CHAPTER THIRTEEN;
shell shock

▬▬▬▬▬▬

( warning: graphic gore/injury detail, violence )

The force of the explosion pulses through the ground, rattling Vesper's skull and almost blowing her off her podium. She doesn't know whether she screamed or not, just knows of all the senses overwhelming her — the intense BOOM, the cloud of smoke that sends fragments of debris in every direction, the putrid stench of what she hopes isn't burning flesh.

After regaining her balance Vesper stares, her jaw hanging loose as she stares in complete horror at the spot where Telle was standing only moments ago. As the smoke begins to disperse, the podium is revealed to somehow be perfectly in tact. Shaking her head violently, Vesper clamps her hands over her ears, trying to shake off the static white noise consuming her mind.

     She can't hear a thing. The ringing in her ears is insatiable.

     What is she supposed to do if she can't hear?

     Bottling up her panic, she tries to take in what the other tributes are doing right now, and witnesses complete chaos. The first thing she spots is Emerald's mouth hanging open, face contorted into a scream that strains the arteries in her throat but seems soundless to Vesper. Everyone else seems completely dumbfounded, even Boaz, as tributes on Telle's side of the Cornucopia bask in the aftermath of this unprecedented event, whilst the ones on the other side exchange surprised looks as they wonder what the hell just happened. Some tributes even appear to be trying to communicate — Hermes, who had been standing to Telle's right, appears to be leaning over and yelling something to the District Twelve girl on the other side of the empty podium. She can make out the words, "WHAT HAPPENED?"

     Vesper whips her head around to face Levin, who stares back with his hands trembling at his sides in fists. They exchange a look: What are we supposed to do now? Is the countdown even still on?

     She looks back at the hovering clock and her heartbeat lodges itself her throat.

     Ten seconds.

     Nine... eight... seven...

     Vesper won't be able to hear the horn at this rate. Her clock will be her only gauge for when to jump off this podium. And as everyone knows full well now, step off or do anything too early and the consequences will be grave.

     Five... four...

     She squats ever so slightly on the spot, as if this might help her in propelling herself off the podium and the Cornucopia. Her eyes stay firmly on the clock, only flickering to her target — the glistening sword — for a brief second. Not too early, not too late. Timing is key.

     Three...

     Two...

     One...

     Moment of truth — Vesper leaps off from the podium just as she notices Levin emerge from the fringe of her periphery. When her feet splash into the ankle-deep puddle below and don't detonate anything, she doesn't stop. Her arms slice through the air as she tries to propel herself along, gaining on Levin who seems to be slowed down by hopping over damper areas. Her target approaches her nearer and nearer, and it feels so close that she ignores all the other packs thrown around the place—

A body suddenly slams into her side like a punching bag, shoving her down onto the ground. Her lack of hearing hadn't anticipated it and it scares the living daylights out of her. Vesper falls with a small splash of filthy water around her, immediately despairing internally.

No, no, no!

She forces herself back up onto her feet, noticing it was Briony who had collided with her — this doesn't seem to make sense since she was so far away. Why was she running in this direction?

Levin blitzes past her just as she's gotten back up on her feet, taking advantage of this gap. Her mind launches into a frenzy, nothing else mattering except that sword. She circles around slightly and tears down the remaining stretch of dampened land for the Cornucopia's mouth, where at the corner Levin has just reached the sword.

They both make a grab for it at the same time, but he's quicker; he spares no time in yanking the sword out of its sheath and thrusting it in her direction. Vesper staggers back, holding her hands up in a helpless defence. Is this really it? After all of that time spent on the rooftop, is Levin a Career after all, who would still shove the blade through her gut without a second thought?

Then time seems to stop — Levin stares at her, his chest heaving visibly as he tries to catch his breath. His eyes dart from the sword's tip to her panicked face, after which he lowers it. The boy then disappears without a word, sidestepping away into a full-on sprint.

Damn it. Vesper looks around desperately, searching for anything that will double as a sufficient sword. She lunges for a machete, a shimmer of sunlight winking at her from the blade's edge.

She spins around to leave when she sees Emerald staggering towards her, and with surprising momentum. The girl is a complete wreck — her face wet with tears, she appears to be limping. Behind her Vesper can see that a few other shell-shocked tributes have only just realised the Games have started, and blindly jump off their podiums now.

This is a Bloodbath unlike any other.

