Second chapter is up!

I hope you like it! And does anyone know what a "correct photo file" is?

~Meghan

Chapter 3

Water

The Arena - Day 2

"And our girl is... Fern Redwood! Come on up, darling!"

"No!"

"Pine-"

"Fern. Fern, no! FERN!"

I wake up with a start.

I blink, trying to take a deep breath as I lay on the ground on my side. Some dirt gets sucked into my mouth, making me cough. I sit up, my dry throat scratching. Sitting up too fast makes my head spin, so I lean my back against a boulder, rough rock digging into the back of my neck.

I try to forget the dream, but how can I forget something that actually happened?

My eyes move over towards Hendrix as I reach for my water bottle.

He sits, turning a curved knife over in his hands.

"Good morning," I mumble, sipping water. It's soothingly cool on my throat.

Hendrix doesn't meet my eyes. "Morning, Seven."

I frown, looking away. He could at least use my name, I know he knows it.

Lexi stirs next to me, the foil blanket crinkling. She wipes her eyes, pale cheek covered with the imprint of the earth and red dust. The same dust and a few tiny pebbles have found their way to her blonde ponytail. She sits up, blinking slowly. Lexi looks over at me. "What time is it?"

"About thirty minutes after sunrise," Hendrix replies.

She nods, yawning. "I miss my cot. Actually, I miss the Capitol beds. The ground isn't that comfortable."

I nod, the ache in my back becoming more acute now that I'm up. The Capitol seems so far away with their lavish rooms and silk beds. Was it really just yesterday morning that I woke up in one of those fluffy beds? Back when Johanna saw me off into the hovercraft and Timber was still alive...

I shove the thoughts from my mind and stand up, testing my legs. They hold. I take a few steps, walking in a small circle. The air is warmer as the sun rises, the sky painted the same oranges as a peach. Some wind whistles a few feet away, but other than that the arena is quiet.

"You didn't sleep?" Lexi asks Hendrix.

He gives her a quick smile. "Don't worry about me, I'm not tired."

"You're going to be..." Lexi says softly. Her blue eyes scan her - our - ally.

Hendrix doesn't reply, running his thumb along the duller edge of the knife.

We're all quiet for a bit. I scan the ground, my things still left out of my backpack. We'll have to pack up and go look for water. The Careers are going to be recuperating from the Cornucopia and will be starting their tribute hunt. There's 13 of us left, 6 of whom are part of the Careers. Aside from that group, the girl from District 3, Lexi and Hendrix, Trolley from District 6, me, Spindle from District 8, and the girl from District 10 are left.

Who knows where the other 4 girls went, but the Careers are no doubt still at the Cornucopia. They do that most years, it's so predictable. But then again, the Careers can afford to be predictable. We can't.

"I was thinking we could look around here some more," Hendrix says.

I turn to him. "The boulder field? I thought we agreed to move camp elsewhere. There's a forest not too far from here."

He nods, finally looking up at me. His eyes somehow seem even darker during the day. "We don't know where the Careers are going to go look. But the forest seems like an obvious bet. That's probably where the others went."

"Well, yeah, there's bound to be food there," I reply. Just thinking about food makes me realize how hungry I am. My stomach feels like it's gnawing at itself. "We could hunt or find some plants there."

"Yeah, we can," Hendrix agrees. "But I think we should build our camp here. These boulders seems to go on for a while, and they keep us out of the wind. Besides, we haven't seen anyone else here yet."

Yet.

I looked uneasily at Lexi. The idea of not being in the forest isn't one I like. Here in the arena, any decision can mean life or death. And right now, all I can imagine for this boulder field is getting trapped and killed. I turn, my face falling as I notice blood stains soaked into the hard-packed dirt.

It's strange to think about me lying there, bleeding out, until the pair from 5 appeared and saved my life. What was my mother thinking, and Pine, and my friends? What were they thinking as they saw me on the screen?

I have to stay alive. For them. They can't see me die. Mom can't have another daughter die like this.

I need to stay with my allies.

"Okay," I say, turning to Hendrix. "We can look around."

