Attack on the Games: Chpt 13

Attack on the Games

An Attack on Titan/Hunger Games Crossover

Chapter 13
The Storm


I’m awake when Jean finally wakes up in the morning because I didn’t even sleep at all last night. He jumps up, confused and scared but at the site of me he calms down and cautiously sits back down. I am a few feet away from him, leaning against the same tree as last night, my swords lying carelessly at my side. I didn’t care to pick up Jean’s weapon from where he had dropped it and he must have noticed this by now. I watch him and I see that he’s already carefully calculating the distance between us and how fast it would be for me to get up and kill him. But he must have also noticed that if I wanted to kill him I would have done it long ago.

“Why am I still alive?” he asks.

I regard him coolly. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. It seems you’ve been alone this whole time and have still managed to survive the Games this long. I’m actually impressed.”

“No, I mean,” he closes his eyes and lets out a long breath, “why haven’t you killed me?”

At first I say nothing and we both just look at one another. “I don’t know. But you were no threat to me and you helped save me.” I don’t know if it had to do with what Sasha said before, or if it was because it just wasn’t in my nature, or even because he almost reminded me of Eren. “Thank you, for that. For helping me, I mean.”

Jean just scowls and turns a deep red but he becomes more relaxed. “Thanks for not killing me,” he mumbles. “So I guess we’re even now.”

“Hmm.” I look down at my hands. I suppose he’s right. He helped save me and I helped save him. “Are you hungry?” I ask, thinking I could go try to hunt another rabbit.

“I have food,” Jean says and opens up a backpack that he has strapped to his back. It’s similar to the one Eren and I had and it then hits me that Eren was wearing the backpack and I didn’t even think to grab it. Jean looks up at me. “Are you thirsty?” And pulls out a canteen and some dried meat and berries.

I gladly accept his canteen and take a big gulp of water. “Where did you get the food?”

“I picked the berries and dried the meat from a fox that I trapped.” He then hands me a slice of the dried meat.

I am starting to understand how Jean has been able to last this long. He seems like he is very prepared and has a plan, unlike me. Maybe if I would have thought of a plan like I said I would’ve, Eren would still be alive. But I brush the thought out of my mind. There is no need to dwell on the past; it’ll only get in my way.

We eat in silence until Jean finally speaks up. “Who’s all left?”

I think for a moment and start naming off Districts and people, “From One there’s Bertholdt, from Two both Annie and Reiner, both from Three are dead. From Four there’s you, Sasha from Five, and me, from Six.”

Jean does the math in his head. “So there are only half of us left.”

I couldn’t help but notice Jean’s expression when I mentioned that both Players from Three were dead. I then remember hearing Jean’s cries when he found Marco’s body after I ran from it. It seems cruel to ask but the words came anyways. “Were you and Marco close?”

Jean looks at me, clearly surprised by my sudden question. But his face quickly transforms to one of pain. He runs a hand through his blonde spikes and squeezes his eyes shut tight. “Marco- Marco was the only one to believe in me. When everyone else thought I wouldn’t last the first day, Marco was the only one who believed I could actually win this. It’s his belief that still keeps me going and my drive to win. I just don’t want to disappoint him.”

“Didn’t Marco believe he could win?”

Jean smiles slightly. “Marco never thought he could win. But that never dampened his mood.” He then looks at me strangely. “You saw him after he died, didn’t you?”

I nod. “I couldn’t believe it was actually him.”

Jean nods back. “Did- did you see how it happened?”

Emotions well up in my chest and it hurts. But I’m glad it hurts, it reminds me that I’m still human and I can still feel even after I lost Eren and was unable to cry. But Jean must have cried after he lost Marco and he doesn’t even know how he died. I don’t think anyone saw how he died or who killed him. So I shake my head. “No,” I tell him. “I didn’t see how it happened or who it was that killed him. I’m sorry.”

Jean clutches his hand over his heart and turns away from me. And I watch as his shoulders start to shake violently from his silent sobs. I turn and walk away a bit to give him some privacy.

*

We walk for the rest of the day, silently hoping not to run into anyone but wanting this Game to end. The whole day passed without a single cannon fire. The viewer’s back in the Districts and the Capitol must be getting terribly bored.

“The Game-makers are going to do something big soon,” Jean says, “in order to get the action going. People are going to start to get antsy otherwise.”

I know he’s right but I wish that he was also wrong. I am not looking forward to what the Game-makers have in store for us. One year they released a hundred wolves to get the Players all cornered at the cornucopia. It was a quick ending. Who knows what they’ll do to us this year.

My question was answered very quickly and it made me wish I hadn’t asked. That night was when the storm hit us.

*

It was just the rain at first. But it was freezing and we had to build a makeshift tent out of branches and Jean’s blanket. Then the winds came and they were the strongest winds I had ever experienced. They knocked over our tent and Jean and I had to huddle together for warmth from the freezing rain and the strong winds. The winds sounded like a train roaring by right next to us and trees were getting knocked over all around us.

“We can’t stay here!” Jean yells over the roar of the winds. “A tree might fall on us!”

