Hebe awoke alone, again. Her skin was numb and her head stinging. She sat up and rubbed her temples, sighing and brushing off the leaves and twigs from her body.
It had been two days since she was sponsored, and she had lost track of how long it had been since the games had started. A week maybe. It felt like she had been here so long, it was a lifetime ago that she had sat around that fire with Luca and Niamh. Even longer since she was on the balcony, a cool breeze blowing on her face and in her hair. She worried that eventually she'd forget the face of her mother, of Annie. She worried that she'd forget Luca.
She gingerly unzipped the legs of her suit, peeling back the tight fabric to look at her wounded legs. She expected to see the large sores she had been greeted with yesterday, but to her amazement, her skin was practically normal. There were a few scars and marks where the worst bites had been, but other than that it was smooth and silky, just like it had been after they had waxed her at the tribute centre.
Her soft skin was interrupted by the familiar stubble of returning leg hair, raising bumps on her skin like a porcupine's hide.
Only a day ago her entire body had looked dead, her hair even seemed to get greasier while she was injured. Yet now she felt the healthiest she had ever been, it felt like she had been turned inside out and scrubbed. The Capitol medicines really did work miracles.
Hebe zipped her suit back up, watching the silver material glide across her body, stretching so it fit snugly around her frame. Then she stood, dragging herself reluctantly from the bush she had used as a bed for the previous two nights.
During the two(?) days since she had emerged from the tunnel, she hadn't seen a single tribute, either in person or projected into the sky. There had been no sound of cannon for some time, the gamemakers must be getting restless, the people of the Capitol desperately thirsting for blood.
She had explored most of the places near her camp, going out in several different directions. Yet she had found nothing interesting whatsoever, no signs of freshwater. There hadn't even been another hatch, just the uncovered one she slept beside, bugs undoubtedly coating it.
Granted, she hadn't travelled far, after all, she was 'injured' but it was still uncomfortable knowing that no progress had been made since she killed Lilac. Her sponsorship rations had also nearly run out, although the half a jar of salve still sat at the bottom of Hebe's bag, along with the note from her mentors.
Today she would be leaving her camp, moving to somewhere different, hopeful to find another source of food and water. Maybe even a bird, although she didn't want to eat one of those strange pheasants.
Hebe tightened her ponytail, tugging on it to make sure it didn't come out accidentally. She held the pendants in her hand, rubbing her thumb over the arrowhead, twisting the ring around its chain.
She sighed loudly, tucking them back under her clothing and zipping up her suit, still fearful of being bitten again. Then she set off, slinging the small backpack over her shoulder and grabbing her axe. She swung it out in front of her as she walked, slashing through the low-hanging foliage and dead tree branches that attempted to block her path.
Hebe was moving along what she had established as the outer edges of the arena, where most of the tunnel entrances probably were. The two she had seen so far were both set in the middle of what seemed to be large rock alcoves, sheltering the hatches from prying eyes. She estimated that there must be at least six entrances spread across the edge of the arena, all equidistant from each other.
The tunnels were another mystery. While she had walked down that first long passage it hadn't seemed to have curved at all, so she must have been walking in a straight line, right? But if the tunnels cut directly under the arena, then wouldn't she have reached a fork at some point, a connection between the other tunnels? Unless they were all situated at different depths under the arena so they didn't meet each other. But what would be the point of that, it sounded pretty boring to Hebe.
Furthermore, on either side the hatches weren't the end of the tunnels, they continued further past the hatches. If they were at the edges of the arena, where did they go after that? Was it an illusion, like the forcefield, or did they loop back around?
Either way, she had no answer to her questions. The fact she hadn't found a way to turn the tunnels to her advantage frustrated her to now end. So far all she'd gotten from the tunnels was exhaustion and bites, not a reassuring start.
So for now she had decided to stick to exploring above ground, to try and find a proper source of food and water. And as of yet she had had no luck, her arm tiring from all the hacking she was doing. She had been walking for around 2 and a half hours and Hebe dropped her hand down, letting it rest. She still kept her fingers firmly clamped around her axe, still concerned about being caught off guard by another tribute, or even worse, another mutt.
Then she stopped dead, her eyes widening, mouth gaping at the sight before her.