He peers at me as if trying to read me. I stand there, staring back. Hopefully he can see through me and know that he can trust me, like I'm trusting him right now. Finally, he looks over at Lexi. "Ready to go?"

She stretches her arms, a smile lighting up her face. It seems too wrong for the arena. Lexi picks up her drawstring bag, swinging it onto her back. "We need to find water before noon when the sun'll get hotter. That's what they said in the Training Center. Sunburns could hurt us if they get bad enough."

I nod. She's right - I hadn't even thought of sunburns. I have that little packet of aloe, but it wouldn't help much if we all got bad burns. Infections are something to be avoided at all costs.

"Let's get going then," Hendrix says. He stands up, keeping the knife out at the ready.

I stoop over my things, packing them all up into my backpack. "So we have about two and a half full bottles of water," I say, grabbing one of my half-full bottles and handing it to Lexi. She drinks some as Hendrix takes out his own water bottle and sips from it. "We could probably take a break later and figure out what food we have to ration. The forest probably is going to have a lot."

I start to roll up my foil blanket - which is a little too loud than I'm comfortable with - when Hendrix says "we hope."

Yes, I do hope. I can't afford not to. "Yeah," I say instead, tucking the foil blanket into my backpack and zipping it up. I pull my backpack on, adjusting the straps. As I stand, I pick up my ax, curling my fingers around the cool rubber handle. Holding it makes me feel secure. It makes me forget the six Careers who could be lurking nearby in just a few hours. It even makes me forget the bandage around my head and the red dust in my red hair.

Hendrix motions for me to lead the way. No doubt this is a safety precaution to make sure that if anything goes awry, he's between me and Lexi.

I oblige, walking ahead, slipping around one of the giant boulders.

Now that I'm more lucid, I can look around. The boulders around us aren't round exactly, they're more like thick slats with smooth faces, the edges rough. They stand up about 11 feet tall, some with more spacing in them like uneven teeth. They're a mix of tan hues stained with reddish dirt. A few of them have nests at the top. A dark bird caws at us from one of the nests.

We keep going.

"I feel like we've been walking for an hour," Lexi eventually says.

I peer up at the tops of the rocks, the sun beginning to shine in gold rays through the gaps. "We should stop to eat and drink some water soon."

"We're going to end up near the force field eventually if it goes on like this," Hendrix says as if I hadn't spoken.

I nod, finally pausing. At least the Capitol can do one thing right - these black boots are keeping my feet comfy.

"We need to go look for water," Lexi says. She pauses in a beam of sunshine. "I didn't mean to make us stop."

"Don't worry, Lexi, we should probably take a little break," I say. "Who knows how much longer we're going to be walking."

Lexi nods, sitting down in the shade of one of the boulders.

I sit down too, Hendrix finally following suit.

It's silent aside from the distant whirling of the wind beyond the boulders.

"Well don't everyone speak at once," I say, cracking a smile.

"Fern, you have a brother, right?" Lexi blurts.

I stretch out my legs, relishing the feeling of giving them a break. "Yeah. His name is Pine."

"How old is he?" Lexi continues.

"Eleven," I reply.

Lexi nods. "I ask because I saw him in the Reaping clip, when we were on the train. And you mentioned him in the interviews."

I peer at the 12-year-old. It's impressive she remembered all that. It makes me feel a bit guilty I don't remember much about the District 5 Reaping clip. All I can remember thinking is how upset Mama would be that a young kid was in the Games this year. During the interviews, I was too nervous about my upcoming turn to really pay attention to everyone before me. Hendrix had mentioned something about his parents working as some kind of scientists? I think?

"What about you?" I say. "Do you have any siblings?"

She shakes her head, look down at the dried fruit container she's taken out. She searches for a particular fruit piece. "No. Well, not really. I guess I do in a way. I don't have parents right now though."

My eyebrows rise as I realize what she means.

"But I hopefully will soon," Lexi says, looking up and grinning. "If I win the Games, I bet I'd have loads of families wanting to adopt me." She returns to sorting through the fruit as her words register.

I'm thankful she looked away. I'm sure I have a pitying look on my face, and somehow I know it's something she'd hate. I rearrange my features and look to my left only to meet Hendrix's brown eyes.

