Tiny, searing stabs. Wherever the droplets of mist touch my skin.
"Run!" Katniss screams at the others. "Run!"
Finnick snaps awake instantly, rising to counter an enemy. But when he sees the wall of fog, he tosses a still sleeping Mags onto his back and takes off. Peeta is on his feet but not as alert. I grab my bow as Katniss grabs Peeta's arm and tries to propel him through the jungle after Finnick.
"What is it? What is it?" he says in bewilderment.
"Some kind of fog." I tell him.
"Poisonus gas." Katniss says at the same time as I answered him. "Hurry, Peeta!" She urges. I can see that however much he denied it during the day, the aftereffects of hitting the force field have been significant. He's slow, much slower than he should be. And the tangle of vines and undergrowth, which unbalance me occasionally, trip him at every step.
I look back at the wall of fog extending in a straight line as far as I can see in either direction. A terrible impulse to flee, to abandon Peeta and save myself, shoots through me. It would be so simple, to run full out, perhaps to even climb a tree above the fog line, which seems to top out at about forty feet. But instead I trap my terror, push it down, and stay by his side, with Katniss on the other side. This time my survival isn't the goal. Katniss is. I think of the eyes glued to the television screens in the districts, seeing if I will run, as the Capitol wishes, or hold my ground.
I lock my fingers tightly into his hand following Katniss' lead. "Watch my feet. Just try to step where I step." She tells him. It helps. We seem to move a little faster, but never enough to afford a rest, and the mist continues to lap at our heels. Droplets spring free of the body of vapor. They burn, but not like fire. Less a sense of heat and more intesnse pain as the chemicals find our flesh, cling to it, and burrow down through the layers of skin. Our jumpsuits are no help at all.. We may as well be dressed in tissue paper, for all the protection they give.
Finnick, who bounded off initially, stops when he realizes we're having problems. But this is not a thing you can fight, only evade. He shouts encouragement, trying to move us along, and the sound of his voice acts as a guide, though little more.
Peeta's artificial leg catches in a knot of creepers and he sprawls forward before Katniss and I can catch him. As she helps him up, I become aware of something scarier than the blisters. The left side of his face has sagged, as if every muscle in it has died. The lid droops, almost concealing his eye. "Peeta —" I begin. And that's when I feel the spasms run up my arm.
Whatever chemical laces the fog does more than burn — it targets our nerves. A whole new kind of fear shoots through me and Katniss yanks Peeta forward, which only causes him to stumble again. By the time we get him to his feet, both my arms are twitching uncontrollably. The fog has moved in on us, the body of it less than a yard away. Something is wrong with Peeta's legs, he's trying to walk but they move in a spastic, puppetlike fashion.
I feel him lunch forward and realize Finnick has come back for us and is hauling Peeta along. Katniss wedges her shoulder, which still seems under control, under Peeta's arm and odes her best to keep up with Finnick. I grab onto Finnick's hand as we run through the woods. We put about ten yards between us and the fog when Finnick stops.
"It's no good. I'll have to carry him. Can you take Mags?" he asks Katniss.
"Yes," she says stoutly, and then looks over at me. "Ember can help me." I squat down and she positions herself over my shoulders, the way she rides on Finnick. I slowly straighten my legs and, with my knees locked, I can manage her. Finnick has Peeta leading, me following in the trail he breaks through the vines. Katniss follows closely behind me, there to catch Mags if she starts to slip.
On the fogs comes, silent and steady and flat, except for the grasping tendrils. Although my instinct is to run directly away from it, I realize Finnick is moving at a diagonal down the hill. He's trying to keep a distance from the gas while steering us toward the water that surrounds the Cornucopia. Yes, water, I think as the acid droplets bore deeper into me.
It's not Mags's fault when I begin falling. She's doing everything she can to be an easy passenger, but the fact is, there is only so much weight I can handle. Especially now that my right leg seems to be going stiff. The first two times I crash to the ground, I mamange to make it back on my feet with the help of Katniss, who offers to carry Mags. Mags rolls off onto the ground before us.
Finnick's back by my side, Peeta hanging over him. "It's no use," Katniss says.
I can see Finnick's eyes, green in the moonlight. I can see them clear as day. Almost like a cat's, with a strange reflective quality. Maybe because they are shiny with tears. "I can't carry them both. My arms aren't working." It's true. His arms jerk uncontrollably at his sides. His hands are empty. Of his three tridents, only one remains, and it's in Peeta's hands. "I'm sorry Mags. I can't do it."
What happens next is so fast, so senseless, I can't even stop it. Mags hauls herself up, plants a kiss on Finnick's lips, and then hobbles striaght into the fog. Immediately, her body is seized by wild contortions and she falls to the ground in a horrible dance.
I want to scream, because my throat is on fire. I take one futile step in her direction when I hear the connon blast. I turn my head over to my friend. "Finnick?" I call out hoarsely, but he has already turned from the scene, already continued his retreat from the fog. Dragging my useless leg behind me, I stagger after him, having no idea what else to do.
