CLOSER TO THE EDGE* [OLIVIA]

[HEY, ALEX!]

Perhaps I had chosen the wrong direction to run. The rocks that surround me are extremely difficult to move through and the hole in my chest wasn’t helping the situation much. Blood, both others’ and my own, had already cover my once purple sweatshirt and the fluid was still leaking slowly from my chest. The stones that surrounded me were annoying as hell as they made me fall constantly. Because of my constant tumbling, dirt has join the blood beneath my fingernails and I believe I may have a few scratches upon my palms. My once glossy, wavy ponytail now has gained many knots and turned in a ratted mess. So, overall, I look like shit.

Great because I know every person will be watching me from wherever they may be and, perhaps, asking who that girl is with blood-covered face. Maybe they saw me trying to murder a district 2 girl or maybe the blood laced Machete spoke for itself. Either way, people around Panem should know by now that the “little girl from district 10” was not as weak as original thought to be. Even though I look like a “winner”, I still did not have the correct supplies to survive in the arena. I need water. I need food. I need bandages. I need shelter. I need to get the fuck out of here.

A small border hit my foot again, making me lose my footing. Like the many times before, I fell face first in a mixture of pebbles and jagged bits of stone. My life is so great! I have a bruise knee, a gash in my chest, and a mouth full of rocks. The taste of dirt is so delightful and the crunching in my mouth is so enjoyable. Blood flow in my chest has began to speed back up, causing more of my life to bleed upon the ground below me. My life could not possibly get any better than this. Obliviously, my sarcasm has yet to be lost in the games.

I pushed my upper body from the hot ground, allowing myself to rest on my knees. From where I sat, all I could spot were rocks. To my left, more rocks! When I turned to my right, I found something shocking. More rocks were in that direction! Of course, there was no need to look behind me because I already knew what was in that direction. Therefore, I was surrounded only by stones. A breathe was released from between my lips due to my frustration.

Once I was able to get to my feet, I saw what the rocks so cleverly covered from my view. A mountain of some sort could be spotted from the horizon. Now, I am no expert but I have heard of runoff water. If I was to get to the bottom of that mound, it was very possible there was water below. Getting water is my number one thing to do in the arena. (Well, that and not to be murder by another tribute.) Therefore, I found my destination. With that thought, I rose to my feet once more and returned to my very clumsy stroll through the rock graveyard.

Not one stone was the same in this field. Some were smooth while others were quite jagged. A grabbed a small stone from the ground and placed it in my bag. Perhaps it appeared rather stupid gathering rocks. Well, I did make quite the spear back in my training session, therefore, I think I have a legit reason to collect rocks. I did have a weapon already but it is nice to have more than one on hand. Perhaps then, I could actually afford to lose a weapon. However, I really did not wish to misplace this Machete. It is a pretty badass knife.

The sun continued to cast it rays on my skin. Working on a farm for most of my life, I have gotten used to sweating so much. Herding cattle was hell in the blazing sun so this experience really isn’t that new to me. However, never had I ever had to control cows where a heavy sweatshirt. Thinking about this, I came to a halt and place my bag on a nearby border. The hoodie pulled at my already knotted hair as it came above my head. Doing so, my black undershirt was forced upward as well. It did not go far, however it did allow her to expose her pale stomach. After shoving my hoodie into my bag, I continued my stroll to be possible death.

[WT]

Hunger Games strategies did not work twice. People operated in different ways, frequently with little if any understanding of why their methods worked for them, let alone why others only clicked with entirely foreign approaches. For this reason- along with a few others, chief among them being a private belief that the girl was, although sweet, completely insane- Themba doubted that he had anything to gain from emulating Aranica Petros' success with rocks.

This was unfortunate, because no matter how far he cast his gaze, the District Seven tribute could find nothing but empty space and rocks. Some of them were large enough to cast shadows that even he could stand in without having to scrunch down, while some areas of the ground were littered with tiny granules, but the variation did little to make the landscape any more interesting. Or, more importantly, useful.

Twinkle, twinkle- Themba's slow strides stopped short. Quietly he sighed and shook his head, not quite frustrated enough to indicate it more clearly but too exasperated to carry on normally without at least a brief pause. Hadn't he just managed to ditch that again? Honestly, it was a wonder his head hadn't spontaneously exploded from the obnoxiousness of having such a short song drilled into it over and over.

All he really wanted right now- outside of going home and holding Ayane, of course (and raising Aisha from the grave, as long as he was thinking about miracles)- was to sit down in one of the sandy areas and draw for a bit. It was an illogical desire that would do absolutely nothing to improve his situation, which was why he wasn't doing it, but his hands and heart and sleepy eyes still ached for it with almost the same intensity as the ache for his family. -diamond in the sky. From doodles to painting to designing buildings, art had been a part of him his entire life until now. While his brain was totally on board with the new routine, he wasn't sure how to tell the rest of him that it couldn't have what it wanted.

Shaking his head again, Themba moved on. Standing here making wishes would do him no good. Only action and movement would get him anywhere. In that respect, the Arena really wasn't so different from real life, where the only way you advanced in the world was through effort. Or, at times, luck. How I wonder- Happenstance of birth, of looks, of meeting- but even these were worthless in the long run.

