Chapter 13

My first impulse is to scramble from the tree, but I’m belted

in. Somehow my fumbling fingers release the buckle and I fall

to the ground in a heap, still snarled in my sleeping bag.

There’s no time for any kind of packing. Fortunately, my

backpack and water bottle are already in the bag. I shove in

the belt, hoist the bag over my shoulder, and flee.

The world has transformed to flame and smoke. Burning

branches crack from trees and fall in showers of sparks at my

feet. All I can do is follow the others, the rabbits and deer and I

even spot a wild dog pack shooting through the woods. I trust

their sense of direction because their instincts are sharper

than mine. But they are much faster, flying through the underbrush

so gracefully as my boots catch on roots and fallen

tree limbs, that there’s no way I can keep apace with them.

The heat is horrible, but worse than the heat is the smoke,

which threatens to suffocate me at any moment. I pull the top

of my shirt up over my nose, grateful to find it soaked in

sweat, and it offers a thin veil of protection. And I run, choking,

my bag banging against my back, my face cut with

branches that materialize from the gray haze without warning,

because I know I am supposed to run.

This was no tribute’s campfire gone out of control, no accidental

occurrence. The flames that bear down on me have an

unnatural height, a uniformity that marks them as humanmade,

machine-made, Gamemaker-made. Things have been

too quiet today. No deaths, perhaps no fights at all. The audience

in the Capitol will be getting bored, claiming that these

Games are verging on dullness. This is the one thing the

Games must not do.

It’s not hard to follow the Gamemakers’ motivation. There

is the Career pack and then there are the rest of us, probably

spread far and thin across the arena. This fire is designed to

flush us out, to drive us together. It may not be the most original

device I’ve seen, but it’s very, very effective.

I hurdle over a burning log. Not high enough. The tail end of

my jacket catches on fire and I have to stop to rip it from my

body and stamp out the flames. But I don’t dare leave the

jacket, scorched and smoldering as it is, I take the risk of shoving

it in my sleeping bag, hoping the lack of air will quell what

I haven’t extinguished. This is all I have, what I carry on my

back, and it’s little enough to survive with.

In a matter of minutes, my throat and nose are burning. The

coughing begins soon after and my lungs begin to feel as if

they are actually being cooked. Discomfort turns to distress

until each breath sends a searing pain through my chest. I

manage to take cover under a stone outcropping just as the

vomiting begins, and I lose my meager supper and whatever

water has remained in my stomach. Crouching on my hands

and knees, I retch until there’s nothing left to come up.

I know I need to keep moving, but I’m trembling and lightheaded

now, gasping for air. I allow myself about a spoonful of

water to rinse my mouth and spit then take a few swallows

from my bottle. You get one minute, I tell myself. One minute to

rest. I take the time to reorder my supplies, wad up the sleeping

bag, and messily stuff everything into the backpack. My

minute’s up. I know it’s time to move on, but the smoke has

clouded my thoughts. The swift-footed animals that were my

compass have left me behind. I know I haven’t been in this

part of the woods before, there were no sizable rocks like the

one I’m sheltering against on my earlier travels. Where are the

Gamemakers driving me? Back to the lake? To a whole new

terrain filled with new dangers? I had just found a few hours

of peace at the pond when this attack began. Would there be

any way I could travel parallel to the fire and work my way

back there, to a source of water at least? The wall of fire must

have an end and it won’t burn indefinitely. Not because the

Gamemakers couldn’t keep it fueled but because, again, that

would invite accusations of boredom from the audience. If I

could get back behind the fire line, I could avoid meeting up

with the Careers. I’ve just decided to try and loop back

around, although it will require miles of travel away from the

inferno and then a very circuitous route back, when the first

fireball blasts into the rock about two feet from my head. I

spring out from under my ledge, energized by renewed fear.

The game has taken a twist. The fire was just to get us moving,

now the audience will get to see some real fun. When I

hear the next hiss, I flatten on the ground, not taking time to

look. The fireball hits a tree off to my left, engulfing it in

flames. To remain still is death. I’m barely on my feet before

the third ball hits the ground where I was lying, sending a pillar

of fire up behind me. Time loses meaning now as I frantically

try to dodge the attacks. I can’t see where they’re being

launched from, but it’s not a hovercraft. The angles are not extreme

enough. Probably this whole segment of the woods has

been armed with precision launchers that are concealed in

trees or rocks. Somewhere, in a cool and spotless room, a Gamemaker

sits at a set of controls, fingers on the triggers that

could end my life in a second. 

terrain n. [地理] 地形，地势；领域；地带

inferno n. 阴间，地狱