Chapter 23 Chapter 23: The Clock's Secret

a clock.I can seem to see the hands ticking on the dial of the great clock of the arena, which is composed of twelve sectors.Every hour a new horror emerges, a new weapon of the organizers of the Extreme Race, and the previous one ends naturally.Lightning, rain of blood, poisonous fog, monkeys - that's what the first four hours are about.Ten o'clock, big waves.I don't know what horrors will unfold in the remaining seven hours, but I know Willis is right. Now, it's raining blood, and we're on the sand below the area where the monkeys appeared.Being too close to the area where the poisonous fog appeared made me uneasy.Do all raids stay within the jungle area?uncertain.There are no giant waves.If the poisonous mist seeped out of the jungle, or the monkeys returned here...

"Get up," I ordered loudly, shaking Peeta, Finnick, and Johanna awake. "Get up—we have to go." There's still plenty of time to explain the clock's reasoning.Why does Willis say "tick, tick" and why the big invisible hand always triggers a deadly attack in every area. I think I've explained it to every sane person except Johanna, who's a naysayer to everything I say.But even so, she has to admit that it's better to be safe than to be left with regrets. We packed up, helped Beeter get dressed again, and finally woke Willis, who opened her eyes and screamed nervously, "Tick, tick!"

"Yes, 'tick, tick,' the arena is a clock, it's a clock, Willis, you're right," I said, "you're right." A look of relief flitted across her face—I guess it was because everyone finally understood what she meant, maybe from the first ringing of the bell, she understood the meaning of it. "Midnight," she muttered. "It started at midnight." I further confirmed to her. An image from memory came to mind, a clock, no, a watch, in the palm of Plutarch Havensby. "The meeting began at midnight," said Plutarch.Then the light on the dial came on, reflected the Mockingjay, and then went off.Looking back now, it seems like he was giving me a hint about the arena.But why would he do this?At that time, I was already a free man like him, not a "tribute" in the arena.Maybe he felt it would be helpful for me as an instructor.Or, it was all planned long ago.

Willis nodded straight at the place where the blood rained. "One-thirty," she said. "Exactly, one thirty. Two o'clock, poisonous fog appeared in that place." I said, pointing to the nearby jungle. "So, now we have to move to a safe place." She smiled and stood up obediently. "Are you thirsty?" I handed her the braided bowl and she gulped down about a quart of water.Finnick gave her the last bit of bread too, which she swallowed in two bites.She seemed to have overcome her inability to communicate and was gradually returning to normal. I checked my weapons, strapped the cannula and ointment in the parachute, and tied the cane to my belt.

Beetle still isn't doing well, but when Peeta tries to help him up, he won't, "Val," he says. "Here she is," Peeta told him. "Willis is fine. She's coming along." Kebit was still struggling, "Val," he said stubbornly. "Oh, I know what he means," said Johanna impatiently.She went to the sand and picked up the coil of thread that we had taken from him when we bathed him, and the coil was covered with a thick layer of blood. "Just this useless thing, he just got stabbed when he ran to the Horn of Zeus to get it. I don't know what kind of weapon it is, I guess you can pull a piece out and use it as a gallows or something, but you can imagine bit Strangling people to death?"

"He won with wires before, when he made an electrified trap. It was the best weapon he could get," Peeta said. It's strange how Johanna can't even understand that, it's not quite right, it's suspicious. "You have already figured out all this, you gave him the nickname Volt." I said. Johanna squinted and looked at me viciously and said, "Yeah, I'm so stupid, aren't I? I guess I was distracted trying to save your little friend, but at the time, you were... what were you doing, huh? Let Magus die?" I gripped the knife in my belt tightly.

"Come on, try it, do it, I don't care, I'll rip your throat," said Johanna. I know I can't kill her now, but a fight between Johanna and I will happen sooner or later, and one day, it will be either me or her who will kill the other party. "Maybe we all need to be more careful with every step we take," Finnick said, glancing at me.He took the reel and placed it on Bit's chest. "Here's your cord, Volt. Be careful plugging it in." Peeta pulls Bit, who is no longer resisting now, "Where?" he asks. "I want to go to the Horn of Zeus to observe and see if the guess of this clock is correct." Finnick said.This seems to be the best option.Also, it wouldn't be bad to get some more weapons, there were six of us, and four of us were strong even without Bit and Willis.It's so different from what I was doing last year in Horn of Zeus, when I was doing everything on my own.Yes, forming alliances is really nice, if you don't have to think about how to kill them in the end.

