The Huntress

Gale was with the career pack. I was shocked and I couldn’t believe it. Gale would never stoop to their level of brutality. I was brought out of my haze when I heard the rest of the career pack.

“Why do we keep him around?” I heard the District 4 boy’s voice asked annoyed.

“He’s better shot than you are,” Cato said, “Besides he’ll lead us to the girl.”

“What’s this fascination with the District 12 girl?” Clove asked.

“She’s a threat,” Cato said, “She’s skilled in other things other than the bow and arrow I just have a feeling.”

“I’m sure she is,” I heard Glimmer’s voice and I took a peak to see that the career pack was made up of all of the tributes from District 1, 2, and 4.

I then was shocked to see the District 3 boy and then Gale.

“Hey you saw how she acted towards me,” Cato snapped, “She’s skilled. She’s better than you are at throwing knife Clove. Did you see her kill that guy from District 10? She cleanly stabbed him and grabbed the knife out of him and ran into the woods. She’s a threat. Besides once we find her and kill her, lover boy will be in the same place and then we can kill him at the same time.”

I then heard a rustle of the leaves and the career pack stopped talking.

“She’s dead now,” Gale said I then heard a cannon go off.

“Well let’s go lover boy,” Cato’s voice said, “We’ve got to get a plan together to lure your little girlfriend out to play.”

They then disappeared into the woods and I let out a little breath of relief. It was the first time in a long time, I was ever afraid of getting caught. The rest of the night I was on edge but I did get a little sleep. The next morning I quickly packed up my stuff and camouflaged my backpack in as much mud as I could plaster on it. I then went to get my snares and saw that I had caught two rabbits and about four squirrels. I made a small fire a cooked the game I had and then ate some of it since yesterday’s events stripped me of any strength I had. Once I was done eating, I put out the fire and wrapped my food up and threw it in my bag. I then continued to explore the arena to see how that had it set up. By nightfall no one had died expect the girl from District 8. That night I slept through the night and woke up feeling somewhat refreshed. I ate a piece of rabbit before I headed out to explore some more and wait for the opportunity to kill one of the tributes. I was walking through the woods, when I heard footsteps. I ducked into a bush and covered my mouth so no one would hear me.

“So what’s she like lover boy?” I heard Cato’s voice.

“What do you mean?” Gale’s voice asked.

“Tell me what’s Adyrn is like,” he said, “I mean she has to have a weakness of some sort?”

“What do you mean?” Gale asked as they walked.

“I mean as is there something we could do to make her come out?” Cato asked.

“Not that I know of,” Gale lied, “Why?”

“Because if she did it would be easier to lure her out and then kill her so we could get her out of the way,” Cato said.

Now why did you lie about that Gale Hawthorne? I thought to myself, You could’ve sold me out to them about how if they put you in harm’s way I would be there in a second no matter the consequences.

“She skilled with a bow and arrow?” he asked.

“Yeah and real handy with a knife,” Gale said.

“Would you like to do the honors when we find her?” Cato asked and I could see the sadistic smile on his face.

“Yeah,” Gale said and I felt my face pale, “but I do it in private.”

“Deal,” he said and I saw Gale turn to look straight at me.

My eyes grew wide, but Gale didn’t point me out.

“What are you looking at?” Cato asked and my heart stopped for a second as he looked in my direction but he didn’t see me.

“I thought I saw something but I was wrong,” Gale said looking at Cato, “Let’s get out of here now. You have to give the snares a little bit to let the animals get caught.

