“Byron? Tyrion?”
No response, of course. She stifles a sob; she’s probably miles away from them by now. She should have just waited once she’d realised they weren’t there. Because they’ll be looking for her, won’t they? Tyrion might not be, not with whatever’s wrong with him. Last time she saw him he could barely even walk and she’d wondered if he might die. So maybe he won’t be looking. But Byron will be, she’s sure of that.
It feels already like weeks since she last saw them, months since the blurry dance in the courtyard. Now it feels like every shadow hides a tribute, a weapon. The heat is almost unbearable and buildings and trees curve overhead, blotting out the sky and leering in at her, a little girl alone and sweating and lost.
Does this log look familiar? All logs look the same, though. The ground crumbles in airy black rocks under her feet; a road. A street. It looked like this when she lost sight of them, but she’s not sure. She closes her eyes for a second to try and see better but all she remembers is a mush of trees that look like buildings and buildings that look like trees, broken walls and twisted metal shells, and in the background always the rush of the river and the face of the boy from Four looking empty at the sky.
The Glimpty in her hand shivers. She presses it close to her chest with both hands, to warm it up, of course, not because she’s scared. Ellie Flaxseed is never scared. Not of anything. Not of Peacekeepers, not of fires, not of...
Something rustles above her; a tribute? Her muscles freeze up as she peers into the branches but she can’t see anything there.
“I’m not scared of you,” she whispers. It feels wrong to make any noise over a whisper here. Everything is too still. The trees must move because she can hear them talking, and invisible insects buzz in reply. It must be getting up to night because they’re getting louder. Like the crickets back home, singing their song in the evenings. The cue to go home, to dance through the fields and scamper through the grain factories that are spewing workers on the street to talk about grown-up things as soon as the Peacekeepers aren’t looking. But here there’s too many, too loud, and it doesn’t sound like music, it sounds like the furtive whispers of the adults, things the children must not know.
The tree doesn’t reply. Nothing there, she tells herself, and then because the Glimpty is still shaking, she repeats it out loud.
“Nothing there.”
There used to be. This is a street and people used to live here. She can almost see them, layered over the hybrid tree-buildings, walking through the mangled cars. Voices chattering in the accent of home. They vanish when she looks straight at them.
Her voice sounds loud and it fills the air around her, so she tries it again, singing a song that her mother used to sing on the winter nights when intrepid snowflakes slipped through the cracks in the doors. They’d sit in front of the fire, prodding the weak sticks around until a tongue of flame shot up and sent a flickering glow around the room. Her father would sit in the chair making marks on a piece of paper, and her mother would sit on the floor with little Ellie curled up in her lap and the two boys perched at either side, leaning in to share the warmth. And her mother would sing. Her voice is strong for such a small woman, and when she was happy because the tesserae had just come in and was filling the larder, she’d twist some of the notes into pretty little trills and Ellie would smile at how pretty it was. And other times the larder would be empty and she’d hug her children close and stroke Ellie’s hair and stare into the dying fire and sing in a thin, sad voice, and once Ellie looked up and saw her crying.
Her mother sang a lot of songs, but she can only remember the one. Most of them were the same anyway, songs about losing things and people going away and always ending with the person saying they’re coming back. Ellie likes to think that they always came back and the person wrote a happier song, except nobody else was happy so it wasn’t remembered. In the fields scaring birds away from the seed she’d try to write the happy song but every time she got the words right, a butterfly or a bird would appear and she’d watch it and forget.
She’s not even sure the words are right. Her reedy little voice in this thick and open space doesn’t sound right, but at least it’s noise and the Glimpty likes it, anyway. And it seems like as she’s singing the air gets a little colder and a hand strokes down her hair, another voice singing away behind hers.
Was a rainy day they took her on, they took her far away
To a land where knives grow ‘stead of flowers
Where time’s in cannons not in hours
Innocents’ blood not April showers
Where death draws near and the sky stays grey
They ripped my daughter from my arms and took her far away
But she’s coming back, my darling said, she’s coming home some day.
As her voice trails away in horror, the full meaning of the song starting to seep into her head, the heat presses down again and the hand strokes her cheek and vanishes, and Ellie is alone again.
“This place stinks.”
“So do you.”
Abi sighs and leans back against the wall, her arms folded. There’s a chair in the room - at least, it looks like it used to be a chair - but it’s fuzzy with mould and the seat has fallen in. The floor still feels like it might fall through at any minute. It was a stupid idea to come up here. And it’s no fun arguing when there’s nobody to tell you off.
For a moment her mind sees Oswin lurching, book in hand, looking for the exit, eyes wide. What if Oswin had been on guard, not her and Benji? Would she have got out alive?
Of course she would.
A bruise is ripening on her cheek from where she saw a branch coming too late, and every so often she pokes it to see if it hurts. The answer is always yes, but she’s not even wincing at it anymore. Her ponytail has given up and hangs limply by her ear, and that hideous troupe of stylists are probably fainting just to see her in this mess. It’s still more comfortable than any of the monstrosities they made her wear, not to mention that chariot. It was probably just good luck that they wired it up right; what do the fluttering style elite of the Capitol know about circuitry? Not that she knows much either, despite her district, so she’d assumed it was safe until Connor had balked on sight of the arching cracks of miniature lightning. That seems like years ago. And Connor is dead now, somehow.
