Dew of the Sea [Finnick Odair]

[12. Day One]

Day One

Rosemary

Straight in front of Rosemary, surrounded by twenty-four Tributes, was the Cornucopia. Its dark metal was dusted with bright white snow, icicles were formed in the mouth of it, and a sheet of thin ice covered the sides. It was so bright from the snow that it was hard to see into the Cornucopia where the weapons would be but as her eyes adjusted to the light, she spotted numerous plastic bins, backpacks, small containers, tarps, and even some errant weapons that were strategically spread around so Tributes wouldn't have to go into the ground zero of the blood bath and could, at least, get a supply or two before they booked it.

The timer that projected off the Cornucopia started counting down at sixty seconds.

59...58...57...

With the Cornucopia sized up, Rosemary took a few seconds to look around the arena. All around her was snow, at least a foot deep and fresh. It was cold but there was something about it that let her know that it was very obviously man-made. Maybe it was the texture?

The further away from the Cornucopia, the deeper the snow went, forming into large banks that merged into a huge range of mountains, just as snowy as the rest of the arena. There was a small pond on the opposite side of the mountains, covered in thick ice, and then huge evergreen trees covered the rest of the arena, the north and south sides of the Cornucopia.

45...44...43...

Careful not to move around too much, Rosemary looked for Rye. She quickly realized that he was nowhere near her when she saw that the boy from District 3 was on her left and the girl from District 10 was on her right. In fact, he wasn't even a few people down from her. He was on the exact opposite side of the circle. She couldn't even meet his eyes because he was so far away, so she desperately hoped that he could at least see where she was.

38...37...36...

"Don't move!" she heard Benji from Three yell desperately from her left. At first she thought he was talking to her, but quickly realized that the boy on his other side had wobbled dangerously. She automatically closed her eyes and inhaled, not wanting to see what happened if he fell.

For the sixty seconds until countdown ended, all Tributes had to stand still on their metal pedestals. If one of them stepped off before the gong released them, land mines would blow up around them. That Tribute would usually die immediately but the unfortunate souls next to them sometimes got hit, too, and suffered until the bloodbath was over and the Careers realized that they were still alive. A similar scenario happened two, maybe three years before. It was so bloody that Rosemary had run straight for the bathroom and thrown up.

Luckily, it seemed that the boy didn't fall, which Rosemary considered a good thing. She didn't want to be around when Benji was killed, he reminded her too much of Peeta and she already had one brother to worry about in the arena.