Two days pass without a single casualty. With each hour that goes by our anxiety grows. It won't be long now until the gamemakers become desperate for some good action and take it upon themselves to be the architects behind it. When that happens all bets are off. Will they throw a random wrench into the Games and let the chips fall where they may? Will they go after a specific tribute and if so which one – the most popular or the least popular or someone chosen on different criteria?
The one saving grace, I suppose, is that the career pack is already beginning to turn on each other. Ellie seems to have been genuinely fond of the girl from Two and has lost most of her zest, spending far too much time on the ground, hugging her knees while rocking back and forth and crying. The boy from Two, Maximus, is getting progressively more annoyed with her and progressively more aggressive. The boy from One, Lotus, has given up on trying to keep them from arguing with each other and seems more than willing to head off on his own but for whatever reason he still stays. I almost wish he would kill the other two in their sleep, the sooner the better. If he does that then not only will two fierce competitors go down, the viewers will also have their fill of carnage and excitement.
Peeta has a different viewpoint.
"I don't think it's entirely necessary for them to be taken out at this point" he says, leaning back on the couch and stretching out his legs on the divan end. "Look at them. Four is basically broken, which is not so strange. It's kind of similar to Annie Cresta when she saw her district partner be beheaded, this girl seeing her friend getting impaled like that."
"Career tributes don't have friends" I say icily.
"And the boy from Two, he's going to take himself out of the running before long if he keeps this aggression up" continues Peeta. "He lacks the refinement and discipline that has made others channel their rage and aggression into becoming virtual killing machines. He's the type that will do something reckless and premature and probably be so blinded by his anger that he'll fail to protect himself. Hell he might walk into a trap at any moment and I'm half expecting the gamemakers to throw one at his feet right about now to make something happen."
"And take out the fourth career when we're not even halfway through the Games?" I say sceptically. While we talk I reach for the remote and switch over to Sally's feed. "That's not going to happen."
"How do you know?"
"When has it ever?"
"Right, but that's exactly why it might." He gives me a look, his eyebrows raised. "You know as well as I do that people are getting tired with career dominance. Why not attempt to get rid of the entire career pack early on? Leave it to the rest to fight it out? Right now districts Ten, Eleven and Twelve are doing the best with both tributes still alive. Imagine them trying to get those three districts to fight it out?"
"Do you honestly believe that?" I ask, my eyes travelling between the screen and him. "Or are you just hoping?"
"A little bit of both" he says, adjusting to a more comfortable position on the couch.
We watch the screen as Sally, who luckily came across a supply station yesterday, eats a light lunch of beef jerky and water. She looks sleepy, which alarms me. She's been showing signs of lethargy these past two days and I'm blaming the lack of fresh air and sunlight. Who knows how much oxygen the gamemakers are allowing in the arena? Several other tributes are also showing signs of sluggishness and I find myself wondering how long one can live in a place as dark as this without losing one's mind. Is it any wonder they become so sleepy when they never have the sun to tell them what time of day it is? I can only hope that the gamemakers mean to let some sunlight in to them, if for no other purpose than to make them more active again.
"I worry about her" says Peeta, crossing his arms over his chest and observing her with a frown. He's growing less antsy about her rivalling role to Tommy and showing more and more signs of acting like a mentor to her. I didn't expect him to do so as the Games progressed, if anything I expected the opposite. "I can't find her any sponsors unless she does anything to stand out soon. Nor could you, nor could Haymitch. She got lucky with that supply station but what will she do when she runs out of food?"
"I don't know" I say. "I keep hoping she's got some trick up her sleeve, Johanna Mason style, but I worry that her whole strategy going in was to lay low and ride it out, letting the others do the killing and try as best she can to slip under the radar. That might have worked, might, if it were a normal arena like the one we had. In here, when she can't get food or water from her surroundings, she desperately needs some gusto and some sponsors."
"I think they'll start closing off parts of the labyrinth soon" muses Peeta. "There are only thirteen of them alive, nearly half of them gone, and since the feast there has been no tribute interaction outside the careers."
I nod. I've been thinking the same thing. They have no way to know how to find one another in the maze and the chances of them bumping into each other at random are obviously not so high right now. The area they move around in needs to be smaller if they are to be forced together.
"Want me to switch back to Tommy?" I ask.
"No, that's fine." We were watching Tommy right before I switched to Sally and he wasn't doing much at the time. "How about the main feed? Might give us a hint if anything is about to go down."
