My breath came short as I fought to keep up with Justin's swift movements. We ran through an open field of dried shafts of yellowing weed, the bulbous sun beating down from above. Sweat dripped down my face and arms, stinging various wounds that had been recently opened. There was a shrill shrieking from all around us, but I didn't dare move my gaze from the dark confines of the forest ahead. As much as I hated walking in the gloom of the trees it was now my salvation.
I feel a tight ball of feathery tuft hit me in the back of my neck and the cold bite of a sharp beak tear deep into my flesh. Another beak took hold of my shoulder and another hit the small of my back. I couldn't help it. I was down on the ground with the force of the third missile and was rolling to face my attackers. Raising a hand behind a shoulder, I removed the thing chewing on my neck and then took hold of my sword.
Thousands upon thousands of tiny, red birds circled above me, their beaks gleaming like silver in the sunlight. One of the Biters was still attached to my shoulder and I fell heavily against it, feeling tiny bones crumbling beneath my weight. The third squirmed out from beneath my back and flew to join his companions in their attack. They swarmed far above into a deadly funnel that blotted out the sun and threw me into shadow.
"Emma!" Justin had finally realized I had fallen behind.
I hear him begin to make his way back and scramble to my feet, holding out my sword before me. A group of birds break away and spiral down to me as I swing my blade to meet them. Several bodies thud at my feet and I turn to Justin who is closer to the trees than to me.
"Get into the forest!" I shout, wiping away blood that threatened to blur my vision. "I'll be right behind you!"
Our journey to approach the falls had eventually led us here as we had been guided by a river towards the closest waterfall. The river had snaked through the seemingly empty field and rising above the trees not far from us was our goal. We had stopped to drink and only had a few mouthfuls of the sweet water when it happened. A line of diluted blood had drifted past before the river instantly dried up with the sound of a canon blast. Just like that another tribute was gone and the river bed looked like it had never carried water.
Out of the cracks of dirt came the birds and we quickly realized that they were an instrument of the gamemakers. They fed off of our flesh and were driven mad by the blood they gained. It was like they had been born from the dead tribute's blood and perhaps they were. It didn't really matter at the moment. Not even the threat of the Careers could take precedence over this.
Another flock tore towards me, bigger this time and shrieking with the grating sound of twisting metal. The sound was driving me to the brink of insanity and I was tempted to close my ears, to fall to the ground in a fetal position. Tempted, but not going through with it. The birds would tear me apart then and I wasn't about to die from tiny feather creatures. Imagine how the Capitol would laugh at me. Emma Price, the girl who couldn't survive the tiny birds.
I hack at the new wave of birds, sending some to the ground and blocking several others. One or two got in through my defences, latching onto my neck and finding their way in past my jackets covering. I convulsed at the feeling of the foreign bird squirming around and bit back a cry when it dug at my side. Desperately I punched at the quivering lump inside my jacket until it let go, turning to run into Justin.
He takes me around the shoulders and tears the bird off of my neck, throwing it to the ground and crushing it beneath a boot.
"I'm not leaving you behind." he tells me, his eyes fierce. "You're my sister and I will fight for you."
Without another word we start off into a run, my body protected beneath my brother's arms. The funnel of Biters follows from above and I spare a glance to see it twisting like a needle down to us. Before I can even scream a warning, the mouth of the funnel lands above our heads and the birds attack, tearing at whatever is in their reach. I raise my sword against them, but there is too many and our view of our nearby forest salvation is blocked out.
My feet begin to leave the ground as the thousands of sliver beaks pick us up into their funnel. I fight to keep running, but the tread of my boots slowly loose traction with the dirt and weeds and then, unexpectedly we break free.
We are thrown forward with the force of our release and are only stopped when our bodies meet with the sturdy form of a tree. The shrieking cries of the Biters instantly die down and I am left with an empty ringing in both my ears. Groaning with a face full of damp leaves and moss, I turn onto a sore back and watch the birds retreat back into the ground. I let out a steady sigh of relief, slumping back against the tree and opening cramped fingers from around my swords hilt.
Justin turns to sit up and I get my first real look at the damage the birds had caused. Grimy lines of blood ran from various cuts along his face and neck, his clothes stained dark red from where the Biters had gotten past the cloth. Twin trails of thinning blood leaked from both his ears and I touched mine to feel the same. The shrieking had damaged our hearing while their beaks had damaged everything else.
"They must be trained to stay within the field." he observes.
His voice sounds distant and dull to my partially deaf hearing and I work my jaw until I feel my ears pop. Picking up my sword, I stand and wipe off the smear of blood and feathers before replacing it inside my pack. I wipe a hand across my stinging face and go to help Justin up only to stop at an uncomfortable aching on the side of my torso. Unzipping the jacket, I reach inside and remove the limp form of a Biter. I only had a fraction of a second to study it before it dissolved into dust, leaving behind a few feathers and a silver beak.
Justin pulls himself up beside me and pokes a finger in the dust, moving the beak around until it shone at the end of my fingers.
"Do you think it might be able to come back or something?" he questions.
I frown, grimly taking his question into consideration. It was our second day in the Hunger Games and we had both come to the conclusion that nothing was impossible. Justin's question was serious.
"Like a phoenix from the ashes?" I ask, following his thought process.
"Something like that."
We watch the mound of dirt apprehensively, but nothing happens and I dump it at the foot of the trees. I look out to the field where patches of the dried river bed peaked through the yellow husks. There is a flicker of red as the last of the Biters retreated into the ground and my shoulders sagged with the desertion of my pent up adrenaline. The absence of the sound that should come from rushing falls dragged on me and I turn my back on the field.