Time and space lose meaning as the fog seems to invade my brain, muddling my thoughts, making everything unreal. Some deep-rooted animal desire for survival keeps me stumbling after Finnick and Peeta, continuing to move, although I'm propabbaly dead already.
Moonlight glinting on Finnick's bronze hair, beads of searing pain peppering me, a leg turned to wood. I follow Finnick until he collapses on the ground, Peeta still on top of him. I seem to have no ability to stop my own forward motion and simply propel meself onward until I trip over their prone bodies, just one more on the heap. This is where and how and when we all die, I think. But the thought is abstract and far less alarming than the current agonies of my body. I hear Finnick groan and manage to drag myself off of the others. Now I can see the wall of fog, which has taken on a pearly white quality. Maybe it's my eyes playing tricks, or the moonlight, but the fog seems to be transforming. Yes, it's becoming thicker, as if it has pressed up against a glass window and is being forced to condense. I squint harder and realize the fingers no longer protrude from it. In fact, it has stopped moving forward entirely. Like other horrors I have witnessed in the arena, it has reached the end of its territory. Either that or the Gamemakers have decided not to kill us just yet.
"It stopped," I try to say, but only an awful croaking sound comes from my swollen mouth. "It's stopped," I say again, and this time I must be clearer, because Peeta, Katniss, and Finnick turn their heads to the fog. It begins to rise upward now, as if being slowly vacuumed into the sky. We watch until it has all been sucked away and not the slightest wisp remains.
Peeta rolls off Finnick, who turns over onto his back. We lie there gasping, twitching, our minds and bodies invaded by the poison. After a few minutes pass, Peeta vaguely gestures upward. "Mon-hees." I look up and spot a pair of what I guess are monkeys. I have never seen a live monkey — there's nothing like that in our woods at home. But I must have seen a picture, or one in the Games, because when I see the creatures, the same word comes to my mind.
I think these have orange fur, although it's hard to tell, and are about half the size of a full-grown human. I take the monkeys for a good sign. Surely they would not hang around if the air was deadly. For a while, we quietly observe one another, humans and monkeys. Then Peeta struggles to his knees and crawls down the slope. We all crawl, since walking now seems as remarkable a feat as flying; we crawl until the vines turn to a narrow strip of sandy beach and the warm water that surrounds the Cornupoia laps our faces. I jerk back as if I've touched an open flame.
Rubbing salt in a wound. For the first time I truly appreciate the expression, because the salt in the water makes the pain of my wounds so blinding I nearly black out. But there's another sensation, of drawing out. I experiment by gingerly placing only my hand in the water. Torturous, yes, but then less so. And through the blue layer of water, I see a milky substance leaching out of the wounds on my skin. As the whiteness diminishes, so does the pain. I unbuckle my belt and strip off my jumpsuit, which is a little more than a perforated rag. My shoes and undergarments are inexplicably unaffected. Little by little, one small portion of a limb at a time, I soak the poison out of my wounds. Katniss and Peeta seem to be doing the same. But Finnick backs away from the water at first touch and lies face down on the sand, either unwilling or unable to purge himself.
Finally, when I have survived the worst, opening my eyes underwater, sniffing water into my sinuses and snorting it out, and even gargling repeatedly to wash out my throat, I'm functional enough to help Finnick. Some feeling has returned to my leg, but my arms are still riddled with spasms. I can't drag Finnick into the water, and possibly the pain would kill him, anyways. So I scoop up shakily handfuls and empty them on his fists. Since he's not underwater, the posion comes out of his wound just as it went in, in wisps of fog that I take great care to steer clear of. Peeta and Katniss recover enough to help me. Peeta cuts away Finnick's jumpsuit. Somewhere he finds three shells that work much better than our hands do. We concentrate on soaking Finnick's arms first, since they have been so badly damaged, and even though a lot of white stuff pours out of them, he doesn't notice. He just lies there, eyes shut, giving an occasional moan.
I look around with growing awarness of how dangerous a position we're in. It's night, yes, but this moon gives off too much light for concealment. We're lucky no one's attacked us yet. We could see them coming from the Cornucpoia, but if all four Careers attacked, they'd overpower us. If they didn't spot us first, Finnick's moans would give us away soon.
"We've got to get more of him into the water," Katniss whispers and I nod my head in agreement. But we can't put him in face-first, not while he's in this condition. Peeta nod to Finnick's feet. Him and Katniss each take one and I grab onto his shoulders. They pull him one hundred and eight degrees around, and start to drag him into the saltwater. Just a few minutes. Up to his midcalf. Wait. His knees. Clouds of white swirl out of his flesh and he gorans. We continue to detoxify him, bit by bit. What I find is that the longer I sit in the water, the better I feel. Not just my skin, but my brain and muscle control continue to improve. I can see Peeta's face beginning to return to normal, his eyelid opening, the grimace leaving his mouth.
Finnick slowly begins to revive. His eyes open, focus on us, and register awareness that he's being helped. I rest his head on my lap and we let him soak for about ten minutes with everything immersed from the neck down. Peeta, Katniss, and I exchange smiles as Finnick lifts his arms above the seawater.
