IKE
His dreams were riddled with howling wolves and vicious lions. Ike was all too glad when he finally awoke.
Leanne was squeezed up right next to him, rolling up the sleeping bag, when he awoke. She noticed his eyes opening and smiled brightly. "How are you feeling?" she asked softly.
He shrugged slightly and winced, his joints a bit sore. "All right." he replied quietly. "Some bad dreams. You?"
She shrugged the same way he had and offered him the backpack, which he'd rolled off of in his sleep. "We have a little food." she said quietly.
He waved it off. "We should save that. I'll get a rabbit or something. But I think our immediate concern is water and finding the others."
She nodded.
Ten minutes later they were in the open and walking carefully through the sparse forest again. Ike realized that Shinon had been right when he'd told him to find a water source; he was already getting dehydrated. Strangely enough, Leanne seemed unaffected, still quietly singing Vigor whenever Ike started to tire. Apparently herons didn't feel the water deprivation as badly as beorc. He still wondered why nobody had ever teamed up with a heron before; their galdrar really were invaluable, though of course that might have just been Leanne herself.
Another more immediate problem was finding Zelgius and Kita. The last he recalled seeing them was before the gong sounded, but after it began he'd been more intent on getting to Leanne than paying attention to the other two. He'd asked, but Leanne hadn't seen them either. His best guess was that they would be looking for water, but the only water source he could think of was the river, which was sure to be surrounded by the Career pack. If they were all together, then maybe they could face the Careers, but as it was, with the team separated in half...
Leanne suddenly halted in mid-step. Ike tensed and froze in place. "What's wrong?" he asked, as quiet as he could within her hearing.
She waited only a moment, and then he heard chirping and she relaxed. "Look," she said, pointing up in a tree. Ike's gaze followed her finger and he spotted a bird.
It was small and delicate, with orange and red feathers. As he watched, it whistled something that sounded suspiciously like the opening six notes of Vigor, then flew away. "What was that?" he asked.
"We call them Irotonimagem. Goddess-birds." she replied, slightly awestruck. "They're rumored to be descendants of the bird that hosted Goddess Yune, in the Hero Ike's time. But they haven't been seen since the Dark Years... we'd thought they'd all gone extinct."
Now that Ike thought about it, the bird really had looked like the Yune he'd whittled. "Why do you suppose they're here?" he remarked.
"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "They've been known to imitate songs, especially those sung by herons. Maybe they're here because of me..."
"Maybe." Ike turned to continue the way they'd been walking. "Come on. We have to keep going."
She followed him, but she was much more quiet and contemplative now.
ZELGIUS
The walking—and occasional climbing—is slow. Ike and Leanne were headed north, so that's where we go. Kita is utterly silent, but that's good, because then I can focus on listening for other tributes.
Around midday we hear what sounds like an explosion from the near east. It's followed by several more, all loud enough for anyone to hear. The noise will probably draw the Careers, so we continue north even more cautiously.
But the Gamemakers' traps moves faster than I anticipated. It's barely ten minutes after that when the wall of sand and fire suddenly descends on us, literally out of nowhere. I grab Kita's hand and we run.
The animals flee to the west, and we follow them. The world is in flame and smoke all around us, and I believe the Gamemakers are steering us now; the few trees burn and collapse in our path, forcing us to run in a different direction, while sheets of fire close off where we've been before. The choking sand blinds us almost entirely.
I hear a cry, and for a moment I think I see the District 10 girl, but there's no way we can try to help her; we have enough problems on our own right now. I hear a huge explosion; instinctively I fall to the ground, pulling Kita with me, and a sheet of flame shoots out over our heads, singing the top of my hair. Then I'm up and running again, Kita right behind me. For a moment I hear a hawk's cry, but it's lost over the sound of the fire.
The heat is horrible and the sand and smoke is even worse, and it's taking its toll on Kita. She staggers, coughing, and I roughly pull her to her feet. The haze is so thick branches and stones materialize out of the gray before we have warning; I'm sure we're both covered in cuts and scratches now, and I can literally feel the blood running down my face.
I leap over a burning log and barely manage to get Kita over it. Her left arm drags slightly and the jacket sleeve hits the fires; she cries in pain, and I stop to pull the jacket off her and stamp out the flames. I put it out quickly, but her arm's injured; there's no time to look at it now, so I stuff her jacket in the pack, grab her right hand, and keep going.
