After The Storm (A Hunger Games Fanfic)

Nom Nom Nom - 5

Mercedes peers out of the grass. Her eyes ache with the strain of trying to see in the dark - it is never truly dark in Six - and with the effort of not crying. It doesn't look like anybody else is here. She can't hear anything. She bites back the swearwords that threaten to explode from her tongue, just in case.

She wishes that Martin were here.

She feels exposed without somebody else around, and with just the sickle by her side and the blowgun that she's only just got the hang of using slung around her back. This isn't home; her sharp tongue will do her no good here. Because she feels like she has to do something with her hands, she ties her two plaits, miraculously still quite unfrayed, into a knot at the back of her head. A bit too tight, but that's a good thing. It makes her angry rather than empty, though her stomach still grumbles away.

Mercedes Fadle sits, her knees drawn to her chest, sickle held tightly by her side, her eyes fixed on the pieces of the scene she can see through the strands of grass. Her face is pale, lit by the moon. And she barely blinks.

One hour passes. The figure in the Cornucopia barely dares to move, puffs of frosty breath curling around its face. It can't feel its feet. There's a bow and arrow not far away; it shuffles over to them, pressing up to the freezing metal of the horn. It used them in training and was good, a combination of patience, natural strength and a steady hand, according to the instructor. May as well use the advantage of distance.

Mercedes is still motionless. A few water tracks run down her cheeks but her face is stone. She will wait until everybody has been and gone. And then she will take what she can get and run. She has stolen so many times, but she can't convince herself that this is any fucking different.

A head pokes out of the grass opposite her, followed by a body. She doesn't even narrow her eyes; from this far away the only thing that she can make out is the stark pale bandage around one arm and the fact that this arm doesn't move as the figure breaks into a run.

Rain's blood is so loud in her head that people must be able to hear it, if there are people here. She has listened and heard nothing but she can never be sure. It feels like one side of her body is missing without her arm and her breath comes in gasps and all she can really see are the packages. It flashes through her mind; she doesn't know what she's looking for.

She skids to a halt, casting a quick glance at the tail of the Cornucopia, pointing away from her. She can't see the entrance. But this whole place feels so eerily empty...there can't be anybody around. Just her. She has time.

Her back prickles, expecting something sharp to lodge itself in it at any moment. The first box falls out of her trembling hand and hits the ground with a low thud; she gasps, then presses a hand to her mouth and hunches over, tears springing to her eyes. 

But nothing happens.

She had thought that her heart was racing before. Now it threatens to burst right out of her chest. Her knee is bumped repeatedly by her useless arm, and maybe it's just her mind but she can smell something kind of rotten. She takes a deep, shuddering breath but it doesn't help to calm her down.

She has to use her chattering teeth to tear the brown paper off the boxes. Something about this reminds her absurdly of presents at home, when it was normal to get a small present after the reaping. It was never very much and Rain can't remember anything that she got in this way, except for her token, which hangs uselessly around her neck. And they haven't done it for a while. Perhaps it was only a ritual for small children.

Mercedes watches as the figure, gasping every so often, rips a package open with its teeth and throws it aside, scuttling on to the next one. Her arm drags uselessly behind her. It looks like it could be just another piece of clothing, or a totally separate organism altogether. Wounded, Mercedes thinks. Good.