Suffocate

“What were you doing?” Johanna scorned when I caught them, the pain in my side from hitting into both Gloss and Seeder was growing as the original panic faded a touch.

“Checking they weren’t following us, and they’re not, but we need to keep moving.”

She frowned but nodded, “Beetee, are you okay?” The wire was still in his hand but his back was covered in blood. I felt my face drop, “Blight, help me.” I demanded, not sure where this sudden burst of control had come from but Johanna let it slip, and the older man and I both took a side of him, helping him walk. “We need to stop soon to sort him...”

“Yeah, I got that genius.” She finally snapped, “We’ll go for another ten minutes, find a nice patch. We need to find water.”

“There must be streams...” Wiress started, clicking her tongue half way through.

“Yeah.” Johanna spoke through frigid breaths, “And we’ll find them, just keep an eye out. It’s too thick here to see much.” I nodded, and we dragged Beetee along until we found an area that wasn’t on so much of an incline, a large tree, the tallest from the looks of it in front of us.

“Beetee, lay on your front.” I said softly, helping Wiress turn him over, “Wiress...”

“Pressure.” She murmured, ignoring his groan as she put his hand on the wound, the slice evident through his wetsuit. “It bad?” Johanna asked simply and she shrugged.

I peeled the sticky suit off of the patch, slipping a knife from my hips to make the hole bigger. It was a long cut but not too deep, either way we had to do something, it was bleeding profusely. I said as much, “Well I don’t happen to have any bandages.” The snap was back.

“You do it.” Blight said suddenly, “You can net stuff, make a bandage.” I glanced up at him, realising how simple that was.

“I’ll...I’ll need vines. Wiress keep pressure on it.”

“Look, you two keep watch, I’ll get your bloody vines.” Johanna barked, “Stay here and don’t do anything stupid.” I huffed, shoving the axe into her hands.

“And I even got you a present, don’t be a bitch.” I bit back just as hard, her own hands were nearly empty, just a long knife.

“Oh, sorry, I got distracted saving all of your lives.” She ended, storming off, her footsteps too heavy and loud. I frowned.

Blight sat down instantly, he was another I had never spoken to before but I kept back any remark.
Being loud was dumb, so was arguing with Johanna.

We were still only about an hour in.
I should have gone with Finnick.

I shifted my weight, both of my arms hurt in their different ways and I inspected the cut, it was just a gash, the edge of the knife as it travelled through the air. And I was fairly sure my wrist wasn’t broken, it hurt but not to that extreme, probably sprained. I was just thankful it was my left hand and not my right. I tensed my fingers around the sword, I thought through what Finnick had said.

We were high, far from the Cornucopia. I twisted, and the tree was climbable. “I’m going up to get an idea of everything.”

“You’re what?” Blight asked, dropping silent as I started ascending the tree, it was large and so were the branches. But it wasn’t too hard not to climb, even with my aching body, after all on all those trips out at sea I’d offered to climb masts, sort the sails. I used to love how the wind flickered through my hair.

It didn’t now; there was no air, just humid heat that clung to every tree. My tongue was dry and sweat was in beads on my face, starting to roll as I continued to climb, trying to get above the tree tops so I could see further out, get some sense of where we were and how big the arena was.

Maybe I was hoping that somehow I would spot Finnick, even though we were easily a mile and a half from the Cornucopia.

When I eventually broke over that barrier I was a little surprised, panting, my wrist now was screaming in protest but I pushed up one last smaller branch. It was smaller than I thought, the arena, but I still couldn’t see any distinct walls. Maybe the forest would end in deep ravines where those edges and force fields lay.

The Cornucopia was still glowing under the high, hot sun directly over it. So it had to be about midday. I glared out, the sun so bright in the pink sky it was blinding.

Pink, that was so strange.

There was never normally any indication of time so I wasn’t surprised it was all we had.

I frowned, but watched as thin clouds seemed to manifest, travelled to a certain area, was that the only source of water? The rain they would bring at some point, I didn’t recall seeing any streams on the hike here.

