Chapter 5 - Tremble

Third day

None of them slept well. Dawn hardly seemed to sleep at all. Lily was so grumpy upon waking, Plum told her to take a lap around the level. Bliss was too distracted to shoe Lily away, shaking with the onset of a fever. The wound on her leg looked angry, the wound on her stomach angrier. Heat emanated from the puss-filled tissue. Plum reassured her, but didn't meet her eyes, and she knew it was bad. Who would have though infection would kill me in the arena?

They had no medical supplies left. No bandages, let alone ointments or pills. Plum cut off the hem of his jacket to create a bandage for her stomach. Bliss' heart lurched. Why does he care? She offered him some of her jerky in return, but he declined. Maybe he figures I'll be dead soon enough anyway, then he can just take it afterwards. Bliss shoved the ugly thought from her mind. The terror and sleep deprivation was making her antsy.

"I need to find medicine." Bliss announced as Lily returned, not looking any calmer.

"Do you expect us to help?" Lily asked, looking her up and down.

"Did I say that, Lily?" Bliss said the girl's name pointedly. Lily rolled her eyes. "How are your cuts, by the way?" Bliss eyed the marks on the girl's arms and legs from the bloodbath.

Lily eyed her mildly-infected wounds and recoiled. "Not great. I guess I could use some medicine too. What should we do?" It was interesting Lily was just as fast to lash out as she was to acquiesce.

"The garden's our best bet. This is what I'm thinking- there's no water anywhere, even in the garden, except for what's in these plastic bottles we've found on the upper levels. You said Opus Dei had been exploring all the rooms in the lower levels, but I doubt they found anything to drink, if the pattern holds. They'll be getting pretty desperate, even if there was plenty of water in the bags in the cornucopia… I think they'll be out today looking.

"The garden may be clear to explore- or at least less occupied than it has been since the games begun. I say we go down there. You guys find a spot with good cover and a good visual of the garden, and keep watch. I'll walk through and try to find something helpful. If you see something I don't, try and create a distraction or something- without bringing anybody to your location, of course. But help me out if you can, I guess." Bliss finished, wiping seat from her forehead. Hopefully she didn't sound delirious. Bliss' mind stopped spinning with ideas long enough to focus on the pair in front of her. They stared back.

"Panem, Bliss, sometimes you scare me a little." Lily said, regarding her with what Bliss' feverish mind interpreted as a hint of respect.

"I didn't get much sleep last night. I was thinking." Bliss said, shrugging, suddenly self-conscious.

"Don't get me wrong, girl. Kinda badass of you. Should I start calling you General Bliss?" Lily replied.

"It flows than General Burgundy, I suppose. Sounds like I'd get killed in the study with the candlestick." Bliss joked.

Dawn's screams ripped through the air, loud even twenty stories up, making Bliss' alliance flinch. Bastards.

"Better than in the garden with concrete." Lily said quietly, staring through the window. "Bliss, if you can, help her, please…" Lily said, taking a polite tone with Bliss for the first time ever. At first, Bliss was confused. There's no way she'd be able to break the girl out of hardened concrete. But then, of course, it clicked. Lily meant for Bliss to kill the girl. Bliss shuddered.

"I umm…" Lily started, clearing her throat. "When I was six, my brother and I went to explore a construction site by my house… He was playing around a garden bed, of all things… He fell into the concrete. It was still soft enough that he sunk. I pulled him out, but it took too long to get help. The concrete hardened over his skin before he could get treatment. The days after were… horrible. If the doctors could chip a piece off, layers of skin came with it to expose muscle. Sometimes bone. They gave up after a while. He died a few days later, from suffocation, dehydration, or organ failure, they weren't sure. He was only four…" Lily's eyes gleamed.

"It's a horrible way to die, okay? Whenever death comes for her, it'll be mercy." Lily said, putting a hand on Bliss' shoulders. Bliss looked up at Lily, eyes surprisingly gentle. Bliss nodded, unsure of what to say. The girls broke apart a moment later.

