The Capitol medicine had worked wonders on my burns. After just two days, the raw, blistered skin across my back and shoulders had healed to pink, tender new tissue. It still hurt when I moved carelessly, but the debilitating pain was gone, replaced by manageable discomfort that I could push through when necessary.
"I still can't believe how well it's healing," Madge commented as she applied the last of the ointment to a particularly stubborn spot between my shoulder blades. Her touch was gentle, careful around the most sensitive areas that made me feel ticklish.
"This would have taken weeks at home, even with my mother's best remedies."
"Capitol technology," I said, rolling my shoulders experimentally. "One of the few benefits of having sponsors."
Rue, who was keeping watch at the edge of our shelter, looked over with a small grin. "The medicine is better than our leaves, but the leaves helped too," she said, a hint of pride in her voice.
"They absolutely did," I assured her, grateful for both treatments.
The herbal poultice she and Madge had applied immediately after the fire attack had likely prevented infection until the Capitol medicine arrived. "I wouldn't have made it without your help."
Once Madge finished with the medicine, I carefully pulled on the thermal shirt from my pack, replacing my ruined jacket. My mind was already shifting from recovery to strategy.
The fire had driven us to a new section of the arena, closer to the lake and Cornucopia—and by design, closer to the Career pack. We needed to understand our position and the threats around us.
"We need to know exactly where we are," I said, testing my range of motion. Full mobility had returned, though certain movements still sent twinges of discomfort across my healing skin. "Rue, could you climb up and get a better view?"
She nodded eagerly, immediately moving to a tall pine at the edge of our thicket. With impressive agility, she scaled the trunk, disappearing into the branches until only occasional glimpses of her dark clothing revealed her position. After a few minutes, she descended with the same fluid grace.
"The lake is about half a mile that way," she reported, pointing southeast. "I can see the Cornucopia glinting in the sun, and the Career camp on the far shore. There's smoke from a cooking fire."
"Any sign of them moving around?" Madge asked.
Rue shook her head. "No movement around the camp. They might be out hunting."
I considered this information, comparing it with what I remembered from the original storyline. The Careers had established their base at the lake, protecting their massive supply stockpile with the reactivated mines. Their greatest advantage was their monopoly over the Cornucopia supplies. If we could eliminate that advantage...
"We need to see their camp up close," I decided. "Understand exactly how they've set things up."
"Is that a good idea?" Madge questioned, concern evident in her voice. "You're still recovering, and they'll be actively hunting for us after the fire drove us in this direction."
"I'm well enough," I assured her, not entirely truthfully. "And information is crucial right now. The Careers' greatest advantage is their control of the supplies. If we can understand their operation, maybe we can find a way to level the playing field."
Rue's eyes lit up with understanding. "You want to destroy their supplies."
"I'm thinking about it," I smirked playfully. "But first, we need reconnaissance."
We moved cautiously through the forest, keeping to the densest cover available. Rue led the way, her natural nimble body setting our standard.
I insisted on bringing up the rear despite their protests that my injured state made me vulnerable. The truth was, I wanted them ahead of me where I could keep an eye on both of them, make sure they were safe. The burning branch had been a cold reminder of how quickly danger could strike.
When we neared the lake, Rue guided us to a dense thicket that offered good visibility while keeping us hidden in the vegetation. From our vantage point, the Career operation was clearly visible. They had arranged their supplies in a neat pyramid about thirty yards from the main camp, which consisted of several small tents near the lake shore. Just as Rue had described. The disturbed earth around the pyramid indicated the presence of mines, which was a deadly perimeter designed to protect their resources.
The boy from District 3 sat near the supply pyramid but at a safe distance, while the other Careers were nowhere to be seen.
"How did they reactivate the mines?" Madge whispered, studying the arrangement.
"The platforms we stood on during the countdown," I explained quietly, drawing on my knowledge of the original story. "The mines are deactivated after the gong sounds, but they're still in the ground. The boy from Three must have figured out how to rearm them, then dug them up and replanted them around their supplies."
