After dragging himself and the parachute onto land, Gryffon's first reaction was to disregard everything but the packs. He dug through it, finding three water bottles, two of them empty, one half full. He gulped down what was left in the last one and filled them all back up, dropping a couple iodine tablets that he had found into the bottles in case it wasn't actually fresh and safe to drink.
Pushing aside his thirst, Gryffon worked on sorting through the rest of the packs, and among the things he decided to keep was a small chicken wrapped in a parachute just about halfway eaten and still looked good. The 4 kids must have gotten it as a sponsor gift not a day before.
Setting the food aside, swallowing down the urge to just tear into it like some starved animal, he decided to arrange the items of all three bags into the larger one, all to keep his hands busy and away from his own item. He put away the three water bottles, the little vile that held the last few tablets of iodine, a tracker, a marker, a roll of duct tape, a box of aluminum which he kept out for now, and the chicken which he also separated.
He tried to ration it, knowing it would probably be another few days until he was lucky enough to find anymore food, but with little to no restraint, Gryffon easily finished off another half of it, leaving almost nothing for the next two days he hung around the river.
After rolling it into the last bit of aluminum foil, Gryffon scattered the other items into the river as well as the other two packs and watched as it disappeared into some unseen curve before it reached the ferns. After doing so, he retreated back to the little clearing where the 4s lay and only saw pools of blood and the abandoned scissors left in the bodies' wake. Walking around whatever blood he could without touching it, Gryffon took the scissors, cleaned them, then deposited them into the side of the pack so it'd be easy to reach for if anyone appeared there during the night.
But nothing stirred. He was left completely alone for the following nights, awake and restless, but he refused to walk farther than thirty feet in any direction away from the riverbed.
On the second day - the sixth day in the arena - Gryffon decided to open his gift, the ridiculously large and thick . . . package. He pulled the cloth back and his fingers touched the metal first, his fingers growing cold at the mere graze.
He wanted to help the smile that formed on his lips.
He wanted to throw it toward a potential camera and screamed that it wasn't what he needed.
He wanted to point out his biggest problems were his wounds . . .
But he couldn't find the words or the genuinity to do it successfully or convincingly. He couldn't see the sponsors appreciating it, either. A gift this unique, this big, must have costed a fortune.
Gryffon couldn't say he minded it at all though, other than the fact it made for messier kills . . . But it'd be faster. He'd be able to do something now. He'd be able to appear dangerous . . .
Why, though? What's the point?
What did he have to prove, again? Gryffon vowed years ago he only had two people to prove anything to . . . One of them was dead, the other wasn't there. What did it matter if he looked strong and dangerous or like a lost child, too afraid to chase after a friend he depended so much on?
He didn't linger too much on the thought, and instead of moving out, Gryffon decided to retreat to the river again, this time with the pack right beside him and the axe at hand. It was no heavier than the battle axe he had handled in the Training Center. The only difference was the appearance. It was darker in color, but the head gleamed the brightest of silver with darker platinum accents decorating it.
Only two cannons blew on the sixth day, and Gryffon was finally able to see any faces as they were projected into the river. The first shown was the girl from District 2. In her picture, the older girl looked so confident, so determined and sure of herself, like there was no chance she'd die. Tough luck . . . Dead.
The second Fallen was the girl from 6, a girl he just barely recalled and didn't care for at all. Apparently Jay had survived that day, and Gryffon couldn't tell if he was okay with that or not.
If he had fought to keep her there, to just talk things out like they usually tried to do, maybe they would be out of the tunnels together . . . But he supposed none of that mattered. Maybe it was better she just ran. Maybe the cat would run after her, kill her and spare her the humiliation of being killed by anyone else. Maybe a Career would get her. Maybe she'd fall into a pit of acid and just burn to death, her skin stripped from her body in strands and her muscles would expand and melt, leaving her bones to disintegrate.
But that probably wouldn't happen. It was too much carnage for the Capitolites.
It would make things easier for him, though, right? It had to become easier.
She ran off . . . It was a body less he had to carry around. One less dead weight to worry about. But he was concerned, and he couldn't lie about that.
Gryffon would deny it all he wanted, but she was his bait and he was going to chase it. He would swear it was different, he would swear it's not the same kind of bait and trap he had fallen into back home and with his friends, but he knew it wasn't really . . . It would all just turn around and get him in the end.
"Sit down."
"No . . . I don't wanna."
The man pulled the child's wrist and tugged Gryffon down to sit beside him despite the boy's squeak of protest.
"What did I do this time?"
