The Hunger Games: Johanna Mason

Chapter 5

There was a lot of cursing that happened within the span of ten minutes. All of the reactions emitted by Johanna were real ones, as she had to view the horror of what was happening from her hiding place under the tree.

The male tribute that had been running was being chased by three jeering Careers. Johanna was too busy trying to stay unnoticed under the tree to recognize any fo the faces. It was bright enough to see what was happening, but dark enough that all she could see was the silhouette of every person within view.

It couldn't have been too late though, since the anthem and cannons for Day 1 hadn't been played yet.

She had closed her eyes, but she couldn't drown out the sound of screaming from the tribute that was getting killed within a few meters of where she was. If she had been pretending to be weak and scared, she certainly felt it right now. The silhouettes of the Careers were large. She was several tens of pounds lighter than them. One of them could have been the tribute from 2 that she had kicked when she ran into the woods.

It had been almost half an hour when it was quiet again, and the hovercraft arrived to retrieve the body from where it was.

Johanna hugged her legs closer to her chest, definite that sleep would not come as easy, especially without the alcohol to help her get to sleep.

There had been eight cannon shots in total for tonight. She didn't risk peeping her head to see the dead in the sky. It didn't really matter who was. She was stuck here, and there were forteen people left inside. It really wasn't looking so good yet. How could she compete and continue this charade? She had the axe with her, and that was it. Everything else was futile if it came to external help. She was alone in here.

Something in her needed to fuel her, as hopeless as her situation seemed. Johanna didn't want her dad to see her giving up so easy in the arena. It had been fine while she was back at the Capitol, and she could get away with doing whatever the hell she wanted without anyone really having any hold on her. She didn't want her last memory to everyone back home as something that would be without any fight. That wasn't the person that they knew.

If she was going to die in here, then they sure as hell would have to work for it.

Everything had to be planned carefully here on forward. If she was going to use the axe, and if she really needed to kill someone, it would need to look like an accidental stroke of luck of wielding it.

She held onto the middle of the axe, feeling the weight of it. This was going to be her only chance of getting out of here alive, the only one out of so many of them.

Her grip on it was tight, and her fear was slowly turning into hate. She needed the fuel, and it was going to fill her up.

~

The next day, she had woken up slightly disoriented because she had no idea when she had fallen asleep. The sunlight seemed to sting her eyes and was unnaturally bright. She didn't know what time of the day it was, and if it was still safe to stay inside the little nook inside the tree.

The shadows kept her from the view, and she was safely esconced in there, but she didn't feel too comfortable staying in the same place. She had to mark it down for her nights, but she definitely couldn't stay there forever. Her muscles needed to move, and she had to figure out the rest of this arena.

If she wanted to go about this smartly, she had to know everything like the back of her hand. She remembered the size of those tributes from last night. Sheer will and skill won't do anything to beat those people. If she couldn't show just how well she could work with an axe just yet, she'd have to rely on strategy in here.

Very tenatively, she poked her head out of the shadows and out into the light. There was no one around. Truth be told, it didn't seem like a tiny arena.

Johanna was certain that she could find this place again, as long as it wasn't too dark. It wasn't too close to the Cornucopia, but it was close to the river, which was easy to find. All she had to do was follow that if she wanted to get back to this starting point.

it was difficult to go around without flinching at the slightest sound. Her own footsteps made her jittery, and the heat was getting on her nerves. The shade kept her from being too seen, and the amount of nature was comforting. it would be easy to hide in them. One thing came from being tiny and skinny. It wasn't that difficult to find somewhere to hide. If she had to run somewhere, it was easy to go through small spaces as well.

From time to time, she would find a few animals flitting from one bush to the next. At least it was easy to find game in here, she thought. Her pace was slow and steady. She didn't really want to rush herself, since she was trying to be mindful of her surroundings.

The woods were something that she was never scared to be in. It was so close to her house, and she would always sneak out even in the middle of the night just to explore what was in it. She never feared the dark, or whatever was in it. There was something oddly peaceful with the expanse of trees. She had memorized the different routes and rocks and trees that were in those woods back home. She could remember them even in the dark.

That was why she knew what she was looking for, or looking at, when she was exploring the arena.

From time to time, she would get curious and try climbing a tree, to see how high she could go. If the branches were close to each other, she wouldn't get scared to jump to the other tree. She needed to get on top of one that would show her a view of just how large or small this place was.

Some even had fruits that weren't supposed to grow in this sot of environment. She was very cautious when picking them though, since she didn't know if any of them had been poisoned. There were a few stations back at the Training Center that she actually absorbed what she was doing and learned a few things about edible plants. This seemed to come to use as she picked some off the trees when she saw that she recognized them as edible. The trees didn't have a lot of them though. They were scattered and scarce, which made her think that it was designed that way so that it wouldn't be too easy to collect them all at once.

She took care to keep looking down though, to remember her path and how far away from the river she was getting. She had remembered the fish in the water, and realized that she had yet to find a source that wouldn't have flesh-eating freshwater creatures that would kill her.

It would be a boring day today. People would be bidding on the remaining tributes inside the arena. She could feel as if her face was being zoomed in on cameras, and she was part of the roster of people that would have to be watched carefully from this point on.

Piper had something in this plan of his. She could be this wildcard, this underdog that no one knew was coming. It would be something that would surprise and thrill.

When the trees had thinned and she could no londer jump from one to another, she had to go back down and stay on foot. These were the times when she held onto her axe just a little bit tighter. There was nothing that she should take for granted inside this arena. She stayed close to trees, because being out in the open was not something that she would be stupid enough to do.

Stealth would have to do for now.

And so she continued walking on.

~

Took a few months. I'm really sorry for disappearing this long!