"Ingenious," she acknowledged. "No one can approach without getting blown up."
"Except them," Rue added. "They must have a safe path to the supplies."
I nodded, watching as the District 3 boy occasionally rose to retrieve something from the pyramid, following what appeared to be a specific, memorized route. "He's the key. He knows the safe path because he's the one who placed the mines."
We observed the camp for nearly an hour, noting patterns and details. The boy from Three appeared to be alone for the day, left to guard while the others hunted. The supply pyramid contained everything from weapons to food to medical supplies. It was practically a veritable treasure trove that gave the Careers their edge in the arena.
"If we could destroy those supplies..." Madge murmured thoughtfully.
"We'd level the playing field," I finished. "Without their stockpile, the Careers would have to hunt for food and medicine like the rest of us. Their training doesn't include many survival skills—they're used to having everything provided."
"But how?" Rue asked practically. "We can't just walk up to it without triggering the mines."
I studied the setup, my mind working through the possibilities. Katniss had dropped a bag of apples onto the mines, creating a chain reaction. But we didn't have her bow and arrows for a distance attack. We needed a different approach.
A plan formed in my mind. "The Careers leave their base to hunt during the day, but they always leave the boy from Three to guard."
"Right," Rue confirmed. "He's too valuable because of the mines."
"So we need two things," I continued. "One, we need to draw the Careers away from their camp. Two, we need to get the District Three boy away from the supplies long enough for someone to trigger the mines from a safe distance."
Madge caught on immediately. "Distractions. Something to pull them in different directions."
"You got it." I turned to Rue. "You mentioned in training that you know how to make smoke signals, right? With special wood that creates a lot of smoke?" I asked like I didn't already know she does.
Rue nodded eagerly. "We use it in the orchards sometimes, to signal when the day's work is done. I've seen similar wood here in the arena."
"That's perfect," I said. "Here's the plan: Madge sets up three fires at different locations, lighting them one after another to make the Careers think someone is moving through the forest."
"They'd split up to investigate," Madge reasoned. "Leaving only the boy from Three at camp."
"Then," I continued, turning to Rue, "you appear at the edge of the clearing—just enough for him to spot you but not close enough for him to catch you. Lead him away from the camp, just for a few minutes, then disappear in the trees."
Rue's expression became serious as she considered her role. "I can do that. I'm fast."
"While he's distracted," I finished, "I'll get close enough to trigger one of the mines. Just one should be enough—the explosion will set off the others in a chain reaction."
"A good plan," Madge said, sounding impressed despite her obvious concern. "But it's also dangerous. If anything goes wrong..."
"That's why we plan carefully," I said carefully, trying to reassure her. "Precise timing, clear escape routes, and a designated meeting point afterward."
We spent the rest of the day in preparation. Rue showed us which wood created the dense smoke she'd described, and we gathered three piles, ready to be transported to the chosen fire sites.
I collected several heavy rocks of different sizes, testing each one for weight and throwing potential. We mapped out the fire locations, Rue's distraction route, and my approach path to the supplies.
Most importantly, we established a clear meeting point—a section of the stream about half a mile upstream from the lake, far enough from the Career camp to be safe but recognizable enough that we could all find it.
"We meet at the stream by sunset," I emphasized as we finalized the plan.
The anthem played as darkness fell, but no faces appeared in the sky—no deaths today. The Gamemakers would be getting impatient again. Our plan to destroy the Career supplies might actually work in our favor beyond the strategic advantages; it would provide the spectacle the Capitol audience craved, potentially buying us some peace afterward.
We took turns sleeping and keeping watch, the routine now familiar and comforting. During my shift, I found myself repeatedly checking on my sleeping companions, reassuring myself of their continued safety. Rue's small form curled tightly as always, while Madge had taken to sleeping with one arm extended toward the younger girl, protective even in unconsciousness.
