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

Chapter 19

 In the morning, I relay my plan to Ross and Spoola. "So you're saying we should blow up the clearing?" Spoola says, looking from her pack of explosives to me and back. "Do we even have enough to do that?"

"No, but there was that crate down at the cornucopia," I say, thinking back to the entire crate of pyro-chords and detonators, not to mention the tubs of gasoline and cooking oil inside the horn.

"I'm not sure about it," says Ross, his eyes firmly locked on Spoola. "We weren't careful about stealing, the careers are bound to have gotten more security at their base."

Spoola remains silent, "What else do we have to lose?" I ask.

"Nothing," Spoola says, breaking the silence, "I say we should do it."

"Really?" Ross says, "But what if we die?"

"If any of us want to win we're going to need to take risks," Spoola says, "Think about it, it isn't just careers versus us in these games, we are careers too."

Those words resonate in my head. I am a career. Not in the way we normally think, but in enough ways, everyone here including me is a career.

"Fine," Ross says, and with that, we get out food for breakfast. We eat some more berries and a piece of jerky each. We refill our water at the pond Ross found last night and top off our bag of berries. After that, we set out for the cornucopia to hammer out the plans for our trap.

It is an uneventful journey back to the cornucopia. We don't dare go into the clearing, as right now it is guarded by the District 4 tribute Jib. From the looks of it, the rest of the careers are out hunting. As I feared, the careers have realized their horde was stolen from, this will make our plan much more difficult.

Luckily for us though, Jib seems utterly bored out of his mind. It's hard to know what's going through his head, but I imagine he's not overly pleased to have to sit out the day of hunting to guard the cornucopia from robbers.

We spend the next half hour meandering our way around the edge of the clearing, remaining out of Jib's sight. We find a few large trees covered in the flammable webs that we will use to anchor the fires.

When we are satisfied with our plan we agree to come back tomorrow to set up the trap for early in the morning the next day. We head back in the direction of the cave while snacking on the jerky from the cornucopia.

As we walk, I notice the arena has become devoid of spiders over the last few hours. Just as I go to point this out, a tree knot explodes, spraying several feet around it in minuscule pitch-black spiders. "Trap!" is all I can get out before another geyser of spiders explodes out from another tree much closer to us.

Startled, Ross drops his jerky, and the spiders swarm to it. The three of us are sprinting for our lives as several more trees erupt spraying the arena with the tiny spiders.

I feel one land on my neck and the pain is instant. I swat at the spider and pull my hand away, I notice some blood. The spiders are going to try and eat us! My lungs burn as we run, dodging webs and branches. To our side, I can see the District 3 tributes running together, Sprocket and Pix. I think for a moment about colliding with them, but then another thing catches my attention. The careers!

In the distance I see silhouettes running in the direction of the District 3 tributes. "Careers!" I hiss and we redirect ourselves away from them, hopefully putting the District 3 tributes in the path of careers rather than us.

Spoola has pulled away from Ross and me, and I suddenly see her scale a tree. I leap onto a low branch and start climbing, Ross quick behind me. To my horror, the spiders begin to scale the tree. We have nowhere to go, we are trapped!

I continue upwards, getting into the higher web-covered branches. The careers are in view now, but they seem far more concerned about the District 3 tributes and escaping the spiders, I'm not even sure they saw us. As we get higher, we are engulfed in the webs and dried leaves of the tree and hidden completely from their view.

I stare at the spiders inching towards us branch by branch when my attention is grabbed by a scream. I look through a hole in the forest to see Sprocket collapsing to the ground and quickly being engulfed by the spiders. "GO!" he screams. Pix, who is obviously crying, darts from view.

My attention returns to the spiders, which are now about a foot below Ross. A few seem to have reached him, and he bears his teeth in pain and tears flow from his eyes. Just when I think all hope is lost, the spiders stop moving upward. After a second of stillness, they begin to fall from the tree. They're all dead, deactivated by the gamemakers. But why?

The answer comes quickly, Spoola and I angle our heads together in order to look out the tiny opening in the treetop to see the careers gathered around Sprocket. The gamemakers could have killed all of us with that trap, but the real show is watching the tributes draw blood. Once the first tribute falls victim to the trap, the rest of us will be spared.

We watch as Clementine brandishes her machete. Adore and her take turns mocking Sprocket, who is covered in bites and blood from the spiders. They make him beg for his life, but he refuses. I honestly applaud him for standing his ground. Quickly, the careers grow bored and Clementine stabs him through the back, and about a minute later his cannon fires. Every minute of these games makes me despise Clementine and the careers more. What monster makes someone beg for their life in the Hunger Games?

The careers then clear out in the direction Pix ran, though they wasted enough time mocking Sprocket, they gave her plenty of time for a head start. We wait in our tree for a long time. We watch Sprocket's body be collected by the hovercraft, which also removes his machete and knapsack. I'm surprised the careers didn't collect it as another weapon, but maybe they didn't care or notice. Sloppy either way.

About an hour later we are sure the careers haven't set up an ambush for us and we continue on our way. By the time it is dark out we haven't made it to our cave from last night so we find a new place to make a shelter. We find an overhang formed by two large rocks and tree roots. It's not our most secure shelter but it will have to do. We sit under it and have some of our dried fruit and jerky.

When it is completely dark, the anthem begins to play and the Capitol seal appears. The only death today was Sprocket, which means Pix got away. I wonder if the careers will return to their base or continue hunting Pix.

I take the first watch for the night. I tell the others to get a good night's rest because tomorrow we lay our trap for the careers.