I didn’t have any dreams that night. I was sleeping on the hard ground on just a thin sleeping bag. Glimmer is propped up against a tree. She probably fell asleep while on guard last night. Her arm is on my leg, and I roll over away from her; her arm thumps onto the ground. The sun hasn’t fully risen yet, and no one else is awake. I close my eyes again and fall back to sleep.
“Oh my god!” I hear someone scream.
There’s a loud buzzing and I scramble up swatting at my face. Tracker jackers are swarming around us, a broken hive where our fire was last night. I try to pull Glimmer, who is a deep sleeper, up and away from the wasps, but there are too many. I end up losing her grip, and I sprint as fast as I could away from the sight, not bothering to grab anything.
I can hear hopeless screams back at our camp. I don’t bother turning around, fearing from the tracker jackers. But apparently I’m not fast enough, because I feel a couple stings on my arms. One wasp manages to sting me just below my left eye. I could feel my eye starting to close, and soon enough, I can only see through my right.
“To the lake!” Marvel screams, swatting his spear around desperately.
The moment we reach the lake, I dive in, completely submerging myself. There are two more splashes near me. I wonder who made it. My face breaks the surface of the water. The tracker jackers don’t appear to be very fond of water.
Clove’s head breaks the surface and I heave a sigh of relief. “Cato,” she calls. “Are you okay?”
I wade over to her and Marvel. “Yeah, but I got a few stings.” I examine the bites, which have turned into huge lumps. I can almost see them throbbing. I realize that they hurt a lot more than I thought. I feel like falling over.
“I got a few as well.” Marvel is also checking up on the bites. He looks a bit woozy. “What do we do about them?”
I shrug. I’ve never seen anyone who’s been stung by a tracker jackers before.
“I guess we’ll just wait for them to go away,” says Clove, shaking the water out of her ponytail.
We agree and, when the wasps are all gone, head back to our camp site to see if there’s anything to take. We take the same long route that we took, not wanting to get lost. Near the edge of the trees, we see a hovercraft pick up the mutilated body of Ariel getting picked up by a hovercraft.
Clove smiles grimly. “At least we won’t have to kill her later on.”
I hear a rustling a few metres ahead of us, probably aroused by the sound of our footsteps. Peeta runs ahead with a spear pointed over his shoulder. As soon as he reaches the clearing, I hear him shouting at someone.
“Run!” I hear him scream. “Run!”
I use my knife to slash my way through the overgrown bushes. Glimmer is on the ground, probably dead, and next to her, is Katniss, holding a silver bow. It seems like she was stung a few times by the tracker jackers as well. Marvel snarls and walks a bit closer to the grotesque body of his once beautiful district partner.
Katniss is stumbling around, screaming like mad. She falls to the ground, hard, most likely dying. I’m quite far away from her, but Peeta is standing in the same position. He has a determined scowl on his face as he unsheathes a knife from his belt.
“Are you going to fight me, Lover Boy?” I taunt, circling around him.
His scowl deepens. “Isn’t it obvious?” Peeta acts like he isn’t afraid. But I can see a bit of fear in his light eyes.
“Come on then.” I say, beckoning him towards me with my hands. “Fight me.”
Peeta charges at me, with both his knife and spear. I block his first strike, knocking the spear out of his hand. Clove and Marvel are at the corner of my vision, smirking. We continue to fight, him dodging most of my blows. I push him into a tree, and he collapses onto the ground. At first, I contemplate stabbing him through the chest, or slit his throat.
“Well, well. Lover Boy has no one to help him now.” I spit on the ground near his feet. “Maybe I won’t kill you quite yet. You can die all alone.” I take my sword and cut his thigh, and dig it in until I feel bone.
He screams in pain, but I only smile.
“Let’s go,” Clove says, picking up her backpack. “Before the hovercraft comes.”
We leave Peeta groaning on the ground, bleeding. The effects of the stings seem to be getting to us because all three of us are stumbling around. I see a tree turning into a big puddle of acid, and Marvel and Clove seem to be bleeding from their eyes and mouths. My eyes go wide, but I don’t say anything. This was probably the tracker jacker venom at work.
I’m not exactly sure where we’re going, until we get there. We’re back at the lake, near the Cornucopia. We throw down our supplies, and one by one, we collapse. But not before I hear some tracker jackers finding us.
**********
Nightmares tore through my dreams. All I hear is screaming. It sounds like Clove’s and my sister’s. Blood is splashing like a waterfall on my head, it pours relentlessly, until they cloud my vision.
It could have been hours, or it could’ve been days, but when I come to, its late afternoon. I don’t remember what my dreams were about, but I know that they were terrifying. Marvel is still out, thrashing in his sleep. But Clove is setting up a tent-like cover from the sun. Then I realize that there’s another kid fiddling with some wires.
“Who’s he?” I ask, pointing my sword towards him.
Clove shrugs. “His name’s … uh …” She faltered. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?” she barked at the kid, who was now dusting his hands.
“Andrew,” the boy says. “I’m from District 3.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, not so kindly.
But he doesn’t seem too fazed. “I was actually re-wiring the land mines around your stuff. So if anybody, other than us, tries to steal something, they’ll get blown up.”
“I’m impressed,” I say, approvingly. “But how good are you with weapons?”
Clove snorts. “Weapons? He’s a District 3 techie, Cato.”
Andrew flushes pink. He doesn’t say anything against that statement, but just goes back to finishing up the last few land mines. Marvel just woke up, and he looks around.
“New recruit?” He points to Andrew.
“Yeah,” Clove shrugs. “I found him here. I told him that I wouldn’t kill him if he stayed here as a guard.”
Before Andrew finishes the traps, we pile up our extra supplies in the middle of them, in a huge mountain. This way, it will be harder for the other tributes to try to take something without knocking something else off; if they’re able to not get blown up.
Throughout the day, we’re hunting for some unlucky tributes. It’s actually unlucky for us, because we haven’t found anyone the whole day. I’ve been wondering about Peeta and the District 12 girl. They haven’t died yet, but when I saw them last, they seemed like they were on the brink of death. Obviously, I was wrong.
That night, it’s Marvel’s turn for guarding first, and he’s sitting on a foldable lawn chair, with his spear in hand. Clove brings her sleeping bag next to mine. Andrew’s already asleep, probably feeling safe being in our company.
“How are those stings?”
I feel the one on my face, which was still throbbing. None of us knew what to do about them though. They were hurting so much.
“Try taking out the stingers,” suggests Clove.
I do as she says, and at once, the pain subsides a bit. But they were still huge and a disgusting colour. Clove does the same, but grimaces, probably thinking the same thing as me.
I sigh. “They’ll go away soon.” Hopefully. “Tracker jackers are vicious.”
“I saw you thrashing around in your sleep,” she says, concerned. “What was so frightening, that they scared someone like you?"
“Someone like me,” I repeat. “And what do you mean by that, Clover?”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t hit me for calling her that. “I mean someone so strong, and guarded. Someone who isn’t afraid of anything.”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t say that.”
“What are you afraid of, Cato?”
“I’m afraid of losing-” But before I can finish, the Capitol’s seal appears in the sky, and the anthem plays.
As soon as it’s over, Marvel comes over and tells Clove that it’s her turn to guard. She looks back at me, and I look away.
Marvel pats me on the back. “Sorry, man.”
A/N: Please, 3 votes for the next chapter! <3Jaycen