16. On the Move

       Sleep evaded me for a good portion of the night. I couldn’t get comfortable each time I woke up. I felt buggy, sticky, and exhausted. When dawn arrived, I wanted to conk out for a good few hours. That wasn’t possible for me, not since I had a target on my back because of Kaya and partially because of Sutton.

            I yawned hugely, feeling stiff from last night. Ugh, last night. I saw three people die right before my eyes, one only a few feet from me. That poor District 12 boy. I felt bad for his family. If only someone had volunteered for him. Nobody that young should ever have to compete in such a horrid game.

Well, nobody would ever have to after these Games.

            I rubbed my eyes, they felt extremely heavy. I was sure I had bags under my eyes. I felt my face and body. There was still gore on me from both Bernard and Francois from yesterday. I made a face and tried to flick off what I could. I hadn’t really cared about picking tribute flesh off me yesterday since I was too focused on living through the day and night. I had, thank God, and so had Daniel. Dan…

I needed to find him soon.

I crawled out from the hollow tree trunk with my pack slung over my shoulder. The boy’s body was gone, and his camp was pretty much non-existent. The Careers did a hell of a job covering the kid’s tracks and theirs; it was as if nothing had happened here last night. But they left out the drops of blood on the ground from where the boy got stabbed. Other tributes wouldn’t know what happened here, but I would know, and so would the Careers. I inhaled deeply, holding my chest. It was bad enough I saw the boy’s death through the brush; I couldn’t imagine actually being there, like Sutton had.

I looked around warily, deciding where the hell to go. I certainly didn’t want to go left, because that’s where the Careers headed. I didn’t want to encounter them anytime soon. In fact, I’d actually like to forget them for a while.

            I went straight, hoping that I would get something out of the hike. I hoped that the arena was big so that I didn’t end up running into anybody anytime soon. There wasn’t much wildlife out, so if I had to start hunting for food, I’d barely get anything. Well, I can’t forget about water either. Like food, water was an important thing to have out here.

            The deeper I moved into the woods, the more I began to notice a transition in where I was going. The ground around me became mossier with wilder plants; the trees looked mossier as well, and taller. I heard a few sounds of wildlife. My brows knitted in confusion. Had I just walked a long way only to find myself in a whole new terrain of the arena? I didn’t know how far I had been traveling or how long to find this new area.

            Vines spilled over some tree branches. A few monkeys howled here and there, jolting me alert. There was one Hunger Games where there were flesh-eating monkeys; they mostly lurked in the trees, so if I stayed down below I was fine…at least, from them anyway. I didn’t know what lay here on the ground floor with me.

            I’m in a jungle, I realized. This was foreign territory for me. District 7 was all forest.

Well, where there was moss, water had to be nearby. How else would the monkeys be living or the moss be growing? I needed to find the source quickly.

            I took brief rests throughout the day, nibbling on fruit and taking the tiniest sips of water from the canteen. The weather was tolerable, beautiful even. I was just waiting for the bad weather to settle in; the jungle seemed too peaceful a place. I would have said that about the woods, but after witnessing what I had last night, I didn’t think it was a safe haven like I thought it would be.

            I couldn’t tell what time of day it was. That was the sad part about the arena; they gave you no clock to check the time. I doubted checking the time was top priority on tributes’ minds when they’re trying to not get killed.

I desperately wanted a shower; the buggy feeling was beginning to become unbearable. I scratched almost every place on my body for what seemed to be like every five minutes. It was irritating. One minute I’d have to scratch my neck, then my stomach, then my ankle, or my foot, or my elbow, or my head.

            I rested against an old, withering tree. I constantly surveyed the area around me, just waiting for a moment before I left. There were twelve tributes left, half of them were Careers. They were staying near the Cornucopia with their ultimate survival stash, living it up. But they can’t be hanging around just there; surely they’re going out to kill a tribute or two at least. If Careers didn’t kill after a certain time, they got bored.

The way I had it figured, a good majority of the Careers were tribute hunting while at least two Careers stayed to watch their camp. I had a rough idea as to who the main three would be: Meeka, Eric, and Kaya. Kaya wanted me dead more than anything, Eric wanted Noah dead, and Meeka just seemed like the kind of guy who would go hunting after anything.

My body ached, begging for a good few hours’ rest. I barely kept myself awake, only because I had to listen for any sounds that would tip me off about a nearby danger. I breathed quietly, afraid even something as simple as breathing would give me away to my enemies.

