A/N: Thanks to mangesboy01 and Oxenstierna D. Yuki-Rin for reviewing!
I'd also like to thank everyone who's stuck with this story through the last ninety chapters, as we've just hit FORTY THOUSAND VIEWS. I imagined that if I'd managed to keep this story up it might get rather popular, but never anything on this scale. The support means a lot to me, and to a large degree is what keeps me motivated to update frequently, I hope you will agree that I've been doing throughout the last six months. So thanks a lot, everyone :)
In other news, I'm in a Mortal Engines Quartet mood once again, so if you're a fan of my writing in general, expect an ME fanfic in the coming weeks. If anyone out there's read that series, you'll probably appreciate it. If not (and I suspect most of you haven't), please spend five minutes of your time looking it up. They are by far the greatest books I've ever read, and ultimately my inspiration to write. Aside from that, I'm almost always unintentionally referencing them... I think there's one reference to Infernal Devices (the original story by Philip Reeve, not the Cassandra Clare trilogy of the same name - I need to refrain before I begin another of my 'Cassandra Clare stole from ME' rants) in this chapter, actually.
But back to the Hunger Games. Today's chapter's been a pain to write, as I've got very little freedom to write what I want in this scene. But it's an important moment in the Games, so unfortunately there's no way around it. The dialogue is taken from Chapter 23 of 'Catching Fire', by the way.
Hopefully you'll still enjoy the chapter anyway :)
"Vendetta, sweet vendetta
This Beretta of the night
This fire and the desire
Well, shots ringing out on a holy parasite."
- Billie-Joe Armstrong, 2009.
The 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Third Quarter Quell) - Day 2, 1.30 pm
Wiress Duncan (39), District 3 Female (victor of the 53rd Annual Hunger Games)
Green Day - Peacemaker (2009)
Wake up.
I come to my senses quickly, trying to become aware of where I am. I'm on the circular beach that surrounds the cornucopia here in the arena, staring up at the pink sky.
"Tick, tock!" I tell Katniss hurriedly as I see her standing over me. I've understood this arena since last night with Blight, Johanna and Beetee, but none of the other victors have been able to understand me, even though I've been spelling it out for them. I blame it on my new allies' inability to comprehend me, and Beetee's reluctance to serve as a translator for me.
"Yes, tick, tock, the arena's a clock," Katniss says, still standing over me as I sit up in the sand, looking around at my group of allies. Johanna, who seems as cold-hearted and determined as ever. Beetee, my district partner, my only true friend in life, gravely injured. We've tried to keep him with us for the plan, for Katniss, but we can't deny that we're struggling. Katniss had taken to treating him herself, and I daresay she's done better than the rest of us put together. Then there's our new allies; Finnick, Katniss and Peeta. Together, we have a chance of putting Plutarch's plan into action. I haven't been told everything (some of the Capitol people thought that I was mad - personally I prefer the term differently sane), but I know that Beetee and his wire are crucial to whatever we've been instructed to do by the powers that be. Maybe, with all six of us, we might be able to succeed in our mission, even though half of us don't know of its existence.
"It's a clock, Wiress, you were right," Katniss tells me, and I feel elated that someone other than Beetee has been able to understand me, to comprehend my suggestion. "You were right."
"Midnight," I tell her. That's when it began, when the clock struck twelve over the arena last night, and the rain fell near us. We travelled towards the thunderstorm, only for it to turn to blood rain, in which we lost Blight, Johanna's district partner. Then, just as the lightning storm had done before it, the blood rain ceased in an instant, and the poison of fog became the next horror in a sequence of traps circling clockwise around the arena. Clockwise.
"It starts at midnight," Katniss confirms. At least I'm no longer the only one who understands, even though I feel certain that Beetee knows too, even if he's chosen to keep the information to himself so far in the Games. That being said, he's suffering so much that he probably hasn't paid much attention to the arena since getting a knife in the back at the cornucopia yesterday morning, and probably doesn't care too much about his surroundings at the moment either. That being said, I've kept to myself mostly in the last day, trying not to trigger the memories of my Games that have haunted me less and less in the twenty years that have separated me from the arena.
Realising how little attention I've paid to my surroundings since I've woken, I search for a sign of the time. My eyes quickly settle on the red wall in the jungle, signalling that it is currently the hour of blood rain.
"One-thirty," I guess, trying to be helpful to Katniss since we are now, to a degree, at least, on the same wavelength.
"Exactly. One-thirty," she replies. "And at two, a terrible poisonous fog begins there," Katniss explains, pointing to a nearby stretch of jungle. "So we have to move somewhere safe now."
I pull myself to my feet, ready to leave, but Katniss still wants to talk to me. "Are you thirsty?" she asks, and she hands me a woven bowl filled with warm water. Not hot, but warm. The same temperature as everything else in this arena. I drink from it thirstily. I haven't had a drink since last night, before we lost Blight. Finnick hands me some bread, and I realise how hungry I am, too. Still, I savour it, taking small bites rather than wolfing it down all at once.
