully mobile.

I pack away the bloodstained bandages and my curtain, and give Tamla one of my knives, and we decide head back to the river and fill up our water bottles. There are plenty of berries everywhere in the non-snowy area, so we eat my remaining ones up and take one water bottle each.

Once we've returned to the grassy area we sit down to plan ahead. "I guess the normal thing to do now that we're not desperately searching for food or water would be to start hunting the other tributes," I offer. Tamla looks quizzically at me, but I continue. "But you're still not in great condition," I say, "plus I have not intention of hunting down and killing defenceless kids."

"So…" says Tamla

"Well the careers are another matter, but I wouldn't fancy our chances against them even if you weren't injured and even if they split into pairs. So I guess we just keep moving. I know we aren't leaving footprints to follow anymore but it's still not a good idea to stay in one place."

"So we just wander?" asks Tamla. "Not much of a plan is it? Not that I've got a better idea!" she quickly adds as I give her a half-hearted glare.

I shrug. "We look for more food. We look for shelter. We try and find Fern."

"Well let's go then!" she says, hopping to her feet.

I look at her, surprised at her sprightliness. "You sure? You don't want to rest a little longer?"

"I feel fine," she says, "that medicine worked wonders."

"Well as long as you're sure," I say and clamber to my feet to follow her. We soon come to the edge of the forest just further along from where I had walked on the second day. I consider heading back to the town, we might be able to pick up some more supplies like another water bottle or two or a second rucksack or coat. I decide against it however. Other tributes may well have picked it clean by now, and even if they haven't I am enjoying being out of the snow too much to go back that way.

The one disadvantage of being out of the snow is that we can't get water whenever we want, so we decide to stick to the edge of the forest so we can judge how far we are from the river so we can always head back if our bottles start to get low. It also means we are on the opposite edge of the woods from the Cornucopia, which I'm assuming is still the careers' base.

When we decide to stop for the evening, a thought strikes me. "Do you think there must be more water behind the mountain?" I ask Tamla.

"Why do you ask?" she replies.

"Well Fern and several others started on the opposite side of the ring to us, near the mountain, so when they ran they'd have gone past it I imagine. Seeing as they haven't all been popping up in the sky dying of thirst…maybe there's water round there. I mean it's a big arena and all, but we've not seen any of the others around here."

"Maybe," she shrugs. "Could we get far enough to see without running out of water?"

"We can make this water last three days at a push," I say. "If we head for the mountain tomorrow we can see if we can see anything. If not we can be back at our stream in a day or two, depending how close to the Cornucopia we risk going."

"Okay," she says, non-committal, "I trust you Rory."

"Thanks," I say offhandedly, though I'm actually quite flattered and trying not to blush. "Reckon you can make it into a tree tonight?" I ask to change the subject.

"Yeah sure," she says, "but you've only got one bit of cloth, how are we both going to tie ourselves in?"

"Now I've got a knife I can cut it in half again," I reply, "it'll still be strong enough."

I get the curtain out of my pack and get started, chucking the rucksack over to Tamla. "Here, have something to eat," I say.

"What about you?"

"I'll get something after I've cut this," I say.

"Okay," she murmurs, rifling through the pack while I perch on a rock and saw away with the knife, trying not to ruin the useful bit of material.

Unfortunately by the time I realise neither of us is keeping a lookout it's too late. I hear a noise, slight but noticeable over the stillness of the forest, and look up to see a flash of red through the trees. "GET DOWN!" I scream, throwing myself behind the rock.

I hear the footfalls of someone running as I lie on the floor. Is it Shayla, because it could only have been her flaming hair that I saw, running? Peeking up over the rock I see no sign of her. What I do see is Tamla, sitting exactly where she was before. With an arrow in her chest.

"NO!" I scream. "TAMLA!"

I hurry over to her, checking around but there's no sign of Shayla. She's still alive, but it looks bad. "Come on!" I say, "please don't die…"

She looks at me with a sadness that suggests she knows her own fate. Examining her wound more closely I see that the arrowhead has gone deep into her chest.

My worst fears are confirmed a few seconds later, as she gives a huge, heaving, hacking cough, and spews blood everywhere. The arrow must have punctured her lung.

"I don't know what to do!" I say helplessly. I know I can't pull the arrow out, but I can see her life ebbing away. She's already struggling to breathe, but manages to croak out. "Thank you Rory." Another cough, her face is deathly pale. "Win."