Despite her apparent weakness, Emerald is still a Career and she has Vesper cornered. She holds out her machete, as if she might do something with it but doesn't know what. The blonde girl numbly reaches for a kukri and weakly jabs it her way. She's so weak in her stumbling that she doesn't notice the looming shadow behind her, and the sickle lunging for her—

Emerald squeaks like a mouse caught in a trap.

It's barely noticeable at first; only a thin bead of red stretching around her neck at first. Like a bejewelled necklace. Only seconds later does it really begin to seep through, scarlet pouring through the slit. She claws for her throat and coughs, blood gushing down her chin before she sinks to her knees. Talon stands tall, his sickle slick with the stuff as he stares at his first kill.

Whilst he's distracted, Vesper flees, adrenaline shoving any time for shock or mourning to the back of her mind. On her way out she weaves her hand through a lime green backpack, trying to wiggle it onto her back as she hurtles around the Cornucopia.

Icarus, WHERE is Icarus? Her lips form his name and she feels her vocal cords contract, but no sound comes out. She tries again and feels the silent scream scratching her throat.

"ICARUS!" she thinks she screams.

She turns the corner and finds him — still alive, for now, and wearing a bow and sheath of arrows. So he did get it.

Icarus is engaged in a violent tug-of-war with Grover over a pack, with each pull nearly yanking each other down to the ground. In one swift motion, Grover kicks him in the shin and disables him for a moment, pinning him down in a shallow puddle and locking his hands around his throat.

Vesper hollers something in Grover's direction, catching his attention. She doesn't know why he thinks he can fight her right now — he's smaller, younger and weaponless. But he lunges for her anyway, and by the time she has reached his side and bought enough time for a breathless Icarus to seize the pack, Vesper has raised her machete above her head to deliver a blow.

But someone else does the job for her. She hears the soft thunk of the knife burying itself in Grover's skull. It seems to take him out completely, the boy plummeting to the ground as his dark hair glistens with shimmering blood.

She doesn't question where it came from. Her nerves shot like burning dynamite, Vesper helps Icarus to his feet and shoves him in the direction of foliage, anywhere from here.

"RUN!" Vesper screams at him. The suddenness of hearing herself again, only faintly, shocks her. "JUST RUN," she shrieks again, "DON'T LOOK BACK!"

Icarus doesn't need reminding as he hurtles further away from the Cornucopia, Vesper only a few leaps behind him. Now she can begin to hear her feet pounding against the earth, the clanging of weapons in the distance, guttural cries of tributes being attacked. She doesn't dare look back — just keeps on running, running, running.

The further out from the Cornucopia they stray, more trees thicken their landscape, again their roots hidden underwater. The sheer depth of it, currently rising to halfway up Vesper's shin, stints their speed significantly. It means they've had to begin raising their knees even higher when running. But they need to clear as much distance from the Cornucopia as possible.

By the time her hearing has returned to something resembling normality, she can hear Icarus gasping for breath.

"You think we can... stop... now...?" he rasps, clinging onto a wiry branch.

Vesper nods, feeling her own tendons burning like hellfire. "Over here," she pants. "It's more.. hidden..."

The pair wade their way through the water and leaning up against a great cypress tree. Finally, as everything stops for now, the horror catches up with her. Even with the tree trunk supporting her weight, Vesper feels like her knees might buckle in any moment and she'll sink weakly under the water. Painful images flash through her mind of that last movement she saw Telle make, the despair in Emerald's eyes as she tried to stem her gushing throat, and the way Grover's body ceased to stand on its own the moment that knife found him...

Maybe none of them, except perhaps Telle, mattered to her that much. So why can't she get them out of her head? Vesper clenches her eyes tightly shut, placing her hand on her frenzied heart.

Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head...

Opening her eyes to find Icarus, still looking somewhat alert and alive despite being so shaken up. She tries to adjust her position, but she is trembling too much to summon any energy right now.

"You okay?" she asks. "I mean, you're not hurt or anything?"

Icarus shakes his head quickly, pain streaking his eyes. "N-no, I'm fine. I was lucky a lot of people around my side weren't with it when the horn sounded. I just..."

Vesper thinks she knows what he might say. Telle. She knew it had been a mistake to let them grow so close, too close over this last week. But she doesn't think anyone had expected for her to be gone so soon. This had never happened before, at least not in living memory — Vesper had always thought the whole story of the mines surrounding the podium had been there to scare tributes from cheating.

Oh, how wrong she was.

The cannons begin to fire, signalling the end of the Bloodbath, and they both listen in for their first indication of a death toll. Vesper knows who three of them belong to. By the end, they have counted ten. That's more than she would have put her estimate at, what with all the tributes completely disorientated after the explosion. Already almost half of them are gone.

