Fighter | The Hunger Games

Chapter Sixteen

I did not move for three days.

The sixth, seventh, and eighth days of the Hunger Games passed by rather uneventfully. There were no additional deaths and no strategic events initiated by the Gamemakers. The silence in the arena was eerie. The only sound that could be heard was the morning call of the songbirds and the Capitol anthem at nightfall. There was no other signs of life. In a strange and twisted way the arena felt nearly peaceful.

It was now late afternoon on the ninth day and I found myself growing restless within the enclosure of my cave-like hiding space. I had already eaten both of my rabbits and my loaf of bread leaving myself with only a small portion of my food stores. The past few days have been unlucky in terms of hunting; I walked to the river several times to fill my water bottle but discovered no signs of animal life whatsoever. Even the fish were absent from the river.

On the seventh day of the Games I collected a few stray raspberries from a patch of bushes on the edge of the mountain terrain and celebrated surviving a week of the Hunger Games by mashing the berries into a consistency similar to jam and spreading it on my final piece of bread. It was one of the most delicious meals I had eaten so far in the arena and I noticed myself feeling a little lighter. It was hard to avoid focusing on the deaths of Olivia and Stone, both of which I felt immense guilt and regret for, but over the past few days I began to come to terms with the situation. 

I caught a glimpse of myself in the reflection of the water on the eighth morning and noticed how unrecognizable I had become. It wasn't too long ago that I departed from Seven but it felt like a lifetime ago. My face appeared more mature in the water; my eyes older with knowledge and my skin cut and bruised. I was no longer that seventeen year old girl from Seven; I was now a fighter. It was weird to think about how naive I used to be, how young and carefree, because now despite whether or not I survived the Hunger Games I would always carry a burden on my heart. It was the burden of competing. The burden of life or death, right or wrong. The burden of having your innocence stripped away from you as a child in Panem.

I was almost embarrassed for my old self. How could she think that life was so easy and simple? Had she ever seen the world? Experienced hardship? Pain? Suffering? Those things are what shapes us as people. Those things are what tests us and forces us to grow. In some ways I longed to feel like a child again, to be untroubled and unconcerned, but in other ways I didn't want to be that little girl anymore. I wanted to be strong and rational. I wanted to be kind and determined. I wanted passion and feeling. I wanted to grow older, fall in love, be someone, feel something, anything. Of course I would rather not compete in the Hunger Games but if that is what it took then I would have to find a way to come to terms with it. 

It is truly dangerous yet beautiful the things you discover about yourself when you're alone. The past few days have been the loneliest in awhile, but for some odd reason I didn't feel all that alone. I knew that wherever I walked I had a village of people supporting me, even if they weren't quite tangible.

Sweating from the blistering heat on the ninth morning of the Hunger Games, I felt okay. Even as I continued to peek out from the small opening of my base to scan for trouble I felt okay. But throughout the ninth day it slowly began to feel like a feigned notion of peace and I began to grow uneasy. It had been almost four days without a significant event or a death and I was certain the Gamemakers were beginning to grow bored. Any moment now an event with a large potential to kill one of us could happen.

I wanted to be prepared. Jace always told me to trust my instincts and allow my senses to guide me. My backpack was already packed with all of my belongings including my knives, two of which were stored in my shoe for easy access in case I encountered a threat. My food was neatly wrapped up and my water bottle was full and also tucked away. I had a gut feeling that today was the day that something big  would happen, especially following three days of peace and quiet.