On the morning of the fourth day, I feel stiff, having hidden so long. Once I climb out of our spot, I do my stretches. Mani looks amused, but then he joins me. Gotta be limber to stay ahead of the Careers.
Breakfast is the remainder of the rabbit meat, and the peas we picked yesterday. We still have the nuts for protein.
The dingaling of a drone draws our attention. It flies towards us and lands in front of Mani. He opens a long flat box and pulls out a pair of wire-cutter pliers.
I snatch the drone. "Maybe we can use this." I find the on/off switch and power it down.
"We have to move," he says. "In case someone saw it flying towards us."
"Okay." We pack up our stuff and head out.
"Let's try level 9," I say. "We haven't seen anyone that high yet."
It's easy to find a ladder for Level 7, but not 8. We explore the parts that I didn't, finding some more snow pea vines to harvest. There are plenty of trees I could climb, but Mani can't. Finally we find a tree with footholds and climb it.
Level 8 is a little bit different. There are more gaps in the ground, more walkways strung out between trees. As we look up, it seems the floors have less solid ground. Except for the top level, we can see it is about 80% solid, with sun shining through holes. I suggest we should explore the roof.
As we walk, I see the boy from 12. He's got his back to us, he's sitting on a branch overlooking the interior again. I point him out to Mani and we look at each other. Do we ambush him? Or leave him alone? He looks harmless.
I move to my left, away from the boy. Mani follows me. We find a ladder going up and climb to level 9.
We move away from the ladder and sit down. We eat peas and mixed nuts.
"Can we just sit here for a while?" I ask. "I want to take off my shoes and air out my feet."
Mani chuckles. "Sure."
So I pull off my shoes, then wriggle my toes in satisfaction. My feet stink. I stink. Mani stinks. But the only place to wash is the daily waterfall. Which doesn't come at the same time every day, and I am not stripping down for the cameras.
Mani pulls out the drone and his pliers. I give him the folding knife, and he takes the drone apart. I watch him for a while. He pulls out his flashlight and cracks it open.
"Okay." He looks at me. "I can make a spark generator that we can use to start fires."
"We have flints," I point out.
"True." His smile turns wicked. "We can also look like we have a deadly weapon even though we don't. Realistically we can probably kill bugs with it."
"I like the sound of that. Is there anything I can do?"
Mani shrugs. "Walk around and see if you can find food or water. But not too far. I need to focus on this and not worry about giant snakes."
I stand up and stretch. Then I do some more practice maneuvers with the sword. I slip my shoes on and walk around a bit, staying in close range of Mani. I don't discover anything exciting.
Until I look up. There is a cobweb above me, and it seems large. I return to Mani and sit down across from him. He's doing something to the flashlight.
I see something crawling on a tree, behind Mani. "Don't make sudden movements," I whisper. "Give me the knife."
Very slowly, Mani does as directed. I tilt to the right a little bit, and throw the knife at a large insect crawling down a tree. I nailed it!
It was a big spider. Neither of us can identify it, but we agree killing it was the right move.
"That's why we need a zapper," Mani says. He takes the knife back and continues working.
About an hour later, he's almost done. We look up when we hear the sound of an incoming drone. This time it comes to me.
I open it up - a pair of throwing knives! They're made of black carbonite and are sleek.
"Thank you sponsors!" I stand up and throw them at a tree, getting used to them. Mani starts disassembling the second drone.
We both turn at the sound of footsteps. The boy from 12 is running at us. He looks deranged.
"Drone!" He yells. "That's my drone!"
Mani climbs to his feet and turns on his zapper, which emits a crackling noise. It doesn't deter the boy from 12. He runs past Mani and picks up the empty box.
"Where is it?" He asks me. "Where is the food?"
'What food?" I ask, really wishing the knives were in my hands and not the tree.
"They have to send me food," he cries out. "Haymitch has to send me food. Haymitch, help me! It's Zeke! Help me!"
Mani and I look at each other. Do we feed him? Kill him?
Zeke makes the choice easy when he turns on me, grabbing my shirt and shaking me. I try to attack him with my fists but I flail. I can kick him, barely. His long arms are shaking and he's pumped full of adrenaline.
I hear a zapping sound, and the boy from 12 turns and elbows Mani in the faces. Blood splatters us all.
