Her heart is beating, franticfranticfrantic, her veins feel as if they might jump right out of her skin, she has too much blood, too much blood, it could all be gone in then next five minutes, who knows.
She's dressed in ice-white and blue, a jacket lined with fur, boots with fur all along the insides, and she knows it's going to be cold, stone-cold, death-cold.
Her hands are buried in fur-lined gloves.
They feel new and clumsy, newborn, and she wonders how well she'll be able to throw knives, in these, so she takes the right one off and tucks it into her belt.

And then the platform lifts and she doesn't have any time to think, not anymore, the Games are starting and her heart is in her throat and the blood is pounding in her head, now, waiting for death.
Her breath feels too shallow, as if her lungs aren't working properly.
Jump! Her mind is shrieking as the tube falls away and she's standing in glaring brightness. Jump!
There haven't been many Games. Not yet. But she knows enough to know there are mines below her, and if she jumps they'll blow her sky-high and she won't need to see another moment.
But she's not brave enough or cowardly enough or whatever vice/virtue that would take.
And she doesn't want her siblings to see her give up, that way.
If she gives up it will be private, it will look like an accident, it will look like she fought.
She will give them that, at least.

Jump!Jump!Jumpjumpjump...
But they're counting down now,
7, 6, 5,
And her heart is slamming against her chest and her eyes are blinking rapidly. There's snow all around her and thick, snow-hazy pines and she just knows there are all kinds of ugly bears and wolves and Capitol muttations lurking in those dark, heavy trees.
4, 3, 2
She's breathing as rapidly as if she already been running. Every muscle is tense. Ready. Waiting.
1.

She runs. She runs faster than she's ever gone in her life because she sees a medium-sized pack and a set of knives and she wants them, needs them...
But she needs her life, too.
She snatches the knives without much of a problem, and there's one already in her hand, long and curved and dangerous. Lovely. The handle is warm in her hands already, as if its molding to her.
She could kill with this. Will kill with this, will have to, she knows it.
But not yet. Hopefully not yet.
The pack is next and it's close, and she's ducking around other Tributes already spilling blood, blood horribly red and horribly bright against the snow.
The bag is on her shoulder and she's running. An arrow whistles by her head and she wonders, vaguely, if it's Astor who is shooting. She hopes it isn't. She hopes he wouldn't.
But she knows he would.

The woods are dark and deep and they send chills all up and down her spine. But they're thick, too, and good for hiding.
Her feet are soft and light on the snow, and they barely make a sound.
Water. She has to find water. She knows that much. Food, too, and shelter.
But she's not far enough away from the bloodbath, and who knows what's in her pack?
So she keeps going, weaving, taking twists and turns that make no sense until she can no longer hear the screams of the dying and the cries of the triumphant.
And then she sits on a fallen tree, pressing her bare right hand deep in the snow.
And she cries.