The smoke and haze is getting worse; Kita starts coughing horribly, and now each breath sends a searing pain through my chest. We manage to cover behind a rock for a moment, and I take a second to check our injures. Kita's arm is burned, very badly, angry red blisters all up the forearm, welts on her right hand where she touched the jacket. I have welts on both my hands from pulling her out of the fire and a scalding blister on my left leg where I scraped a log. But there's nothing I can do about any of it, not now... The sand is getting thicker and I'm literally blind; I pull my jacket off and wrap it around my face, and that helps a little. I quickly do the same for Kita, and we huddle together with our eyes closed, hoping the fire won't catch up.
How long we were there, I cannot say, but finally the sand begins to abate. Kita's eyes are filled with tears from the smoke and haze, and mine too. We're both up to our knees when we're down on them in sand, and the heat is almost unbearable. I stand up, but I'm barely on my feet when a flame-heated stone sparks out of some inferno nearby and hits my left leg dead on, before I can try to avoid it. The pain is overwhelming.
Kita's gotten her strength back, so we're both running again, or stumbling in my case, until I'm sure that we've cleared the fire area. The smoke and haze finally begin to clear, and when I look back I see we've finally left the flames behind us. But the black clouds and the sand still lingers, limiting my visibility to fifteen feet or so. If another tribute attacked us now, we'd probably be dead. But there aren't any other tributes around; just black clouds, and us, as we stumble blindly through the trees.
I don't notice the river until I stumble and we both fall into it. My leg and hands get instant relief as soon as they enter the water; from Kita's slight sigh, I can tell she's feeling the same.
We can't stay here for long. I'm exhausted from the running and she must be, too, but that fire will most definitely have attracted the Career pack and anyone else looking for easy pickings. The longer we stay in one spot, the more danger we're in... but I'm already getting drowsy, and whenever Kita tries to take her arm from the water she has to put it back in before she cries in pain. Then again, the fire might attract Ike and Leanne...
I unwrap my jacket and splash my face in water to clear away some of the sand, and then I check over our equipment. Most of it is unscathed, except for the pack itself, which has some scorch marks—that's not a problem, it'll serve as camouflage—and Kita's jacket. The entire left sleeve and several inches on the bottom are burned beyond repair; I cut the damaged areas off, leaving her with a garment with only one sleeve that comes down to her stomach; it's still better than nothing, though. I pack up everything neatly again, then spot some water plants with edible roots and make me and Kita a small meal. We slowly rehydrate ourselves. Neither of us are ready to leave, but I know we have to, before the Career pack comes...
A cannon startles me awake, and then I hear feet. I drag myself out of the pool quickly and grab the pack. Kita's a little more reluctant, but I get her on her feet with little fuss. We run a bit, northwards I'm guessing, until I find a cliff-face with a cave further up, and we climb it. If running hurt, climbing is agony. We go about forty feet up to the cave; I send her up a bit further back, in case whoever it is has a ranged weapon—or is a flier.
We wait a long moment. Then I see a wolf run below, heading south, I think. Volug. He doesn't seem to picked up on us, as he completely ignores the cliff and the river. He's Shifted, too; I wonder why he'd waste his precious Transform minutes on something like that. Then I see the blood on his fur and I realize why.
We wait another twenty minutes before climbing the rest of the way up. From here, I judge our position and the time; it's sometime around five in the afternoon, I think, and Volug was definitely heading south. The fires were to the southeast; so, we go northeast, towards the direct north of the Cornucopia, where we guess Ike and Leanne will be. Walking is now agonizing for me.
It seems like hours before we find water again. By now we're down to the second bottle. A peaceful stream runs through the stone, falling in a waterfall to the river below, still bordered by stone formations. We refill the bottles and walk upstream, in the water to lose our tracks. I find some herbs that I think should help burns, and I tear off part of my shirt to use as bandages for our hands, tying the herbs onto them. It helps, a little.
We continue to follow the river upstream, then go west deeper into the stone hills. Kita's tired, we both are, but we keep walking without complaint. She toys with her bandages and frequently touches the single stud in her right ear. It's a tiny piece of sapphire, not enough to be worth anything. It's one of a pair that belonged to our mother. I wear the other one in my left ear, usually covered by a particularly long strand of my hair. Seeing her touching hers makes me think of Sydelle...
By the position of the sun, I would think it's sometime around nine or ten in the evening when we finally stop for the night. We're next to another cliff-face, and there's a small cave well hidden in the boulders; we crawl in there to sleep. We both pass out before I see the death count. It's been an exhausting day.
