Claudius Templesmith's voice booms out, and the countdown begins.
I swallow hard as I take in my surroundings. I am standing on a metal plate suspended amongst the waves. Flanking me on both sides are interspersings of other tributes and thin strips of land, though I have no way of reaching either. The Cornucopia glistens in the center of it all, obstructing my view of the opposite side. I have been left with no visual on Katniss and no pathways with which to seek her out.
The expanse of blue water baffles me. Although plenty of past arenas have made water a prominent feature, I can't remember a single one that has required every tribute to swim right from the get-go.
For good reason. With the notable exception of District Four, most districts would consider learning how to swim to be a luxury. In District Twelve, where there are no major bodies of water within the fence line, it's an outright impossibility. Apparently, that little detail wasn't enough to deter Plutarch from trapping me on a launchpad for the brief remainder of my life.
Plutarch. Why would Plutarch do this? Why would Snow allow Plutarch to do this? This arena is a complete failure of design. It's an automatic death sentence for most of the rebels, certainly. Leaving us stranded with no weapons and no mobility makes us easy targets for the Careers from One and Two. We'll all be dead within the hour.
But what a bland way to slaughter us! Surely the Capitol audience will be infuriated if half their victors are drowned without even the slightest fighting chance. Snow may be a bastard, but he's also a showman. And a Quarter Quell this anticlimactic doesn't feel like something he'd give the okay to.
None of this makes sense. Which means that something here is not as it appears.
I forcibly push back my anger and try to clear my mind. I've missed a piece of the puzzle and must cling to that like a lifeline. As long as there is something left to be figured out, there is still a chance that I could save myself, however remote.
I peer into the waves searching for answers. No luck. The water is too deep to see the bottom of and contains nothing that might help me cross over. I turn my attention to the other tributes. There's a suspiciously high number of friendly faces on this half of the field- which does not bode well for Katniss's proximity to the Careers.
Chaff isn't that far to my right. He notices me looking and shrugs as if to signal that he is no further in solving this mystery than I am. I hold his gaze for only a moment before turning away. I can't afford to waste any time worrying for him. Not now.
The view to my left is even more discouraging. Morris is there, standing dazed and dreamlike on his launchpad. Something about this landscape must be mesmerizing to his morphling-addled brain. He almost looks like the tributes from my first Games. The ones who let themselves become so dazzled by the beauty of the 50th arena that they forgot to get moving.
That look alone is all I need to be certain that Morris will share their fate. Hesitation and survival do not mix when it comes to the bloodbath. Not even when the arena is practically begging you to pause. Especially not then.
I slowly turn my head back towards the water. I know what I have to do.
The gong sounds and I don't give myself a chance to second guess. I leap forward and plunge into the warm waters below. It's a sensation unlike anything I've felt before. I don't know that I've ever had an aquatic experience more significant than taking a bath, and now here I am willingly jumping into some mystery death ocean that my feet can't touch the bottom of.
For a terrifying moment I am weightless, fully submerged and convinced that this has been the mistake which will finally kill me. But then there's a tugging around my waist. I am propelled upward nearly as quickly as I had first sunk down.
I gasp for air the second I reach the surface, which quickly devolves into a coughing fit once the choppy waves start spraying even more water into my face. It's all I can do to keep from progressing one step further into hyperventilating. The logical voice inside me is screaming at a more primal instinct to get a hold of itself. You're not drowning, you're not drowning, I have no idea why you're not, but you're not drowning.
Move. I need to keep moving. These are not at all ideal circumstances for my first swimming lesson, but I'll just have to improvise. The finer points are lost on me, but years of watching people swim in the Hunger Games have at least allowed me to grasp that there's a lot of arm and leg movement involved. Thankfully, whatever is keeping me afloat allows me to focus all my energy on forward motion rather than staying above water.
My lungs scream in protest- moving twenty yards through water is not as easy as it is on land- but the gamble pays off. A stolen glance as I scramble my way onto shore confirms that few others were willing to chance the risk that I just took. I am almost alone- almost.
Gloss is sprinting in my direction. I brace for impact only to watch him dive off to the side into the shelter of the waves. I'd be frightened of whatever had driven him off so effectively if not for the tell-tale glint of a golden arrow in his calf.
"Haymitch!" shouts Katniss, bow already in hand. She runs up to me to reveal yet another treasure- a set of knives. Exactly what I would have chosen for myself. Seems that the kids nosing around my recap tape paid off after all.