"You're being a little bitch, that's what," Alick growled, narrowing his eyes at his younger son as he sank into his seat sheepishly. "You talk and fight back with me but not those little shits you stay with?"
"They . . . " Gryffon bit his tongue and shook his head. Why was he so scared? He boasted of how he didn't care for either of his parents, how he could live without either of them, and yet he was still afraid. He still felt like he had to walk glancing back every few minutes to make sure no one was sneaking up on him with a knife, and he still felt like he had to salute his father and walk with his head down to prove he didn't mean any defiance. "I just can't."
"Why?"
Why, why, why! Always why! Why did it matter what his friends said or did!? It's not like Alick cared, anyway! Gryffon could come back with a missing arm and his father probably wouldn't care . . . If anything, he'd break the other.
"They - " But he had to, he wouldn't be let off the hook if he didn't answer. His father would do something . . . Gryffon just knew it. "They threatened to hurt Stephen if I did anything . . . " he said slowly, terrified of the man's response to that.
Fear.
That ever-present dread made him just want to go mute and deaf so he would never have to say anything ever again to the man or hear his voice.
"That's what it takes for you to listen?" Alick asked.
Of course it was . . . Stephen was his baby brother . . . He'd do anything for him.
Gryffon felt the bruises forming over his body, he felt his cut lip, his swollen eye, his bleeding chest. He felt all the abuses, all of the advantages taken simply because he wasn't as strong or as old as the others . . . Stephen was tossed into the picture by someone he had thought to be his best friend, the one who was just a year older than him. He said Stephen would get Gryffon to listen . . . If Stephen was in danger, Gryffon would do anything. Until his brother was brought up, he could just take the taunting, the teasing, the peer pressure. A beating was nothing new to him, it hardly hurt at first impact anymore. But Stephen was just barely six months old . . . After the threat, Gryffon had to just take it . . . Deal with it.
"You're trying my patience, boy. Your avoidance is annoying." The man got to his feet and walked down the hall, his boots hitting the wooden floor hard and the heavy sound echoed back into the room Gryffon waited in. Alick came back with a very comfy-looking Stephen in his arms, sound asleep with his little baby-sized fingers clutching at his father's shirt for a safe reassurance.
"Is this your leash?"
Gryffon looked at him, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping. "'That' is my brother," he answered. His body grew cold and rigid, and his heart was beating too fast. He didn't trust his father, and Gryffon wouldn't put it past the man to hurt a newborn, just like he knew his father could easily whip an innocent woman or man to death. "Put him back . . . He's sleeping."
Alick sat back down, this time turned so he faced his eldest son. He narrowed his eyes at the boy, as if he was analyzing him. "Would you listen if I did the same? Would you do anything I say?"
"No, I wouldn't," Gryffon let slip out, regretting his words the instant they edged his tongue. Crap crap crap . . .
"Go get me a bottle. Of anything." Alick's stare never faltered, never showed any emotion. It was nothing more but an empty glare, a hungry one, an analytical one, one that promised vengeance without anything to avenge. "Now."
"No," Gryffon shook his head. If he did, Alick would ask for another. And another. And Gryffon didn't want to deal with that now . . . Not when the day had been so long already. "You don't need one."
Alick shrugged and reached to his side, pulling out the black revolver he so seldom showed outside the Square. He pointed the barrel toward Stephen's head, his eyes never leaving Gryffon's face. "Go get me the damned drink." He didn't move, he didn't even breathe, he just stared at the gun.
No, no, no . . . Don't do it . . .
Gryffon heard the rolling and clicking sound as his father cocked the gun and his limbs shot into place. His hands were wrapped around Alick's wrist and the gun was now pressed against the man's shoulder, too much at an odd angle to be shot at the baby. "Leave him alone . . . He didn't do anything."
"And neither have you," the man growled, pulling his arm away and shoving the kid back. "Go."
That wasn't going to stop him, though. Maybe he could make things go differently.
Gryffon ran a hand through his hair and pulled back. Move. He had to move. He had to find . . . someplace other than these varied gardens. He had to stop avoiding the bait he set for himself. Just go, just go . . . Let go and go.
At the end of the seventh day, Gryffon pulled the bag over his shoulders and weapon in hand, he walked along the river, watching the movement of the current as he went. It moved in the opposite direction he went, swirling here and there, bubbling in some areas, looking darker in others. It mostly swerved to the side, though. He could see the change of direction in the fast moving currents especially. It was like the water was being pulled to the deeper end of the river where the water darkened in color.
