Ouch-That's hot! [Dancinginthedark]

After the adrenaline of the fight wears off I find myself stumbling more and more. The flat, broken land around the geyser is in sight, but always seems to be moving further and further away. The heat of mid-morning is almost unbearable, searing into my scalp and burning my pale skin. I pull the hood of my sweater up briefly for some relief from the rays, but end up taking it off again when I begin to feel like a cooking potato. My chest is throbbing and if I move too jerkily it starts to bleed again. Salty sweat if pouring down my face, making the cut on my cheek burn fiercely.

"C'mon Daniella, keep moving. Not much further. Just a little bit further. Just meet up with Evan." I chant to myself, hiking my backpack up again. I cough and have to stop for a minute, my body is quickly becoming aware that I have not had anything to drink since I woke up this morning, before dawn.

Finally the uneven rocky ground beneath me changes into dusty, hard-packed dirt. The ground in this section of the arena is semi-hilly, allowing for some cover. I walk a little further, over the first hill before my legs collapse beneath me and I fall sideways. I hear a crunching noise underneath me as I land and pull out my, now slightly dented, water jug. It's empty and my stomach tosses at the thought of not drinking right away.

I run a hand over my sweaty face, giving my eyes momentary relief from the sunlight. I slump backwards, the slight angle of the ground propping up my body nicely. I stiffen at the sound of something hitting the ground with a thud not too far away. My hand reaches for my mace, slipped through a belt loop on my pants, and I sit up straight. I am not alone. A figure sits about twenty feet away from me, looking through a bag. I slowly get to my feet, trying to stay low to the ground and squint to make out the figures individual features. I recognize the person all at once and a grin breaks across my face.

"Evan!" I call his name out loudly, and without thinking. I duck my head and glance around, but nobody jumps out at me. Cursing myself silently I grab my water jug off the ground and walk over to Evan. Even that short walk leaves me panting, and I throw myself to the ground next to him, wincing. "Did you see anybody else on your way over?" I ask, looking him over as I talk. He has a few injuries, mostly cuts and gashes. Nothing as serious as my stab wound, but more numerous than my injuries. I cough again and scratch at the scab beginning to form on my cheek. My mother at home is probably telling me not to scratch it, it'll get infected, but right now I don't care and it's itching like no other.

I smile slightly as Evan throws a lump of grass on my chest. I would laugh but laughing makes me cough, and coughing hurts.
"That guy, Karl from three. He stabbed me when I wasn't expecting it." I tell Evan, brushing some dirt of the now bloody grass on my chest. "It was a pretty good shot actually. I would've congratulated him if I could breathe." I say, unable to stop myself from laughing. My laugh is loud and hysterical, and for a moment I fear the pain is making me crazy. I manage to stifle my laughter, but a few giggles still sneak through. I scooch my body into a sitting position and glance at Evan. I wrestle my backpack off my back and put it on his lap, it can't go on mine without agitating my wound. I unzip it, and pull out the few supplies I have. A tarp, a length of wire, duct tape, my mace and my shin guards. I move my water jug from beside me to join the pile. As an afterthought I pull the thimble out of my pocket and add it to the pile of goods.
"My token." I say, my voice soft. Evan has a satchel and pliers. He also has a small tube of sunscreen that I want so badly to snatch and slather all over my skin, but I hold back, linking my fingers together. They crack slightly and I chuckle again, my body is not partial to the arena. I absentmindedly pull my hair back, wishing I had an elastic, or cord to hold it up.

Suddenly, about one hundred feet away from us, the geyser explodes. Even from here, I can feel the heat of the water. A few droplets find their way over to us, and one hits my bare arm. I hiss and flinch away from the heat, as an angry red mark appears on my skin. I look at my water jug and frown.
"We'll have to find a way to get water from there soon." I tell Evan, despite my reluctance to go anywhere near the heat still bubbling from the geyser. I pick up the thimble from the pile of supplies and turn it over in my hand, letting the cool, familiar metal calm my tossing stomach.

As I sit there, completely comfortable, despite the stab wound and the blazing heat, I realize two things.

One, Evan is probably the closest I will ever come to having a best friend who isn't related to, or in love with me. Our partnership is so easy, it has been since the day we met in the training room. Our thoughts are often paralleled, like when Azulon pushed the Avox, our shock and anger were the same. It makes sense really, we come from similar backgrounds, but it was certainly unexpected.

Two, with every word Evan speaks it becomes more and more clear why Evan is here. The way he talks about his mother, his home, the capitol. Evan Jackson is trying hard to win the Hunger Games, and I am in his way. If I want to win the games, he will have to die, and vice versa. Thinking about killing Evan makes my head burn and my throat constrict.

I nod numbly, trying to swallow. It's ridiculous to be sad, I am in the Hunger Games after all. I clamber to my feet, grabbing the water jug. My fingers, which had lost a bit of feeling from my position suddenly come back to life and I wiggle them, flinching at the stabbing-needle feeling.

