Me again. Decided to update, though I haven't had a review. Not complaining, I just miss hearing from you guys!(:

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter. I'm trying to get into the habit of updating more frequently.

Enjoy.


I hear the birds on the summer breeze,

I drive fast, I am alone in the night.

Been tryin' hard not to get into trouble,

but I, I've got a war in my mind.

Lana Del Rey, "Ride."


Katniss' POV

During my time of sleep, I vaguely remember not dreaming for once in my life. No happy story or horrible nightmare... it was comforting, knowing that my mind wasn't going haywire, making up scenarios to either torture me with fear or torture me with a better reality than the one I'm living in.

I wake up the minute I feel the sun rising. It's about five am, to my speculation. I'm the first one up, watching the dark turn into light once more. I nudge Finnick, and his eyes open groggily. Murmuring incoherent words, he rubs his eyes and looks at me. Groaning, he covers his face.

"Time to get on the road again, huh." He shakes his head. "I just wish we could get to Thirteen now."

I nod my head in agreement. I hated being on the run... not knowing which hovercraft was which. We've all agreed to hide from them all, relying on our own feet to get us to our destination.

Waking up the girls, we head out again before the sun burns our backs. I have a bad sunburn on my neck, becoming more irritated the longer we stand in the sun. It burns, but it'll heal once we arrive at Thirteen.

We don't have much food and water is running low. I'm getting worried, having not seen a stream or even drop of the liquid. My hipbones were becoming more prominent, my rib cage standing farther out than my stomach. Finnick said I've been looking sick lately; I just deem it to be lack of nutrition.

I'm used to starvation, so I can trek longer than everyone else. When we do stumble across food, I always make sure the girls are fed first. They've never felt the full pain of starvation. They might've gone a couple days without a decent meal, but they haven't gone a week without anything to eat. And I don't intend on them ever finding out how it feels.

We travel until we find another tree, smaller and thinner than the previous one. It doesn't provide much cover, but it's better than nothing.

The thing about the Games was, if you needed something, people would give you it. You were watched over, taken care of. Here? We have nothing. No one watching over us. And I don't know if I'm happy or sad about that. I could use a bowl of broth right now, or Greasy Sae's stew.

We all sit together as far apart as possible, fanning our sweating skin. I feel woozy, lightheaded; an unwelcoming sign of dehydration. I can feel it throughout my body, in my bones; the dryness. The sandpaper feeling of my tongue who has not known relief only found in water, the exact thing I'm desperately needing.

Finnick is saying how he thinks we'll make it to Eight in a day or so. The grass has been getting shorter, yet still yellow or brown. I guess that's something I have in common with the ground: we're both malnourished and our hydration is nonexistent. Ironic, since I am named after a plant.

The day drags on. I feel my strength slipping away from me, leaving my body quickly. It's like a popped balloon, the air leaving that small hole yet making a disastrous outcome. I hate this feeling, almost worse than hunger.

I'm officially losing my mind.

The only things that are keeping me sane are the people accompanying me, and the people waiting for me. Those people truly care about me, and they're the only people I trust in this world. They have my back as much as I have theirs.

Arianna becomes tired, and Finnick is already holding Alyssa. Amanda trudges along, determined as ever to get to a place with food and water. So I take Arianna in my arms, despite what my body is saying.

It screams to me, "you can barely hold yourself up. What makes you think you can hold a child?" But I ignore it, using everything I can muster up to make sure she's comfortable. Cradling her in my arms, I walk along until day becomes twilight and the sun becomes tired too. It sinks slowly towards the earth, the light growing weaker and weaker. Almost to the point it gives up, but for some reason, a sun's last minute above ground seems to be its longest. It holds on for dear life, wanting to shed its light on such a dark place.

But then it realizes that it has given everything it could have given for the day and falls, giving up and disappearing for a few hours to rest.

My mind goes over the past week or two. Our days have consisted of walking, talking, trudging, embarking through the vast place called the In-Between Zone. We fend for each other, look out for each other, but most importantly, are there when the rest of the country is too far away. We walk, we sleep, we eat whatever we can, and we walk some more. That is, until the food runs out, and we become tired, sore, and overall, weak. It's a losing battle really; we could die before we reach Eight.

The girls are fine though. They were the last to be fed, just this morning. We didn't have enough for everybody, so we split the remaining food into three and gave it to them so their stomach are full. Everything was okay for now.

Finnick has lost a lot of weight also. His once muscular body is still muscular but very lean. I can see his rib cage, although it doesn't stick out like mine. We're both weak and we need food soon.

Night settles in, the sun long gone. Just like my energy. With every pulse from my stomach growing stronger from the intense pain of starvation, I feel myself drifting farther and farther away from reality. It's like holding onto a rope on the edge of a cliff: you hang on as long as you can until your palms get sweaty, your arms shake, and you lose it.

You lose whatever hope you had previously, realizing it could be your last few seconds to live.

It's a sad reality, knowing you're going crazy. I miss everyone to the point that my eyes water at the mention of their names. I miss Prim, my sweet younger sister who is thirteen almost fourteen. I miss Haymitch, my father figure that helped me escape death.

I miss my Cato, my love, my hope.

I miss my hope.

And with those thoughts to hold down my screams for help, I drift off into a sleep that hopefully has no dreams for me tonight.

For once, I thank the sun for giving up and sinking below the horizon.

For once, I welcome the feeling of my bones giving in and my muscles put at ease.

For once, I welcome the feeling of the ground against my cold skin,

knocking

me

out

cold.


I hope you all enjoyed this chapter. It was a slight filler that I think was necessary. I mean, going through the In Between borders of Panem isn't just a walk in the park, and obviously there isn't much water around. Hardly any at all, actually.

In a way, I took what I remembered of my time being dehydrated for a few days. I was in a very hot climate, and I'm from a colder area with a lot of rain... so it wasn't a good mixture. Lost a lot of weight and became very sick. Threw up every twenty minutes.

Stay hydrated, folks. Dehydration sucks.

As for starving, the longest I've gone without food was four days. Not long, but it wasn't pleasant.

Anyways, I would love to see some reviews. I'm not begging or anything, but I'm in that situation where it would be nice to hear some feedback!

Gracias.

Until next time,

HeyoMyFellowReaders101