Let The Games Begin

I lay in my bed with Nox, sighing pleasantly after a night of frenzied sex. "That was really good." I whispered, making circles on his chest with my finger.

"Mmm, yeah." His deep voice resonates, making his chest rumble beneath me. "I'm glad I get to see you beforehand." I shot straight up, fear threatening to rise in my chest. "What do you mean?" He was starting to scare me, his face cold and expression dead. "Well, I'll never see you again. You're dead...dead...dead..." As he repeated the word, he turned into his sister, morphing grossly and with the sound of cockroaches crawling in swarms over a garbage dump. "You're dead!" she hissed and grew fangs, her head blowing up like a balloon. The bed slipped from under me, and I fell through darkness, naked, to land in a battle field that was littered with the bones of children and infants and fertilized by human flesh. Blood rained down like a waterfall, staining my skin. Terror struck me as horrible "crash, crash, Crash, CRASH!" sounds slammed their way toward me, and a giant president Snow stomped toward me with glowing red eyes. "Welcome, tributes, to the 71st Annual HUNGER GAMES!" He snarled viciously and raised his leg to crush me like a beetle.

I screamed and ran, ran and screamed, frantically stumbling over the bones and screaming for Nox, for anybody. My voice was choked out by the overwhelming slamming sound, getting closer and closer each second. I tripped over a bone and landed right on top of my own dead body, festering and infested with worms and roaches. It stared at me blankly, as if judging my soul "Run." It whispered to me, then sound of bones breaking and hot pain drowned all of my senses, but I know I was screaming, screaming with all my might.

"Archaeos!" I woke with a jolt, my mouth wide open and a horrible sound filling my ears. Beetee stood beside my bed, trying to calm me down. My chest shook with pain and the sound got louder, until Beetee placed a hand firmly on my chest an told me to breathe. I sucked in a long breath, and realized that that horrible sound was my own voice. I was really screaming. Pain pounded in my head, causing me to lie back down. "You were having nightmares." Beetee felt my forehead. "No shit." I snapped. I ran a shaking hand through my hair. "That must've been some nightmare." Beetee gave me some pain pills, noticing my headache. I knocked them back and took the water from Wiress's hand. "Thanks." I layed back down, still very tired. "It was awful. I never want to have a dream like that again." Just for a second, I wished that I could die right now, just so I would die in the comfort o the Capitol and never need to go through the trauma of the Games. My instinct took over, though, and told me that that was stupid, and I could make it through this, if only by this same instinct.

The next day I woke up groggy, and dressed quietly. Running my brush through my hair, I sat at the breakfast table and forced down some food. I was gonna miss it in the arena. Everything was sort of a blur until we got to the arena. All I can remember was Noxinia being awful chipper.

When I got to the basement thing under the arena, numbness was replaced by body-shocking terror. My hands trembled as I fumbled with my change of clothes that consisted of a T-shirt, a windbreaker, and thick jeans.

"Hey." Helenia called me, and when I turned to look at her, she took scissors to my bangs and snipped them right off, making them blunt. "Oh." She gasped. "That's beautiful. Why didn't you show it off before?" She touched it with a red claw and smiled. "Because having everyone know that you have a blind eye is like saying 'fresh meat for the killing!' at the top of your lungs." I was so irritated at her. She just made this whole thing ten times worse. But what did I expect, really? Nothing is ever easy for me. Well, except being a genius. That comes pretty natural.

I stepped on the plate, and the tube descended around me. Panic slammed into me with every heartbeat that passed while I was in the dark. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out of there, had to breathe fresh air, hear something. I was just starting to feel the tube close in on me as it came down, revealing the arena.

I was shocked. I had never really been around such natural scenes, the smell of pine in the sharp, cold air, the majesty of mountains to one side, a frozen lake to my other, and a pine forest behind me. I stood currently in a field of permafrost, shivering.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six. I locked my eyes on a large black bag adjacent to the Cornucopia. Five, four, three, two, one.

The gong sounded, and I shot like a bullet toward the backpack, putting all of my energy into getting it and escaping. On the way there, I faced little conflict, which was weird. However, whenever I grabbed the backpack and turned around, the guy from 1, I think his name was Gloss, was coming at me with a spear. I scrambled out of the way, and he ended up hitting another tribute in the shoulder. I jumped up as fast as I could and dashed toward the transition between mountains and forest. It was so cold, and I was breathing so hard, each breath ragged and painful. My legs cried out from the sudden exertion, and my heart struggled to keep up. A knife cut deeply into my thigh, and pain shot up like a hot lizard, scratching its way up my leg in a desperate frenzy. "Agh!" I couldn't help it, I fell to the ground. "Say goodbye, pretty boy." The girl from six grinned at me evilly.

Then she went still, and I thought that, just for a second, this whole thing was some sick hologram that I was put in for testing, and it had glitches.

However, she coughed up blood and fell to the ground with an axe in her back. I took the knife out of my leg and ran like a wounded mouse to the wooded area, desperate for shelter. I ran and I ran and I ran and I tripped and I fell and I rolled and I hit a tree, luckily with my stomach and not my spinal chord. I payed and choked for a while, trying to regain my breath. The snow soothed the hot pain in my leg but it felt horrible along with dirt and leaves going down my throat. Four short minutes passed before I heard other tributes and had to get up again, and I limped lamely toward the mountains, trying to find an alcove of some sort. The backpack was big and heavy, and while that was good because that meant I had a lot in it, it slowed me down significantly. It was about thirty minutes before I reached the mountains, and I was feeling more than sick from blood loss.

When I found a small abandoned wolf hideout, I burrowed in there and opened my backpack and prayed for some bandages.

Fur-lined coat. Fur-lined gloves, no fingers. Boots with fur. Thick, insulating pants. Water bottle. Iodine. Six pieces of jerky. Pocket knife. And...first aid kit! Somebody up there does love me!

I cleaned off the wound with the water, disinfected it and bandaged it up, getting a pile of snow to prop up and soothe my leg while I put on my clothes. I strugggled with the boots and pants, and then zipped up the jacket. Even the hood was fur-lined, so I put that up, too.

There were pros and cons to this. Pros: The clothes are comfortable, warm, and effective. Cons: they're black and easily spotted in the snow. It would be a good idea to stay in this alcove, where someone could confuse me for a rock, until my leg felt better. Until then, I curled up and tried my hardest to sleep.