By morning, I can barely stand up. Kita's arm is no better, either, and my fingers are burned all over. It hurts to touch things, but I still manage to move around well enough to go outside to hunt. I manage to catch a rabbit, and I risk a small fire to cook it; it's a bad idea, but we're both starved and I don't want to risk rabbit fever from eating it raw. The fire brings a few bad memories. Fortunately, no one comes around, and we eat decently.
We need to get back to the stream for some more water, but I don't think I could get very far on this; I would only be a burden. Kita could go on her own, but I'm not letting her go anywhere by herself. We laze away in our cave for what seems like forever, trying to dull the pain.
Then I hear a bird. At least, I think it is a bird, but its song is the first six notes of the galdr that Leanne taught us, faster. Kita hears it too; she looks around in surprise. Then I hear footsteps and I freeze.
There is silence for a while, though it was probably just a few seconds. Then I hear Leanne say quietly "I could have sworn the Irotonimagem was leading us here..."
It's them. It has to be them. I call "Ike, Leanne" as loudly as I dare, and Kita noticeably relaxes.
A moment later, the heron girl pokes her head in the cave and smiles brightly. "Zelgy! Kita! I'm so glad you're safe!"
She climbs into the cave and we both back against the wall further to make room for her; a moment later, Ike follows her, slinging an orange pack off his shoulder as he comes in. "Would you happen to have any water?" he asks, rather hoarsely.
Kita gets a water bottle out of the pack and gives it to Ike. He drinks about half of it in brief gulps over the course of a minute, then passes it to Leanne. "There was a stream back east..." Kita says quietly.
"Oh, that sounds good..." Leanne mumbles.
Ike looks over us both; I can see he's appraising the burns. "You two were in that fire yesterday?"
I nod. "Yes, unfortunately."
"You two were luckier than the District 10 girl," Leanne remarks. "She was in the sky last night. You heard the cannon?"
I nod again. "So... how'd you end up here?" Ike asks.
"We walked for a long time..." Kita says. "Zelgius wanted to get away from the stream, in case the Careers were patrolling it, and we ended up here. Now the burns have gotten worse, and he can barely stand."
"Have you gotten anything from Micaiah?" Ike says.
"No. How about you or Leanne?" I say.
"Not a thing." she says. "Darn. Some burn medicine would be nice, right about now..."
We pause for a moment. Leanne glances outside, as if expecting a silver parachute to appear, but I can already see there's nothing. "Sorry, Leanne." Kita says. "Micaiah must not be able to afford it."
"Or Shinon," Ike adds almost lazily. "Or even yours, Leanne."
"Rafiel." she says. "My last older brother."
"Last?" Kita asks.
Leanne nods. "My other two older brothers, Reyson and Rowyn, died in the Hunger Games. So did my sisters, Laurel, Lorelei, and Lillia."
There's another long pause. I don't know what to say... nobody knows what to say. "I'm... sorry, Leanne." Ike finally says. "That must have been...painful."
"It's all right." she says, ever so quietly. "It was years ago. I've gotten past it."
Again, another silence; nobody has anything to say. Ike finally breaks the silence, again; "There's still six or seven hours of daylight left. We should get moving—go back to the stream or something."
"I don't know if Zelgius can walk," Kita intercedes.
"I'll be fine." I insist. She shakes her head stubbornly.
"Leanne?" Ike asks. She seems to know what he wants, and only pauses for a moment before humming something under her breath. A moment later, she sings a few slow, quiet verses of the ancient language; I recognize it as a galdrar, though I don't know the name. A moment later, the throbbing in my leg recedes somewhat.
"That should help, a bit." she says. Then she follows Ike as he backs out of the cave. Kita goes after them. I wait only a moment, then I go as well.
It still hurts. But not as much as before. I can walk now, but not run, and I'll probably still be limping badly. I voice that quietly aloud, and Ike nods.
"You'll be good enough to get back to the stream, I hope. My mother taught me a few herbal remedies... maybe I can figure something out to help. I'm sure Leanne will help, too."
I nod. Kita gets our pack out of the cave, and we quickly cover up traces of our being there. Then we start walking again.
CAREERS
The five remaining Career tributes and their ally had already set up their base camp. All their extra supplies had been stored inside the Cornucopia, and they took turns standing guard while the other four stayed in the Cornucopia and either relaxed, talked, or slept. They planned to begin the real hunt on the following day, since several of them were recovering from minor injuries from the fire and the bloodbath. Some of them tallied off how many they'd killed.