I clambered back down as quick as I could, slipping and bashing my shin, swearing hurriedly under my breath. Johanna was back and shoved vines into my hands, Wiress’s were covered with blood.
I let my fingers work, weaving them together as tight as possible.

“It’s a circle I think.” I said once I was able to breathe. “There’s trees like this one, lots, going around.”

“Like landmarks?” Wiress asked, clicking her tongue again. I nodded.

“Anything else more useful?” Johanna was hard as usual.

“Erm...clouds, not much but they’re forming at the other side.”

“Raining?” I shook my head, and she sucked on her lip, “I couldn’t see any other sign of water anywhere, no streams. So maybe it rains, and we gather it.”

I shook my head, my fingers were shaking again, “It only seemed to be heading in one place, and they weren’t thick. Maybe just a coincidence, there has to be water somewhere.”

“What if there isn’t?” Johanna replied tensely, “You know nothing in here is by coincidence. If it only rains in one place...” Wiress had started clucking the word coincidence by my side, the thick plaits almost done.

“It will draw us all together.” Beetee offered weakly, “A good way to get a lot of kills in once place, force us there.”

“Sounds like something they would do.” Blight said blankly, “Where was it?”

“Wait, can someone lift Beetee up?” Johanna pushed herself off the tree she was leaning on to help and I sliced a short length of the vines off, hanging it on my belt as I straightened the rest. “I need to do it tight Beetee, okay?” he mumbled and I wrapped it around him, over the wound. It was just to put permanent pressure on it, it wasn’t sanitary but it was all we had.

”Wait.” I pulled the sleeve of my wetsuit where my arm was cut up, grabbing a knife and pressing it to Wiress, making it clear what I wanted to her, her hands were trembling but she managed not to cut me, slicing off the lower sleeve and cuff.

“Here.” I jammed it under the bandage of vines, wrapping it around him completely and knotting the ends especially tight over the cut. “That’s the best we can do for now.”

“It’s a good idea.” Wiress said, placing her hand on my arm and looking surprised when it came away with blood on it. She plucked the smaller length of vine off of my belt carefully, leaning forward, waiting for approval and shakily slicing a bit of her own sleeve off, placing it over the cut and laying the vine over it, “Knots, knots.” She mumbled and did her best, although I was sure I was going to have to awkwardly redo it later to keep it tight.

“Thank you.” I said, that more than secured our alliance, her small gesture, Johanna rolling her eyes at us as she dropped Beetee with her usual sense of uncaring.

“Well, playing hospital is lovely but what are we doing, where’s the rain?”

“Like here...” I tried to gesture and she scoffed.

“There’s a dusty patch, draw it.” Blight suggested, half glaring at his district partner. I moved over, Beetee struggling but sitting down, letting Wiress wipe his glasses on a weak patch of grass. “Okay.” I drew a circle, “We’re here, and the clouds were over there.”

I pointed to it. “Like if we’re seven o’clock then the rain is twelve, you get it?”

Wiress cut off Johanna’s no doubt scathing remark. “Tick tock.” I smiled, glancing back at the two victors from Seven. “Was it far?” Blight asked and I shrugged.

“Didn’t look too far, I really don’t think the arena is that big.”

“Moving around so soon is stupid and you just said all the big trees are the same so how are you going to know?” Blight asked, I shrugged, backing down a little, we also had no idea which way Finnick had gone and that was one of my top priorities.

“We’re placing a lot of belief in something we have no proof of.” Beetee groaned a little, Wiress still patting his unhurt shoulder.

My tongue already felt thick. It was cruel if that was what the game makers had intended but I wouldn’t be surprised, they wanted shock for this games especially, and after what happened last night the quicker we were all dead the better.

It was seeming like a valid option “Which way was it relating to the Cornucopia?” Beetee asked, clearing his throat, “We can judge it from that.”

“That means we have to stay near the beach and the Careers will still be there.” Johanna argued. “That’s stupid, I’m going up to have a look, see if it looks like a decent option.”

