HG OCT Round 1.2: Into the Fire

It's raining at the start.

That feels right, for some reason—feels right in a way nothing else does.  Rhona can barely see where she is, can barely make out the huddled tributes on their platforms around her, silhouettes just shy of visible in the darkness. Underneath her feet, the platform is cold and wet and slippery, and that's good. Gives the whole thing atmosphere. It's got to be night, and it's got to be raining. Like the old horror stories Alvia used to tell.

(Alvia was always good at telling stories. She never left the gory bits out, and when the monster ate its victim in the end she always made the best sound effects.)

This'll make a good story someday, thinks Rhona. She has to think it, or she'll freeze up.

A fork of lightning splits the sky, and for a moment she can see their surroundings in perfect clarity before it's all gone. She's left blinking colored spots from her eyes as the following thunder drowns out the countdown for a moment. But she's seen enough to remember: an open field, grass flattened by the rain. Woods to the left. More fields to the right.

Ahead, bundles of something—definitely supplies—piled a short distance away. Fifty, maybe sixty meters. Easy running. She doesn't have to see the faces of the other Tributes to know they're all thinking the same thing. It calls to them like the deathtrap it has to be.

She'll fall for it, though. She has to, or she won't last two days out in the open. Not without help. And she's cocky enough to think she can make it to the supplies in time.

The question, she decides as the countdown reaches the single digits, as some distant part of her finally understands what Leon meant by not always a District 6 cabbie, is whether or not anyone else is cocky enough to think the same thing.

She's spared having to answer that particular question by the timely intervention of the girl from District 2, who tears something from her neck and hurls it to the ground in front of the District 8 tributes. Moron, Rhona starts to think, but the ensuing explosion forces her to eat her unspoken words immediately.

Gods above, the bloody platforms are mined.

And that, Rho, she thinks to herself as she takes a rolling dive off the platform and the inevitable chain explosion begins, is why you don't underestimate your opponents. Not even the fluttery ones with the genetic liabilities strapped to their backs.

She has to hand it to Girl With Wings, it's a smart move. All the Tributes know the Rackam kid is already a Capitol favorite, the way a mad dog is a favorite in the fighting ring. Better to try and put him down at the start. He's one of those people you shank first and regret later, except without the regretting part. She would've done it herself, except she didn't know about the mines, and she's willing to bet Leon didn't either. He would've told her otherwise, no question. Part of her wonders when she developed that level of trust for a smooth-talking cabbie. The rest of her isn't surprised at all.

Around her chaos is erupting, startled cries and kids tumbling off their own platforms, making for the trees, for the supplies, for anything familiar. Smoke billows stubbornly against the hiss of rain on hot metal, and she can't bloody see, not even to figure out if Wings's little trick worked, and in Rhona's own head something dark is gaping, something she doesn't like to think about.

(The war wasn't all breaking into dead men's houses and sleeping in dead men's beds.)

The air smells like stale sweat and old gunpowder and fresh blood, opening up in her mind like a cavern. Rhona tastes bile in the back of her throat as she stumbles forward through the grass, moving purely by instinct, towards where she remembers the packs were lying. Someone runs into her and she doesn't even lash out, and they don't either, until lightning cracks again and she sees the Lykke kid staring wide-eyed at her.

Lykke confuses her. Anyone who volunteers for this mess confuses her. She doesn't remember his face from the Reaping but she saw the footage afterwards, and the way he pretty much bounced up onstage weirded her out, and everyone in the Capitol was talking about the poor kid from Svanemark and how he and his father were so brave. Except Leon took her aside and told her that he's not from around here. Apparently he thought he was volunteering for something a hell of a lot nicer than dying messily in a pool of his own blood, so maybe he's not insane or brave, just stupid.

She'll bet real, actual money she hasn't got that he hasn't said ten words to her in the entire time they've known each other.

Leon doesn't want her to take care of him. It's nothing against Lykke himself. Leon's got something against the other District 6 mentor, says he's a dangerous man. Did bad things in the war that make Leon's eyes go wild and angry. She understands that.

What she also understands is that sometimes Leon can piss right off, because Lykke might confuse her but he also reminds her of Kansen, just a little bit, and she's willing to bet he'll last even less time than she will, out on his own like this.

If he dies—when he dies, it's not going to be her fault. Not unless he tries to shank her first. She's figured out that much.

He's got a smudge of dirt on his face and his pretty-boy hair is plastered against his head. Never mind that. A little grime is healthy. "Stick close," she tells him. "We're getting out of here."

He says something she doesn't understand. She ignores it and seizes him by the wrist and yanks him forward. Not a lot of kids have headed for the supplies—most of them must have panicked. But there are a few indistinct figures up ahead and the sound of voices raised in anger, so the killing's probably already started. It doesn't stop her running toward the supplies anyway.

And it's not just supplies dotting the field ahead of her, she realizes. It's weapons, laid out in neat rows, shining wet with the rain. They must really want them to get started right away.

Lykke tugs at her arm and says something that sounds like "Veeper icky vair here."

"You're not even saying actual words," Rhona grits out crossly, and drags him on.

It's too dark to make out the contents of any of the packs, even if she had time to look through them. By now Lykke seems to have gotten the idea, even if he manages to look both terrified and frustrated at the same time. Rhona's pretty sure her own face doesn't look much better, but it's better not to think about that now. The kids who are already at the supplies are too busy trying to stay alive to take much notice of them. They grab a pack each and turn to run they-don't-know-where.

Rhona should expect the punch when it comes, even if she doesn't see it coming. She's spent enough time on the streets to know better, to keep on her toes all the time. But the rain's coming down in sheets, and her ears are still ringing with the sound of explosions, and so the fist drives into her side without warning, sending her tumbling face-down in the mud.

She rolls instinctively to the side, pushing herself up on her elbows, and she's rewarded by the sound of something heavy and sharp slicing into the wet ground just short of her head. She looks up: one of the older Tributes, his blond hair hanging in his face in strands, partially obscuring his flat smile as he tugs the machete free. District 2, her brain supplies. Ward. The other mad dog.

Lykke's shouting something at her, and she has just enough time to bark "Run!" at him before she has to devote all of her attention to not getting hacked open. The pack slows her down a little, but she's not letting go of it. If she drops it now, she'll just die later, and hell if she's dying at all.

It's rough going. Her bare feet slip on the grass, the sheer amount of noise around her is disorienting, and she's not sure if the obscuring rain is helping Ward more, or her. Hopefully her. His machete rises and falls in a gleaming arc, and without thinking she brings her forearms up, still clutching the bag. There's a tearing sound, and something falls out of the bag and bounces into the mist.

She lets out an angry hiss, too busy trying to stay alive to speak, and Ward knocks the bag aside and she's not sure she can dodge this time—

—which is when something clocks him on the back of the head and he turns to glare at the darkness. There's another flash of steel, something she can't quite identify, and Ward whirls and lunges for it, machete gripped tightly in his hands.

"Hey, kid," says a hoarse voice. "You might want to follow your own advice."

Rhona doesn't need to be told twice. Lightning flashes, giving her half a second to get her bearings: no sign of Lykke, a crumpled body not three feet away, and the outline of ruins on the horizon.

Well, it'll be familiar, at the very least. She shoulders her pack and runs.