No Place Like Home

Part 11

Phil let out a god-almighty scream as he entered the salt water pond, as a sharp pain shot through his body.
He looked at his blistered hands, and saw the blisters start to fade and disappear. He looked around the pond and saw swirls of white milky liquid leak out of his skin.

"Dan," Phil gasped. "Dan, it's the poison. This gets rid of the poison."

Dan was sat, sharpening the axe in his hand with an emotionless expression.
His head shot up when he heard Phil scream though.

Dan dropped his weapon and crawled to the water, every move he made was agony.

Once he entered the water, he couldn't help but mimic Phil's cry.
They grunted as the surface of the water was covered with white liquid, they bathed until the poison was completely out of their system.

Dan slowly left the water, only to realize how much better he felt, and what the poison was doing to his head.
He didn't feel weak, or light-headed anymore.

But the one thing they both hoped, was that Alyssa dying was a hallucination from the fog fumes and poison in their blood.

Phil and Dan both sat down, still panting from the pain as their aching bodies began to calm down.

"Are we gonna talk about it?" Phil asked quietly after a few minutes of horrendous silence.
"About what?" Dan replied after hesitating.
"You know damn well what," Phil said sharply.
Dan paused, "I couldn't save her."
"Yeah," Phil sighed. "I know that. But we can't ignore what happened back there."
"Phil, I know that!" Dan snapped. "But what do you want me to do? What do you want me to say? I can't do anything about it now, and neither can you. She's dead, Phil. She's gone. And it's my fault."
Dan looked down and rested his temple on his fingers, "It's all my fault."

"Hey," Phil said softly. "It's not your fault. You tried all you could. But Alyssa sacrificed herself for us, and we don't have much time. There's only 17 left, I heard more cannons. I'm guessing they died in the fog, Alyssa included. We can do this, Dan. Alyssa completed the first two points of the Hunger Games, courage and sacrifice. She died for us. So we can win. And I'm not letting you give up now."

Dan sighed, and nodded, "You're right. No, you're right. We can't give up now."
Dan was ignoring Phil's use of 'we' in that sentence, and said, "So there's only 15 left to kill."
Phil nodded, "We should keep walking from here, see if we can find some tributes."

Dan paused, "It seems weird doesn't it?"
"What?" Phil asked and knelt to try and start a fire as the cold sun was rising.
"The monkeys," Dan said. "The spinning Cornucopia, the JabberJay's, the fog. They all seem to appear at different times. The monkey's early in the morning, the Cornucopia at noon, the JabberJay's in the middle of the afternoon, the fog in the middle of the night? It's just... weird."

"What are you saying?" Phil asked and looked up at Dan.
"I'm saying that this arena seems to be set out in sections, and each danger is contained in each section, which explains the force-fields. And each time we're in the sections, at a specific time the danger strikes. Like a... like a..." Dan was struggling to find the word.

"A clock?" Phil said as he finally got a fire sparked. "It sounds like you're describing a clock."

"Yes!" Dan exclaimed. "A clock! Perfect! So we need to find a plan to get those tributes in a section at a specific time."
"So, you're saying we use this as an advantage?" Phil asked after wiping his hands on his trousers and sitting down. "To take to down everyone else?"
"Well, not everyone," Dan stated. "But there's no point in luring one or two tributes into poisonous fog, is there? We need to get a group, preferably the most lethal and dangerous ones. They tend to band together."

Phil nodded, "That's sounds like a good plan, but how do we lure them into a section? And which section?"

"Well," Dan said. "We'd have to work out the rest of the sections, the dangers so far seem to be too friendly for the game-maker. We'll see what the other parts of this big clock arena holds, and then figure out which one is the most dangerous. Then whilst we're discovering that, we'll track down an ally of tributes. And after that, one of us will act as bait and lure them into the section and get out quick. If we measure how big the sections are, then we'll know how far to take them in, so that the bait can have an easy exit."

Phil blinked, "Wow, you really thought this through in the last 2 minutes."

Dan chuckled, "I kinda made it up as I went along, but I'm pretty surprised at how good that plan sounded."

Phil smiled, "Well, I don't feel like sleeping, and I'm guessing you don't either. So draw me out a diagram of this plan."