Goodness! I'm sorry this took so long, if anyone's still reading this! I know that I took basically forever and a day to upload, but I PROMISE I WILL finish this story! It just might take some time and patience. Anyway, lovely to see you again! Keep on reading! I know the beginning kind of goes in some disturbingly continuous circles, but you'll get there! :D
I've felt nothing since I woke up this morning. Nothing at all. Cass' voice sounded hollow and far away as he asked me whether or not I was well enough to take a watch, and I nodded back numbly. Ever since last night, the faces of my dead friends, the ones I killed and the ones I didn't, have flashed through my head in a constant death recap, the upbeat tune of the Panem anthem sounding like a slow funeral march. I begin to wonder what the point of not joining them now is. Why do I bother living this way, why bother trying win the Games if this is what my life will be? What do I have to live for? My mother, my father, Brooke. They'll move on, that's what people do. Annie. The thought pulls me up short, and I touch my necklace. The pearl I'd forgotten about. My token is supposed to remind me of my home, but now all I can remember of it is my promise to Annie to bring Cassius back to her. And, in the state I'm in, that promise is looking better and better. I need to live, for now, anyway, for Cassius. I know he can protect himself, but I shouldn't leave him just yet, not when I can still help him, right? Right? He has his family to go home to, the ones I know that would not last long if he died. No wonder Annie wants him to come home and not me.
Through my daydreaming I've failed to notice the slow descent of a parachute, right up until it lands right on my lap. I jump up, startled by the impact, and it takes me a few seconds to realize there's nothing to attack. I kneel down to the gift, in awe. Sponsors! We have sponsors! People, though they may not know us, want us to come home! It's as if everything around me has suddenly sharpened. Sound and colour comes rushing back into my mind. Everything from Cass' faint snores, to the crisp white of the snow around me is suddenly as clear as one of those Capitol TVs.
I reach for the shining silver canister with shaking hands and twist it open, pulling out…I gasp, waking up Cass, probably, but I don't notice as I pull the rest of the masterpiece out of the container.
A net, I think, as tears begin to slide their way down my face. I'm probably not looking very strong in the eyes of the sponsor of the Capitol right now, but I don't care, because I know where this came from. The rope is strong, yet flexible, and knotted together in the most intricate patterns I've ever seen. Well, no. I correct myself, a smile daring to make its way through the tears. No, I've seen this before. Draped on the wall at the Cresta's fishing shop.
Tears are threatening to come through for real now, but I know that if I let myself start crying for real right now I'll never stop. I quickly wipe the tears from my face and smile upwards with newfound strength. I know a camera will find me now and I lift the net up in my arms, not even being careful to be quiet.
"Thank you, to the people of my home, District 4. I have not forgotten you, and I'm honoured that you have not given up on us." I gesture to me and the lump of sleeping bag that is Cass. I guess he didn't wake up after all. "I hope we will continue to make you proud."
Several parachutes rain from the sky at the end of this speech and, laughing giddily, I dance my way out of their reach, as to not get knocked on the head. That would not look very heroic at all. I shake Cassius awake now, so he can share in my joy. He seems surprised to see me so happy, but he doesn't question it. Then, it's my turn to be surprised as when he sees the mass of parachutes that have landed around us, he shows a flicker of what almost looks like anger across his face. But it quickly disappears, and I'm left to do nothing but dismiss it as we pack our newfound toys away. Among the parachutes, we got an extra two knives, four loaves of bread, two headlamps, two packs of matches, and a single white pearl.
I toss the knives, one headlamp, and a box of matches to Cass and pack away my things, slipping the pearl quietly into my pocket. Maybe because I'm the girl or maybe because of my token, I somehow know that the pearl is for me. It doesn't take long to pack away the rest of our things and soon we're roaring up the hill on our snowmobile, following the next phase of our plan, explore the peak.
Our ride up takes most of the day, which I know because all there is to do that whole time is watch the sun make its path across the sky. I wonder if that really is even the sky, or the sun. Anyway, the snowmobile is much too loud, too loud for us to talk, but it's much faster than traveling by foot and I know that even if we've given our position away to a few tributes, we'll be gone fast enough anyway. Besides, whose there left to be afraid of? Ten people left, and half of them are my friends. I wonder where Willow, Jayden, and Ash are now, and whether they've been affected by the death of Spencer. What if whatever killed him wounded them too?
Soon the "what if"s are flying through my head and I do my best to push them aside. Still, I can't help be worried for my friends. The only reason I agreed to going up the mountain was to hopefully find them along way.
We reach a plateau just below the peak by late afternoon and decide to eat some of our bread. I suppose that's about when, while I was grudgingly admiring the view from the plateau that we realized we had no water.
"Well, water flows down-" Cassius starts encouragingly.
"Down to the moat of disgusting-ness." I growl, cutting him off. He looks somewhat amused, for some reason.
"Well, water flows down, so continuing our plan upwards isn't an awful idea."
"I doubt there's any more water up there than there is down here." I argue, looking around helplessly.
"You're right," He says, somewhat calmly, but I can tell he's just trying not to show he's irritated. "We have just as much a chance of finding water down here as up there but it's still poss-" I cut him off again, realizing, with a shock and a laugh, how stupid we are. I drop down next to my bag and begin rummaging through to find…
"Aha!" I say, pulling out my water bottle, which is bone dry.
