The Incoming Storm: The Tale of the 325th Hunger Games

Chapter 23

My forearms burn, but I don't have time to tend to myself. I get up and run but I'm thrown backward! My backpack is stuck to the web! I whirl around cutting myself free, just as another web slams into the side of my bag. I am ripped to the side and collapse again.

I cut the web before rising this time and continued sprinting. Eventually, the web ropes stop firing, I have cleared the trap. This means that I am either very close to another tribute, or very close to another trap. I take a moment to stab my machetes into the ground, wipe my sweaty palms on my pants, before picking them back up.

I purposefully move forward as the sky above grows purple and navy. I am distracted as a bird flies directly into a spider web and becomes trapped. I barely have time to register that Adore and Bea are battling just a couple of yards in front of me.

The remaining careers surround the two, cheering for Adore. Bea spins, dropping to her knees, slashing Adores leg. Adore collapses to the ground, as Bea springs back up. Adore doesn't let Bea escape though, instead, she kicks her with her good leg knocking her to the ground. They struggle for a moment, before Adore's machete is buried in Bea's chest. Bea's cannon fires.

I run, just as Adore looks up. "Nine! Look!" she screams.

Footsteps are behind me, yelling and crashing through the darkening woods. I have gotten a far enough head start that they can't find me right away, "Split up and find her!" Clementine yells. I zigzag my way through clearings and the maze of webs. Someone is on my tail, they are making large thundering steps though. I think it's Adore, her leg injury must be pretty bad.

A tree with large branches and relatively few webs catches my attention, I clip my machetes to my belt, and I scale it. I look below and see Adore, she looks nothing like she did at the beginning of the games. The right side of her face is red and blistered, the blonde hair on that side is singed and short. Bruises and cuts cover her body, and her leg has a gaping cut in it.

"Come down so I can kill you," she hisses. It strikes me how quiet she is talking.

"No," I say, clinging to the tree for dear life.

"Don't make me come up there," she says, putting her backpack against the tree. Why is she whispering?

"Speak up," I say, I try to think of something witty, "You gotta be more confident if you want to kill me."

"Oh, I am confident," Adore says, twirling her machete in her hand, "I just don't want my friends to hear us or they'll come to poach my kill."

This girl is a monster, I think. But I can maybe use this to my advantage, if I think of a way to escape, I only have to fight her, not all four of them. I try to think of something, some way to throw her off, some way to get out of here without dying.

"Remind me your name again," I say in a hushed tone. I know his name but I have an idea.

"Adore," she sneers.

"A door? Where?" I say, I pretend to search for something, squinting to look extra dramatic.

"Shut the hell up, my name is Adore you, idiot," she says. She starts to climb the tree, but the moment she tries to hoist herself up with her bag legs she yelps in pain.

"They don't usually put a door in the arena," I say, "That's the whole point." I think I hear the audience laughing back in the Capitol. They love this stuff.

Adore stomps her good foot and walks over to be right under me. At first, I have no clue what she's doing, but then I see her holding her machete-like she held the spear back in training. "I told you to shut up," she says. I have only a second to react as she hurls the blade towards me, I let go, dropping a couple of feet down the tree. My forearms are scraped by the bark, a minor injury compared to what the machete would have done.

I look at the blade now embedded in the tree above me. "Well that wasn't very smart was it?" I say to her.

Adore opens her mouth to say something, I reach for my machete blade, holding onto the trunk with only my legs. I aim myself the best I can and let go. I fall about six feet before Adore breaks my fall. The blade, which I aimed down, impact her, sending geysers of blood from her face and shoulder.

She lets out a muffled scream and collapses breaking my fall. I roll off her pulling my machetes from the enormous wounds left behind. She is barely breathing. I see one of her eyes looking through her bloody hair staring at me. I want to say sorry to her, he looks scared, but I can't.

I turn and run into the woods. A minute or so later I hear her cannon, a couple of seconds later I hear an angry cry of a career who must have found her body.

I run for almost half an hour before the anthem begins to play. Above, Adore appears in the sky, restored to her former beauty, followed by Bea. My whole body aches from the ordeal. My soul aches too. Who have I become?

I think about how I must look right now, starved, covered in cuts, bruises, and scrapes, coated in layer after layer of grime, dirt, tomato, blood, webs. I wish I could crawl out from my own skin. I decide to spend the morning tomorrow doing my best to clean myself.

I'm not tired, so I decide to walk for another hour or two. When the adrenaline finally wears off, I find a good place to sleep. It is a small opening, probably originally made by some animal, but it's abandoned now. I wedge myself into it and go to bed. Tonight, I have nightmares about Adore.