Chapter 7: Sewing and Hunting

"Wake up little Gem, its your turn to keep watch." Thresh gently shook me awake. "Okay." I muttered. He took my place on the bedroll and was soon snoring lightly. It was quiet and dark. our little fire had died out, so I wrapped my blanket tightly around me sitting in the corner with holding my knife. About five hours latter, the sun started to rise. I could hear the birds waking up, singing the sweet tune of morning. I heard something else, it sounded like footsteps. "Thresh." I called out to the big lump in the corner, he didn't respond. I got up from where I sat and quietly tiptoed over to Thresh. "Thresh." I whispered again, shaking his. He jumped. "Thresh, there's someone outside. I can hear their footsteps." I warned him, he nodded and got up, grabbing his spear. I attached the belt of knives to my waist and went to the mouth of the cave.

Thresh put a finger to his lips, signaling quiet. 'Wait here.' He mouthed, I didn't move, just watched as he cautiously stepped out of the cave. He cried out in pain, and I ran out to see what had happened. I held one of my knives ready to throw it at whoever had shot Thresh with an arrow. An arrow? Katniss! I concluded. "Katniss." I said in a hunched tone. "Katniss its okay, its me Emerald." I said a bit louder. "Don't move." I froze. "Katniss, don't do this." I pleaded, turning around to face her. Sure enough it was her, she relaxed when she recognized me. "Its me Katniss." I soothed, she dropped her weapon and pulled me into a tight embrace. My eyes then fell on Thresh. "Oh my Gods!" I exclaimed, rushing over to him. "Its okay little Gem, I'm okay, its just a flesh wound, we can heal it up in the shelter, stitch it if need be." Thresh reassured me, allowing me to help him stand. "Peeta! Come here! Its Gemstone and Thresh." Katniss called out to her 'boyfriend', they explained it all on the third day of training, how they were pretending to be a couple to get more sponsors. Peeta came out of his hiding spot. "Hey there Peeta. You're strong right? Can you help me get Thresh into the cave before someone sees us?" I asked, my legs quivering against Thresh's weight. "Yeah sure." He rushed over to where I and helped me carry Thresh into the cave, he had lost a lot of blood. "Flesh wound my ass." I hissed, grabbing the sewing kit and a canteen of water. "Katniss, can you light a fire and ignite a twig so that I can heat up the needle well enough for it to pass through his skin?" She nodded and left to collect more wood for the fire. "Peeta I need you to listen carefully okay? (He nods) Good, now I need you to cut a piece of cloth out of the blanket and then pour some water from this canteen onto it, not too much but enough to make the cloth damp." I instructed Peeta, and he did as I told him. Katniss came back and began to light a fire near me. "Awesome job Katniss, now pass me the needle and thread." She did, and I ran it over the small flames, allowing it time to heat up. "While I'm doing this Peeta can you clean his wound and then put pressure on it." He does. We were all silent. "Okay Peeta at the count of three remove the cloth so I can stitch him up. One... Two... Three." Peeta removed the fabric from Thresh's wound and I pierced his flesh. Thresh winced at the pain but soon relaxed. It took me all of about three minutes to finish stitching him up, it wasn't that big of a wound, just deep. "There you go. Now don't move. Peeta make sure he doesn't get up, don't let him sit up either, Katniss and I are going hunting because we need food." I told them, making it sound as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

Katniss and I grabbed our bows and quivers, I filled my knife belt, then off we went back into the forest, looking for food, hoping we wouldn't get lost on our way back. "Gem, how come you know how to do that?" Katniss asked, as we made our way through the forest, looking for our prey. "Do what?" I wondered. "Stitch people up. How do you know how to do that?" She repeated, looking at me. "Um... It was just something a I learned while out picking and helping with the harvests. You can't even image the amount of people who end up cuttin' their legs while harvestin' crops like wheat and corn." I explained, "Its just a skill that you learn." I finished, then hear a faint crack and stopped dead in my tracks. "What? What is it?" Katniss questioned at little above a whisper. "I heard a crack. Be quiet." I commanded, looking around the surrounding area. Then not two seconds latter, two tributes came out bounding out of the bushes and attacked us. I pulled out a knife and threw it at a charging male tribute, he dropped dead instantly, Katniss shot the other one. Cannons fired, telling the other tributes that people were dead. "Come on lets get out of here before the helicarriers come to collect the dead bodies." I suggested, taking My knife out of the male tribute I killed and wiping it on my pants. "Good idea." She breathed, and we continued onward.

Not too far from where we were attacked I saw a rabbit. Katniss killed it right through the eye. It was an impressive shot. I threw a rock into the bushes and a flock of birds came up out of it. Katniss and I shot two birds each. We collected our prey and headed back to the cave. Surprisingly enough we didn't get attacked on our way back, nor did we get lost. "We have food!" I announced, scaring the shit out of Peeta. "Oh its you two, I thought someone was going to eat us." He panted, sitting beside Thresh, who was lying on the ground like I instructed him to do. Lets build up this fire and cooks u up some meat." I ordered, it was weird taking charge I don't do it very often. After an hour of cooking we enjoyed a nice little meal of pheasant, since it would go bad first. We packed up the food we didn't eat and relaxed for a little bit. Peeta wanted to go down to the pond and swim, but Katniss and I both agreed that it was too dangerous. We told him about the attack in the woods and he seemed to understand.

We hung around our little hide out for the following eight days, only leaving if we had to. Just to refill our canteens, hunting, collecting other food that wasn't meet and getting firewood. It seemed calm, the only sound disturbing our sanctuary was that of cannons, each time one was fired I would hope and prey to the Gods that it wasn't Cato or Clove, since they were my friends, well Cato was more than my friend but... Katniss noticed this and would always say, "Don't worry about them, they're strong, and can handle themselves." It was comforting and I slept easy at night when I saw that their pictures weren't in the sky. It was too good to be true. I had a feeling that something horrible was going to happen soon.