"Let's go." Bliss said, serious.

The group found a vantage point in the southwest corner of the garden yard, after they'd climb down and trekked through the cornucopia yard and the row of buildings between. They sat for thirty minutes, but didn't see hide nor hair of any other tribute- other than Dawn in the centre. At least she was quiet, nobody to currently torment her.

But the sight of her… Bliss leaned over and vomited what little breakfast she'd managed to choke down. The exposed skin on Dawn's face and hands were in ribbons. Plum gently rubbed Bliss' back as she recovered.

Bliss squeezed Plum's hand, then silently signalled goodbye to her allies. She entered the garden. Lush greenery enveloped her. Bliss tried to walk in the direction of the beds towards the garden mixer, the one's she'd previously identified as having both poisonous and edible plants, based on their colour, from her vantage point above.

Dawn saw her as she approached and started screaming. Shit. Bliss had a decision to make now that the alarm had been sounded- kill Dawn now and run away, or find medicine and run away. She looked woefully at Dawn and turned her attention to the garden beds.

Dense, white, flowers occupied the corner of a bed to her left. She darted towards it. It looked like yarrow, but she couldn't be sure. Yarrow wasn't in the flash cards. It was hard to concentrate through Dawn's shrieks. The flower could be poison-hemlock. Bliss grabbed a handful and shoved it in her jacket pocket, regardless, and kept searching.

Another flower in a bed a few feet away caught her eye- the wild potato vine had white flowers slightly more flared than the other, poisonous white flowers in the bed. Bliss grabbed a handful of the wild potato vine. A flower in the same bed caught her eye, definitely poison-hemlock. She stuffed a handful in a different pocket- avoiding touching the flowers- as she heard chatter from the southeast corner. Opus Dei had returned.

Bliss angled north, winding through the garden paths. Upon reaching the perimeter, she skirted back along the edge down to the southern row of buildings, jumping from covered spot to covered spot, and disappeared through the lobby doors leading to the cornucopia yard. Her allies were no where in sight; Bliss hoped they'd made it back to their spot.

She traversed the cornucopia yard to get to the familiar lobby, and climbed the twenty stories of stairs, before scaling the pipe to reach their level.

Plum and Lily waited expectantly, grinning with relief when she pulled herself through the window. Bliss blinked black spots from her vision, from the exertion and lack of fuel. Plum caught her before she passed out.

"Thanks." Bliss said, wearily. She swore she caught another jealous glance from Lily, and suppressed the urge to tell her off. Any sympathy Bliss felt for the girl earlier was gone.

"What did you get?" Lily asked.

Bliss showed them the collection of flowers. Nobody said a thing about the presence of the poison-hemlock, trusting her with the plants. Bliss sat on the ground and began coiling the plants together. After she had two bundles, she handed one to Lily, and told her to pound it with the hilt of her blade until the stems and flowers split open. Lily complied, and Bliss did the same for her own bundle. Again, Lily didn't notice when Bliss wove some poison-hemlock into the girl's bundle. They applied their compresses, then sat to eat lunch, a mild reprieve from the hellscape. Bliss wondered how long it took poison-hemlock to work, if Plum would be suspicious when Lily died.

After they finished eating, Bliss knew they had to head out. Staying in one place for too long was a death sentence in the games… But how long was too long? Bliss wondered. She was so tired. She eyed her weary alliance-mates, and instead of suggesting they leave straight away, she suggested they take a nap. Plum and Lily eagerly agreed.

Not five minutes after the trio began to rest, the ground began to tremble. A warning of what was to come. Bliss frantically shook Plum, who'd already fallen asleep.

"Earthquake." Bliss said with trepidation. Lily looked back at her frantically, then started walking towards the window to climb down as the earth shook again. The trio was taken off their feet. Climbing down a level would be impossible, and even if they could manage the exterior pipe, the building might not last long enough for them to run down the twenty stories. There hadn't been a death in days, Bliss was sure the gamemakers wouldn't mind killing off the three of them.

