I stayed where I was till daylight. No one came out. I was feared now. It was my chance to go explore the structure of this place. I spent the night pondering the note and the rubber glove and I eventually concluded that the structure was probably electrified. As for the note the word clockwork was odd. And the timing of the note was also odd.
Plutarch was overseeing everything that was live at the moment so he probably chose a time when I was the least important thing going on.
"Clockwork" it could either be referring to the weird timing of the note or the location of the note the latter of witch proves the more likely option.
The cornucopia was at the center with twelve rock walls protruding from it in equal increments with a lightning tree striking twelve with twelve lightning strikes and more shriekes of dying tributes.
There is no high ground here, only time. Time was everything this time.
The time the tributes had spent with the experiences of the hunger games under their belts.
The time of day and night.
The time of life.
The time of exploration.
And finally, the time no one else had taken to notice everything here revolved around a standard analog clock.
My only question was would this information be plutarch's killer and my hero?
If only I could speak to him.
I jumped into the water and swam to shore then made the short trek to the end of the arena with my hand outstretched in front of me with the rubber glove on. When I felt the wall of electricity on my finger tips it was odd I was stroking death with only a rubber glove to defend me.
For the next few hours I spent my time feeling the wall for any gaps but the screens were masterfully designed to keep someone like me from getting out.
The more time that passed the more concerned I was for plutarch. They had to have reviewed any footage and seen what I was doing by now and how I got the glove. I was pleading internally that plutarch was good enough at Lying to get out of this. Unless he just deleted everything since he is the game master.
I heard an odd thing in the distance that sounded like shouting and I quickly took the glove off and got my weapons at the ready.
"Y/n?" Someone called.
"Who is it?" I replied moving away from the wall towards the middle of the rainforest.
"Y/n!" The voice got louder, more fearful, more pronounced.
It was Finnick's voice.
"Finnick? Are you guys okay?" I asked.
"Ahhhhhh!" That was the sound of pain. I knew it so well. It made me cry when I heard it. It was the sound of finnick when he got stuck in a night terror and I couldn't wake him.
Why would he be sleeping right now? Why couldn't I hear the others with him? I got my answer a moment later when a jaberjay appeared on a low branch in front of me. I threw a knife at it and it fell back with a knife in its chest.
I could still hear it. It was distant but getting louder. Eventually it was so loud I couldn't hear myself screaming I fell to the ground hugging my trident to my chest as I listened to Finnick's screams making my ears bleed. I couldn't take it.
I would willingly end it rather than listen to this for eternity but I knew it would be worse if I did that so I endured it.
Eventually I built the strength to get up and walk around. I was holding my ears as I paced forward and backward without turning. One moment I was forward and the next I was walking backwards. The wind blowing past my ears sent shivers down my spine as it cooled the hot blood dripping from them. I wonder how this would affect my hearing from now on if the loud noises burst both my ear drums.
I was able to distract myself from the noises by focusing on how much pain I was in. My head was near exploding. Just as I thought i would be doomed to this for eternity it all stopped.
It was official. I hate birds now.
I rushed towards the beach and jumped into the water cleaning my face off from the blood that had dropped from my ears and rolled down my jaw line, chin and neck.
I was all wet again but when has that ever bothered me. Never, the answer is never. If you thought it has bothered me then you're just as stupid as all the tributes I've killed so easily in the last day. I could last years in here if I wanted to but whatever stupid person that decided this would be fun was wrong.
The only thing I got out of what just happened is that there's probably a new challenge that happens each hour meaning if you were in one of the active hours you should go counter clockwise to avoid the next danger.
I'm beginning to become more and more glad that plutarch risked his life to give me that note.
Since my hour was already up it shouldn't revisit until twelve hours later meaning I could either explore and go through some of the other challenges or chill. I noticed my laziness had increased since my last games because I ultimately decided to climb a tall tree and sit there throwing twigs at the invisible wall watching them shrivel and smoke until they were dust.
Of course that got me thinking. What if I chopped a tree down and it fell through the wall? What if I chop down this tree and it falls through the wall.
I pulled out one of the hatchets I used to climb up and used it to climb back. I examined the base of the tree and just as I was about to make the first strike the tree deleted itself.
