CHAPTER 14 | THE BREAD
Among the monsters, I am well hidden; who looks for a leaf in a forest?
They had moved on from the valley and decided to start for the mountains as dawn broke. The ground was sprinkled with dew and the sun was high in the sky, Cassia observed, but there were still no tributes in sight. It made her wonder how large the arena was, and if two tributes were left and couldn't find each other, would they be forced to meet by the Gamemakers hand?
"Oh, it's lovely," Clio sighed dreamily, her machete dangling by her side. "One is the daughter of the Capitol, so our architecture resembles the beauty of it's mother."
Cassia had asked the question to keep the silence from dragging on and the cameras focused on their party. She didn't know much about District One, only that Finnick had mentioned when giving her a brief oversight of all of the Districts that they were closely tied with the Capitol because of their rich supply of diamonds and gemstones. They were the prettier version of District Twelve, who was the coal mining district. She didn't actually care about what District One looked like, but if the cameras were on them, that meant a greater chance that sponsors were watching too.
"We even have machines that can turn granite into diamonds!" Ezra beamed proudly, his sharp features resembling cut quartz.
Cassia nodded as enthusiastically as she could muster, "Wow, that's incredible."
They had been walking for a few hours now and she knew that her small breakfast of dried meat and saltine crackers wasn't going to hold her for very long.
She hadn't been in the arena for long and she already missed the taste of the luxurious Capitol food, of a fresh hot steaming meal made with the most colorful spices. She was ashamed she had grown attached, to desire the dangling fruit in front of her face, held by President Snow himself. Years of poverty, of becoming accustomed to the feeling of being hungry, were gone after a mere week and she was already addicted to their hearty meals. And now she was in a place where she had to eat or be eaten. A cruel, cruel game.
"What is it like in Four?" Griffin asked from her side. After last night, he'd been acting more . . . normal. More warm. And Cassia wasn't sure if she wanted to run from it or run towards it.
Four, she echoed in her head. Her home. Her serenity. Her family. She cleared her throat.
"We live as close to the coast as we can, if only to wake up and see the sun lift from the horizon over the waves," She thought of the bustling docks, the fishers market, the sandy beaches and its people. She could almost feel the sun shining down on her, smell the briny air of salt and fish. "Four has some of the hardest working people I know, and some of the stubbornest," She smiled.
"Well, I can't swim so I don't think I would like your district very much," Clio replied.
Cassia nodded. "Probably not."
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.
Swallowing her fear, Cassia straightened her back and pocketed her knife. She was about to suggest they move on when Ezra murmured, "Why is there no cannon?"
Clio sharply inhaled. "Oh shit."
Cassia stared at the trees ahead. She refused to look down at the boy that was still alive, somehow still holding onto his last breath. She refused to imagine his chest barely rising, blood trickling out of his agape mouth. Could he still cry without his eyes? Could he sense them standing over his body?
A canon boomed, ruffling the leaves around them. Cassia turned in time to see Griffin pulling his sword out of the boy's chest. He stared back at her, and she couldn't say the words but she had to hope that he knew. That there was a reason for her low score, a reason for the random death of this boy, a reason that she could not say 'thank you'.
He curtly nodded and she turned away, blinking. And if she hadn't turned, she would have missed it. Missed the red salamander scurrying up the tree yards away from them, coated in blood.
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The rest of the day was quiet.
Cassia expected to encounter one of the other tributes, but either no one wanted to pick a fight with them or they just weren't close enough to any other tributes.
They set up camp on top of a cluster of rocks that overlooked the valley. Cassia was silent after they had left the body of the boy to be picked up by the hovercraft. She didn't have anything to say and no one talked to her.
Laying on her sleeping bag, she stared up at the sky that glittered with stars. The Capitol anthem had played a few hours ago, displaying the gaunt face of the boy that had died. He was from District Nine. She didn't know much about Nine other than that they were the grain district. They were the ones who harvested the wheat for the Capitol, the ones who collected the tesserae.
She tried not to think about what his parents would think when they opened his coffin and saw his body. All because of her. All because she couldn't control herself. She just had to piss the Gamemakers off. Now, an innocent boy was dead. She felt her eyes burn but pushed down her tears. She couldn't cry. Not with Panem, the Gamemakers, and Snow watching.
Something fell onto her lap. Gasping, Cassia shot back, knife in hand as the white parachute fluttered to the ground.
"Our first sponsor," Clio breathed.
Cassia stared at the silver container. Surely, this wasn't for her.
"Open it," Griffin had sat up now, watching from the other side of the fire. Ezra was beside Clio, his hair sticking out everywhere.
Tentatively, Cassia opened the capsule.
The smell of fresh bread filled her every sense. It wasn't just any bread however. It was the bread of her home. Light green by seaweed, the salty fish-shaped loaf was the same one they made at the bakeries every Sunday morning at the docks. Her heart clenched.
Holding it up for the others to see, she spotted a tiny slip of white paper at the bottom of the capsule. Handing the bread to Griffin, she turned the slip over. In neat handwriting, a short note was written. It said: Don't forget you're stubborn too - F.
Cassia wanted to scoff at the note. Out of all the things he could have sent her. But then again, it made sense. She was stubborn, and stubborn people didn't easily give up. Finnick was telling her not to give up. He knew then, what the death of the boy from Nine meant. He knew they were threatening her. She could have had the same fate as the boy from Nine if she hadn't joined the Careers. It would have been easy for the Gamemakers to kill her the moment she stepped off her plate with that killer grass. But now they couldn't kill her, there were too many eyes on her. She was too deep in the game to die by their hands now.
They would do everything in their power to try and kill her, to make her suffer, to drive her mad. She knew this and so did Finnick. That was why he sent the bread and the note. A warning to her that she was a threat to the Capitol, that she was on their kill list, and that if she wanted to live, she needed to make sure the people of Panem loved her and would riot if she died. And there was only one way to do that.
Putting the note down, her eyes met Griffin's.
A/N: apologies for taking so long to update! life has been pretty chaotic recently, but i've finally managed to update (thankfully lol).
i would just like to say thank you to everyone who has read this story so far, i can't believe we have 23k+! that's crazy to me, considering this story only has 14 chapters lol. but i am so so grateful for all of you. school will be starting soon so if you don't hear from me just check my message board because i so comment on there once in awhile, and feel free to interact with me!
how did you guys like this chapter? i tried to edit it as best i could but if you see any mistakes please let me know! also, idk about you guys but i miss finnick ahaha. but don't worry, this story is about to pick up a lot of speed (fortunately and unfortunately lol).
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