Directly in front of her was a stream, cool clear water running between the rocks. Situated on the banks was a large tree. It was alive, its trunk a chocolate brown, its leaves smooth and green. It struck a harsh contrast to the pathetic shrubs encircling it, their trunks flaking in strips of grey, the leaves dark and brittle.
But most wondrous of all, was what hung from the branches. Peaches, a rich orange and magenta, a light fuzz of hair coating the curves of the fruit. Hebe's mouth began to water at the sight, stumbling towards the tree and the river.
First she dropped down, squatting on the banks of the stream, watching as the water lapped at the shores. She practically threw her backpack on the floor beside her, hurriedly rummaging through it and retrieving the empty canteen. She filled it up to the top, collecting some in her hands and throwing it on her face, cleansing the dirt build up from it.
Then she screwed the lid back on her bottle, standing up and turning her attention to the peach tree. They still hung from their perches, luscious, like a mirage in the plains of the desert. But Hebe was suspicious, the games having embedded her with a heightened feeling of paranoia. They were almost too good to be true, and the whole thing reeked of a plot by the gamemakers to create more interest, nothing people love more than poison.
But she couldn't exactly ignore them. Her food resources were dwindling, slowly ebbing away with the passing days. And she was almost certain not to receive another sponsor after this point, and she had no idea how Mags and Finnick had even managed to convince someone to buy her the medicine, let alone the food and water too.
Eventually she caved, pulling a peach from its stalk, swivelling it slowly, inspecting it carefully. It looked normal, but she was understandably wary.
She sat back down on the damp floor, setting her backpack and axe down, still holding the peach in her hand. She pulled the small dagger she had taken from Lilac out of her bag, pondering where she should make her first incision.
WIthout thinking any further she plunged the blade into the flesh of the fruit, a large squelch coming from within as she split it in two. Then there was an unusual sizzle, and she dropped it, recoiling. The inside of the peach was dead and black, a plume of smoke snaking up into the air. Then it began to decay before her eyes, dissolving into the earth into a dark sticky residue, bubbling slightly.
It seemed to have also slightly corroded her knife, a small indent now clearly visible in the metal. Hebe sighed, frustrated, but not massively surprised. She returned to her feet, picking off a few of the peaches and dumping them in her backpack. She had no idea what she was going to use them for. Throwing them at people? Or maybe she could trick another tribute to eat one? Whatever the case, she wanted to be prepared, more than willing to kill with her wits and not just her weapons.
Hebe sat and rested for a while by the stream, thinking of home. She missed her family desperately, the idea that she may never see them again was so unbearable she couldn't stomach it. And she was lonely. She was desperate to see someone, even another tribute, something to confirm that she was really still alive in the arena, and this wasn't just some hellish afterlife she had concocted for herself.
Many went mad in the arena, and almost all of them died shortly after the insanity set in. Normally it was those who already seemed fragile, or someone who had lost an ally in some brutal manner. Or they couldn't stomach the horrors of the games, beginning to hallucinate due to lack of food and water.
Maybe Hebe had died of her injuries already, and this was her purgatory, forced to wander around this arena alone for eternity. Maybe she had never received her sponsorship, and her body had been collected by hovercraft shortly after. Maybe her mother was now having the funeral, her and Luca's twin caskets centre stage on the town square, draped in the flag of Panem.
She shook the thought from her head, unwilling to entertain the idea any further, lest it come true. Standing up, she picked up her discarded backpack and weapons, turning her back on the treacherous peach tree. She couldn't even say that her hope had been shattered by it, for she wasn't totally certain she had any hope at all anymore.
Hebe continued through the forest in such of any kind of sustenance, continuing around what she thought to be the edge of the arena.
Then there was a series of shouts, then a loud scream.. A sudden boom. The cannon.
Hebe was taken aback, haven gotten used to the relative silence in the arena. She began running towards the scream, her brain kicking into overdrive. She had no idea what compelled her to start running, it seemed as though some kind of primal instinct had overtaken her.
She barrelled through the branches, her mind returning back to when she had Luca's screams, her mad dash to find him. An image flooded her vision, one of him lying on the floor with a hole in his chest.
But when she finally reached the scene of the crime, it was not Luca she saw, but Gaia. The girl was covered head to toe in blood, a small knife gripped in her hands. Her eyes were wide and she was shaking, tears falling from her eyes as she looked down at what she had done.
