A/N Sorry it has been a while, I know I promised and all that, but I have everything planned out and almost all written :) Thanks again to IggyxxMitchell (or whatever silly username her twelve-year-old self decided on) for helping me and trying to improve this. PLEASE Read and REVIEW! :D


The roar of the landslide rang in my ears as three cannon fires were heard. The opening of our cave was quickly filled with the falling debris. The runners we had heard above us must have not fared too well as the shouting in the cave around me indicated that all (except Fernando of course) were safe down here.

As the dust settled I realised that there was just the smallest chink of light coming from the mouth of the cave, but it wouldn't be easy to get at. We were stuck. Someone bumped into me from behind.

"Oof, shit, sorry. Who is that?" Luke said as I sensed him take a step back from me.

"Claudia. Is everyone ok?" I asked, I received a chorus of yeses in response.

"Except chubby, but I guess that's good."

"Halcyon, is this really the time?" Cyprian muttered, his low voice coming from somewhere to my left.

"Try and get the things, we're going to need them." Isonia said, her calm voice drowning out the boys' squabbling.

"Most of the food was by the entrance.. We ain't going to be able to get it out." Luke said as everyone fumbled to find their sleeping bags and weapons.

"Well who had the bright idea to put it there, hm?"

"Hal..." I reached out for him, cautioning him that now was not the best time for an argument.

Once all of the salvageable belongings had been rounded up we gathered around the bottom of the chink of light to assess the situation.

"So, any chance one of you can levitate up there?" came Luke's voice after a silence. I laughed as Hal replied with a scornful:

"Being funny isn't going to help us Lucius."

"Jeez, I was just trying to lighten the mood"

"Well don't. If you're not careful we're going to realise you're not good for anything and you might be going the same way as Fernando, got it?" Hal snapped. The enclosed area had obviously got to him and he had lashed out, he didn't mean what he said… we were all on edge. That calmed me down. I just hoped Luke was telling himself the same thing- what we didn't need now was a testosterone fuelled battle that would end up, undoubtedly in a death, and it wasn't hard to guess who would be victorious. There was a silence as Luke weighed up the options in his head, but luckily he reached the same conclusion and he sat down instead of making a remark that might have set off a fight we didn't have the space for.

Suddenly there was a small clatter of rocks. We turned to the chink of light to see Izzy's silhouette climbing up the debris at the cave's mouth.

"Iz, what are you doing?" Came Cyprians voice, I noticed how he had kept quiet during the exchange between Luke and Halcyon, probably one to watch I thought; all he needed was for them to fight and kill each other and that would clear the alpha male path.

"While you guys are bickering I thought I'd do something useful. I think I can get up there..."

"For God's sake be careful, you don't want to do a Fernando." I called back to her.

"Too soon perhaps?" She replied breathlessly as she started to push at one of the larger rocks at the top. Finally she cleared enough room for her slim figure and she pulled herself through, grunting slightly with the effort.

"Ok, throw my stuff up. I'm out!" She cried from the other side.

"Cyprian, go up first, she'll need someone to watch her back." Luke said, his hands scraping around on the floor, looking for his spear in the slightly larger pool of light the opening had created.

"No, I'll go up." Halcyon said. He felt the force of 3 pairs of eyes glaring at him in the gloom. "Ok, ok. I am the leader, and she'd be better off with me watching her back but sure..."

"Can't stand another minute trapped in hear with you anyway..." Cyprian called as he hefted his huge frame up over the rocks, carrying both his and Izzy's kit. We were hit by falling stones as he broadened the hole and squeezed through the gap.

"Right, ladies first." Luke said as Cyprian wiggled out into the daylight.

"I'll go up first, so you can grab my hand." Halcyon said, the tiny ray of light in the cave reflecting on his smile. He took my bag and climbed nimbly up.

"And then there were two.." I smiled.

"Want a leg up?" Luke asked, positioning himself by the pile of rocks.

"Pardon me?" I laughed sheepishly.