I nod and grab the remote to change the channel. Right now neither Claudius nor Caesar are on duty, instead "celebrity guests" are filling in as hosts. They have no other choice than employ such solutions when airing around the clock for sometimes weeks in a row. The fill-in hosts are oftentimes victors who have lost both their tributes this year and thus can give a supposedly objective commentary on events. They are never expected to helm the show the way Caesar and Claudius do but at least it's a voice making comments here and there, something the Capitol audience seems to depend on. For the past four years they have also had a young guy called Hadrian Bartlebuck filling in as co-host for an hour or two each day, either with one of the two main hosts or a guest host. Hadrian is meant to take over the helm once Caesar or Claudius keels over or simply gets to be too old for even Capitol plastic surgery to hide it anymore. He does a fine job, I guess.
Today's guest host is Barley from District 9. He won the 88th Games and this is the first time he's gotten to fill in for the regular hosts. He sounds nervous and awkward and I'm betting he won't be doing the honours very often. I only had to do it once before they decided that I was worthless at it and thankfully spared me from further runs. Peeta has filled in several times, though I know he loathes to do so. They like pairing him up with Johanna Mason or Mach from District 5. Finnick Odair is another popular victor to pair him with but District 4 doesn't usually lose both tributes until late in the game. A handful of times Peeta has done the job alone but he tends to sound too lacklustre without someone to spar against even though I know he tries to do a good job, if only for the sake of peace in our private lives.
We sit there in silence for a while, watching Barley comment on what happens in the arena, which still isn't much of interest. Nobody is even anywhere near a supply station at the moment. The ticking of the clock serves the enhance how slowly time seems to be moving when you're bored and after a while I begin to nod off. I don't even hear Peeta getting up from the couch but when I wake up again it seems about half an hour has gone by and a blanket has been draped over me.
Feeling slightly groggy I walk over to the dining area where I can hear Peeta's and Haymitch's voices. Haymitch is at his usual place at the head of the table and Peeta is next to him, both of them ignoring the ginger cake that has been set out for them. Peeta looks up when he hears me enter but he doesn't stop talking.
"Is anyone securing sponsor money right now?" he asks Haymitch, who has been out on the town all day and might know more than we do.
"Not today, no" says Haymitch. "Rest assured though that money will come in soon."
"To whom?" I ask, pulling out the chair on his other side. "The careers?"
"Probably to the riveting female tribute of District 12 who has so far done precisely nothing of interest since, well, birth probably" he replies, voice dripping with sarcasm.
"How much of interest can anyone do in that rat hole of an arena?" I counter testily.
"I wonder if Magnus is going to get into trouble over this" muses Peeta. "So far it's shaping up to be a failure. One or two dull days doesn't matter but given the design of the arena it seems like this is going to happen repeatedly."
I sigh and reach across the table for the cake. There's not much point in talking about it, really. It is what it is. All we can do is hold our breaths and wait and hope that the tributes from the other districts will end up running into each other soon or that our own tributes will find some way to impress and entertain. Time is running out, they are both getting short on supplies.
The lull in the 91st Hunger Games ends that evening, just as the main broadcast is about to come to an end. The timing is hardly a coincidence since what happens is entirely gamemaker controlled. The three careers are walking down a tunnel, the girl listless and weary and the boys bickering with each other and they don't even notice that they're approaching a dead end until they nearly walk straight into the wall. They stop and bicker some more over who lead them down here and where they should be going instead but the angry voices quiet down when a large rumbling noise interrupts them and the ground begins to shake beneath their feet. The wall is parting and all three of them are familiar enough with the Games to know that it's not a matter of a way out of the labyrinth but rather some form of devilry cooked up by the gamemakers. All three of them begin to back away, eager to get away from there but scared to turn their backs to whatever might be emerging.
There's a moment of silence followed by a strange crawling sound and then it comes into view, moving out from the darkness and into the illumination of the torches on the wall. An enormous spider, so large it seems it will barely fit in the narrow tunnel. A creature so big it can only be a mutt and even though I've never had a problem with arachnids I know this thing will haunt me in my nightmares. It's covered in silver grey hair, the joints on its eight legs shining brightly red, and its eyes are large and seem hollow. I've never given any thought to the mouth of a spider before but this one has thick fangs that don't look pleasant in the least and it appears to be drooling. It makes hissing sounds when it exhales, sounds that send shivers down my spine. The only hopeful aspect seems to be that its sheer size makes it hard for it to be agile and fast. At least in the narrower tunnels.
