Arena 'Night' 3


PERSEY FAYRE (16)

DISTRICT FIVE MALE


Persey had run out of puns.

He grunted loudly as he trudged up the spiral stairs of the obsidian tower, a black obsidian sword in tow. The tower itself hadn't been all too special, unfortunately, except for a single black obsidian sword dangling precariously from a thin rope along the spiral staircase. When he and Ithaca had first climbed the staircase, he'd nearly bumped right into it, which would've been a pretty awkward way to go. There was also a dark chest at the top of the tower, sealed under a series of locks and contraptions.

Now that was the interesting bit.

He and Ithaca had spent countless hours trying to crack the codes in a thus far fruitless bid to open the chest and reveal its secrets. Persey was just happy to see a puzzle he could occupy his time with. The mind-numbing eternity of darkness was starting to make his head go fizzy, he relished the chance to boggle his brain cells.

Ithaca was there waiting for him, her hands wrung in her hair as she bent over a scrap of paper, a broken pencil rolling aimlessly to a dark corner. She barely even noticed he was there, only affording him a brief glance when he tapped his sword on the railings. "Oh there you are," she grumbled.

"Cracked the code yet?" Persey asked.

Ithaca flashed him an annoyed glare. "You think?" she hissed, jabbing a finger at the scrap of paper, every inch of it covered in scribbles and markings.

Persey sighed and thrust his hand at her. "Hand it over." Ithaca obliged and Persey examined Ithaca's attempts at deciphering the passcode etched in a hidden layer of the chest. There was a pattern here, and Ithaca had very clearly been trying to find it. But thus far, none of her- or Persey's- combinations had worked.

And then a lightbulb flickered in his mind.

He rushed over and snatched the pencil- or whatever was left of it, that is- and began circling some digits. Ithaca was murmuring something in the corner, but Persey blocked her out, his mind now laser-focused on solving this puzzle.

Finally, he'd arrived at a conclusion.

"Six, seven, seven, eight, four, five," he read aloud.

Ithaca scowled, but she tried the combination anyway. Instantly, the lock clicked open, revealing, to Persey's dismay, yet another layer. This one appeared to consist of several pieces of some sort of picture which had to be pieced together. Persey grabbed several of them, placing them together in several places, but the final product seemed completely alien to him.

Damn it, this might take a couple hundred more days.

Ithaca gasped. "Wait, this is a map, I-I know this one, it's the Scaloni-Van der Meer map, made long before the Dark Days."

Persey raised an eyebrow, but he didn't question her knowledge, afraid he might push her into revealing something illegal.

Ithaca grabbed the pieces and began to hastily piece them together, eventually forming a map of what looked like an enlarged version of Panem. Persey's jaw dropped. He could vaguely recognise certain features, including certain Districts, but the map seemed to extend beyond what he knew to be Panem's current borders, stretching into uncharted waters and territories with unfamiliar names.

Once Ithaca had put the final piece into place, the chest clicked open. Persey craned his neck, his heart racing as he peered inside the coveted box.

He let out a jubilated gasp.

Armour.


TAMSIN REID (18)

DISTRICT TWELVE FEMALE


Tamsin wanted revenge.

She sat perched on a lone tree branch, gripping the folds of her jacket so tightly she'd ripped a small shred of it away.

She wanted to rip Quianna to pieces, tearing every shred and every ounce of her flesh away and burning it all at the stake.

She wanted to rip Fleur's pretty little head off and send it tumbling into the deepest and darkest of ravines.

She wanted to wrench Maximon's heart out and feed it to the dogs for breakfast.

In her mind, she wanted only one thing: revenge.

She seethed, her eyes burning red with pure hatred and rage as she plotted how she would kill every single tribute in this arena for daring to live.

For being alive while Elris wasn't.

For being complicit in his murder.

She let out a low growl as a lead rustled behind her. Without thinking, she pounced upon it, letting out a guttural, bloodcurdling scream as her hands clasped around something small and furry. Her fingernails, now sharp as claws, tore into flesh and bone, decimating whatever poor soul she'd gotten her hands on. Loud squeals echoed through the treetops, but Tamsin continued to rip and tear and shred, until, there was nothing but silence.

Tamsin crept backwards, her eyes widening as a modicum of sense crept into her. She yelped, backing away from the corpse of a mutilated squirrel that lay in a bloody, gruesome heap before her. She glanced down at her hands, her lips spluttering as her blood-soaked hands lay before her.

They were red.

So red.

Tamsin baulked, horrified at what she'd done. "Oh gosh, oh no, oh gosh…" she gasped. Tears streamed down her face as she realised just what she'd become.

A monster.

"Oh no, this isn't me, this isn't…"

"Hello, Tammy,"

But it couldn't be. Tamsin paled as she heard Elris's voice, singing to her, from a place that seemed so close to her she could feel it on the back of her neck yet so distant it felt like dimensions away.

