There's no food.
Embelia's head is pounding with a thousand thoughts, but drowning them all out, over and over, is the fact that there's no food at the cornucopia.
Her feet are carrying her forward before she can tell them to, and she's heading right into the fray, into the carnage that's already unfolding by the supplies. Her legs carry her across spongy green moss, the soles of her boots seeming to sink in a half inch or so with every step. The moss springs right back whenever her foot leaves it, seeming as though it propels her forward, eager to get her into the mass of bloody bodies and violence.
All too quickly, a knife flies past her head and she's stumbling forward, gasping as she catches herself in the mossy ground, right at the lip of the shining golden cornucopia. The moss is damp, dewey, as though it has just been raining. She looks up at her would-be assailant, eyes wide, and she spots Emerald looking right at her.
The blonde gives her a grin, and Embelia braces herself for a knife to the face that never comes. After a moment, she cracks her eyes open and looks round to find another tribute- the girl from Six, she thinks, laying on the ground with a knife sticking out of her throat. Emerald had realised exactly what Embelia had, perhaps at the same time. They were a team now, and Emerald had just saved her life.
Embelia tries to mutter out a thank you, but all that comes out is a garbled noise of terror. She stumbles up, frantically checking the nearest crates for any sign of food. Rummaging through them, she finds rope, wire, an array of sleeping bags, and empty metal bottles. The bottles are dry as a bone. There's not a crumb, not a drop. She turns around to face the massacre playing in her ears, and sees a small figure running right toward Emerald, who'd been watching her back while she checked the supplies. The figure looks to have some sort of makeshift weapon, perhaps a stray branch from the towering trees around them. And they're heading right for Emerald.
Embelia grabs the first weapon she lays eyes on, a sleek silver spear, and cries out, thrusting it forward. The shiny surface is stained with dark red as it skewers the boy from Three right through the chest.
It's the boy from Three.
The youngest of their peers, the tiny boy whose hands would begin to shake whenever another tribute would so much as approach his vicinity. The tiny boy, who'd been so brave in these moments to approach the cornucopia, looks at Embelia with terror in his eyes and coughs, blood spilling from his mouth. He goes limp, and when the blood drips onto her hands, Embelia drops the spear.
She's trembling like a newborn goat, legs like jelly. She looks in horror at her now blood smeared hands. She tries to wipe it off on her clothes, only succeeding in staining them with spots of red.
She hears Emerald's voice, sounding distant and muffled by the pounding in her ears. "Get your shit together, Embelia!" she calls over her shoulder. "It's okay, I've got your back!"
Embelia chokes on nothing, stumbling back and away from the cornucopia. She almost falls again, but she catches herself and right as she breaks off into a run toward the treeline, she's caught around the middle by a strong arm.
She blanches at the sudden figure lifting her off the ground and keeping her from running, and has just enough dignity not to scream in her final moments. The blow she anticipates still doesn't come, and she finally catches a glimpse of her assailant when he sets her down none too gently. It's Cassius.
"Where are you going?" He asks, a threat in his voice. Embelia hears this much clearly, her ears clearing so his words can ring in her head instead. The eyes that had looked like a sad puppy's in training are changed now, promising only bloodshed. The kindness is gone. "You made a promise."
Embelia stammers, stumbling back onto her backside as she eyes the blood stained sword in his hand. She did. And she had intended to keep it, really, but she hadn't truly considered what that would mean.
Or, she had. But she hadn't factored in the possibility of ending the life of a terrified little boy. She can still see his red hair from the corner of her eye. She's sure it's become matted with blood now, seeping from the gaping hole through his lungs. She can't bear to look away from Cassius.
"I'm sorry," she cries, words coming out all too quickly. "I didn't–"
Cassius looks disappointed, of all things. He turns, and now Embelia is on the ground with Emerald and Cassius fighting around her, protecting her, almost. They still need her. She tried to leave them, and she's certain they'd love to kill her for it, but their survival is still in her hands. She scrambles on her hands and knees toward the mouth of the cornucopia, noticing that no tributes are trying it anymore. That, or their numbers are dwindling and there's none left to try. She chances a look at the boy she'd just killed.
She so desperately wishes that she could say he looks like he's sleeping, that he looks peaceful. He is dead, and he looks dead. With blood dripping from his open mouth, and an expression of terror forever trapped on his face. Embelia chokes, turning her head and squeezing her eyes shut as she reaches for the spear and yanks it free from his chest. She doesn't even know his name. Doesn't know a thing about him except that he was too young, and too unlucky, and that someone at home is weeping for him.
She turns away, tucking the spear under her arm and going to take some sort of inventory of the cornucopia. The weapons have been depleted somewhat, and there are few backpacks remaining. Anything that had been on the outskirts was taken by the tributes that were smart enough to disappear into the sprawling jungle. She wonders, finally, if Korren was lucky enough to get anything.
Korren!