The girl from Four and the boy from Two both scream at the top of their lungs, just scream over and over and over as they back away in horror. The boy from One just stands there in shock, staring at the monster coming towards him. They have about twenty yards of space in-between themselves and the beast but I wouldn't want to be within twenty hundred yards of it. Lotus turns on his heel and runs, as fast as he can, and the action triggers the spider into action. It darts forward, much faster than anyone would have thought it capable of. The other two tributes collapse on the ground, Maximus slightly covering Ellie, and their screams persist. It saves the life of the boy from One since the spider goes for the easier targets and even though he trips and probably scrapes both of his knees he is able to get back up on his feet and disappear into the tunnel.
Since the boy from Two slightly covers the girl from Four he ends up being the first victim of the beast. The spider grabs him and hoists him up in the air, the screams intensifying. I cannot blame him. Those fangs look like they can probably snap him in two. However the spider doesn't bite him. It moves forward, stepping on the girl from Four in the process, her screams turning into a moan and then silence. A few yards further down in the tunnel the spider stops and begins to wrap its prey in silky string, cocooning it like a mummy. All the while the boy is alive and screaming, fighting and fidgeting and trying to get away. Soon he can't move but his face is left uncovered so he can still scream, although his voice is beginning to give out. The spider drops him to the ground and he loudly grunts before beginning to wail. I doubt any actual animal would take pity over something like that and a gamemaker designed mutt definitely doesn't care. It begins to move down the tunnel, dragging the still living boy behind it.
Once the spider has disappeared down the tunnel the girl from four moans again and rolls over on her side. Apparently she's been hurt but not killed though she isn't able to stand up and walk. She clutches her chest and whimpers, using one hand to help drag herself through the tunnel in search of shelter. If the spider comes back she'll be a very easy target.
In the hour that follows the spider mutt makes its way straight to the cornucopia where it drags the by now unconscious boy inside the large horn. It disappears from sight, its hissing exhales echoing for a second, and I shudder at the thought that there are ten tributes out there who don't even know it exists. Any one of them might come to the cornucopia and find themselves face to face with the huge beast. That area is the only fairly wide open space in the entire maze and while that poses danger I can also imagine that most of them will feel the need to go there from time to time. I doubt anybody can stand being in the narrow tunnels for too long.
The spider mutt stays inside the cornucopia for now, together with its prey. What it's doing to the boy is anyone's guess. No cannons go off.
The following morning I don't want to get out of bed. I've barely slept all night, the image of the spider mutt burning before my eyes and invading my dreams. I've kept Peeta up as well, clinging to him but constantly switching from lying on my side to lying on my stomach to lying on my back. He didn't say a word about it. I suppose he wouldn't have slept much anyway.
Now he sits at the edge of the bed, on my side, his hand running up and down my leg as he watches me. The circles under his eyes seem darker this morning and his hair is a mess. The absence of stubble on his face makes me uncomfortable at times like these, the image of him in the morning somehow not complete without that detail. People here expect to see him without a beard so they make sure he doesn't grow one during the Games. He yawns and lightly pats my knee.
"You want breakfast?" he asks sleepily.
"No."
"Mind if I go get some?"
"Hungry?" I ask dryly. He hasn't seemed that way at any point since Tommy's reaping so I doubt that he is right now.
"I don't mind skipping breakfast" he admits. "I'd like the status update at the table, though. I have a feeling last night's mutt is only the beginning of whatever's going to unfold in there in the upcoming days. You stay in bed if you want to. You could use the sleep."
He gets up and with a groan I wearily push myself up into a sitting position. He stops and gives me a curious look to which I roll my eyes. I toss the comforter aside and throw my legs over the side of the bed.
"Right, let's get the status update."
"Katniss I mean it, stay in bed. I'll bring you up to speed later."
"Like I'll be able to sleep anyway… You go ahead, I'll join you in ten minutes."
He eyes me sceptically for a second and then nods and leaves. I drag myself into the shower, closing my eyes and leaning my brow against the cold tiles. Reaching up my hand I randomly press a button and the next thing I know the smell of caramel apple fills the air. At least I'll smell decent, I suppose. Won't that be a bright spot in what is sure to be a terrible day?
