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

Chapter 23

 A thump starts me awake. I am on my feet with both machetes drawn in a moment. I look wildly around, only to see a silver parachute at my feet. I drop to my knees and remove the silver plastic.

Inside is a large breakfast platter; ham, eggs, toast, rice, tomato, and potato chunks. There is also a plastic bottle of orange juice and even a small cup of coffee. In addition to all the food is a small plastic container for leftovers and silverware.

I eat as much as I dare, not wanting to make myself sick, and then scoop the rest into the container. I place it in my bag, and cover the silver parachute and tray in dirt and leaves to hide it from anyone who comes by.

After breakfast I set out for the morning, I am highly on edge. We're in the final 9 and it's been two days without bloodshed, the audience must have had enough time to bet and get bored. Today something must happen.

I travel on and on, something seems to be redirecting me. The more distance I seem to put between myself and the cornucopia something has me turning around. Sometimes it's a wall of webs with seemingly no end, sometimes it's a spider the size of the cars back in the Capitol, and sometimes it's a strange noise emanating from a tree that sends shivers down my spine.

I pause for lunch at about noon and finish off my breakfast from the morning. I haven't felt this full since the games first began. After lunch I consolidate my supplies, dumping the remaining jerky and dry fruit into the container and hiding the packages under a nearby rock. There is about enough dry food for 3 more meals, and then I have the canned goods to eat.

By late afternoon, the sun is beginning to touch the mountains at the edge of the arena. There were still no cannons today. Has the Capitol forgotten about us? That's not possible, this is a Quarter Quell. I try to think back to if there were any games in my memory with not one death in 3 days, but none comes to mind.

Horribly anxious, I begin to search for a cave to spend the night in. I find a sizable cave not dissimilar from the one Spoola, Ross, Bran, and I spend one of the first nights in. I lay my backpack down on the cave floor and use my machete to pop the lid off the canned tomatoes. I reach in my hand and pull out one of the soft mushy tomatoes, and recoil as a force slams into the can.

Red sauce and pulp spray me and the cave. For a moment I just lay in confusion, covered in sticky redness. Have I been shot? It takes a moment to come to my senses, the red is tomato, not blood. Above me a thick rope of webs is pinning the can to the side of the cave, it drips with tomato chunks.

Before I can even sit all the way up another web slams into the side of the cave, leaving an X-shaped web above me. I slide out from under it, grab my pack and machetes, and run for my life. I hear a brief whistle noise, and another web rope first from some unknown point. It misses me by a mere foot and cracks into a tree branch that snaps from the force.

I weave my way in and out of trees as webs decimate the woods all around. My backpack bobs up and down and my hands are slick with sweat. I can still feel the tomato juice dripping from my face, and my clothes cling to me. Another web takes out a sapling just behind me, sending it toppling over.

The tree briefly pins me, but I scramble out from under it. I feel cuts on my face from where the branches dragged across my face.

Above the sky is dimming, limiting my vision even more. As I duck and dodge the webs, I begin to notice clusters of red eyes staring at me from the treetops. I ignore them, they aren't the threat at the moment.

Just when I think my lungs are going to burst from running, a web strikes me in the back. I am rocketed forward several feet and smash face-first into the ground. Luckily, I brace with my arms and catch myself from being injured.