That was curious . . . It was like there was some sort of current in that direction, too, but there was no way for the water to travel that way, unless it went underground . . ?
Gryffon stopped and scanned the expanse of grass that stretched ahead of him. As far as he could tell, it went on forever, and he didn't want to walk forever. He just wanted to leave.
Glancing toward the river, Gryffon noticed the bunch of vegetation that lined the other side of the waterbed compared to the mostly barren grass on his side. Might as well . . . Who knew what was on the other side? He could risk it now. He had better defense, after all. He wasn't as hungry or thirsty as before, and his vision wasn't blurring or crossing or splotching. He could do it.
Gryffon waded into the river and walked cautiously through it, expecting to sink farther into the water than his knees, but it never rose higher than that, and he was just hardly wet when he reached the other side.
7,994,880.
Beginning of the eighth day now, is what his mental clock told him . . . He could at least say he survived the first week of the Games.
Now to hope he could get a little farther.
Gryffon walked along the brush, letting cool reeds brush against his legs as he gradually inched closer inland.
He turned into the leaves once the river began to narrow and hated how much darker it got, like once he was under the canopy of large reeds and ferns, any and all light was just blocked. Gryffon dragged his feet along in the dark for what felt like forever, focusing mainly on the wet ground under his toes, hoping for some source of light soon as the ground began to incline. But none was provided.
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
He gritted his teeth as the timer went off every minute he walked in his mind, and seeming to match each tck, a beeping started up, first every few seconds, then rapidly . . . desperately. The tracker . . . The cat!
A loud snarl came from behind him, then a purr from beside him, and when Gryffon found himself tensing to run away, he felt the tips of fangs brush against his arm and it sent him jumping back as he swung the blade. Before it could collide with anything, he fell back into some sort of tunnel.
He slid down a dark tube, the axe held close to him so he wouldn't cut an arm or leg off, and waited as he slid down the bumpy path, hitting his head along the walls as he went; Gryffon was quite sure he left a trail of blood along the walls as his jaw began to burn again, giving him the impression the scars along his cheek had reopened.
Once more, he was spat out, but this time, landed on something softer than the spiked grass. Inching forward, Gryffon slid off the cushioned giant mushroom and landed clumsily on his feet again.
BOOM
He barely jumped at the sound, but instead grew quizzical to the laughter that followed it. Girl and boy . . . Gryffon smirked to himself, and with little effort to wipe it off his face, he tried to follow the sound.
BOOM
BOOM
"Ohhh, they're doing good!"
The voice sent chills down his spine and his fingers curled tighter around the shaft of the axe. Oh, how he wanted to sink something into her skull . . .
"Who d'you think it was?"
"I don't care who it was! Just that there aren't many left," the girl giggled. "It's almost just us, then the party can begin."
"We still have one problem . . . "
"And we'll deal with her when we get there," Sapphire declared, her voice loud and ringing, like she was trying to reach every microphone in the arena.
Her probably meant Jay, and Gryffon could only imagine Sapphire was talking to her district partner, which meant Jay had either gone another way or was already ahead of them. Gryffon couldn't tell anyway.
"We need to know, though . . . "
"And we will, but only . . . Why should it . . . "
They were getting fainter and fainter the closer he thought he got, and not long after, their voices and footsteps disappeared altogether and Gryffon was once again left alone.
Not many left, Sapphire had said . . . Fifteen . . . plus three, eighteen . . . Only five left to go . . . And two of those five were him and Jay, unless one of the three canons belonged to her dead body.
That brought an interesting thought up: if one of the canons really was her, then that meant he could fight for something else now and no sacrifice needed to be made . . . Gryffon couldn't find himself believing in his words, though.
What sacrifice? he echoed as he walked around gnarled trees and crooked stumps and bramble thickets. It's been done already.
Tick
Tock
Tick
Tock
A tall white structure started to poke out from behind the trees, and when Gryffon squinted, he could just barely make out a tall wooden door. He recognized it as the house he had just barely seen from the top of from the hill in the beginning of the Games, and with that thought alone he warned himself it wouldn't be worth going inside. Maybe he'd be better off just going around . . .
But one glance at the blade in his hands was enough to convince Gryffon it should be used at least once. At least once against the prey he wanted so bad. It was such a precious gift, he couldn't just let it go to waste.
He wasn't going to run away anymore, he was done with that. He was done boring for "D". The Careers were his targets, or what was left of them, anyway.
And that would leave him with the leftovers, and he could just as easily take them.
Kill once and killing a second time wasn't hard.