Fly, you fool!

The hell with this! Flight wins out over flight as you turn tail and hightail it away from the wrestling struggle behind you, bolting toward the treeline.

Half an hour passes, and your lungs have officially fully deflated. You wince as yet another tree branch cracks over your face. Making your cunning escape would be much easier if the world would stop twisting and distorting so inconsiderately. Breaking through a particularly stubborn clump of brambles, you find yourself stumbling into a wide open clearing in the shrubbery. Around you, the forest is still, almost antithetically serene compared to the fracas at the plain. You aren’t sure whether the silence is a comfort or not.

This place seems as good as any to stop for a breather, and you instinctively double over, your hands resting on your knees as you the breath back into your burning lungs. For the first time, you realise a faint nagging sensation coming from your stomach. Before long, you’ll need to find a reliable food source. Or just possess someone with a full stomach. You grimace as you realise how quickly such an otherwise absurd thought entered your head. Somehow, trapped in this sadistic free-for-all, it’s become a totally normal mental process.

Some primal hunting instinct stirs deep in your cerebellum, and you begin to scan the foliage and trees for signs of any delicious adorable wildlife in the vicinity. You find yourself wondering if it might be possible to possess a squirrel and sauté yourself. You shake the thought loose. As it stands, you don’t have any means of Possessing anything, and ergo no way to defend yourself. That has to be your first priority. Your thoughts linger on the ring lost in the skirmish. A feeling in your gut tells you it was a powerful object, and you consider going back for it; but for all you know, the tiny girl and the golem crushed it beyond rescue into the mud during their struggle. Better to continue on and hope you encounter some other weapon on your travels.

No sooner have you decided on a plan of action than you hear a twig snap behind you.

Whirling round defensively, you catch sight of no fewer than three silhouettes encroaching on you from behind. One is closer and moving a lot more fluidly in your direction than the other two, whose movements are disjointed and decidedly janky, swaying back and forth in a manner not unlike marionettes. Despite their spasmodic patterns, they still seem to be approaching concerningly quickly as you pick yourself up to dash away, you catch sight of a disconcerting intermittent baby blue light pulsing above their ears.

Erupting into the clearing, the oncoming shape materialises into a visage that takes your recently replenished breath away. Her jet black hair, frayed and wild from her manic pace, cascades over her shoulders like a twilit waterfall. Her proportions are modest, but her movements are lithe and precise like a cat’s. Her cheekbones are high and her pale blue eyes, already feral from running, expand even further in shock when she catches sight of you standing gawking at her gormlessly. She opens her mouth, and you brace yourself eagerly for your first interaction with your future bride.

“Shift it, dick-head!”

The words of an angel. Shocked out of your paralysis, you begin your pursuit, chancing a quick glance back to see your pursuers fade from view. A tanned girl with pigtails and a boy with closely shaved brown hair meet your eyes for the briefest of moments before they and their unnerving blue strobes fade from sight. Good riddance.

Wordlessly, the two of you run for a good five minutes before coming to an abrupt stop. “I think we lost them.” Your running partner pants breathlessly before realising she may still be in mortal danger and rounding her attention on you, her body poised for retreat, still somehow maintaining an energy reserve.

You hold your hands up in a placating gesture, your body heaving with the gasping breaths pummeling your lungs. Your uneasy ally seems to take note of your evident lack of any threatening presence and seems to relax, the tension visibly dropping out of her shoulders. Gingerly, she takes a step toward you, holding out her hand. “My name’s Brydan. Pleasure.” Her voice, although ragged and pained after the marathon she just ran, has a pleasant lilting quality to it, made all the more alluring by her cultured British accent. She musters a laboured smile. You glance down at her outstretched hand and return the smile, but leave the hand floating in the middle distance between you. No point taking chances in a place like this.

She too seems to realise her faux pas and snaps her hand back sharply. “Those two that were following me… they weren’t.... all there, if you know what I mean. It’s like something was piloting them, but not all too well. I saw one of them collide face first with a tree, but he didn’t even flinch. Just...kept coming after me. Thank god they just stagger around like a bunch of drunkards”. She grimaces, clearly unsuccessfully attempting to repress the memory of her harried pursuit through the trees.

“Do you have any… I’m not sure what to call them. Powers? Weapons? Any way at all to defend our-....yourself.?” She enquires, her expression equal parts fear, suspicion and hope. You open your palms in the universal gesture for “Not a threat”.

“Bloody brilliant. Flash Gordon over here. Still, at least that means you aren’t going to clamber down my throat at a moment’s notice.” She sighs, her body language visibly relaxing.

Neither of you takes a seat, choosing to remain standing as you survey your surroundings. The ground has become visibly more arid and muddy beneath your feet, and seems to be rising into a mild incline in the direction directly ahead of you. It could mean a rock face, which could mean a cave; some distant part of your psyche internalises optimistically. Brydan catches your eye, flashing you a quizzical glance. You nod your head toward the rising ground and stride off, Brydan quickly falling into step a safe distance to your left.

Chatting (Meaning she talks, you listen) with Brydan reveals you have a lot in common. Neither of you have any recollection of your lives outside the games, you both chose to run rather than fight, and you’re both shit scared after witnessing the Cornucopia Bodybath and the blue-light zombies. Unbelievably, your instincts turn out to be correct, and about 40 minutes up the trail, the ground plateaus out into a gigantic round area, roughly the size of a football field, encircled by the rising mountain cliffs on one side, the sheer drop of the cliff face on the other. Dead in the middle of the dry mountainside sits your prophesied cave. Leading the way, with Brydan edging along slowly at your side, the two of you press on inside.