“Do we have any others?” I argued, “We need to rest first sure, but we need water and food, don’t we?”

“That’s the usual plan yeah.” She spun, irritated, “But I want to know where the hell we are first. Stick to what you know.”

“Which is what?” I don’t know why I was arguing back, Blight hushing us.

“You played Career, you try and train Careers, you tell me what you tell them.”

“And you’ve been a mentor longer.” I argued, “Don’t try and bring up my games to spite me.” She sucked on her lower lip, she’d climbed a couple of metres and leapt down, taking a few dangerous steps towards me.

“Stop it! We can’t stay somewhere unprotected, not for long, they’ll start hunting soon, and if they saw us come this way perhaps moving is best.” Blight suggested weakly.

“Plus,” Beetee added, “If we’re close enough to the beach to see we’re close enough to escape across there, that’s the quickest way across the arena, isn’t it? And it’s where the weapons are.”

“And if they’re still there, gathering, waiting for people?” Johanna had her arms crossed, sweat rolling down her cheek.

“Then we can see them at all times.” Beetee concluded and I knew right then he had won us over, turning to me, “Which way was the Cornucopia compared to the clouds?”

I had to think hard, trying desperately to put that image in my head again, “It was to the back of it, where you were, the curved over bit.”

“That’s our marker then, so we know what we’re doing.” Beetee coughed, wincing. I met Johanna’s eyes, we needed to rest beforehand. She barked the order, gripping the axe tight.

“Before we go anywhere though I’m checking out these clouds.”

I was happy with that, praying he was right as I sat with my back against the tree not far from him and his partner.

My whole body was aching now, I was sure there were bruises forming all over my right side and every tiny movement sent stabs of pain up my opposite arm. I was desperately tired already but I couldn’t sleep. Not after seeing Dextra.

Not after being responsible for the death of at least two people.
Did she from Ten count? If she hadn’t died I would have.

I tried to shake the images from my head, pushing myself up after a few minutes when Johanna had landed back lightly on the ground and treading over to her. “You regret coming with us yet?”

“A bit.” I admitted, “But it’s important, right?”

“I want that alliance. We can’t deal with the Careers alone.” She nodded pointedly at me and I returned it, “We should let them rest for a bit and head back down towards the beach if this seems like a legit theory you have, travel a bit further inland, dart back to the beach to check positioning ever so often.”

“Okay.” I let her take the control, I didn’t want it and she had a good instinct for this, almost worryingly good.

“I really hope we find water on the way so we don’t have to spend our day on a merry fucking outing around the entire arena.”

“You want to check around again now? We could do with food as well?” I suggested carefully and she nodded.

“Blight.” She hissed, kicking him gently awake, “We’re going to check again, we won’t go far. Whistle if you see anything.” He nodded, struggling to his feet.

He was a bit overweight Blight, his face bright red, teeth stained from cigarettes no doubt. I was aware he was another who had turned to alcohol to deal with it all. “Don’t be long.” He had a spear in his hands but it was his only weapon. We didn’t have enough.

Wiress had nothing, Beetee the wire and then the axe, sword, spear and a few knives. At least they were useful, we just needed water or none of us were going to last long.

“You sure they were clouds?” I nodded, treading carefully over the soft ground.

“Definitely, but like I said they were pretty sparse.” She returned the nod, although she huffed.

“So we have to trawl halfway around the fucking arena to get there? What if it doesn’t even rain?”

“You want to check again when we get back, check but can you see anything else?” I asked, “Cause I’m not seeing streams Johanna.” She frowned, “Look, maybe it will rain everywhere or we’ll find something, but we don’t know that.”

“Yeah,” She smirked, “Maybe they’re going to wait till we all dehydrate. Watch us all wither away in the heat.” She looked up, as if she could see Snow sitting in his chair glaring down at her. “We’ll do it, makes sense right, but we should wait until it’s a bit cooler.”

“We can’t go at night, not with them.” I said a little cruelly, “And not with Beetee hurt.”