Sitting on the jungle floor wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was better than resting against tree bark. When the time came, I nipped at my food and water supply. I managed to keep one fruit out of four lasting for two days. Talk about portion control.

            I jiggled the canteen. It sounded like I had half of the water still left. I knew that wouldn’t last for much longer if conditions happened to take an unfavorable change. Gosh, why can’t it just rain and give me water that way? Wait…scratch that idea. The last time it rained in the Games, it was blood rain—or acid rain. I couldn’t remember which. All I knew was that it wasn’t something I would want to drink when I was desperate for water.

            When I realized the sun was starting to set, I knew I needed to find shelter. I definitely knew that climbing a tree wasn’t an option for me. If I tried I’d most likely fall and hurt myself, and I didn’t want to be torn apart by flesh-eating monkeys. That would be an awful way to die. Then again, there’s no nice way to die here.

            I decided to get moving for a little bit and hoped I came across a decent-looking shelter. When the sun was completely down, darkness engulfed me. Insects noisily made their presence known to me. My eyes eventually became adjusted to the dark, and I swore I felt something slimy slither across my feet. I decided to go a different way after feeling that.

            I tried to hear past the chatty insects for a babbling water source. I didn’t care if it was a thin stream. If it was water, I would take it. Having a little bit of water was better than having none at all.

            Light shown above, exposing the Capitol seal followed by the anthem. There were no deaths to be displayed; all twelve tributes were still alive. I sighed. Couldn’t I at least have one person die today to make my chances of coming out alive with Daniel increase by just a little bit? Was that too much to ask for?

            I scolded myself. Asking for something so horrible like that was wrong of me. I never wanted anybody to die; I never wished it on anybody before I was reaped for the final Hunger Games. Now…I wanted others to die just so Daniel and I could win and get out of the arena.

The anthem repeated itself once more before the Capitol seal faded into the sky. I ran my fingers through my nasty ponytail. I didn’t dare take my hair down; it would make me feel even grimier.

            I rubbed my tribute token between my fingers. Mom, Dad, Troy—they all were behind me even though they weren’t with me. I knew Ewan was alongside me as well in addition to supporting his twin brother. I suddenly felt the need to have one of them here with me, just for company. Insects and flesh-eating monkeys weren’t ideal company for me. For all I knew, the insects could be poisonous and want to kill me.

            I really need Dan right now, I miss him. I miss Dad, Mom, Troy, and even Ewan. I need somebody. I didn’t want to feel isolated, but for the Games, I was going to have to be. Until I found Dan, I was on my own. I had never been abandoned in the woods before, let alone with other people who wanted to kill me.

            I pulled the blanket out and covered myself in it. It’d probably keep away the bugs, but I highly doubted it. I closed my eyes; my ears were still listening intently around me. At times, I dozed, but kept myself awake due to the sounds of the jungle in the night.

*     *     *

            I felt like a zombie the way I woke up to another morning of the Games. It was day three. Great, I can keep track of how many days I’m in here…so far. I knew it wouldn’t be too long before I started to forget which day it was. The first two days seemed to fly by. Would day three be just as quick?

 I was about to find out.

            I shrugged out of the blanket, my stomach growled at me. Sighing, I ate half of the second fruit I still had out of the remaining three. It still tasted good, but I had to work around the blotches of discoloration. I frowned; the fruit was starting to go bad. I’d have to eat it soon; otherwise it’d be moldy and disgusting. The last thing I wanted to do was eat nasty fruit and get sick from it.

            I used the nearest tree to support myself as I stood up. I gagged on the air. It smelled like monkey poop. My nose wrinkled. Gross. I looked on the blanket and felt my head. There was no poop on either. Good.

 I shoved everything in the pack and continued on my journey to find Daniel.

            My head constantly turned everywhere: looking up at the trees, eye level, down to the ground. My ears were listening around, trying to be their sharpest so I could hear things before anything bad happened to me. I hopped over a few fallen logs.

            A loud boom shook me. I gasped, wheeling around. Somebody had just died. My heart thudded painfully in my chest. Eleven tributes now remained in the Games. This was how it’d be: a tribute dead every other day or so, here and there.

Who was it that had just died, though? One of the Careers? Dan? Jillian? Someone I didn’t know?

 I pushed through a blockade of plants only to trip and land face first in the ground. I spat out the grass. Great, I smelled like a jungle now on top of the blood and gore.

