Snowdrop ➳ A Hunger Games Story {Wattys 2019}

Chapter 17 ➳ The Spark

run for cover
run while you can baby, don't look back

The mountain behind us - I'd almost forgotten it was there, but I remember seeing it on the first day in the arena - anyway, the mountain behind us explodes in a plume of lava and rock. Cella screams and scrambles to her feet, snatching up her weaponry. Ember stumbles upright, surprisingly fast for someone still recovering from his knife wounds.

"Go, go, go!" Everyone's yelling and running, and the unstable ground makes it even harder to move through the snow.

It's not until I'm several metres away, clutching Ember's hand and trying to swing my pack onto my shoulders that I realise Bailey's frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the volcano. She's caught like an animal before slaughter, transfixed.

"Bailey!" I yell. "Bailey!"

Haymitch turns and darts back with startling speed. "Come on, Bailey, come on. Now's not the time to admire the view!" He drags her to her feet and sprints after us, yelling for us to move faster.

We crash through the forest, not caring about how much noise we make. Our only thoughts are to save ourselves as the mountain spews liquid fire.

Birds take flight, swooping over our head like tiny hovercrafts, and in the distance someone screams and a cannon fires. Something grey catches in my hair and throat, like tiny shreds of paper.

"Ash!" I shout, my breath stabbing at my chest. "We need to go faster or we'll suffocate!"

"Shit," I hear Cella mutter. She's running as fast as she can, her quiver bouncing awkwardly against her pack and her ponytail swinging wildly.

I trip a couple of times, but each time Ember hauls me to my feet, barely waiting to see if I'm all right. We enter a new part of the forest. It's denser, with lower hanging branches and scrubby foliage despite the cold climate. Even that doesn't seem to exist anymore, because even as we run the snow beneath our feet melts into an unattractive slush.

Branches cut at my face and catch in my hair, and I lift up my arms to sweep them aside. We're coughing now, squinting up at the sky as the sun is blotted out in a layer of ash and smoke.

"Come on, faster!" Haymitch calls.

I'm crying again, tears cutting tracks through the grime on my face. There's a boom, somewhere in the distance. A hiss and a crackle to my left. I look around wildly, catching sight of a tree a few hundred metres away as it explodes into golden fire. It teeter precariously, strangely graceful amidst this carnage, then collapses.

"Oh, shit!" Ember gasps.

My head snaps up to look at him. He never swears. But I don't have time to worry about it, because someone slams into me just as a tree right beside me bursts into flames. I hit the ground, wincing as I land heavily on my arm.

"Come on, come on, come on!" A hand grabs my arm and I'm wrenched to my feet again.

The air around us crackles as fire rains from the sky, punctuated by our ragged breaths and shouts.

"Watch out!"

"We've gotta go, come on!"

"How - how long do you think this'll last?"

"As long as it takes for us to be driven together."

"Cover your mouths!"

I lift my shirt up over my mouth and nose, hoping the sweat it's drenched in will act as another layer to stop me choking on the smoke. Branches crack and fall to the ground, hissing in what little remains of the snow are left. We run for what seems like hours but can only be minutes, because too long and the Games would be accused of being boring.