Skrimir Gaul inscribed three tally marks on the wall under his name, then winced. He had a gash on his upper arm where the wolf male had ripped it and a long burn on his right forearm. It wasn't bad enough to obscure the glowing green numbers that reminded him how much Transform time he had left; 08: 37: 23.
"I still don't understand how you used up five hours in the bloodbath," Vika said teasingly, drawing in a single tally mark under her own name. 11: 57: 41 shone brightly on her bare arm. "I only used two. The other tributes were so weak, I'm surprised they ever present a challenge."
"I only used an hour..." Kurth Goldoa said quietly, rubbing his right arm where the cat female had bitten it and 12: 59: 54 was faintly visible through the bandage. He hadn't written his name on the wall yet because he had no kills.
"Well, you're a pacifist." Medha Ekard reminded him, adding a tally mark to the wall under her own name. 10: 46: 34 stood on her arm.
"I am not!"
"Are too." Vika chimed in. "You ran away first thing to hide. Ooh, poor Kurth..." she added as he looked away, "Scared of the pathetic tributes...!"
Skrimir glared at her. "At least he didn't let anyone in his path escape alive! You're the one who couldn't even kill the pathetic beorc!"
"Oh, please," Vika spat, "if I'd wanted to kill him, he'd be dead."
"If you were really showing off, you'd have killed him." Medha said. "You should've killed him. If he gets too popular because of the sub-human, he could draw the sponsors."
Kurth frowned. "You don't think the Branded boy was talking about someone else?"
"Really, Kurth," Vika said sarcastically, "don't tell me you thought the half-breed was speaking of Skrimir?" The girls laughed.
"Well, no," Kurth protested, "but that doesn't mean he... well... hmm. Who was he talking about?"
"I think the more important question is, did the kid really buy it?" a cool feminine voice interceded. "And will it present a threat to us?"
The four of them glanced up at Sakira Elle. It was she who had spoken, having returned from standing guard outside. "I don't know," Vika ventured cautiously. "Do you think he bought it?"
"I don't know, but the very real truth right now is, the half-breed boy is a threat, therefore he must be eliminated." Sakira stated. "First thing tomorrow, we go through the woods and look for them. There's four of them and they aren't trained, so it shouldn't be too hard. Once they're dead, we'll fan out and search for the rest."
"What about the Branded girl, or the heron?" Kurth asked.
Medha scoffed. "They're weak. They'll starve to death, sooner or later, or get eaten by the wolf."
Kurth looked down at his hands. "I don't think they're weak..."
Vika pointedly ignored him. "All right, but I call Lover Boy."
"Which one?" Medha asked, and the three girls laughed again.
Sakira casually tapped the three tally marks under her own name on the wall and smirked. "Now, I'm going back out to remind our friend to keep his eyes open." As she turned to leave, Skrimir caught a glimpse of her right arm, where she'd rolled the sleeve up. A glimpse of the bright green six-digit number imprinted there;
14: 00: 00.
She's going to be hard to kill, Skrimir thought bitterly.
IKE
Ike could tell that Zelgius was still in pain. In fact, just looking at the state the other boy's leg was in, he was surprised that Zelgius could stand at all, much less limp along without complaining. Good Goddess, but he's really something, Ike marveled. He can take all that and still keep going.
...Come to think of it, how come I didn't notice before how... persistent he is? How...resilient. He won't let anything stop him...
He had the feeling his thoughts were getting dangerous, whatever that could mean, so he forced himself to stop thinking about Zelgius. Instead, as the four of them walked through the hills and stone, with Kita and Leanne padding along in front and himself covering the rear with Zelgius, Ike found himself thinking, strangely, about Shinon Gautier. His mentor had acted so oddly when it came to the pre-Games interviews; he hadn't even watched Ike and Mia's interviews. The way he'd stuttered over Oscar's name, refused to watch the replay—in fact, now that Ike thought about it, even during the replay of the reapings, when Oscar and Kieran had been the commentators(as usual), Shinon had appeared to be drunk and half-asleep until it was ended, as if he was trying not to watch, but was there because he had to be.
Did something happen during his interviews? Ike wondered. Or is it something to do with the interviews themselves... maybe he has some bad memory concerning Oscar, or something. It couldn't have been during his Games, Oscar became the Games announcer after Shinon's...