After the shower I get dressed, choosing the most comfortable clothes in my wardrobe since I have no plans on showing my face outside our quarters today, and head out to join the rest of the crew at the breakfast table. To my surprise the mood is fairly bright. Haymitch is sullen as usual and Emalda is a no-show but the stylists are excited about last night's developments. They are decent people, sure, but the two of them are a far cry from Cinna and Portia who would play along to uphold the charade but never seemed genuinely excited about anything that went on in the arena. These two apparently thought the new mutt last night was a stroke of genius.
"Katniss don't you see what this means?" chirps Sally's stylist when she for the fourth time has failed to get any excitement out of me.
"Arachnophobes all over Panem will have nightmares for weeks?" I mutter, shoving a spoonful of grapefruit in my mouth.
"No, no, no. This is all the gamemaker intervention that will be needed for the next few days, perhaps even longer than that!"
I hate to admit it but that's a fair point. The spider mutt is bound to bring excitement and thrills for at least a few more days before the novelty wears off. And even then it poses a threat to the remaining tributes. I do have to wonder though how long they will keep that thing in there. Nobody wants to see twelve tributes murdered by the same mutt, no matter how monstrous that mutt may be.
"I liked the tapestry carving on the wall" says the other stylist to no one in particular. "That was an interesting detail."
"What tapestry carving?" asks Haymitch, his interest suddenly peaked. "On what wall?"
"Didn't you see it?"
"Would I be asking if I did?"
"Early this morning they showed that girl from Four."
"She's still alive?" asks Peeta, looking up from the breakfast he's barely eating.
"There have been no cannons at all" says the stylist and I shudder at the thought that there's a boy trapped with that mutt inside the cornucopia, still alive. I remember Cato and his long suffering. I can only hope that if this boy is suffering too they would show us and the fact that they haven't means he's still unconscious and unaware.
"She's still alive" nods the other stylist. "When they showed her they showed the wall behind her in better lighting, you know, the wall the spider came out through."
"And there was a tapestry on it?" questions Haymitch.
"A carving of a tapestry. We didn't get a very close look but it seemed very pretty. Rich in detail. I like to believe that if you get close enough you can see that they've-"
"Why don't we ask the girl from Four?" says Peeta sourly. "I bet she's just dying to crawl over there and get a better look."
"There's no need to get snappy" says the stylist, looking hurt.
"Where's Emalda?" I ask, hoping to change the subject.
"Hibernating" says Haymitch, reaching for the marmalade. "She's scared of the eight-legged ones."
"Can't say that I blame her" I mutter, shuddering slightly as I recall the eyes of that enormous mutt in there.
"So what do you suppose happens today?" asks Peeta tiredly, pushing his plate away even though he's only eaten maybe a quarter of what was on it.
"Intense coverage of the hostage situation in the cornucopia I should presume" answers Haymitch, spreading marmalade on his roll.
"How does the halberd fit into all of this?" I ask, the thought suddenly occurring to me. "They made such a huge deal about how it was going to be a huge advantage in the Games. What, some tribute is expected to spear the mutt on that thing?"
"Oh I could see the gamemakers getting off to that visual" notes Peeta, making a face like it deeply disturbs him.
"It can't be that simple though, can it?" I challenge. "They could have sent in a regular spear if that's what they had in mind. It a crossbow for that matter, or an atlatl even. But that thing they put in there? It's got to serve some better purpose."
"Yeah but what?" asks Tommy's stylist.
There's a moment of silence and then Peeta chortles with little mirth.
"It's got us talking and wondering at least." He rises from his seat and nods in the direction of the sitting room to imply where he's heading. "Say what you will but the Games are no longer at risk of becoming boring. At least not for the next few days."
He walks off and I watch him leave, pondering whether or not I should go with him. He's going to check up on Tommy and I ought to do the same for Sally. No canons fired means they're both still alive but they must be getting anxious in there. They have no clue what happened last night. The absence of the canons means there haven't been any fatalities and they must be getting worried that the show is turning dull. Will one of them do something to spice things up? Tributes can get pretty desperate in there wanting something interesting to go down so that the gamemakers won't invent something interesting.
It takes several hours for anything particularly exciting to transpire in the arena today despite the "promising" set-up. For the most part they show the poor girl from Four slowly making her way to someplace she might feel a little bit more safe. At one point she removes her jacket and shirt to inspect her wounds and it causes her to groan and turn very pale but at least she doesn't faint. It's difficult to tell in the poor lighting but it looks to me like her sternum has been slightly dented, for lack of a better term, and her chest seems like one big bruise. I can only imagine how painful that is.