Gale and Cato then left and I waited a few minutes before I crawled out of the bush and went in the opposite direction to find another place to set up for the night. I had made my campsite up in my trees and waited for the Anthem to start. I ate a small piece of squirrel and when the Anthem started I watched to see who was killed. No one was killed today which meant that was two days in a row that there really wasn’t any action and I figured the Gamemakers would want do something to bring us closer together because I could picture the people of the Capitol complaining that the Games were becoming too boring already. I didn’t sleep well because I was on edge all night but I must have fallen asleep because I woke up to the smell of something being burned and my eyes snapped opened to see that the woods behind me were on fire. I quickly just threw everything in my bag and I fell out of the tree out of my haste and landed on the wood’s floor. I didn’t move for a minute because the air was knocked out of me but I had to start running to get away from the fire. I pushed myself off the ground and started running and following the animals of woods. Because I was inhaling smoke the animals were becoming too quick for me to follow and soon I started to cough because of all of the smoke. As I was running I was somehow able to get my bag off of my shoulders so I could take my coat and hold it over my eyes so I would stop tripping and make the distance between me and fire shorter and shorter. It soon was getting hard to breathe and I tripped over a giant log and felt that something was getting ready to launch at me so I rolled over to my right and a fire ball landed right where I landed. I quickly then scrambled off the ground and started running. Not a few seconds after I started running, the gamemakers threw another ball of fire right where I rolled. I didn’t get very far when the next one was thrown and this time it burnt the bottom half of my pants. I bit my tongue and my bottom lip to keep from screaming and letting everyone know where I was in the woods. I turned around with enough time to pat it out and continued to limp and run at the same time. Soon the fire was gone and I collapsed from the pain in my calf. I quickly took my shoe off my right foot and rolled up to see that my calf was badly burned. The skin wasn’t black which meant I didn’t have any dead skin that was burned off but it did mean that my skin would blister pretty badly. I needed to get back to the pond I found earlier to soak my leg and my hands since I now noticed they were partially burned.

Come on Adyrn get up and walk, I thought to myself as I got my shoe back on.

“Come on you need to get out of here just in case the Careers are close by,” I said quietly to myself.

I then slowly and painfully stood up with the help of a nearby boulder. I then faced the way I came from to see that there was still a wall of fire. That meant I had to go and find another way to get that pond. I slowly started walking around the fire because I knew that I would be able to get to the pond if I went around the fire. After what felt like hours, my burn was on fire and I was getting tired. I did make it back to the pond however. To cool off the burn, I rolled my pants as high as I could and slipped my calf into water to let it soak. I sat there for a while and the coolness of the water did help the stinging pain dull a lot. I lifted my leg up to see if I could walk any but once it was out of the water, the burning sensation was back and I quickly put my leg back in. It was getting dark and I needed to get up in a tree before nightfall. I pulled my leg out of the water and found a tree nearby. I looked at my hands and took a deep breath. I knew this was going to hurt a lot but I needed to get to higher ground. I started climbing and hissed as I climbed. I soon got high enough, and got myself ready for some rest. As soon as I sat down, I had a parachute with a box attached to it. I quickly opened it to find burn ointment I remember my mother used to make when someone would come in with horrible burns on their bodies. I quickly pulled my leg out of my sleeping bag and rubbed some of the ointment on it. The stinging and burning feeling went away and I put the rest of the ointment in my bag and waited for the Anthem. I don’t know when I fell asleep but I woke up to people running towards the tree. When I looked down, I saw the entire career pack looking straight up at me.

“Well look who we found,” Cato said smirking.

“Hello career pack,” I said getting out of my things and packing them into my bag getting ready to climb up some more limbs, “Come to kill the threat today?”

I then quickly scaled even more up the tree as I saw Cato starting to climb.

“You know if you keep climbing,” I started and then the branches started snapping and Cato fell to the ground, “The tree will throw you back to the ground.”

“Let me try,” I saw Clove say as she started scaling the tree.

She got a little bit further than Cato but the branches broke as well and she fell the wood’s floor.

“I got this,” the boy from District 4 said and aimed his arrow at me and missed me by a long shot.

“Give me that,” Cato grumbled and tried the same thing.

“Hey Cato maybe you should throw your sword. You’d have a better chance than shooting at me,” I said smirking.

“Lover boy why don’t you go after her?” Clove sneered as Gale snickered at Clove because he knew he couldn’t catch me.

He was the one to tell me that I was like a monkey because climbing trees for me was like one of the many second natures I had.

“The same thing will happen to me,” he said shaking his head, “but what is she going to do? Climb down the tree while we’re here that’s suicide.”

“He’s got a point,” Marvel said.

“We’ll deal with this in the morning then,” Cato said and then looked up to smile at me, “Get some sleep princess be ready to die tomorrow morning.”

