Chapter 8

I was woken up very early by Jasper. He said that it was time to go. I was confused for a minute, but I remembered that by go, he meant to my potential death. You can imagine what this happy thought next to the fact that I was being woken up three hours earlier than normal did to my moral.

Sheek and I groggily ate breakfast. While we did this, Jasper talked us through the beginning of the games. I didn't really want to listen, but I knew that this would be important.

"When you enter the arena, you will be on a metal disk – one of twenty-four surrounding a giant cornucopia. Around the cornucopia will be supplies, increasing in value the farther in you get." We both nodded.

"You have to wait on your metal disk for sixty seconds. When that time is up, a gong will ring, and the games will begin. If you choose to run into the cornucopia and get supplies, there will be fighting, and many will die. It is expected to be the most lethal part of the games, being that this is the first and there haven't been any test runs."

This made sense. They wanted us to be tempted into running into the cornucopia, so they placed supplies in it. I asked Jasper if those supplies included weapons, and he said that there would definitely be weapons.

I had made up my mind – I was going to rush into the cornucopia as fast as I could. I didn't have time to tell Sheek this, but I guessed that our entire group would.

They loaded Sheek and me into two separate hovercrafts. She was accompanied by her stylist, Jode, and I by Eonna. They lifted off and began flying over the shining Capitol. As much as I hated the place, I hoped I'd be back.

I was pumped. I was excited. I was ready. I was actually looking forward to it. I had volunteered with some enthusiasm which had disappeared while I was in the Capitol, but it was back. This was my element.

After about an hour in the hovercraft, the windows darkened. I could no longer see out of them, which meant that we were nearing the arena. The adrenaline was shooting through me, and I was dying to start. (no pun intended)

Just before we landed, a woman came in and made me sit still which wasn't easy. She took a long syringe out of a black container, and told me that it was a tracker so that the gamemakers could find me at all times. It hurt when it went in, but not very bad. It left a small lump in my arm that throbbed a little.

We, Eonna and I, were escorted from the hovercraft into an underground tunnel. At the end of the tunnel was a small room with little inside. There were merely two chairs, a mirror, and a table.

Eonna and I sat in silence in the chairs. After a little while, I package arrived. She said that it contained my clothes. When she opened the package, she pulled out a plain brown T-shirt, a green hooded sweatshirt, some black loose-fitting pants, and a pair of knee-high lace-up leather boots.

"The boots are waterproof," said Eonna. "And the pants are made of a material that will dry incredibly fast. Expect some wet weather or climate." I nodded. This made sense. "The sweatshirt is reversible. One side is black, and the other is light brown. The landscape won't be consistent throughout the entire arena."

This was very helpful. It gave me an insight into the arena before I was even there. "Another thing," she said. "The boots lace up to your knees, but if you're not in wet weather, the laces are each over four feet long. Use them if you need them." I wouldn't have thought of this on my own.

We didn't talk much after that. Finally, she received a call on a phone, and told me that it was time. I didn't know what to do after that, but she did all the work. She went over to the mirror, tapped it twice, and a touch screen lit up on the surface of the mirror.

She pushed a button, and the mirror rolled aside to reveal a large glass tube. She pushed me forward to stand on the metal disk at the bottom of the tube. I waited there for another thirty seconds before it started to climb upwards. She gave me one last smile and thumbs up before she disappeared from view.

The tube was dark for another minute, but something above me shifted, and I could see daylight. I surfaced, and I came out into the arena. Around me, twenty-three others did the same thing.

Before me was a gleaming golden horn. Scattered about on the ground were an assortment of items. Only ten feet in front of me was a loaf of bread and a roll of bandages. Farther into the clearing, I could see weapons of all sorts: Maces, swords, knives, two bows, each with a quiver of arrows, spears, slings, and clubs.

I looked around at my fellow tributes. I saw Cleota a few spaces to my right, and Garth next to her. Blythe, Sheek and Lex were on the opposite side of the ring. I noticed that the girl from three was only three spaces to my left.

Scanning the landscape, I saw that the arena was split in half – one half was made of dense swamp land, and the other half was covered by a plain of tropical trees and shrubs. The large circle, in the middle of which was the cornucopia, was made solely of grass.

I had seen what I needed to see, and I now focused on the task at hand – staying alive. I was going to rush into the fray as soon as the gong rang. I was going to get my hands on a weapon, and I was going to kill the first person I saw.

I picked a weapon in particular. There was a knife only about forty feet away. I could get to it quickly, and it was the nearest lethal weapon. I was going to g-

The gong rang out and all thought were wiped from my head except for that knife. I ran like my life depended on it, which it did. A little more than half of the tributes ran into the cornucopia. I was faster than most, certainly faster than anyone else around me. I got to the knife, picked it up, and assessed the playing field.

Some people were timidly picking up things around the edges. Others had run all the way into the horn and grabbed whatever they could.