Bit and Willis likely won't be rescued by anyone else.How far can they go if we are in danger and have to run quickly?As for Johanna, honestly, in order to protect Peeta, I could have easily finished her, or shut her up.What I really need is someone to help me clear Finnick out, which I find difficult to do on my own, especially after everything he's done for Peeta.I was wondering if I could have him have an encounter with the pros.It's grim, and I know it; but what other choice do I have?Now that we all know the secret of the bell, there is no way he died in the jungle.Then someone has to kill him in a fight.

Thinking about these things upsets me inside, so I switch my mind and think about something else, and the only thing that makes me happy right now is how to kill President Snow.It's not a pretty daydream for a seventeen-year-old girl, but it's kind of satisfying to think about it. We walked along the nearest stretch of sand to the Horn of Zeus, taking great care to prevent the professional players from hiding in it.I don't think they're there because we've been on the beach for hours and haven't seen anything from them.As I expected, the place is deserted, only the golden horn and a bunch of leftover weapons.

Peeta put Bit in a little shade not too big in the Horn of Zeus, and then greeted Willis.She curled up beside him, but he handed her the thread roll in his hand, "Wash it clean, okay?" He asked. Willis ran to the water's edge and soaked the coil of thread, and then she sang a funny little tune, like a mouse running on a dial or something, and it must have been a children's song, but she sang it very happily. "Oh, don't sing that song again," said Johanna, rolling her eyes. "She's been singing it for hours, ever since she started saying the word 'tick,'."

