The Last Days

by justcherried

Parts of the last few days of the 74th Hunger Games as told by Cato

The 74th hunger games

DAY 15

CATO

Every tribute is silent as the packs appear in the Cornucopia. Everyone stands as still as statues; everyone is waiting for each other to make the first move.

I am concealed by the bushes, but I still have a clear view of the Cornucopia. Clove is hiding somewhere in the foilage a few kilometers away.

The silence that settles is expectant, unsettling.

Then someone dashes out of the huge golden horn, made recognizable by her flame-red hair, which flies behind her. That girl from District 5. I feel the urge to

go after her. She might be clever and quick, but probably wouldn't last long in hand-to-hand combat.

On second thought,I need to get my pack before someone snatches it away.

All of a sudden, the girl from District 12 starts running towards the Cornucopia, setting everything in action. Clove sprints after her, her knives glinting in the

dim light. I start to run after Thresh, but he's already too far ahead of me. I swear under my breath; I should have started running sooner.

"Cato!"I hear Clove's frantic shout in the distance. I can't see her; I'm too far away. Foliage conceals my view.

"Clove!"I answer, and start running, my machete grasped firmly in hand. Clearly she's in trouble. As I near the Cornucopia, I can make out the bulky form of

the tribute from District 11. Thresh is his name, as far as I can recall.

Another tribute is struggling in his grasp. The tribute lets out a shriek.

"Cato! Cato!"

My eyes widen. No! I run harder, faster, but I'm still too far away from her, too far…

Every step I take seems to get me nowhere. I need to run faster, but I'm already going as fast as I can.

Thresh towers over Clove. She lets out another shriek. Even when I'm far away, I can clearly see Clove's frightened expression in my mind. My shoes slap the earth as I continue to sprint. Thresh has something in his hand. He slams it down.

Clove is crumpling to the ground. The trees fly past me as I run, breathing in short, ragged breaths. Thresh has gone over to another tribute; that girl from 12.

But then he's turning away, and she's starting to run back into the woods.

What is happening? I don't have time to consider it. The only thing in my mind is Clove, sweet, fierce Clove. Thresh has picked up two packs from the

Cornucopia, and I am still running hard.

I halt by Clove's form, trying to stay calm. She's breathing, but her eyes are blank, seeing nothing. There is a small dent in her skull. My fists clench. Thresh's doing.

"Clove!"I feel my vision suddenly clouding, and the moisture rolls down my cheeks. "Please, you can't just leave me now! Clove!" I sink down to my knees, just as her barely audible breathing fades away into silence. She's gone.

And in the back of my mind I remember that moment, that night when I thought we would leave the arena together...

"...That two tributes from a district can win."The words faded away into the night, and the anthem played loudly.

Clove looked at me with hopeful eyes.

"We can both win," She repeated in a whisper. Her expression was one of sheer joy. It had been long since I'd seen her like this. In the arena, she had been the Clove who was a fighter, merciless, serious. I hadn't seen her smile, not even once. Just like our district had trained us to be.

I grinned, and she snuggled closer to me. For the moment, the tension between us had dissolved. We had entered the arena knowing at least one of us had to die. Now it didn't have to be like that. Not anymore. The moon's rays shone down on the forest floor, illuminating the grass into a shade of silver.

I stare into Clove's unseeing brown eyes, and gently set her to the ground. My sadness is replaced as soon as it had come, with a boiling anger. I grip my

weapon harder. Thresh will pay for this. And now that Clove is gone, I have to win. Even when we hadn't been close back in our districts, we had gotten to

enjoy each other's company in the arena. After one last glance at Clove, I start to run again, in the direction where Thresh had gone, back to his wheat field.

The rage is back, firing me up, strengthening me. I pick up my pace, ready for the next battle.

HOURS LATER

The rain pours down. It has already soaked through my clothes and is cold and wet against my skin. Blood streams down my leg. I feel weary and tired, but yet the fight still continues. Thresh is just as beaten up as I am.

I quickly dodge one of Thresh's blows. The huge rock he uses as a weapon misses my forehead by a hair. I swipe at him, but before I can get a good hit his fist

collides with my face, and a stream of blood erupts from my nose.

Thresh slams into me, knocking me down.

I reach for my weapon, then realize I can't.

I'm pinned down to the ground. Thresh towers over me. I struggle in his grasp, until I barely manage to get one arm free.

Thresh is getting ready to land the final blow. It feels as if time has begun to slow. He has his rock gripped firmly in one hand, and raises it over his head…

...And I punch him with every last bit of strength I have left. Thresh's rock flies out of his hand as he stumbles, and he curses under his breath. My fingers curl around my knife.

It's now or never.

One final swing, one carefully aimed blow…

The blade glints in the dim light, and he falls to the ground.

I don't wait for the cannon to fire. Quickly, I grab my district's pack from where Thresh had left it, and sling it over my shoulder.

Rain continues to come down.

The cannon booms behind me, muffled by the rain.