"What do we do?" Lily asked Bliss, panicked. Plum stared at her as well, as the building violently shook. The terror threatened to shut down Bliss' mind, but she fought through the emotion, willed herself to think.

"The tunnel!" Bliss yelled, sprinting towards the space they'd crawled through the first night. Concrete crashed around them, the roof collapsing. Plum caught a glancing blow to the shoulder that knocked him down, but he sprang to his feet and ran after Bliss and Lily. The walls on the upper level tumbled away; the beating sun assaulted them. Because the walls had fallen away, a hole opened up, allowing them to jump into the building kitty-corner rather than crawl.

Bliss vaulted over a desk, flung herself over a pile of rubble, and jumped a few feet over open air to land in the adjacent building. She landed on the tilted floor, on all fours, and looked back to her alliance. Lily's form approached her mid air, and Bliss ducked out of the way to avoid breaking Lily's fall. Plum tumbled after Lily.

The building they jumped from wasn't just shaking and losing pieces anymore, it was fully collapsing. They building they were in now leaned against the other. It would go down as soon as the first did. Instinctually Bliss started sprinting east, towards the tallest part of the floor. Her allies followed.

As they sprinted, the floor began tilting more, and more. Desks and chairs began sliding towards them. They fanned out and dodged the falling debris, running uphill, against the ever-increasing grade. Nobody hesitated to jump. The floor of the building they jumped from tipped vertically.

Seconds stretched out as the trio careened through open air, twenty stories up. Bliss hoped the Capitol got a good shot.

Lily had the best angle, only free-falling about five feet until she landed on a solid floor the next building over. Plum fell nearly ten feet before tucking and rolling on the level below Lily. Bliss landed hard on the level below Plum, almost twenty feet from where she jumped, hitting a metal pipe with her forearm on the way down. She tried to roll upon landing to absorb some of the impact, but her ankles, knees, hips and back popped and ground in their sockets. At least several joints shared the impact instead of snapping one clean in half.

There was fire under the skin, everywhere, her joints, her forearm; nerves screaming in protest, asking why she would hit herself so hard. Bliss apologized to her body. She couldn't tell if it was broken. She tried to sit up, but pain shot through her entire skeleton. She relented, laying back down, trying to breathe through the gruelling flashes of fire. Just need a moment to rest, that's all.

Twenty minutes later, Plum and Lily found Bliss. Apparently there wasn't an easy way to get down to her level, they'd had to get creative. A few rumbles still shook the ground. Bliss prayed the earthquake was over, she couldn't run away again, not right now, trapped in a stunned body. Tears pricked her eyes, she hated feeling helpless. The droplets broke the barrier of her eyelids, and slid down her face.

"Bliss!" Plum raced over to her, examining her condition, her terrified expression. "You're going to be okay." Always so fast to comfort, this boy. The Capitol didn't deserve him. The pain began spreading in earnest through Bliss' body, stealing her breath, making her cry.

"Damn! I lost my bandage!" Lily exclaimed, examining the worst cut on her arm. More tears slid from Bliss eyes, her plan to poison the girl a failure.

Plum shot Lily a look. Lily didn't notice. Bliss' hands found her stomach. She hadn't lost her bandage. Small miracles.

"What hurts?" Plum asked Bliss.

"Everything." Bliss said, roughly.

"Can you sit up?" Plum asked.

Bliss fought to a sitting position with Plum's help, and he propped her against him up so she wouldn't fall back down.

"Tell me what hurts, Bliss. It's important." Plum said, trying to remain calm. Bliss tried to think.

"Right knee." Bliss grunted.

Gingerly, Plum rolled up her canvas pant leg. Her patella hovered over the medial edge of her knee, well out of place.

