The 1st Quarter Quell

Chapter 15 - Gravity & Surprises

The building creaks with a low-pitched and deathly groan. Slowly, I feel the flooring and structure begin to shake, sending nerves ricocheting around my spine and then the rest of my body. Savera and I look at each other in panic, and immediately grab onto the nearest pillar for support, the building's haunting creaks scaring us beyond measure. 

"What was that?!" I pant, grabbing onto the pillar with every bit of willpower I have in my body. Surely it couldn't have been the Careers? What about the District 3 girl? Where could they have gotten that firepower from?

"Gamemakers?" Savera asks from opposite me, putting away her arrow - she was preparing for escape, "That'd be too simple for them, they need their show? What do you think? Three and Seven? Maybe they found something at the Cornucopia?"

"They could've dug up the mines around the podium? Three's smart enough to do that, she seems pretty sneaky to me?" I reply, and I look around the room, and the moulding furniture around us begins to rock. The building is moving. I dig my heels into the ground and grip onto the pillar as hard as I can as the building begins to tilt, little by little.

"I wouldn't be worrying about how we managed this, just how we're going to get out of here." I look to the door, and almost too instinctively, I draw two knives quicker than the speed of sound and aim them at the green-eyed girl from District 3 and the blood-smeared girl from 7, they've both got their weapons aimed at us, an axe for 7 and for three, a whip made from coiled wire and a baton. Clever thinking. Savera has her bow and arrow drawn, ready to fire when need be.

The four of us stand there, staring at each other intently, our weapons raised, but a sudden jolt in the building causes us to fall to the floor. The building begins to tilt further and further down, and I find myself sliding towards the empty window that is tilting towards the ground. Furniture slides past us and out of the window the four of us are now headed towards, and as the building tilts further and further, we slide faster and faster across the large room. 

I quickly put my weapons away, and as we begin to slide faster, I stretch my arms out in attempt to grab onto something that will keep me alive at this height. The building's creaks and moans become more and more violent as we slide faster. My adrenaline is too high for me not to try and save myself, so I reach out for anything to hold onto.

"Althea!" Savera shouts from she's down towards the edge of the window, grabbing on tightly to an old appliance attached firmly to the wall. I try and plant my hands into the ground to slow myself down, but I only find myself sliding faster and faster as the building edges towards a perpendicular angle. Savera holds her hand out, and I narrowly grab onto it. Any further, and I would have fallen out. 

The Green-Eyed girl is grabbing to an old cable wire that hangs out of the ceiling, and she's shouting for her partner to take her hand. District 7 slides fast and faster, coming into common collision with other sliding objects, one of them a chair that collides with the back of her skull. She's knocked unconscious. Green-Eyes makes an attempt to reach out for her, but it's not enough as the girl comes into a cataclysmic crash with a concrete pillar. I could almost hear her back snap.

The building halts its falling motion, and after a few seconds of safe guarding the building, we are able to stand up. Green-Eyes becomes distressed at the death of her ally, and presses her forehead to the ground in despair. I walk over to her and drag her up on her feet by her collar.

"What the hell did you do?" I demand, giving her a good shake, but she won't stop crying, "Answer me!" I shake her harder and harder, trying to get an answer out of her, but she seems too distraught to think straight. I slap her face, hard. She snaps out of her miserable haze, her green eyes coming back into focus.