ACT I, CHAPTER TWELVE ❛the land where childhood comes to die❜ content:blood/gore/injury, violence, major character death, general angst, dissociation.
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Madaket has to force herself to rake in three deep breaths as she gathers her bearings, raising a hand to shield her eyes from the sun and dragging her dry tongue across her lips. The sun is blistering hot; so intense that she can already feel her skin prickling as it perspires, so used to the air conditioning in the Capitol. She takes off her jacket and ties it around her waist as her eyes adjust to the brightness.
The golden glint of the Cornucopia draws Madaket in. She drops her hands and makes herself focus on her surroundings. Around two hundred yards from her pedestal, she can see the mouth of the horn spilling out weapons and supplies. Between the supplies and the tributes, a moat runs in a perfect circle, separating the Cornucopia island from the rest of the arena. From where Madaket is standing, she cannot see where the moat drops down to, but, judging from the black smoke trailing from the three-foot-wide crevice, it does not look promising. To get to the weapons and food, one would have to jump across the gap to not fall into it.
Cornucopia aside, the arena is completely foreign to her. She spins around in a circle to get a better grasp of what, exactly, she's facing. Just a few yards behind her pedestal rises a steep, twenty-foot sand dune bordered by others, running a large and imposing circle around the Cornucopia clearing. In the small gaps in between the dunes, Madaket can make out small valleys created by the dry wind. A gust carries down the hill behind her, spraying her face with sharp granules.
This clearing reminds her of a bowl; the dunes acting as the rim, the Cornucopia acting as the bottom and center. To escape the carnage, one would have to either climb to the top of the dunes or risk the low ground of the valleys. The thought fills her with a creeping sense of claustrophobia, and she has to rip her gaze away from the imposing dunes to focus on the tributes around her.
Comparatively speaking, she's on the far right of the pack. Only two other tributes are on her right side, leaving the rest to branch off to her left in a U-shape. She cranes her neck.
Wylan, Kaimana. She spots Kaimana first, around five tributes to her left. Kaimana's got her sights set on something a few feet from her pedestal, which Madaket can't make out. But Kaimana must have felt Madaket's eyes, for she looks up at her. Faintly, she tilts her head backward, gesturing toward the sand dune directly behind her. Madaket catches on quickly. They meet up at the base and then run for the hills. Madaket nods, moving her search on to find Wylan.
Wylan is directly across from her. He's sandwiched in between Copper and Pike. This arrangement seems to have drained the color from his face. He darts quick looks at the two of them, trying to hide his terror with a frown. Madaket catches his eye, and she points to the dune behind Kaimana. Despite the horror in his gaze, realizing he'll have to run past one of the Careers, he nods and tries to give a small smile.