DAY 16

Clove. That is the first thought that comes to mind when I wake. I ache all over, and thinking of her on top of everything is too much to bear.

I force myself to sit up, and then to make my way out of the cave I used for shelter the night before. The Hunger Games are not over, which means that I still

have to face District 12 sooner or later. The Gamemakers will come up with something when the time comes.

But for now, I don't mind the solitude, although it would have been better with Clove at my side.

TWO DAYS LATER

The mutts are almost on me. My legs travel in a blur, and I'm running, this time from my death. I barely notice the two tributes from district 12 as I make my

way past them. The girl shoots an arrow at me. It falls to the ground, deflected by the body armor I got from the feast.

The footsteps behind me suggest that the district 12 tributes have noticed the mutts and are also starting to flee. The Cornucopia is not too far away, and the

district 12 girl, Katniss is running beside me now. I realize my weapon is still at the old Career camp, dropped in panic when the mutts appeared.

I heave myself onto the sun-baked metal of the Cornucopia without much trouble. It takes a moment to catch my breath, and I see that the girl is helping the

boy onto the horn as well. Below, the mutts growl, snapping at his legs. One jumps up and almost makes its way up the horn. The girl takes it down with an

arrow.

That's when I realize the eerily human-like quality the mutts have, their fur color, their eyes. I spot one that has a number 2 printed on its collar.

It's fur is dark , and so is its eyes. But something is strangely familiar about those eyes…

It's Clove.

The mutt bares its teeth and growls. It stands up on its hind legs and attempts to jump, just like the other mutt had.

And I can't move. An arrow buries itself into the mutt's fur and it drops to the ground. Then I can breathe again.

While Katniss is busy defending herself, the hate that built up for her when she threw the tracker jacker nest onto the Careers, when she blew up the supplies

returns. I thrust myself forward to catch the boy in a headlock. He struggles as I tighten my grip around him. Katniss turns,

her bow ready to shoot. She stops in her tracks. Is she selfish enough to do it?

"Go on, shoot," I tell her. "We both die, and you win." Her eyes travel from me to the boy, and Peeta traces something on my skin.

I don't realize what he's done until the arrow punctures my hand, and I let go of him. As I stumble to catch my balance, my foot slips, and I feel myself falling

down, down, headfirst to meet my fate.

The air whooshes past me for an instant, then the mutts are on me. I duck and a one of them snaps its teeth an inch from my face, and another bites down on

my shoulder. The impossibly sharp fangs rip through the armor and into my flesh. Katniss' arrows can't break through the high quality armor, but the mutts can.

I don't have time to cry out in pain before another mutt slams into me.

It growls, and I hit it squarely in the face. It then hisses and bites into my arm. A warm rush of blood runs down my shoulder. I fend off another mutts' attack.

Another one bites my leg. After a while, I feel as if I can't do anything to defend myself. It hurts so much. I don't know if i can keep going like this.

But somehow, I do. I wish I could just give in, but that would be too easy. A part of me doesn't want the easy way out. It wants me to keep going, fight, all

the way to the end.

The hours of the night are endless, as I get thrown around like a rag doll flying in the wind. Weak. Helpless. Whenever I dodge a mutt's attack, another one

rips off a piece of my flesh. Burning pain skewers my body from all directions.

The night is replaced by dawn, but the mutts are relentless, never tiring, while I feel worse than ever, like a bloody strip of meat that has been pulled apart

and torn countless times. Through the pain, I realize Katniss is looking down at me from the edge of the Cornucopia. She has her bow in hand, in her quiver a

last arrow. I have a single thought in my head: I want desperately for her to end my agony, once and for all.

She must sense what I want, because she fits the arrow into her bow and pulls the string back. The silver arrow flies through the midst of mutts and finds its

mark. Suddenly, my vision swims in and out of focus,

but I have nothing to grip for support. The mutts may be still attacking, but it feels as if they are merely small animals, harmless to me.

In the next few seconds, I no longer see the arena in front of me. Instead, it is as if I am a bird, gliding over the bright blue sky. I see the districts in turn, the training center, the launch room, the capitol, the arena. Then I hear a familiar voice, calling out to me.

"Cato! Cato!" Clove is calling me across the meadow. Her voice is not panicked. She's not facing the last moments of her life. But she bounds toward me. Her eyes sparkle in the sunlight.

I run toward Clove, the pain gone, the hunger games no longer a worry. Darkness is threatening to swallow me up all at once, yet I am still in the meadow. Everything is confusing, yet what's happening to me makes perfect sense.

A part of me still wants to hold on to the last frayed strands of my life. To be the victor of the 74th Hunger Games. I know that it's not possible. Not when I'm facing the end of my life.

I see Clove's beaming face just before I let go. The darkness swallows me whole.

The cannon fires.

Author's note: Hope you enjoyed it ! One of my favorite characters in the Hunger Games was Cato, so I thought I'd write a fanfic about him. Oh, and don't forget to state your thoughts in the reiviews.