Chapter 48: Wait for Me to Come Back
He slept soundly on the tree branch.
When Jake woke up again, it was already broad daylight.
The forest breeze carried the scent of pine trees, cool against his skin.
"At this point, about four-fifths of the plot has been completed," he thought, sitting up from the branch. Because of his youth and strong regenerative abilities, the wounds on his shoulders and arms had already scabbed over, but they still hurt when he moved.
He was ready to end this game. He had already decided on the winner: Katniss.
Obviously, Katniss wouldn't go with him; she had a beloved younger sister and a fragile mother. So Jake wanted her to be the victor, returning only when he had the power to overthrow the government.
To end this tedious game, he needed to eliminate all the other tributes.
"Hopefully, those two women have played their part," he said, referring to the two women from Districts One and Two. They were ruthless, like wild animals; their cute appearances were just natural camouflage.
If Jake wasn't mistaken, these two women should have gone out to hunt other tributes.
Katniss was probably among their targets, and Jake was, of course, among them.
Jake didn't want to kill innocent people indiscriminately, even if someone was standing in his way. He wouldn't kill them unless they were his enemy and posed a significant threat.
This was a result of over a decade of moral education, and he didn't resist this constraint.
If the two women killed the others, he could then deal with these two, saving himself a lot of trouble.
He jumped down from the tree, moved stealthily through the woods, which became natural cover.
When he reached the central clearing he had left yesterday, Jake saw piles of resources surrounded by countless landmines.
The owner of these resources had changed; the new owner was a muscular African American guy, seemingly even stronger than Cato.
The two girls from Districts 1 and 2 were now lying dead on the ground.
The supplies were surrounded by landmines; the only way to approach them was to confront the strongman head-on and kill him.
Just as Jake was hiding in the woods, analyzing the situation, a small figure suddenly rushed out from the other side. He must be the boy from District 8.
He moved very fast, like a rapidly running rabbit.
He carefully dodged the landmines one by one.
Looking at the backpack and food so close at hand, a hopeful smile spread across his face. If he could get his hands on this backpack of supplies, he could survive a few more days.
Boom!
The sound of a landmine exploding startled the guy lying in the sun.
A mangled leg fell from the sky and landed in front of him. He smiled disdainfully at the severed limb and lay back down in the sun.
Taking a deep breath, Jake casually picked up a stone from the ground.
Since he had decided to end this boring game today, these supplies were useless.
With a powerful thrust of his right hand, the fist-sized stone arced through the air and accurately struck the densely packed minefield!
Boom!
Normally, no one would have been willing to destroy these supplies, which was why the guy had surrounded them with landmines.
But now, this contestant was Jake.
Boom boom boom!!
A chain of explosions!
Soil on the ground was repeatedly blasted up, splashing ten feet high!
When the landmine exploded, the ground seemed to have been turned upside down, and the earth reeked of burning.
"Who is it?!" The muscular tribute stood up angrily, searching for the culprit.
Approaching him was Jake, wielding two small knives.
A fierce clash erupted instantly.
...
The battle started quickly and ended quickly; the details of the fight are omitted.
When Jake finally left, he was certainly injured, but only with minor cuts.
While Jake was searching for Katniss, Katniss was also searching for him. She had stumbled upon a bow and three arrows, which boosted her confidence.
She had also met a little girl named Rue who was an excellent tree climber and had helped her solve many problems.
However, this game wasn't a romance show or a reality TV competition; it was a necessary battle between enemies.
"Ah!!" It was Rue's scream.
Katniss was startled; they had only been separated for less than five minutes.
Grabbing the bow and arrows from the ground, Katniss quickly ran towards the sound. Thin branches in the dense jungle blocked her path, some leaving streaks of blood on her face.
When she arrived, she saw Rue in agony, a terrified young tribute's spear piercing her chest!
"Die!" Katniss roared, her eyes bloodshot!
She drew the bow and released the arrow with astonishing speed and terrifying accuracy!
Whoosh!
The specially made steel arrow flew out, piercing the terrified tribute's throat with pinpoint accuracy.
He fell to the ground, his grip on the spear loosening. Without support, both the boy and Rue collapsed to the ground!
"No!!" Katniss burst into tears and ran towards Rue.
