Dedicated to: Everlark10
In the distance, after the lightning storm finishes, I hear the soft sound of rain. An hour passes as I wait for it to reach us, but it never does.
And then a cannon sounds. It startles me, but the others are oblivious to the sound and continue to sleep. I don't bother waking them up to tell them that someone died. I don't even wonder who it was.
In the next few minutes, the rain stops abruptly, never having reached where we are, even though it couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards away. In the next second I see a white cloud moving closer towards us. It resembles a fog, something I've only seen once or twice. At first, I think nothing of it. A natural reaction to cold rain on hot ground.
But something in me recoils at the fog. It's slow steady movements that inch closer towards us. Something is wrong with this. It's not normal. It's not natural. Too uniform. Too even.
Immediately, I'm shaking everyone awake and yelling for them to move. Peeta wakes up the fastest, his senses on high alert to protect me. His eyes scan me over to see if I'm hurt. Finnick immediately hops to his feet, his tridents in his hands, already slinging Mags onto his back.
And in the ten seconds it has taken to get everyone up and ready to flee, a sickeningly sweet odor has invaded my nostrils and my skin has already started to blister.
"Run!" I scream.
I take Peeta's hand and pull him trough the jungle, trying to keep him from tripping.
"What is that?" He screams. "What is that?"
I turn to see it inching closer towards us. "Fog, it's poisonous." I yell back.
And it's painful. Droplets from the ghostly fog seem to leap out to land on our skin, but the pain isn't like being burned. No, it's like acid eating away at our skin, burrowing under all the layers to produce a sharp stab of intense pain. The sheerness of our jumpsuits provides no protection at all. I've lost sight of Finnick, but I steer myself and Peeta in the direction that I think he went.
Now that the initial adrenaline rush has past, it's clear that the aftereffects of Peeta's encounter with the force field are much worse than he was letting on. Our pace slows, and while the vines that litter and snake along the jungle floor merely trip me up occasionally, they cause Peeta to stumble nearly every step.
I grasp his hand tightly in mine. "Try and step where I do!"
It helps. Peeta and I begin to move faster, but not fast enough to allow ourselves a brief rest. The fog continues to crawl after us ominously, its snaking tendrils seeming to pull it along the ground.
So we continue to run.
Finnick appears in front of us, apparently having noticed that we were having problems. He shouts trying to get us to move faster and for a while it helps. But Peeta is so weak and all the adrenaline in the world could not make him move any faster than he already is. Finnick's voice acts as a guide, but that's about all that he can do for us.
And then my arm begins to shake. It's uncontrollable and suddenly I'm filled with a fear that outshines the blisters and the burns. Whatever chemical is in this fog targets our nerves. I glance up at Peeta and see that he's affected too. His eyelid seems to be drooping without his consent and one corner of his mouth is slack, forming an odd grimace.
"Come on, Peeta," I encourage.
We make it a few more yards before Peeta suddenly collapses, taking me down with him, though I manage to brace my fall. I'm thinking he merely tripped over a vine, but when I try and haul him to his feet, I realize that my assumption was wrong. The fog has caused Peeta's legs to give out. Peeta can't run anymore, and I can't possibly drag him along.
Peeta realizes this, too. "Go," he tells me. "Go."
Leave. He wants me to leave him. My eyes dart to the fog, only a few yards away and quickly closing in, as if it senses a potential victim. Leave. I can't just leave him on the ground. That's too cruel. Too cold. I can't leave him like this. I can't leave him to die.
"Baby." It's not Peeta using a pet name. It's him reminding me. The baby. Our baby. If I don't leave, I'll die. If I die, our baby dies, which is the one thing that neither of us can live with.
A tear slides down my cheek as I feel my heart shatter. I clutch my stomach blowing Peeta a kiss, I flee. I run faster than I have in my entire life and the guilt that rests on my chest slows me down. I can see Peeta lying on the jungle floor waiting for the fog to hit him. I can't do this. I can't leave my husband to die. I turn to run back to my husband, when Finnick appears. He sets Mags down on the ground and looks to me. "Can you take Mags?" he asks. I nod my head and watch as he runs to grab Peeta. For a split second I'm worried they won't come back out. The fog wraps around them and I can't even see the shape of their bodies.
