My feet pound into the soft grass and I push myself toward the Cornucopia as fast as I can. I see a figure running in beside me and see that it's Alice. I don't care if she's on my side; I'm getting there before her. I sprint past all the backpacks and supplies lying on the ground outside of the Cornucopia. I can pick through those things later.
I almost dive at the knife vest when I reach the mouth of the Cornucopia. I kneel down to fit the knives into their slots and quickly look around to make sure nobody's coming to attack me yet. They coast seems clear. Cato and Marvel have reached the Cornucopia and run inside to retrieve their weapons. Glimmer straggles behind followed by the girl from 7. Here we go. Time to kill. I take a deep breath and yell at Glimmer to duck. When she does, I let my knife fly right into the girl's chest and she flops onto the ground.
Marvel and Cato emerge and begin chasing after other tributes. The girl from 6 comes running at me with some kind of axe and I dive at her and tackle her to the ground, allowing Marvel to spear her in the gut. She screams loudly as I run to the right, passing Glimmer who stabs the girl from 10 who's pinned to the ground, screaming for her life.
Then I almost run into Alice, who wields a thin curved sword. We look at each other for just a moment, weapons raised, until she nods and I nod back. With that, we're both off to hunt down others. That's when I see her. Katniss is grappling with a boy over a bright orange backpack. Without a thought, I whip a sharp knife out of a slot in my vest and hurl it into the boys back. He coughs straight into Katniss's face and topples over. A look of horror on her face, she looks up to see where it came from, and I smile at her as I pull out another knife. Honestly, I thought she could have made it a little farther than the first two minutes. I pull out a serrated knife and throw it straight at her head.
She holds the orange pack in front of her head and my knife slides straight into it, missing its target. Before I can get another knife, she flip around and starts sprinting for the forest. I start to chase after her, but realize there are more important things for now. I'll get her later.
I turn back to the action and see as Cato throws the tall girl from District 3 to the ground and slits her throat. Relentless, he moves on to kill more. The stocky boy from District 11, whose name I learned is Thresh, comes barreling down toward me, knocking the boy from 7 off his feet. I run to the left to avoid him, since he has a deadly scythe in his right hand. Avoiding him, I make sure to drive a knife into the boy from 7 as he tries to get back up.
I run back to the Cornucopia as the fighting continues. Glimmer slams some boy's head up against the inside of the Cornucopia and Marvel drives a spear into his ribcage. I return inside the mouth to join them and see Cato easily taking down the boy from 6.
"Both from Eleven got away!" shouts Glimmer. This doesn't worry me, as I've already seen Thresh flee and the little girl, Rue poses almost no threat to us at all.
"Behind!" she yells again. I whip around and the girl from 9 dives at me, no weapon in hand. She knocks me over and we go wrestling until we're outside of the Cornucopia on the grass. I get on top of her and freeze, watching the fear in her eyes become suddenly real.
"Please," she begs. Her eyes start to well up with tears.
"Save the tears, honey. Nobody at home wants to see that, do they?" I say sinisterly as I dig my knee into her chest. She yells loudly, which annoys me. Who's gonna bother saving her?
"Shut up!" I spit in her face. She falls silent and starts to sob. I've finally had enough so I just decide to stand up. When she looks confused, I tell her to stand up and run. She obeys almost immediately. As soon as she's made it about five feet away, I whip a knife right into her back and she falls to the ground without another sound. I turn around and see Glimmer and Marvel laughing.
I look around me to see another body, the boy from 5 I think, fall to the ground at the hands of Cato's sword. Once the boy is down, Cato looks around and sees me. He smiles.
"Now that that's done," he yells over to me. Him and I both head back to the Cornucopia to regroup with Marvel, Glimmer, and Alice. Once we arrive, we start counting off the people we've killed. Four for me, two for Marvel, one for Glimmer, and three for Cato.
"That's ten, not too bad," Glimmer says, "Alice, how many did you kill?" Alice falls silent as Cato walks deeper into the Cornucopia as if searching for something. We all look at her and wait until she tells us that she did not kill anyone.
"Guys," Cato says abruptly. We all turn to face him and see the small boy from Alice's district squirming under his tight grip. "He was hiding." We all turn to Alice. She looks disappointed.
"I told you to run away," she whispers to him
"Kill him," I say to Alice, "Kill him or we kill both of you. You have to prove yourself." My words are like real knives to her ears, but she knows she has to do it. She shakes all her fears off of her and grabs one of Marvel's spears. Cato releases the boy who tries to run toward the mouth. He passes all of us and Alice, who turns around and hurls the spear at him and he falls face first into the grass.
"Eleven," Cato says, ignoring the pain Alice very clearly just received from killing the boy from her own district. Even if she wins, she probably won't be welcomed back very kindly after that act.
"Alright. Let's clear out so they can take the bodies. Then we'll come back and get all our supplies," Marvel says. We all agree and head out toward the lake. We decide it's best to just sit on the shore and wait.
After about a half an hour, the hovercraft comes and begins to collect the bodies. The cannon sounds off eleven times to signal how many have died.
"Alright, so who's left?" Glimmer asks the group. We all sit and think together.
"I saw Thresh from 11 and the boy from 3 get away," I say. Marvel then explains how he must've sprained the boy from 10's leg on his way to his spears, because he saw him limping off toward the forest afterward.
"That little Rue girl from 11 got away too. And the girl from 8 didn't even run for the Cornucopia," adds Glimmer.
"Let's not even mention Katniss. Almost got her right in the face if it weren't for her stupid backpack," I say angrily through clenched teeth.
"So that's six. Plus us five is nine. We're missing two more," says Cato.
"Oh! The girl from 5! The smarty-pants who spent all that time learning about different plants!" shouts Glimmer.
"Shut up, Glimmer. We're in the arena. We need to stay quiet," Marvel says sternly.
"Oh yeah, and who do you think's gonna try to come kill us? They're all afraid! Nobody in their right mind would come looking for the Careers."
"Well I might, and I think I might know the last person you're missing," comes a boy's voice from behind us. We all turn to face the forest and see Lover Boy from District 12 emerge from behind a tree.
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