When Luck Runs Out

Hay In the Needlestack

    I slept so lightly that dreams couldn't penetrate me; I literally thought I had one eye open the whole night, because when I woke up the sunlight didn't bother me at all. It was far too cheery in this little apartment for the games, the morning sunlight shining through the ripped curtains, lighting up the whole place with imposter sunlight. I knew it wasn't the sun, I knew we were in a metal dome, and that this 'sunlight' was actually human made, to try to make us feel like we were actually in a destroyed city and not in some horrible game. I ate some sunflower seeds, two or three, shells and all, and made my way out of the building, abandoning my little camp out and picking up my search for John once more. There was no more signs of life this morning than there was when I had gone to bed, no drops of blood, no dead bodies littering the ground, all was quiet. I walked the streets once more, raiding as many small shops for any scraps of food I could find. I struck gold in a little stop and shop thing, there was an ice machine, still with ice in it, which was a brilliant way of finding fresh, drinkable water. I filled my mouth with the cubes and found a small sand bucket, clean and hole free, filling it to the brink with ice, and making my way down the street. It was about noon based on the sun when I stopped, taking a rest on the side of the street and taking a small sip of the water I now had slopping over the edges of the purple plastic sand bucket, with the little indents for sand castles and everything. I wondered why on earth the Capital would put something so stupid into the arena, but it obviously served its purpose, for me at least. I had food, water, and a small weapon, I was actually pretty set. Now all I needed was John. It took another hour or so until I found the next sign of life, more blood, but a lot more this time. Someone was injured, I could tell from the massive streak of blood being dragged across the cement, and they were leaving a detailed map of where to go. I looked around, trying to find the attacker, and wondered if it was worth it to follow this trail. The last one had been a bust, only enough to remind me that we were at war, but this had the slightest hope, it just might be John. I set my water pail in a doorway, hidden in shadows enough that someone might overlook it, and crept into the building, following the blood. It was dried, old blood, but someone just might belong to it, and they might not have left. It was a dark business, some sort of bank by the look of it, with a long polished wooden reception desk stretching the length. I could hear a slight shuffling, someone was still here. My blood ran cold, but I was awake with adrenaline, my fight or flight senses were tingling, and I knew which was preferable. I would fight. The streak of blood have been streaked around near the desk, as if someone had tried to mop it up only to find that they were making an even bigger mess. I clutched my glass, took a deep breath, and jumped behind the counter. A dark shape came at me, with a silver knife in their hands, pinning me against the wall and making me drop the glass. I felt the tip of the knife right above my heart, but I knew that if they hadn't taken the chance to kill me that I might still have some luck.
"Give me a reason why I shouldn't kill you now?" growled a voice, but, to my absolute delight, it was the same voice that I've heard all year, telling me it was okay and telling me that he loved me. It was John.
"John, it's me." I muttered, trying not to breathe too heavily since the knife was right against my chest. John fell back in relief, the silver knife clattering to the floor as he slumped against the reception desk. I followed him, tears of relief falling down my face.
"You're hurt." I muttered.
"Ya, thanks for noticing." John groaned, striking a match from under the desk and lighting a candle. His shirt and jacket were off and there was a large gash on his right shoulder. Obviously he had tried to tie it off, but the rags were blood soaked and sagging.
"Oh my god, oh my god, John!" I exclaimed, pulling him towards me and kissing every inch of his face that I could reach.
"Sherlock, come on, I'm fine." John insisted, pushing me off but looking insanely relieved to see me.
"Well, you've left a trail that even I could follow, so we should get moving." I decided.
"Please tell me you've got food or water." John insisted.
"Both." I said with a smile, handing him the half of the granola bar. John sighted with relief, but also noticed how little there was.
"What about you?" he asked.
"Oh, it was whole when I found it." I lied. John nodded, wolfing down the sacred few bites and looking a little bit better.
"What happened exactly?" I asked, holding the candle closer to the wound and peeling back the bandages. The wound wasn't that deep, thankfully, but the amount of blood it had let out was disturbing.
"In the beginning, our little battle was a little bit down the block, and I had Jim in my circle. I ran to get the closest supplies, because I knew you'd go straight to find me, and as I ran off his blade caught my shoulder, but I managed to outrun him." John shrugged.
"Well it's a good thing he didn't go looking for you, because you haven't exactly covered your tracks." I pointed out.
