The Hunger Games: Retold

Chapter 24

Katniss and Cato fly across the plain, heading for the Cornucopia. I bolt after them, hampered by my weak leg that won't support my weight correctly. Cato reaches the horn first and scales the gleaming metal in a frantic scrabble, Katniss is close behind him. I hear the pounding feet and closing snarls of the mutts gaining on me. They look like gigantic wolves, but occasionally they leap and stand on their hind legs, eerily resembling slavering, monstrous humans. Blocking out the splintering agony of my barely healed muscle I dig in and sprint for my life. Katniss has reached the Cornucopia but stops and turns, firing an arrow back toward me, felling one of the mutts, but there are too many to make a difference.

"Go, Katniss! Go!" I scream. The beasts are going to reach her soon.

She turns back and starts up the horn. She's about halfway up when I reach the tail, but the mutts are here as well. I yelp as one snaps monstrous jaws inches from my heels.

"Climb!" she shrieks as I grab onto the smoldering metal, hauling myself up as quickly as I can while dragging my almost useless leg. She snaps an arrow at the nearest mutt and it thrashes as it screams an almost human sound. Several near it back off as its razor claws tear through them, giving me just enough time to reach the hand Katniss stretches down and we both tumble across the edge, sprawling on the top of the horn. Cato is gagging and wheezing to regain his breath, his legs shuddering with fatigue. How long was he running from them?

"Can they climb it?" he chokes, his panicked eyes meeting mine.

Katniss didn't hear over the cacophonous howls below as the mutts gather. I repeat his question and we both peer over the side, watching in terror as they snuffle and yip around the bottom of the horn, some standing on their back legs, looking like people coming up with a plan. Muscles ripple under pelts of all shades and textures, but all are huge and menacing in a way I can't quite place. They must be working together because the rest clear the way while one, a sleek golden monster, backs away and then bolts at the horn, launching itself up and landing, dangling and kicking about halfway up before dropping back to the ground. This seems like good news, but Katniss screams in panic and fires an arrow at the beast, taking it in the throat. I stare at it as it twitches and crashes to the ground. Katniss is watching the mutts in horrified revulsion and shaking like a leaf.

"Katniss?" I grab her in alarm.

"It's her!" she trembles. She's not making sense, I scan the plain for what she's seeing.

"Who?" I demand, unable to find the new threat. She doesn't answer, her eyes fixed on the monstrous beasts snarling and snapping below, whipping her head back and forth from one to another.

"What is it, Katniss?" I'm shaking her in my panic.

"It's them. It's all of them," she's almost sobbing. "The others. Rue and Foxface and...all of the other tributes," she cries.

Baffled, I stare down at the mutts. And one looks back. Those eyes will haunt me forever. I watched the light fade from them as the life flooded out of the girl from District 8. When I see the collar about its throat with a woven ribbon 8, I reel back. "What did they do to them?" I gasp. "You don't think... those could be their real eyes?" It's too horrible, but I wouldn't put anything past the Gamemakers.

We hold onto each other, watching in fixated terror as the mutts split to each side of the Cornucopia and methodically take turns leaping for the edge. One misses Katniss' hand by inches, and I instinctively pull her back toward me, but that's when I feel the steel trap of a mutt's jaws clamp onto my lower leg and in a blink it has me over the side. Instead of hitting the ground, I'm caught. I'm tangled in Katniss' grip and the weight of the monster is shredding my leg as its clenched maw slides agonizingly lower, pulled by its sheer mass. I need to get loose or Katniss will be yanked down with me. Gritting my teeth against the dizzying pain, I slash at its face with my knife. Katniss is screaming hysterically at me and finally, I bring my blade swiping across its eyes. With a screaming howl it lets go and Katniss heaves me back up over the side. She pulls me to my feet and behind her as she spins to send an arrow through the chest of a massive, dark beast that made an unbelievably high jump.