Sea of Flames | f. odair

CHAPTER 14 | THE BREAD

They walked a few more miles before taking a short break to regather their things before making the hike up the mountain. The ground was becoming steeper and rockier, but there were still trees that grew. Not as large as the ones from the forest, but of a normal size.

Cassia was drinking from her canister when she heard the bloodcurdling scream. It shook her to her core. And it didn't stop, the screaming continued on and on and on. Cassia shared similar ghastly looks with the others.

She had never heard anything like it. How real it was, she didn't know. But it sounded close by and that was enough to press her back into the bark of the tree she was leaning on.

Shaded by the overhang of tree branches, she unsheathed one of her knives and strained to listen for the direction the screaming was coming from.

"What is that?" Ezra asked, grimacing.

"More like who is that," Clio retorted.

Griffin unsheathed his longsword and scanned the woods in front of them.

Cassia saw no threats as the agonized screaming continued. It was that of a boy. She didn't want to know what was happening to him, who or what had gotten him and decided to torture him instead of giving him an easy end. It lurked within these woods, feasting on its victim, possibly thinking about its next. Her mind traveled to all of the methods of torturing a human body. Yanking out their teeth one by one, burning them alive, pulling out every single strand of hair on their head; the list was endless despite her wanting it to end. But the screaming continued.

"What do we do?" Clio asked. Even she looked uneasy.

Cassia stared to the west of them where the noise silenced the woods. "We stay here," She said lowly, "if we move it could know our location. Let it come to us."

Clio was about to object, but Griffin cut her off. "I agree with Cassia. If we move we chance losing where it's coming from. And I would rather not go toward whatever is causing these noises."

Ezra shared a fleeting look with Clio. It wasn't meant to be seen, but Cassia saw it. She diverted her eyes at the last second and calmed her face, squinting to listen in the direction of the screaming.

But then the screaming stopped.

No one moved a muscle. Cassia slowed her breathing, droning it out to listen for the rustling of the leaves, the snap of a branch, a shift in the low breeze, anything to help her get a hold on the thing that lurked in the woods.

Minutes passed and nothing.

Cassia spared a glance at Griffin. He shrugged. "Let's move." And so they did.

Cassia walked slightly behind Griffin at the front, eyeing the woods that didn't seem very lovely anymore. The picturesque painting the Gamemakers created was just a shiny film to hid the evil that lay within it.

Up ahead, Cassia knew children who were watching were looking away from the screens now. The adults grimacing, and the family of the dead carcass laying in the brush weeping.

They cautiously approached the mangled body—or what was left of it.

Cassia felt her breakfast burn in her throat as she looked down upon the unrecognizable body. Clothes torn, Cassia could see quarter-sized holes that poked in and out of the body. But what haunted her the most was the empty eye sockets that stared up at the sky. The wounds were too clean, too precise to be from a tribute. They had to be the Gamemakers' doing. But why? Why kill their own tributes?

She knew it wasn't just for entertainment. The death of this boy wasn't just to keep the audience interested. They wanted to see how she would react. They wanted to torment her for payback for the private training session. Of what she had scrawled into the concrete floor.