Chapter 10

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BOOM.

It's the cannon. Another one dead, meaning there's 12 left in play including me. Maybe the Gamemakers will be easier on the rest of us since there's a death for the day. Hopefully the death was interesting with a slight hint of drama and not just some stupid child eating a big red poisonous mushroom. Can't get bored from that.

This wakes Vincentio and he demands that I sleep for a couple of hours before sunrise. And I do, because who can fight with no energy? I sleep for around 6 hours before I wake myself up with a sore leg. The wound no longer hurts as much but I do get this numb feeling once in a while. I slept longer than I intended, although the weather is awfully bad outside and sunlight is barely visible. It's foggy and dark, which could be dangerous in the Games.

"It's not fair for you, I slept for so long. Why didn't you wake me?" I ask.

"We're not in a rush, but the food just ran out," Vincentio says, tossing the last berry in my mouth. "Come on, let's get us some food."

We leave the cave with everything but the leftover firewood that would last us for another night. I carry my spear along with knives on my belt and the water bottle in my pocket. Vincentio carries his backpack. It's time to look for food again, even though the weather is horrible. I show Vincentio where I got the berries from last night and we take with us as much as we can fill in our bag and pockets and make a meal at it. The berries don't really fill us up though. I wish we could have more of that greasy geese meat or some bread.

We continue our trail of looking for animals to hunt, but there's no luck. Suddenly, we hear some unusual noises I can't quite figure out and fast-paced footsteps running towards us. It's a girl, who's not from the Career pack, running our way, with a massive tornado behind her that the fog's been camouflaging.

"Run!" Vincentio screams. We sprint as fast as we can to get away from the tornado. The girl is just a few steps behind us and she looks exhausted. The tornado is blowing up the snow and I cannot see anything with the snow in my face and the foggy weather. We all just keep running and running, with no intention to rest or stop since this may cause us our lives. The tornado is getting closer and closer, there's no way we can stop it. The girl started slowing down from fatigue and the tornado takes her away. Even with all the loud noise the tornado is making, the cannon fire is still loud and clear. Vincentio and I keep running as fast as we can and we're panting from all the over exercise. We can't run anymore, we can't help but slow down and just the moment when we think we're going to be two more cannon shots of the day, the tornado slowly disappears. The Gamemakers say it's enough, we've worked hard enough to stay alive, just for the day.

We lie on the ground panting starring into the sky and then at each other. The fog is disappearing too, showing us the bright sun in the sky. The birds are beginning to sing, as if the tornado never happened.

"Let's go back to the cave," Vincentio says. I guess he doesn't want to talk about it, I don't either. What's so great about talking about a huge mass of wind? Suddenly, that's when I got the thought. Talking. Usually in the Games, the tributes that talk with their allies gets less Gamemaker events chasing them down because they're already creating a scene. I would hate to talk about home but maybe I can get Vincentio to talk. About what though? What do the audience of the Capitol love? I think of the popular victor celebrities in the Capitol, like Finnick Odair. When he recited that love poem, the Capitol audience nearly died of overly gushy love. Love, that's it. I'll be curious about Vincentio's love life!

We make our way back to the cave silently, still trying to get pass the shock of the tornado. I'm over that already, because that was history and I have to focus on the present to keep myself alive. We warm ourselves up with the fire that Vincentio made with the leftover firewood, it's time to talk.

"Today was scary," I say dumbly.

"I'll say. That was a lot of exercise I haven't done for a long time," Vincentio replies casually.

"Did you do good in track and field back in school?" I ask.

"Yes, I had to. It's the Baitsley family legacy, to win the 40 Yard race and other events," Vincentio says proudly. "I can tell you're not a bad runner."

Observant. Well, not really, it was kind of obvious.

"Usually I'm not that good, but I guess I'm good at running for my life," I say. "That legacy of yours must've impressed a lot of people. Boys like that are really popular in my school."

Like Andreev, I would add, but I wouldn't since I don't want to bring him up in front of Vincentio. He was always really good at the track stuff back when he went to school, I'd always give the "back away stare" to the girls that looked at him too much. I guess I fell for him longer than I thought I have.

"Sometimes, though it's only to the girls you don't really care if you impress," he says.

Perfect answer, Vincentio.

"Like Luciana?" I ask. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, actually."

"Yes, I guess so. She's a year older than me plus she's the Head Peacekeeper's daughter, so it's not that easy to impress her. We're really good friends though," he says.

"She's not your girlfriend?" I ask.

"No, her father wants her to do better than the butcher's son," he says.

"Oh," I say. I know we have to stop there because "better than the butcher's son" means being victor now in his case. Talking about victory in an alliance is dreadful, since only one or neither of us will live.

"How about you? I remember you saying something about that necklace you're wearing during your interview," he asks. Now I remember it too, I said it was a present from a cute boy that gets passed on for generations.

"It's really nothing, just from a special someone" I say. I don't want to mention Andreev or share anything about him with the whole nation. I'll let Vincentio do the work.

The sun is setting and we see a silver parachute fall from the sky. Vincentio goes and gets it. He comes back in and we open the silver parachute together. It's warm bread, this time it's a plain loaf. That probably means half the loaf is meant for me since I said I'm bad with nuts last night. We divide the loaf and finish it quite quickly. We have the leftover berries we picked this afternoon for dessert and relax, waiting for the anthem. There will be two deaths today. They show a girl from District 3 first who died in the morning, and then they show the girl from District 5 who died from the tornado. Her face disappears in the sky announcing the end of day 5. The casualties have been going fast, there's 14 dead already. This means 10 of us are left in the arena. None of the Careers, except the one Vincentio killed, are dead, so half of the 10 are Careers. Three of them are out there somewhere probably alone and there's Vincentio and me. 10 people. This alliance can't go on much further, but I should probably wait until one or two more deaths before I leave.

"I'm going to sleep, remember to wake me," Vincentio says, and he doses off.

This would be a good time to leave, while he's asleep. But I don't, because I know there's more use to this guy. I can't believe I was feeling some kind of weird friendly feeling towards him last night just because he was sort of nice to me. This changes completely though, because thinking of the 14 people who are dead and the tornado that happened today shook me awake.

Because in the Hunger Games, it's all or nothing.

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