Day 17- The Games (Day 10)

I find myself having to constantly poke myself to stay awake as the night wears on. Thankfully there isn't a sound other than the wind and, later in the night, birdsong. I occupy myself by watching Fern sleep, and when I start to worry it's turning from sweet to creepy, finishing carving my staff, which is slow progress with my injured hand and infected arm.

Eventually I'm satisfied with my weapon, just as first light starts to break through the trees and I decide to wake Fern.

"Hey," I say as she rouses after a gentle shake, "I need a couple of hours or I'm gonna drop off in the day."

"Okay, no problem," she says.

"Wake me in a couple of hours I guess," I say, borrowing her 'pillow' and laying down, "when the sun's properly up."

If she does reply then I'm asleep before she says anything, before she wakes me and feeling refreshed I lead the way as we go berry-hunting.

It takes a while, but eventually we find a plentiful supply of edible berries, and stumble across the river in the process. Deciding to make the most of it while we're here we drink much more than we'd normally allow ourselves and refill our bottles.

We stay by the river for lunch, confident in our ability to keep and eye and ear out for danger, and eat the last of my remaining food, a couple of bits of dried meat.

"There aren't even any fish," says Fern, leaning over the river. "Shame. You might have been able to spear a couple with your staff."

"I've never eaten fish," I comment offhandedly.

"Not even in the Capitol?"

"Point," I say. "I'm not sure, but I did eat a lot of stuff that I didn't recognise."

"I know what you mean," she says with a small laugh, "I didn't really care what it was called, just how it tasted."

My reply never makes it out, as our conversation is suddenly rendered obsolete by a cannon firing. It's been so long since I heard one that it makes me jump almost out of my skin.

The silence that follows is eerie, before Fern breaks it. "Final eight…"

I suddenly realise that I slept through the anthem yesterday, with Fern's comment confirming that no-one died. "I wonder who it was…" I say.

"I don't know, but let's move," Fern says seriously, "I don't like sitting around in the open knowing someone or something's just killed someone."

I agree, and her point is further exaggerated moments after we start walking, when we realise that the death was close by, close enough for us to be able to clearly hear the hovercraft arriving to collect the dead tribute's body.

We hurry up, moving into a slight jog as we head away from the direction the noise came from. After about five minutes I'm about to suggest we slow back to a walk, when I find myself flat on my face.

Fern sighs as she offers me a hand up. "You're getting quite accident-prone. Not a good habit to have in the arena," she adds, trying to make a joke but unable to avoid sounding a bit bleak too.

I don't respond however, as I have something more important to say to Fern. "Look at this," I say, stepping over towards a tree, indicating a hole at the base of the trunk I spotted when lying on the floor.

"Does this go somewhere?" she asks, peering into the dark hole.

"Dunno," I say. "One way to find out," I add, poking my legs into the hole, which slopes downwards.

"Wait!" hisses Fern. "Are you sure? It could be a burrow, it could have a mutt in."

"Or it could be a perfect place to hide out," I say. "I don't feel safe now I can't get up trees; I almost fell asleep while I was keeping watch last night."

"Okay," sighs Fern, "lead the way."

I smile at her. "Wish me luck." With that I slide myself into the opening. It curves away into pitch darkness, and narrows until I can barely fit, before I can't help but give a little whoop as I emerge into a cave or burrow or whatever you want to call it.

It's lit slightly by a small opening in the ceiling, and is about 10 feet square and just about tall enough to stand in.

"Fern," I call back, "come on through."

"Already on my way," she replies and a moment later she joins me.

"This is perfect," she says.

I nod. "Only danger is we could get trapped I guess, but I don't think our voices would carry outside, so no reason for anyone to realise we're in here."

"I don't think the gamemakers would let us just stay in here the whole time though," Fern points out. "We'd be being too boring, they'd set a mutt on us or cave us in or something."

"I'm not sure we've exactly been exciting viewing anyway," I say, "but your point still stands. We'll stay here now, but from tomorrow we should go wandering, only come back here to sleep."

"We'll have work out a way to find our way back."

"Maybe make marks on the trees with our knives," I offer with a shrug, "or just go really slow, look for markers. We only need to work out how to get back here from the river, because we can follow that easily."

"Whatever," she says, "we'll sort it out tomorrow."

We sit down and just talk for the rest of the day. Not the whole time, but the silences that punctuate our conversations our comfortable rather than awkward.

We get on to talking about our families. Fern had 49 entries in the reaping, having taken out tesserae for her father and three sisters, 14, 12 and 9, and a 2-year old brother. Her mother died of pneumonia a year ago, meaning she has to do a lot of looking after her siblings and housework while her father is working in the lumber mills.

It makes me realise how tough she's had to be, she's a very resilient person. I remember thinking while watching the reapings that she looked spirited, and think that while she might not be as skilled or strong as the careers or some of the others, she used to hardship, and that might be just be key. I'm certainly not ruling her out as a winner. That thought reminds me that only one of us, maximum, can survive, so I distract myself from the unpleasant thought by starting up a conversation about Grove, and what little Fern gleamed about him from the days before the Games started.

As the light coming through the ceiling diminishes from little to almost none- though it happens slowly enough for our eyes to adjust reasonably well to the darkness- we hear the anthem beginning to play.

"We should go see who died," I say, hurrying towards the tunnel.

We get up the tunnel and out into the darkening forest in time to see the face of Perrin appear in the sky, before quickly returning to our hideout before discussing it.

"Another career down," says Fern. "Do you think it was Jade?"

"Probably not," I say, after a brief pause to think. "I mean, she does seem a bit mental, but the careers normally hold their alliance until there isn't much else in the way of threats left, and Jeremiah and Grove got career-like scores and they're still out there. There's only two of them left now."

"No point thinking about it too much I guess," says Fern, "we'll never know for sure."

"Unless we win," I point out. She just nods in acknowledgement, a sad look on her face. Occasionally I forgot the fate we're trapped in, and when the realisation comes back it hits hard.

We talk a little more, but soon run out of things to say, and I'm asleep before I know it.