Screaming in my face, Zeke shoves me against a tree. He terrifies me. Then his screams die as his mouth makes an O shape and he slowly releases me, falling down to the ground. Zeke gurgles and blood gushes from his mouth.
Mani is there behind him, holding the bloody sword, pale and shaking. A cannon sounds.
"Thank you!" I wrap my arms around Mani and hold him tight. He clings to me and begins to sob. We stay like that for a while, both crying, until our breathing returning to normal. Finally we part.
"The zapper doesn't make a good weapon," Mani says, picking it up.
"Maybe we'll find another use for it," I tell him. "Can we go to the roof now? I really want to leave this place."
"Yeah." He packs up his zapper and his tools, while I check the pockets of the boy from 12. He had nothing. No tools, no food, no weapon.
We leave the body and slowly walk away. Fairly soon we see a ladder to level 10. The waterfall starts again.
"Should we even look?" Mani asks. "They're probably flooding level 2."
"We have to refill our bottles. And we should make sure that's what they're doing and not something else as a nasty surprise."
"Yeah, you're right." Mani sighs.
We tiptoe over to the edge. Water is rising on level 2. We step back.
"We see you up there!" A boy shouts.
"Let's go," Mani says.
"Agreed," I reply. We run over to the ladder, and ascend to level 10. We jog along without talking. Running is harder on the rope walkways. When we spot a tree that we can climb. I grab our backpacks and ascend quickly. I drop the packs then reach down to pull Mani up.
He collapses on the ground, punching it in frustration. "I hate it here!" he growls. "I want to go home!"
"Same here." I pick up my backpack. "C'mon, Mani. Let's see what the top level is like."
"I don't want to!" he complains. "I hate this place!"
The Panem anthem starts to play. At this height we can see a giant image projected in the sky. It's the boy from 12.
"I'm going up before the Careers find us," I tell him.
"Fine." I help him stand. He's breathing hard from the exertion. I briskly walk around and he follows, wiping his eyes. I impulsively hug him, before pointing to another tree with footholds.
The top floor is an open space, with many tall trees poking up. The light is dim, so we walk slowly. Platforms have been secured so we can walk around on flat surfaces. We find narrow but deep channels caved into the platform. I trace one to the wall around Level 12. This is where the water comes from. It comes through hidden pipes and travels across the platforms, and then falls down to the middle of the Arena. They must have larger pipes below us, open when they flood a level.
There are several large bushes. We find a group of bushes with a hidden gap in the middle, that could shelter both of us for the night.
As Mani lays out food for our meal, I look up at the sky and gasp. There are so many stars! I've never seen the night like this.
I frown as I see a strange ribbon of light across the sky. I know there is a force field surrounding the entire Arena, but this doesn't look like a distortion. "Mani, what is that?"
He stands beside me. "It's the Milky Way. Haven't you ever seen it, Cecelia?"
I shake my head. "What is it?"
"It's the galaxy we live in. It's full of other suns. From Earth, it looks like a band of millions of stars, stretching across the night sky, from Earth. But apparently it looks like this."
Mani sits down With a dirty finger, he draws a spiral in the dirt. I sit down next to him, and we start to eat. Mani tells me about galaxies. It's amazing to think they are made of stars. That we are one speck of a billion.
We sit down and eat, our backs to the bushes. My water bottle is empty, so I drink from our shared one. Mani is better at rationing his water, his bottle is half full.
He smiles as he looks up. "My parents took us out into the woods a few times, so we could see the night sky. Once there was a full moon and everything was so bright."
I have nothing to add. District 8 is very industrial and the sky is usually hazy. I know of the Moon and some rudimentary patterns in the stars, and there was a solar eclipse a few years ago. Seeing the clear night sky makes me wish I knew more.
"A long time ago, people went to the Moon," Mani says. "They teach us that in District 3. Not in school, because the Capitol doesn't want us knowing our past. The older generations tell us about it. There were space stations in the sky and people could live on them. When I was a little boy, I wanted to fly up to the Moon. But nobody goes that far now."
"People on the moon," I muse. We study the history of fabric in District 8. I know more about denim than astronomy.
I think about our little planet. I know there are people on other continents. Panem cut contact with them. Or they cut contact with us because of the Hunger Games. Nobody knows what the truth is.
Can the other people see the stars?