The Rebel Victor | I [THG]

Chapter Eighteen | The Land of Mountain Valleys

The group hiked for what seemed like hours. The only two the spoke all that much was Mac and Leanne. They only really spoke about future plans for the following days, and about how the lower districts would be easy to catch-they had for the most part, grabbed a backpack or went straight into the tree's.

Quinn used the spear she had grabbed to stab into the ground to keep her balance. She tried to pay attention to Max and Leanne's conversation while also watching everything in front of her, which was nearly impossible because of how thick the trees are. But she watched for any sign of water, anything that might make the others think she was a total waste. But as the hike dragged on and there was no sign of any other tributes-Quinn got to wondering just how big the arena was.

If there was no sight of any of the other tributes, then that must have meant that it was pretty big-or maybe the forest was just too thick. Was this all there was? A steep incline littered with green grass and trees?

"What was Four like?" Fiona's small voice asked from beside her. She sounded and looked so defenseless, it was hard to believe that she had killed the boy from Twelve so easily...

"Oh, uh..." she started, and she noticed how out of breath she was. But she forced herself to keep talking. "For an average person? Or me?"

"Both, I guess..."

Quinn sighed heavily, "Well, I don't have a family, I've only got a few friends..." she shrugged, an old memory came back to the front of her mind. Her old friend, her mentor of sorts-the girl who had shown her how to survive disappeared from the warehouse one night. She had talked about going out to see and never coming back and she had talked about leaving Four-everyone assumed she snuck off and got herself killed. "For average people...it's alright I guess. Get to spend the whole day fishing, weaving, or even lounging on the beaches."

"You can't?" Fiona asked.

Quinn didn't answer right away. She had to think of her answer carefully. If she said the wrong thing about how the orphans were treated, Snow could have the gamemakers strike her down with a bolt of lightning.

"Orphans tend to stick together, it's like our own little community." that wasn't a complete lie, but it wasn't the complete truth-but she wasn't going to make the mistake of outing the treatment of orphans on national TV-not again. It wasn't even the fact that Snow wanted her dead, it was the way he would kill her-unsuspecting and painfully-that was what she was afraid of.

Fiona opened her mouth to reply, but instead Quinn stopped her by pointing her spear ahead of them. She could see the sun shinning in, it was like being in a dark tunnel and seeing the light at the end of it.

"We'll be able to see the arena from up there," she announced, "And maybe see smoke from some campfires."

The group quickened their walking, they were almost running-the dark forest was suffocating. And now that Quinn could see the sky, the sun seemed so welcoming while the forest seemed to be closing in on her. Once the group of them emerged from the trees, they found an even more daunting arena than the forest had been. Before them was a steep drop like the one they had climbed, only this one was littered with stony cliffs, and no trees or grass. There was a valley similar to the one the cornucopia was in, but the trees weren't nearly as tall or close together-and then more mountains, not inclines, rocky ridges that made mountains surrounded it.

They stood at a high enough place, that they could see that the arena seemed to go on forever, and mountains littered the entire arena. A few were so tall that they had snowcaps. The sky was wide open-crystal clear too. And the sun didn't seem too hot either, some years, the weather was the biggest challenge of the arena. But this year it was obvious that the terrain alone was going to be a problem. The arena wasn't one that was good for District Four tributes.

"We should head down there," Max announced, pointing his sword down into the valley. "We need to find water, make camp, and then tomorrow we can set out for tributes." he stated. Leanne sighed and nodded in agreement as they continued to look around the arena for a moment. Max then took the lead and began their hike down the rocky ridge.

Quinn's heavy duty boots made it easy to keep a grip to the stone, and her spear helped keep her balanced while her backpack tried to throw it off even more. She couldn't help but think of where the other tributes could have been-where Arkon could have been and who his allies were...

Before she knew it, they were walking into the trees into the valley. The sun shone through the green leaves, and there were a few small animals that scurried away from the group. None of them tried to catch one, they had no camp, fire, and they didn't want to waste the energy yet.

"Here's a good place," Max sighed as he stabbed his sword into the ground, and began to slip off his backpack. Everyone else did the same.

So Quinn stabbed the ground with her spear, and then crouched down with her backpack on the ground in front of her. She pulled out one box of matches, a canteen with purifying capsules inside it, and then folded together tightly was a red zip up sweater.

"Matches!" Leanne smiled snatching them from the ground before handing it back to her. "We've got everything we need then. We each of a sweater, a canteen-Max and me each got a sleeping bag, Fiona got rope, and Thomas got an extra knife." she listed off.

Quinn had to admit, that seemed like a good thing, but as the group all began to pack away their things, their moment of hope was finished by a cannon echoing through the arena-echoing more than before because it's sound bounced off the mountains.

Thomas sighed, "There's number six..."