Everyone else is now ready to leave before the gas arrives except for Beetee, who struggles to move himself due to his injuries, plus the fact that he's still half out of it. "Wire," he says, objecting when Peeta tries to lift him, to move him away from the poison gas section.
"She's right here," Peeta tells Beetee, referring to me. "Wiress is fine. She's coming, too." However, I am not what Beetee is after.
"Oh, I know what he wants," Johanna interjects frustratedly, crossing the beach to grab his coil of copper wire. After the traumas of the night, it's coated in blood. "This worthless thing," Johanna says, returning with it. "It's some kind of wire or something. That's how he got cut. Running up to the cornucopia to get this. I don't know what kind of weapon it's supposed to be. I guess you could pull off a piece and use it as a garrotte or something. But really, can you imagine Beetee garrotting somebody?"
I certainly can't. Beetee may be cold and calculating at times, but he's not the murdering type. Still, the wire will be of use to him. I'm sure of it.
"He won his Games with wire," Peeta explains, mirroring my thoughts. "Setting up that electrical trap. It's the best weapon he could have."
"Seems like you'd have figured that out," Katniss says, taking a jab at Johanna. I already get the feeling that the two won't last long without taking each other out of the game. "Since you nicknamed him Volts and all."
"Yeah, that was really stupid of me, wasn't it?" Johanna retorts, glaring back at Katniss. "I guess I must have been distracted by keeping your little friends alive. While you were... what, again? Getting Mags killed off?"
For a moment, I'm scared that the two girls are about to make a move on each other, that our alliance is about to lose another of its members. Then suddenly Johanna speaks out, breaking the silence.
"Go ahead," Johanna dares Katniss. "Try it. I don't care if you are knocked up, I'll rip your throat out."
Johanna's threats hang in the air for a few more tense moments until Finnick interjects. Surely he realises that we can't afford to be fighting among ourselves? "Maybe we had all better be careful where we step," he says cautiously, trying not to ignite tempers. He takes the wire and hands it to Beetee. "There's your wire, Volts," he tells him. "Watch where you plug it."
Now satisfied with his wire, Beetee seems less reluctant to being carried, and Peeta picks him up with ease. "Where to?" he asks.
"I'd like to go to the cornucopia and watch," Finnick says. "Just to make sure we're right about the clock." I suppose he has a point. We'd better make absolutely sure. False assumptions could be fatal in the arena.
It takes us several minutes to travel the short distance to the cornucopia, what with the burdens of Beetee and our supplies to hinder us. We approach cautiously, fearful that the Careers might be camped there. However when we arrive, we are only greeted by the large golden horn, picked clean of supplies.
Peeta lays Beetee down in the sand where it is shaded by the cornucopia, and calls over to me. I head over towards him, and he places the coil of wire in my hands. "Clean it, will you?" he asks me.
I oblige, and walk the short distance towards the shore. For a moment, I have to pause as another flashback of the icy mountains around the cornucopia in the 53rd Games spring to mind, but I quell the thought with a happier, more peaceful one of my childhood. I content myself with singing an old song to myself, one that my mother used to sing to me back at home in District 3, when I was very young. After all these years and the traumas that I have been through in my life, I'm amazed that I can even remember it, but somehow I do. It may be nonsensical, but it calms me.
I get to the water's edge and start to wash the coil of wire in the waves. It's an easy job, and somewhat relaxing. There's a nice rhythm to it. Dunk. Turn. Drain. Dunk. Turn. Drain. Between that and the singing, I manage to almost completely block out my dire situation. Then, glancing upwards for a moment, I see the first of the poison fog seep out onto the beach. I stand up, pointing out to sea to grab the attention of my allies. "Two," I tell them, hoping that they will understand me.
"Yes, look, Wiress is right," Katniss agrees with me, staring at the fog. "It's two o'clock and the fog has started."
"Like clockwork," Peeta adds, complimenting me once more. "You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress." I merely smile and return to my calming work.
For the next few minutes, I block out the conversation of my allies, and continue to dunk the coil in the water even after it is completely clean. It's strangely therapeutic, and I enjoy it. I continue singing to myself, oblivious from the world until I notice two dark shapes beneath the waves. At first I think nothing of them. Then peering closer, I see that they are people. Other tributes. I must warn the others.
I turn to warn my allies at the cornucopia, but just as I am about to give a warning cry, I feel a wet, forceful hand on my back, on my chest, pushing my neck backwards, a sudden and instantaneous explosion of pain that renders me incapable of anything but suffering. I struggle to scream, and it takes me a moment to realise that the pain is coming from a gash in my throat that severed my vocal chords. Stars fl;ash in front of my eyes as I feel the grip on my shoulder weaken and faintly hear a splash behind me that I assume to be my assailant dropping back below the waves. But really, it doesn't matter what it is anymore. Nothing does.
As everything fades to black, I collapse backwards into the water, the coil of wire still in my hands.
A/N: Hopefully there was enough originality in this one. As ever, constructive criticism is welcomed in reviews :)
I've now covered 16 of the 24 perspectives in the Quell. Hopefully by the end of next week (twelve days' time), I'll be done with the Quell and the final oneshots of this very long story :)
P.S. Look up Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines. You all know that you want to ;)