"I'm going to um, go figure out the water." I say, my voice slightly thick. I walk the 100ft-ish distance to the geyser and peer at the innocuous looking split in the ground. If I turn my head left I can just hear a hissing from deep in the ground. Slowly at first and then more quickly, the hiss grows louder and more intense, until the geyser explodes in front of me. This close, the heat is almost unbearable, I don't know how Evan stood it. I stumble backwards slightly, my hair flying into my face and sticking to my neck. I walk back to Evan, quicker than before, chuckling slightly.

"That is really hot." I say, suppressing a smile. I chew on my lip a moment and then allow myself to sit down again. "Hey, do you know anything about edible plants?"

Evan grows silent after he suggests we go through the mushrooms and for the first time since we entered the arena, I can't tell what he is thinking at all. I look towards the cornucopia, knowing that people are still fighting. The bloodbath never ends this early. I wonder if anyone else has died, and who is still fighting. Only an idiot would try to fight the careers for the wealth. I think of how I got my wound, fighting to get as many items as I could, and smirk. Only and idiot. I think, picking at a string on my pants.
"It's so hot..." I mumble, lying backwards on the dusty ground. I swallow and find it hurts, my throat is dry as parchment. I glance over to the geyser and frown. "I'm thirsty, and hungry." I say, fully aware that I am sounding like a whining six year old. At the moment though, I really don't care what people outside the arena think of me. They have no idea what this feels like in here. Idiot, you haven't even been in the arena a day, and you are already freaking out. I think.

I curl my toes in my shoes, cracking them. Something shrieks in the distance, whether human or muttation I don't know. Oh god this is going to get so much worse. I press my lips together, fighting the urge to run away from the noise and keep running until I collapse. I glance at Evan and raise an eyebrow slightly.

"We should think about finding food, or training with our weapons." Or at least doing something. "I can't sit around all day, I don't care how injured I am."

I glare at Evan for a moment, and then clamber to my feet. I center my weight on the balls of my feet, and take a deep breath.
"Start counting." I snarl, already frustrated by the pain radiating out from my chest. One two three...
I can feel the waves of nausea that accompany pain starting to rise in my stomach, and I can taste stomach acid on my teeth.
...four, five...
My hands begin to shake and I have to clench them to stop, but I can't stop the rest of my body from vibrating. I glance at Evan and try to smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace.
...six, seven, eight...
I clench my teeth, still standing by will itself. My knees start to buckle, and I can feel my stomach flying upwards. I let out a sound that can only be qualified as a growl and shut my eyes tightly.

"NINE,TEN!" I yell, just before collapsing in a heap to the ground. I cough, unable to control the tremors that are coming out of my spine. I can taste the dusty ground on my tongue and manage to roll myself over. I glance up at Evan and make a playful, if somewhat lame, swot in his direction.

"Shaddup," I mumble. I can still feel the nausea but it's growing less intense, moving up to my head and becoming a pounding. Thinking about it now, I knew that I wouldn't be able to practice, it was a miracle I made it to the geyser in the first place. I had always hated sitting around, not taking action. That feeling has only grown now, here in the games with people dying, with my life on the line. Just thinking about sitting around for the rest of the day, makes me feel like I could stand for a whole minute this time. I pull the pliers out of the satchel, slowly opening and closing them, just for something to do.

I look up at Evan and smirked. Slowly, I climb to my feet and pick up my mace. I rest the head on the dirt, and lean heavily on the handle to take my weight. Testing my weight on my other foot for a moment, I decide it can take my weight, and begin to swing my mace around my body slightly.

"I've never even seen a mace except on television before." I tell Evan, reevaluating the weapon. It's top heavy, but that makes it easier to wield because it puts gravity and centripetal force on my side. The spikes on the end are long and thick, but not particularly sharp. You couldn't stab someone with it but it would be more than efficient at breaking bones. Sometimes, that's all you need. Says a voice in my head and I smile slightly at the molded metal in my hand. It's made of a metal I've never seen before, and even under the hot sun, it's surface is cool and dry.

"You might want to back up, it might put a damper in our alliance if I behead you." I say to Evan, moving slightly further up on the hill, here closer to the sun there are light patches of grass, yellowed and dry. I close my eyes briefly and breathe in once, channeling the energy in the air around me.

I'd always been a graceful person, it just came naturally to me, and when I came to the training center it became clear that it was a skill that was very translatable to combat. Fighting is a dance, a whirlwind of movement and passion. I tighten my grip on the mace and begin to move. Slow at first, wincing at the pain in my chest, and then faster as I loosen up.
The mace whirls around me, slicing through the air with a whooshing noise, the spikes brush the dirt, carving grooves in it. The movement feels easy, until a spasm of intense pain flies across my chest and I fall to my knees, crying out. The mace falls out of my hand with an understated thud and I roll onto my side.

"I don't want this..." I say into my hand, covering my face. I hear some movement beside me and exhale loudly, dropping my hands to my sides. Get up and try again! the voice yells at me. It pulls me to me feet and although I lurch forward harshly I manage to keep my balance. I glance up at Evan and smile.
"Don't you just hate being stabbed in the chest?" I say, in a Capitol accent, as if talking about cat fur, lint or underwear lines. I laugh lightly and pick up my mace, spreading my legs slightly wider for a better center of balance. "Let's go again, until I can do it properly."