The hunger games: sands of survival

Chapter 9

Orion woke up the next morning having had a great nights sleep. He woke Gannet up. He still had a broken arm and rib so he couldn't do much. "Let's check our supplies." Gannet said emptying all the backpacks on the floor before starting to sort through them. A few minutes later he had piles for each item. "We have 2 boxes of matches, 1 pair of sunglasses, 1 scarf, 3 bottles of water, 2 coils of rope, 1 box of dried fruit, 1 can of tuna, 3 packets of beef jerky and a first aid kit." Gannet said as he started to put the supplies back into the bags. "The orange bag has all our food and water, the red bag has our first aid kit and rope and the orange bag has everything else." Gannet said liking to be organised. They then bathed in the hot spring and put their clothes in it because it was the best way to clean them and they'd dry in a few minutes from the desert heat. It was so refreshing that they just sat there, without any clothes and relaxed. It was like the hot tubs he had seen in the Capitol. "Looks like you've gotten a little chubby." Gannet said making Orion look at his now protruding belly. He had tried to gain as much weight as possible for the games but he didn't expect to gain that much, although it would be useful. "I mean isn't that what all tributes try to do? Gain as much weight as possible before the games so you can last a day or two longer?" Orion said. "How had I not thought of that? I'm supposed to be the smart one!" Gannet whined jokingly making Orion laugh. "I guess I'm more instinctual, I'm a lot more feral atleast so I could survive off that instinct. But if I just let it control everything I do would I be me anymore? I killed that boy from 3 without a second thought." Orion said shivering despite the warmth of the hot spring. They eventually got out of the hot spring and got their wet clothes on, it clung to their bodies further highlighting Orion's chubbiness. They walked outside of the cave drying off in just a few minutes. "If somebody doesn't kill someone soon the game makers will probably make an event happen to draw us closer together." Gannet said as they dried off. "We should hunt or something, there has to be something to kill around here, right? If there wasn't everyone would die off pretty fast." Orion said. "But we already have food, why hunt for more? It's so much effort!" Gannet said. "Think about it, that food is preserved meaning if we ever can't hunt or are traveling we can use it as a backup food source. Also we might as well find out if there is food to hunt now while we have food and water to spare instead of later when we don't and it would be a waste of energy." Orion explained as he started walking after he strapped his pouch of knives on. "I guess that does make sense," Gannet said as they started walking. Gannet was carrying all the backpacks on his back, in case someone raided their cave while they were gone. He wouldn't make a good guard with a broken arm and rib so it was better to just carry everything they had. "I liked your music box last night, it was really nice to listen to. Is it your district token?" Gannet asked. "Oh yeah totally, they wouldn't let me have it if it wasn't a token. What's your district token? If you don't mind me asking." Orion asked as they continued to walk in the desert heat. "It's a gold coin, I found it with my dad while scuba diving the day before his fishing boat sunk." Gannet said looking like he was going to cry. Orion could almost here the Capitol going, "AAAWWWW" Infront of their tv screens. He remembered the story, gannet had told him it before. One day his father was going fishing, a totally regular day. He decided to check the lobster pots early so his boat went out of the bay. Then disaster struck and a storm started up the waves were double the ships height and it sank after the 5th wave hit it. He remembered that Gannet only showed up to their meeting spot weeks after. He wasn't the same being more scared of rain, and more nervous of boats but nothing could stop his love for scuba diving. He took Orion scuba diving once and Orion didn't know how to swim so he just flopped around with his feet being completely useless. Orion stopped Gannet in his tracks. "Don't make any noises I see a rabbit." Orion whispered in his ear. Orion slowly crawled on top of the sand dune and threw his knife at it. The knife hit the rabbit's leg instead of it's head. He felt sorry for the creature as it now had to suffer while he killed it instead of dying before it could realise what happened. He ran up to it, took the knife out of it's leg and stabbed it's head wincing as the life left it's body. He picked it up and showed it to Gannet who did a thumbs up. They walked back to their cave and saw no signs of anyone being there but themselves. They dropped their bags and Orion was about to set a fire when Gannet stopped him. "I have a much more clever Idea." Gannet said taking the Rabbit from Orion's hands. He cut the rabbit up messily with Orion's knife and got 2 empty bottles, and filled them with hot water from the hot spring. Then he put some diced rabbit into it, sealed the bottles and plopped them into the hot spring. They sunk to the bottom and he let the metal bottles sit there for 20 minutes. He covered his hands with the scarf and picked them up. "I present to you 2 bottles of rabbit stew." Gannet said holding out a bottles to Orion. He took a sip and it was scolding hot, but tasted extremely good. Way better then what he could cook over an open fire. Then he got the knife had used for cutting, washed it in the water and hacked at the rabbit bones until the split. He put the split end of the bone into his mouth and sucked. "Bones contain bone marrow which has lots of nutrients and tastes good." Gannet explained. They hacked half of the bones and sucked up the bone marrow saving the other half for later. The bone marrow turned a merger meal into one of the best things you could get in the arena without sponsors. They sat there never hearing a cannon fire and they knew something would happen soon to disrupt the peace. They looked up at the sky that night and didn't see anyone. Tomorrow was going to be dangerous. They knew it.