I don't look away. Instead, all I can do is wonder what he's thinking. He has the best poker face. It jogs my memory back to the interviews to his expression and sarcastic answers to Caesar, but the rest of it is still a blur. I look away from Hendrix and down at the toes of my boots. I scrape a pebble across the burnt-orange ground.

"Do you have any siblings, Hendrix?" I ask. I don't look up at him again and instead stare at the pebble, and the flakes of mica that shimmer on it.

He's quiet for a moment. There's only the sound of the wind whistling through some of the distant boulders. Then, "yes. Five."

I raise my head at that. "That's a lot."

He tilts his head, raising his right eyebrow in the slightest gesture of 'excuse me?'

My face turns pink. "I don't mean in like... a bad way. It's just more than... Do you like having five siblings?"

He's quiet for a moment before nodding. Lexi watches us, chewing on some fruit. "They are the most important people in my life," Hendrix says calmly. "And you all." He glances at Lexi at this.

"Two of his siblings used to be my siblings," Lexi says with a grin. "Well. Sort of. Not by blood. But they lived with me."

I smile at her, hoping I don't look pitying. Hendrix's parents adopted two of the orphans in their District. And now he volunteers at the orphanage. It's something I wouldn't have expected from someone as stoic and quiet as Hendrix. It's kind of difficult to imagine him playing with children. It's almost like a sick joke that they both were the two chosen of their District.

I turn, shrugging off my backpack. We did sit down to eat after all. And I don't want to think about everything for a bit. I just want to think of nothing.

I take out my pack of dried fruit - Lexi has been eating from Hendrix's - and try a piece of dried banana. It isn't the best but beggars can't exactly be choosers. I usually hate bananas, but I'm hungry enough that it's appetizing.

"Do you have friends?" Lexi asks.

I glance at her. So much for not thinking. "Yeah. Two, really. We have most of our classes together, and I live down the street from one. Vidar and Joan." I can't help the ghost of a smile that crosses my lips. Now it's like I'm speaking more to myself. To remind myself that I haven't forgotten them, that my time in the Capitol and day in the arena haven't made me leave my home behind. "Vidar is really serious. She has this... this hair that's so dark it looks navy at the roots. And Joan is super optimistic and bubbly, and she's really good at math."

Lexi smiles at me as she opens a protein bar wrapped in a silver wrapper. "Did they come see you at the Justice Hall?"

I nod. "Yeah. They did." If I think about it, I can remember Joan's arms around me, feel the lace of her dress sleeve against my neck as she leaned against me. The look in Vidar's dark eyes as she looked me in the eyes and nodded. 'You'll come back. Okay, Fern? You'll do it.'

"Some of my friends came to see me too," Lexi says. She takes a bite of the protein bar, chewing. "None of the younger ones really, they didn't want them to come in. But some of the older ones did. And Miss Raven." She peers at me, squinting her blue eyes a bit against the brightening sunlight. "Do you have a boyfriend?"

I can't help the laugh that bubbles out of me. It isn't quite happy, but I'm stunned for a moment. I haven't laughed in a while. The fake laughs during the interview with Caesar hardly count. "No, not right now. I had a 'boyfriend' when I was, like, nine, but it only lasted a week. I mostly just wanted him to share his doughnut with me at lunch."

At that, Lexi laughs. A real laugh. Even Hendrix's lips twitch.

"Do you?" I ask Lexi, suppressing my smile.

She re-wraps the remainder of the protein bar. "I can't talk about that here," she says, turning a little pink. She points up at the sky. "There are cameras."

I nod. It's sometimes easy to forget that. We're being watched at all times - every moment, every footstep, every word seen. Who knows if we're even on the screens being broadcasted right now. They might be showing us or maybe the Careers or someone else. I can't help but wonder what Spindle and Trolley and the girls from Districts 3 and 10 are doing right now, all alone. Trolley, especially, is so young at 13. In the Training Center, she was so nice and quiet, smiling at me when I passed her. I don't like to think of her out there alone. The Careers have probably started to hunt today. They'll probably be the ones the cameras are following.

Everyone seems to be thinking the same thing, because we don't chat anymore.

