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

Chapter 31

 Lex goes tearing out of the wall of webs. She pushes me and I tumble backward stupidly. Pix yelps from the sudden movements. There is a loud crunch and my face is sprayed with sticky blood. I quickly wipe my eyes to clear my vision.

Above me, Lex stands paralyzed, emerging from her back is Pix's machete blade, dripping with blood. Pix stands before her, still gripping the handle. She pulls back, removing the blade from Lex's chest.

Lex crumbles to the ground, her breathing is shallow and blood trickles from her painted white mouth. "She scared me," Pix says, holding her bloody machete at her side, "I didn't even mean to, she just ran into me."

I try to search for Lex's machete, but I can't find it. She must have lost it at some point in the games, or maybe she never even grabbed it. When Lex's cannon fires, we jog away from her body and watch the hovercraft descend. In a beam of blue light, Lex ascends to the vehicle and it disappears.

We jog away from the area putting as much distance between where the hovercraft appeared and us as possible, just in case Clementine and Phlo come looking for us.

It's the final four now, two teams, me and Pix and Clementine and Phlo. Who will win? I replay the encounter with Lex in my head, it was so fast, that I barely even comprehended what was going on. Pix is silent, not reciting ideas or anything. This was her first kill.

As night begins to roll around, we find a nice spot to sleep for the night, I find a spot I recognize. It is where Spoola, Ross, and I had slept the night before destroying the supplies at the cornucopia. I can tell because the tray from the meal we got is still there propped up on the side of the cave.

"Think tomorrow will be the final?" Pix asks as we settle in for the night.

I shrug, "Hard to tell." I could throw up though, I'm dehydrated, anxious, and battered. I would kill for a nice bed to sleep in, that's when I remember I literally am fighting to the death for a chance to sleep in a real bed.

"We should prepare just in case," Pix says. After the anthem, where Lex's face is projected into the sky, we spread out all our supplies. Not much is left from when I started.

I find the sleep bombs, which I thought were with Spoola when she died, in the bottom of my backpack, there are two left. I keep my water bottle, a few purification pills, iodine, and a container of berries. I decide to leave the small pot I recovered from the cornucopia wreckage and the old cracker wrapper next to the leftover tray. We open the can of mixed fruit and enjoy the sweet soft food for dinner.

Pix volunteers to take the first watch and I go to sleep. No dreams come tonight.