This is my second time feeling so betrayed, and by Austin especially. God, why am I so stupid? He didn't like me, he never loved me, he wasn't trying to help me at all. He was using me to get sponsors and get in with the Careers.
He must've really impressed the Careers if they asked him to join the group, or wait. Maybe the Careers are just using Austin just as he used me. Duh! Of course. They are using him to locate me so they can murder us both and they can win. Stupid. How can I have not thought of that.
Speaking of the Careers, I've got to stay as far away from them as I can because when Cato said, "Nah, he's our best chance of finding her." I realized in a split second that they were referring to me, and maybe Austin killing me, I don't know.
I try to stop thinking of how much my betrayal actually hurts and I force my eyes shut in agitation. That night, all that kept running through my mind was the fact of the burning sensation in the pit of my stomach that felt like heartache or betrayal, either one but I cannot put a finger on it.
When my eyes open, they are tired and heavy but the sunshine is already in the sky gleaming at me. I'm wasting daylight so I climb down the tree, stuff my rope and sleeping pack in my bag, sling it over my shoulder and continue to walk and find food, maybe more water.
I walk against a boulder which I almost tumble down the cliff because of that boulder, but it's a part of my life here, whether I survive or die. I find no food but I have some of my frog breast left so I munch on that for a little. I put it away in my sack after I realized I finished the whole thing.
Nighttime rolls around and I climb into a good tree, that will hold me long enough so I can get some shut eye.
The next morning appears before my eyes, and I hear the sound of crackling, my skin soon becomes warm, than warmer, and hotter. My eyes flutter open and I can see waves of flames are dancing upon me.
My first thought is to get to the ground and flee, somehow, my fingers untangle my rope and I immediately jump to the ground stuffing my rope inside my pack. My heart sinks as I look back to see my sleeping bag burning up in the fire. It wasn't necessary really, it was just to keep from my sitting position from getting too uncomfortable.
The forest transformed into a ring of fire, flames flickering and following me wherever I go. I begin to run, but the smoke dissolves everywhere making it harder each time to breath. The heat is definitely worsening. This was no campfire out of control, this was human made, machine made. More like Capitol made.
The Game-makers obviously did this to make the Games more interesting and suspenseful, maybe to bring all the Tributes together for the ultimate blood bash.
I am too caught up in trying to escape the fires that I almost bump into a ball of flames, heading directly towards my face. Its heading swiftly to the back of my head, but I push myself to the ground and let the fire ball hit the next tree, letting some branches come crashing down, creating scratch marks on my face.
I start running again, my throat is burning brutally but I stick it up for the sake of my life or death. That's when another fireball comes aiming towards me, but I run faster, and the ball hits the tree.
Fire is engulfing me like the City Circle, fire balls are aiming me, left and right. There's only few green leaves left from what I can see. It would make me feel terrible if this was happening at home, my secret spot with Dallas would forever be lost with all my memories there. I clear my thoughts and continue to run away from the camp fire I am roasting inside of.
A crunching sound snaps several times and then I can see the collapsing tree before my eyes. It lands with a thud, I barely stopped my feet in time to not get squished in with the ground.
I gasped and turned the other direction of the fallen tree. A fire ball comes towards me, but a gigantic boulder blocked it from killing me. Unfortunately, it didn't miss a spot on my thigh, in which I didn't react fast enough to move my leg out of the way.
My throat burns, but I still scream worsening my throat's vocal cord. I move myself up a little hill to examine my leg. The pain it brings, it's unbearable. I can actually hear it sizzling from the burn, and I can smell cooking flesh going up my nostrils. I shudder and there it is, a red splotch that is raw flesh. Ha-ha, I think sarcastically. The Gamemakers must be laughing their heads off.
The Girl On Fire.
I feel my hands shaking hard, I just wanted to give up right there. When another fireball came towards me at 20 miles an hour, I was going to just sit there, let the fire kill me. Then I think of Lily, Dallas, my father getting killed in the mine explosion. I wasn't going to let my mother and Lily suffer, my mother would zone out for another couple years and Lily would have to grow up as fast as I did. I don't want that for her, I want her to stay a young girl, because I know she loves to be a kid, and she should enjoy it.
The fireball was seconds away from hitting me, but I moved out just in time, this time. Why not last time? I jump off and feel myself tumbling down a hill, my burn is getting tangled up with the dirt in the ground as I fall down.