"Elris…"

"It's me, Tammy, can't you see me?"

That voice again, now even louder. Tamsin's neck swivelled around like a madwoman, craning her neck and stooping low in a desperate search for the source of that voice. Yet it seemed to echo through the trees like nothing more than a careless whisper.

I'm down here, come find me, Tamsin.

Tamsin hopped from her tree, wincing as her foot landed a little too awkwardly for her liking. She glanced around, but still, there was nothing.

Something landed in front of her. She gasped, realising it was the remains of the squirrel she'd killed.

Eat it, Tammy, I know you're hungry.

Tamsin purred in protest, but her stomach grumbled furiously, longing, yearning for some morsel of a meal.

Eat it, Tamsin.

She hid her face in shame as she bit into the meat, eating it raw. Tamsin had never chowed down on an animal so freshly killed just like this, even in the Seam's most desperate of times, she would at least clean the meat beforehand. But now, it was as though something primal, a primordial profile of savagery, had awoken within her. She slurped the creature's blood, relishing its taste as it dribbled down her throat. Water was a difficult find here in the arena, but in that moment, blood seemed a lot more delicious.

Don't you wanna do this with the other tributes too?

"Yes Elris," she breathed, a deranged smile curling upon her lips.

"Oh yes."


CERIDWEN ADAMOS CARDINAL (15)

DISTRICT EIGHT FEMALE


Ceri wanted to get the fuck out of this place.

She sat by the tree, lazily twirling a twig around as she waited for the hours to pass. Guard duty, what a stupid little thing, no one was going to find them if they'd just found a better shelter, a more concealed hiding spot. But no, Laura had insisted that this was the way to go. There was water this way, she'd convinced Jotham, there's animal tracks leading over there, the birds are flying there, there's moisture, whatever, all those technical bits Ceri didn't know enough about.

But if they'd just been in like, a cave or something, they'd all be sound asleep resting well for the day ahead by now. Ceri had obviously protested the fuck out of taking on the last guard shift, but Jotham had begged her, pointing out that he and Laura had both done their shifts.

And Ceri couldn't possibly say no to Jotham now, could she?

She sighed, wistfully glancing at Jotham's sleeping form, snoring ever so soundly at her feet. Of course, he hadn't chosen to sleep there, rather, Ceri had strategically positioned herself to be as close to him as possible, while of course, keeping an eye on Laura to make sure she wasn't devoured by mutts or anything.

"Oh, Jotham," she murmured, aimlessly hurling her stick a couple of metres away from her in utter boredom.

She knew it was fucking pointless of course, but if she was going to spend the rest of her life in a hopeless loop of perpetual trauma, she was going to enjoy this brief fantasy of hers and if the Capitolites watching were going to make a mockery of her for it, then they could go fuck themselves.

Her gaze drifted to a tree stump just a stone's throw away from their campsite. Laura had warned them not to go anywhere near it, claiming that she could hear 'some activity within it'. Ceri hadn't seen or heard anything, but she decided the odds of her not having her head lobbed off increased significantly by heeding Laura's words. Over the last couple of days, or however long they'd been in the arena, Ceri had decided that Laura was by no means a threat, and wouldn't stand in the way of her and Jotham. Mostly because, unlike Ceri, Laura was actually smart enough to not get emotionally attached to anyone in this fucking hellhole.

Jotham began to stir, letting out a soft yawn. Ceri stared down at him as he stretched his arms. He was still somewhat in dreamland, she could tell, and as he stretched, he grabbed onto something solid. His left hand clasped itself around a rock.

His right hand grabbed her foot.

Ceri twitched, all of a sudden uncomfortable with his touch. And then Jotham snapped awake, realising that human skin was probably not what he'd been trying to grasp at. His eyes widened in alarm and he retracted his hand, his face going slightly red in the blue twilight. "Oh, sorry, Ceri, didn't realise you were there."

Ceri flashed him an embarrassed smile, which was totally not what she was going for, but whatever. "It's fine. It's my fault, I was sitting here making sure you were alright and-" She bit her lip. Shit, shouldn't have said that.

Jotham chuckled. "That's sweet of you, Ceri."

Ceri blinked."I- uhm, you think I'm sweet?" She had no idea what she was blabbering about, her mouth was spluttering nonsense at this point, grasping at whatever faint hit of a compliment Jotham sent her way.

"I think it's cute that you're blushing really hard right now," Jotham said, smirking.

That was enough to trigger a flurry of quiet curses from Ceri.


A/N: Not much action for tonight, but some little updates here and there on some of the tributes' progress. Next chapter though, the temporary few hours of peace in the arena will be shattered in one big explosion of action, that's for sure. Stay tuned for more and thank you for reading.