They then started setting up camp for the night. As I set myself up for the night I looked over to see a pair of gold color eyes pop up next to me in a neighboring tree. I recognized them to belong to Rue and she peaked out of her tree and pointed up next to me. I turned to look and saw that there was a nest of wasps sitting above me. I nodded my head and then she disappeared. I sat perfectly still hoping that they weren’t tracker jackers. Tracker jackers are genetically-altered wasps, conceived and created in the labs in the Capitol. They are genetically coded to attack anyone or anything that disturbs their nest. Once they make a person their target, they will follow him or her far away from their nest, unlike natural vespids. Tracker jackers were used as weapons during the war and planted around the districts of Panem. After the Dark Days, the Capitol destroyed some hives around themselves, but still kept the hives around the districts as a cruel way to show their power over the inhabitants. They have venom that causes Tracker jacker venom was specifically engineered to target the part of the brain that generates fear, creating terrifying hallucinations that can drive a person to madness. I looked up to see that there was one outside of the nest to show that they were tracker jackers because of their golden coloration. The tracker jacker was acting slowly which meant they were hit by the smoke as well. I looked down at the camp to see the career pack talking quietly and the fire was a little ways away from where the nest was. This was a huge risk I was going to take. If I sawed off the branch that had nest and dropped it on them it would get them off my back and I could get away. The downside I couldn’t do it now. It was too quiet which meant I had to do it during the Anthem where it would drown out my sawing with the knife I had in my belt. I quietly climbed up to the nest and waited for the Anthem. When the Anthem started I immediately started sawing. The motion did not feel great against my hands and I could tell the blisters that formed were popping and it was hurting badly. I could only get halfway through the branch during the Anthem but I guess it was going to have to do for the night.

After the Anthem, it was shown that three more tributes were killed; both tributes from district 7, 8, and 9 were now dead, along with one from district 6. There were now only fourteen of us left alive in the arena and I sighed to myself. I don’t know how long the games were going to last but if it was like this I knew it would end soon. I soon fell asleep and woke up early. I looked down to see that Glimmer was taking watch fell asleep during her time.

“Rue,” I whispered quietly and I saw her pop out of a tree.

I pointed up to the nest and signaled her to go so she could get a head start. She nodded her head and soon she was hopping tree to tree and I had to smile because that’s how she was keeping herself alive. After I packed up, I made my way up back to where I was the night. I could see one tracker jacker outside and I knew that I needed to do this quickly. I started sawing and I could tell the tracker was starting to get agitated. I continued to saw at a quicker pace and soon I was hearing a buzzing within the nest. By the time I got the nest to fall, I was stung by two jackers three times, one on my cheek, one on my forehead, and the other on my arm.

“What the!” someone from the ground exclaimed.

“Trackers!” I heard someone else yell and then people were running.

I fell to the ground because I was starting to hallucinate. When I got up from the floor, I saw that Glimmer was stung all over the place. That’s when I knew she was going to die of the tracker venom. She had pus coming out of her stings and she was twitching and moaning. I then ran without thinking but when I remembered that Glimmer had one of the bows and a pack of arrows. I then spun around and forced my way back to where Glimmer was and saw that she was laying on her back still. That meant I only had a few moments before the hovercraft, to pick up the dead tributes, came to pick up Glimmer. I was able to get the bow off of her easily. Trying to get the arrows off of her was what I was having trouble with.

Come on Adyrn just roll her over on her stomach, my brain was telling me, You can do this. You have to do this.

I then started working through the venom and seeing past all of the pretty colorful butterflies I was seeing. I managed to get the arrows off of Glimmer and on me when Gale and Cato emerged from the trees. I loaded a bow and arrow and shot one at Cato in the arm and he screamed in pain.

“Get out of her Gale!” I exclaimed pulling an arrow out of the tree to shoot at Cato again, “Run! I’ll be following after!”

I then shot another arrow and hit Cato in the other arm as Gale took off running. Cato pulled the arrows out of his arms and was glaring at me and headed towards me. I don’t know where I took off running but I quickly spun around on my heels and took off. I quickly pulled the stingers out of my body and continued to run from Cato. He fell down to the ground from his stings but that didn’t stop me. The venom was starting to get to me even more so I was stumbling around and the hallucinations started to become worse. I was seeing the butterflies grow into the sizes of the buildings in the Capitol and there were humming orange bubbles coming out of my blisters that were on my hands. A little bit further the trees transformed to blood and I could have sworn that was the reason I was falling so much was because I was slipping on the blood. I soon couldn’t run and I started having visions of my father dying in front of me all over again. I was standing in front of the mine shaft waiting for my father to come out and I all heard were his screams.