15 | The Tributes of Seven

4.5K 147 9
                                    

His body lies there, preserved in time forever in the way that only Death can. His long blond hair cascades around his innocent face and his chocolate eyes are dead and unseeing. They will never again experience a sunrise or sunset, never again look into the e/c eyes of the girl he loves. His lips are cold and parched, never to utter another word, or laugh, or smile, or kiss.

Blood spurts out of his chest, and his heart has been punctured in more ways than one.

My eyes snap open from the vivid nightmare to see the light of the rising sun. The vision of Newt's dead body lying there will haunt me for many nights to come. If I live that long.

I sit up in my sleeping bag, panting. Looking up at the sky as the dawn light shines upon me, I realise that I have two choices.

The first is to keep moving forward, either deeper into the forest or into another part of the arena, away from the Cornucopia. This would increase my length of survival because it would mean that the Careers would find it harder to find me, as they usually make camp at the Cornucopia. However, there is a chance that the only water source in the whole arena is from the lake, which would mean that by travelling away from the lake, I would die of thirst.

The second choice is to double back to the Cornucopia and collect water from the lake there, which would mean that the walking I did all day yesterday was a waste. I also wouldn't be able to purify the water, so I might get sick if I drank it, and I wouldn't be able to take the precious liquid away from the lake because I have nothing to carry it with. I could also get killed by the Careers the second I got spotted.

In the end, I decide to keep moving away from the Cornucopia, and hope that there's another water source in the arena somewhere. Following my gut instinct, I stand up and brush myself off as quietly as possible. I roll up the sleeping bag and shove it directly into the backpack, along with the torch and the matches. I slip the backpack across my shoulders and pick up the spear. Shoving my knives into my belt to keep them secure, I take my first step as quietly as possible. I settle into a steady pace after a short amount of time, one step after another.

I walk for roughly half the day, or at least, until the sun is directly above my head, before I start to feel the true pains of thirst and hunger. My throat's dry, my head throbs, and I can barely focus on putting one foot before the other, let alone look out for prey to eat. I've seen one piece of potential prey, a squirrel climbing up a tree, but it scampered up the tree too fast for me to kill. Slowly and painfully, I sink down to my knees, hunched over, my breathing slowing. I haven't had so much as a sip of water for over a day, and I've been walking or running for more than half of that time. My heart pounds before I realise that I can't give up. Not yet. I can't give up because of Newt, because of Father, because of Chuck and because of me. I still have a chance, and I don't want my father and brother to see me lying here on the ground, dying. I don't want Newt to see my face projected in the sky tonight.

Because of this, I find the strength to stand up to my feet. I can't drink, and if I can't find any prey around, I need another way of gathering sustenance. Looking around, the answer comes to me in a flash.

Berries. Plants. Flowers.

I can still live for a little longer. Scanning the area for some sort of edible food source, I find a patch of wild chickweed, which is often found in the woods outside of Twelve. I pull some stems of the white flower-topped herb out of the ground, take a knife out of my belt, and mash it into a sort of paste. Usually, chickweed isn't eaten by itself, and I hunt around the area for something else to eat it with. As I find a patch of wild mushrooms, I ponder this discovery for a moment.

Wild mushrooms can be extremely dangerous if they're not the correct type. I think I recognise this as an edible variety from the Capitol's training. Picking one up carefully and examining it in my hand, I notice its blue tint. I gulp. It looks safe to me, but is it really? There's only one way to find out. Gathering a handful of both chickweed and mushrooms, I look up at the sky. Can I risk a fire in the middle of the day? If I try to keep the flames as enclosed and secretive as possible, I might just be able to manage it.

The Tributes of Twelve | Newt x ReaderWhere stories live. Discover now