The Hunger Games- Prim's Story

Chapter 24

In the morning, I blearily open my eyes and see that Peeta is still asleep. I put the blanket around him and then lean up against the wall of the cave, my knees pulled into my chest, listening to my stomach growl. We have no food at all. The acid probably ruined every single edible thing in the arena. I wonder if Haymitch knew what the Gamemakers were going to do to us. This was probably his way of punishing me. Giving us a huge feast only to let it get destroyed by the acid rain. I haven't been acting the way we planned. 

I venture out to the stream to check for fish, but the only fish that are still swimming, are doing so very slowly. The acid has no doubt damaged them and if we eat it, will probably damage us. I walk out into the woods and tentatively whistle Rue's four-note song. The mockingjays sing back weakly. I walk quietly to one resting on a branch and it doesn't move a muscle. I quickly kill it with my knife and cut it open to gut it. I hold my breath and will it to not have any damage, but the inside meat is bubbling up with acid. I quickly drop the bird before any acid can touch me. 

I groan and stomp back to the cave. Maybe Cato will hear me and we can end this thing right now. I'm in the mood for Capitol food. 

I make it back to the cave and Peeta's still asleep. I sink down back to my sitting position and put my head in my hands. I really don't know what to do. I swallow some of the Happy Pills to stave off my hunger and then refill our water bottles in the stream. By the time I get back, Peeta's awake and rummaging through the acid bags to see what we can salvage. "You're going to ruin your hands," I say, annoyed. 

He looks up and smiles, then shrugs. "They'll fix us up in the Capitol, won't they?" I nod and walk over to him. 

"You find anything yet?" I don't even know why I bothered asking. It's obvious he hasn't and he never will. Everything has been ruined. 

"No, but I'm hoping for something near the bottom," He smiles hopefully. 

I nod and go sit in the far area of the cave. I put my head down on my knees and eventually drift to sleep again. It's easier to sleep than to focus on my growing hunger. I don't dream. I don't think I'll be dreaming for a while. I open my eyes and look at Peeta. He has his head in his hands but when he sees I've woken up, he smiles at me. 

"I didn't find anything. Just like you thought." He smiles.

I look at him confused. "I didn't say anything to you about that?" 

He shrugs and smiles. "I figured you thought it though." He jokes, self-deprecatingly. 

I smile and lean my head on his shoulder. "You can sleep now. It's late morning and I slept too long." I say in the sweetest voice I can muster. 

He nods and I give him the blanket. He must have put it on me when he found me sleeping. He pulls it up to his chin and closes his eyes. In a second, he opens them and says, "Drink some water okay? It fills you up." I nod and he closes his eyes again. In a few minutes, the heavy sound of his breathing tells me he's fast asleep. 

He sleeps until the late afternoon. While he sleeps, I try to gather some stuff together, but we have nothing but our one full water bottle, knife, and Peeta's spear. I don't dare touch the arrows or anything else near the entrance of the cave. I've drunk the last of the water in our first water bottle and I mentally take note to fill it up on our way out. 

I drop the water bottle and it bangs loudly on the floor. Peeta wakes up and sighs, with his head in his hands. "I was having the most amazing dream." 

He smiles at me and I put on my most mischievous face. The kind of face that comes naturally when I kick Katniss under the covers of our bed when she's just falling asleep and she ends up ticking me until I squeal out of laughter. "Sorry!"

He laughs and says, "It's not your fault." He pauses and takes on a more serious tone, "Any sign of our friend Cato?"

I giggle, even though in my head, I know it's not a funny question. "He's more than a friend, he's our bestie!" Then I say, "But no, he hasn't shown up. And I haven't heard a cannon." 

Peeta nods and notices our sad pile of things next to me. "Should we start looking?" He asks 

I nod. "Today's the day."

When we leave the cave, I look back at it with disgust. I won't miss this place. Ever. We walk across the dry terrain when I realize. We're walking on dry dirt. I look down and see that our stream is bone-dry. Not even a drop left. I groan and kick the dirt. They must've drained it while Peeta was sleeping and I wasn't paying attention. "The lake," Peeta whispers and we start walking. The lake, where the audience will have a clear view of all the blood that will inevitably be shed tonight. Nothing blocking out the view of the fight.

"Two against one. This will be easy." I say to myself and Peeta laughs. 

"More like two and a half! You're tiny!" He teases me. I glare at him and push him with my shoulder. He pretends to fall to the floor which annoys me more, but I giggle and sassily walk away from him. He quickly catches up though, and we make it to the lake by early evening. I fill up the water bottles with Peeta keeping watch for me. The knife never leaves my hand. 

We sit near the lake and wait. He doesn't show up though. Maybe he's pulling a Foxface. We quietly take a look in the Cornucopia, but there's no sign of him. The sun's going down, but I have no intention of admiring the beautiful sunset like Peeta is. I pull him up and he looks disappointed to be dragged away from the sunset. "You can see the sunset whenever you want when we get back home." I exasperate, and he wearily climbs on top of the Cornucopia with me after I grab some big rocks that are scattered not so far from the lake. 

It's gotten dark a lot faster and we have a birds-eye view of the lake and the field surrounding the Cornucopia. It's eerily silent until we hear a crashing through the woods to the Cornucopia. I hold my knife tighter and Peeta seems ready to throw his spear at any given moment. Cato runs towards us, his hands are empty and he looks terrified. I grab a rock and hurl it at his chest, but it merely stuns him for a moment until he's back, running straight for the Cornucopia. 

He tries to climb up the Cornucopia and I take notice of his purple face, his panting, and the sweat pouring off him, that he's been running. Running fast, and for a long time, but not for us. I kick him down and he falls down, landing on his back. He scrambles back up again, but he whips his head around and screams. That's when I see it. A large creature waves its paw, and another half dozen follow it.