"She must have internal bleeding" surmises Peeta when I join him on the couch after spending a few hours trying to decide whether or not to change my outfit and head downstairs to check on Sally but instead falling asleep on the bed. "She can't last long. Can she?"
"If she does have internal bleeding wouldn't she already be dead by now?" I ask, taking the remote he holds out to me. I do wish she would just go ahead and die already. She looks like she's in a lot of pain and I have a very hard time seeing her pull through this to not only survive long enough to win but to also take out some of her fellow tributes. "Anything interesting happening anywhere else?"
"The girl from Ten found a supply station. The boy from Ten ran smack into the girl from Three about fifty minutes ago."
"Oh?" I say, my interest peaked.
"Yeah they just stared at each other in shock and took off in opposite directions."
"So much for the tributes needing to get closer to one another" I sigh.
"Yeah. No sponsorship money bound to come their way anytime soon."
"Nor Sally's way" I sigh, observing my tribute as she sits by a wall and rocks from side to side. "Nothing new going on with her, it seems." Then I lean forward on the couch and squint. "Where exactly is she anyway? She seems better illuminated than before."
"Let's hope it's not because she's near the cornucopia" says Peeta and we share a look.
I toss the remote back to him and he switches over to Tommy's feed. He's sharpening his scythe with a grim look on his face but other than that nothing much is happening. This year the tributes spend far too much time just sitting around. They really will need to seal off large areas of the arena soon or these kids will never interact at all.
Peeta lifts his arm and motions for me to come closer. I scoot over and settle in against him, his arm coming to rest around me. We sit like that for a long time, watching events unfold on screen. It's a slow day in the arena.
A slow day until we are called to dinner. At that exact moment a tribute, the girl who found the supply station earlier, makes her way out of a tunnel and into the larger cave-like area that houses the cornucopia and the platforms the tributes started on. I feel Peeta's arm tense around me and my own breath hitches in my throat. She has no idea of the danger that lurks here and I wonder if she's at least smart enough to realize that the only somewhat open space makes for a poor hiding place. She looks around carefully before taking several steps out in the open, towards the cornucopia.
"Did the two of you not hear that dinner is here?" gripes Haymitch as he comes walking into the room. "I'm starving so if the two of you haven't grown into the couch perhaps you would like to get your asses up and come…"
He trails off when his eyes land on the screen and he sees what is going on. Slowly he moves closer, stopping right behind us with his hands resting on the back of the couch. He leans in a little and I think I can hear him swallow.
"You think she's going to get too close?" I ask, mostly just to say something and break the tension in the room.
"We'll find out" mutters Haymitch.
The girl from Ten walks maybe ten meters into the cavern and then stops, looking around. A sound coming from behind her catches her attention and she turns to see what the source was. Little does she know that it's most likely a sound generated by gamemakers. If it were another tribute they would probably show us that.
While her back is turned to the cornucopia something begins to move inside it. A silvery grey hairy leg comes out from the shadows, followed by another one. Then comes the head of the spider mutt. How does it move so quietly and smoothly? How close can it get before she hears it?
I guess I won't find out the answer to that question. The girl turns around again and immediately startles at the sight before her. I does not escape my attention that once she lays eyes on the mutt its hissing breathing resumes, having been curiously absent a second ago. I wait for her to either scream or faint or have some other such reaction but aside from the shocked look on her face she actually handles herself quite well. She stands frozen for a second and so does the spider, the two of them glaring at each other. Then the spider lunges forward and she turns and flees, disappearing into the same tunnel she came from which is a very smart move. That particular tunnel holds a side-tunnel not very far in, one where the tributes can't walk upright due to its small size. A few tributes have spent a night or two there but most of them prefer not to sleep in such crowded spaces in case somebody finds them during the night. The mutt seems to know the chase will be futile and stops in its tracks before it even reaches the main tunnel.
As it slowly turns around and begins to move back towards the cornucopia something catches my eye a few seconds before the gamemakers show us a closer look. In one of the other tunnels, standing just outside the reach of the light, is Sally Masters. She looks petrified but determined and she keeps absolutely silent. Has she been silent the whole time? Or was she the one who made that noise before and got the girl from Ten to turn around?
They cut back to the spider mutt as it returns inside the cornucopia. A disturbing sound is heard. Then the shot of a canon.
So the spider mutt thing... I absolutely hate spiders but it's an homage of sorts to Stephen King's "It". Read it if you haven't. It's over a thousand pages long and worth every minute it takes to read.