"There's just your head left, Finnick. That's the worst part, but you'll feel much better after, if you can bear it," I say. We help him to sit up and let him grip our hands as he purges his eyes and nose and mouth. His throat is still too raw to speak.
"I'm going to try to tap a tree," Katniss says. He fingers fumble at her belt and find the spile still hanging from its vine.
"Let me make the hole first," says Peeta. "You stay with him." He says to me.
As the two of them walk to one of the nearby trees and glance down at Finnick. He got the worst of the fog, although I'm not sure why. Maybe because he's the biggest or maybe because he had to exert himself the most. And then, of course, there's Mags. At the thought of her my heart begins to ache. I might not have known her as well as Finnick did, but she was my friend. And she was a friend of Willow's. I wonder how she's doing.
The seawater seems to be transforming Finncik. He begins to move slowly, just testing his limbs, and gradually begins to swim. But it's not like me swimming, the rhythmic strokes, the even pace. It's like watching some strange sea animal coming back to life. He dives and surfaces, spraying water out of his mouth, rolls over and over in some bizarre corkscrew motion that makes me dizzy even to watch.
I want to speak to him but I am unsure what to say. "I'm sorry." I eventually say softly.
Finnick looks over at me with sad eyes, "Don't"
Nodding my head I try to think of something else to say. "I think there's something I need to tell you." He looks at me but doens't say anything. "It's something I probably should have said a long time ago, but I- I like you Finnick." I glance down afraid to see his reaction. I wonder if a camera is on us and if so what the reaction of the audience is. "And maybe it's a little more than like." I add.
He doesn't say anything for a while. I look up at him and see his gaze is focused upward, I follow. I don't know how they arrived so silently. Perhaps they didn't. We've all been absorbed in restoring our bodies. During that time they've assembled. Not five or ten but scores of monkeys weigh down the limbs of the jungle trees. The pair we spotted when we first escaped the fog felt like a welcoming committee. This crew feels ominous.
I arm my bow with an arrow and Finnick adjusts the trident in his hands. "Peeta, Katniss," I sat as calmly as possible. "We need your help with something."
Katniss sensing the seriousness in my voice and glances around quickly noticing the monkeys. She slowly retreats back towards us. "Okay, just a minute. I think I've just about got it," Peeta says, still occupied with the tree. "Yes, there. Have you got the spile?"
"I do. But we've found something you'd better take a look at," Katniss says in a measured voice. "Only move toward us quietly, so you don't startle it." For some reason, I don't want him to notice the monkeys, or even glance their way. There are creatures that interpret mere eye contect as aggression.
Peeta turns to us, panting from his wor on the tree. The tone of Katniss' request is so odd that it alerts him to some irrgularity. "Okay," he says casually. He begins to move through the jungle, and although I know he's trying hard to be quiet, he moves and the monkeys are holding their positions. He's just five yards from the beach when he senses them. His eyes only dart up for a second, but it's as if he's triggered a bomb. The monkeys explode into a shrieking mass of orange fur and converge on him.
I've never seen any animal move so fast. They slide down the vines as if the things were greased. Leap impossible distances from tree to tree. Fangs bared, hackles raised, claws shooting out like switchblades. I may be unfamiliar with monkeys, but animals in nature don't act like this. "Mutts!" I spit out as Finnick, Katniss, and I crash into the greenery.
I know every arrow must count, and they do. In the eerie light, I bring down monkey after monkey, targeting eyes and hearts and throats, so each hit means death. But still it wouldn't be enough without Katniss also shooting arrows and Finnick spearing the beasts like fish and flinging them aside, and Peeta slashing away with his knife. I feel claws on my leg, down my back, before someone takes out the attacker. The air grows heavy with trumable plants. The four of us position ourselves in a square, a few yards apart, our backs to one another. My heart sinks as my fingers draw back my last arrow. Slinging my bow on my shoulder, I pull out the sword that I had picked up.
"Peeta!" Katniss shouts. "Your arrows!"
Katniss must be out of arrows as well. He turns to look at her and is sliding off his sheath when it happens. A monkey lunges out of a tree for his chest. I have no arrows, too far away for my sword to reach in time. Katniss was out of arrows, no way to shoot. I can hear the thud of Finnick's trident finding another mark and know his weapon is occupied. Peeta's knife is disabled as he tries to remove the sheath. Katniss throws her knife at the oncoming mutt but the creature somersaults, evading the blade, and it stays on its trajectory.
Weaonless, defenslesss, I do the only thing I can think of. I run for Peeta, to knock him to the ground, to protect his body with mine, even though I know I won't make it in time.
She does though. Materialing, it seems, from thin air. One moment nowhere, the next reeling in front of Peeta. Already bloody, mouth open in a high-pitched scream, pupils enlarged so her eyes seem like black holes.
The insane morphling from District 6 throws up her skeletal arms as if to embrace the monkey, and it sinks its fangs into her chest.