A Game Of False Fates ✭ Cato Hadley

Twenty-Five - Quite The Catch

July 19th

It's mid afternoon by the time Clio makes it back downstairs. The three remaining career tributes spent the night hunting for their bomber overnight, traipsing through the forest with their night vision goggles and laying traps the best they can. The four District Two mentors had taken it in turns to watch the arena cameras overnight, each sleeping in shifts much like their tributes decided on doing once they made it back to the cornucopia as the sun started to rise; unsuccessful in finding their assailant. Now, they're all standing together as they decide where to go next.

Clio finds herself surprised that they've stuck together this long; surprised that Ajax hasn't given in to his impulses and attacked Marvel yet. Though she supposes that they're waiting to eliminate the other threats - Thresh and Katniss - both of which are still out there, hidden away in the trees and the long grass.

Then the main camera flicks to Katniss, whose ear has conveniently stopped bleeding, due to the inactivity of the other tributes. She's obviously lost some of her hearing because her body is favouring her right side, tipping her ear up and tilting her head to her left as she carefully makes her way through the trees. She's leaving behind a trail of boot prints and animal bones that she's making no effort to conceal in whatever state of disorientation she's in, and Haymitch can be heard sighing.

They follow her for an hour or so until the camera's cut to Rue, who is trapped in a tree at the edge of the treeline. The boy from District Ten is camped out only a few trees away from her, leaning his back up against the trunk of a larger tree as he watches the three tributes around the cornucopia and waits for them to make a move. The young girl can't risk moving along the ground, so she carefully, quietly leaps a few trees over and then she spots movement on the forest floor. The camera can't quite pick what the motion is due to the speed of it, but whatever it is has Rue deciding to risk singing to the birds above her again. A simple four note tune. A tune that is repeated back by the birds in a melodic whistle

The camera centres on Katniss once more as she grins, her eyes lifting up into the trees as more and more of the birds begin to sing. Then the girl starts to sing back, and the slight increase in volume in the older girl's tone has lots of the birds repeating the notes louder than before.

In the centre of the arena, Clove's head lifts to one side.

"Do you hear that?" She asks, silencing the discussion the two male tributes were having.

"What?"

"Listen." She instructs with a sigh.

And they do. The soft notes of the birds in two distinct tones. There's not much to go off, but it indicates that there's some form of life in the jungle. Without so much as a word, they grab their weapons from the heaps beside them and run in the direction of the birds.

With the camera back on Rue, the narration of Claudius Templesmith is so downright annoying that Clio finds herself wishing that the man would just shut his mouth for one second, and let them hear the exact sounds of the arena. The young girl smiles and it seems as if she's let her guard down because she climbs down to a lower branch and drops out of the tree as quietly as possible. She looks into the trees, not watching where she's going.

"No! Watch out!" The girl's mentor - Seeder, Clio thinks her name is though she's never so much as introduced herself to her this past year - shouts. But, the woman's warning does no good of course. Her tribute can't hear her from inside the Capitol, and even if she could, it would've been unlikely to make a difference, because the older woman has spotted it only a second before it unfolds due to seeing several other tributes attempt the very same thing ever since Finnick's win. Rue steps on a masterfully hidden branch, one which has been curved into a spring trap. The instant that her foot comes in contact with the branch, it drops a net on her from above and she screams.