the land beyond {ave; day 1.5

We cascade down the side of the mansion, where one small body still lies pulverised among the puddles of blood and dislodged teeth, like spiders descending from their webs. As I readied myself to rappel, offering to go first in dazed exhaustion, Ophelia helped me to tighten the sturdy rope around my waist; it was perhaps our first real action as partners, and there was a peculiar sentimentality in it that sticks with me as I descend. For all I know, this rope could turn into a snake at any moment, or the hook that clatters and scrapes in the gutter at the top could suddenly vanish into the air like a laugh, and this means I have to put a certain faith in my ally’s knot. If I trusted her as little as I trust the Gamemakers and the Magnum Opus they devised for us to die in, then it wouldn’t be worth trying to survive it at all.

The bruise on my shin is a blooming violet against my pale flesh. It doesn’t hurt to stand, but stings when I press it. It has the texture of an old apple, and I find myself fascinated as I run my fingers over it. I’ve spent so long working on metal pieces, on cogs and hinges and things with sharp, certain edges, that even my own skin has started to feel unnervingly fragile. When was the last time I spent this much time examining my own limbs? I can’t remember when I last inspected my face in a mirror.

But here it’s different, and I can do both of those things freely (or at least the first, as I haven’t seen a single reflective surface or pool since the scales of those airborne fish) because here I’m not doing it to judge my own beauty like everyone else did in the District. Here, I’m assessing my injuries, checking my supplies, testing out the weight of my weapon – my weapon! – in my hand. There’s no vanity in the arena, only strategy. There’s no time for self-obsession, only self-preservation.

The arena is no more comprehensible at ground level than it was from the rooftop. Ophelia has to tug at my hand to get me to snap back to reality after the several minutes I have spent staring in utter awe at the full structure of the mansion that now towers overhead. Or perhaps “towers” is the wrong word, because what this building does is beyond inanimacy. It breathes, it stretches, it rocks in place on two beautiful, scaly bird’s legs. I have to use every inch of my willpower to stop from forgetting my one mission – get out of this area alive and without any further attention from other tributes – and drift towards the legs, trance-like, to study and admire them. When I look up to the sky, past the floating whales and cartoonish clouds to where I imagine Hera and Cricket’s staring down at us like dolls, my eyes are stinging with tears of awe. I know now that it’s going to take more than wind-up trinkets and paper sketches to show the Capitol I’m worth more than a couple days cheap television entertainment.

“We need to go outwards,” I mumble the words to no one, but I know that Ophelia will understand the suggestion is for her. Slowly, my eyes defocus from the staggering sturdiness of the mansion legs and fix on the horizon instead. Though I haven’t the keenest vision, from years spent squinting at tiny moving parts and glaring at welding sparks, it’s easy to spot the branches emerging from an ominous glowing haze to the east (east? Can we even trust our instincts anymore when an artificial sun hangs mockingly overhead?). Like a weathervane, I raise my arm straight from my body and twist in the direction of the trees, “we need to go there.” In my mind, I can see firewood, fruit, fresh water – all things neglected by past tributes in favour of the hunt, and always to their misfortune. But I see something else, too. My imagination is flooded with premonitions of my calloused fingers hard at work bending branches into frames, tying their joins together with string-like bark, creating realised models of the plans that probably now sit discarded in some corner of the Gamemakers’ lounge, nothing more than amusement for the tiger that guards the door. With the trees, and all those resources, comes a chance to really show the powers above us that I have more to offer with my limbs intact, my head whole instead of split in two, my heart beating and not impaled by a blade. Ophelia will be safe in those orchards with all the necessities we do need to survive; but I will be doing more than surviving – I will be saving myself.

Our feet kick up a dust that is more mist than it is particles. It has an odd, faded fragrance, like the perfume of a person who left the room fifteen minutes previously, and I breathe it in deeply and without reservation. Though it doesn’t remind me specifically of home, its distinct earthliness reminds me that my feet are on solid ground, and I’m not teetering in the wind anymore. This part of our journey seems irrelevant to the narrative of my mission – the Gamemakers and the masses don’t want to watch us walking, dragging our luggage behind us as we trudge over the awkward divide between two chapters of our adventure – which reassures me, as I know that what we say here is at least a fraction more private than what we scream as we’re fighting, or murmur as we huddle in groups around our campfires.

And yet, it seems Ophelia’s desire to keep silent is as strong as my need to speak up. I’ve always been better predicting the movements of insects and mammals than the actions of people, but I know well enough by the deep-set scowl on her face that my ally is too deep in thought to pay attention to me. I know very little about her – something I’ve thought before – and I can’t help but hope that we’ll start talking to each other, as friends, when we reach our destination. I respect her; she fought relentlessly when she needed to and I can tell that she has the same determination I do, though for her it seems her ultimate goal is to win this war fair and square, not climb out of the canyon of the system and stride away along its surface like I intend to. Perhaps we will find some symmetry in our plans, though. If we don’t, it will surely be our undoing.

The glow that I spotted as we drew closer to the orchards turns out to be no illusion. Every branch and every gnarled root that pushes out of the ground as if for fresh air seems to hum with the intensity of its phosphorescence. There’s fruit, lots of it, bright blue apples that are so heavy with juice straining to burst. At our feet, toadstools protrude from the grass in clusters, their ashy purple skin glistening with fresh water that drips from – can I believe what I’m seeing? – countless clocks that look like they’ve melted over the branches of the trees. Realisation dawns on me – I’m standing in some reimagining of a painting I once saw in a History of Art textbook back at home. The subject is ill-attended at best, but I was always fascinated by the ancient sketches of flying machines and ideal cities that were printed onto the glossy, modern paper, and made an effort to attend. It’s amazing what sticks in your mind when you least expect it. “The Persistence of Memory,” I say aloud, surprising even myself. I have no idea where it’s come from in my head or even what relevance it holds as a phrase, and Ophelia glances at me sharply, clearly as startled as I am. Shaking my head, I let go of the thought. Now I feel I have at least some grip on reality, it would be hard to let go of it again.