I get back up as soon as I'm done falling and run through the misty, smoky air that I think is going to suffocate me. It's like having a pair of hands gripping my throat, hard. My body feels faint and I think I will die in this Arena.
In a matter of seconds, the smoke clears and the little pond I got my water from is straight ahead. I splash inside the small lake, and feel immediate relief in my leg. My lungs are breathing in fresh air although they are still burning, but I don't care right now. I sigh happy and sit there for a second when I hear loud chatter.
Damn. The Careers.
"There she is!" They repeat numerous times to get Cato's attention. He sees me and I feel disappointment. I was doing so good this far into the Games and now I'm going to die.
I stand up as fast as I can—which is a little harder since I'm in water—and run back into the woods where the smoke cleared out. It is like nothing was ever here, no fire, nothing.
"She's mine!" yells Glimmer.
"Not if I get her first!" shouts the boy from One.
I run past a sea of green and look up at the green sky, cluttered with birds and bugs, searching for the nearest, and most trustiest tree. More than Austin will ever be.
The Careers are screaming for me to come back, calling me Ms. Dawson and all that crap. I don't listen to them, and desperately find a tree. Finally, I climb up a tree that goes up quite a distance into the blue sky.
"Fish out of the pond! And someone found her!" They hoot hysterically, saying how I'm going to be their kill.
I climb higher into the tree hearing them target me.
"Three o' clock!" The boy from One yells.
"Where you going, baby?!" shouts Cato and laughs evilly. I climb the tree, a safe distance, higher than them, but it depends on how good they are at climbing. The thing with me, is that I'm probably the smallest girl next to all the twelve, or thirteen year olds.
"Where are you going, Girl on Fire?" Cato mocks. "Ms. Dawson, I'm going to get you!"
I ignore his snotty comments and climb just a tad higher, for safety precautions.
"That's not going to help you up there, Allyson!" screams Glimmer. I look down at her, and give her a deadly glare. She shifts uncomfortably and doesn't make eye contact with me.
They continue to mock me and ask me where I'm going and saying they are going to enjoy killing me. I glance back down to see that Cato is climbing after me. My heart starts thumping against my ribcage faster, but I keep moving up.
"You're so done!" Clove says, the girl from Two.
As Cato is chasing me up the tree, he holds a sword in his hand and I feel a little terrified. The rest of the Careers cheer him on and do the opposite to me.
It's a good thing these boots are not slippery, or I would be dead. I mean, the fire incident…I shouldn't even call it an incident. Anyways the Gamemaker's explosion, me running all the time, and Cato chasing me up a tree.
"Kill her!" All the Careers are chanting but at numerous times to make it sound like chatter of young children fighting over a stuffed bear.
I look down only to see Cato struggling, he's near the bottom of the tree unlike me, as where I'm almost at the edge of the tree. Like if I fall off this tree at this height, I might as already be dead.
"I'm coming for you." Cato smirks, until he grabs the wrong branch, a weak branch and tumbles back onto the forest floor, landing with an "oof!" I smile, but his expression shows irritation.
"I'll do it myself." Glimmer mutters. She grabs an arrow, places it into the bow, pulls back, and releases.
I move to the right, in a swift move and gasp at how close I could've been to dying right there. That was close, too close.
"Give me that!" Cato shouts and Glimmer hands him the bow. Cato's arrow doesn't touch me, they just wasted two arrows, some I could've been using when somehow I figure out a plan how to steal the bow…
I'm at an angle where if they pull an arrow on me, the tree's stomach will catch it and I won't be hit. Thank god for this good tree.
I decide to mock them back, after all they put me through. "Maybe you should throw the sword." I say with a small smirk on my face. My ears catch laughter in the distance. I can already tell that it's the Capitol, laughing at my comment.
"Let's just wait her out." A voice says. I look down, it's Austin. He didn't die yet?
They all look at Austin, confused. I'm guessing they don't have the patience to wait and kill me.
"She has to come down sooner or later. It's that or starve to death." He says, the Careers nod, shrug. It's true, I can't go anywhere. I'm stuck, more stuck than how I was when I do puzzles with Lily.
"We'll just kill her then." The Careers obviously agreed with him because I see them unloading and making camp beneath the tree.
I look down, and judge that I'm a good eighty feet in the air. That's good enough, enough not to die.
