That afternoon, word came back from the camp medical vehicle.
Jennifer's leg was officially a severe sprain plus heavy soft-tissue bruising and swelling. The good news? Nothing was broken.
The doctor ordered at least a full week of rest—no weight on it, no big movements.
That meant Jennifer's shooting schedule was going to be paused for days, and a bunch of her action scenes would need reshuffling or pushing back.
No major injury was the silver lining.
Still, with the female lead sidelined, the production was definitely going to feel it.
In the evening Cassius went to the medical vehicle to check on her.
She was lying on a simple cot with her left leg elevated and iced, looking a little down.
But the second she saw him walk in she forced a smile.
"Hey, here comes the hero."
Her tone tried to be light, but the exhaustion came through anyway.
"How're you feeling?"
"It hurts. Once the meds wore off it feels like a thousand ants are tearing my leg apart."
Jennifer winced. "Doctor says at least a week before I can move around. I'm holding everybody up."
She sounded genuinely frustrated.
"Safety comes first. The schedule can be adjusted," Cassius said, trying to comfort her. "You were pushing way too hard anyway."
Jennifer's face flushed a little. Her eyes drifted toward the window and the darkening forest outside. "I just wanted to keep up with you. Yesterday your action stuff was so good… I didn't want to fall behind."
Her voice got quieter, and when she looked back at Cassius there was something different in her eyes.
Cassius could feel it—after this incident, Jennifer's attitude toward him had subtly shifted.
He left the medical vehicle and headed back to his room.
Only then did it really hit him: this crappy modular building was actually worse than the medical vehicle.
At least the medical vehicle didn't have mosquitoes.
He finally understood why big stars in his last life always traveled with their own trailers. It was the only way to maintain any quality of life on location.
Relying entirely on whatever the production threw at you? You never knew what kind of hell you'd get.
The injury incident had the whole crew rattled.
The director and producers held an emergency meeting that night and shifted whatever scenes they could move forward.
Over the next few days, the focus turned to the other tributes' early arena scenes, Peeta's initial hiding sequences, and some brief interactions with the other competitors.
Cassius's workload suddenly increased.
Luckily he was in peak form. The freshly upgraded Level 5 Body Language made all the climbing, sneaking, and pretending-to-be-injured-or-exhausted scenes feel effortless.
His Emotion stat also helped him layer in Peeta's fear and quiet worry about Katniss.
Shooting efficiency actually went up.
Whenever he finished his scenes, Cassius would stop by the medical vehicle to check on Jennifer.
The swelling in her leg had gone down a bit, but she still couldn't put weight on it. She was stuck moving around camp in a wheelchair.
She was getting restless—partly from the pain, but mostly because she hated feeling like she was slowing everyone down.
"This sucks. I'm just sitting here like a useless lump while you guys are out there shooting."
It was her third time complaining to him. "The director says it'll be at least three or four more days before I can even do any seated dialogue scenes. Action stuff is pushed way back—this is going to screw the whole schedule."
Cassius was about to reply when he noticed the noise outside the camp sounded louder than usual.
Faint shouting drifted through the trees, too far away to make out clearly.
"What's going on out there?"
Jennifer heard it too and craned her neck toward the small window, but couldn't see much.
"I don't know. I'll go check."
Cassius stepped outside.
When he reached the perimeter of the camp, he saw several security guys and production heads clustered together, pointing toward the forest and looking unhappy.
Farther out, in the clearing at the edge of the woods, a group of twenty to thirty people had gathered.
They weren't crossing the production's marked security line, but they were standing right outside it, impossible to miss.
At first Cassius thought they might be overzealous book fans or Jennifer's admirers coming to visit.
Then he looked closer and realized something was off.
These people were dressed in normal outdoor clothing, different ages—some young, some middle-aged. They didn't have that excited fan energy.
Instead of posters or autograph boards, they were holding cardboard signs written in thick marker:
"PROTECT PISGAH FOREST!"
"NO FILMING = NO DESTRUCTION!"
"OUR HOME IS NOT YOUR MOVIE SET!"
A few were even holding a hand-painted green-and-white flag with a tree symbol—clearly some local environmental group.
Environmentalists.
This wasn't exactly rare in Hollywood. Big productions shooting in national forests or sensitive ecological areas often ran into local activist groups.
Sometimes it was just negotiations. Other times it escalated to protests, lawsuits, or major delays.
In his last life, Cassius had even seen videos of people protesting naked in the streets.
Some had gone as far as driving manure trucks and spraying government buildings because of livestock issues.
A middle-aged guy with glasses was holding a bullhorn, trying to talk to the protest leader.
Both sides seemed agitated. Snippets of the argument carried on the wind:
"We have all the proper filming permits—everything is completely legal—"
"Permits don't give you the right to trash the place! Look at the cables you laid, the bushes you cut, the heavy equipment tracks!"