I grasp her by the shoulders, trying to shake some life into her, but she has stopped breathing. A few seconds later the cannon fires.

"I'm sorry…" I whisper through tears, before placing a kiss on her forehead. I manage to stay composed enough to retrieve her knife and coat before the hovercraft comes to take her body, before I break down, sobbing for a good few minutes.

When I managed to cough myself back to sense my overwhelming feeling is anger as much as sadness. I want revenge.

Suddenly I'm calculating. Why did Shayla run after shooting, why not finish me off? The only thing I can think is that she's maybe injured, or out of arrows. Whatever the case, the reason only for her not killing me too is that she's weakened in some way. I might just have a chance.

I hoist up my pack, slip on the coat and pick up my staff before heading off in the vague direction I think Shayla ran. As I walk Tamla's last words come back to me. She told me to win. And suddenly I remember that was always my goal. I can't give up. I want to see my parents and Kay again.

As I continue on the weather takes a turn for the worse for the first time since we've been in the arena. A strong wind picks up and rain starts lashing down, though the trees provide good cover and the noise is the most noticeable thing.

I'm no tracker, so I walk fairly aimlessly, before suddenly I see her, through the trees. I duck behind a large trunk and peek. Without the snow to cover my footfalls she'll hear me as soon as I go for her…except that the wind and rain are deafening now. Her back is turned, and my staff gives me extra reach…I can do this.

Shayla appears to be studying an injury of some sort, she isn't going anywhere. I falter briefly, before steeling myself with the knowledge that this girl voluntarily came into these games to kill. If I can't kill her after what she just did to Tamla then there's no way I can win this thing. And I really want to win.

I charge.

Shayla obviously sees movement out of the corner of her eye, because she whirls round, eyes wide, bow drawn. I feel a sharp pain in my arm before swinging my staff like a long-handled club, and cracking her round the skull before she can duck.

She collapses to the ground. I draw my staff back, preparing to hit her again, but she doesn't rise. That's it, I've done it.

But the cannon doesn't fire. In fact, I realise as I look more closely, I can still see her breathing. But she's not moving. Unconscious. No! Her eyes flick open. But she still doesn't move. With a sickening realisation as I see the angle her neck is at I understand. She is paralyzed. I should finish her off, cut her throat. But I can't. It's not even a desire for her to suffer, I want to be merciful. But I just can't kill her like that, in cold blood, like an animal. I can't bring myself to do it.

Her eyes are pleading with me, but I just can't. Instead I look away, examining the arrow still stuck in my right arm. Lucky I'm left-handed. I know I shouldn't pull it out, but right now the pain seems like an attractive distraction to my thoughts. I rip the arrow from my arm and can't help but cry out in pain. Bandaging the ragged wound with some cloth, hoping a sponsor sends me something for it, everything suddenly hits me.

I've just effectively murdered a teenage girl, who herself murdered one of my friends. All because of some sick regime's twisted revenge. And now that girl, a girl called Shayla, who probably has family and friends that love her back in district four, is lying behind, me paralyzed because of me. And I haven't even got the courage to end it for her. She must be in hell right now. I go for my knife, but before I even lay hands on it I imagine myself slitting her throat and realise again that I just can't do that. So I do the only thing I can. I collapse to the floor and cry at all of it.

I'm all cried out soon enough, but don't move anywhere. Well over an hour must have passed, and the anthem has played for the day, when finally the cannon booms, startling me. She must have been bleeding internally or something. I can finally bring myself to look at her again.

Her face is bruised and she has a long cut on her arm. I imagine she fought with the other careers. She also has no more arrows and no other weapons. Or a backpack. This makes me sure she had to flee in a hurry, probably from Jade. I always thought the other careers were likely to turn on her before the end, although given Cleo's death I might have thought keeping an archer would be useful. Still, Perrin and Jade are still both deadly at range.

Deciding Shayla has nothing worth stealing I leave before the hovercraft appears, whispering an apology to Shayla under my breath before turning away. After walking aimlessly for a while through the now dark forest I work out a plan of action.

I might as well continue with what Tamla and I were going to do, head round the back of the mountain to look for another water source. My own water supply will last longer now, I think sadly, before clambering into a tree; which is painful due to my injured arm. Sleep doesn't come easily, and when it does it's filled with images I would rather not see.