Benji paces up and down, unable to stay still. His hair sticks to his face, red and gleaming with sweat. He doesn’t seem to be able to decide if his hands are in his pockets or out of them. With every step the floor underneath them shakes a little.
“Stay still,” she orders, “Or I’ll thump you.”
He just picks up speed, deliberately doing it to annoy her. She thinks she’s older than she is; he knows that kind. His sister is like that. “You wouldn’t be able to,” he retorts out of habit.
Click. Flashlight goes on. Click. Flashlight goes off. The light feels too bright. At least they’ll be able to hear if someone comes up the stairs. The only way in; he checked. They should be safe for now, unless the Gamemakers decide to collapse this building too.
He wonders if the Careers are out prowling and how far away from here they are. Two people died today, two more lives lost, and it should feel sadder than this. Two more families like his own broken and crying. He’s seen it happen; one of his classmates lost his brother last year. Dumb phrase, that. Lost. Like they’ll come home soon. He’s never thought of that before.
He’s lost, to everybody back home. Anger bubbles up inside him that they’ve already given up, but it’s swiftly followed by something else that feels like a stone in his stomach and prickles the corner of his eyes. One in nine, better than one in twenty four, right? But still not done yet, and now people are hungry and they’ll be desperate. A bread roll popped out of the sky an hour ago, parachute tangling in the tree, the package made up of one of Six’s oily bread-wheels, and he’d wanted to keep it all for himself. It was his, definitely. But instead he split it with Abi, and now he wishes he hadn’t.
Hunger Games is right. Though none of this feels like a game.
Abi sits up straight suddenly, alert. “Did you hear that?”
Benji pops out of his thoughts. He’d been pacing up and down with a face like thunder, one arm curled over his stomach as if to remind her that they’re both hungry, and she’d been so tempted to hit him, only she couldn’t be bothered to get up. What’s the point? Nobody’s going to stop them fighting now Oswin is dead too. The Capitol will only cheer them on, waiting for them to kill each other, and she won’t kill Benji. He shared his bread with her.
But someone will...
“I didn’t hear anything...”
A sort of sharp breaking noise and a shriek, muffled. She’s sure she heard it, just outside the window. Glad to have something to distract her from that chain of thoughts, she scampers to the jagged pane of glass, only just avoiding jamming her hand onto one of the spikes. She’s tugged back just as quickly.
“What are you doing, idiot? What if there’s someone out there?” Benji hisses. She wrenches her collar free, pushing him away.
“I heard something, I know I did!”
He’s right, though. Can’t be too careful. This time she creeps over, poking her head out tentatively. If there’s any noise, anything at all, she’ll withdraw. And run for it.
Benji waits a moment, and then when nothing happens to Abi, he pokes his head out too.
Through the heavy branches draped down the side of their building, he can see the street from above. It looks different, like they’re above the arena rather than in it. A few crumbled walls mark out where there maybe used to be gardens - what does a proper garden look like? They don’t have them in Six - and in the middle of the street the ground caves in, a small circle where it just stops.
Abi grabs his arm, and hers is startlingly clammy in the heat. “Benji,” she hisses, “There’s someone down there!”
There’s something...something down here. Scraping, shuffling noises bunch together in the darkness. Tears stream down her cheeks and snot dribbles into her mouth. Glimpty has gone still, too scared to move. When she takes a step it makes a sloshing noise, water waving up to her knees, but the stench alone is enough to tell her that this isn’t drinkable.
Apart from the spot of light from where she fell in, she can’t see. The black is total; where are the walls? She reaches one hand out, stretching until she finds something, and it brushes something solid and slimy and disgusting. A shudder runs through her, shaking everything in her insides, and escapes from her mouth in a startled yelp. This is horrible. If there is a way out, she’ll never find it in this.
Something sharp digs into her leg. Teeth, claws, something painful, and before she has time to even register it, a blinding pain rushes through her head and water rushes down her throat.
No! No, no, please no! She lashes out with her arms, trying to get her head above the water so she can spit out the foul liquid and get to her feet, but spots are dancing in front of her eyes and her arms just make thrashing noises and she can’t see where the surface is anyway. She’s going to drown, she’s going to drown just like that boy from Four and she’ll just float away, her eyes staring at nothing...
Something digs into her cheek, wires brush her lips and when she tries to knock it off she feels something furry, bigger than her hand...she opens her mouth again to scream and more water rushes in, flooding her throat.
Another rat bites her arm and she can feel its teeth gnawing on her skin, tasting her. I’m not food, she thinks, and with her head fuzzy and her mouth full of water this is almost funny and she laughs, spraying water everywhere; her head is above the water. She can breathe, and she didn’t realise how sweet air tasted before.
I’m going to die.
Glimpty has gone limp in her hands. She holds him as close as she can, her last reminder of home and how she’s the happiest person in District Nine, and something bites her finger and she screams, the sound bouncing back into her ears off the slimy walls so that it sounds like it’s coming from someone else.
Her head goes under again, and this time it doesn’t come up.