     "So, that means there are fourteen of us left," Icarus concludes, "including you and me."

     Fourteen. She looks at him for a moment, watching as he quietly fiddles with the laces of his boots. That means ten people closer to bringing Icarus home.

     "C'mon. Let's see what we've picked up."

     Vesper shrugs her backpack off from her back, pulling it around to set on her lap. She unzips it to reveal whatever bounty she hopes to have scooped up. Inside hers they find two large lengths of rope, looped around into rings for carrying, and two plastic sheets. She assumes the sheets are for rain cover, but still isn't sure what they can use the rope for — somehow she thinks snare traps in a swamp, with hardly any level land at first sight, might be a waste of time. In Icarus's pack, they find a packet of crackers and an empty flask. Vesper sulks at the bone-dry bottom of the flask and stares up at the sky.

     Well, fuck you right back, she silently thinks of the Gamemakers.

     "Well, the crackers are good," she sighs. "But I think we should save them if we can. Or at least ration them."

     "Yeah, until we find a good source of food. I don't know what you can eat around here..." Icarus trails off, taking in his surroundings once more. "At least we seem to have plenty of water."

     Vesper scoffs bitterly. "True. If only we could purify it."

     She starts to scan the swamp surrounding them too. Everything is so hard to make out here, whether it's the illusion of the still water's surface as land, the sunlight dappling the trees and water, or the areas of darkness shrouded by foliage. It makes it impossible to see any potential food or predators; she wonders for a moment if Twyla from Eight would be able to blend herself perfectly into this place.

     "How you feeling about hunting at the moment?" asks Vesper.

     "A little shaky... but I mean, I can try," Icarus replies unconvincingly. His grip tightens on his bow, the tremor of his fingers reverberating through it.

     "Look, forget hunting for today. I'm sure there are plenty of animals in the swamp we can eat," she justifies. Holding her finger out for a moment, she focuses his attention on the variety of animal and insect sounds that make up the chorus of this swamp. "Let's just have some of the crackers. It's not like they'd have lasted long anyway. Our focus should be water right now."

     Nodding in affirmation, Icarus perks up slightly. The sense of a plan appears to give him a reason to keep moving, despite the shock of everything that has happened so far this morning. Vesper takes her bandana from her wrist and ties it up on her head to keep her hair from falling in her face, before getting to work.

     First things first, they set out to find firewood. It isn't easy when the majority of sticks are submerged in water and therefore soggy, but they hope it will be better than nothing. Stick-searching proves a good way of keeping them occupied from dissolving into meltdown after the Bloodbath.

     After collecting a dire number of twigs which will have to suffice for their fire, they wonder how to collect the water. Even their metal flask is relatively small, and already has its own purpose for holding the purified water. Their supply might be short, but it will just have to do.

     "Hey, over here!" Icarus calls out. As he does this he hushes himself, suddenly self-aware that his survival depends on their every move from now on. When Vesper wades over to him, he gestures to a cluster of lily pads floating on the water's surface.

     She picks up one and scoops some water in it upon his request. Surprisingly, these are rather sturdy and can withhold a fair bit of water. Vesper squints at the swamp water floating in her lily pad — in lighter terms, it is gross and nowhere near drinkable.

"I don't know if we can do this..." Vesper grumbles in disappointment. Somewhere in the algae-populated water, she notices a couple of tadpoles swimming in there.

"But there has to be a way. We need water to drink!"

"I know, but there's dirty water, and then there's this. I don't think we can get our hands on the right stuff to purify it at the moment."

Icarus lets his head fall back, much like a tired child would on a long day out as they beg their parents to take them home. The dehydration must be creeping up on him — it creeps up on them, only small at the start, but Vesper knows all too well that what starts as an irritable itch could soon turn into something much worse.

"Maybe we can get something to purify it with in a parachute?" Icarus thinks out loud, staring helplessly at the sky. He starts waving his arms about, as if he is trying to get Irma's attention back in the Capitol.

He does have a point. Sponsorships can often be the difference between life and death, sending vital necessities like food, water and even weapons. If they're lucky, perhaps Irma could invest in getting them some purifying bleach or something to boil water efficiently with...

"But do you think they'd really send parachutes this early?" Vesper asks, cupping her hand over her eyes as she looks up at the sky too.

"I sure hope they do..."

