The Incoming Storm: The Tale of the 325th Hunger Games

Chapter 15

 I struggle to find sleep. After a week of sleeping on the softest beds in the world, sleeping on a cave floor with nothing but a blanket for cushioning isn't great. That with the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

When sleep finally does find me I am abruptly woken up by the sound of a cannon. The four of us are sitting straight up. At some point I didn't notice, Ross and Spoola had switched guards. "Did you see anything?" I whisper.

"No, nothing. Didn't hear anything either," Spoola whispers back.

One by one, Ross, Bran, and I lay back down and fall asleep. After being asleep for another hour or so, Spoola taps me awake. We quietly trade places and I sit watching out from our net-covered cave into the dark arena.

Over the course of the next couple of hours, I watch several spiders stalking the arena. A little later I see a deer. We lock eyes, if I had a ranged weapon I would try to take it down, but that isn't the case right now. Instead, we stay staring at each other, I give the deer a small smile and give a small wave. I've never seen a deer in real life before. They seem so gentle. To be honest, I feel horrible that my first thought was to kill it, but here in the Hunger Games, you must change how you think. That or die.

When the sun is shining into our cave, I rouse the rest of my alliance. We decide to use the cave as a base for at least the first few days since it is secluded and seems pretty easy to defend should we find ourselves attacked. Bran and Ross stay at the cave to guard while Spoola and I go look for some water. With the four of us sharing the two water bottles, we are already running severely low. We take the empty bottle from Spoola's bag and bring it with them now empty bottles from my bag and Ross' duffel.

Not long into our search, we find a small pool of water that appears to be spring-fed. A trickle of water dribbles from a cluster of rocks situated underneath a tree. We fill each bottle and use the purification tablets to be sure the water is safe to drink.

As I look into the mouth of the water and see the fizzing tablet spinning at the bottom, I hear a branch break. Spoola and I are on our feet in moments, back to back, machetes drawn. My eyes look wildly from tree to tree, boulder to boulder for anyone. I don't see anything.

"See anything?" I whisper to Spoola, only loud enough for her to hear.

"No," she replies with a whisper quieter than even my own.

"Let's get back to the cave," I say. Suddenly, another branch cracks. We tense again waiting for the incoming attack but nothing happens. "Come on," I say, I lean down, grab the two water bottles propped up on a rock and we begin walking back to the cave.

I take no more than ten steps when a massive spider the size of a dog leaps from its perch in the tree. Spoola curses and takes off running, and I am quick behind her. We run through fallen branches, dried leaves, and boulders and get covered in the sticky silk nets that drape the forest.

We arrive back at the camp, but the spider is still chasing us. Ross and Bran have heard us coming and are ready to defend the cave. The spider gets ahead of us, but instead of attacking it races up over the mouth of the cave. In the next second before the spider leaps, we grab as much of our things as we can and sprint back in the direction of the spring. As we run I realize we left the net that we used to cover our cave draped near the entrance. That's gone now.

The spider is still chasing us, and nimbly leaps from tree to tree and weaves around boulders. My mind races, is this a trap or random encounter? Did we trespass on its nest or have the gamemakers already deployed a trap to force tributes together. If it is the latter they must really be pushing for an exciting opening day of the games, we're barely 24 hours in.

I cut the webs that materialize before us quickly so we don't become trapped like a fly, waiting for the spider mutation chasing us to kill. We have entered a part of the arena where the trees are much wider, long enough for three people to hug them and still have some room between their fingers.

Spoola, who is now running a little in front of me, says "Duck here!"

The rest of us follow her lead and dive behind one of the massive web-coated trees. Spoola then reaches out and swings her machete just as the spider finds us. There is a loud crunch and hiss and dark red ooze explodes everywhere. The spider violently twitches and dies.

We sit at the base of the tree for a little while catching our breath. "Do you think that was a trap?" asks Ross.

Through her heavy breathing, Spoola replies, "It must have, none of the other spiders have been that vicious... or big."

We stare at the spider, it still is twitching, I look at the fur covering its body, the mangled head, the Capitol has outdone themselves this game. The horrors of the arena where people are out to kill you have been magnified tenfold by the sheer fact spiders and webs have coated every inch of the place.

After catching our breath, we decide to resituate our things. We drink some of the water we collected this morning and take a quick inventory. The only thing we lost in the spider attack was the net used to cover the mouth of the cave.

"Should we go back?" Bran asks, looking in the direction we came running.

"Another one might attack us," I say. If the gamemakers really did direct us here that means they will keep us here. If we don't follow their rules they may just kill us themselves.

We rise and begin to wander, machetes at the ready. Eventually, we find ourselves walking along the edge of a cliff. We have just arrived at the edge of the forest, where a stream tumbles over the side of the cliff into a decently sized pool below.

Just when I am beginning to think that spider attack may have really just been a random encounter, I hear talking. "Look at how big it is!" Adore's voice cuts through the arena. We freeze and get behind trees quickly.

I poke my head around, several yards away is a clearing, and standing in the grassy clearing are the careers! I can see Adore, Hero, Jib, Reeler, Phlo, and Heath, but Clementine is nowhere to be found. The careers are all standing around another dog-sized spider.

"Where's Clementine?" Spoola whispers.

"I'm right here."