Morning arrived with fog rolling through the forest, a thick mist that limited visibility to about twenty yards. It was perfect cover for our operation, though it would make navigation more challenging.
"The fog helps us," I observed as we ate a quick breakfast. "The Careers will have trouble tracking the source of the fires, and it will hide our movements."
"It also makes it harder for us to find our way back to the meeting point," Madge pointed out.
"Use the sun," Rue suggested. "Even through fog, you can tell its general direction. And listen for the stream—water sounds carry well in mist."
We finalized our plan over breakfast. Madge would set up the three fire sites, with clear paths marked between them so she could light them in sequence. After starting the last fire, she would head directly to our meeting point. Rue would position herself near the Career camp, ready to distract the District 3 boy once the Careers left to investigate the fires. I would circle around to a position near the supply pyramid, wait for Rue's distraction, then trigger the mines.
We each prepared our packs with only essential items, knowing speed would be crucial once the operation began. I insisted that Madge take the remaining burn medicine, concerned that the fires might draw unwanted Gamemaker attention.
"Keep it," she argued. "Your burns aren't fully healed."
"They're healed enough," I insisted. "And if something goes wrong with the fires, you might need it more than me."
She reluctantly accepted, tucking the small jar into her pocket.
Before we separated, I found myself unusually anxious. The plan was solid, but splitting up in the arena carried inherent risks. I pulled them both close in a brief huddle.
"Listen," I said, my voice low and serious. "This plan depends on timing and distraction. If anything feels wrong, anything at all, abort immediately. The supplies aren't worth any of our lives."
They nodded, and I was struck by the resolve in both their young faces. Rue, only twelve but with the focus of someone much older. Madge, who had transformed from the mayor's sheltered daughter into a survivor with surprising efficiency.
"We meet at the stream by sunset, no matter what," Madge confirmed.
"Stay alive," Rue added with grim practicality.
With that, we separated into the fog, each heading toward our assigned positions. Madge moved off with her bundle of smoke-producing wood to set up the fire sites, while Rue circled toward a position where she could observe the Career camp and be ready for her distraction. I took a wide route around the lake, aiming for a concealed position from which I could approach the supply pyramid once the time was right.
The fog provided excellent concealment, but also disoriented me more than I'd expected. Without clear landmarks, I had to navigate carefully to avoid blundering too close to the Career camp before the plan was in motion.
Eventually, I found a suitable location. It was a dense thicket about a hundred yards from the supply pyramid, with good visibility of both the Career camp and Rue's planned approach route.
I settled in to wait, the heavy rocks I'd selected for throwing arranged beside me in order of size. Now came the hardest part—patience.
The arena was unnervingly quiet in the fog, sounds muffled and distances difficult to judge. I found myself straining to hear anything that might indicate my girls had begun their part of the plan. The minutes stretched endlessly, tension building in my muscles until my healing burns began to ache from maintaining my stiff posture.
Finally, just when I was beginning to fear something had gone wrong, I caught the faint scent of smoke on the breeze.
Peering through the trees, I could see a column of dense gray smoke rising in the distance—the first fire. The four Career tributes immediately gathered, arguing briefly before splitting into two groups. Cato and Marvel headed toward the smoke, while Clove and Glimmer remained at camp, clearly suspicious of the obvious distraction.
Fifteen minutes later, a second column of smoke appeared in a different direction. After more animated discussion, Clove and Glimmer set off toward the new fire, leaving only the District 3 boy at the camp as we'd hoped.
My heart pounded as I waited for Rue's distraction. Everything was proceeding according to plan so far, but this next step was the most dangerous. Rue would be deliberately exposing herself, if only briefly, to draw the guard away from the supplies.
I tensed as I saw movement at the edge of the clearing. Rue. Small and quick, darting between trees just enough to be visible. The District 3 boy spotted her immediately, calling out and moving in her direction. Rue disappeared into the undergrowth, the boy pursuing her away from the supplies.
This was my chance.