My skin feels tingly, and then it starts to burn. My eyes wander back to the ground, and I see Austin looking at me, his eyes full of regret.
I somehow deal with the bloody pain coming from my leg. The stinging sensation that is there makes it harder to concentrate on anything. I lean over to grab my survival sack, my fingers dig around for the feel of my water bottle, and when it locks, I pick it up and open the lid.
Slowly, I tilt the bottle until one drip of water lands on my burn. Immediately, I feel a large pain and I wince. My teeth chew hard on my jacket to prevent any scream out of my lips.
I take my hand, put my sleeve over it, and shakily place it on my scrape. At the impact, no cool air is going to let it sting more than it already is. I lye my head back, my face scrunched up in pain, tears welling out of my eyes and I just let myself endure.
Nightfall comes around and the Careers have made a fire. I can hear the crackling of the flames burning against the wood.
I try and force myself to sleep, but thoughts of tomorrow seem not to put me to sleep, also the pain from my leg isn't helping. Every now and then, my eyes flutter open because they can't stand being closed anymore. But then they seem to close. It happens on and off.
Ding, Ding, Ding.
The repeated jingle of chimes occurs. My eyes fly open and I can hear it above me. My neck cranes almost upside down to get a glimpse of the annoying sound.
It's a small plastic pot, hiding out in the tree. I know these, when I used to watch reruns of the Hunger Games, when the days where cloudy and drips of water would pound on our roof, there would be reruns. Sadly, the Capitol would let you watch these people die over and over again.
Anyways, during one of the Games, a kid needed some food, and he was a strong guy but he ran out of supplies, a little pot like the one above me chimed, and was sent to him, it was a pot of soup. He didn't win the Hunger Games but he made it pretty far into it.
My hope springs up a little bit, and I untie my rope around me. I stand up, with a limp from my messed up leg, and I climb up the tree—pretending the pain isn't there—and position myself between two separating branches.
I reach for the metal pot, slide it open, and see another small pot but on top of it holds a little note.
Apply generously and stay alive.
-H
My lips curve up and I search around in the metal capsule for anything else. Nothing. But I'm grateful for what Haymitch did to keep me going.
I open the mini pot to find some…ointment. The cure for my biggest pain! I feel much more hope than I did a few hours ago, my fingers dip and swirl inside the ointment and I apply some onto my leg, feeling much more relief. It's like the pain was never there.
"Thank you." I whisper to the black sky, hoping Haymitch heard me.
I think I feel asleep in that same spot where I was applying my ointment. The birds begin to chirp happily and sing a song that probably one of the other Tributes made up on the hike.
My eyes slowly open and I smile. Relief. That's what I feel. Wait…my leg! I look down at my thigh and the burn healed almost immediately. Only dark red shows, some of my skin color is back to normal. Now I owe Haymitch, he saved me.
I grin larger and see the improvement my leg made in healing, for once, I'm glad the Capitol made something.
"Psst!"
I look up at the sound.
"Psst!"
It's Trish, in the trees. When did she get here? Probably when this whole thing started. She is sneaky. We hold each other's gaze for a while, and without hearing any leaves rustling, she points to something above me.
Hi guys...Oh my gosh...it's out tonight in theaters but my mom is in college! Darny-darn-darn! :( But I am going to see Catching Fire right after school tomorrow! I cannot wait! :DDDD I have been waiting for this since the first movie came out...and I read Catching Fire thrice times to make sure I know what's to happen...
Responses to reviews:
Allygurl101: Thanks! Haha! You actually fooled me right there, I'm easily tricked :P And I know! EEP! Are you going to see Catching Fire too? :)
ColorfulCupcake18: Happy Belated Birthday! XD 100 brownie points for you on your special day ;) I hope you had a good time. Are you as excited as I am for the movie? ;P
I Kick Ausally and Gece: Aw sweet! My favorite of the series is Catching Fire also! :D
honesthannah: I know! XD Now the countdown is ending tomorrow! Ah! Haha.
So I hope you all have fun expressing your THG love watching the movie, so now, I am going to do a movie marathon...actually I am just going to watch the first movie, and tomorrow at school I will read the whole book again, I am fast reader :P Anyways loveyou all! Muah! Bye! :D
P.S: Sorry there is so much '!' and ':D' or ';)'. I just cannot wait. :P
