Celestia bid Katniss, Finnick, Aurora, and Peeta goodnight and walker over to Velren to curl up next to him. She slowly fell into a surprisingly peaceful sleep, hoping that if he started to fall asleep he would wake her up in the next few hours.

"How is Peeta?" Finnick asked after an agonizingly slow hour had passed in which he, Aurora, Katniss and Velren sat awake in silence. Katniss looked over at the sleeping Peeta and frowned. "He's okay, I think . Just..." She paused and licked her chapped lips. "Dehydrated like the rest of us."

Finnick nodded in understanding just as  as the sky suddenly lit up with glowing pixels, creating a mesmerizing spectacle, accompanied by the over-the-top Capitol anthem that filled the arena. Almost imperceptibly, Celestia moved gracefully and noticeably clutched her brother's hand.

The faces of the fallen tributes streaked across the night sky one by one, a poignant sight that was heightened by cannon shots echoing from various points of the arena. In that intense moment, Celestia rolled onto her back, eyes wide open, fully awake. "What did I miss?" she asked in an incredibly dry voice.

Velren gave her one of his classic worried looks while Katniss glanced over at Peeta, who was rubbing the sleep from his eyes and sitting up. "I counted eight." Aurora said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "Mm-hmm." Velren hummed in agreement.

A hushed silence enveloped them as they all fell into thoughtful silence. Celestia got into a sitting position next to Velren, who was leaning against the trunk of a slender rubber tree with Finnick.

Suddenly, an electronic chime sounded in the air. When Velren looked up, he saw a small package floating down with a parachute attached. "Hey." Katniss said, quickly getting up to get it, the others following close behind.

Katniss picked it up from the floor and opened the container with a click. Inside was a strange-looking piece of metal with a spout on one end and a sharp, protruding spike on the other end, as if it was trying to impale something or someone.

"What do you think it is?" Peeta asked her. "It's from Haymitch." she replied and turned the object in her hand to examine it. "Great, Haymitch, you have sent us a weapon." Velren grumbled with a hint of annoyance in his voice, to which Finnick let out a loud laugh. "But I'll use it to our advantage. Maybe to brutally kill someone or threaten them to give us their precious water supply. Thanks, man!"

"That's not a weapon, you idiot, that's a spile!" Katniss exclaimed. The five other tributes looked at Katniss in confusion as she suddenly stood up from her place. Finnick and Aurora exchanged a look before they turned to the girl. "A what ?" "What the hell is a spile? " they asked at the same time before they glanced at Celestia and Velren who shrugged. Neither of them had any idea of what a 'spile' was.

But Katniss paid them no attention. Instead, she crawled to a tree and hammered the spile into it with the blunt end of her machete. Then she sat tensely in front of it and waited for something to happen. Suddenly, an ever-increasing stream of warm water poured out from the lip of the spile, accompanied by a gasp from the younger girl. Katniss eagerly dove down to take a long drink of the refreshing water.

"No way." Celestia mumbled in disbelief before she took a long drink of water. "Are you kidding me? You're kidding me!"  Finnick exclaimed and then he grabbed Peeta by the shoulder and pushed him toward it. After what he'd been through that first day, this was what he needed most. "Get some water."

After Peeta finished drinking, Finnick motioned for his sister to drink first. Normally she would refuse, but her thirst was too great to argue about the order of drinking. She took a refreshing sip and then stepped aside so Finnick and Velren could quench their thirst as well.

²Survival Game  | Finnick OdairWhere stories live. Discover now