My assessment ceased quickly as I saw someone running at me. I recognized him as the boy from District 6. He was armed with a club, which put me at a disadvantage with only this knife. If he had had any skill in fighting at all, I would have been scared at that moment.

He swung his club at me, and I quickly stepped back and avoided it easily. He pressed forward, and I again stepped back. This pattern continued for a couple more swings before I decided to mix things up. After all, we were walking towards the cornucopia; therefore, we were getting ourselves deeper and deeper into danger.

As he swung his club to the left, the weight of the thing pulled him. I stepped in and plunged my knife into his side. I felt the blade rip through skin, muscle, and sinew before stopping at the hilt.

I heard the boy gasp. He gave a whimper, then a moan, then finally a scream before falling to the ground. I pulled the knife out of him, and he didn't bleed. This meant he was dead. This meant I was a murderer.

There would be time for remorse later, I knew. At that moment, I had to be vigilant. I had to be aware of what was going on, for if I didn't, I would be a sitting duck.

I looked around and saw Cleota swinging her mace at the boy from nine. I saw Lex and Garth working together on the girl from eight. Sheek was wrestling on the ground with the boy from twelve. Blythe had a bow and was backed up against the cornucopia waiting for a target.

I heard the ruffle of the grass behind me just in time. I sidestepped as a hand bearing a knife swung into the empty space that had just been occupied by my head. I turned to see my attacker: It was the girl from three.

I looked around and saw a package of throwing knives. I grabbed it, and pulled out a couple of lethal-looking blades. I began throwing them at her, one after another, just like I had in training.

The girl dodged them all. She just hopped from side to side like it was nothing. I couldn't hit her. The more knives I threw, the more knives that littered the ground behind her. Eventually, I ran out of weapons. I looked around for more weapons. There were none.

"Blythe!" I yelled. She turned and saw my predicament. She pulled the bow string back, and fired an arrow straight at the girl's heart.

I was so confident that Blythe would hit her that I relaxed a little. After all, Blythe never missed. She had hit the bulls eye every single time in training. This was no different, right?

Wrong. The girl stepped impossibly quickly to the left, but as if dodging wasn't enough, she reached up, and snatched the arrow out of midair. I couldn't believe it. She had caught the arrow.

I lunged forward to try and tackle her, but this, too, she sidestepped. As I fell onto my stomach, I knew what was coming. I rolled to my right just in time to see the point of the arrow be embedded in the soft earth.

I got up and ran towards the cornucopia. I grabbed a sword from the pile, and turned around, ready for the girl, but she wasn't there.

I saw her running towards the tropical area of the arena. Her hands were full. She had grabbed two backpacks, a spear, a couple of knives, and a large roll of wire. I looked for another adversary and found the boy from eleven. He was skirting the edge of the clearing, looking for an opening to the good items.

I ran at him with my sword help high. He had grabbed a wooden club, and he raised it in defense. Out weapons collided, and a terrific thud echoed around us. There was a large gash in the wood where my sword had hit it.

I swung my sword again, hoping to connect in the same spot. I didn't, so I swung it again. This time, my sword hit in the exact same place as the first time. The blade sliced through the wood like it was butter.

I had only intended to break his weapon. I had intended that my blade would sail through his club and fly directly into his eye. I had planned to run him through on the next blow, but something about killing him without the express intention had surprised me. 'Oh well,' I thought. 'It comes to the same.'

When I looked around at the cornucopia, only seven people were left standing. Cleota was still in combat with the girl from District 10. I watched as Cleota masterfully faked downward, then, seeing that the girl had moved to defend her legs, used the mace's momentum to swing it up at the girl's head.

I could hear the impact from where I stoop, a hundred feet away. It sounded kind of like when you crush a metal can under your foot. I almost retched.

As the girl fell, the six of us looked at one another. We had done it. We had survived. And now that we had done it, we had all the supplies we needed.

We all walked forward and began inspecting the pile of supplies at the base of the cornucopia. One of the most useful items we found was a pair of glasses that Blythe recognized. She said they allowed the wearer to see in complete darkness. We also found a tent that would keep out all types of weather.

We congratulated each other, then found some first aid supplies and began patching up our wounds. I seemed to be one of the few without a serious injury, but I had accumulated a couple of cuts and bruises. Blythe, too, had nothing wrong with her. Everyone else had gotten at least one serious wound.

Garth had been hit by a thrown knife. He was bleeding badly, and we were about to go back to the pile to look for some better first aid equipment when a silver parachute fell out of the sky.

Attached to the parachute was a bottle of disinfectant and a large circular bandage that wrapped around the arm. He said the disinfectant helped and it wasn't stinging so much. I thought that he shouldn't have gotten hit in the first place and that he didn't belong with us if he were that weak. It was cruel, but I knew I had to kill him in the near future.