"I need to put it back." Plum said. Bliss nodded.

He gripped her kneecap, then moved it back to the centre of her knee, as Bliss sobbed. He held her after, rubbing her back. Lily didn't look jealous this time.

"What else?" Plum asked.

"Left ankle." Bliss replied. Plum turned his attention to the joint. She was so glad he was here, Lily would have left her to die.

Plum took off Bliss' left sock and shoe. It didn't make her scream, which she took as a sign the joint wasn't broken. Plum asked her to move her ankle around. She could, but the motion was severely limited by the swelling and pain.

"We need to get the shoe back on before your foot and ankle swell too much. I don't think your ankle's broken- maybe some bones in your foot." Plum said, working her sock and shoe back on.

"What else hurts?" Plum asked, fear in his eyes. With the shock passing, she realized her knee and ankle were the worst sources of pain.

"Is my arm broken?" Bliss gave her left forearm to Plum. He examined it.

"No, but it's bruised to hell. Could be bruised down to the bone. But it's not broken, I don't think." Plum said.

Bliss exhaled with relief. She actually might be able to walk away from this. Plum dragged her over to a pillar, so she could sit without his assistance, and he began collecting pieces of broken wood from the level they occupied. Her spine and hips adjusted with the movement, making Bliss yelp. The bones seemed to be sliding back in place, though, her pelvis still felt like it was in one piece.

Plum returned, and used Lily's knife to cut more strips of fabric from the bottom of his jacket.

"I like your crop top." Bliss said. Plum looked ruefully at the condition of his jacket.

"Styled by Bliss' wounds." Plum replied, and he fastened a splint around her ankle, tying it in place with the strips of fabric.

"DIY king." Bliss said. Joking was easier than thinking about her pummelled body. Plum smiled back at her.

"Where are we?" Bliss asked, more seriously. Plum got up and looked.

"We're between the garden and cornucopia yards, still at least fifteen stories up." He said. Bliss gathered her wits. Lily was strangely quiet.

"That makes sense." She said weakly. Plum returned to her side.

"You're going to be okay, Bliss." Plum said, using the back of his hand to touch her cheek. She leaned into the touch, momentarily comforted.

"We should get going." Lily said. Bliss wanted to strangle her.

Nonetheless, Bliss let Plum help her to her feet. She took a few steps. Oh yeah, that feels terrible. But she could do it, and that was all that mattered. Plum offered her an arm, which she gladly took. The trio scampered away from the ledge, trying to find an exit. They passed by a hole in the floor Lily told her they'd jumped through to find her. Luckily, they didn't have to jump down any more floors, locating a staircase in the southeast corner. They didn't have the option to ascend, the stairs blocked by a collapse. The only direction they could travel was down, between the two most dangerous courtyards. They needed a plan.

"Stop for a sec." Bliss said, around level seven or eight. "We need a plan for when we get down there."

"Why? If we see someone, we'll just throw you at them." Lily said, meaner than usual.

"Shut up, Lily." Plum retorted, anger in his tone, before Bliss could respond. Lily looked at him innocently, but didn't anything else.

"What do you suggest, Bliss?" Plum asked. Ugh, she was tired of making decisions. Tired in general. How could it only be the third day?

"Lemme think." Bliss said, her brain not working properly. "Okay…" She started, an idea coming together. "There are several small lobbies on the west side of the garden courtyard. We don't have great options right now, but I suggest we try and sneak into one of them. I don't think Opus Dei would expect anyone to camp so close to them, too risky. And you said they already thoroughly searched the lower levels yesterday. I think we should duck into one, and wait for nightfall there. I bet you anything they'll start searching this building soon for survivors. If we can get to one of the west lobbies in the garden and make it through the night, we can find somewhere else to camp tomorrow." She hoped she sounded convincing as the words tumbled out of her mouth.

Lily scoffed.

"You have any better ideas?" Plum turned on Lily, borderline pissed.