But then they emerge and I can breathe again.
I squat down and Mags positions herself over my shoulder. Mags isn't heavy by any means, maybe seventy pounds, but I feel my heart sink. I know that I can't carry Mags's weight forever. We've got to find a way from this fog soon. Both my arms are wracked with spasms now, shaking uncontrollably.
Finnick and I take off running the moment he has Peeta across his back. I trail behind him, following his path. We continue to run, keeping distance between ourselves and the fog while still moving toward the water of the Cornucopia. But even with Peeta now being carried by Finnick, our pace is still too slow. That, or the fog is gliding toward us with increasing deadly speed.
When I fall to the ground, it's not Mags's fault. My legs aren't working, shaking uncontrollably. The first two times I stumble, I manage to get back to my feet, but the third time's the charm. No matter how hard I try, I can't get my legs to cooperate. I grip the vines around me, trying to pull myself up, but I can't manage it. My legs aren't working.
Finnick is suddenly in front of me again, Peeta hanging over his shoulder. "It's no use," I tell him. "Can you take them both? Go on ahead, I'll catch up." A dubious proposal, but I say it with as much strength as I can.
"No," Finnick says, his sea green eyes shining in the moonlight, and I realize it's because they're shimmering with tears. "I can't carry them both. My arms aren't working." It's true. His arms are just as plagued with spasms as mine are. Of his two tridents, only one remains, and it's clutched in Peeta's hands. "I'm sorry, Mags. I can't."
Mags gets to her feet, plants a kiss on Finnick's lips, gives me the toothy grin she is known for and pats my tummy. She charges into the fog, looking stronger than I've ever seen, but it doesn't last. The fog seems to converge on her and her small, frail body is wracked with convulsions. It's one of the most horrifying things I've seen, but when I turn to look at Finnick, I see that he's already turned away from the scene.
A cannon sounds. Mags is gone.
I want to scream, I want to scream louder than anyone has ever heard. But she's gone and I will be too if I don't move. I don't know how I manage it, but I stumble along after Finnick, forcing my legs to work. The baby is at the frontof my mind. Get the baby away from the fog.
Protect her.
That's what Peeta told me to do. It's all I'm thinking about, and I'm filled with such a strong determination that I manage to catch up with Finnick, only trailing a few yards behind him.
After thirty more yards, Finnick finally collapses, causing Peeta to land on top of him. The strange force that has kept my legs moving does not cease as to allow me to stop running, so I continue to move forward until I trip over their prone bodies. I land on top of Peeta and for a moment, all of us just lie there gasping for air.
I manage to roll off of them and somehow open my drooped eyes. The fog stops at our feet, as if it hit a glass wall. I watch as it continues to condense and slowly grow taller and taller, but it never moves forward. It's reached the end of its leash, its boundary line. Just like the rain, just like all the other horrors in this arena.
"It's stopped," I say, but my voice sounds terrible. I try and clear it. "It's stopped," I repeat in a much more intelligible voice. Both Peeta and Finnick look up briefly to see that what I say is true, and we all watch as the fog disappears upward, like it's being sucked into a vacuum.
Five seconds later and it's gone.
Peeta rolls off Finnick, and finds my hand in the sand. For a moment, I don't feel any pain as I meet Peeta's eyes. I squeeze his hand, telling him without words that I'm grateful he's with me. I had to live my worst nightmare, abandoning Peeta to save our child. If it weren't for Finnick, I would be alone right now. He's the reason I get up every day and yet I left him. Peeta, as if sensing my thoughts, squeezes my hand reassuringly. Even just the feeling of his hand in mine, makes my spirits lift just the slightest.
A.N. Hi everyone! So for some reason the story hasn't been getting as many votes, comments, or views. Any suggestions on what I can improve? Hope you liked this chapter. :) Star and comment!