Inferno: A Hunger Games Fanfic

Chapter 27

Everything is much too bright. Sunlight bounces off every surface and into my eyes. Yet despite the brightness, every sense feels dulled. Something's off. I can feel it, but I can't quite name it. It's like something is missing, something important, but I can't find the gap. I sit up, and pain floods through my head. But so does the thought. Water. That's what is missing. But we don't have any water. I've found the missing piece of the puzzle, but I can't work out how to fit it in. I can't work out anything right now. My head is too fuzzy. The desire for water sticks out though, like a burst of sunlight through cloud.

Since my desire is currently unobtainable I turn my mind to figuring out my situation. I'm inside. In a house. In the village. I'm in the games. That fact comes crashing through my mind and drops into my stomach as sudden terror and realisation plunge through my body.

After a few seconds of panic, I come to my senses, reminded by a painful pang of my current problem. I stand up, with a little difficultly though at least my severe lack of water hasn't completely evaporated my strength. A quick glance refills minds with snippets of information. Emily and Lepus are lying next to each other. Emily is hurt. She was just trying to get water. Meir isn't here. He's searching for water. I remember. He left late last night and hasn't been back since. The sun informs me that it is late morning, so he's been gone a long time. Could I have missed a cannon during the night? We're lucky a cannon didn't sound for us really, I was supposed to be guarding but stupidly fell asleep.

No ones died for a few days, now I think about it, which is weird for a Hunger Games. That must mean either something really intresting is happening to the careers or whoever, or we're the intresting party. Hopefully we aren't the intresting ones, because in the arena, being intresting is synonymous with being in mortal peril. I shiver from the thought and try to turn my mind to something else. Really, I should be more worried about Meir, especially considering my recent revelation, but for some reason I feel like I know he's safe. It sounds crazy, and I probably am going crazy with thirst but I feel like I'd know if he died. It would hurt so much to lose him that I wouldn't need a cannon or to see it to know. But I might just need water.

Lepus wakes up not long before midday and Emily is also awoken due to the sudden movement. Slowly she sits up, wincing every millimetre. It kills me to see her like this, someone so small and innocent shouldn't be hurt like this. But it's also painful as it reminds me of my little sister, my Emily, when she hurt herself. I remember her coming home crying because she scraped her knee playing in the street. For days afterwards she would walk around limping and wincing like the current Emily is (though she is acctully injured) right now.

For the next hour Lepus tries to help Emily get up and walking. It doesn't take too long to get her back to walking but Lepus gets increasingly irritated. Even after we finish helping her he finds things to complain about and his constant checks out the window quickly get on our nerves. We knew it was just dehydration, but after all we are all suffering.

The heat only gets worse as the day wearily drags on. Lepus continues to be increasingly agitated and takes to absent-mindedly tapping rhythms on any and every surface. Any attempt at conversation dies immediately as we all just wait for Meir or death.

As the sun begins to set, Lepus becomes yet more restless, pacing backwards and forwards, killing our suggestions to save his energy with savages answers that almost bring Emily to tears. He's too far into his own world to care though. It can't be much later, when he loses all reason and finally snaps.

"I'm going to drink from the shower," he declares. This fills me with instant dread. The only shower we've seen in the village has blood stains all over it. I jump up and grab him, ready to reason with his unreasonable madness, but he shoves me away. I fly backwards into a table but the adrenaline keeps me running at him. I leave Emily on the floor Im the kitchen and run out into the stifiling air. Unaware of me pursuing him, he simply walks purposefully towards the house. I still have to run to catch up, hurdling the low hedges to stop him. I'm not fast enough. He see's me just as I step through the door so he darts up to the shower. I grab him before he can close the door between us.

"Don't do this!" I plead, looking straight into his enraged eyes.
"I want water, this is water," he says simply, trying to pull back his arm. I hold on tighter determine to make him see sense.
"No! It might be trapped! You could get hurt ! You could die! " On that last word his eyes soften, looking more like the familiar tired eyes I had seen so much in these last days. He looked at me, and it might be the sun, but those eyes seem to be glistening.
"I was always going to die. This might be quicker,"

My grip loosens for just a second, but it's enough. He slams the door shut.
I bang on the door, and pull the handle desperately trying to open it. I yell his name. I hear the shower turn on, splashing into the tiles . I hear him take a step. And the I hear a scream. A scream of pure pain. I bang more on the door, screaming for him, trying to break the door. The screams keep going. It feels like years but perhaps it's just seconfs when then screams begin to fade a little. I know then that all hope is lost but I don't stop. I don't stop until his pain stops, until the cannon sounds. Then my screams become whimpers and the hits become tears. And cruelly, the gamemakers make it rain.

Yeah, guys I am alive. Sorry this has taken so long. It was hard to write. Comment what you thought!

Xxx