"Ya, well..." John cut off his sentence, obviously not able to find some sort of insult to throw back at me.
"Come on, we should get moving." I decided.
"Where?" he asked.
"Anywhere other than here, we're sitting ducks." I insisted.
"Maybe that's just better." John shrugged.
"No John, it is not better." I insisted, "Come on." I got to my feet, and John struggled to his, using the reception desk to stand.
"Quite an arena we've got here." he decided.
"Ya, it's new alright." I agreed.
"Well, it's where this world is headed anyways. It won't be all that original in about twenty years." John decided. I managed to laugh a little bit, but I knew he was right. With Snow as dictator, everything could and probably would go wrong. John packed up his things, a little backpack with some supplies but no food or water. He also had that knife, which was a lot better than the shard of glass I had. But we packed everything in the back, and together we walked out. I carried the backpack, to make sure John's shoulder didn't have more stress than it needed, but he looked like he was moving around alright, as if it didn't bother him when he barely moved it.
"Have you seen anyone yet?" John asked.
"Only some dead girl." I sighed.
"Have you been looking for me this whole time?" John asked.
"Of course I was. Maybe it's a good thing you were so darn obvious." I insisted with a smile.
"I guess I'm pretty lucky then, my knight in shining armor is here to rescue me." John laughed.
"See, I told you I was the knight!" I insisted.
"In this scenario you are." John growled. We walked over to where I had hidden the water, which was thankfully untouched where I had left it.
"Making a sandcastle are you?" John asked with a laugh.
"I could just dump the whole thing on you if I wanted, show some respect." I warned.
"Oh shut up." John laughed, lifting the pail to his lips and taking a couple of well-deserved gulps of water.
"And it's even cold, Sherlock you're one overachiever." He decided with a laugh.
"There's an ice machine in some shop, I just filled this up with ice and let it melt." I shrugged.
"Brilliant, then there's more." John decided.
"There is." I agreed.
"So, did you notice anything odd so far?" John asked. I could tell by his tone that this was a trick question, and that he had definitely noticed something.
"Well, yes, the whole cornucopia process." I pointed out.
"They didn't show the dead." John corrected.
"They...didn't?" I asked. But as I thought of it I knew that he was right, from my little apartment I hadn't heard the anthem and I hadn't seen any light and the window had been smashed.
"Why wouldn't they do that?" I asked curiously.
"Don't ask me, but I think they want to keep us nice and confused, make sure that we can't count down our victims. We could be scared to death of Moran, and he might have been killed by Greg, or vice versa." John insisted.
"Well, I think that if Greg is alive we would've heard him." I guessed.
"Ya, you could say that again." John agreed.
"Let's make some sort of base." I decided.
"Good idea, now that we don't have to move around that much anymore." John agreed.
"We should fill that bucket back up with water." I decided.
"Definitely." John agreed.
"And I had actually found an apartment building with a bed and everything, luxury of the games I suppose." I shrugged.
"I spent the night just as you found me, but I couldn't sleep. I just lay awake; thinking every slight creak of the door was some tribute coming to finish me off." John decided.
"Well that's not going to happen, not anymore." I insisted.
"I certainly hope you don't get any funny ideas." John laughed, taking a step away from me as if I was about to lash out at him. We walked along the empty sidewalk, and I couldn't help feeling an abnormal sense of security. This had been easy, almost too easy. I had spent a whole day without seeing another soul, and I found John without any sort of struggle. Was this all some sort of test, or was it a trap? I peered suspiciously at the window around me, half expecting to see someone's head dart quickly out of view. We found the shop with the ice machine quite easily, and thankfully there was just enough ice for one more bucketful. John searched the cabinets but without luck, there was no other food accounted for. I decided that was okay, we weren't starving to death, water was the hard part and we had a full bucket of that.
"So, where is this apartment building?" John asked. I scanned the buildings around us, knowing it couldn't be too far away.
"No idea. I guess I'll know it when I see it." I decided, but as we walked along I remembered I didn't even have a general idea of which building was the right one. They all looked the same to be honest, worn out brick or steel, destroyed windows and doors. I looked for the window I had smashed out, which might be a little bit of a hint, but the farther we went the more I decided that it was a lost cause.
"We should've passed it by now." I insisted.
"Should we turn back, look again?" John asked.
"Nah, it's not that much of a loss to be honest." I shrugged.
"So, now what?" John asked.
