A/N: Hello! This is a shorter chapter, but quality over quantity and all that :)

MysteriousZebra: THANK YOU! You have no idea how happy that made me! Yeah it's really nice to know what people think of what you've written :)

Don'tForgetTheNotes: Hehe see I'm nice, gave you a nice chapter *nudge nudge wink wink* XD

Enjoy :)

Nick laid down next to Lily in the damp cave. They'd chosen to go there because it was the only familiar thing to them, although they'd only been in the caves back in District 12 on school trips they'd never been in a forest or a desert, they'd never seen a mountain range and they hadn't the foggiest idea of how to swim; so the caves were really the only option for them. They had decided to stick together from the start; neither of them were very strong and the thought of being alone in the massive arena with everyone out to get you was a terrifying one for both of them.

"How long do you think we have?" Lily asked the question that had been on their lips from the start, the elephant in the cave, if you will.

"Well we haven't heard anyone since the start...there's 11 of us left...9 of them out there..." Nick said, thinking it all through.

"I wonder who's left." And as if on cue the anthem blared out and they crawled a couple of meters through the cave to get to the part where a few rocks were missing in the roof and they could see the sky through the gaps. The seal shows for a few seconds then showed the faces of Arielle, Jeff and Corey. Nick and Lily scampered back to their little camp and laid down again. "So it's District 1...the girl from 2..."

"The boy from 5..." Nick carried on "the girl from 6, both from 7...the boy from 8...the boy from 10...and us." They lay in silence for a while whilst it all set in their minds.

"There hasn't been a cannon for a while." Lily stated. The implications of that hung in the air. The last cannon was very early in the morning, unless something interesting was going on then the gamemakers would be getting bored and when they're bored the tributes pay for it.

"There's far more interesting tributes out there." Nick comforted her "All we've done is found a stream and then come here. They're plenty other tributes they can play with. Plus what are they gonna do? They can't touch us in here. Don't worry, we're safe."

Silence reigned in the cave once more as they both thought about their chances. Various scenarios went through their heads.

"I'd rather sooner" Lily whispered

"I wanna go home" Nick admitted even quieter, Lily barely heard him. She reached for his hand and held it while he fought back the lump in his throat.

"They'll fight amoung themselves. We'll have to move eventually, probably when the feast is announced, then we'll let them fight it out between them. We'll have to face one of them but we'll probably find some weapons and some point and with two of us it shouldn't be much of a problem to over-power them." Lily reasoned, trying to get Nick's hopes up.

"We can't both win." Nick pointed out

"...rock paper scissors?" Lily suggested with a smile; they shared a laugh, finding humor in the smallest places was one of the very few things they had left so they clung to it.

Eventually they fell asleep, it was an uncomfortable sleep riddled with strange creepy dreams where everything was blurred, nothing seemed quite right and everything was just out of reach; but they woke up to the tranquil sound of birds singing which lifted them peacefully out of their sleep, for a moment it didn't seem quite so bad until the damk smell hit them with the reality of where they were and the inevitability of what was going to happen to them. Lily looked over at Nick who had sat up and had his head in his hands. She sat up and stretched as much as she could in the cramped cave, then she turned back to Nick.

"So what's the plan?" She asked him. He lifted his head and stared at the rocks in front of him.

"We could go to the stream again. Get some water, wash." Nick suggested. "We should probably see if we can tell what going on or anything."

"Ok. Should we go to the gap to see if we can see anything?" Lily asked, Nick paused for a moment as if he was in deep thought, then nodded. They crawled over to the gap and looked through to see bright sunshine, the birds still sang their happy song unaware of the chaos that was surrounding them. Then the sky seemed to darken, Nick and Lily weren't sure if it was just their eyes adjusting to the darkness then the birds stopped singing and silence filled the cave. They looked a each other, unsure of what exactly was happening but knowing it was something to do with the gamemakers. Lily went to speak but Nick held his hand up and listened intently to the sparse sounds of the cave. Then Lily heard it. The quiet sound of rushing water. They both realised what it meant at the same time. They were being washed out.

Nick and Lily crawled through the cave as fast as they could back to the entrance. Luckily they hadn't gone in too far, but they'd gone far enough. Neither of them knew how to swim and the sound of rushing water struck them with such fear that they were moving faster than they thought possible. Nick stole a glance behind them and saw the gushing water coming up close behind them. He knew this was the end.

"Lily." He said. She turned back and saw it too.

"Nick." She murmered. He turned to her and they looked each other in the eye, knowing.

The water gushed over them and took them with it and it stormed through the cave, bursting through any gap it could. It found its way to the entrance of the cave and exploded across the field, dropping it's victims at the mouth of the cave.

Coughing and spluttering, Lily and Nick woke up from a sleep they didn't expect to. Luckily they had been transported out of the cave, unluckily they had landed right at the feet of the last people they wanted to come into contact with.

"Well hey there." Devin smiled.