I know he’s right but the only other refuge that’s safe enough would be at the cornucopia and I have a feeling that is exactly where the Game-makers want us all to go. Suddenly, a giant gust of wind blows and I hear a ripping as a nearby tree falls only feet away from us.  Jean pulls me closer to him so he’s able to shield me with his body from the debris that flies at us.

“There!” I shout and point to the fallen tree, because when its roots got torn up it created a cave in the ground. “Let’s take shelter under the roots.”

Jean nods and stands, pulling me up with him as he has a secure arm around my shoulders and pushes my head down to protect it as we run towards the small cave. A branch blows by my face and just barely misses us. The rain is coming down so hard that we can barely see anything in front of our faces and we are basically running blindly to our shelter. We’re almost there when I hear more ripping and a small tree comes crashing down right in front of us. We’re unable to back away in time but we get tangled in the branches as the tree hits the ground. Jean is able to shield me from most of the sharp branches but gets many gashes as a result. I try to crawl my way out from under Jean and the tree but I’m pinned down into the mud.

“Can you move? I’m getting crushed,” I yell.

I feel as Jean tries to push himself off of me but he cries out in pain and the weight of him returns. “I can’t,” he says and his mouth is right next to me ear so he doesn’t have to yell. “There’s a branch that went through my leg and its pinning me here.”

This is really bad, I realize. I think that we could stay here until morning, the branches are providing us with enough shelter, but Jean may be losing too much blood. We have to get his leg free so it can be clean and bandaged. I try once again to move out from under him and this time I succeed but I get scraped by the branches that we’re tangled in. I crawl over Jean and go to look at his leg. It’s not as bad as I thought, but it’s still pretty bad. The branch went through the side of calf; thankfully it wasn’t a huge branch. I grab a hold of the branch and break it causing Jean to jerk and cry in pain. And I crawl out from under the branches and drag Jean out after me.

I have to support most of Jean’s weight as we half run to the shelter again. Once we make it under the roots and safe from the wind and rain I look at Jeans wound. The branch is still stuck in his leg and he clenches his teeth together as I remove it. I wish I had that ointment Levi gave me but it was left in Eren’s backpack, which I don’t have anymore. So I clean it out as best as I can with rain water. It’s still bleeding pretty badly so I remove my zip-up and also my tank top because the material is thinner than the zip-up so it’ll be easier to rip and wrap Jean’s leg with.

“Wh-what are you doing?” Jean stammers as I’m only left in my black sports bra.

I roll my eyes and put my zip-up back on because it is freezing and I begin to shake uncontrollably. I then rip my tank-top into stripes and start to wrap Jean’s leg with it with shaking hands.

“Oh,” Jean says once he sees what I’m doing. “How do you know how to clean and wrap a wound? You seem so sure of yourself, have you done this before?”

I continue to work on his bandages and shake my head. “No,” I tell him, “but Eren’s father was a doctor and I would watch him sometimes when he worked. I pick up on things really easily.”

“I can tell,” Jean remarks. He then frowns because my shaking has gotten so violent I can barely finish tying off his bandage. “Hey, you’re freezing! You shouldn’t have stripped down like that. Come here,” he orders and pulls me close to him so I can feel his body heat and he wraps his arms around me to start rubbing warmth back into me. And it works, my shivers start to recede and I hug myself closer to him for more of his warmth. I don’t know how but I’m able to somehow fall asleep.

*

I awake the next morning and realize that the storm has stopped. But there’s a strange low rumbling sound coming from outside of our make-shift cave and it keeps getting louder and louder. Concerned, I crawl out to look and see where the noise is coming from. Once I’m outside of the cave the noise only gets louder and I squint from the sunlight. There are hardly any tree’s left standing from what I can see and debris is everywhere. And suddenly I see where the noise is coming from.

Water comes rushing towards us at a deadly speed and I rush back to wake Jean up. He groggily opens his eyes from my frantic cries and looks at me confused. I groan because we have no time for this so I haul him over my shoulder before I can explain what’s going on and climb out of our hole. “We have to get to higher ground,” I yell as I run with Jean slung over my shoulder.

“Put me down! I can run on my own.” I quickly place Jean on his feet but he still can’t put much weight on his injured leg but he runs as fast as he can anyways. “The Game-makers must have flooded the river. We need to find a tree or something to climb.” But there are barely any tree’s left standing after the storm we just had. But the water is rushing towards us faster and Jean is already starting to slow down because of his injured leg. If we don’t find higher ground fast, we’ll surely drown.

Just ahead I can barely make out the cornucopia and think that is our best chance to escape the flood. Jean must have spotted it too because he points and yells, “We have to get to the cornucopia!”

We’re almost there and thankfully I don’t see anyone else there yet but the water finally catches up to us and sweeps us up. For a terrifying few moments I’m pulled underwater and am unable to find the surface again. But I’m suddenly slammed into something hard and I’m able to resurface to see that it’s the cornucopia. I’m able to climb up to the top of it and out of the water. I look around but there’s no sight of Jean. But just before I fear that he’s drowned, his head resurfaces just a few feet away from me and I reach out my hand and grab him. I help him onto the cornucopia and we both collapse and breathe hard while lying on our backs.

Before we can both fully recover, I hear another thump against the side of the cornucopia and another figure that got flushed out of the woods, climbs up the side to join us at the top.