Hendrix just finishes his beef jerky and stands up, pulling his backpack on. "Let's get moving. We need to find water before noon. We don't want to be walking around when the sun is at its worst."

I nod, packing away the rest of my fruit. I swallow some of my water - maybe too much - and Lexi brushes off the red dust from her clothes. We turn and begin walking further into the boulder field, silent.

We walk for another half hour. The temperature is distinctly warmer now, much more than the coolness when we woke up. The black windbreakers we're wearing aren't exactly the best for deflecting sunlight, but at least they're lightweight and seem to let air flow through easily. I run my thumb along the rubber handle of my ax. Sweat has begun to bead between the ax and my palm.

I eventually take out my spool of twine and break off a piece, tying my hair - slightly knotted from sleep and no doubt caked with blood and dirt - up into a ponytail. The feeling of having air blow across the back of my neck is luxurious. In one past Games, a girl cut her hair short with her knife when the tropical jungle became too humid to keep long hair. I had been shocked at the time, watching her beautiful curls fall to the jungle floor. But I was younger then, and didn't understand how it feels. Hair is a small price to pay for your survival. Maybe, soon, my hair will be cut off too.

We walk around a large boulder and suddenly stop. Before us, five more boulders stand, two pairs on either side and one in the middle. Beyond them, nothing but an uneven horizon colliding with blue sky stands.

Far as we can see, it's sand and rough, hard-packed dirt, cracked from heat.

We should have gone to the forest, I think. We've wasted so much time now, the morning is gone and we can't walk back through the boulder field during the hottest part of the day. We'll have to sit here all day, waiting for the sun to pass, and then we'll be even more thirsty. Our bottles can't last that long. Maybe the Careers will be nearby then, like they could somehow sense us in our weakness. Even with Hendrix, there's no way we could take on six trained killing machines. We're going to die out here, sitting by these boulders. Mom and Pine, Vidar and Joan, they'll have to watch me as I sit here-

I breathe sharply in through my nose. My heartbeat is racing.

"We... we could turn back," Lexi begins.

My eyes latch onto something on the right, a faint shadow in the distance. I squint. Rippled by the hazy heat, I can just make out... trees. I spin on my allies. "There's trees there! Where there are trees, there's water. We have to go."

Lexi looks skeptically on the horizon, but I see her eyes widen a little when she spots the same thing. "It isn't... it isn't that mirage thing is it? That was in a story I read once. About a man lost in an endless desert."

I shake my head. "Not if we both see it, right?" I look at Hendrix. The desperation in my voice is obvious even to me. I don't try to hide it. "Right?" Please say yes.

He peers towards it. "It's far away..."

"So would be turning back," I reply quickly.

He meets me gaze. I don't look away this time. Finally, he shifts his eyes towards the horizon. "Let's go."

We walk out from the boulder field, under a sky with threadbare clouds so high up it looks like they're a world away. The desert stretches out around us, more sand than dirt now. My feet slip a bit, unsure on the shifting terrain. But the trees get closer the more we walk, shimmering with heat. My pulse races for another reason, one not from fear of dying at the bottom of one of the boulders, but of dipping my hands into cool, glistening water.

I try not to acknowledge the fear scratching at the back of my mind. This is a classic trap the Gamemakers could have set up. Make us travel out here, under the direct sunlight, only to find that there's no water. It's physical and mental pain at that point, the choice cocktail of the Gamemakers.

"Animals have to drink too," Lexi says as we walk. "Maybe there's a jackrabbit or something around. We should look for them. They have to drink too, right?"

I glance around, but nothing seems to be here. The sand makes tracking prints impossible too. As far as I can see, we are the only things alive in this section of the arena - except for the trees ahead. The trees grow larger the closer we get. They're a kind I've never seen before, tall with long leaves and no visible branches. The shrubbery around them is lush and covers a carpet of green grass. It's the perfect oasis.

And it doesn't vanish the closer we get. No one dares to speak. It's like we're all afraid of jinxing it, of the Gamemakers sitting back and laughing at us. Of Claudius Templesmith telling the audience that what we're actually approaching is some kind of waterless, poisonous place. Maybe my mother and Pine are willing us to turn around this time. Maybe they have been since we turned into the boulder field instead of going to the forest.

