Greater Games [A 72nd Hunger Games Fanfic]

Chapter 8

I run until I literally drop, not caring about my hunger and dehydration. I let myself fall to my knees and crawl forward from there until I collapse onto my side. Tears stream down my face and I sob loudly.

My eyes eventually dry out and my stomach is hurting from crying so much and from hunger. I do not move out of my position on the ground until the morning sun rises, so when I pull myself together and climb back to my feet, my limbs are stiff. I gulp down some water from my canteen and wet my eyes with some.

I become fully aware of my hunger, but I don't know how to get it. My plan that I had last night of taking the Wanna-be's supplies is ruined, since the girls from 6 and 8 probably took them. I go back to that campsight anyway.

The boy's dead body is still there. I close his eyes, and that's the least I can do. As I suspected, the Wanna-bes took their supplies and cleared out, and I don't know anything about tracking. I decide to head back to the rapids that lead to the waterfall, maybe to make a trap and catch some fish.

The rapids lead to a beautiful clear stream, which leads to a series of more waterfalls, except these are small falls, the biggest only ten feet tall at the most. Salmon infest the waters and I know it will be an easy catch.

I spent a lot of time at the knot tying station during training learning how to make traps for food, not humans, so a fish trap is a piece of cake. I finish it in no less than 20 minutes and set it up in the water. I wait patiently at the water edge for a little bit, then go to check the net. Yup. Filled with fish.

I am slightly suspicious of why food is so easy to get in this stream. In the Hunger Games, food is never easy to get. But I clear the thought. I'm too hungry to worry.

I reach down, and suddenly a fish springs from the water and snaps at me. I stumble back, taken much by surprise. I am slow to realize that the salmon in the water are muttations. So my suspicions were correct.

Another salmon leaps from the water, and this time I get a look at it. Inch long teeth with sharp ends, just like a mini piranha. I have to literally doge it as it goes right to trying to bite my face. I am suddenly being attacked by a squad of salmon and I have to run away. The fish fall helplessly to land and keep snapping at nothing. I pity them a little, but I don't help them, because I was going to eat them, after all.

I get out of there quickly, and come upon a rabbit chasing another. They chase each other out of the area, so I don't shoot them.

I go through a whole day of utter hunger, and soon I regret not shooting those two rabbits. In the morning, though, I do see an owl, very rare, and I shoot it.

I skin it and start a small fire, one that doesn't give off a lot of smoke, and the minute I'm done cooking the meat, I leave. I let the fire going though so people don't think I've left if they want to track me down.

I eat my meat as I walk, and when I'm done I throw the bones aside for animals of such to inspect. I wipe my hands on a cloth that I find lying on the ground.

A cloth?!? Suddenly I go up into yet another net. I'm such an idiot, I think to myself. The cloth was obviously a trap.

Now I am getting all tangled in a net, where somebody could easily come and shoot me. And considering that a lot of people make nets will wait on them, somebody is sure to come and kill me. This net isn't as tight, though.

But I face another problem. The net isn't rope. It's this sort of bendable wire. So my knife won't penetrate it. Whoever made this net must be an expert to make a whole net out of wire. I've never seen it before, but I am only worrying about how to get out.