“I guess.” She pouted, “Nothing much to lose right, other than our heads?”

Her voice made me squirm, alliance or not I was aware if it came down to it, if she had to she could kill me without any dark thoughts plaguing her conscience.

I wasn’t strong enough to claim the same.
I still felt terrible about what had happened by the Cornucopia.

I wanted Finnick.


She hopped down again, “Definitely clouds.” She almost looked disappointed.

“And you two found no signs of water?” We both shook our heads, “The wildlife wouldn’t survive with no easy source. Not for long anyway.”

“We don’t know how recently they’ve done any of this.” I said tiredly, my throat was sore as well now, the same sheen of sweat over everybody’s forehead that I felt on mine. “Do you think it will rain?”

“Looks like it. And we didn’t find anything else.”

“Well we need water, food and shelter. Shelter won’t be hard but the other two...” Beetee trailed off and a silence stretched over us as a cannon was shot, making me jump. I had no idea how many we had lost already.

“Do you know...”

“Has to be at least six. I’ve counted that many.” Blight answered, looking forlorn. He was probably just thankful he wasn’t one of them, if Johanna hadn’t wanted to keep him alive he’d likely be in a hovercraft right now.

The thought made my stomach churn. I was getting hungry now as well. “We give it another couple of hours.” Johanna instructed, “I’m going to look around again, see what food there is, who knows anything about plants? Elenia and I couldn’t see much in the way of meat.”

Blight stood, “I spent time on the station.”

“Brilliant.” She grinned, “You can be our test subject then. Elenia...” She nodded towards the pair from Three and I smiled lowly, watching as the tributes from the heavily wooded district Seven vanished into the thick mesh of trees. Even for them though it was the wrong type of tree, there wasn't anything I recognised and neither of them had mentioned any they did.

It instantly felt less tense with them gone. “Is your back okay Beetee?”

“Fine.” He muttered, although it clearly wasn’t.

“You want me to..”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t waste your energy.” He said, gesturing for me to sit and I did, perching on a low twisted branch. “You ever seen terrain like this before?”

I shook my head and Wiress did the same, “They don’t often do jungle or tropics as the terrain.”

“You looked into it?” He nodded, “That was clever. Peeta did something like that. Mags gave me a book with notes but I didn’t really look at it.” A smile was shot my way instead and I stood, I didn’t feel like I could rest as much as I wanted too. “Do you think we’re doing the right thing? Going for the clouds?”

“Doesn’t seem like we have any other options. We just need some way of getting enough water effectively, they may have it set to rain once a day...”

“And if others work it...” Wiress stopped, fiddling with a small length of vine.

“Work it out.” I finished, that would be good in some respects, it would be easier to find Finnick and the whoever he was with, it just meant the Careers would likely head there as well. Unless they had sponsors, and by now, easily mid afternoon it wouldn’t surprise me if they had been sent something at least.

I hoped Finnick would have received something, both in jealous and thankful amounts.

I wanted him safe.
Whatever the cost.

I couldn’t let myself sink into that kind of thinking. “Let me check your back.” I offered, it wasn’t a question and he didn’t argue, he was still bleeding quite heavily.

I was worried. If he died it would damage whatever plan he was forming. That and I was well aware it would upset me.

I frowned, struggling to pull my wetsuit down to my wait, cutting fabric off the other arm leaving the sleeves down to my elbows, my vest sticking easily to my skin. I didn’t pull it back over my body yet, even the light change in fabric made me feel a little cooler, if only for a few minutes.

“We need something more absorbent.” I complained, struggling to undo my previous knot, and throw the blood soaked bit of sleeve aside. I wiped across my brow, Wiress standing and pulling down a wide leaf like I had never seen before, pressing it against him to avoid getting blood on her hands. I did the same and pulled several down, fiddling with them. “We could do with getting saltwater on it, it’s good with healing.”

“Dangerous.” She muttered and Beetee mimicked her.