As soon as they were out of sight, I sprinted from my hiding place toward the supply pyramid, stopping at what I estimated was a safe distance. The pyramid stood unguarded, surrounded by patches of freshly turned soil that marked the buried mines. I couldn't approach directly—that would be suicide—but I didn't need to.
I selected the heaviest rock from my collection, weighing it carefully in my hand. It needed to be heavy enough to disturb the soil sufficiently to trigger a mine, but not so unwieldy that I couldn't throw it accurately. This would require precision.
Drawing on my years of baseball training from my previous life, I calculated the trajectory needed. The rock had to land with enough force to trigger a mine, ideally near the base of the pyramid where the mines would be most densely placed.
I took a deep breath, took position, focused on my target, and threw with every ounce of strength I could muster.
The rock sailed through the air in a perfect arc, landing with a solid thud at the base of the pyramid. For a heartbeat, nothing happened—then the explosion.
The first explosion triggered a chain reaction as I'd hoped, each mine detonating the next in a thunderous torrent.
The force knocked me backward despite my safe distance, the concussive wave hitting like I've been rammed by a truck. I reflexively covered my head as debris rained down. Broken containers, shattered weapons, and burning supplies scattering across the clearing.
When I dared to look up, the pyramid was gone, replaced by a smoking crater. The supplies the Careers had been hoarding; food, medicine, weapons—were all destroyed or flung so widely they'd be impossible to recover completely.
I had only seconds before the Careers would come racing back at the sound of the explosions.
Already my ears were ringing painfully from the blast, and my vision swam when I tried to stand too quickly. I forced myself to move, knowing that lingering would mean certain death.
As I retreated into the cover of the forest, a wave of dizziness nearly brought me to my knees. Even if I had stayed further away, the explosion had been far more powerful than I'd anticipated, and the concussive force had clearly affected me more than I'd realized. I guess it couldn't be helped when I couldn't think of a far better plan to trigger the mines without a bow and arrow.
I leaned against a tree, waiting for the world to stop spinning, then pushed myself onward, focusing on reaching our meeting point at the stream.
The fog that had seemed helpful earlier now felt disorienting as I made my way through unfamiliar territory. My sense of direction was compromised by the lingering effects of the explosion, and I found myself checking the position of the sun repeatedly to ensure I was headed in the right direction.
From somewhere behind me came the distant sounds of shouting. Probably the Careers returning to find their supply cache destroyed. Their rage would make them even more dangerous now.
I picked up my pace despite the pounding in my head, driven by the need to reach safety and reunite with Madge and Rue.
I had covered maybe half a mile, still unsteady but moving determinedly, when the cannon boomed across the arena.
My blood went cold at the sound. The cannon only fired for one reason. A tribute had died. It had to be the boy from Three. It had to be. That's what happened in the film. Cato murdered him when they came back and found the supplies destroyed.
But…I couldn't help overthinking from rising anxiety—what if it's another butterfly effect? What if someone else was killed instead of him?
The thought seized me like a physical grip, and I froze, making my breath catch painfully in my throat. My hands began to tremble as images of Madge and Rue flashed through my mind. Vulnerable, wounded, or worse.
I strained to hear anything else that might indicate what had happened.
Who was it? Was it connected to our plan? Had one of my girls been caught? Surely not when I warned them about possible traps that had caught Rue in the original…
There was no way to know until the nighttime projection, but dread settled in my stomach like a stone. I forced myself to continue toward the stream, now more desperate than ever to confirm that Madge and Rue had made it safely to our meeting point.
The trek seemed endless, my progress hampered by my semi-concussed state and growing anxiety. Finally, I heard the welcome sound of running water ahead.
Pushing through a dense thicket of undergrowth, I stumbled into the small clearing by the stream where we had agreed to meet.
"Madge? Rue?" I called softly, scanning the area.
The clearing was empty.
I checked the sun's position. It was still a few hours before sunset, our agreed meeting time. They could still be making their way here, taking careful routes to avoid detection or traps I've warned them about.
