Rising Flames

Chapter 17: Dreams and Danger

Wiping tears from my eyes I stand in the fuzzy surroundings that have engulfed my senses. I appear to still be in my treehouse lair, but it is lighter, as if there were even fewer leaves covering me. The food on the floor is still there, but more has been added to it. Meat lies on the floor rapped in leaves next to the berries and nuts I'd already collected. The walls are covered in scratches, scratches that weren't there before. I wander over to them, inspecting them more intensely, and notice that the claw indentations were covering numbers. Numbers that had also been scratched into the tree branch. The numbers were 1 through 12, each written six times, with thirteen of the marks scratched over.
That's when it hits me: they must be the tributes... And the deaths.
My hand drifts over the numbers that have been destroyed by the simple lines and it reaches the first 12. Heather.
My tears come again, heavier than I allowed them before.
A voice erupted from behind me, but it isn't like the loud-speaker voices from the Gamemakers, it's sweet, calm, and almost sisterly. "Hush, hush. It's okay, don't cry." The only problem is, I recognise that voice, and she can't be here.
I turn around carefully, preparing for the worst, and there I see her, clothed in a silvery white gown that flows so easily around her it's hard to believe the last time I saw her she was stepping into her doom.
"Heather." My voice comes out as a strangled whisper, and more sobs erupt from my chest before I can stop them.
She reaches for me and encases me in a bear hug, her head resting on mine, stroking my hair. "Sh... You're going to be okay. It's alright."
I look up at her gratefully before realising something. "B-b-but you're d-dead." I pull back, stepping backwards until I hit the wall that has the numbers emblazoned upon it. "You c-ca-can't be here, because you're d-dead."
She sighs, as if I am a child who is believing in some silly fairy tale. "Well, yes..." I gasp, loudly, but she continues none the less. "I am dead, but I can be here."
She has complicated things now. "H-how?"
Giggling slightly, she answers me: "Because this is a dream silly."
It all makes sense now: the fuzziness of my surroundings; the extra food when I had caught nothing of yet; and the numbers, those oh so scary numbers.
I look at Heather, new tears springing into my eyes. "Why did you do it? Why'd you step into the water? You knew what was going to happen! So why did you step in?!" My voice had started soft, but it rises drastically as I speak.
Heather licks her lips and averted her eyes for a moment. "Because I knew I was going to die, sooner rather than later, and I decided I wanted to die how I wished, that I was going to be able to see it coming, that I could..." She pauses, thinking, "I don't know, step into my fate knowing how and when it was going to happen, instead of fearing death every day in this stupid arena."
Another sob becomes stuck in my throat. "Then why are you here? If you can come because of a dream, why come to me, why not your family, loved ones?"
"Because you were the only one to care that I stepped off." She'd said that smiling, but now she becomes serious. "And you're in danger."
"What? What danger?"
She doesn't seem to be hearing me anymore, just speaking, like she's in some sort of trance. "The only danger you face comes from yourself, your willingness to protect others before you defend yourself." Only now does she actually look at me. "The keys they are hiding out there, find them, get out of here while you still can."
And with that, Heather and my dream faded away into nothingness.

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I woke with a start in the early morning, and looked across to my food storage - no new food, it was just the way I left it last night - to my supplies area - everything is still there, nothing removed or added. And finally I look to the bark of the tree which had been so clear in my dream, expecting to see nothing.
A gasp lodges in my throat.
The numbers are still there, gashes and all.