The next morning, the realization hit me.

I was going into the arena.

To fight to my death.

I probably wouldn't come back alive.

I rose out of bed and slipped into the bathroom, brushing my teeth. I spit and rinsed then rose my head up to look at my appearance. I did a double take as I saw my hair. I'd completely forgotten.

It was a horrible cut, some spots longer then others and sticking out in spikes all over the place. I touched my forehead, suddenly all to happy that I hadn't shaved my head. At least I still had something to run my hands threw. I took a deep breath, accepting my new hair-do with quiet calm. Then I stripped and stepped into the shower, positive I'd enjoy it. This would probably be my last shower.

Afterwards, I slipped into a pair of khaki pants and a black t-shirt, before walking to the door. I faltered, wondering how the others would react to my new hair-do. Then I decided that I really didn't care. I opened the door and walked down the hall, ignoring the Avox's that happened to glance my way.

In the dining room, breakfast was already laid out. Gregor was shoveling food into his mouth, anxiety clear on his face, but when he saw me he stopped completely, staring at me like I was an alien. Then he raised and eyebrow and shrugged. I smirked, shoving my own pile of food onto my plate.

I was halfway through my plate when Quill walked in, already halfway through a question to Gregor when he saw me. I could tell because of they way he fell silent.

I just kept on eating, not even looking at him.

Slowly, angrily, he spoke, "What... did... you... do?!" I turned to look at him. His eyes were aflame with anger, his lips pressed together tightly.

I shrugged, "I cut my hair, its something that girls do a lot,"

I wasn't expecting his reaction, so I almost fell out of my chair when he exploded, "You cut off your hair!" His hand flew out, knocking the table over and splintering the wood. He was on me in a second, hands on my shoulder and thrusting me against the wall, "Cut your hair!" I stared at him, surprised by his reaction, barely noticing the pain in my back. This wasn't what I was expecting.

Gregor wrenched Quill off of me and I fell to the floor, having not even noticed that he'd lifted me up. Quill stormed from the room and Gregor sighed, "That boy had anger management problem,"

I snickered, before retreating to my own room. It was time to go, I knew that.

---------

I was standing on my plate, waiting for it to rise up and into the arena. Flavish was pacing in front of me. He'd dressed me in a pair of work pants, plus a plain white t-shirt and a jacket made of thin material. Plus a pair of boots, soft leather, perfect for working outside.

The only thing I could do was wait. Flavish wouldn't even speak to me, except for the 'good luck' he'd given me in the beginning. Gregor had already said goodbye to me, saying he really thought I had a chance of winning. Vase had burst into hysterics at the sights of me and started crying.

I was to busy zoning everything out to notice.

I turned to Flavish, setting my hands against the glass separating us, yet he didn't even look at me. I was about to say something, when I was suddenly rising. I almost fell down, but managed to stay upright. Flavish still didn't look at me and instead I looked upwards. Light spilled in above me, blinding me and suddenly I was in the arena.

At first I couldn't see anything. There was only blinding light. I could make out a sort of lapping sound and I squeezed my eyes shut, before blinking them over and over again. Everything became clear and with it, my horror set in.

Water, water everywhere.

It stretches for miles. A shocking shade of blue. All the tributes were in a circle, standing on their own plates with the cornucopia in the middle, shining golden in the sunlight. Off in the distance, I could barely make out land.

This was horrible!

I couldn't swim!

All of a sudden, a light blue ring appeared around my ankle, before a rope seemed to reach out from it. It was obviously virtual and I looked up to see where it went and saw that it connected with a similar looking ring around Quill's ankle.

So this is how they plan on keeping us together.

Quill was staring at me in surprise. I was pretty sure he'd been planning on abandoning me right at the start.

Suddenly, trumpets were blaring. Claudius Templesmith's voice could be heard, loud and clear, "Welcome to the 100th Quarter Quell! Before we begin, I suggest you don't kill you're partner, or else you will die yourself. Though you don't have to worry about dieing if someone else kills your partner, that is much different! If you manage to both stay alive through the games, you can both go home! May the odds be ever in your favor!" Then his voice was ringing.

My mind was in panic. I was going to drown. Iwasgoingtodrown. I couldn't stop thinking that over and over again.

Suddenly the bong sounded and I was thinking that maybe I would just stay on my plate and wait for Quill to come and get me, since he obviously would have to, when the plates began to recede into the water. I panicked as the water began to rise fast. It wasn't long until I was up to my neck and kicking wildly in an attempt to stay afloat.

Quill was racing towards the cornucopia, obviously not knowing about my inability to swim. I was doing my best, but suddenly the line went taught around my ankle and I was being dragged along behind Quill. My head went under as my foot rose. I didn't have time to get air and water went down my throat. Suddenly, the tension released a little bit and I was able to flail to the top, spitting water out and trying to get a mouthful of air. I could barely see Quill, grabbing different weapons. He had just speared a girl through the heart when I was going under.

I think I saw him look at me.

Still, the action had obviously made him forget about any thoughts of me.

After a few moments, I began to accept my fate, I was sinking fast and I had no air left. My arms trailed up above me, yet my clothes were weighing me down. My open eyes stared at the flickering water top as I sunk deeper and deeper. It was so much more peaceful down here.

My vision was just starting to go black when suddenly shape burst the pretty scene above. The figure was kicking down towards me faster then I was falling and suddenly hands were gripping the bottoms of my arms. I made out Quill's face before he turned upwards and kicked out wildly. He was obviously a strong swimmer, but found it even hard to swim when holding dead weight.

