Fire
Katniss
Katniss wakes to some dumbass starting a fucking fire just a few hundred yards from her tree. She lets her mental curse list flow freely. Bitch-ass cunt bastard, what a mother-fucking dick, I swear to Odds I will fucking end your ass you odds-damned twat… The twins have taught her some good swears over the years. She thinks they learned from Bill and Charlie.
She spends a couple of hours fuming, running out of patience, about ready to just hop over and kill this braindead shitfucking dumbass. Then she hears footsteps and a scream. Followed by laughter and joyful banter.
The Careers are here.
And just her luck, they decide to head directly towards her so the Gamemakers can retrieve the body.
It seems like they’re ready to pop a squat practically underneath her, but when no cannon sounds, one of them goes to check that the girl’s really dead. With a peek through the trees, she spots a blond head of hair – it’s Draco, the boy from 2.
The cannon finally booms as he returns, and she’s able to put his face and name with his voice as he informs the others, “She wasn’t dead, Marvel, but she is now.” She doesn’t need a clear view of his face to tell he’s sneering.
Finally, just as the first birds start to welcome the daylight, the Career pack jogs away. The morning song only lasts a few seconds before silence falls, and a single note rings out. A warning call. She watches the hovercraft appear, retrieve the body – the girl from 8 – and disappear.
She commands herself to “move,” wriggling out of her sleeping bag and packing it up. There’s certain to be cameras on her the moment she hits the ground. It’s important for her to appear calm, cool, collected, and in control.
Her snares have yielded one fat rabbit. It’s gutted and cleaned in seconds, and she takes advantage of the idiot tribute’s fire to cook the meat. The cameras, and the sponsors, must be salivating as much as she is right now. She gives in to the feeling of pride for a minute, smirking to herself. No one can say she doesn’t have survival skills.
After an ultimately doomed attempt to camouflage her bright orange backpack with soot, she sets off in search of water again, away from the Careers. The rabbit fills her belly but does nothing for her dehydration. Rabbit grease makes terrible lip balm and coats the inside of her mouth like a film.
She walks. Looks for signs of water. Climbs a tree. Looks for signs of water. Walks some more. There are no signs of water.
She’s too tired by nightfall to do more than haul herself up a tree, belt herself in, and suck on a rabbit bone. The only face in the sky tonight is the girl from District 8. It doesn’t distract her from her thirst.
***
24 hours and a delirious mental conversation with Remus Lupin later, she’s sipping her second gallon of treated water, watching the anthem play over the Capitol seal and no faces. She should know then that it won’t last. A few hours after that, she wakes to a wall of fire descending upon her.
Katniss is good in an emergency, but her clumsy scramble from the tree is panicked. All she can do is follow the wildlife, trusting their instincts over her own. They’re faster than her. She uses her sweat-soaked shirt to block the smoke from her mouth and nose.
The Gamemakers must have gotten bored. No deaths in over a day? Bor-ring. This fire will be driving her towards enemies, and she has no choice but to let it happen.
A burning log catches her jacket on fire, and she loses precious time stomping it out. She cannot afford to lose any of the few resources she has.
Coughing turns to vomiting. She stops to rinse her mouth, gives herself one minute to sip water and organize her supplies. Just as she’s wondering what direction to go next, an odds-damned fireball blasts into a rock two feet from her head.
The renewed fear gives her the energy to resume moving, now having to dodge flaming balls of death. Based on the angles, she thinks the launchers must be concealed in trees or rocks. There’s a Gamemaker somewhere, cool and comfy, playing with her life. Maybe Fudge is getting his revenge for the punch bowl.
A lot is going through Katniss’s head right now, but the idea that keeps her moving is that there must be an end to the area rigged with fire launchers. She thinks she’s reached it right as the vomiting starts back up, but then a stray fireball skids into her right calf.
“Just stop, drop, and roll,” growls a familiar voice in her memory. It calms her. She has the fire out in seconds and barely stops herself from using her hands to rip away the smoldering fabric. She pulls her knife to carefully cut and fling it away. Her calf is still screaming, but it could have been worse. “Girl on fire” indeed, she thinks bitterly.
Black smoke still surrounds her. She has to keep moving. Slowly but surely, her visibility increases. She keeps her knife drawn, painfully aware that a tribute could easily sneak up on her in these conditions. It’s not until her ankles are wet that she realizes she’s stumbled into a pool.
Katniss’s mother is a healer. Prim is a healer. That gene did not get passed on to Katniss. Sitting at the edge of the pool, it takes a while for her to regain her composure enough to even look at her leg.
Yep, it’s gross. It’s blistering. The water soothes it, but then she can’t take it back out again. She might as well take advantage of the water source and re-reorganize her supplies. Everything is salvageable except the bottom half of her jacket. At least the hood is intact.
Drowsiness is becoming more pressing than the pain. Snagging some edible water plants to pair with her remaining rabbit leg, she forces herself to lift her leg from the water, letting the pain wake her up. She limps, practically dragging her leg along, making a terrible racket, but she’s too dazed to do much about it.
It only takes them a few minutes to find her.
All five remaining Careers, coughing and looking pretty beat up, chase her up a tree. Up in the thinnest branches, which any of their heavy bodies would break, she smiles down at them. “How’s it going?” she calls down cheerfully.
Draco is the one to respond, “Quite well, thank you. And how have the Games been treating you, Katniss?” he drawls with his signature sneer.
“It’s been a bit warm for my taste,” she quips for the cameras that are surely on this scene. “I must say though, I’m enjoying the air quality up here.”
“I think I’ll join you then,” says Draco, adjusting the short, heavy sword in his belt. As soon as he starts climbing, she hoists herself yet further up. She makes it another 30 feet before he falls.
“Odds-damned bitch is like a fucking squirrel,” Draco snarls, picking himself up off the ground, tragically uninjured.
“Glimmer” – what a fucking name – is next to try, and she’s smart enough to stop when the branches start cracking. Pansy tries to throw a knife, but Katniss is way out of range. It takes far too long for them to decide to just wait her out and make camp.
She’s nearly asleep herself when she spots Rue.