On the floor was a lifeless tribute. The girl from 6 perhaps? Blood still gushed from the small wound in her jugular, she had died so recently that blood had not yet stopped being pumped around her body.
Gaia didn't seem to have noticed Hebe despite the racket she made, still transfixed by the dead girl. It reminded her of the way Lilac had looked at Ampere, the only thing missing was the bite taken from the girl's flesh. Hebe lowered her axe, her heart cracking at the girl's expression.
"Gaia?" She whispered softly, trying to wake her from her stupor. She stepped forward, her foot breaking a twig as she went.
Gaia's head snapped toward her, the movement so sharp Hebe was surprised that her neck didn't snap in two from the force of it.
"Hebe?" She replied hoarsely, her eyes welling with even more tears. Then she dropped to her knees in front of the girl, folding in on herself and beginning to sob.
She was so shocked that all she could do was stare in complete and utter shock. Apologies began falling from Gaia's lips like a waterfall, the girl sliding into hysterics. She seemed to be apologising to everyone, not just Hebe and the girl she had just murdered, but to everyone she had encountered in the arena, all those who had suffered at the hands of the careers.
Hebe couldn't stand to watch her break down any further, wrapping her arms around the girl, watching as the smaller body jolted against her, wracked with sobs. She stroked her hair, soothing her in the same way she had grown used to doing for her mother at home.
Suddenly it was almost like she was back in District 4, standing in her living room embracing her mother. She could smell the stew on the stove, feel her mothers wiry hair, flecked with familiar streaks of grey amongst the black, like stars in the night. Then she blinked and she was back in the arena, the calming aroma of stew replaced with the stench of blood and sweat, mixing with their tears.
Gaia looked up at her, bleary eyed, gaze filled with an indescribable gratitude. She now began to direct her apologies to Hebe specifically, begging the older girl for forgiveness for what she'd done. Tears tumbled down her cheeks as she rambled on about how sorry she was. Hebe realised just how young she really was, only 15 years old when she was sent to her death. The arena always had a twisted way of reminding her of the fragility of youth.
Eventually Gaia caught hold of herself, the loud sobs changing to smaller whimpers, finally able to form proper sentences between her hurried breaths.
"I'm so sorry Hebe, I really am. I shouldn't have left you like that," She looked down, ashamed of her actions. Hebe just shrugged.
"It's ok. I understand. You did what you had to do to survive, it's what we're all doing. And after all, you could've killed me, yet you chose not to." She smiled down at the girl, making it clear that she felt no resentment towards her.
"Does this make us allies then?"
Hebe laughed, "If you want us to be, then sure."
Gaia smiled back in a genuine manner that Hebe had forgotten could exist in the arena. She helped the younger girl to her feet, knowing that they would have to leave soon so the hovercraft could collect the dead girl.
Before they could depart though, Gaia rushed to a nearby bush and reached into it, burying herself halfway in the undergrowth, rummaging between the leaves. Then she returned to her full height, pulling out a large backpack in triumph, slinging it on her back and walking back to her newfound ally.
Hebe then began leading her way back to the stream she had found earlier by the peach tree, wanting to take advantage of Gaia's supplies and clean some of the water off the poor girl's face.
And so they walked, Hebe heading up the pair of them, continuing to hack threw branches with her axe. The sound of Gaia's feet thudding on the ground behind her was distinctly reminiscent of the time the two of them had spent with the careers. Although now they were free of Verity's incessant squawking.
By late afternoon they had reached the peach tree and the small river, and Hebe watched as her ally gasped in joy at the sight of clear fresh water. The girl rushed forward, pulling two empty canteens from her bag and filling them with the cool liquid just as Hebe had done earlier in the day.
Hebe then kneeled down next to her and helped her to wash some of the blood from her face, scrubbing it from the sleeves of both Gaia's and her own suit.
When she was finished her ally moved to inspect the peach tree, and Hebe managed to shout a warning just as she pulled one of the fruits of a branch.
"They're poisonous, sadly," She explained, patting her rather dejected ally on the shoulder.
"Of course they fucking are." Gaia whined, throwing the peach over her shoulder and letting it crash into a nearby bush, before continuing.
"So what's the plan? Where are we gonna sleep tonight?"
Gaia was right to be concerned about it, for night was beginning to fall, the sun casting an orange glow over the treetops.