Right, that was me.

Suddenly my head broke the surface of the water. I started to choke, water spewing from my mouth faster then water could get in. Quill was managing to stay afloat and pound my chest at the same time, screaming something about staying alive.

I was finally able to take in a deep breath and everything became clearer. I blinked around me. Chaos had erupted. People were being forced to learn how to swim and there were a few bodies floating around, many of them in their own pools of blood. To my horror, I recognized Viclin as one of them. Ruby was still alive though, so obviously she hadn't killed him.

Quill seemed to falter, looking back at the cornucopia, then at me, then at land. He seemed to make a mental decision, before kicking off towards land, keeping my head above water the whole time.

It was shocking how fast he could swim, even with me weighing him down and it wasn't long until the land became closer and closer. Obviously it wasn't as far away as I'd thought at first. Yet, we finally did reach land. He dragged me onto the sand and I went limp, gasping even though I hadn't done anything.

Quill lay down, gasping for breath as he tried to regain his energy. Obviously the swim had drained him, even though he had been able to keep a steady pace. When he spoke, his words were forced, "You... never... told... me... you... couldn't... swim," There was a pause between each words.

I rolled my head to look at him and snapped, though my words came out rough because of my raw throat, "I wasn't... expecting to get.... thrown... into an ocean,"

He moaned, lying his head back and just laying like that for a while. It was me that got us going again, even though I had been the one that had almost drowned. I walked over to Quill and lugged him to his feet, even as he protested. I ignored the numerous bongs that sounded as person after person died, but I could see people in the distant starting to slowly make their way towards land.

"We have to go, we have to set up shelter," I whispered and he obviously agreed with this. He trudged off in front of me and for the first time I noticed that he had a pack on. At the edge of the woods he stopped, taking the back pack off and opening it, before pulling out an axe and handing it to me.

I stared at it for a minute, before hefting it in my hands. It wasn't as big as I'd like it to be, but it would do. Quill slung the pack back over his shoulders, "We'll go over the rest of the supplies later, now lets go,"

He slipped into the woods, but it soon became obvious that this wasn't his best terrain. After a moment, I slipped in front of him. To my relief, he didn't protest, which meant there were no conflicts that could cause trouble later on. We made better process now as I picked out the best paths, sometimes being forced to sever down vines and such to get through a certain pert of a forest.

At one point, Quill began to tire and fall behind. I didn't notice and he made no sign that it was happening, so it was quite a shock when the line suddenly when tense. I fell forward, face planting myself in the grass. Quill fell down a few feet behind me, I could tell from the thump as he hit the ground.

I sat up on one elbow, turning slightly to face Quill, who was just turning to face me. He grimaced and I shrugged, "Break?"

He nodded and we made quick work of setting up a camp. We wouldn't be staying here long, since we couldn't afford to let any of the other tributes catch up to us. My mouth tasted as dry as sand, but we had yet to come across a source of water. It must be some where's though.

We didn't dare start a fire, even though the temperature was dropping as the sun got closer to the horizon. Quill took off his back pack, setting it down in front of me. I quickly flip it open and dug inside.

We'd got lucky. I came up with two bottles of water, which were full. Quill instantly reached for one, probably planning on chugging it, but I slapped his hand away, glaring at him. He stared at me for a second, then shrugged and turned away.

There were three knifes inside, each surrounded by a protective casing and I handed two to Quill, keeping on for myself. I also found one sleeping bag, which I guessed would reflect body heat back to the body when sleeping. There was a small can of iodine for purifying water some rope, plus a small package of crackers and some dried meat and fruit.

I rocked back on my heels, surveying our supplies. It would keep us going long enough to find a source of water, I hoped. I passed one bottle of water to Quill, who eagerly twisted the cap off, but I stopped him again, "Take one small sip. Just enough to wet your throat and mouth,"

He glared at me for a minute and I glared back, before hissing at him, "You're not a career anymore, so I suggest you listen to me, golden boy,"

To my shock, he did, taking a small sip and swishing it around his mouth, before swallowing and passing the bottle back to me. I nodded, placing it back in the bag and taking an even smaller sip myself. It wasn't much, but it would have to hold me over.

I didn't even look at the food. We would have to hold ourselves over until we could catch something with the rope. Maybe I'd even been able to catch something with my axe.

My whole body suddenly went rigid as noise reached me over the rustling of leaves. Voices. Feminine but obviously coming our way. I quickly stuffed the rest of the things in my bag. Quill had heard it as well and was already halfway up a tree. I followed closely, shinnying my way up even faster them him.

We were obscured by the leaves when two girls broke into clearing, looking around. I instantly recognized one as the Mellark girl. The other girl was from District 9, I think. She appeared to be about fifteen, with straight blond hair and a small, petite face.

Arizona spoke up, looking around, "I could have sworn I heard someone... Did you, Piska?"

Piska nodded, her eyes searching the clearing slowly, carefully. They obviously weren't expecting someone to be up in the trees. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Quill raising his knife, aiming at Arizona, but I raised a hand to stop him. I could see potential allies here. He lowered the knife carefully, shifting position only slightly. Yet the leaves rustled beneath him anyway.

Piska's eyes snapped upwards, looking straight into mine. I could see things going through her mind, like my score in the training center. She was already lifting a knife with expertise, almost faster then I could.

Quill was shifting, like he was expecting to lunge in front of me and kill himself...

Then the arrow pierced Piska's forehead.