The 53rd Hunger Games- Two Words

20. Confrontation

Somehow, I manage to fall asleep. When I wake again, I find soft light filtering through the clouds.

I've survived the first day in the arena. No other cannons woke me in the night, and I'm a light sleeper. The boy from Eleven's body isn't gone yet. The hovercraft doesn't come when another tribute is near.

I climb out of the tree. My stomach growls, and I realise that I need to eat. I haven't had anything since breakfast yesterday; I've been so worried about tributes finding me and killing me. I take some fruit out of my pack, and eat it as I walk.

I haven't gone far at all when I remember something. The boy from Eleven. He had weapons and supplies. Some of it might be useful, some of it might not. I haven't heard or seen the hovercraft that comes to collect the bodies of the tributes.

I turn away, and sprint back in the direction of the boy from Eleven. The hovercraft can't be far away now. I see his broken form, and suddenly feel reluctant. I've heard about bodies decomposing quickly, but I've never seen it in real life.

When my father died, there wasn't anything left.

The boy from Eleven had satiny brown skin, but now it's dull shade of fawn. His eyes are still open, staring into space. The fingers of the tribute are clenched into fists, his fingernails cutting into his dead skin.

It disgusts me.

His spear is next to him, plunged into the ground. I pick up, and weigh it. It's too heavy to be called comfortable, and I'm not that good at throwing it. A thought crosses my mind, and I pull the weapon out of the ground. I unclench the boy from Eleven's fingers, and curl them around the spear. Any weapons that a tribute is holding or impaled with are taken out of the arena. One less spear means that any tribute that finds it will have one less shot at killing me.

His fingers are cold and bony, not warm like mine. Or Hadrian's, when they were gripping my arm.

Like he'd never let go.

I roll the boy onto his stomach. I don't want to touch his flaccid limbs, so I use my knife to cut the straps. The contents half spill, and I sift through them.  There are hooks, a pan, a sleeping bag, a handful of pinecone needles and extra socks and shoelaces.

The pan is a dead-weight, but I take the hooks, the socks, and the sleeping bag. The wind picks up, and it only takes me a second to realise it isn't actually the wind. The hovercraft is almost directly overhead.

I get up and run. The tributes will know that someone is where the hovercraft is. The boy from Two and Hadrian will know that there was someone other than them and the boy from Eleven. The hovercraft only collects the body once all the tributes have left the area.

Hadrian will be the one to notice. There is a slim chance that he won't; after all, the boy from two and him didn't go through the boy from Eleven's pack. That struck me as typical Career behaviour.

Then again, Hadrian isn't exactly the typical Career.

I run, cutting through the trees. Branches tear at my arms, my face. I need to distance myself between the hovercraft and any of the other tributes.

In a way, I wish that the other tributes would hurry up and find me. I want to face them now. The pain of waiting is one that is almost tangible.

I'm not sure how long I run for. Adrenaline is pumping through my body again. I'm not tired when I stop; I want to orientate myself again. I walk towards the lake with my axe in hand. The sun has risen over the horizon, and already emits an uncomfortable heat. Yesterday cooled down quickly, but since I was wet for most of the afternoon, I probably wasn't able to judge a comfortable temperature accurately.