"We have a full restoration plan. Once filming is done we'll restore the ecosystem—"
"Restore? Easy for you to say! The invasive species you bring in, the noise, the disruption to wildlife—how do you fix that?"
The conversation clearly wasn't going well.
More crew members had gathered, murmuring among themselves.
Cassius overheard a veteran grip mutter, "Shit. Of all the things to deal with… these environmental nuts are the worst. You can't reason with them."
A lighting tech added, "I heard they've been watching us for days. They were small before, but looks like they called in reinforcements today."
Cassius understood the situation perfectly.
The production's talk about "restoring everything" was mostly PR speak.
A crew this size—hundreds of people, vehicles, equipment, temporary structures—couldn't possibly leave zero impact on a pristine forest.
The best "restoration" they could realistically do was clean up the obvious mess, fill in some tire tracks, and plant a few seedlings.
But compacted soil, disrupted microbial life, altered animal migration paths? Those kinds of deep changes didn't heal in a few months.
It was the same as the fireworks-in-protected-areas stories from his last life. Everybody talked a big game about being green, but in the end it was always a mess.
The Hunger Games wasn't a low-budget indie. The budget was huge, the schedule was tight, and locations and actor availability all cost real money.
Lionsgate wasn't a mega-studio yet, and this was one of their biggest gambles. They were watching every dollar.
They were already halfway through the forest shoot. Being forced to pull out would be a financial and logistical disaster—finding a new location, rebuilding sets, reshuffling everyone's schedules.
Gary Ross and the key producers arrived shortly after.
Gary's brow was deeply furrowed as he looked at the increasingly vocal protesters outside the line. He spoke quietly with the producers.
"We can't let this blow up," one producer said. "The media hasn't picked it up big yet, but these guys might already be tipping off local stations or environmental blogs. Bad PR for a YA movie—especially one that's supposed to have an anti-establishment message. Getting labeled as environmental destroyers would be ugly."
"So what do we do? They're demanding we stop filming and leave the forest immediately!"
"That's impossible," another producer replied, throwing his hands up. "We can't afford the delay!"
"Negotiate. Find someone reasonable on their side. See if there's a compromise. We can amp up our environmental messaging, make more specific restoration promises, maybe even donate to a local conservation fund."
Gary rubbed his temples, looking exhausted.
The problem was—he wasn't the one holding the purse strings.
The money people were calling the shots.
First the lead actress gets hurt, now this.
Their luck had been terrible lately.
Over the next two days the protesters didn't storm the set, but they settled in right outside the security line like they were prepared for a long siege.
They took shifts, held their signs, and clearly planned to stay.
They even set up a simple website and social media accounts, posting photos of the production's impact on the forest.
Filming was inevitably affected.
While the core areas were still usable, the atmosphere was tense. Crew members walking in and out got stared down by the protesters, making everyone uneasy.
Some shots planned for more remote parts of the forest were temporarily shelved for safety and to avoid conflict.
While filming a scene of Peeta searching for water, Cassius could clearly hear the environmental chants being looped on a bullhorn not far away. It was incredibly distracting.
Gary had to call "Cut" several times before finally shifting the schedule to shoot when the protesters quieted down a bit.
Jennifer was wheeled out by an assistant for some fresh air and saw the scene.
Her eyes widened. "What the fuck? This is louder than the Reaping. Are they seriously here to protect the trees?"
"Apparently so," Cassius said, handing her a bottle of water. "They think we're the villains here to destroy their home."
"But we have permits. And the movie itself is supposed to make people think about nature and overconsumption, right? The Hunger Games has that whole anti-dystopian, anti-excess message."
"Ideology is one thing. Real-world execution is another," Cassius said, sitting on a stump beside her. "They're seeing the immediate disruption to the forest right in front of them. And the production's restoration promises probably won't be fully kept—"
"Just like how the Capitol always promises District 12 a better life but never delivers."
He shrugged.
Jennifer fell silent, thinking.
The daytime negotiations had broken down.
The protesters showed no sign of leaving. If anything, they reinforced their position outside the camp, adding more signs and even bringing camping chairs and thermoses—clearly settling in for the long haul.
Production work slowed to a crawl.
Crew members walked around with visible frustration, muttering about the "crazy tree-huggers" blocking their way.
Gary and the producers were in meetings all afternoon. Every face that came out looked grimmer than the last.
The word going around was that the activists' core members were uncompromising. They insisted the filming stop immediately. Any compromise offered felt like an insult.
The producers planned to reach out to higher-level local officials and park management the next day to apply pressure, while also beefing up camp security to prevent any incidents.
"Everyone stay sharp tonight," the head of security announced loudly during dinner. "Those sign-holders look peaceful for now, but we don't know if there are any extremists mixed in. Anyone who approaches the security line without authorization—warn them first. If they don't listen, call the police immediately!"
Easy to say, but in the middle of these deep woods, it would take the police a while to get here.