▬▬▬▬▬▬

     By the time sundown rolls around, the swamp is a much more sinister place to be. It's even darker now, and every sound — whether it be a frog croaking, or crickets chirping — somehow sounds ten times more threatening when concealed by the dim light of the moon. It also settles a humid chill around the arena, Vesper and Icarus shivering ever so slightly from it. So much for light layers...

     Thankfully, they managed to make a fire successfully with some cypress bark but have had no such luck in retrieving water, neither from purification nor sponsorship. Among the swamp water, they had found a small bit of level land where they could set up camp for the night, even if it was amongst all sorts of bugs and plants. They perch there by the bank now, nibbling dismally on corners of their crackers (and not hugely hungry anyway after the harrowing day they've had). Water will simply have to wait until tomorrow; the lack of it isn't endangering them yet...

     The ostentatious fanfare of the Capitol Anthem startles Vesper from her trance, Icarus tragically dropping part of his cracker in the murky water out of fright. The sound of trumpets, which feel both inside and outside the arena, guide them to the Capitol emblem being projected into the night sky — it's slightly obscured by tree branches, but they can see well enough.

The first face is Emerald's, which Vesper is sure will have shocked audiences across the Capitol and Panem. She tries not to think of her final moments once again, which won't seem to leave her; that squeal is stuck on a loop...

And then there is Telle. After a brief moment of damnation for Boaz still being alive, her heart sinks. You couldn't help her. It was out of your control. Still, the pant of guilt stings as she looks to her side and sees Icarus fixated on her holographic face. For the last time, her piercing blue eyes dissolve before them to reveal the next dead tributes.

Elettra from District Five is next — so Levin is still alive.

She sees Grover's face, Calico from District Eight, both tributes from Nine. Shockingly, Durian from District Eleven is next. Vesper had not seen that one coming. He was one of the stronger tributes, appearing perfectly capable when she had seen him wrestling with Talon back in the gym during training. She wonders how he met his demise so quickly. And to finish off, unsurprisingly, both tributes from District Twelve are also dead.

Once the hologram vanishes from the sky, leaving them along with the frogs and crickets again, Vesper considers those who died today. It seems as if it were a variable mix of both the very able and the weak — hell, Telle had scored an eleven and topped the leaderboard, and both a Career tribute and one of the strongest had also died.

It appears the odds have shifted significantly, in an unforeseen turn of events. She can only hope that it means the odds are now in their favour.

"I wish Telle was here," Icarus confesses.

Vesper says nothing. She stares at the bottom of their flask, still agonisingly empty. She doesn't want to think about what could have been. It's simply too late.

"It was just so nice to... to have someone who understood, you know? Someone my age who also felt way out of their league here. I liked her. Like, Hunger Games or not, I really liked her."

"I know," she murmurs, finally managing to look at him. His eyes shimmer with un-shed tears in the moonlight. Vesper wants to reach forward, console him in some way, but she just doesn't know how.

"Hey," Vesper pipes up. "But you know who's still alive? Huxley."

Icarus plucks the string of his bow, otherwise occupied. "Sure, I guess. Goodnight, Vesper."

"Goodnight." It's not until he has laid himself down on the moist ground, crawling with creatures, that she realises there is no way both of them can sleep at the same time. That would be like a death trap. And as much as she wants to get some rest, she figures her mind wouldn't settle enough anyway. So Vesper leans herself against one of the cypress trees and softly rubs the handle of her machete between her palms.

She is alone with her thoughts, the frogs and the crickets.

Well, happy Hunger Games Vesper, she thinks sourly, starting a staring contest with a small frog that hops over to her. And may the odds be ever in your favour.

▬▬▬▬▬▬

A/N;

A DOUBLE UPDATE? WHO AM I?! (don't get used to it, folks — the reasoning behind this was purely because of the cliffhanger last chapter, and i thought that leaving the update for the following one too long could break up the pace).

so... A LOT has happened. first of all, rest in peace to all the tributes who died in the bloodbath, ESPECIALLY telle. some of you had picked up on this already, but her death is a reference to something katniss mentions in the hunger games books where a past tribute had a wooden ball and then dropped it and the mine around their podium went off. i thought it would be quite interesting because it completely changes the bloodbath since everyone is so disorientated/overwhelmed by the explosion, and you get some of the better-performing tributes dying unexpectedly, so the odds have done a little re-shuffle.

let me know what you thought of these two chapters! i'm still getting used to writing action, and i'm not sure if it was too slow-paced or not...

[ published: 27th may, 2021 ]

— Imogen