It was a curious parallel between two regions that had very little else in common. If Themba had been more minded toward philosophy, he might have remained in place a while longer to consider it. Such a thought could raise many questions: for starters, whether human nature boiled down to nothing more than a series of trials and the efforts to meet them, and in turn, if that meant that people were all the same after all, instead of as incomprehensibly different as they seemed. But he wasn't- he was a pragmatically-minded person, and on top of that far too cynical to allow any positive ideas of mankind to earn even the briefest consideration. So none of these questions occurred to him, and he carried on as he had been going before: in a more or less straight line, stopping occasionally to shift his grip on the crowbar or readjust the sweatshirt tied around his waist before traipsing forward once more in the hopes of something more useful than rocks.

His path was abruptly interrupted, however, by a sudden explosion that reverberated up his feet and through his legs. Startled, Themba dropped to the ground to hide in the shadow of the large boulder to his left. What had that been? His first thought was a cannon, but he discarded that quickly; the concentration of the sound was rather different from the artillery fire he'd heard over the District televisions. A trap, perhaps? Or a tribute's weapon?

If strategies were difficult to repeat in the Games from year to year, its traps were nigh impossible to repeat. Duplication meant boredom, and the Gamemakers didn't want that. So if that had been a trap, he was probably safe... but if not, he might be in more danger now than he had been at the Cornucopia, surrounded by people. Themba lifted his crowbar from his shoulder and held it before him, below the boulder but prepped for action.

Just in case.

[HEY, ALEX!]

What the hell just happen? The explosion was too sudden; therefore, I hadn’t the time correct time to react. So, rather than making a swift getaway from the exploding rocks, I found my face, as well as the side of my body, engulf in a hot, painful sensation. Not only was I damaged but also the bag I had my hoodie and the wire had developed a fire. Already on the ground, I tossed the bag from my side, thinking it was best to get it away from my injured self. It came to a halt near a rather large rock but, at this very second, I was grateful I could see the ignorant thing.

A wise man once said, in case you are on fire, the best thing you could do is stop, drop, and roll. Well, I needed not to stop because, well, it was already too late for that. Drop. I was on the ground the moment the explosion occurred so I could not fall to the ground again. I suppose I could get up and then throw myself back upon the ground but that would only make me appear ignorant. The final step was roll. What good would that go upon a mine of explosive rocks? I was fortunate the explosion did not yet a change reaction for the entire rock field.

I rose to be elbows to view the damage done to my body. Well, I wasn’t not currently on fire as I originally thought . However, my hands were cut from the pieces of rocks and, I figured, my face probably looked the same. The right side of my body, where my bag had one been, had been singed and my black t-shirt had been burned slightly. The hole in the fabric allowed my hip to be reveled but, other than that, not much of my bare body had been visible. What I saw from the torn piece of clothing was quite gruesome. A rather large gash had manage to develop from my hip bone to the middle of my stomach. Blood came from the wound yet it still was not a great about. I believe the fact it was an explosion involving fire kept my body from bleeding continuously.

Seeing the wound reminded my of my home. Part of my job on the farm was to brand the cows with a metal symbol and a fire pit. Of course, I never touched the metal piece after it had rested in the fire. Only idiots would do such a thing. However, the symbol had been attached to a rod in which one may raise the symbol from the fire without getting burn oneself. The next part of the job was something I did not favor. I had to place the metal symbol against a cows skin. The symbol would then burn itself into the skin of the cow but bleeding does not occur often. So, perhaps that was the reason blood did not “gush” from my wound.

Laying on the ground was not very “fun” and it was better than getting up. Actually, no it wasn’t. Staying on the land set her up to be ambushed by other tributes. It was very likely they would come as well. An explosion did occur and some tributes may be curious on what exactly happened. There they may find me, on the ground cover in dust. Like many of the tributes, a person that may come across me and murder me in a spilt second. So not. Staying on the ground was no more “fun” than getting up.

Debating no longer, I rose from my position from the ground. I found sharp pain erupt from my hip as I applied weight between the ground and my leg. This certain injury would surely slow me down but, for now, I must suffer through the pain and more along. The fire from the bag had slowed and it almost nonexistent. Before I touched the item, I stomped slightly on it with my left leg. After the fire had complete disappeared, I surveyed the damage of my bloodbath item. The bottom of the bag was useless as if had a huge hole in which the rocks had been. As for my hoodie, I was burned as from the neck to the beginning on the chest area. The hood was had also disappeared. As for the wire, the useless thing did not appear affect my the explosion at all.

The hoodie was tied around my waist only after I wiped the blood from my hands and face upon the fabric. The wire laid in my left hand while my machete, oddly, never left my right hand. Before I would walk an awkward stroll toward the volcano again, I surveyed the ground around me. There was no person within my sights, however, that did not mean there was not one person around here. Regardless of what I thought, I limped away again. If there was a person nearby that wished to kill her, well, at least she would not have to wait any longer for her death. However, it did not mean she would not defend herself in an event like that.