Suddenly, Willis stood up straight, pointed to the jungle and said, "Two o'clock." I followed the direction of her finger and saw the wall of fog seeping into the sand. "Yes, look, Willis is right. It's two o'clock and the fog is on." "It's like clockwork," Peeta said. "You're so smart, Willis, to think of that." Willis laughed, humming a song while washing the spools. "Oh, she's not only smart, she's got great intuition," Beetle said.We all turn our eyes to Beetle, who seems to have recovered a lot. "She has the hunch things are moving faster than anyone else. She's like the canary in your coal mine." "What's that?" Finnick asked me. "That's a bird that people take down the well to warn us if the air is bad," I said. "How to warn, die?" Johanna asked. "First it stops barking, and then people will run out. If the air is particularly bad, they will die, yes, that's the end of the person." I said. I don't want to talk about the canary, it reminds me of Papa's death, Lulu's death, Maisley Doner's death, and her bird that Mama inherited.Oh, of course, I also thought of Gale, down in the deep, dark well, with President Snow's death threats to him, how easy it was to fake an accident down there.All it takes is a canary that won't call, a spark, and it's over. My mind went back to imagining killing President Snow. As much as Johanna was annoyed with Willis, she was the happiest I've ever seen her in the arena.I was looking for arrows in the weapon pile, and she was rummaging around, and finally found a pair of axes that looked like they were killing people.At first, I thought the choice was odd, but I was startled when she threw an ax so hard that it sank into the sun-softened golden horn of Zeus.She was Johanna Mason, of course, from District Seven, the logging district.I bet she's been throwing an ax since she was a toddler.This is the same reason that Finnick uses a harpoon, or Beet uses a wire, and Lulu knows about plants.I realize this is an unfavorable challenge that District 12 players have faced for years.People in District 12 don't go down wells until they're eighteen.It seems that the players in other districts learned the relevant skills at a very young age.Working underground does have some skills that can be used in the arena, such as using a pickaxe, blasting or other skills.Just like the skills I learned while hunting.But people in District 12 learned these skills too late. While I was rummaging in there for weapons, Peeta was crouching on the ground, drawing something with the tip of his knife on a large, smooth leaf from the woods.I looked over his shoulder and saw he was drawing the arena.In the middle is the horn of Zeus, surrounded by a circle of sand, and twelve slender sands spread out from the middle.It looked like a big pie, divided into twelve pieces of the same size.There is also a small circle representing the waterline and a larger circle representing the edge of the jungle. "Look how the Horn of Zeus is placed," he said to me. I took a closer look at the location of the horn of Zeus, and then understood what he meant. "The tail of the Horn of Zeus points to the twelve o'clock position," I said. "Yeah, so that's the top of our clock," he said.He quickly wrote the numbers from one to twelve on the dial. "Twelve o'clock to one o'clock is the lightning area." He wrote the word "lightning" in a very small font in the corresponding area, and then wrote "blood rain", "fog", " monkey". "Ten to eleven o'clock is a big wave." I said.He added.Speaking of this, Finnick and Johanna also came over, harpoons, axes, knives, they were armed to the teeth. "Any other anomalies you noticed?" I asked Johanna and Bit, maybe they saw something we didn't.But all they saw was blood. "I guess they'll have new tricks." "I marked out the area where the Extreme race organizers have been tracking us in the jungle, so we can avoid it," Peeta said, marking out the poisonous fog and the beach where there were huge waves.Then he sat down on the ground. "Well, anyway, that's a lot clearer than what we found out this morning." We all nodded in agreement and that's when I noticed - silence, our canaries stopped singing. I didn't waste a moment, and as I twisted my bow and arrow, I caught a glimpse of Willis slipping from the hands of the drenched Gruz to the ground. Willis' throat had been slit and her face was still hanging smile.I hit Gruz on the right temple with one arrow, and before I hit the second arrow, Johanna's flying ax plunged into Cashmere's chest.Finnick blocks a spear Brutal throws at Peeta, but Inobelli's knife lands in his thigh.If there was no Zeus Horn to hide in, the two professional players in the second district would have died long ago.I jumped into the water and continued to chase. boom!boom!boom!Three cannon shots proved that Velis was powerless, and both Gruz and Cashmere died.My allies and I circled the Horn of Zeus in pursuit of Brutal and Inobeli, who were running along the long strip of sand toward the jungle. Suddenly, the ground beneath my feet began to shake violently, and I was thrown sideways onto the ground.The ground around the Horn of Zeus began to turn rapidly, the speed was so fast that the jungle became blurred.The huge centrifugal force almost threw me into the water, and I quickly stuck my hands and feet into the sand, trying to keep my balance.For a time, flying sand and stones.dizzy.I quickly narrowed my eyes.I had no choice but to hold on to the ground tightly.Then, without slowing down slowly, the ground stopped turning abruptly. Coughing and dizzy, I sat up slowly and saw my companion in the same situation.Finnick, Johanna, and Peeta are all caught, and the other three dead are thrown into the water. The entire incident, from the disappearance of Willis's singing to the present, only took more than two minutes.We sat there panting, picking the sand out of our mouths. "Where's Volt?" Johanna asked.We all stood up at this point.We went crookedly around the Horn of Zeus, but couldn't find him.Finnick saw him in the water twenty yards away, barely afloat, and swam over to pull him up. That's when I remembered the coils, and how important that was to him.I looked around anxiously.where it goes?where it goes?In the end, I saw it, in the water, still firmly grasping in Willis' hands.Thinking of what to do next, I couldn't help but get nervous. "Cover me." I said to the others.I tossed the weapon aside and ran down the sand to get as close as I could to her, then plunged into the water and swam towards her.Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the helicopter appear above our heads, the mechanical claws already extended, and they would soon grab her.But I didn't stop.I swam towards her with all my strength, and finally slammed into her body with a slam.I put my head out of the water to breathe so as not to swallow the water mingled with her blood.She was floating face up on the surface of the water, and because she was already dead and the buoyancy of the belt kept her from sinking, her eyes were fixed on the blood-red sun.As I tread the water, I unclip her fingers - she's gripping too hard, uncoiling the thread.In the end, all I could do was close her eyelids, say goodbye to her, and swim away.By the time the coils were thrown on the sand and climbed ashore, her body had already been carried away.I can still feel the blood in my mouth mixed with the taste of sea salt. I walk back to the Horn of Zeus and Finnick has pulled Bit back alive, but he's choking a bit and sitting on the ground, spitting out the water in his stomach.He's smart enough not to lose his glasses, so at least he can see.I tossed the coil of wire by his lap.The spool of thread was shiny, with no trace of blood on it.He pulled out a length of thread and ran his fingers through it.This is the first time I've seen this thread, and it's not like any thread I've ever seen, light blonde, as thin as a hair.I wonder how long this thing is.Filling the spool seemed to be several miles long.But I didn't ask, I knew he was thinking of Willis. I looked at other people's faces, and they were all very serious.Now that Finnick, Johanna, and Beet have lost their buddies, I walk up to Peeta and hug him, and for a moment, we're all silent. "Let's leave this nasty island," said Johanna at last.Now it's just a question of how many weapons to take, and we'll take as many as we can.Fortunately, the vines in the jungle are strong enough, and the cannula and ointment wrapped in the parachute are still fastened to my belt.Finnick takes off his shirt and wraps it around the not-so-deep wound Inobelli left on his thigh.Beetle figured he could walk by himself if we walked slowly, so I helped him up.We decided to stay on the beach at twelve o'clock.Here you can get a few hours of tranquility, and you can also stay away from the residual poisonous fog.But just after making this decision, Peeta, Johanna, and Finnick went in three different directions. "Twelve o'clock, right?" Peeta said. "The tail of the Horn of Zeus is facing twelve o'clock." "That was before they turned the disk," Finnick said. "I judge by the sun." "The sun just means it's almost four o'clock, Finnick," I said. "I think what Katniss is saying is that knowing it's four o'clock doesn't mean you know where four o'clock is. You can only roughly tell where it is, unless they change the outside of the jungle as well." Bit said. No, Katniss's meaning is much simpler than that, and Bit's theory is much more complicated than what I said.But I nodded anyway, as if I had always thought so. "Yeah, so either way could lead to twelve," I said. We circled the Horn of Zeus and carefully observed the surrounding jungle.The jungle looks surprisingly similar in every position.I vaguely remember that the first thing struck by lightning at twelve o'clock was a tall tree, but the trees in every place are very similar.Johanna thought to follow the marks from Inobelle and Brutal, but those marks were also washed away by the water.Everything is unrecognizable. "I shouldn't have mentioned the clock. Now they've taken even that advantage from us," I said bitterly. "It's only temporary," Beetle said. "At ten o'clock, we'll see the big waves again, and we'll be back on track again." "Yeah, they couldn't possibly redesign the arena," Peeta said. "It's all right. You've got to tell us how to get there, or we'll never move camp, you fool," Johanna said impatiently. Ironically, her contemptuous remark, which seemed logical, was the only response I felt comfortable with.Yes, I have to tell them where to go. "Okay, I need a drink. Are you all thirsty?" she continued. In this way, we just picked a road at random, and we don't know what time it is.When we got to the edge of the jungle, we looked at the jungle suspiciously, not knowing what awaited us inside. "Well, it must be time for the monkeys to show up. But I can't see any of them. I'm going to punch holes in the trees," Peeta said. "No no, this time it's my turn," Finnick said. "At least let me stand behind you," Peeta said. "Katniss can punch holes, we need you to draw another map. That one got washed away," Johanna said.She plucked a broad leaf from the tree and handed it to Peeta. I suddenly suspected that they were going to separate us and kill us.But it doesn't make sense to think so.If Finnick punches a tree, I'll have an advantage, and Peeta is much bigger than Johanna.So I followed Finnick about fifteen yards into the jungle and he found a nice tree and started digging holes in it with the knife. As I stood there, bow and arrow in hand, I always felt uneasy, like something was going on, and it had something to do with Peeta.I reflect on the time that has elapsed, from the time the gongs sounded into the arena to the present, and what has disturbed me. Finnick carried Peeta off the metal plate, and when Peeta was hit by the electromagnetic force field, Finnick saved him, and Mags voluntarily entered the poisonous fog so that Finnick could carry Peeta.Junkie rushes in front of Peeta, blocking the monkey's attack.In the brief encounter with the pros, isn't Finnick blocking Brutal's spear for Peeta, and getting Inobelli's knife himself?Even now, Johanna dragged him to draw maps rather than risk him in the jungle... I can't think of anything wrong with this, the reasons behind this are too deep to fathom.Some victors tried to keep him alive, even if it meant sacrificing their own. I was shocked.Of course, it's my responsibility to protect Peeta, but it doesn't make sense.Only one of us will make it out alive, so why did they choose to protect Peeta?What exactly did Haymitch tell them, and what exchange did he make with them, that made them put Peeta's life first? I know my reasons for protecting Peeta.He's my friend, that's how I despise the Capitol, and I'm going to subvert the terrible rules of the game.But what would make me really want to save him if I didn't have his immediate interests?Putting him above his own life choices?Sure, he's brave, but we're all brave enough to win The Hunger Games.This is an advantage that cannot be ignored in everyone.But... I remembered that Peeta was better than any of us in his effective use of words.He conquered the entire audience in two televised interviews, and perhaps it was this latent capacity for language that enabled him to mobilize the masses—no, the people of the country—with nothing more than the use of plain language . I remember thinking about this question, and it is a gift for the leaders of our revolution.Has Haymitch convinced everyone?Convincing everyone that Peeta's words are more powerful than all of us combined?I don't know, but it's a long way to go for some winners to do that.I'm talking about Johanna Mason.But could there be any other explanation for their decision to protect him? "Katniss, give me the intubation," Finnick said.His words suddenly pulled me back from my complicated thoughts.I cut the cannula holding the cannula and handed him the metal tube. At this moment, I heard a cry, the voice was so familiar, full of pain and fear, it made me feel cold from head to toe.I threw away the intubation, forgetting where I was, not knowing what was waiting for me, all I knew was that I had to find her and protect her.Regardless of the danger, I ran frantically in the direction of the sound, through the woods full of vines and thick foliage, and nothing could stop me from running towards her. Because, that's my little sister Prim's voice.