"Do you want me to lift you up to the first couple of rocks?"

"Oh, sure. I walked over to Luke, managing to bang smack into the shaft of his spear he had leaning against him. We laughed hysterically, mainly out of lack of sleep; it wasn't funny at all really.

"What is keeping you down there?" Halcyon yelled. "If you have touched my girlfriend, I'm gonna..." He was cut off, it sounded like Izzy had shoved him or something.

"Just coming, it would be nice if you waited and all..." I called back, hoping another fight hadn't broken out. Luke gently lifted me up onto the first boulder, and I scrambled up from there. Seeing the light of day outside was a relief, we hadn't been trapped for long, but already I was starting to miss the sun.

Izzy and Cyprian were sitting a little way away, staring into the pretend sky. Halcyon helped me to my feet and told me to tread carefully then wandered back over to our bags.

"Erm, a little hand down here?" Luke said from the little hole. He passed me his spear, now his most treasured possession, and suddenly there was a sound of rocks sliding and he gave a surprised cry. I gasped as I realised the boulders underneath his feet had given way and he was hanging on with one hand, with quite a large drop below him.

"Lost...my footing..." He said, his voice breaking as he struggled to keep his grip.

"Erm, grab my hand.." I felt like an action movie cliché. I took his dust covered palm which was sweaty and dragged him as best I could out of the cave. I almost dropped him but I refused to let him go, even though it would have been so easy to just let him slip, claim it was an accident… So shocked at my own thoughts I almost did let him go.

"Thanks" He breathed as he got to his knees. I brushed some of the dirt off his top, out of guilt rather than kindness.

Then I felt Halcyon's arms from behind me, leading me towards the little safe zone where Izzy, Cyprian and our few remaining belongings were.

"So, get up you two. We can't just stay here." He barked, beginning to lose his cool with impatience again.

"Why?" Said Izzy, clearly rather exasperated by Halcyon's moods.

"Because there's no food here, and that might happen again." He gestured to where our camp had been.

"So where do we go? I don't see any refrigerators out here.." I said, dropping to the ground by Halcyon's feet.

"Well, there's trees over there. And there'll be little bunny rabbits and things to eat." He said, gesturing to the distant tree line behind us.

"Trees means danger, guys." Luke said cautiously as he checked over his beloved spear.

"When was the last time a tree came alive and attacked you, hm? Listen, we are the biggest danger out here. The rest of them" Hal waved his arms around "are all the low-scorers and the no-hopers."

There were murmurs of agreement. Halcyon smiled, knowing he had won. "So, unless you want to stay here with Luke and be afraid of trees and starve to death, let's go!"

Everyone picked up what little we had remaining and followed Halcyon as he strode off. At least the weather's good I thought to myself, the only consolation in this desolate situation.

The thin forest was silent as we entered it. Aside from the huge framework of trees, there were no signs of life. This wasn't like how it was in Katniss's Games, where there was some animal jumping out at every corner, asking to be eaten. There was nothing.

"I'm not feeling so good with the forest.." Izzy said, about an hour or so into our trek though the silent trees.

"Did you just hear that?" Luke said suddenly, not exactly in response to Izzy.

"What?" Halcyon whirled around, drawing his sword, ready to be the hero.

"I think.." Luke ran a few paces ahead and looked quizzically at some rocks. "..It's a spring!" He exclaimed, and we all ran over to see the little spring of water bubbling up from the rocks.

"Ok, now I like the scary forest." Said Izzy, unscrewing her tiny water bottle, she had been complaining of thirst all morning.

"Now, let's just pray for a donut tree.." I muttered, running over to wash my face. My fingers brushed against the diamonds studding my cheeks. I had completely forgotten about them. In my mind I hoped that girls all across Panem were all begging their parents to get similar body art.

"Well, I guess it could be about midday, the sun is pretty high. Lunch anyone?" Halcyon said with a smile as he shook the water off his hands.

"Er, I thought we had no food." I said, hating to kill the moment of joy on the other's faces at the thought of food.

