"Jas-!" I drop into a deep part of the pond, almost 10 feet down, touch the bottom, dig my feet into it, and try to push off to get back up, but my feet are stuck to the bottom of the pond.
I can't hold my breath for a very long time, so I start grabbing my legs and tugging on them to lift my feet, but they're stuck.
My feet sink even further, and then the muddy water yuck is up to my knees, then my thighs, then...just as it reaches my waist, I see a giant splash on the surface. Jason appears with a vine in his hand. He puts the vine in my hands and I grab it. I feel someone pulling on it, Peter, and I almost lose my grip, but then I realize I've been underwater too long... I have the feeling of breathing water in through my nose.
I have the sensation of having muddy water on my feet and think to myself...How'd muddy water get on my feet? We were driving...then the jeep...the pond...I fell in...
I wake up leaning against a broken tree trunk, a fire in front of me... It takes my eyes a second to adjust to the bright orange and yellow fire, but I make it out, along with a familiar face looking down at me.
"Sophie? Are you okay?" It's Peter.
"I..." I begin coughing and then I lose what little food I had in my stomach from when we were being given crackers in the cells.
"Here," Peter hands me a bit of moss, and I'm such a disaster I can't even argue against using it. I begin to clean myself up.
I wipe off my mouth, my running nose, and then Peter hands me a leaf that's tied in a cone shape, tight enough to hold water, I drink thirstily.
"Where'd you get clean water?" I ask.
"There's a fresh water stream a little ways that way," he says pointing into the woods.
"Where's Ja-?"
I'm answered by Jason walking back to our little campfire carrying a squirrel by the tail.
"Dinner is being prepared," he says, cleaning the squirrel and putting it over the fire to cook.
"Mmm," I say, smelling the cooking meat, "Wait, what about the smoke?"
"Oh, I think our friends have...," he gives a faint smile, "other things to do."
Peter laughs.
"What did you do?" I ask.
"When you were out, our friends came to find us," Jason says.
"And?" I wonder how Jason and Peter scared them off when the others were surely armed.
"Well, let's just say...their jeep ended up...very dirty," Jason says.
"They drove into the pond!?" I ask in astonishment.
"Mhm," Peter says.
"There'll be more jeeps coming to find the missing one though," I say, reaching for a leaf filled with water to dump on the fire.
"Sophie, don't!" Jason grabs the leaf and pours it on to the grass.
"But, they'll find us!" I yell at him.
"We won't be here to find," Jason says.
"We're gonna leave the fire filled with green leaves and dry wood, to make lots of smoke, and make it look like we're staying. But really, we're gonna be running that way while they waste time here thinking were close by," Peter explains.
"Oh, sorry," I say, embarrassed.
"No problem," Jason says, taking the squirrel off the fire and cutting it into little pieces with his knife.
"Here," Jason hands Peter and me some meat, and we start walking away from the fire as we eat.
"What happened to the people in thirteen ya think?" I ask as we walk.
"Anything, could've been blown up, their tents searched for any kind of information they wanted, anyone could be killed, or left there to wake up confused," Jason says, then turns around to face me, and his expression shows real pain.
"They'll be okay," I tell him.
He turns back to the woods and we continue on until night falls.
We don't light a fire. We instead gather pine needles to sleep on and cover ourselves with them to stay warm.
I fall asleep wondering how long this will continue, us running from the Capitol, from Freddy, from the president. When will they finally catch us?...I drift off.
I wake up and immediately notice a shift in the air behind me. I turn around to find a large man wearing black holding a gun to my neck, grabbing my arms, covering my mouth.
I look around and find Peter in the same position.
Jason is fighting against the guard trying to get him with his knife. The guard is frantically talking to someone over a walkie-talkie while it seems like the person is telling him what to do.
Jason has the guard right in front of him. Jason's knee is holding the guard's gun towards the ground. Jason's knife is aimed toward the guard, and for a moment it seems like Jason's winning.
Then another guard exits the jeep they came in and grabs Jason by the back, forcing him away from the first guard, but the guard wasn't expecting for the gun to be released from underneath Jason's knee, so in the guard's confusion he pushes down on the trigger as Jason's grabbed away. A loud snapping sound bursts out of the gun, and Jason falls backwards onto the ground.
Then there are masks over my eyes and ropes around my arms.
