Rising Rebellion [#3]

Chapter 12 - Bloodrain

They had been walking in the jungle for hours. The jungle never seemed to have an ending to them. On top of that, for every minute they walked without water, they got more and more dehydrated because of the heat, and for every hour that went by, it got darker and darker. They were walking to higher ground in the hopes that they would find a freshwater source somewhere up there. “We could keep on walking like this forever and still not find any freshwater.” Sylvia said as the four of them stopped to catch a break. It was more for Nuts and Volts than her and John. “Well, wherever it is, we need to find it fast! This jungle is dense and humid. No water can be the end of us if the others don’t get to us.” John answered.

A few seconds later, they heard a big gong go off. It went on and on for a while and then it stopped. John and Sylvia looked at each other confused before they looked at Nuts and Volts. “Did I count twelve gongs?” John then asked as he stood there puzzled. Beetee nodded. “So twelve times…one for each District?” Sylvia then suggested. Beetee again responded, but this time he disagreed. “It must be a signal of some sort, maybe more to us than the crowd watching.” Beetee suggested as they a few seconds later heard a lightning strike. “That was somewhere close.” John said as he flinched. “Too close for comfort if you ask me.” Sylvia added to his response. She looked over at the direction where the lightning strike came from. “What kind of Arena is this?” She then asked to herself.

John heard her as she looked over at him. “I have no idea, but what I do know is that we should keep moving. We can’t stand still like this without water.” John said as he started walking. A few minutes later however, Beetee insisted that they’d stop. “What is it?” She asked him. Beetee took a few steps past John, but before he could point ahead, he touched something that sent him several meters back, hitting John in the process.

“Are you two okay?” Sylvia asked as Wiress sat down next to them. “I’m good.” John said as he got to look at Beetee’s hand. “That’s badly burned.” John said. “The end of the Arena, electrified forcefield…” Wiress mumbled. Beetee nodded. “I was suspecting that to be the case, but I didn’t think we were that close.” He said. John managed to find some special leafs. He grabbed Beetee’s belt to bend around the leaves to form a type of bandage. “So the Arena isn’t that big?” Sylvia then asked. Beetee shook his head. “There you go. That should hold for at least a day and then we’ll have to change it.” John said as he got back up on his feet. “We need keep track of that forcefield.” John said as he threw a berry at the forcefield. “We’ll walk alongside it while throwing berries at it.” John said as he helped Beetee up on his feet. “Okay then, let’s get walking.” Sylvia said.

After less than an hour, it then started raining. Sylvia and John looked up at first. “Finally, some water!” She said as she opened her mouth to embrace, but immediately noticed that something was wrong. John looked up as he then heard Sylvia cough and spit something back out. As John looked up, something hit him the face and he was nearly blinded. He dragged it off of his face and felt it. It was warm and thick…too thick to actually be water. He then put his tongue and tasted it. “Oh my God…it’s blood! It’s raining blood.” John concluded quite quickly. They could barely see where they were walking with the blood blinding them. “What kind of freak-show is this, Snow?!” She yelled out loud. They managed to find cover underneath one of the trees, but it didn’t do them much good. “No water and raining blood…this has to be killing the audience.” John murmured sarcastically. As the rain turned lighter, Sylvia looked over at him. “We need to get out of this forsaken jungle.” She said.

As the worst had passed, the four of them walked out of their cover and started making their way back down. The ground was all red, only they didn’t quite see the color as it was too dark for them, but what they did know, was that it was very slippery, especially on the roots. While walking, Wiress started singing on a song and then occasionally murmuring “Tick-tock, tick-tock…” Sylvia was in the back with Beetee while John was in the front with Wiress right behind him. Walking like this made them vulnerable, not to mention the fact that they were all severely dehydrated. They only kept on moving to find Finnick’s group. That was the only reason why they endured. As Wiress kept on with her ‘tick-tock’-ing, it really got on Sylvia’s nerves after a while. “Please, shut up, Nuts! Your tick-tock-ing won’t get us any water!” She let out very agitated. “Calm down, sunshine, nagging won’t do you much good either.” John said as the three in the back stopped.

John walked a bit further on and stopped to have a look ahead. The rain had stopped a while ago. John grabbed at leaf to wipe off the blood from his face. That’s when he noticed something strange. As he touched the leafs nearby, they were all dry. None of it reminded of the blood that had rained down upon them the last hour. As he looked upwards, he could see a fine line where there was a clear difference of where there was blood and where there wasn’t. He then looked back at Sylvia who had been standing there observing him for a while.

“John, what is it?” She seemed to be asking him, but he didn’t get it. As he was about to walk back to her and ask he bumped into something. Sylvia ran up to him, but was also stopped. She banged on the wall several times. “John!” She yelled. “Sylvia! I walked past something. I don’t know what it was!” John said. She could barely hear him on the other side. She brought up the axe and John moved away, but as she swung it on the invisible wall separating them, it didn’t give in one bit. John tried to fire an arrow at it, but he came up with the same result. From her side, Sylvia noticed something appear behind John and he turned around as he followed her look. A fog was approaching him. He didn’t think much of it first, but as he put his hand out, he heard someone shout in the distance. “…the fog is poison!” But as he heard it, it was already too late. As the fog touched John’s hand, it caused him grate pain and blisters. He held to his hand as he looked at Sylvia.

“RUN!”