"It's probably not a good idea to stay here, just in case another tribute knows about the stream and catches us off guard. So I figured we'd go further inwards to the centre of the arena and camp in a clearing there."
"Sounds good to me, lead the way."
And then they set off again through the forest, weaving their way through trees and ravines, quickly reaching a nearby clearing that was sheltered by taller trees.
The pair of them set up camp, Gaia pulling supplies from seemingly thin air, her backpack a bottomless pit of useful items she had stolen from the careers. Among other things she had two sleeping bags, matches, a few spools of rope, several small throwing knives, and a first aid kit. In addition to this she was also in possession of 4 boxes of Hebe's favourite crackers, the canteens of water and even a few apples.
Hebe drooled at the sight, having had to ration her last remaining pieces of food so they would last this long.
Together, they tucked into their meal, gorging themselves on the meagre supplies they had, chatting and laughing like they weren't in a fight to the death, like they weren't being pitted against each other.
"So how the hell did you learn how to put me to sleep like that!" Hebe asked, genuinely mystified.
"Pressure points. My brother would always use them on me when we play fought, so eventually I forced him to teach me how to find a few. Soon I got so good at it that I'd use them on him all the time, putting him to sleep at the dinner table and whatnot. Mum always got so pissed at him." She laughed fondly at the memory, looking off absentmindedly.
"What did you do? After I left I mean." Gaia asked quietly, staring at the older girl.
"I killed them." Hebe said bluntly, seeing no reason to beat about the bush.
"What happened after that?"
"I walked for a while, and then I found out how those two from 3 escaped us." She explained, choosing to tell Gaia all about the tunnels. She did trust her, after all.
Hebe outlined everything that had happened to her since they had seen eachother last, discovering the tunnels, Lilac, the cannibalism, the bugs, the unlikely sponsorship, and then how she arrived at the peach tree.
"So you think the tunnels run directly across the arena then, and that all the entrances are at equal intervals?"
"Yeah, it makes the most sense. After all, the whole time I was down there I walked completely straight, I'm sure of it."
"Wow. I never expected them to do something like this. Maybe in a quarter quell, but this is just another average year of the games. You think the other tributes know about the tunnels?"
Hebe considered it for a moment, then shook her head.
"I doubt it. After all, I only found out about it because of Lilac and Ampere. I don't think anyone else would've figured it out."
"Good point, those ones from 3 were pretty smart after all. But doesn't that mean that we can't use them to our advantage."
"What do you mean?" Hebe tilted her head at the girl, curious to what kind of plan she had been formulating.
"Well why don't we use the tunnels to spy on the other tributes. We can travel across the arena way quicker that way, right? So we can walk through the tunnels for a bit and pop up on a totally opposite side of the arena. Using that we can find other tributes, watch them, but have an easy escape route if necessary. I bet that's what Lilac and Ampere were doing, scoping out the competition."
"They must have been following the girl from 8 or something, but when she noticed them, they got spooked and killed her." Hebe finished, catching on to what her ally was suggesting. It was a good plan.
Gaia must have been taught this kind of military strategy by her father, and if it wasn't from him, it was probably something she had picked up in school. After all, 2 was a military district, supplying ammunition and soldiers to the Capitol in the dark days.
They fell into silence, contemplating the ramifications of their conversation, when something struck Hebe.
"What about the bugs?"
"The bugs?"
"Yeah, the ones that bit me. I didn't close the door to the room, so the whole place is probably swarming with them by now. I bet they're engineered to multiply quickly, most insects are." Hebe had no idea where she knew that from, assuming it was some long forgotten biology lesson.
"Well that's not too much of a problem, as long as they are separate tunnels, which from your description they most likely are. All we have to do is find a different hatch to the one you came out of, and open it up to check for the bugs. You said they don't seem to be able to leave the tunnels right?"
Hebe nodded.
"That's fine then. As long as we stay up here we'll be safe even if the whole thing is swarming with insects."
Gaia gave her ally a triumphant look, clearly proud of her analysis of the situation, glad to be helpful already to the girl she felt she owed so much to.
After that, they decided to finally go to bed, unrolling the sleeping bags and setting them up next to each other at one end of the clearing. Despite the whirring in her head, Hebe was out in seconds, lulled to sleep by the soft breeze rustling through the spindly branches.