"Find a new base I suppose?" I asked. John nodded, pressing the blood soaked makeshift bandage to his shoulder, wincing as new drops of blood sprouted.
"Do you need to change that?" I asked nervously.
"We don't have enough cloth, it's a waste." John shrugged.
"You can use my shirt." I offered.
"What did you rip it for already?" John asked, noticing the large chunk missing from my shirt.
"Oh, I wrapped it around the glass, so I didn't cut myself." I shrugged, holding up my little weapon proudly.
"Smart." John decided.
"I was quite proud." I agreed, smiling at him like I was a dog that had just learned a new trick.
"Shush." John said quickly, pulling me roughly into some sort of sketchy alley way.
"What is it?" I mouthed, and John just put a finger to his lips, his eyes alight with terror. We crouched deeper into the alley, behind some sort of empty dumpster, listening hard. Finally I heard what he was worried about, footsteps, crunching down the destroyed pavement road, moving slowly, as if they were trying to be as silent as possible. Thankfully though, someone failed ninja school, because we saw their outline passing through the sunlight, holding a wicked looking hunting knife that brought back horrible memories of the boy I had killed. He had tried to kill me with a hunting blade that looked identical to that. I closed my eyes tight, burying my head into John's shoulder and trying to block off my surroundings, because it was a really bad time for reality to hit. John patted me ever so lightly on the back, keeping me quiet and safe. The footsteps were fading, but that meant someone was close, someone was armed, and someone was hunting. After a good ten minutes John stood up cautiously.
"Stay here, I'll go check it out." he decided.
"As if!" I hissed, pulling him back down. "They might be still there, I'll make sure it's safe."
"No way! They might kill you!" John insisted.
"That's precisely why I'm going." I agreed, trying to get to my feet as well, but John just kicked out my knee, and I went tumbling to the dirty garbage strewn street.
"Don't even think about it Sherlock." He insisted, getting to his feet and trying to make a run for it. I grabbed the back of his jacket though, pulling him back and holding him in headlock, trying to escape his flailing arms.
"We'll both go." I hissed. "But I'm sure if they were still there, they would've easily heard this racket." John finally shook me off, just because I loosened my grip of course, and brushed himself off, as if trying to maintain his dignity.
"Why do I even bother with you?" he asked.
"Because you love me." I teased, poking his nose antagonistically and creeping to the corner of the alley. Both of our heads popped out and searched, but the street remained empty, obviously whoever had been wandering around was long gone.
"We ought to get indoors." John decided.
"Wait a second, I should call the shots." I insisted, folding my arms.
"I'm the one holding the knife." John insisted.
"I'm the one with the water." I pointed out. John sighed, but nodded.
"Alright then, humor me. What do you have in mind?" he asked. I shrugged, not really knowing what to do anyway.
"I was going to say go indoors, you beat me to it." I muttered, turning a bit red.
"There you have it then." John laughed. "I'm in charge."
"You most certainly are not!" I insisted.
"I've been most recently in the games." He pointed out.
"I'm two years older than you!" I insisted.
"I'm not even going to comment on that." he muttered with a small laugh.
"Freaken gold digger." I muttered, and John just hit me lightly, laughing as he did.
"Where should we go then?" he asked.
"Let's get another apartment building. Usually they have a lot of exits, and lots of doors." I decided.
"Alright, apartment building." John agreed. We looked around the skyline, but honestly we couldn't tell which building stored what. In the end I picked one with a rusty old air conditioner hanging out the window, at least we knew there used to be people there. Well, there would've been people, if this were real, which it wasn't. I checked that the coast was clear, and no one saw us walk in the building, and held my piece of glass tight, walking into the dark lobby first to make sure no one was crouched in the shadows.
"Clear...I think." I muttered, walking the perimeter and checking under desks and stuff. John, however, seemed thoroughly unentertained, standing there checking that his arm wasn't infected or something.
"You don't think they've got gangrene around here, do you?" he asked.
"I hope not." I muttered, flipping over one last moldy couch cushion before officially announcing coast clear.
"Sounds like something they would do." He decided.
"Don't give them any ideas." I warned.
"How many stories do you think this place has?" John asked, looking up as if he could see through the ceiling or something.
"I don't know, really don't care. Pick a floor though." I shrugged.
"Hmm, somewhere near the middle, where no one would suspect us being. A sensible person would likely go to the top, so that's where we're not going to be." John decided.
"Fair enough." I agreed.