After The Storm (A Hunger Games Fanfic)

Bloodbath - 24

The sun shines, a few fluffy clouds drifting lazily across the scene. Birds wheel around the sky, chirping news to each other, not that there’s ever very much news here. Not until now, anyway. The place is startlingly flat, and dominated by fields of waving golden grasses, tall enough to hide people in. Every so often small and delicate streams run through, half-hidden behind the grass and hedges, so that you could trip into them if you aren’t watching your feet. Perhaps once lovers came to meet here or farmers came to work, or a mother searched for a lost child, but now it has a more sinister purpose; to blind, to confuse, to conceal. Every so often, a small patch of trees squats among the hedged fields, rustling quietly in the breeze. The scene seems to go on forever, although it doesn’t. Invisible to human eyes, a powerful forcefield encloses an area the size of a small town, with a radius of a few hours walk.

In the exact centre of the forcefield, the scene takes a turn away from the idyllic.

The grass and crops have been mysteriously flattened in a perfect circle, like a mysterious footprint. Anybody would recognise this as a crop circle; what’s weird is what is in the middle of it.

A gleaming golden horn, stuffed with boxes and sharp things, with various other items littering the space around it, is perched curiously in the centre, somehow reminiscent of a scorpion’s sting. And around that are twenty four circular plates, and on each of those twenty four plates stands a teenager, looking nervous and jittery and ready to run.

They are all dressed identically, in beige combat trousers and light brown shirts, with simple canvas boots. Some of them look towards each other; others are focused entirely on the scorpion’s sting. One boy fiddles with a little wooden  wheel on a ragged rope around his neck. Another runs a dog collar through his fingers, muttering to himself. The words are lost in the rustling of grass and trees. The biggest, bulkiest boy bobs up and down on his plate, grinning. A girl with neat dark hair, delicate features and a shrewd expression glances around at everybody and locks on to her target. Only one girl doesn’t seem to be feeling the tension in any way; a thin and insubstantial looking creature who looks up at the sky with an expression of intense curiosity.

“Look!” she exclaims happily, as if she is now perfectly happy. “A rabbit!”

The seconds pass like minutes.

A girl with a mass of blonde hair just about forced back into a ponytail is counting aloud. Ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...

Three...

Two...

One...

On the signal, the crop circle is suddenly all movement. People sprint for the horn, grabbing sharp things from the floor; others sprint away, contenting themselves with whatever they can snatch up. It is impossible to watch everything at once. A languid shape plunges into the waving grass, leaving a trail of broken stems behind him. A girl with long brown hair plaited around her neck pauses, wondering whether to follow him, just as there is a loud cry of pain from behind her. She jumps like a startled rabbit and takes off into the grass, empty-handed but alive.

In the entrance of the horn, the first confrontation of the Games is underway; that’s the cry of pain that Flora heard. It came from a small boy with a rat-like face, who now has blood pouring down his chin from a wound under his neck. The person who has inflicted it twirls a knife in his left hand, but his face is stunned and there’s blood staining the front of his shirt.

“Trey!” shouts a female voice, as Grey stutters to his feet and glares up hatefully at his attacker.

“What, you can’t even be assed to kill me?” he snarls, clapping a hand to his chin.