I grab my bow and arrows on the way out of the house. I run out of Victor's Village, over the meadow that also serves as a mass grave, towards the fence. The fence will be taken down soon but the workers haven't gotten around to it yet, they're working on rebuilding houses. I crawl under the fence and keep running until I'm deep in my woods, my safe place.
It's already early afternoon and the sun is getting lower in the sky. I think about hunting but quickly dismiss the idea, I can't focus on aiming and I've made so much noise all the animals in the forest must have fled. But I'm wrong. With all my stumbling around the wild dogs that are rumoured to live in the woods have assumed I'm a wounded animal and have hunted me down. They believe me to be an easy target for supper.
I grab an arrow from my back and send it flying towards the dogs. When it misses by a couple feet I run, looking for a decent tree to climb. I can hear them behind me, snarling and growling and I'm brought back to my first Hunger Games where the mutts were chasing us. This only serves as motivation and I run faster, throwing myself against a tree and I begin to climb, forcing my muscles to pull me up. They aren't used to such a workout as I haven't been active since coming back to 12 but I manage to make it to a branch fairly far up the tree where I will be safe from the dogs.
I'm suddenly exhausted by the day's events, tired both mentally and physically. My arms ache from the effort of climbing and I want to cry over the emotional events of the day. I could fall asleep but I'm sure I would fall. At least in the games I had rope to tie myself to the branch.
I force myself to calm down and send a few more arrows down towards the dogs. None are hit but they get the point and wander off, looking for food elsewhere. I'm paranoid that they might come back so I decide to spend more time in the tree. My time, however, is short lived.
A bird lands on a branch a bit higher up than me and I think nothing of it until it opens it's beak. It's a Mockingjay and it sings Rue's four tune melody. I scream and forget I'm in a tree, forget I'm at home. It feels like I'm back in the Games and with no rope to hold me to the branch I fall.