He tried to remember Shinon's Games, but he'd only been seven years old at the time and his memory was a bit fuzzy. Let's see... was that the year with the pristine, poisoned lakes and forests? Or the snowy one with the ice bats? Or maybe the year where the entire arena was a giant cake...
Kita's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "The stream isn't far now," she was saying, "so be careful."
"I'll fly up a bit and look around," Leanne suggested. "See if I can spot anyone coming. I'll whistle when it's safe." Then she jumped lightly and flapped once, hard, and a moment later she disappeared into the brush overhead.
Zelgius stumbled and hissed through his teeth; Ike quickly caught him and supported him against his wounded leg. He noticed a trickle of blood from the older boy's mouth and realized he must have bitten his tongue to keep from crying out. A rush of sympathy swept through him, and Ike asked "Are you all right?" before he could catch himself.
Zelgius nodded, wincing. "I'm...fine..." he mumbled.
Kita glanced back at them from further ahead and paused in mid-step, waiting for them to catch up. Zelgius made a little motion with his head, urging her to continue; she did so, slowly. Ike studied the other boy's face and noticed his eyes were slightly regretful. "You're sure...?" he asked quietly.
Zelgius didn't answer; he paused and leaned against a tree, balancing on his uninjured leg. "Give...give me a moment..." he said tiredly.
Ike walked closer to him and bent down to look at the burns. They were horrible, much worse than any he had seen in 11. "Would it help if I put some water on it?" he asked.
Zelgius' nod was almost imperceptible. "If it's cold...yes..." Then he sank down on his uninjured knee and winced.
Kita walked back, and Ike motioned her to wait. He pulled out the water from his pack and poured a bit of it on the burn. Zelgius bit his lip so hard it bled, and Ike stopped immediately.
"Here...let me do it..." the older boy said haltingly, taking the bottle from Ike. He dripped a bit more and winced painfully, then tried to use his sleeve to touch it, his blistered hands shaking badly.
Ike was surprised he didn't cry out. Zelgius was hard pressed not to.
GAMES HEADQUARTERS
In the lobby of the Games Headquarters, Shinon was looking up at the huge TV screen that loomed over the room. It was only used to show that year's Hunger Games. And at the moment, it was showing Ike... and Zelgius. In all his pain.
Micaiah, who had walked up behind him while he was watching, drew in a quick breath. "Oh..."
He glanced down at her. "Why don't you sign up a sponsor and get them some medicine, or something?"
"Well..." She glanced around a bit vaguely. "At the moment, I don't have much lined up... the price was already premium on day one, you know..."
"Let me guess. You want to mooch sponsors off me." Shinon stated flatly.
"I wouldn't put it that way," she protested. "But Ike and Zelgius are on the same team, and it would technically be helping Ike by helping Zelgius and Kita. You know he's not going to leave them behind, so as long as they're injured they're only a liability for him."
Shinon rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Damn fool. If he was smart he would've killed them already."
"And if you were thinking about it, you would realize you would do the same thing he's doing if you were in his position." she replied. "And he would do the same for you. Help me. Please?"
He sighed. He owed a lot to her, so there really wasn't any way he could refuse. "You got the heron asking around, too?"
"He was already looking into it on his own, before I asked." Micaiah replied. "So, come on! You remember what I taught you. Talk to people and see if you can line anything up."
"Oh, all right." He sighed again. "I'll see you in a bit, then..."
About two hours later, the four tributes were still progressing through the hills, and Zelgius had to be supported by Ike to walk.
Micaiah left the blue-haired Gamemaker she'd been talking to and walked over to Shinon and the District 7 mentor. Rafiel was a tall, elegant white-winged heron with a striking resemblance to his younger sister. "How are we doing?" he asked.
"We're good to go," she replied. "Marth's got it arranged. It'll be down to them in five minutes."
The three of them turned back to the screen. Five minutes later, there was a chime and the younger boy on-screen jumped.
IKE
Ike suddenly heard a loud clunk and started, looking around for the source of the noise. Zelgius, more sensibly, froze in place. Neither of them dared speak.
Kita came back from the front. "Was that you?" she asked in a hushed voice. Zelgius shook his head and she immediately stiffened. Ike felt his heart start racing.
Then he heard a little four-note run whistle. A few seconds pause, and then it came again. Leanne, he thought, and immediately relaxed. Kita did as well, but Zelgius remained stiff and cautious, though when he tried to take a step he staggered.