I moved to the large oak tree we'd designated as our specific meeting spot, settling at its base to wait, trying to ignore the growing knot of worry in my gut.
I hate it. I hate how these games are already driving me crazy. Messing with my mind and emotions like a lab rat.
Every cannon, every rustle in the bushes becomes a potential tragedy. Back home, watching these games on screen, you think you understand—the fear, the strategy, the stakes—but you don't. Not really. Not until you're here, feeling your heartbeat spike with every sound, knowing that somewhere, people are placing bets on when you'll die. Not until you're sitting alone, wondering if the people you've come to care about are still breathing while someone in the Capitol sips champagne and discusses the "exciting developments."
The worst part isn't even the physical danger. It's how the Games strip away your humanity, piece by piece, turning every relationship into a potential heartbreak, every decision into a moral compromise.
They've designed this hellscape not just to kill our bodies, but to break our minds first. And I can feel it happening to me, right now, as I sit here spiraling into darker and darker thoughts while the cameras capture my descent for their entertainment.
It pisses me off.
It irks me because this has been happening for seventy-four years. Seventy-four Games. One thousand, seven hundred and seventy-six children before us. Plus another twenty-four from the second quarter quell.
Nearly eighteen hundred kids who sat just like this, terrified, paranoid, desperate. Kids who heard cannons and wondered which friend had just died.
I'm such an idiot. How stupid could I get?
I've been trying to deny the reality of this world since I arrived, clinging to the idea that I'm just visiting, that I'm different somehow because I wasn't born here. That knowledge from another world would shield me from the psychological warfare.
But sitting here now, waiting for two girls who might already be dead, I realize I'm no different from any other tribute who's ever entered these Games. The Capitol doesn't care where my consciousness came from—they just want to watch me break. And they've had decades to perfect exactly how to do it. Generations of children have lived and died in these arenas while Panem watched, while districts mourned, while the Capitol celebrated. The enormity of it, the sheer scale of this institutionalized trauma, makes me physically ill.
This isn't fiction. This is my reality, it always has been from the first day. And I can no longer pretend I'm just passing through.
Time crawled by with excruciating slowness.
I occupied myself by checking and rechecking my few supplies, taking small sips of water from the stream, and scanning the forest for any signs of movement. Every rustling leaf or snapping twig made me jerk to attention, hoping to see one of my allies emerging from the trees.
As the sun began its descent toward the western horizon, I found myself calculating how long it should have taken them to complete their tasks and reach our meeting point. Even accounting for caution and indirect routes, they should have arrived by now.
I was debating whether to start searching for them when a second cannon shot echoed across the arena.
Two deaths. Two cannons. Two faces that would appear in the sky tonight.
The coincidence was too great. Our plan, our alliance—something had gone terribly wrong.
I couldn't wait any longer. I had to find them.
Just as I rose to my feet, I heard a beeping sound, and a silver parachute drifted down from the sky, landing softly at the edge of the clearing. A sponsor gift.
I approached cautiously, scanning the surrounding forest before retrieving the small container. Inside was a small loaf of bread shaped like a crescent moon, with its points facing upward. A croissant. Then a note from Haymitch:
"Follow your damn moral compass for once, kid. Where the sun doesn't set. NOW. - H"
What is he…Fuck. The terseness of the message conveyed its urgency more clearly than any explanation.
Something was happening in the direction opposite of sunset, and Haymitch was directing me there immediately. To any Capitol viewer, it would just sound like another one of his surly, cryptic comments about character, but I understood exactly what he meant—head north, and do it now.
Without hesitation, I started moving and set off at a run, my fatigue and dizziness forgotten in a surge of adrenaline. Whatever had happened, whatever danger Madge and Rue might be facing, I wouldn't abandon them now.
The hammer pendant bounced against my chest with each running stride. It was a constant reminder of what I was fighting for—not just my own survival, but theirs as well. Because somewhere along the way, these girls had become my family in this brutal arena, and I would do anything to protect them.
Even if I was already too late.