Scarred | The Hunger Games

6.

Otto was in deep sleep, his head resting on a makeshift pillow of seaweed. It was eerily silent. If the arena was anywhere, anything else, there'd be crickets chirping or tree branches shaking in the breeze. But under the water, you couldn't hear anything except the occasional muffling of something underwater.

And not only that. Everything, I mean everything was pitch dark. If my eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark, I wouldn't even know Otto was sleeping next to me. It was so much worse, not knowing what could be lurking just in front of me in the murky water. 

"Otto. Otto, wake up." I lightly jostled his body. 

He jolted up, his breathing picking up immediately like he was in a nightmare. Which, I guess he was. 

"Hey, it's ok buddy. You're alright, you're fine." I rub his shoulder as he looks around, scanning the waves. "I let you sleep a bit longer but we need to change the tanks now."

We had gone through the first tank, and I felt like we should be conscious of when we needed to change our tanks. I helped Otto first with changing his tank, making sure to stabilise him before doing the same for myself. 

"Hello little spinning wheel." An ominous voice calls out to me. Otto clearly doesn't hear it. 

At the sound of the unfamiliar voice, I push Otto as hard as I can, moving both himself and myself out of our original position. As soon as we move, a figure flies into where our bodies were only a minute ago, causing an explosion of sand dust. 

"Where's your little cotton ball friend." This time I know Otto hears the voice, when he calls out to me, panicked.

"Nova! It's the Careers!"

"Eight, Male. Otto, run- fuck! Swim away, and hide."

"No-"

"Go!"

A sword comes swinging at me, over the top of my head. District One. Fuck me. The water slows down her movements so I know that she won't be my biggest problem. A spear comes flying, barely missing my side as I move around. She is.

Pearl, District Four comes charging from out of the dark water. I begin kicking my legs, hoping to get away. District One? Fine, I can handle them. Two? Maybe less. But Pearl? God she was made for this arena, fuck no. 

My fingers cling on desperately to the knife from Eleven, my only weapon and hope as I try swim as fast as I can. 

"Little spinning wheel~ You know I own the ocean." Pearl swims right besides me, taunting me as if this was a game of tag. 

I bring up my feet- fins, fuck! I put my fins on her chest, and use her to push me off in the opposite direction, hoping to get somewhere, anywhere, away from her. And that's all I need to do. 

One and Two are kind of useless in this situation. Alora's sword will be slowed in the water, Huck and Knox can't throw knives in the water, and it's a small weapon. Onyx has terrible aim with her spear. Pearl is the only problem, but if I can tire her out, than I can escape. I have better stamina than her. 

"Ugh, I can't catch up to this fucking pricking needle. Alora- Fuck I'm still communicating with this twat- One, Female-"

Pearl's voice disappears and it's almost more unnerving that I can't hear her taunting me, because that means they're devising a plan. Honestly, being underwater might be more advantageous for allies since others can't hear your plans. 

I know that I've officially lost Pearl. But apparently not Knox. He also comes out of nowhere, knife in hand, ready to slice my face apart. He manages to get a nice gash near my collarbone, just above my almost non-existent cleavage. The wetsuit stretches into a large open tear as the salty water begins to burn at the cut. I quickly move into the other direction, which is when I see the cornucopia.

And again, coming out of nowhere, Huck also swims near me with a knife in his hand. I push harder, assuming their plan is to tire me out. It's clear that Pearl would have stopped to catch her breath, and I assume Alora as well. Onyx might still be on my tail though. 

As I approach the cornucopia, I decide that I'd have a better chance if I went over it than under, in case I get trapped. When I look back after passing the cornucopia, Huck and Knox are trapped in a fishing net. 

What the fuck-

The pair from Three emerge, each holding a knife. God there are a lot of knives in this game. No tridents, surprisingly. Both of them plunge their knives into the tanks of the boys', stabbing multiple times until the air began to escape into the water. 

The kids from Three could have take those tanks, used them to survive. But I could see it in them that they wouldn't be able to actually kill the boys. They were brains, nerds, computers, forced to be killers, and I could see that they didn't want to be. 

Boom. Boom. 

I swear I didn't make any sounds, I mean how could I, I'm under water. But they see me, pointing in my direction. I thought they'd swim away, considering they don't want to kill. But they don't instead, swimming over towards me. Fuck.

I don't think I can keep swimming, I've been going as fast as I can since the Careers tried to kill me. My grip tightens on my knife. I never trained to kill. I trained to get out of the grasp of a man, to run away and disappear in a crowd.

I dive in, slicing the girl's leg, stunting her movement. They must be on communication with each other, because the boy looks worried at her, before turning to me. Before he has the chance to do anything, I close my eyes, plunging my knife down. 

There's a shooting pain at my hip, and when I open my eyes, I see the girl from Three, teary eyed. I look down, the boy limp, with my knife deep in the back of his neck. Boom. The shock of my actions catch up with me, as I move back, releasing my grip on the knife. 

The girl charges towards me, anger fuelling her actions. She kind of swings the knife around uncoordinatedly, before I grab her wrist. "Three, Female. I'm so, so sorry." I move the knife into her own chest. Boom.

I'm too caught in my own guilt to know what to do next. I'm frozen, next to two corpses. Two dead bodies. Two dead children. 

Boom. Boom.

Fuck! Otto! I desperately begin swimming back, hoping to find him again.

"Nora?!" Otto's voice cries to me.

"Hey, yeah, I'm alright buddy. Are you back at our spot?"

There's a sob. "I thought you died. There were so many cannons Nora. I- I stopped counting because I didn't- I didn't want to think that one of the cannons I was counting, that one of them were you."

"Hey, I'm ok buddy. I'm here." I console as I arrive back to our hiding place. "It wasn't me. I'm fine-"

"You're hurt!" Otto says, eyes glued to my hip, which was bleeding worse than the cut on my chest. The wetsuit was also torn there, the fabric stretching almost up to my waist. The cut showed a bit of white, a bit of hip bone.

Ah, so the girl from Three must have got a good one on me. "Yeah, but I'll be fine. It's ok." I can still move perfectly fine, I just had less flesh to cut through than Career tributes since I was more malnourished. "Nasty thing about this arena is bleeding is hard to stop since blood can't clot as easily in water."

The anthem begins playing again. I'm assuming the last two cannons were the kids from Twelve.

First is Huck, who the kids from Three got. Then Onyx, which is a surprise to me, considering I thought that she would have been one to survive. Knox is next. Then the kids from Three, who I never actually got to bring any form of peace to. And then the boy from Twelve. 

So myself, Otto, Alora, Pearl, and the Twelve girl is left. I didn't expect there to be so many Career deaths this year, and I didn't expect there to be a girl from Twelve still alive. 

But this arena is fucking crazy, so I guess I shouldn't be that surprised.