The 53rd Hunger Games- Two Words

28. Eunia's Father

“Eunia,” a voice says. “Eunia.”

I turn over, my eyes still closed. If it isn’t light, it isn’t morning and I have no interest in waking up.

Then I recognise the voice.

Hadrian.

I’m not dead.

He didn’t kill me.

I sit bolt upright, and am greeted by a heavy curtain of black spots that cloud my vision. And then I feel something else. Something that makes my blood run cold, likes it’s freezing in my veins. A throbbing in my left forearm.

I’m trembling as I fumble for the bandage, The only light is the early morning sun, which is only just peaking over the horizon. I can hardly see what I’m as I pull down the soft, slightly off-white material.

What I see shocks me. Hadrian, who was just trying to wake me up, is surprised by what I must seem so eager to do. In reality, I’m trying to reassure myself. The throbbing must be my imagination. My forearm will be fine.

I yank down the material, and almost cry.

“I’m not alright,” I whisper under my breath, more to myself than anyone else. Where my bandage covered, my skin is red and there is pus slowly dribbling out of where the scab was. The veins are red and stand out from my skin.

I want to cry.

“Oh my god,” Hadrian says slowly, with emphasis on each words. “Eunia...”

I clap my right hand over my mouth, and try to stifle the shocked noise that comes out.

“I could use medicine right about now,” I say, making a failed attempt at lightness. “As well as that Capitol shower.”

Hadrian takes my forearm gently in his hands, his fingers skimming lightly across the swelled skin. A shiver runs up my back.

“You have sponsors. The cameras will find us eventually, and when they do, sponsors will send you something to get rid of...”

He trails off, not wanting to say the word. Almost any kind of injury is synonymous to the word ‘death’ in the Games.  Especially the ones that can be fatal even outside of the arena.

With my good arm, I pull the sleeping bag off myself. The day is already beginning to heat up. Hadrian doesn’t look tired at all, despite having kept watch the entire night. He packs everything into the backpack, and wanders towards the edge of the cliff, which is less than ten yards away from where we decided to make camp. There are remnants of the fire; charred sticks, a dusting of white ash. He steps past them, towards the trees that are close enough to the cliff that they almost look like they’re about to fall off.

There are lines of twine attached to the trunks of the trees, and Hadrian pulls them up. He must have made the fishing lines after all. There looks to be around half a dozen.

I lean against a tree trunk, watching him as he inspects his hooks. Three of them come up untouched. The other two have reasonable size fish on them, which Hadrian puts in to the silver bowl in my pack, and covers with a blanket.

“Won’t it go off?” I ask. “It’s pretty hot out.”

Hadrian shakes his head. “It’s pretty cold in your pack. It should be fine.”

“If my pack stinks like fish, I’ll...”

Now it’s my turn to trail off. I’ll what? The arena is its own form of punishment. There is nothing that I can do, nothing I can say, to break Hadrian’s spirit any further.