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My first impulse is to scramble froers release the buckle and I fall to the ground in a heap, still snarled inFortunately,I shove in the belt, hoist the bag over my shoulder, and flee

The world has transfor branches crack from trees and fall in showers of sparks at my feet All I can do is follow the others, the rabbits and deer and I even spot a wild dog pack shooting through the woods I trust their sense of direction because their instincts are sharper than h the underbrush so gracefully as my boots catch on roots and fallen tree limbs, that there&039;s no way I can keep apace with them

The heat is horrible, but worse than the heat is the smoke, which threatens to suffocate me at any rateful to find it soaked in sweat, and it offers a thin veil of protection And I run, choking, ainst ray haze without warning, because I know I am supposed to run

This was no tribute&039;s caone out of control, no accidental occurrence The flaht, a uniformity that s have been too quiet today No deaths, perhaps no fights at all The audience in the Capitol will be getting bored, clai on dullness This is the one thing the Games must not do

It&039;s not hard to follow the Gamemakers&039; motivation There is the Career pack and then there are the rest of us, probably spread far and thin across the arena This fire is designed to flush us out, to drive us together It inal device I&039;ve seen, but it&039;s very, very effective

I hurdle over a burning log Not high enough The tail end of my jacket catches on fire and I have to stop to rip it from my body and stamp out the flames But I don&039;t dare leave the jacket, scorched and s it inthe lack of air will quell what I haven&039;t extinguished This is all I have, what I carry on h to survive with

In a hing begins soon after andcooked Disco pain throughjust as the voer supper and whatever water has re onleft to co, but I&039; for air I allow myself about a spoonful of water to rinse my et one minute, I tell myself One minute to rest I take the ti, andinto the backpack My minute&039;s up I know it&039;s tihts The swift-footed animals that were my compass have left me behind I know I haven&039;t been in this part of the woods before, there were no sizable rocks like the one I&039;ainst onme? Back to the lake? To a whole new terrain filled with new dangers? I had just found a few hours of peace at the pond when this attack began Would there be any way I could travel parallel to the fire and work my way back there, to a source of water at least? The wall of fire must have an end and it won&039;t burn indefinitely Not because the Gaain, that would invite accusations of boredoet back behind the fire line, I could avoidup with the Careers I&039;ve just decided to try and loop back around, although it will require miles of travel away from the inferno and then a very circuitous route back, when the first fireball blasts into the rock about two feet froized by renewed fear

The ga, now the audience will get to see soround, not taking ti it in flames To remain still is death I&039;round where I was lying, sending a pillar of fire up behind e the attacks I can&039;t see where they&039;re being launched froles are not extrement of the woods has been armed with precision launchers that are concealed in trees or rocks Somewhere, in a cool and spotless rooers that could end my life in a second All that is needed is a direct hit

Whatever vague plan I had conceived regarding returning toand dive and leap to avoid the fireballs Each one is only the size of an apple, but packs treoes into overdrive as the need to survive takes over There&039;s no tie if a move is the correct one When there&039;s a hiss, I act or die

Soh A lifetier Gaed for certain attacks And that if I can just get away froht be able to ht also then fall straight into a pit of vipers, but I can&039;t worry about that now

How long I scra the fireballs I can&039;t say, but the attacks finally begin to abate Which is good, because I&039;ain This time it&039;s an acidic substance that scalds my throat and makes its way into my nose as well I&039; desperately to rid itself of the poisons I&039;ve been sucking in during the attack I wait for the next hiss, the next signal to bolt It doesn&039;t co has squeezed tears out ofeyes My clothes are drenched in sweat Soh the sed hair My hand fumbles to my braid and finds a fireball has seared off at least six inches of it Strands of blackened hair cruers I stare at theisters

My h this tiround ate I twist and scuttle backward onto reh sense, I roll the leg back and forth on the ground, which stifles the worst of it But then, without thinking, I rip away the reround, a few yards fro,too hard to move If the Gamemakers want to finish me off, now is the ties of rich fabric and sparkling geh the Ga over that one Perhaps, Cinna&039;s beautiful costuht on this particular torture for me I know he couldn&039;t have foreseen this,for me because, in fact, I believe he cares aboutup stark naked in that chariot would have been safer for me

The attack is now over The Gamemakers don&039;t want me dead Not yet anyway Everyone knows they could destroy us all within seconds of the opening gong The real sport of the Hunger Ga the tributes kill one another Every so often, they do kill a tribute just to remind the players they can Butone another face-to-face Whichfired at, there is at least one other tribute close at hand

I would drag myself into a tree and take cover now if I could, but the sh to kill in to lihts up the sky It does not see black clouds

Another light, daylight, begins to softly ee Swirls of smoke catch the sunbeams My visibility is poor I can see maybe fifteen yards in any direction A tribute could easily be concealed from me here I should draw my knife as a precaution, but I doubtThe pain in my hands can in no way compete with that in my calf I hate burns, have always hated the a pan of bread from the oven It is the worst kind of pain tolike this

I&039;m so weary I don&039;t even notice I&039;-fed, bubbling up out of a crevice in soe my hands into the shalloater and feel instant relief Isn&039;t that what my mother always says? The first treatment for a burn is cold water? That it draws out the heat? But she means minor burns Probably she&039;d recoh I have not yet had the courage to exa that it&039;s an injury in a whole different class