The sound of wind rushing through the trees fills my ears. I've missed that sound. We finally reach the treeline. I reach my hand out and brush the rough, fuzzy trunk of the nearest tree.

"It's real," Lexi whispers.

But is there water here? I think. The Gamemakers wouldn't leave this without any water.

A small, tan rodent darts in front of us, hurrying into the bushes. The sight of it makes my heart swell with hope. As we walk deeper into the trees, a clearing begins to appear. Grass makes way into mud and gray-red pebbles. It slopes down into murky water, bubbling up from some underground well from the looks of it. The sight is like something from a dream. It makes me want to cry with relief. I still half don't even believe it's real. Up on the opposite bank, another one of those rodents sits drinking the water. At the sight of us, the tiny animal turns, fleeing into the shrubs.

I take a step forward.

Hendrix suddenly holds his arm out, blocking me. "We need to make sure it's clean."

"Make sure-" I pause, suddenly feeling stupid. Of course. Of course we need to. Drinking water like this might be fine for the rodents, but it could lead to some kind of sickness for us - disinfecting our water was one of the first lessons at the Training Center. I feel my face turn red. "So... we need to boil it?"

Hendrix shakes his head, pulling off his backpack. From the smaller front pocket, he takes out a bottle of iodine tablets. He takes an empty water bottle and dips it into the pond before dropping two of the iodine tablets into it. "Let's try this instead. It takes an hour. Much faster than building a fire - plus, no smoke."

I bite my lip - which, I hadn't realized until now, is chapped. An hour? For a moment it seems like too long to wait. But I have water in my backpack if we need any. I'm not going to die of thirst. I'll be okay.

I remind myself of that during the hour as we walk around the oasis, looking at the leafy plants and rare, colorful flower. I'm careful not to touch them - there have been too many Games with beautiful, poisonous plants. The oasis isn't very large, mostly just encapsulating the pond. Birds sing now and then, bugs buzzing through shafts of light shining down onto the sandy, grassy ground. We're fortunate to have gotten here when we did. It's noon by now, and the sun is at its fiercest. Here, though, the shade is cool.

When the hour is finally up, Hendrix tries the water. He shrugs. "Tastes a little funny, but it's clean."

As much as the Gamemakers would love to poison us, they won't allow us to use iodine and still die. It's one of the few dependable things about them.

"Probably tastes that way because it's from the sand," Lexi says. "All the water in Five tastes a little metal-y anyways."

We combine the partly-drunken bottles that we already have with water still in them, leaving one empty bottle to fill up now so that we won't waste any iodine tablets. Then we lounge around on the ground. Hendrix falls asleep, leaning against a tree with his backpack keeping him propped up.

Lexi draws pictures of cats and snails in the sand with a twig.

I take down my hair and try to comb it out. It's a bit difficult with the bandage wrapped around my temples, but it feels nice. It's something I'd do everyday at home, and complain about having to brush my hair. Now I wish I had a brush, and some soap. I look down at my fingers. Red dust is under my nails, dried blood at the cuticles.

"I'm sorry about your sibling."

I look up. Lexi is watching me, her drawing twig stuck in the sand, unmoving. For a moment, I don't reply. We both know she isn't talking about Pine, and how sad it is for him to have to watch his older sister in the Hunger Games. I know exactly what that feels like.

"Thanks," I finally say. I force a smile.

Lexi nods. "Caesar brought her up in the interview... it seemed wrong not to say anything."

I nod. "I appreciate it, Lexi."

I try not to remember back to those moments, sitting on the stage under the hot lights and watching Caesar's suit lightbulbs gleam and his crimson-dyed lips curl. Caesar Flickerman is the least hateable person in the Capitol, and I know he asked what he did to help generate Sponsor interest and get some sympathy for me, but it was still hard to maintain composure on stage. I knew what the audience was thinking: how unlucky that a family should have two children die in the Hunger Games.

We don't say her name much anymore. It's only been 6 years, but it almost feels like a lifetime.

Poor Mama.

I look down at my bloody fingernails.

I won't let her have a second dead child.