I waste no time in getting to work on my own plans and let Ophelia meander between the trees, collecting firewood and practicing throwing the set of razor-edged cards she swiped from the ground on our way down from the Cornucopia. My hands are quickly full of the most flexible sapling branches I can find, and I use the edge of my knife (tied effectively to my waist by way of strips of pieces of my uniform – my stylist must be having a heart attack) to peel strips of bark vertically in thin, glowing threads. It’s easier than anything I ever did in the workshop, and I take to it quickly. The saplings bend and curve exactly how I intend them to, and the work is more satisfying than I could have hoped. My arms are a flurry, my eyes darting as I follow my hands and then overtake them, glancing ahead to the next step in my list of actions. The creature almost builds itself in front of me, ribs extending on either side from a wooden spine and curving round at the ground where I fix legs and knuckled claw. Its head is primitive, a sketch of what a skull should really look like, but the integrity of its body is impressive enough.

The little wooden mammal sits peacefully in the grass as I scramble up once again to pluck dry fallen leaves from the grass, their bright pink colour fading to brown as they dehydrate, and when I return to the model I assemble them delicately along its back in layers. Finally, stepping back to admire its final form, I imagine it crawling through the grass, searching for food and water just like we are. The humble but intricate skeletal armadillo is the first testament to my talent that I’ve delivered from within this otherworldly prison, but it won’t be the last.

From my bag, I pluck the pack of cards which I picked up myself, and rifle through them to find the one I’m looking for. It’s sick, to have the faces of all the other teenagers trapped in here staring up at me from my palm. I wonder if they’ll market the same cards to the children of Panem once we’re done using them to slit eachothers’ throats. Finally, after half a minute of intent shuffling, I lock eyes with myself, my own glower and jutting chin dripping with the stubborn resentment I view my own position with. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but for a moment I think I look more disappointed than ever with myself, that I’m bending to the will of the Gamemakers so easily – sucking up to them as a means of escape rather than fighting the system outright. Nevertheless, I shake the feeling away, and pull my card out of the pack. It nestles neatly into the topmost groove of my armadillo’s back, like I’m riding the creature – a signature I will leave here as a sign of my handiwork.

Whether out of vanity or the need to clarify myself, another idea strikes me. As a final flourish, I pull a crayon out of my bag and kneel down to the grass in front of my armoured creature. With the crayon curled in my left hand as easily as I would hold a pen there (though I always preferred the weighty feeling of a power tool to a pen) I sign my name in bold but elegant script. The red letters stand out against the glistening silver grass like blood. They’re fiercer and more potent than I can believe, like they’re actually growing out of the ground from roots rather than just resting on top of it.

Which is when I realise it’s exactly that. The letters are growing from the ground.

“Ophelia,” I whisper, one arm extending blindly behind me to catch my ally’s attention, “Ophelia, look at this.” There is a slight waver in my tone, a clear sign of the confusion but deep fascination that I feel like sherbet in the back of my throat, tingling with every breath. The three bold red letters quiver as they expand outwards and upwards, becoming box-like three-dimensional versions of themselves. I look down at the remains of the crayon in my hand, it’s depleted greatly, more than the normal sort would have after writing something so trivial, but there might still be enough for something else – something useful.

I’m kneeling again and pressing the crayon to the silver earth, sketching as rapidly as I would if I’d just been struck with an idea for a new design. Which, I suppose I have been, in a way, though it’s the idea that’s new, not the object itself. A curling lip and bulbous body take shape in my isometric sketch, and I add curving contour lines around them, hoping that will guide their growth into something vital a little better. Just as before, the whole form of the crimson drawing begins to waver, hazy and indistinct, before coming into intense focus, more intense than the drawing had been originally, as it pushes itself from the earth like a plant growing in fast forward. And there, where before had only been lines drawn roughly on top of the texture of the grass, a large water jug now sits, its bright red body shining merrily like glass, rather than like the wax it came from.

I stand, so stunned by what’s just happened that I don’t have the capacity to be further amazed that the crayon that was in my grip has been completely used up. I am conscious of Ophelia standing near to me, and the words that creep from her lips are so quiet they could be mistaken for the wind. “The crayons…are alive;” I nod in fascinated agreement. My ally bends down to try her own hand at bringing new objects into existence, like a god, but I stay upright, as unable to move as I was when I stared up at the bird’s legs that held the mansion up like a trophy in the sky, and the same realisation I had then strikes me again. We might have the power to create like gods, but only because we ourselves were given it by the real rulers of this insular world. My armadillo is no longer a symbol of my own triumph as a creator, but only evidence of my inadequacy as it cowers next to the pulsating pile of solid letters that made up my signature. I take my own card back from its back and replace it in the packet, knowing now I’ll need it as a weapon before I’ll ever use it to mark something I’m truly proud of making here.

And will I ever be proud of anything I could possibly create with my resources in here, again? From the bottom of my stomach, from the cold acceptance I feel in my guts to the burning shame in my ears and cheeks, I doubt it. I can fight it, and I will, still, but I know – oh, more than ever – that I’m no better than any of my own creatures. I am, like them, a mechanical, wind-up creature. My intentions are guided, programmed. My only conscious thought is obedience and submission. And I sit in the palms of Hera Levelwright and Cricket Antoinette with no idea that any horizons exist beyond their skin.

And oh, how they make me dance.