"No." Lily replied, indignantly.

"Then let's go." Bliss said.

The trio continued walking down the stairs. They reached the door to the lobby. Plum peered through the window, saying the coast was clear. He reached for the door handle. As the door cracked open, Bliss heard the release of a mechanism.

Before she knew it, she'd tackled Plum to the ground. A stone the size of an anvil swung into the door, smashing it to smithereens. Must have been a trap Opus Dei rigged. Splinters rained down on Lily, but she jumped to avoid the impact when Bliss tackled Plum. The noise was sure to draw attention, there was no time to recover. Plum helped Bliss to her feet and basically carried her as they ran. Lily trailed behind.

The trio entered the garden courtyard, and by the grace of Panem, there were no Opus Dei members in sight. They ran to the west wall of buildings, and ducked into one of several doors, all lined up beside one another. Plum was careful with the door this time. When no death traps presented themselves, he continued through. He pointed out a trip wire a few feet away. Bliss and Lily avoided it.

The lobby wasn't large, and there were no exits other than the front door. If someone walked in, they were dead, but out of hundreds of doors in the courtyard, Bliss hoped the odds of someone coming to check on this particular lobby were small.

Soon enough, Opus Dei returned to the courtyard. They held a few plastic water bottles, but looked significantly dehydrated. Likely the only reason the trio was alive was because Opus Dei was busy ransacking the upper levels of some distant building as the quake and subsequent collapse happened. They weren't close enough to attack immediately.

Now, though, the D9 pair broke off and searched the building the trio had emerged from. They notified Cable and Callum that someone had set off their trap. Callum instructed the D9 pair to search the building.

For now, Bliss' alliance was tucked safely away in the west wall of buildings.

The D9 pair returned about an hour later to report they found nothing. Nobody was acknowledging Dawn, anymore, but the girl wasn't dead yet. Bliss stared through the lobby window at her, praying she'd pass in her sleep tonight.

Opus Dei began settling in for the evening, sharing their meager rations and bottled water with one another. No kills, no sponsorships, no proper meals. Cable was perpetually tucked into Callum's arms. Callum joked lazily with the other boy. Dawn was less than twenty feet from Opus Dei. Psychopaths.

They way Callum easily drew each member of his alliance into conversation unnerved Bliss. It seemed like second nature, but Bliss could tell how calculated the boy was. It was like Bryce sat in the middle of the garden, not Callum. Bliss shuddered, tense.

Plum settled into the chair beside her, resting an arm on the desk. "Hey, you doing alright?"

Bliss nodded, distracted, looking towards Callum and Cable.

"You don't hate gays, do you?" Plum asked, mock-serious. Bliss could only tell he was joking when she looked towards him. A smile played on her lips.

"Hate gays. Love dykes." Bliss said. Plum stifled his laugh, and turned to look at Opus Dei. Moments trickled by.

"Hey, Bliss." Plum said, directing her thoughts away from the D1 and D5 boys.

"Mhmm?"

"Thank you for saving my life today." Plum said, taking her hand to show he meant it. Bliss squeezed his hand, then dropped it, picking at her cuticles in her lap.

"I should be saying the same to you." Bliss replied. "Thank you."

"I didn't save you, just patched you up a little." Plum said.

"In the arena, it's basically the same thing. So, thank you. Okay? I don't know what I would have done if you guys had left me there." Bliss said.

"I wouldn't have done that." Plum said. "I'm not going to leave you, Bliss. I promise."

She looked at him sadly. "Don't make promises you can't keep."

"I don't intend on breaking it." Plum said. When she looked into his eyes, she believed him.

Bliss reached over and pulled Plum into a hug. He exhaled into her copper hair. Before either of them started crying, they pulled away.

Plum and Bliss settled down and fell into an uneasy rest, Lily on first watch.

TOTAL DEATH COUNT (DAY 3): (9) - NO NEW DEATHS.