Ember In The Flames ➳ Finnick Odair ¹ ✓

11 | The Arena

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Chapter Eleven
THE ARENA
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I don't see Monty in the morning. Teak comes to me before dawn, gives me a simple shift to wear, and guides me to the roof. My final dressing and preparations will be done in the catacombs under the arena itself. A hovercraft appears out of thin air, and a ladder drops down. I place my hands and feet on the lower rungs and instantly it's as if I'm frozen. Some sort of current glues me to the ladder while I'm lifted safely inside.

I expect the ladder to release me then, but I'm still stuck when a woman in a white coast approaches me carrying a syringe. "This is just your tracker, Ember. The stiller you are, the more efficiently I can place it," she says.

Still? I'm a statue. But that doesn't prevent me from feeling the sharp stab of pain as the needle inserts the metal tracking device deep under the skin on the inside of my forearm. Now the Gamemakers will always be able to trace my whereabouts in the arena. Wouldn't want to lose a tribute.

As soon as the tracker's in place, the ladder releases me. The woman disappears and Teak is retrieved from the roof. An Avox boy comes in and directs us to a room where breakfast has been laid out. Despite the tension in my stomach, I eat as much as I can, although none of the delectable food makes any impression on me. I'm so nervous, I could be eating grain seeds. The one thing that distracts me at all is the view from the windows as we sail over the city and then to the wilderness beyond. This is what birds see. Only they're free and safe. The very opposite of me.

The ride lasts about half an hour before the windows blackout, suggesting that we're nearing the arena. The hovercraft lands and Teak and I go back to the ladder, only this time it leads down into a tube underground, into the catacombs that lie beneath the arena. We follow instructions to my destinations, a chamber for my preparation. In the Capitol, they call it the Launch Room. In the districts, it's referred to as the Stockyard. The place animals go before slaughter.

Everything is brand new, I will be the first and only tribute to use this Launch Room. The arenas are historic sites, preserved after the Games. Popular destinations for the Capitol residents to visit, to vacation. Go for a month, rewatch the Games, tour the catacombs, visit the sites where the deaths took place. You can even take part in reenactments.

I struggle to keep my breakfast down as I shower and clean my teeth. Teak does my hair in a simple pony tail. Then the clothes arrive, the same for every tribute. Teak has no say in my outfit, does not even know what will be in the package, but he helps me dress in the undergarments, simple black pants, light blue long sleeve, sturdy brown belt, and a heavy, hooded jacket that falls to my thighs. "The material in the jacket's designed to reflect body heat. Expect some cool night," he says.

The boots, worn over skin-tight socks, are better than I could have ever hoped for. Soft leather not unlike the ones at home. These have a narrow flexible rubber sole with treads though. Good for running.

"There, you're all set. Mover around. Make sure everything feels comfortable."

I walk, run in a circle, swing my arms about. "Yes, it's fine. Fits perfectly."

"Then there's nothing to do but wait for the call," says Teak. "Unless you think you could eat any more?"

I turn down food but accept a glass of water that I take tiny sips of as we wait on a couch. I don't want to chew on my nails or lips, so I find myself gnawing on the inside of my cheek. It still hasn't fully healed from a few days ago. Soon the taste of blood fills my mouth.

Nervousness seeps into terror as I anticipate what is to come. I could be dead, flat-out dead, in an hour. Not even. My fingers obsessively trace the hard little lump on my forearm where the woman injected the tracking device. I press on it, even though it hurts, I press on it hard a small bruise begins to form.

"Do you want to talk, Ember?" Teak asks.

I shake my head but after a moment hold out my hand to him. Teak encloses it in both of his. And this is how we sit until a pleasant female voice announces it's time to prepare for launch.

Still clenching one of Teak's hands, I walk over and stand on the circular metal plate. "Remember what Willow said. Run, find water. The rest will follow," he says. I nod and he leans down and kisses me on the forehead. "Good luck." And then a glass cylinder is lowering around me, breaking our handhold, cutting him off from me. He taps his fingers under his chin. Head high.

I lift my chin and stand as straight as I can. The cylinder begins to rise. For maybe fifteen seconds, I'm in darkness, and then I can feel the metal plate pushing me out of the cylinder, into the open air. For a moment, my eyes are dazzled by the bright sunlight and I'm conscious only of a strong wind with the hopeful smell of pine trees.

Then I hear the legendary announcer, Claudius Templesmith, as his voice booms all around me.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Sixty-seventh Hunger Games begin!"

Sixty seconds. That's how long we're required to stand on our metal circle before the sound of a gong releases us. Step off before the minute is up, and landmines blow your legs off. Sixty seconds to take in the ring of tributes all equal distance from the Cornucopia, a giant golden horn shaped like a cone with a curved tail, the mouth of which is at least twenty feet high, spilling over with the things that will give us life here in the arena. Food, containers of water, weapons, medicine, garments, fire starters. Strewn around the Cornucopia are other supplies, their value decreasing the farther they are from the horn. For instance, only a few steps from my feet lies a three-foot square of plastic. Certainly, it could be of some use in a downpour. But there in the mouth, I can see a tent pack that would protect from almost any sort of weather. If I had the guts to go in and fight for it against the other twenty-three tributes. Which I had been instructed not to do.

We're on a flat, open stretch of ground. A plain of hard-packed dirt. Behind the tributes across from me, I can see nothing, indicating either a steep downward slope or even a cliff. To my right lies a lake. To my left and back, sparse piney woods. This is where Willow would want me to go. Immediately. I hear her instructions in my head. "Just clear out, put as much distance as you can between yourselves and the others, find a source of water."

But it's tempting, so tempting when I see the bounty waiting there before me. And I know that if I don't get it, someone else will. That the Career tributes who survive the bloodbath will divide up most of these life-sustaining spoils. Something catches my eye. There, resting on a mound of blanket rolls, is a silver sheath of arrows and a bow, already strung, just waiting to be engaged.

I'm fast. I can sprint faster than any of the girls in our school although a couple can beat me in distance races. But this forty-yard length, this is what I am built for. I know I can get it, I know I can reach it first, but then the question is how quickly can I get out of there? By the time I've scrambled up the packs and grabbed the weapons, others will have reached the horn, and one or two I might be able to pick off, but say there's a dozen, at that close range, they would take me down with the spears and the clubs. Or their own powerful fists.

Still, I won't be the only target. I'm betting many of the other tributes would pass up a smaller girl, to taking out their more fierce adversaries.

Willow had never seen me run. Maybe if she had she'd tell me to go for it. Get the weapon. Since that's the very weapon that might be my salvation. And I only see one bow in that whole pile. I know the minute must be almost up and will have to decide what my strategy will be and I find myself positioning my feet to run, not away into the surrounding forests but towards the pile, towards the bow. Then the gong sounds.