Chapter 2
Chaos. Utter chaos. I hesitant a moment as the tributes around me leap from their pedestals and sprint for the Cornucopia, kicking up dust behind them. Someone beside me stumbles as she steps off her platform and hits the ground face first. I see another person - a boy - running as fast as he can away from the Cornucopia with no supplies or weapons whatsoever. That can't be me, and I make up my mind to get those supplies and bow I spotted. All this in a few seconds.
I make a beeline for the tarp and bow and arrows, pumping my legs faster than I ever have before. I can make it, I can do this. I'm almost there, trying not to look ahead of me at the bloodbath happening at the Cornucopia and only focusing on the tarp and bow and arrows, the tarp and bow and arrows, the tarp and bow and-
I am knocked to the ground by an unknown force, so close yet so far away from the tarp and bow and arrows. Gasping to catch my breath, I kick wildly at the person who knocked me down. I feel a hot rush of pain in my calf, and I realize my attacker is holding a knife and slashing as wildly as I am kicking. The cut is deep and I feel the sticky blood run down my leg and into my shoe. I try to get away, but he's locked onto one of my ankles and is ready to stab my chest with the knife. I scream and kick with my other foot, kick after kick to his stomach, groin, neck, then finally his head. He doesn't have me pinned down very well and I wonder why he's allowing me to kick him like this and why he doesn't fight back harder, and that's when I notice a terrible gash across his chest. Why is he fighting me if he's as good as dead himself?
He makes a stab for me and I'm able to roll out of the way, but I won't be able to get away with that again. His face is contorted in a mask of pain and rage and he screams something unintelligible as I continue my kicking, like he's so frustrated that I can't be an easy kill for him, but then I feel my boot connect with bone. There is a crack and my attacker falls limply to the ground. I grab the knife from his hand and that's when I get a good look at him.
He's the District 2 boy, a husky boy who I think I would not have been able to defeat had there not been a rush of adrenaline coursing through my body. But then I realize a blow to his head with my boot was not what killed him-there is a spear in his back and blood dripping out of his mouth. I scramble backward at the shock of it, then quickly shake my head and get up. I can't dwell on his death, I can't look for the person who killed him. That person might be back to collect their spear, now adorned with a trophy of their victim's blood.
Jumping over the husky boy's body, I scoop up the tarp and swing the case of arrows over my shoulder. I grab the bow and nock an arrow, then finally allow myself to look up, to study the scene at the Cornucopia.
I don't see my district partner Caspian anywhere. He must have grabbed whatever was closest to him and gotten out of there. Like I should be doing. But I can't help myself from surveying all the dead tributes' bodies littering the ground. There are too many bodies, and I think I might be sick, so I stumble backward and try to run in the opposite direction, but a girl has blocked my way. I don't know where she came from, I haven't exactly been very focused and it's a wonder I'm not dead yet. But then my eyes fall on the knife in her hand and I think that this is it, I will die at the hand of this girl.
"You killed him!" she screams, and lunges at me. It takes me a moment to realize she means the District 2 boy.
"I didn't kill him, I swear!" I choke as I fall to the ground - again. I hold out my bow as she drops on top of me. She spews blood and goes limp so suddenly that I wonder if another person killed her for me like the District 2 boy. I push her body off of me and that's when I realize she landed on the arrow nocked in my bow. My eyes linger on the wound, right in her stomach. I feel her blood all over my face, and the blood from my calf is still gushing. I have to turn over to vomit; this is too much.
I can't afford to recover, and I get to my feet as quickly as I can, taking the bow in my hand with the arrow still nocked but inside the District 2 girl's stomach. I gently pull the bow away and leave the arrow-I can't bear to take it out of her body. I stumble over a few feet to where the tarp blew and pick it up, hastily folding it as I run. Run from the Colosseum, from the Cornucopia, from the blood, from the dead bodies, from the girl I have killed. Running blindly. I am scared, so scared. I have become just what the Capitol wanted me to become and just what I wanted to avoid becoming - a murderer.