The End of Innocence: The 72nd Annual Hunger Games

All an Illusion

We all wake up at roughly the same time, almost in unison we sit up. Lesa yawns and Ion rubs her eyes. "Good sleep?" Ion asks, myself and Lesa nod. It actually was good, despite not having a pillow. The cave is at a comfortable temperature now, it's probably so much hotter outside. I sit myself up against the wall and watch the two girls stretch and fix themselves.

"What's the plan for today then?" Lesa asks. "I'm out of ideas."

"Just try survive today?" Ion blurts out. "We don't really have any plans other than to make sure the Careers don't get us."

She's right. We don't even have a plan. I scoot over to the edge where the opening drops you down, and look up. The sun is pretty high, it could be afternoon for all we know. I examine the ground from above, it's dry, the soil cracked from under the sun. It's only now I notice I haven't seen any familiar plants, everything here is foreign to me.

I turn around and Lesa begins grabbing her bag.

"Are you in a rush to go somewhere?" I ask her, she tuts and smiles at me.

"No, I just know if we don't move we're going to be killed somehow for not doing anything. No deaths yesterday, remember?"

I just nod at her and I begin to look at my fingers. The swim last night didn't get rid of all the dirt in my fingernails and the caked in blood covering my knuckles. This would be a crime against fashion in The Capitol, how disgusting. I would go around with dirt in my fingernails naturally at home, but now, I feel sort of disgusted. From being in high glamour to being thrown back in the dirt, it isn't really nice.

Ion picks out the apples, some berries they picked yesterday morning, and hands me the box of crackers. "Why don't we have a little feast, to celebrate."

I look at her and then my eyes dart to Lesa, who does the same to Ion. We all begin snickering as we all reach for an apple. We end up eating them all within a few minutes. The berries get devoured even quicker. Still, not satisfied but it'll do. We ration out the crackers that we'll have some for later on.  After eating in silence, Lesa decides for us that it'd be safer going back towards the Cornucopia. We seen the dangers and the difference in temperature as we go further from it. We pack our stuff, take a swig of water and leave the cave together.

We stand on the dry soil and look up at the mountain behind us. It's even bigger than how it looked last night. 

"We could go towards it and see what's there?" I suggest, pointing at the peak.

"Hardly." Lesa says without even looking at me. "C'mon, back to the lake."

We begin walking almost immediately back the way we came. We don't speak much. I think we're all a little bit traumatised from the first few days. Well, I am anyway. Even jumping over falling trees seems like an effort that I don't want to put in. It seems pointless now, we did everything we possibly could. Maybe if Coil was still alive, we could try find another way to catch the Careers off guard, but I think the longer we delay our encounter, the better.

Lesa stays ahead, leaving me and Ion to trudge behind her. As much as I want to talk to her, no words will come out. I would love to know what she's thinking. My thoughts are all fuzzy, but I bet hers are clear and precise. She knows what she wants, and she knows how to get it. Lesa's the same, although that's just me judging them from the outside. 

The walk gets as hard as it was yesterday, the heat still blistering down, the mud going soft and hard in different areas. This is a weirdly designed Arena if you ask me. I would love to see a map of it, everything looks the same. I know at home, they're being shown every possibly angle of it. The audience knows the layout, the Tributes have to figure it out themselves. The only thing they're not shown is all the hidden traps and surprises The Gamemakers have in store for us. Why reveal it? There wouldn't be an audience to surprise then.