10: {The Second Day}

It's still dark out when I wake up. The shouts and screams have faded away, though I know that the Careers will still be on the move.

I sit up, and move my limbs to warm them up. It's freezing cold, as it must be during the nights, and though the blanket is warm, it's not warm enough to keep me from becoming stiff. I'll have to find some other way to keep the cold away.

After I rub my legs and arms, I eat a few crackers and take my boomerang to go out hunting. When I emerge from my bush, the sun is coming up over the mountains, turning the woods golden. A light dusting of snow has fallen overnight. I go hunting again, this time scaling trees in search of bird's nests. I find a few, and carry the eggs back down to my shelter.

A cannon startles me out of my relaxed state. I prick up my head, and that's when I realize my problem. My hair. It's always been a flaming red, and that's bad for camouflage. I scrape away the snow from the ground and spit on the brown earth. I work the dirt into a mud, adding my saliva as needed. When I've got a good bunch, I smear the mud onto my hair, working it from my roots to my tips, like a shampoo.

When I'm satisfied, I pack up my bag, loading the food in on the top and putting the boomerang into it's sling over my shoulder, and my sword (without the sheath) in my belt. I spread snow over my tracks in the bush, hoist the pack onto my back, and head off in the direction of mountain.

My objective is to find the Careers. And kill them, one by one. I know that they must be going after the remaining tributes, myself included. My only problem is that I don't know any of their other allies. Has Kirwan joined up with them? It seems like a good allegiance, at least for Ebb and the rest.

My thoughts are interrupted by voices. I drop silently to the ground and roll behind a fallen tree. The underbrush has become more sparse the higher I go. Which means less room for cover. The voices get louder. I pull my boomerang from it's sheath, ready to throw. But I listen first. There are two voices: a boy's and a girl's.

"D'you think they'll come after us?" That's the girl.

"Yeah," the boy says. "You think they're just going to let us go free? After you threw that stone at Illan's hand? I bet most of his fingers are broken." It must be the two tributes from District 11. I remember seeing the girl picking up stones from the ground and launching them at whoever came near her. She's pretty young, maybe twelve or thirteen.

Now she laughs. "His allies aren't going to be happy about that." Their footsteps stop. "Did you hear that?" asks the boy. "Yes," she whispers. "I wonder-" And then there's a loud roar and screams. Getting closer. I get up, my heart pounding, and scan the woods for the two tributes. But I see the mutt first.

It's hideous. It's body is proportioned like a giant cat, but it's head is all wrong. A snake-like head, complete with slitted pupils and four foot long fangs. And the whole creature is a mottled gray-white color. So it blends in with the mountain and the snow, I realize. It's sitting on top of a huge boulder, waving it's head back and forth, as if choosing between the two tributes. I realize with a gut-wrenching twist that the boy's arm is mangled horribly and smoke is sizzling off of the wound. The girl stares, horrified, into the gray eyes of the mutt.

With one quick flick of my wrist, my boomerang flies towards the creature, cutting through leaves and branches as it goes. It hits the thing square on the shoulder and embeds itself there. The mutt's head turns in my direction, and it hisses. It crouches, ready to pounce, when, WHACK, a good sized stone hits it in the eye.

The girl from 11 is the cause of the stone. Her partner has long since fallen to the ground, blood leaking from his arm, turning the snow beneath him red. His cannon sounds, and I leap over the log, my sword drawn, and run towards the creature, which is advancing on the scared girl. I slash at the mutt's back leg, drawing black blood that sizzles when it hits the snow. I duck to avoid the sprays of blood pouring from the beast.

It turns it's face to me, and spits. I drop to the ground, and the gob of green flies over me, hitting a tree, the trunk of which begins to smoke. The tribute from 11 has regained her sense, and is whacking the creature over and over with her friend's club, which is at least half her size.

The mutt, bruised, wounded, and thoroughly annoyed at my survival, snakes it's head around in a split second and spits at the girl. It hits her square in the face, and she starts to scream her head off, falling away from it. The mutt leaps on top of her, but I'm there first, swinging my sword down to chop it's head off. It falls to the ground, one of it's paws still around the girl from 11.

I run to her side, but it's clearly too late. She twitches and writhes, but there's nothing I can do. Half of her face has been burned away by the mutt's deadly spit, and her remaining eye is bloody. The rest of the skin on her face is a bright red. She whispers something, and as I lean my head in, I can catch one last word. "Run."

I heed her bidding, sprinting from the clearing. At the last second, I remember my boomerang, and rush back. In the few seconds that I've left her, the entire tribute's remains have turned a burning scarlet. I pull the boomerang out of the mutt with a squelch, and take off. Behind me, there is an explosion, and a column of fire spurts into the air where the girl's body should have been. The cannon booms, and I see two hovercraft materialize to take the bodies of the tributes of District 11 home for the last time.

I run and run through the forest, fleeing from the mountains that I thought would provide me shelter. The fire is sure to have alerted the Careers to the spot, and sooner or later they'll come crashing through the woods to find any survivors. That would be me.

I reach a small brook, and splash through the water. On the other side, I find a clearing covered in ferns. I flop down among them and wait. A few hours later, I let myself sit up and collect myself. I have a few slashes across my face from the branches, but they'll heal. My sword arm is not so lucky. Some of the blood of the mutt must have grazed me somehow, because there is a shiny burn on my right shoulder. I take out my medicine kit, wincing, and slather some of the paste over it. There is instant relief. I bandage my arm and set about having breakfast. Or, lunch by now.

I eat 1/3 of the bread, along with some cheese and crackers. I've kept the rabbit and the eggs for tonight's dinner. Speaking of, I should get moving again. I don't want the Careers to catch me. I get up and move on.

No rest for the weary, and all that.