We're shoved into the jeep as I struggle against the ropes screaming Jason's name, never getting a reply. I'm shoved into the jeep next to someone I believe is Peter, and then the jeep's engine starts and we begin along the path we came from, I assume.
After a while the jeep stops. I'm pulled into a cool room with metal floors that I can't see, and I'm left on the floor. I hear a loud CLONG!
As far as I know, I'm now alone in a room. I don't hear anything anyway. I use my fingers to untie my hands enough, so I can scoot the cloth around my eyes, and I see Freddy looking down at me from a chair on the other side of the room.
I'm so angry at him I don't hesitate to bolt right at him, wanting to rip his hair out, to kick him in the face, to...I hit a thick glass shield that's been set up in front of him. Why'd I think I'd be allowed to get to him? He's safe, just like always.
"Where is he?!" I yell at him. "Where's Jason?!"
"He's safe for now. But if you continue to come after me like that, then you can assume he won't be," he says.
I ran into the glass so hard that my nose is now gushing blood. I use the black cloth that was around my eyes to stop the worst of it.
"Sophie, I only came to talk to you," he says from the other side of his force field.
I wiggle my hands out of their ropes the rest of the way, and then
I rip the cloth off my mouth.
"Ah, good work, but I have to admit, those were only meant to stay on until you got here," Freddy says.
"What are you doing this for? You already got your money," I say, disgusted with him.
"Ah, there's always another job, and I was already here, so why not bring you back again for another bag full of money?" He says, as if it's the most obvious way to earn money.
"You're disgusting," I tell him.
"Now Sophie, I understand you dislike me, but we have an offer for you, to earn your friend's safety, Jason, wasn't it?" He says.
I remain silent, mildly interested.
"Well, you know all about the Deathmatch, and we were wondering if you'd be a tribute, if we set Jason free?" he asks.
"No! For all I know he's already dead! Your goon shot him!" I say, having seen what happened when the guards took us, I'm not at all interested in what Freddy has in mind.
"Well, I can assure you he is not dead." He answers.
"Ya, okay, sure. Because I'm totally gonna trust you!" I yell at him.
"I was afraid I'd have to do this. Oh well, MARTY!" he yells. Then the door opens and a man in a black suit pulls Jason in. He's still blindfolded with a sloppily wrapped piece of cloth around his leg where the guard shot him.
"Jason! Don't do it! They're lying! They won't let us leave!" I yell to him.
"What are you talking about!" he yells back. The man Freddy called Marty forces Jason to his knees.
"But...I thought that..." I stammer.
"Well Sophie, if you wish to change your mind, you have one minute," Freddy says.
"One minute before what!" I yell.
"Well, if you won't go to the Deathmatch willingly, you'll go by force, and if you go by force, we won't have any use for him anymore," Freddy points at Jason.
"But..." I get it. If I do what they say, Jason gets to be set free. If I don't do what they say, then they'll kill him, and I'll STILL have to do what they say anyway. For Freddy, this is a win, win.
"You have one minute," Freddy says, Marty and him walk out, leaving Jason on the other side of the glass.
"What's going on?" he asks, yanking the cloth off his eyes after wiggling his hands out of the carelessly tied ropes. He is leaning against the chair Freddy occupied moments ago, tightening the cloth around his leg.
"Are you okay?" I ask, not sure what to say.
"I'm greeaat," he says, stretching the "Aaa" out in a sarcastic tone.
"I swear if he's lying..." I whisper, "Take care of my family Jason," I say, out of options.
"What? No! I'm not leaving you here!" he yells moving from the chair to the glass and trying to break it.
"You have to, just go. Don't come back. They don't want you for anything. If I don't become a tribute, they're gonna kill you," I slide down the wall of my cell, putting my head to my knees, my arms around my head.
"No, I can't!" He tells me, realizing I'm right, looking down at his leg, knowing that he wasn't who they really wanted.
"You have to," I say.
Freddy and Marty come back in.
"Come to a conclusion?" Freddy asks.
I nod.
"Well?"
"Let him go," I tell Freddy.
"I knew you would make the right choice," Freddy signals to Marty and another guard, and they grab Jason's arms and begin taking him out. Freddy follows behind them.
"Sophie! No! Don't! I won't leave you! No wait! I won't let them win! I prom-!" The door closes, and I'm left alone in the metal cell.
I sit around for what feels like hours.
