第57章
my eyes fly open and i dig
my fingers into the earth. it is mud! my nose lifts in the air.
and those are lilies! pond lilies!
i crawl now, through the mud, dragging myself toward the
scent. five yards from where i fell, i crawl through a tangle of
plants into a pond. floating on the top, yellow flowers in
bloom, are my beautiful lilies.
it’s all i can do not to plunge my face into the water and
gulp down as much as i can hold. but i have jus enough sense
left to abstain. with trembling hands, i get out my flask and fill
it with water. i add what i remember to be the right number of
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drops of iodine for purifying it. the half an hour of waiting is
agony, but i do it. at least,
i think it’s a half an hour, but it’s certainly as long as i can
stand.
slowly, easy now, i tell myself. i take one swallow and make
myself wait. then another. over the next couple of hours, i
drink the entire half gallon. then a second. i prepare another
before i retire to a tree where i continue sipping, eating rab-
bit, and even indulge in one of my precious crackers. by the
time the anthem plays, i feel remarkably better. there are no
faces tonight, no tributes died today. tomorrow i’ll stay here,
resting, camouflaging my backpack with mud, catching some
of those little fish i saw as i sipped, digging up the roots of the
pond lilies to make a nice meal. i snuggle down in my sleeping
bag, hanging on to my water bottle for dear life, which, of
course, it is.
a few hours later, the stampede of feet shakes me from
slumber. i look around in bewilderment. it’s not yet dawn, but
my stinging eyes can see it.
it would be hard to miss the wall of fire descending on me.
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my first impulse is to scramble from the tree, but i’m belted
in. somehow my fumbling fingers release the buckle and i fall
to the ground in a heap, still snarled in my sleeping bag.
there’s no time for any kind of packing. fortunately, my
backpack and water bottle are already in the bag. i shove in
the belt, hoist the bag over my shoulder, and flee.
the world has transformed to flame and smoke. burning
branches crack from trees and fall in showers of sparks at my
feet. all i can do is follow the others, the rabbits and deer and i
even spot a wild dog pack shooting through the woods. i trust
their sense of direction because their instincts are sharper
than mine. but they are much faster, flying through the un-
derbrush so gracefully as my boots catch on roots and fallen
tree limbs, that there’s no way i can keep apace with them.
the heat is horrible, but worse than the heat is the smoke,
which threatens to suffocate me at any moment. i pull the top
of my shirt up over my nose, grateful to find it soaked in
sweat, and it offers a thin veil of protection. and i run, chok-
ing, my bag banging against my back, my face cut with
branches that materialize from the gray haze without warn-
ing, because i know i am supposed to run.
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this was no tribute’s campfire gone out of control, no acci-
dental occurrence. the flames that bear down on me have an
unnatural height, a uniformity that marks them as human-
made, machine-made, gamemaker-made. things have been
too quiet today. no deaths, perhaps no fights at all. the au-
dience in the capitol will be getting bored, claiming that these
games are verging on dullness. this is the one thing the
games must not do.
it’s not hard to follow the gamemakers’ motivation. there
is the career pack and then there are the rest of us, probably
spread far and thin across the arena. this fire is designed to
flush us out, to drive us together. it may not be the most origi-
nal device i’ve seen, but it’s very, very effective.
i hurdle over a burning log. not high enough. the tail end of
my jacket catches on fire and i have to stop to rip it from my
body and stamp out the flames. but i don’t dare leave the
jacket, scorched and smoldering as it is, i take the risk of shov-
ing it in my sleeping bag, hoping the lack of air will quell what
i haven’t extinguished. this is all i have, what i carry on my
back, and it’s little enough to survive with.
in a matter of minutes, my throat and nose are burning. the
coughing begins soon after and my lungs begin to feel as if
they are actually being cooked. discomfort turns to distress
until each breath sends a searing pain through my chest. i
manage to take cover under a stone outcropping just as the
vomiting begins, and i lose my meager supper and whatever
water has remained in my stomach. crouching on my hands
and knees, i retch until there’s nothing left to come up.
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i know i need to keep moving, but i’m trembling and light-
headed now, gasping for air. i allow myself about a spoonful of
water to rinse my mouth and spit then take a few swallows
from my bottle. you get one minute, i tell myself. one minute to
rest. i take the time to reorder my supplies, wad up the sleep-
ing bag, and messily stuff everything into the backpack. my
minute’s up. i know it’s time to move on, but the smoke has
clouded my thoughts. the swift-footed animals that were my
compass have left me behind. i know i haven’t been in this
part of the woods before, there were no sizable rocks like the
one i’m sheltering against on my earlier travels. where are the
gamemakers driving me?