『 𝗧𝗢𝗚𝗘𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗥 𝗪𝗘 𝗕𝗨𝗥𝗡 』𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫

Forest Fire

TRIGGER WARNING: BLOOD, VIOLENCE, MENTIONS OF VOMITING AND DEATH.

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Your stomach growls a couple minutes after the Career Pack disappears into the forest. You take in a deep breath, the air cool in your lungs. Your stomach cries for something to eat once again and you sigh – opening the backpack in your lap and pulling out the dehydrated jerky, only taking three pieces from the bag. You shove the bag back into the backpack and begin to eat the jerky in your hand. That'll only hold you over for so long before you'll need to find something more nutritious to eat.

Sliding out of the sleeping bag, you roll it up and return it to the backpack. You next unstrap yourself from the tree, trying to be as careful as possible. As you try to shift slightly – you accidentally drop your belt, it hitting the ground below you with a soft thud. You cringe at the noise, turning your head to look around.

When no one seems to be around, you sling the backpack over your shoulder and begin to descend the tree. Taking it one branch at a time, you skillfully make your way down the tree. Once your feet hit the ground you reach down and grab your belt off of the ground, fastening it around your waist. You take off the backpack and take the knife out, sliding it back onto your belt before slipping the pack back on.

As you walk further into the forest, swallowing becomes more of an effort, like razors in your throat. The sun is beating down on you, a drastic change in temperature from the cool morning you had started out with. You take your jacket off and tie it securely around your waist, but that doesn't seem to do much. You walk for hours, scouring the forest for some sort of water source.

Parched, and weak, you sag against a nearby bolder – shutting your eyes tightly as the afternoon sun continues to beat down on your struggling form. All you want right now is water, but you can't seem to find it anywhere.

Reluctantly, you stand up and continue searching. You need to find water if you're going to survive out here – and you just have to survive. For Prim.

You're taken over by a sudden wave of sadness when you think of her. She's counting on you to win this, to make it home safely, and you can't let her down. You won't let her down.

You continue walking, your head is aching and there's a dry patch on your tongue that refuses to moisten. The sun hurts your eyes so you dig out the sun glasses in your bag and place them on your face – but they distort your vision and worsen your headache so you quickly take them off.

You try to look for signs of water around you – you know water runs down hill, so continuing down to this valley is your best option.

All of a sudden, you trip over a root sticking out of the ground, sending you falling to the mud. You try to pull yourself up but your body won't let you; too weak to let you go on.

This is alright, you think. This is not so bad here. The air is less hot, signifying evening's approach. There's a sweet scent that reminds you of lilies. This is an okay place to die, you think.

Panting, your eyes flutter closed and you lay limply in the mud. Suddenly, you realize...

Mud.

Your eyes fly open and you dig your fingers into the earth. It is mud!

Your nose lifts in the air, and those are lilies, pond lilies!

You had fallen down on moist, muddy, ground. And where there's mud, there's water. And the lilies you smelled before are pond lilies. You urgently try to find the source wetting the ground – following the trail of mud that leads down a small slope. Crawling on your stomach towards what you hoped was a water source, you push through the brush and emerge on the other side of a tangle of plants.