Katniss nods towards something behind me. "We have company." Climbing out of the water next is Seeder, who is dragging a waterlogged Chaff behind her.
It's been less than 48 hours since I begged Chaff not to enter the bloodbath, but this string of sheer dumb luck is too tremendous to hold it against him now. Though not everyone here is in quite so forgiving a mood.
"Why the fuck did you jump when you know you can't swim?" he spits.
I think for a moment. Seeder swam for fun sometimes in the Capitol, and Katniss presumably learned in the woods, but Chaff…
"The Gamemakers wouldn't create a starting area that was impossible to exit," I say. "Why did you jump?"
"Because I saw you do it and thought you had a plan, stupid! Not blind trust in the Gamemakers!"
"If it helps, you're both stupid," Seeder says diplomatically. She has reappeared with a mace in one hand and a sickle in the other, the latter of which she hands to Chaff. And not a moment too soon- Districts 1 and 2 have successfully regrouped at the Cornucopia to begin gathering weapons of their own. "We need to get a move on. Now."
"Mags hasn't made it yet. Finnick just left to grab her," says Katniss.
Seeder and I exchange a look. Six people is a large alliance to manage. Finnick has severely undercut his own usefulness by carting Mags around. And if we pause for them, where will it end? A rebel alliance of eight people? Ten? Twelve? Not if we want to avoid rousing Snow's suspicions. The majority must be left behind, at least for now.
"We can meet up with them later," I say. "Let's head out."
Katniss doesn't look thrilled about abandoning Mags, but she is being blessedly compliant for once in her life. Even Sweetheart can act somewhat sensibly under a time limit with fatal consequences. Or perhaps the tradeoff of ditching Finnick was too tempting for her to pass up.
Our terrain switches from sand to trees as we venture away from the Cornucopia. There is no sea in this part of the arena, but everything is plenty damp without it. The sunlight is harsh and the humidity is oppressive. It's not doing me any favors as I will my body forward, still sore after the swim to freedom. Katniss, who is trailing right behind Seeder at the front of our pack, keeps giving me worried looks over her shoulder. I'd tell her to knock it off if I thought I could do so without drawing attention to my own labored breathing.
Seeder's voice is casual when she suggests that we stop and rest for a bit, but it confirms what I had already guessed: I am the weak link of this group. The offer is so clearly for me, the only person visibly struggling with the trek through the jungle.
I can picture exactly how they will spin this back at home. Templesmith on his awful talk show, flashing the camera a shit-eating grin. Uh oh, folks! Looks like the girl on fire's district partner has run out of steam. And so soon! Her poor, poor husband may have been right to oppose the volunteering after all. I'd say it's a shame, even if I can't say it's a surprise-
I grit my teeth and wave Seeder off while continuing forward. If adrenaline can only take me so far, then I'll have to go the rest of the way on spite alone.
We eventually manage a respectable enough distance from the bloodbath to lose sight of it completely. Katniss takes the opportunity to scout it from the treetops. She wears a blank expression on the descent back down.
"Not a pretty sight, I imagine," says Chaff, a bit too nonchalantly. He hasn't noticed the tension in Katniss's shoulders, but I have.
"Just be grateful that we're over here and not there," I say, trusting Katniss to hear what I am actually telling her. We are already in a good position. Better than anything I would have dared to hope for yesterday. Picking a fight will not improve it. No matter how uneasy the carnage makes her, she must not turn on Chaff and Seeder.
Chaff, blissfully unaware of us silently debating his murder, is focused on a different kind of battle. "We've been walking for a while now. Still no sign of water."
"Nothing behind us," Seeder agrees. "Forward it is, then."
Easier said than done. The path before us is all uphill- which really is the worst kind of path, when you think about it. This and the heat serve as horrid reminders that we won't last long without hydrating. My relief to be approaching the crest ends when Seeder stops just short of it.
"Everything okay?" I ask, trying not to wheeze.
Seeder pauses for a moment before turning abruptly to the side. "Yup. Let's go this way."
It is a testament to Seeder's natural air of authority that all three of us continue on behind her rather than protest the sudden change. Or maybe something deeper than that.
My eyes linger on the area she has steered us away from and just barely catch the strange ripple in the air. Force field. I frown at it. We've been traveling for less than a day and have already hit the edge of the arena. Any advantage we may have gained from our quick escape will be short lived.