I think about what Jason said before he was taken away. I won't let them win! I prom-. If I ever see Jason again, which is next to impossible, I'll ask him to tell me what he was going to say. Although I know he was going to say "I promise." I'll never know 100%. For all I know, it could've been "I promise, I'll never come back."
He's pulling me through a field of roses, Jason's actually laughing for the first time since Maysilee died, but then I see Maysilee at the other side of the field, smiling and playing with Eli. I try to reach her, but the roses turn to water and I start sinking. Jason yells to me as I sink, "I won't let them win!" I sink into a world filled with black rocks and dark clouds. All the sudden Freddy is there, shoving me around, telling me what to do, and I always do it. Now I hear another voice, "Sophie, the leader, the star, the spark!" It's Victoria.
By the time I wake up, I'm shaking, sweating, and screaming.
I sit in the corner, shaking, for awhile. Then my fear is replaced with anger, and I pound on the cement walls until my hands are raw.
I eventually stop, curl up in a ball on the ground, and shut my eyes tight. I almost fall asleep, but I refuse to go back into the dark with Freddy ordering me around.
I wonder about where Jason is right now. A small chance exists that he's been released, an even smaller chance he's with his family and mine, and a much larger chance remains that Freddy was lying and he's already been killed.
I force myself to stay awake for almost a full 24 hours, then there's a tube that slides out from the ceiling. It has a door on one side. I decide I need to get out of this cell, and I place my foot carefully into the circular tube, then the rest of my body. I'm just about to step back out when the door closes behind me.
Oh no, now I've gone and done it. I've walked straight into the tube that probably leads to my worst nightmares.
The tube begins raising me up through darkness, and then all the sudden, I'm lifted into sunlight. I've been in that dark cell so long that I'm blinded temporarily. I'm outside. When my vision starts to work, it closes in on a large screen with the numbers 30, 29, 28, 27, flashing on it.
I realize I'm not outside just anywhere. I look to my left, I look to my right. I see faces of other children, most of them much older than I. I'm in the Deathmatch. The arena around me isn't just woods like the Deathmatch my sister, Maysilee, was in, but this arena has a large sandy area. Desert, the word comes to mind, and I suppose I've heard it in school at some point.
The timer on the large screen is nearing 0. I'm wondering where to go, what to do, whether to walk off my plate and surrender to these games that I have no chance of winning, or possibly to go out fighting, maybe even make it to the center of the field, grab a weapon, and take out my anger on the randomly reaped children around me. Though I know my chances of even taking out one are slim. When the gong rings out, I realize there are three places I could go.
The woods that are right behind me, the large desert to my left, or to the center.
I don't hesitate to run straight to the woods.
I run until I'm consumed by trees. Then I keep going.
It seems as if I've been running for hours when I finally stop. I begin coughing from the long run. I automatically stand up to grab a cup of water, but I realize that in the arena, I must find everything on my own.
I cough awhile. Then eventually, I stop, my throat dry. The sky tells me it's about...noon.
I see that I began my coughing fest right next to a large oak tree. I enjoy climbing this kind of tree, the sturdy branches, the hard bark to grip. Of course, I'm no Maysilee, she could live in a tree. I begin to climb the tree to get high enough to see some sign of water.
I spot a large rock formation with a huge waterfall rolling over it and into a pool. It looks about a mile away. Although I'm not great at keeping a straight course in the woods, I decide to wing it and hope I end up somewhere near it.
After walking for a good fifteen minutes, I reach the bottom of the rock formation and climb to the top of it where there's a spring fed pool of water. It bubbles over the edge of the rock and into the waterfall below, but I stick to the back of it so I don't fall.
I drink thirstily.
After filling myself with as much as I can hold, I sit back and lean against a tree. Immediately I sense the presence of another person behind me.
I back up to the edge of the rock, just a foot away from falling into the water fall below.
The boy is covered by a shadow the tree casts on me. He steps out into the open, revealing his face.
"Sophie, it's all right, just me." It's Peter.
Something between a squeal and a scream escapes me. I run over to him. I haven't taken the time to wonder why I'm here, but seeing Peter reminds me of Jason, of my father, of Eli, innocent little Eli. The tears roll out of my eyes without permission.
Peter opens his arms and I enter them. My tears wet his shirt's shoulder, but I stay in his embrace for a long time, not wanting to go back to reality, not wanting to be in the Deathmatch.