I wheeled around on my back, propping myself on my elbows. My eyes widened, my body went rigid. I made sure not to scream because that would easily alert others to my presence.

I just found out the answer to my question: I saw who died. Luckily, it wasn’t anybody I was really concerned about. If I remembered right, her name was Devlin, and she had been District 10’s other tribute other than Francois.

Her head was lolled to the side, empty dark brown eyes staring blank into mine; her mouth was slightly open, as if she had been caught by surprise. Her caramel hair was spread all around her. Her body was sprawled like an eagle. I cautiously looked around the area, feeling it to be safe. I scooted closer to Devlin, looking at her.

She had no slit throat, so her attacker hadn’t been close to her. I saw a gash to her forehead, but that looked to be on the mend—I assumed that injury to be from the start of the Games. I found the answer to her death when I looked closer at her neck. Through her caramel hair was a dart. No doubt it was poison, because I highly doubted a simple dart could take out a person in the neck. But maybe it could if it hit the right spot, I considered.

Somebody had a blowgun on them. What if Devlin’s murderer was still around? Anxiously, I looked around, trying to find the slightest difference in the perimeter around me. I also looked up in the trees. Her attacker had either hidden well behind the plants or had perched themselves high in a tree to where she would never notice them until it was too late.

It made me wonder who managed to get a hold of such a measly weapon. I didn’t know why I called the blowgun measly, because clearly with the right type of dart it was a good assassin’s asset. I swallowed. I hoped whoever this long range sniper was wasn’t near me; I’d run for the hills and hopefully be out of range of the dart.

I immediately thought that the Careers had gotten to her, but I didn’t think any of the six of them possessed such a weapon. Devlin would have been ripped apart had the Careers found her. My heart thudded. What if it had been Daniel who had killed her? No, Johanna said only to fight if they threatened you. This work didn’t seem like it could be Dan’s or the Careers’. If that was the case, then who killed her?

I looked around for Devlin’s camp. It didn’t look like she had anything, only what she had on her. You’ve got some time before the hovercraft claims her. Better look around and see if she’s got anything useful. I knew it was wrong to steal from a dead person, but this was the Hunger Games. It was a matter of life and death for me; I’d be stupid to not at least look. After all, what would it hurt? It wasn’t like Devlin could come back to life and kill me.

I rummaged around in her pockets to find nothing of value. I turned her over on her stomach to find a weapon slung behind her back. My eyes lit up. My luck was getting better slowly with each day that passed in the Games. Day one I get food, water, and a blanket, and here on day three, I snag myself a hatchet. A huge grin spread across my face as I retrieved the object I was handy with the most.

It didn’t look like Devlin had used it at all. I knew I’d get some good use out of it. Now when I’d need to hunt, I could use it for skinning or killing the animals around me. Gosh, I sounded like a predator. It was so unnatural of me that for a moment that I thought I wasn’t myself. But I was still sane. I hadn’t killed anybody; I’d had people die near me.

I rose to my feet, my hand testing out the acquired weapon. It felt like one that I had used in the Training Center. I wielded a weapon of self defense. I could do some serious damage with it if I put enough strength in it. Well, let’s not stick around to have to test it out now. Keep moving. I continued the path I had originally set on before coming across Devlin’s lifeless body.

My hike through the jungle continued into the evening hours. I plopped down on the ground, resting on the floor. I kept the hatchet in my hand, ready to use it if someone or something decided to attack me. I’d be ready; I knew how to use a hatchet.

Once night had fallen, the Capitol seal popped up and the anthem rang throughout the arena. Devlin’s profile lit up the night sky. I felt bad, having to be the one who stumbled across her body. Thankfully, she was the only death today. The anthem played out and all went silent once again.

I really didn’t want to continue on with this. I just wanted to get out of the arena and go back to District 7. Well…there is a way to escape the arena, my brain told me.

I am not killing myself; I’ve got too much to work towards to commit suicide. I’m not going to be like Bernard was. I’m going to find Dan, we’re going to stay together, and we’re going to win the Hunger Games, I told myself.

I hoped I found Daniel soon, because I didn’t know how much more of being alone I could take. If I didn’t find him soon, I feared I’d eventually go insane and lose myself. I didn’t want that to happen. If I lost myself, I’d become a different person. If I became a different person, Dan probably wouldn’t recognize me or vice versa, and then we’d end up battling each other, one killing the other.

I shivered at the thought. I wanted to do everything in my power to keep away from that fate that would never be.