With the goal of leaving the Cornucopia further behind thwarted, our journey becomes increasingly aimless. We still haven't located any water by the time we decide to set up camp in preparation for nightfall.
"This is ridiculous. We should have found it by now," I say to Seeder and Chaff as we cobble together a makeshift shelter. Katniss has gone off on her own to hunt, a decision I detest which is in no way helping my frustration.
"But we haven't," says Seeder. A veiled command to stop whining.
I sigh. "No, what I mean is- there's always at least one foolproof way for stronger tributes to earn drinking water. Either you can fight for it at the Cornucopia, navigate to it at a major landmark, or it will be abundant enough to stumble across naturally."
Neither Seeder nor Chaff look impressed. "So?"
"So if the Cornucopia only provides weapons and the only landmark is saltwater, there should be water sources all over the arena to make up for that."
"Cool. Follow up question: if a Gamemaker told you to jump off a cliff, would you try drowning yourself a second time?" asks Chaff.
"What he means," says Seeder, "Is that we shouldn't assume anything to be less deadly based on past arenas. Let's keep the leaps of faith to a minimum."
Their jabs at me, while annoying, don't have any malice behind them. Had I not done what I did, Chaff may have gotten stalled at the start, Seeder may have lingered behind to guard him, and then…
No use dwelling on it. We're together now, and that's what matters.
Katniss returns to camp with mixed results. Water has eluded her, but the skinned animal she has brought back at least proves that we won't be without food. I glower into the jungle as we prepare the meal. It isn't the deadliness of this Quell that I am calling into question- tributes can and have died of dehydration before, on many occasions. It's the scope of the problem that's not adding up.
Gamemakers tend to use dehydration sparingly. It is a punishment reserved for tributes who either failed to grab supplies at the Cornucopia or failed to claim and defend a valuable bit of territory. A handful of tributes per year can succumb this way without souring ratings. But all of us? A long series of slow, repetitive deaths? Surely not.
All signs point to a need for multiple sources, and yet we have traveled to the edge of the arena and then some without hitting any. Not so much as a change in biome to suggest that we are growing any closer. Just trees, trees, and more trees.
On a whim, I reach out to one of the offending plants and snap a branch off. Slight give, almost rubbery in texture. Probably buoyant enough to construct a raft or something similar. But, like everything else in this damn jungle, irrelevant to our current predicament. I flick the branch away and have almost unconsciously wiped my hand off on the blue jumpsuit before I catch myself. It's wet.
And suddenly, I have an idea. "Katniss, give me your awl."
She raises an eyebrow but hands me the tool from her belt. I pierce it into the bark as far I can manage.
"Did the tree call you ugly or something?" asks Chaff.
"No, it told me to jump off a cliff."
He laughs. "Yeah, yeah. Show me what it is you're trying to do."
Chaff and I pass the awl and one of my knives back and forth until we've drilled a good-sized hole. A drip of moisture tells me that we are onto something, but it's a lot of time and effort for such a meager result.
For lack of better options, I pull out the big guns. "Peeta, check whether a spile is on the approved sponsor gift list. If it isn't, put in a custom order. Only submit for it if the cost is less than a quarter of 12's earnings so far."
"Oh, so we're just allowed to put in special requests now," mutters Katniss.
"Not really. Haymitch is being a backseat mentor," says Seeder.
Vindication comes only a few minutes later in the form of a silver parachute. "You know, Peeta, if you reward his bad behavior, he'll never learn," Chaff says sagely as I smirk at him.
We have to fiddle with it for a while, but the spile works like a charm. The sap inside the tree is both drinkable and generous enough for all four of us. Though I almost wish that we had delayed this triumph. It is impossible to celebrate anything while the moon rises into the artificial night sky. Not when we know what it will bring.
Some tributes of past Games, most of them Careers, made a habit of humming along with the Capitol anthem every night. I follow along in a different way. I have on so many occasions before rehearsed the names of the dead. Now there are eight more to add onto the list.
Tess. Lux. Morris. Cecelia. Woof. Maize. Silas. Kit.
I repeat the names in my head after the faces have disappeared from the sky. Then again. Because I don't know how long I'll be alive to repeat them. And I don't know who will still be around to do it after.
Luck is always in short supply during the Games. I can do little more than wait for ours to run out.