“I know.” I gave in, “When we’re on the way to the clouds, if we get close enough I could probably make it.” I pouted, pulling a knife from my belt and cutting one long slit in the leaf. “I reckon I can make a bowl, a pretty decent one. Basket weaving.” I grinned to myself, “I can get water if it’s safe like that. We make more and that’s how we get the fresh water when it rains.”

“Sounds like a good plan.” I grabbed several more, laying the latest portion of my sleeve on his back as I did up the vines, ensuring they were tight. “You’re going to run out of sleeves if you’re not careful.”

“I’ll handle the sunburn.” I teased, glad for a second of pure distraction.

The loop around my arm was coming loose but I checked it quickly when Wiress wasn’t looking. It wasn’t really bleeding anymore, instead it had gone thick, scabbing already forming at the edges. Away from here I’d get a stitch or two but I just tightened the knot as good as I could and left it, spending the next hour or so cutting the leaves up and weaving them accordingly.


My mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. It was dark now, and we hadn’t run into anyone so far. Not that they were aware of anyway.

It was down to Johanna and I to run the few hundred metres between the circle we were walking in and edge of the beach, to check where we work and see, more importantly, where they were.

The hike was make progress slowly, mainly due to Beetee, an increasingly frantic Wiress and the incline, my calves aching with effort each time I darted down and back up. “They’ve gone in to the jungle on the opposite side. Do you think it’s worth trying to raid them?” Johanna glances around and shakes her head. “Let’s just hope they do us a favour and take some people out.”

“But it means they’re hunting now.” Beetee chipped in glumly, “So they’ll move around a lot.”

“Then we better get to where we want to go and higher up, how far?”

“We’re about three quarters of the way there.” She lifted a brow, “If that’s zero degrees we’re about thirty five out.”

“Go by the spikes, the pathways,” She snapped, grimacing, “Fucking degrees.”

“We’re about one and a half away, half ten.” I added to a still ticking Wiress, she kept switching between that and a song Beetee claimed calmed her.

Johanna glared at her. “We haven’t gotten anywhere near fast enough. We could be there.”

We could be there if Beetee wasn’t injured was what she meant, or if there were less of us.
As she’d told me, I wasn’t doing as badly as she had expected so far.

I was doing better than I’d thought myself. I’d half been expecting to freeze the minute the initial cannon went off and we started. But I was still here, still trying to push.

But I was so thirsty.

“Leave it and walk Johanna.” I snapped, she was right though. We had had to stop multiple times for Beetee, Wiress and Blight. But if I was tired and growing delirious I had no idea how they felt.

The heat had sunken into me, there had to water somewhere. The moon was large and high, I was trying to judge the time from it, it wasn’t that late, it hadn’t been dark for too long but we had to have been walking for a good three hours.

I wanted to stop, every breath pushed warm air down my scratchy throat. I’d been hot before, it got very hot in Four but this was ridiculous and it was little cooler in the dark. “Another hour at the most and we should be there.” I tried to soothe, “Let’s just keep going, especially if they’ve moved away from the center.”

“Is it worth the risk to try and get across?” Blight panted and Johanna quickly shook her head.

“They might have left one or two of them there on guard. We can’t get away quickly..not how we are now.”

And who we were with.

“We keep going.” She admitted defeat, practically shoving Wiress away and grabbing Beetee’s other side, “But quicker.” No-one argued and we continued onwards, Wiress still humming that song, dropping in and out to click her tongue, to tick at me.

And I thought I was insane.

It couldn’t even have been twelve hours since the games started, probably less, nine, ten? I was exhausted. I wanted to sink my face into cold water, gulp as much down as possible and collapse, but that wasn’t possible.

“We need to get food.” I said simply, not even ten minutes later, “Better than a handful of nuts. There has to be something living here.”

“We saw rats earlier.” Blight commented, lowering Beetee against a tree. Wiress scuttled next to him instinctively as Johanna’s frown carved deeper into her face. “We need something to eat.”

“We can’t risk a fire, we might as well just fucking call for them!” I sighed at her, she was right.

“Well we need something.”

