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60 seconds.
That was all that we had to take in our surroundings before all hell broke loose. This realization shocked me, but I knew that I had to keep my bearings. I had trained all week for this. I glanced to either side of me and immediately gained confidence. To my left was Haeli, my ally. To the right, Mac, my district partner who couldn't hurt a fly.
I looked to the arena, planning my strategy. Seemingly endless fields of vibrant green stretched out around us, the skyline interrupted only by a single mountain on one end, and a distant jungle behind me.
15 seconds.
The clock was ticking, and I had to be on top of my game. Haeli and I had been planning this. We would make a mad dash to the Cornucopia. She would get weapons, and I would get food.
GO!
The world seemed to slip into the slow motion of the cameras back home as I saw Haeli get tackled by the career on her left. I saw a knife in the career's hand and knew that Haeli wouldn't leave this fight alive, but some animal instinct told me to look away and keep running toward the gleaming Cornucopia. There were several tributes fighting by the time I arrived, but I was relatively small in stature and slipped through the melee unnoticed, grabbing a canteen and a sheath of throwing knives. I started towards the mountain.
I had barely picked up speed when I heard the thrashing and shouting of an angry career boy, wielding a sword, coming after me. He took a quick stab at my right arm, but became distracted by a more menacing tribute lunging towards him, which provided me with time to escape.
I was losing blood from my arm and was now without an ally, but I had no other option than to stumble towards the mountain, holding my jacket over my wound and leaving a trail of crimson. The only consolations were knowing that I was still alive, and hadn't killed anyone. I felt a pang of guilt for abandoning Haeli, but dismissed it. After all, there was nothing that I could have done.
I walked for hours through endless grass, encountering no one. I was starting to get lightheaded from blood loss...
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
6 cannons.
6 innocent children, never returning home.
I wondered if I would be killed next.
The memory of my interview with Caesar Flickerman creeped into my head among the dark thoughts, his twisted play on my last name seeming odd and out of place.
"Elodeia, you should set the 'cannons' firing, eh? Get it? Cannon?"He asked, laughing all too much at his own joke. The audience roared with fake laughter, woken up from their stupor.
"Yes, I understand the pun, but I do not condone murder and have no intention of killing, therefore, no, I do not find it funny," I replied coldly.
I spoke the truth in that interview, eliminating all hope of a sponsorship, but remaining true to myself. That was all that mattered anyways, since I was going to die. I curled up in the grass and cried for a while, scared of death.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
My fear was shattered by the sadness of these cannons.
I got up and continued walking, my shirt soaked with tears, sweat, and blood. By the time it was dark, I was at the base of the mountain, and weak from blood loss. Those four extra shots in the evening meant that the careers had been busy. Just 13 children to go, until one of us would be lucky enough to leave alive, and a murderer.
The anthem played, and the black, endless sky lit up with faces.
Mac from District 3 and Haeli from 5, the only people I knew, both dead in the bloodbath. The rest I had never talked to, but their death still depressed me. Boy from 7, both from 8, both from 10, both from 11, and the girl from 12.
10 families, all in despair. But at least they might have more children. My parents would have no one but each other when I died, and they were too old to care for another newborn.
But the time for emotion was over; I needed to get back to logic, for my parent's sake. I had seen District 10 and 11 headed to the jungle together, and they were probably the four cannons I had heard. Those four plus the other six from the bloodbath were just the introduction for this year's "entertainment." How sickening.
The career with the sword knew what I looked like and where I went, and my trail was so messy and bloody that they would have no problem finding me. I would die next. A week ago this would have terrified me, but just as I had been training with knives and snares, I had been training myself to accept the fact that I would die in these Games.
I cleaned my wound with some water from the canteen, drank the rest, and practiced with my throwing knives in the cool night air, to give my parents hope that I cared enough to survive. The swordsman was unaware that I was left-handed, and so the injury to my right hand did not affect my throws. I hit the trunks of nearby trees with reasonable accuracy, retrieved them, and waited for Death. At one point I considered ending my own llife to deprive the careers of another victim, but thought of my parents, watching the television, huddled together and willing me to come onscreen again, just to show that I was still alive. I rebandaged my arm with my jacket and got some sleep, since it would take the Careers several hours to cross the arena.
I woke from a nightmare to the sound of them shouting from a distance.
"She went this way! Look at the blood on the rocks!" shouted the swordsman tribute.
"We know, moron. Shut up or you'll scare her away," snapped a girl.
I decided to speak my last words with some semblance of bravery.
"I can hear you. Just kill me quickly and move on," I said calmly, imagining some of the most gruesome deaths from other games that I had been subjected to watch as a child. Scarring children's innocence with horrific images of gore from a young age was one of the more creative ways of the Capitol to force us into submission. I hated all of it, and couldn't begin to fathom the pain the tributes must have gone through, until now. If I went easily, these careers might save the theatrics for some other time.
"This better not be some kind of trick, or we'll kill you!" said the swordsman, drawing me back to Earth.
His unintelligent taunting frustrated me, and I raised a knife, preparing to throw. At the very last second, I remembered my words to Caesar, and threw the knife to the ground. They were still children, albeit brainwashed and hostile children, and they didn't deserve to die.
Unfortunately, the brutes didn't share the same philosophy. The swordsman stabbed me through the heart.
Pain.
All I could feel was pain, and then a numbness all over my body. I remembered my mother's last words to me:
"Be strong, my sweet Ellie. You will always be our baby."
I knew this was not true; tomorrow I would be just another face in the sky.
Somewhere a cannon fired.
A couple held each other and cried.