AUTHOR'S NOTES: With NaNoWriMo approaching, this fic might get a little sporadic and late posts like this might temporarily become the norm. Fear not, however; for this is only a month. That said, here's the new chapter in the meantime. We get another tribute death, and a bit more about what the survivors apart from District 5 are up to.
Happy Reading!

CHAPTER 16: Flickering Illusions

The next few days of the games were much less eventful than the former few, and it seemed that not even the careers were out there scoring kills, for day 3 and day 4 were bereft of any cannons firing. A little exploring helped Lucia and Cadence discover the rest of their island, where it seemed they were alone. However, there were a total of four of the moving cliffs, and while day 3 was for learning their locations, day 4 was for learning their patterns. They seemed to move every 1 or 2 hours, and based on the cracks that formed or vanished as the platforms moved, it was clear that these markings were to indicate if a platform had freshly moved or was about to crack back off and move away. Cadence planned to use this knowledge to his advantage over the next few days as much as possible.

On the 5th day, however, it seemed the Gamemakers wanted to throw a little wrench into the system. Lucia woke up shivering, and both tributes were damp. Cadence rubbed his eyes, and slightly panicked for a second as he realized that his eyes were not hazy.

"This is bad," he grunted, "Lucia, we might have to rely more on your senses at this point."
"What's going on?" she asked calmly.

"The mist we woke up soaked in is still here," Cadence explained, "and it's thick as all get-out."

"What should we do?"
"Well, we obviously can't light much of a fire if the air is going to make everything so damp, so hopefully this will start clearing up as the day goes on."
While the two of them were somewhat able to track the sun's movement, the fog remained as thick as ever over the 94th arena throughout the day and thus reduced the amount of travelling most of the tributes did to new lows. Someone did manage to die during the day considering the cannon that fired, but at this point, Cadence assumed it was just a mishap. Those cliffs were enormous and sheer, and if a tribute was unfortunate enough to fall down there, it was clear that they were not meant to be able to get back up.

Evening rolled around and the name and face of the day's victim showed through the fog.

Camilla Shao, District 8…

"I suppose that one was coming," Lucia sighed after Cadence told her who it was, "14 and a 5 score? She didn't have her partner to watch out for her… I feel for her."

"Sad as it was, I would rather it be her than you, Lucia." Cadence insisted, "Panem needs more people like you—not people like me."
"Ah, but that's not what the games are about," Lucia whispered. "It's to show who the strongest killer is. That is a field where you specialize."

"Just because I accept something does not mean I have to like it," Cadence sighed. "Let's not speak more on this, Lucia. You know how it makes me feel."
"Okay," Lucia simply shrugged and curled back down under the stars and the fog. "So with Camilla gone, we're down to half the tributes at least."

"True…" Cadence lay down on his back, his arms supporting his head as he gazed into the foggy sky. "And we've still got Districts 1, 2, 9, and 11 to worry about—as well as the girls from '3 and '12."

"We'll find a way," Lucia whispered. "Please don't get worked up about me, Cadence. I understand that thinking about my death makes you uncomfortable, but the way you handle it makes me feel very uncomfortable." She was not necessarily trying to manipulate Cadence, but knew that her words could sway him this way or that, and her words about feeling uncomfortable

"…very well." Cadence grunted. "I will cease my remarks about it."

Instead he went to thinking about the tributes still alive. Usually the first half of the tributes were the bloodbath fodder, and the weaker tributes that were somehow lucky enough to escape made up the next few. The final 12, and more so the final 8 (and so on) were usually the careers and other formidable tricksters. Cadence knew (or at least assumed he knew) that Lucia wouldn't have survived more than 11 seconds in the games had he not intervened. Now, it was down to him and Lucia, the four careers (and arguably the pair from District 9, whom Cadence had a nagging feeling would be a thorn in his side later on), the formidable District 11 pair, that shady Ratchet girl from District 3, and the painted girl Sudi from District 12. Of the remaining tributes, he was actually most worried about Sudi and about Robin and Fox. He did not know their motives, and since it was extremely rare for District 9 tributes to join the careers (or even perform well in the games, even if they generally did slightly better than their District 10 counterparts), he wasn't even sure what to make of their behavior. As for Sudi… he was even more confused about her than he was about the others. He was slightly relieved when he had seen Mani's face in the sky. Dealing with him and his partner would have been scary.

"Then again, maybe Mani was just a shill." He mused in his mind, "Painted Tributes have never really feared death, and the notion of him sacrificing himself for her wouldn't be unheard of considering that I aim to do the same with Lucia. Still… that makes me wonder about their relationship? Did Mani know his partner and set himself up, or am I just overthinking it? District 12 is wily and scary. They've become a formidable force in these games with people like Katniss, Vigo, and Aveline cropping up all so soon between games. Maybe Mani wasn't a shill and was just an unlucky kill in the opening seconds. That might explain the upset factor, but even then, that doesn't make Sudi any less of a threat. Methinks there was more going on than what her '8' training score warrants…"

Whatever the case, he remained quiet as he drifted off to sleep with thoughts of the following day on his mind, and more importantly, how to keep Lucia safe.

While Cadence and Lucia slept, however, the careers were on the move. They could not reach Cadence from the island they were on, and it would be another few hours before the platforms would move again. Not knowing which island the District 5 pair were on also hindered their efforts for another day, leaving day 6 as a rather uneventful day of the games.

On the other hand, Nazir and Gabriela ended up running into an interesting little figure during their travels: Ratchet. Cadence was right about her in one regard.

"So this is where I die then, uh?" Ratchet raised her weapons to warn that she was armed, but also raised an eyebrow of amusement.

"Do you know where '5 is?" Gabriela asked.

"Considering you killed my partner, why should I tell you anything?" Ratchet retorted.

"Because I can easily make you join him?" Gabriela threatened. Ratchet conceded.

"Hmph, fair point," she shrugged, "I like living. I haven't seen your friends though. I can tell you a bit about what '9, '11, and '12 are up to though—and about the arena."
"Let's see what you have to offer then," Nazir warned.

The duo-turned-trio continued their hunt for a way to move to one of the other islands without waiting another hour or two for the platforms to move. Like Cadence, they learned the layouts of the islands and the moving paltforms, although unlike Cadence, they also realized that the platforms moved at different hourly intervals. It was still 1-2 hours between each one moving back or forth, but the time of movement was different for each one.

Sudi had actually taken this a step further, by memorizing both where the platforms were located, how often each one moved, and when each one moved. She had drawn a map and kept approximate track of when these movements were scheduled. She had actually passed by the little District 5 alliance's camp, but ignored them for the time being. She was more fixated on the careers, especially considering that she knew who had killed her partner Mani.

"Faren Dumar, your days are numbered…" she muttered as she worked during the night between two different islands: one of them being the island that housed the careers' current camp, and the other being a currently uninhabited island. She used a rather prominent coil of rope, attaching one end of it to a large, immovable rock high above the ground, and then waited for the platform to take her to the other side of the island where she did the same thing to a large rock much lower—essentially forming a zip line. She another hour or so for the platform to return to the careers' island and then took a little nap in preparation of what was to come. At dawn, she would put her plan into action…