“Thank you brainless. I hadn’t figured that out.” I ran my hand over my forehead, it caught in loose strands of now dry hair. I pulled it from its ponytail, running my fingers through it as best as possible before shoving it in a high bun, keeping all my insults for her silent.

“Well, no-ones dead yet so I guess nuts it is. Nuts?” She twisted to Wiress, alone in her little joke.

Before we had left our original patch I’d made belts of vines, allowing Beetee to hold onto his precious wire and another for Wiress, to attach the several weaved bowls I’d created too.

That left the three of us with the remaining weapons.

We sat for far too long, everyone wasn’t in the best state, so much intense heat mixing with the constant level of panic was draining, that and the lack of water was not making this any easier.

I was just thankful we hadn’t run into anyone dangerous yet.

And I was upset we hadn't found who I wanted too.

We were perhaps there for half an hour, Wiress dozing off and twitching, Blight doing the same. Johanna was sat stark upright, fiddling with the small axe. I was waiting to let her tell us when to move on. I didn’t want to argue or get annoyed with her anymore. I was just too tired, sick of it.

I think the irritation pulsing through me was helping to dilute the fear I imagined I'd be overwhelmed by.

My arm had stopped bleeding properly, so long as I didn’t swing it around. Thick bruises shaped like fingers had appeared gradually on my other wrist. The more I thought about it the more I let my feelings childishly get hurt.

We weren’t friends, Gloss, Cashmere and I.

But for some reason, after the night before...maybe I was just hoping there would have been more of a delay before the slaughtering, that people would have had that doubt. But then I had been responsible for two deaths.

I'd gone into survival mode instantly, selfish for my own wants. But then, my own wants would help us all, in the long run wouldn't they. I let my eyes stray to a pale Beetee. If they worked that was.

Berg I felt worse for. Sacrificing him to keep myself safe. He wasn’t even attacking me at that point.

I’d just helped save his life only to take it. I let my head flop back against the dry bark, when for the second time that day I was shocked by a large noise blaring into the air.

The anthem.

Wiress woke with the same start and we stared upwards, ready to see exactly who had died that day.
As long as Finnick wasn’t up there. Finnick couldn’t be up there. I wouldn’t be able to cope. I don’t even know what I’d do.

The wording before the tributes flashed up bit it was a blur to me but I knew what it said.

Today’s fallen tributes

I closed my eyes tight for a moment, not wanting to see, not wanting to have to face if it what I was horrified of would appear. My chest was getting tight, my nails digging too hard into my palms, my jaw jutting.

“Elenia,” Johanna snapped, “Look.”

I did, expecting the worst but not finding it.

Nobody from the first Four Districts had died, I felt my chest inflate instead, the face up there first was the woman from District Five, Dixtra. I didn’t even feel guilty for my relief.

That was until the next image appeared and I could see him again, the axe deep in his throat, him choking on his own blood.

I was choking on mine, retching as I struggled to my feet and a few metres away, throwing up the little that was in me, mainly the last of the water I had sipped that morning. My stomach was cramping, the ache in my right side hittng me again and I almost gasped, jerking instinctively away from the hand gently touching my shoulder.

Blight.

“Are you okay?”

“Brilliant.” I snapped, feeling that usual stab of regret and apologising, wiping my mouth as I stood upright, feeling figuratively and physically emptier than ever.

“Can you tell me who else it was I can’t look.” He nodded, and I could just hear the tune flooding through the trees until it was done and we were dropped into a severer darkness once again. The moon was still a little too bright, and when I had last check it was bouncing off the Cornucopia the same way the sun had been.

“It was Dixtra from Five, Adal from Six. Cecilia and Woof. Both for Ten, Missy and Berg.” I felt sick again, knowing all of the names.

Adal and Berg I had killed.

Missy I had as good as. I felt tears stinging my eyes, but in her own firm and often cruel way Johanna didn’t let them fall and we started moving again.

But Finnick was alive, I was still alive with Beetee and Wiress.

More importantly I suppose in the long run, Katniss Everdeen was alive.