I start trembling all over. I'm afraid of where I am, and I'm finally realizing how much of an off chance it is that I will come anywhere near winning this. I will never see my family or Jason again.
"Where is he? Did you see him? Is he okay?" I ask Peter, knowing he probably doesn't have the answers.
"Jason? I never saw him, a tube came from the ceiling of the cell, I went in..." he says.
"Oh," I say, taking a step back, expecting him to shove me off the edge of the rocks and to kill me. My sister killed his brother, why shouldn't he?
"Sophie, hey, it's okay. We can do this," Peter forces my eyes to meet his.
"How?" I ask surprised. I feel so defeated. Why is he teaming with me anyway? My sister killed his brother. He should want to kill me.
"You're stronger than you give yourself credit for," he tells me.
"I can barely lift over 30 pounds of anything," I tell him, not feeling strong at all.
"You're mentally strong. I've seen the stuff they showed in the posters, of you helping those little kids into the helicopter when you escaped from your district," he says.
"How'd you see that?" I ask surprised.
"District thirteen people dressed as Capital guards took hundreds of pictures that night during the chaos, some of them got found out, but a few got back to thirteen with the pictures," Peter finishes.
"You were in thirteen?" I ask.
"Ya, the day you tried to escape I got away from the gas bombs and got found in the weapons vault trying to load a gun... But the guards found me.
"We should team," he says.
"Ya, sure we should," I say doubtfully.
"I- I can't- I can't do this alone. If you're only going to show me how weak you are, then this will never work out," he says, taking me into the shade under the tree I was leaning on.
"We can do this," he repeats once more.
"I know we can," I say, though not believing it myself.
"We'd better get out of here, it's rather... obvious," he says.
We move on, but keep the waterfall behind us while we jog through the woods, just in case we don't find any other water sources.
The woods change me, not for the better, or for the worse. But as I melt further into them, it feels safer.
A line from a song my father used to sing while he skinned the rabbits before my mother died comes back to me, I came to win, to fight, to conquer, to thrive. I came to win, to survive, to prosper, to rise. As I let the sound of the song fly through my mind, I remember that I will probably never even see my father again, much less listen to him sing that song. I silence my mind and focus only on survival.
I follow Peter for a long time, and I assume he's been in the woods for a long amount of time in his life, because he navigates the branches and dead leaves so well that he barely makes a sound. Whereas every time I move I make a huge Snap! as if I'm making an effort to crunch every stick in the area.
The bright sun eventually begins to sink, and I have to wonder what Peter's plan for tonight is. Will we keep moving? Will we sleep on the ground? Possibly in a tree? A cave? What's he thinking?
"Peter, what're we gonna do? It's getting dark," I whisper to him.
"You think you could fall asleep in a tree?" he asks me, pointing up to a large oak tree.
"I can try," I say, but really I'm in no position to question this since he's been in charge of what to do all day. He did a pretty good job since he kept us away from the Careers, if there are any this time around.
He boosts me up first. Then I help him up. We each manage quite well with the climbing part, but once we find a nice fork to sleep on, I realize how very exhausted the hike today has made me.
"Good night Sophie," Peter says as he lies down next to me.
"Good night," I say. I stay awake a while and at around midnight, I hear the booming of six cannons. The fighting at the cornucopia must've finally ended.
Peter sits up beside me, and we both know the Careers have formed a group by now and are certainly ready to come after anyone who remains, then to kill each other when the count comes down to a handful of tributes. We decide to get sleep while we can, but before we do, the faces of those six tributes flash in the sky, with their district numbers under them. There's a girl from district four, a girl from six, both from eight, the boy from ten, the boy from eleven, then the Capitol anthem, and the sky becomes dark.
"Peter, what district are you from?" I ask him.
"One, you?" he asks me.
"Twelve, why didn't you join the Careers?" I ask.
"Because... while they're all worried about getting backstabbed by their abundance of allies, I'm safe with you," he answers, then goes to sleep before I get the chance to protest.
Why does he feel safe with me? My sister killed his brother! He should hate me! Maybe he's just tricking me; maybe this is all a scheme. He might have already decided to have the Careers kill me and add Peter to their collection of allies.
I fall asleep with another line of my father's song bouncing around my head Me, me, me against them, me against enemies, me against friends, somehow they all seem to become one. I try desperately to stop remembering this song, but my father makes his way into my sleeping hours. He sings to me, talks to me, then right before I wake, I have the comforting feeling of him hugging me.