A tribute had died recently, causing the end of the water's flow and the birth of the birds. I wasn't sure if the death was natural or if it had been caused by an alliance of Careers. My thoughts quickly blamed the latter, but something told me that it might not be the case. I found myself picking through the close trees until I found where the river had entered the forest and followed it away from the field. Justin was close beside me, not even questioning what I was doing or where I was going. He had probably come to the same conclusion and was curious over what might have killed the tribute.
Soon we approach our answer, albeit without a body to confirm exactly what had happened. What we found was a scattering of supplies and several empty shells of what looked like black scorpions. I watch Justin kick a few of the ugly scorpions and look up to the tree where most of the supplies were gathered.
On a branch not far from the ground hung an empty sleeping bag with a belt that had been snapped in two. Attached just below the branch was a camouflaged nest that would have gone unnoticed if part of it hadn't been broken into. It appeared to have been kicked in and the creatures within had been forced to defend their home.
"Emma, over here."
Tearing my gaze away from the destroyed nest, I join Justin next to the riverbed where it ran just under the tree. He crouched over a particularly large stone set in the middle and ran his fingers over it. I sink to my haunches beside him and see a wash of blood faded against the stones surface, the water having thinned it before disappearing.
"They fell into the river." I murmur. "That's all that killed them."
"Well I'm sure those things from the tree helped a little." Justin replies. "Come on."
He rises and helps me up, returning to the abandoned supplies he had arranged into a neat pile. He took up a bag and rummaged through its contents, pulling out a canteen that sloshed noisily with its contents. As I approach he tosses me the bag and opens the canteen, taking a cautious sniff before drinking deeply. Feeling guilty for taking from the dead, I look through the bag until I find a smaller canteen and a couple of apples. One of the apples had already been started into and was no doubt put away for later, but it was still fresh.
With my teeth I unscrew the canteen and drink from it, feeling the cool wash of water sooth my torn throat. I had never known before now how fantastic water could taste and before I knew it I had finished the container. Gasping and wiping my mouth, I dropped it back into the bag and handed Justin an apple, biting into the half-eaten one as I search through the rest of the supplies. It wasn't long before I found a pack of disinfectant wipes and began cleaning the various cuts all along my body.
Wincing at the sharp sting of the disinfectant, I gave my brother the wipes as soon as he discarded his apple core.
"So, carnivorous birds that come from the ground," began Justin grimly as he wiped at his face, "Massive scorpions that live in the trees…What else do you think their diabolical minds have come up with?"
"Oh right." I scoff, throwing away the bloody wipe. "I start naming a few twisted creatures and give the gamemakers more ideas on what to hunt us. Not on your life, Rags."
Justin glances at me in surprise and then smirks at my use of his childhood nickname. He had been on a little leagues soft ball team before we had reached our double digits. The team hadn't won a game until the very end of the season and Justin had scored the winning points. It only took a slide into home base and for about a month Justin refused to wear anything besides his uniform. The cloth was turning to rags by the time he was forced to remove it and so his nickname was born.
I smile fondly at the memory only to have it disappear when I remember where I stood; in an arena with killer Careers, far from home and any raggedy baseball uniform.
"We should get going." I say, hefting my pack over a shoulder.
Justin nods. "What's the plan?"
"The same one as before…Stay alive and avoid the Careers. I'm thinking we head to the dead fall to set up camp before the gamemakers drop the night on us."
"Doesn't seem so far away," Justin remarks, gazing around us, "We should probably hurry."
We do a last pick through of the dead tribute's supplies, gathering a few short knives and gaining a crude bow and quiver with six arrows. Justin shoulders the quiver and carries the bow, his confident expression saying more about his skill than words could. I follow him into the dry riverbed and we travel further into a forest quickly falling into darkness.
It would be night soon and with it would come the announcement of fallen tributes. So far two had died; the redhead at our first campsite and the one we had left behind. The unidentified tribute weighed on me along with the previous night's tribute announcement. Before I knew it I had drawn up beside Justin and was preparing to breach a subject I never thought I would talk about.
"Justin," I begin, feeling dread well up with his unspoken answer. "Last night, during the anthem, what faces did you see?"
He was silent for a moment, his eyes directly ahead even when his gaze was distant.
"There were seven I recognized as one of us." he tells me after some time. "Six of them I knew died during the beginning, but the last one, a girl…She must have been the one we heard scream last night."
"Which means that five of the Careers were killed," I say, thinking out loud, "And with Clayton still out there, there might be four of us left."
"That's only if a Career died back there." says Justin, nodded back the way we came from.
I fell silent, reminded of why I had brought up the subject. Once again I found it harder to breath and I felt at a chest was becoming increasingly tighter.
"The Careers that you saw last night…Did any of them-"
"Look like your male tribute?" Justin asks, cutting me off and finishing my question all at once. "No, but I wouldn't get your hopes up on his being alive. Not until the anthem tonight."
Silently I agree with him, but I couldn't shake the awful feeling of Ronen somehow getting into trouble. It was a silly thought and a dangerous one that distracted me from the important issue of staying alive. Still, Ronen remained at the forefront of my mind and no doubt would stay there until I saw his face. Whether I wanted to see it above in the sky or in front of me I didn't know. Deep down I knew I was too scared to find out which, realizing my answer would only come when I was confronted with the all too real situation.