She had been so caught up in her own survival that she hadn't once considered her district partner's life. Not since she rose up on her plate and she realised he was out of her eyeline. Had he been one of the smart ones, and left? Is he lying dead somewhere behind her? She's petrified to find out it may be the latter. She stands and turns, gaining a better grip on the spear, the form that Plaid had taught her.
The slaughter is slowing down somewhat. She sees Venus dive to avoid an arrow fired by the boy from Four, who quickly disappears into the jungle with a large pack secured to his back. The arrow whizzes right past where her head had just been, and Embelia recalls the argument that had taken place over an arrow just days ago.
Next time I won't miss, and you won't be laughing.
She thinks that if the arrow had been fired at Cassius as he'd threatened, his promise may have been fulfilled. But Venus was the only person to match his score, she was the biggest threat to him, to anyone. She'd never be taken out in the bloodbath.
As the boy disappears and Venus stands back up, the bloodbath comes to a grinding halt. Embelia watches Emerald stand up from the lifeless boy she had been pinning to the ground, and place her hands on her hips causally, breathing a heavy sigh. All who are left standing belong to the first two districts, and Embelia.
"That wasn't very long, huh?" Plaid says, flicking some blood from his longsword. "Sometimes they take, like, an hour."
Embelia isn't listening, she's stumbling on her feet and frantically searching the scattered sea of bodies.
"Your little friend disappeared into the forest," Emerald informs her, trudging over to the cornucopia. Embelia blinks, surprised that she'd noticed. "His plate was next to mine, I was gonna try to take care of him, but he's quicker than he looks."
Embelia takes a moment to process her words. Her ears are still ringing. But as soon as she understands the shorter blonde's words, her blurry gaze turns to a weak glare.
"She tried to run too," says Venus, tucking the handle of an axe into her belt with one hand, but keeping one that shines with fresh blood in the other. "I saw it."
Venus doesn't have to say more for the group to catch her silent suggestion.
"Oh, give her a break!" says Emerald, surprising Embelia. "So she got a little scared, she didn't volunteer for all this! Besides, she saved my life."
"She saved your life from an unarmed child," says Cassius.
"He had a stick," she countered. "Imagine if he'd put that thing through my neck? She saved my ass. Besides, we still need her. There's no food."
"Or water," Embelia tacks on timidly. Her head is spinning from the way Emerald so casually switches between threatening her friend and defending her loyalty. "I checked. Several times."
Venus scowls at her, but she tucks the other axe into her belt. "Did anyone have eyes on four?"
Cassius picks up the arrow that had missed Venus' head, the silvery projectile dirtied by green moss and rich, damp soil. "Well, you know where he went. Got the bow and arrows, a pack. Maybe more. I didn't have eyes on her."
The four of them approach each other, discussing what they'd seen, the arena, their next moves. It all falls into indistinct buzzing as the blood rushes louder in Embelia's ears. She's looking around, turning in a slow circle and trying hard to analyse her surroundings.
Bodies scattered. Faces without names. A jungle that she doesn't understand, doesn't recognise. The heavy weight of a spear in her hands. Blood. Blood. Papaya.
Papaya.
Her eyes zero in on a spray of fruit hanging in the treeline. A bunch of papayas. Her vision blurs with scattered words from her books, blacked out passages and scribbled in corrections. She's south of Panem– or, the arena is inspired by what lies south of Panem. It's certainly the latter, but it's enough to give her a sense of direction.
"...Embelia?"
She blinks, vision clearing as she turns her gaze to the careers. They watch her expectantly.
"Plaid asked if you recognise the landscape," says Cassius, impatient.
She shakes her head, "Maybe a little, from a previous games. But up there." She points up at the treeline, and their eyes all follow her gesture up to the ripe orange fruits. "Papaya."
"And papaya is…?" Plaid prompts, making Embelia frown in confusion. Doesn't he know?
"A fruit," says Embelia, thinking that perhaps it's not as luxurious in District One as she thought. Or they just don't like papaya. She doesn't. Too musky. "Edible. They grow it in my district."
"Oh, cool!" Emerald says with a grin. She takes a few steps toward the treeline and opens her mouth to speak, but she's cut off by the loud boom of a cannon.
The group falls still, heads turned to the sky as they hear ten consecutive booms. Ten down, leaving a mere fourteen left in the sprawling jungle. Five of them stand around the cornucopia.
Embelia hasn't counted the bodies scattered around her, it may be the whole ten. But it may not be, and Korren may be somewhere in the trees. Dead and gone, with his last moment of terror trapped on his face like the boy from Three. Embelia's stomach turns at the thought of seeing Korren's face in the sky tonight. But until then, he's perfectly fine. Until then, she needs to force herself out of her head. She can't lose focus when four trained killers are watching her every move.
"We'd better clear out," says Venus while the last cannon shot still hangs in the air. "So they can clean this place up. We'll grab some of that papaya stuff, rest, then… we'll hunt."