When I wake up, the feeling becomes stranger and stranger as I realize it wasn't my father I was getting hugged by. It was Peter, who appears to have rolled over in his sleep and put his arm around me. I can't decide if this was just him rolling over in his sleep or if it was him trying to make sure I didn't fall out of our tree last night, or maybe he got cold. The tip of my nose has a bit of dew on it, which makes me even colder, but anyhow, I'm awake and freezing in the morning air.
I shake Peter awake.
"MmmmMmmMmMmm, coming! Muffins… They're evil!" he says as he opens his eyes, looks confused for a moment, then realizes he was dreaming.
"Oh, good morning," he corrects himself. I can't help suppressing a smile.
There's a moment of complete silence. Then I hear it, not one, but many twigs snapping. I listen intently until whatever it is gets just about right under us. I look down and almost fall out of the tree at the sight of seven tributes stopping to take a drink of water from their bottles, which they take from their packs.
Peter and I become statues.
"Don't move," he moves his lips, but doesn't dare to speak the words.
I nod.
As long as they move on before the sun rises completely, they won't see us. Then a terrifying thing happens. One of them, a large boy, strikes a match on the trunk of our tree and throws it into a pile of dry wood.
"All right, we can take a break! Five hours! Then we keep moving!" He shouts at the rest of his pack.
They all look exhausted. They've probably been awake all night, hunting those six people whose cannons Peter and I heard last night.
No doubt this is this year's Career pack.
I never thought seven people would all work together. And once everyone else is dead, which will be almost immediately with them overpowering us so greatly, they will have to kill each other. I'm guessing once the poll gets down to half they'll begin turning on each other.
The Careers settle beneath us, and four of them immediately go to sleep, obviously exhausted.
Three of them stay up. Then eventually the third is sleeping. There are two of them, a boy and a girl, guarding the rest, both of them much older, stronger, bigger, and smarter than Peter and I.
Once the two of them decide the rest have gone to sleep, they wander to the other side of our tree. They speak in hushed voices.
"Fallon, this'll never work. We've gotta stick with the Careers or they'll kill us for sure," the boy says.
"Hm, I'm not sure. I'm the biggest girl, except for maybe Jenny," the girl replies, I scan the group and assume the one she called "Jenny" is the large, muscular girl with long black hair.
"The girl from one?" he answers.
"Ya, and you're almost as big as Mike," she encourages him. I find a large boy that looks a bit bigger than the one I think is Jenny and figure that he's the "big, scary Mike" they're talking about.
"No I'm not, he's from four, probably been spearing fish since he was born, humans are no different," he replies quietly. A picture we were shown at school of district four flashes through my mind, the fishing district, surrounded by oceans.
"Either way, we'd be fine if we got far enough away before they realized we've left," the girl tells him.
"Fallon, we can't!" he attempts to keep his voice down.
"Daron, it's not a question. We'll be the first ones they turn on, being from three. My guess is that Jenny, Frank, Taylor, Mike, and Morgan will be the last of us left if it's Mike's choice," she whispers to him in a fierce voice.
"What's Mike got against us?" the boy that Fallon called Daron answers.
"I'm not sure, I guess he didn't want us with them in the first place. Morgan's the only reason he went along with it, since she and I get along well. Mike has a thing for her," Fallon and Daron are running out of time. They can either leave or stay, but if they don't do something, their "friends" are going to wake up and any kind of escape plan will be next to impossible.
"Mm, I thought he did. Fallon, we'll stay until the count gets down to twelve, then we'll clear out, I promise," he tells her.
"Fine, but if you won't come at final twelve, then I'm leaving without you," she warns him.
"No you won't," he leans down and kisses her on the cheek.
"I might," she teases.
"Go get some sleep. I'll wake Mike to help me," he tells her.
"Okay," she walks back to their group and lies down.
Daron shakes the large, muscular guy I thought was Mike awake.
"What?!" Mike asks him.
"Fallon went to sleep. We should have at least two guarding. I thought since you gloated about how you didn't need much sleep a few days ago at training that you'd be okay with it," he winks at him and gives him a hand. They sit on a fallen tree for a while. Then a terrible thing happens. The sun rises.
They'll see us for sure, I think to myself.
"It's okay," Peter mouths to me.
I look at him with worry clearly stated on my expression.
He gives me a calm look.
I nod and we wait for them to leave.