"Well, I thought I saw something a little while back.. I'll have to be quiet, so you four wait here. I'll be back." Halcyon said with a sly smile as he raced off in the way we had come.

"Wai.." I called, but he was already too far away. Waiting for him was agonising. To give myself something to do I copied the actions of the others and filled and re-filled my water flask, washed my socks (then immediately regretted it for lack of places to dry them), and started weaving together some pine-needles.

"Who likes squirrel?" Halcyon called from behind us and I jumped.

"Where have you been exactly?" Luke asked him, his tone maybe a little too accusatory.

"Just something I saw as we were walking, a little den of sorts. So, I have squirrel and rabbit." He waved pink things in our faces.

"I was expecting more kinda fluffy.." Izzy said, turning her nose up at the meat.

Halcyon laughed. "I skinned and gutted them of course."

"Why is there blood on your jacket?" Luke asked, his eyes sharp as if looking for faults.

"Messy little buggers they are. Someone get a fire together." Halcyon ignored Luke's sceptical glance and put the little corpses down on top of his pack.

"We can't just light a fire here, everyone will see the smoke!" Izzy blurted out, almost panicked.

"Let them, let them come find us." Halcyon waved his sword dramatically. "We'll treat them to lunch." He cackled. Cyprian's sour face reflected our group's attitude to Hal's outlandish humour.

"Right, ok, if you're so sure." Luke said as he began gathering nearby sticks, looking for ones that weren't damp.

Soon we had a little fire going and a spit to roast the assorted critters on. We ate quietly- all too aware of how much attention the smoke was earning us and really none of us, excluding Hal, wanted to be sprung upon in this moment of meaty-peace. I'd never had fresh meat like this before, and to be honest it was disgusting.

"Ugh, what would it take for our sponsors to get some decent food for us..." I complained, picking tiny rabbit bones out of my teeth.

Izzy raised her eyebrows comically and looked pointedly to me and then to Halcyon. We all dissolved into giggling maniacs.

"I don't know what you are finding funny..." Halcyon said, trying to keep a straight face.

I rolled my eyes. "Ignore them, they like... sticking their noses in" I glared at Izzy.

A cannon sounded, yet another tribute dead. It felt wrong to keep laughing now, we stopped and all took immediate interest in our food. It reminded us that we certainly weren't alone in the arena.

"How many is that now.." Izzy said quietly. There was silence as we counted in our heads and jumped to the worrying conclusion that now over half of the original 24 were dead.

"11 left. Five of us here, six out there." Halcyon said coldly. Another moment passed before:

"I wonder who that was, do any of you know anyone else out there?" Luke said, trying in vain to break the painful silence.

"Well, I think Anya's still out there somewhere.." I said, remembering how she wept as she left our group, carrying her dead brother away.

"Probably. My cousin Elektra was here too.." Luke said. I wanted to ask him why he hadn't asked her to join our group, but the expression on his face said: just don't go there.

"I saw some guy in my class was in here too, never talked to him though…" Cyprian said, the first time I'd heard him speak for hours.

"Right. Enough chatter, we should get moving." Halcyon said as he washed his hands in the spring and tossed away the rabbit bones.

"Why, we have water here.." I complained. I just wanted to sit her with him and my newfound friends and just enjoy the time we had.

"And everyone else is going to want it. We can't just sit right next to it, we need to lie in wait or something."

"You're right, staying here will only mean confrontation." Luke said, agreeing with Halcyon for once.

We kicked out our all too smoky fire and re-filled our water bottles. Soon we were ready to go.

"Which way, oh wise one." Izzy said playfully to Halcyon.

"Oh don't encourage him.." I laughed at her.

"Look over there." He pointed at a spot above the trees half a mile or so away.

"Er, smoke?" I said, not sure where he was going with it.

"Well, there's no smoke without a fire, and there's no fire without someone stupid enough to light it.." Halcyon said with a flourish as he steered our group in the direction of some poor soul's camp.


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