A moment later, Leanne descended from overhead and landed lightly. "Look!" she said excitedly, holding out a small plastic pot attached to a silver parachute. "This almost landed on me. I think it's for you two."
Ike set Zelgius down as Kita took the pot and unscrewed the lid. The scent that hit the four of them was extremely strong, and definitely medicine. "What is it?" she asked.
"Burn medicine?" Zelgius suggested quietly, his voice halting slightly with his winces.
Kita probed it cautiously with a finger of her right hand, then scraped a bit of it off on her fingers and ran it over her burned arm. The effect was instantaneous; the constant look of subtle pain on her face nearly vanished, and she sighed slightly. "Oh, Goddess," she murmured, "that feels good."
It was all Ike could do not to grab it out of her hands; still, he more carefully took it from her and handed it to Zelgius. The older boy could barely touch anything without wincing, so Ike had to help him unwrap the makeshift bandages before he could apply the medicine. Kita meanwhile got a little more of it and rubbed it onto her arm and hands, while Leanne did a quick look around to make sure no one else was nearby.
Zelgius tried to put the medicine on himself, but after a few moments of struggling with his badly burned fingers trying not to touch anything, he allowed Ike to get it on for him. He sighed slightly in relief as Ike spread it over the boy's burnt and blistered leg. "Thanks," he murmured quietly. Ike nodded as a reply.
They took a few minutes applying the medicine to all of Zelgius and Kita's burns, and then Ike wrapped the pot up in the parachute and stowed it in the small pack. "There's another two hours of decent light still," Zelgius said. "That should be enough to get to the stream and find somewhere to spend the night."
"You three keep going," Leanne said. "I'll go scout around you. Whistle if you need me; I'll whistle if someone's coming."
"Alright," Ike agreed. The other two didn't argue, so it was settled.
Zelgius' leg still hurt, but he didn't need Ike's support now to walk. They got to the stream in an hour, and not long after that they found a good little cave to sleep in. Kita found a few edible plants and they made a small meal out of the remaining rabbit, though Leanne only ate the plants.
The cave was fairly small, but there was enough room for the four of them to squeeze in together to sleep. Leanne got her sleeping bag and rolled up in it, which reminded Ike that he didn't have one; in fact, considering that Zelgius had gotten two, he probably would be the only one without one. He was just settling in next to Leanne and preparing himself for another cold night when Zelgius tossed one of the other sleeping bags on him.
"But you and Kita should have them," he protested, offering it back.
In answer, Kita climbed into the sleeping bag with Zelgius, snuggling up so tightly against him it was hard to tell she was even there. "We'll share," the other boy explained, pulling his hood up.
Ike raised an eyebrow, but didn't do anything else other than get into his sleeping bag.
"Tomorrow, we'll figure out a plan." he announced quietly as they all got settled in.
"Mhmm." Leanne replied. Kita made a small noise in agreement; Zelgius was silent.
Listening to the four of them breathing, all snuggled up next to each other... For the first time since he'd left District 11, Ike felt secure. A sense of home that he hadn't had in a long time...
ZELGIUS
My insomnia is becoming a lingering affliction, it seems. No one else is still awake; I can tell from their breathing, they're all asleep. I suppose it's probably good that I'm awake, so that I can keep watch, but I would still rather be sleeping than this...
This, this lying next to Ike with his headband almost touching my nose. This, Ike practically snuggled up next to me, and Leanne just behind him with her wings unfolded in her sleep, and Kita tightly pressed next to me as she has been almost every night of her life.
It's so maddeningly peaceful, I feel like I could be home again. That I could fall asleep and when I wake up Sydelle will be waiting with a smile. That somehow everything is all right. When it's not. In a week, all of us could be dead. If all goes according to my plan, then three of us will be dead by the Games' end.
...I wonder... Would it be a mercy if a Career sneaked up on us now and killed us? Slit our throats while we slept? Would that be a mercy, not having to endure the rest of the Games, not having to struggle through life any longer? A quick, silent death... but, I don't think it will happen. I don't want it to happen, either. If anything, I want one of us to survive this, one of us to return to our district with all the honors—no—the rewards of a victor. The rewards for our district. As far as I know, our three districts are the poorest, mostly because of our usual inability to win the Games.
But not this year. This year, we will win. This year, a beorc will return to his home alive. Or a heron, to hers.
Or even a Branded. That's what I'm hoping for.
And with that thought in mind, and Ike's quiet, steady breathing to lull me, I finally drift off.