² MANIA ─ catching fire

[ 014 ] nothing's making sense at all

TIME SLOWED.

The sound of her voice cutting through all the noise was a bucket of cold water doused over his head, a canned echo in his skull warping the world around him until it was the only sound in the tunnel of his vision: Papa! Behind you! Papa! Behind you! Papa! BehindyouPapaBehind youPapaBehind youBehind youBehind—

In a split second, a blur of golden hair threw itself in front of the monkeys. A flash of silver, and one fell to the ground, still, a short-sword buried in its face. The other slammed into Alecto without mercy, sending her sprawling to the ground. Just as its gaping maw bore down on her face, she raised her arms, pulling the strings of the parachute she'd wound around her arm across its open mouth, pushing its head back far enough. Still, its strength was outmatched, and its face leered closer and closer, her arms trembling with effort. Teeth gritted, Alecto thrashed and writhed beneath the monkey, but its weight was crushing and its claws had sunk into her right shoulder. Alecto let out an agonised scream.

Atlas snapped back into himself, moving before he could even register it. Adrenaline coursing through his veins, he dislodged the sword that'd been embedded in the dead monkey's skull, and ran it through its companion. Instantly, its movements stilled and Alecto shoved it off. There was no time to acknowledge what'd happened just minutes before.

Wave after wave of mutts surged down from the canopy, descending on the tributes without relent. Despite the blood gushing from the wounds in her right shoulder, Alecto unsheathed her second sword, testing its weight before she snapped around and swung it directly into an incoming mutt's chest. With a weapon on hand, Atlas felt his panic stabilise. He kept to Alecto's side as best as he could. His daughter had always been tougher than most, but she was only human, no matter if she believed otherwise. They took each attack as they came, Alecto swinging the container like a mace, the crunch of metal connecting with dense bone a blood-chilling percussion. The wounds on her shoulder were slowing her sword-hand down, but the container was working. Atlas slashed and sliced, moving with a militant precision, head ringing as he cut through the next onslaught of mutts bearing down on them with a renewed aggression, all animal snarls and raised hackles.

There was no stopping. Each time they killed five, fifteen more pounced. Already, Alecto was losing steam, her injury an insidious handicap. Already, Peeta's leg was slowing him down, Katniss was down to her last two arrows, and Finnick was beginning to tire. A hopeless pit opened up in Atlas' gut. This battle was an uphill fight, an impossible boulder doomed to roll back down the slope over and over, crippling every inch of progress, threatening to flatten them. If they ever made it out alive, it would be in tatters.

At that thought, Atlas slashed at one of the mutts, but it evaded decapitation, lunging for Katniss' exposed flank instead. In a flash, Alecto was there, pouncing onto its broad back with a frightening fervour, parachute strings stretched taut against its throat like a garrotte wire. It reared its head back, attempting to throw her off, and in the same breath, Finnick's trident found its exposed chest. Alecto jumped off as the monkey stumbled, rolling clear.

Atlas tackled Katniss out of the way as another mutt crashed into the space she once occupied, snarling. In a stroke of luck, Atlas jerked his discarded spear out from the chest of a dead mutt and sent it through the advancing mutt. Katniss reached for her last arrow as more monkeys poured into view.

Another snared Alecto in its claws and sunk its teeth into her sword-arm. Alecto didn't scream. She pushed the monkey as far away from her body as she could, switched grips, left hand bearing her sword now. Before Atlas could react, she stabbed and slashed at it until it unhinged its jaw from her arm. And when she finally tore it out of the mutt's mouth, the skin of her forearm was ravaged, reduced to a bloodied mess of skin shredded to ribbons. Alecto unwrapped the parachute from her left hand with her teeth, and dropped the container on the ground. She kept her right arm tucked against her side. Atlas abandoned Katniss without a second thought and moved to stand guard beside his daughter, his heart pounding against his chest like a war drum.