"What are you-" Cass begins to asks but I'm ignoring, as usual. I shove handfuls of the snow into my bottle and motion for him to do the same. He stands there, frozen for a second, then begins laughing as he understands. He fill up our bottles and screw them tightly shut, then shove them back into the depths of our bags.
"Right." I say, standing up, "So what now?" I can see from here that the peak ends with a large cave, the entrance maybe three times my height and the whole cave itself maybe three quarters of a mile above us, and very, very steep. We can take the snowmobile up there. I brace myself to begin arguing with what I know Cassius will want to do.
"We go up." He says simply.
"Cass-" I begin to argue, but I'm cut off short when a voice from behind me beats me to it.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you." A girl's voice says warningly. I tense, pulling a spear from my back, but the voice sounds fairly calm. I take a deep breath and spin around, lunging forward with my spear.
I hear a yelp and see a flurry of motion as a figure half-rolls and half-dives away from my attack. Then the girl moves steadily to her feet, not facing me, and all at once the voice clicks in my head. I drop my spear and run towards her, tackling her to the ground, but in a hug.
"WILLOW!" I shriek. "You scared the crap out of me!"
She's laughing, even though I nearly killed her, and we slowly pull ourselves to our feet, me, in tears for the second time that day. We turn back to Cass as he interrupts us, saying,
"What do you mean? About the peak, I mean?" He says to Willow, clearly trying to continue on his strange quest upwards.
"There's a monster in that cave. We call it the Yeti, because it reminds me of the stories we used to hear back in District 7 about a great, white monster of the mountains. It's brutal, and about as big as that cave door too."
While Cass takes his time being strangely frustrated by this, it's my turn to question Willow. "The…ah, Yeti. Is that what happened to…you know…to Spencer?" His name brings a fresh swarm of tears to my eyes that I quickly wipe away.
Willow watches me sympathetically, then replies in a gentle whisper. "No, it was Titus who did that." Her voice grows sharper as she continues. "He is inhuman, Alexis. He tried to eat him."
"What!?" I yelp.
She nods vigourously. "Spencer was scouting ahead for us, because we were near the Career camp. We heard the cannon, and we knew we were too late but we ran to him anyway. Titus would've finished us all off if they hadn't electrocuted him."
"They, you mean the Gamemakers?"
She gives a small smirk, her voice hard with the irony of it. "Yeah, apparently it was too gruesome for the Capitolites." I give a hollow laugh, but it isn't funny. Our deaths won't be too gruesome for them to stop. In fact, they're encouraging them.
"Willow?" I hear someone call from the trees to our right. "Willow!"
"Here! I'm okay!" She calls back, grinning at me. "They're going to be happy to see you."
Ash and Jayden burst through the trees, charging straight at Cassius and me. And they're armed.
I laugh happily, dodging under Jayden's swing and catch him in a hug. It's exactly what happened between Willow and me just a few minutes ago, she shares the laugh with me, Jayden joining us as soon as he realizes he's not in danger.
"Willow!" Ash calls. "What's going on?" He wisely kept away from fighting Cassius, as he holds only a sharpened stick as a weapon. Now that I'm looking for it, I see that Jayden has only a two-inch pocketknife and Willow wields a slingshot and some pebbles.
"You're getting a better weapon is what's going on." I call over. I see his eyes narrow in on me, and his shoulders visibly relaxes with a sigh of relief. "Alexis!" He calls, and I run over to hug him. It feels as though these people have been my friends for life.
"Ash, Jayden, Willow," I say smiling. "Meet your new ally, Cassius Achille."
Cass, who's been standing uncomfortably at the edge of the plateau, raises a hand. "Hi."
Ash and Willow's eyebrows shoot up, but Jayden says simply, "If you trust him, we trust him, Alexis." and then they nod, although a bit warily.
Cass puts his hands in a surrender position, although a bit jokingly. "Look, you're allied to a girl whose basically my sister. I'm not going to try anything that puts her or me in danger. And, if you're truly her friends, then I trust you too." This seems to put them at ease a bit more, but I think the bond really started when Cass unlatched one of his sword's hip holsters and handed it, handle first, to Ash. "There's a better weapon for you. I can teach you to use, if you want."
Ash hesitates, glancing at me, and I try to give him an encouraging nod. He grips the handle firmly. "Thanks, ally."
I grin, and turn to the other two. I look at the slingshot, then the little pocketknife. "Hmmm. Here, take these." I pull out two of the knives I've hidden in my pockets, I guess that technically makes them pocketknives, but the pockets to these clothes are deep and have successfully concealed two knives of about thirteen inches each. "These'll do better for you." I say, twisting them around and handing them to Jayden, who takes the knives with trembling hands. "Willow," I say, making a quick decision, I pull one of my precious spears off my back and press the scabbard into her hands. "I hope you have good aim."
Willow pulls out the spear, which is as tall as her, and plants it firmly on the ground, examining the metal pointed tip. Then she smiles. "Come on, let's get settled at camp." And she leads the way, with me following, smiling from ear to ear.
I can't promise my next update will be tomorrow or next month, but it WILL happen! Leave a review if you can, it really motivates me!