Meanwhile, in the Capitol District, a group of the most affluent ladies were enjoying exquisite desserts, occasionally offering their comments.
Their main topic of conversation was Jake, who had single-handedly killed the three strongest players in the arena, making him the undisputed favorite in everyone's eyes.
However, the camera couldn't stay focused on Jake forever. When a fight broke out on Katniss's side, the camera quickly cut to her.
"Die!" Katniss's furious roar was transmitted to the outside world through the monitors.
Then, a group of noblewomen suddenly stood up and began to dance wildly, creating chaos.
This was a hypnotic trigger left behind by Jake; as long as they could still hear the words he had programmed, they would immediately fall into a trance state.
Leaving aside the fact that a group of elite Capitol citizens had suddenly started dancing wildly, Jake finally found Katniss somewhere in the woods.
Ignoring her tear-filled eyes, Jake pulled something out of his clothes.
It was a small, portable signal jammer he had secretly hidden on his person earlier. In a technologically advanced nation like Panem, getting such a device wasn't difficult for someone with his skills.
The moment he activated the signal jammer, Jake clearly saw the tracker under his wrist stop flashing.
"We don't have much time left." He pulled Katniss to the lakeside, where alligators occasionally surfaced in the water.
"I thought you were dead," Katniss said, her voice trembling with fear from Rue's death.
"How could that be?" Jake reached out and pulled Katniss's shoulders close, inhaling the scent of shampoo in her dark hair. "I have something to tell you."
He held Katniss's shoulders, straightening her posture, and stared into her grey eyes. "Katniss, will you leave with me?" This was the first time Katniss had seen Jake so serious.
Katniss, with Jake's hands on her shoulders, expected a heart-racing confession, since only one could survive this battle, and no one wanted to suppress their feelings.
But when she heard Jake's question, she froze.
"Leave here, leave this wretched world, go to a world without Panem's rule, where everyone lives happily," Jake explained carefully, afraid she wouldn't understand. "I'm not from this world. I can travel between different worlds. This time, I just happened to come here and met you, so... would you like to come with me?"
"But, I still have Prim..." She lowered her head, hesitant, and clearly didn't believe Jake.
In the end, Jake went to great lengths to convince Katniss, but she still refused to leave with him.
The reason was still Prim, her sister.
If it were before the Hunger Games, Jake might have been able to take Katniss and her family through dimensions, but now, he couldn't even leave the arena.
"Only one person can leave this game," he said, looking at Katniss. "The other enemies have been dealt with. Now, only you and I are left alive, so... Catnip, wait for me to come back!" His decision was decisive.
In fact, from the beginning, he had known he wouldn't be able to take Katniss with him.
As he spoke, Jake drew a short knife from his right boot, slashed his wrist, and with a flick of the blade, a tracking device, dripping with blood, flew out and landed in the water.
An alligator leaped out of the water, swallowed the blood-stained device, and then vanished.
Then, to Katniss's incredulous gaze, Jake's entire body began to slowly fade until it disappeared completely.
In the Capitol District, with Jake's departure, the signal finally returned to normal.
However, everyone only saw Katniss standing there, dumbfounded.
The battle was over? So where did Jake go?
After testing, the technicians in the control room found the tracking device inside the belly of an alligator in the river, making the whereabouts of its owner obvious.
The announcement rang out, "The winner is Katniss Everdeen from District Twelve!"
She had won; she could go home to see her sister and also see Gale, the boy she had previously admired.
But she remained in a daze.
Jake's sudden disappearance meant that what he said was true; he really was from another world.
Katniss had never been to college and knew nothing of the concept of multiple dimensions, but that didn't stop her from imagining wonderful other worlds in her mind.
She won, returning to District 12 with prize money and honor. Everyone cheered for her, and her family's life improved dramatically.
But looking at the Peacekeepers at the door, Katniss knew it was all an illusion. As long as she remained in Panem, even though she had escaped the Hunger Games, countless other battles awaited her.
So, from that day on, Katniss began to wait, waiting for someone to reappear and take her away from this world.
Author note - App help jake to travel one world to another world and lots of world will be unlocked and if he try to change story like major change so world timeline will be distrubed but worry not he will able to change things when he become powerful thank you for reading
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