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

Chapter 18

 Today is hot as ever in the arena. As we traversed into the woods, the humidity steadily rises. Beads of sweat drip down my face as I use my machete to cut through the thick webs and kill the dinner plate-sized spiders in our way.

A little into the day, Spoola yells and strikes a rat that goes running by with her machete. She holds the limp rodent up for us to see, we pause for a little while to skin it. Ross collects some brush to make a fire and we find a spot in a clearing to make our fire. We carefully light it so that there is little smoke and the little smoke that does come off blends into the white sky above. We share the meat from the rat and continue on.

Only a few minutes later we came upon a patch of berry bushes that Ross had identified yesterday. We take Ross's water bottle, which was the first to be depleted, and fill it with the pea-sized dark purple berries. Once his whole half-gallon bottle is filled with the bitter-sweet berries we keep going, leaving behind an empty patch of bushes.

We travel several more miles into the woods as the afternoon turns to evening. Along the way, Spoola managed to kill two more rats, and I admire her reaction time, that is a skill you can't learn, at least not easily. We come to a stop at a sizable cave similar to the one we stayed in on the first night. Ross quickly gets to work starting a fire before it gets too dark and becomes a beacon for our location in the arena. Meanwhile, Spoola and I travel a little way into the woods to hopefully find some water, since all three of our bottles are empty.

Miraculously, we find a spring-fed pool with cool water. We fill the two bottles and drop in our purifying tabs, which leaves about half of them to be used. We return to the cave and find Ross with the cooked rats. We begin dividing the meat and each take a handful of berries. When dinner is over, the Capitol seal appears in the sky. There were no deaths today, so when the anthem ends the seal of the Capitol fades away.

We crawl into our cave, "What should we do tomorrow?" asks Spoola.

I look out of the opening and think about the arena, "Food is scarce here," I say, "Even with the rats and berries, with the three of us eating."

"We should hunt again tomorrow," Ross says.

"I had another idea," I say, "What if we go back to the cornucopia?"

"You've seen just as many games as I have," says Spoola, "We both know that the careers almost always use the horn as their base."

"Yes, but they also almost always leave it," I answer, "They have to hunt tributes, don't they?"

"You're not wrong," Ross says, "So you want to steal from them?"

"It's worth a shot, if we're to win, we'll need supplies, and that's where most of them will be."

"What about the traps," Spoola asks. "Remember a couple of years ago when the careers rigged the cornucopia with those biting oysters. The girls who tried to steal both ended up without their hands. What if this year they use spiders?"

It's true, throughout the long history of the games, the careers have employed dozens of traps to protect their supplies in the cornucopia. However, sometimes they don't guard them at all or leave a weaker tribute to guard under the guise of letting them live.

"We'll be careful, if we think it's a trap it'll at least let us get some intel on them," I say, "We just have to be careful not to get ambushed again, like yesterday." My mind swims with images of Bran.

I carefully wrap the second cooked rat in the sleeve from the crackers in order to hide the smell from any spiders or other predators in the arena.

"I'll take the first watch," I say, I'm not that tired from the day of travel, and I can tell Ross and Spoola both need to sleep desperately. They crawl to the back of the cave and set up the blanket for a bed. Spoola is out almost instantly, but Ross stays awake for a while. I notice that Ross seems oddly close to Spoola, I wonder if they knew each other back home, I know they work in the same factory, but something tells me that isn't it. Maybe it is just the comfort of home in the arena.