OMG guys, you can't believe how sorry I am. I've been doing summer homework, so I haven't had any time to update! And also, MY BIRTHDAY WAS MONDAY, AUGUST 27! YAYA! I'M NOW 15! *CHEERING* I had a big party and everything. I had like, 25 people over.

Now, the bad news. Since school is starting for me on Tuesday, and I'll be in high school, I probably won't have time to update as often. you guys saw how long it took me to update with my summer homework, so I don't know how I'm going to find time to update with homework every day.

Also, I REALLY want to apologize for what I said last chapter. You guys totally don't have to review or anything, I was just crabby. Of course, I would prefer if you did comment, but it's your choice! I'm just happy that people read my story.

Ok, enough with the heavy. I'll start writing this story again before I run out of time! Enjoy! :D

We were quickly surrounded. Large men held my children by the arms, and a man was pointing a bow and arrow at Gale while a woman was pointing one at me while I was hanging upside down. They were all fairly clean, like they had access to a source of water, but their clothes were worn out, with little holes.

"What do you want from us?" I cried, look at my children desperately. Jemiah was crying, struggling ineffectively at the large man's hold. I glanced over at Gale, who was holding Caleb close to him. "Please, what do you want?"

The man chuckled again, and I looked in his direction. He was standing near Gale, and I noticed that he was nearly a foot taller that Gale, and definitely more muscular. He had light blonde, nearly white hair and grey eyes, paired with a crooked nose. He was very fair-skinned with freckles across his nose. "What do we want, you ask? What do we want? You're the ones invading our land. What do you want?"

Before I or gale could respond, the woman who was pointing the weapon at me spoke to him. She had straight black hair to her shoulders and dark brown eyes. She looked about my height.

"Nick," she said to the man," she's pregnant."

The man, Nick, did a double take at me and my stomach. After a moment of silence, Gale spoke up.

"She's injured, too. Her arm. It could be infected, and we have nothing to treat it. Please, we have the kids…" Gale trailed off as Nick gave him a death glare.

"Well," he said after a moment. "I guess you could mean no harm. You're lucky I respect pregnant women." Quickly he walked over and pulled a knife from his belt. I was about to cry out when he cut the rope from around my feet, and I fell hard to the ground on my back, knocking the wind out of me.

I quickly scrambled to my feet and grabbed my bow off my back, loading an arrow. I aimed it at Nick, who seemed to be the leader of the group of people. I glanced around the area and saw that there were about 10 people all together. Most were men, nearly as big as Nick. All of them were armed. Half of them had bows while the other had knives and swords. One had a gun, which was aim straight at me.

"Drop your weapons!" I yelled, pulling my bow taught. "Drop them, or I'll shoot him through the head!"

Nick stared at me but raised his hand to the others. "Put them down, guys. Listen to what she says."

They hesitated, but soon enough all of their weapons dropped to the ground.

"Now, let my kids and friend go." I said. They obeyed, and quickly my family was by my side.

Nick said, "What do you need? We aren't going to hurt you. Explain to us why you're here." He had his hands up in surrender, obviously not dangerous. For the moment, anyway.

I didn't want to tell them, but I knew there was no escaping these people. If we turned and ran, they could pick up their weapons and just as easily kill us as I could kill one of them. And, besides, we came all this way to find the village in district 4, and these people very well could have been what we were searching for.

I started from the beginning. Well, from when Peeta was taken. It didn't take very long, but it took longer than it should have. It was a hard story to tell, especially the part when Emalia died…

"So." Said Nick, after a long pause. "You guys are escaping the Capital, too." It wasn't a question.

"Wait, so it is the Capital? I thought we defeated them years ago…" I trailed off, looking at Gale. He had been through all of it with me, fighting right beside me the whole time, and now he would be again…

"Yeah, I'm pretty positive, considering they came to take my daughter and wife as a warning a month ago. They told us that if we try to stand up to them, they will put us through worse things than death." Nick ran a hand over his face, which was now pale.

So we weren't the only ones who had gone through a lot. In a sad way, it was nice to know that we weren't the only ones suffering. At least Nick knew how we felt.

"And my sister Lierah-" Nick continued, motioning towards the young girl with short black hair "-lost her 2 month old son. I guess they like to pick on my family." Nick said in a steely tone. He had gone from pale to red, and his fists were clenched tight in anger.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know…" I said. I let my bow drop, and put my arrow back. These people were obviously of no harm to us. They were just trying to protect themselves.

"It's fine, there was no way you could know. After all, we've only known each other for ten minutes." He smiled, then blinked. "Actually we haven't known each other." He walked up to me with his hand extended. His friends tensed and reached for their weapons, but he ignored them and continued. "I'm Nicholas Koham, leader of the village in District 4. And this is my sister, Lierah, my side kick. We're twins." I shook his hand.

Lierah walked up to me, hand extended, but she was glaring at her brother. "I told you not to call me that." She snapped, then smiled at me. "Nice to meet you…" She trailed off waiting.

"Katniss," I said, shaking her hand. "Katniss Mellark. And these are my children Madeline and Jemiah."

"Nice to meet you two." She held her hands out to both of them, and they shook it. I see we have something in common," Lierah said, turning to me again and gesturing towards my bow.

I laughed. "I guess we do. I haven't met very many people who can shoot as well as I can. I can't wait to see how good you are."

"Now, who's this?" Nick said, walking to stand in front of Gale, who was still holding Caleb.

"I'm Gale, Katniss's friend." He shifted Caleb's weight to one arm and shook Nick and Lierah's hands. "And this is my son, Calebiran. But you can call him Caleb."

"Well, enough of the small talk. I'm sure you guys are exhausted. Let's head back." Nick said, walking back in the direction they seemed to come from.

On our walk back to the village, we were introduced to everybody else. There were 8 men and 3 woman total, counting Nick and Lierah, but I couldn't remember their names. One boy in particular stood out whose name was Keon. He was young, around the age of 13 or 14, with dark skin and muscles. He had straight white teeth and cleanly shaven black hair, and was very cute. A sort of warning flashed in my mind that he was the same age as Madeline.

When we broke through the thick trees, there was a vast open clearing that went on for a mile or two. And what I saw shocked me beyond belief.

Yay! I've got another chapter! I was going to post this yesterday, but I still have a lot of homework that I have to get done by tomorrow! Eek! I kind of cut this short because I have to go do more homework, sorry if it's another cliffhanger. But this one's not as bad as last chapter's, right? But sometimes it's fun to write cliffhangers, just because they make you guys angry… haha. Anyway, I just wanted to apologize again for the stuff I said last chapter. I'm just irritated because you guys don't really comment, but I also know that a lot of you aren't members on fanfiction, so you don't want to comment, and you can't favorite. But please, if you get a chance, DO comment and favorite and Fan. And visit my profile! If you have time to come on here and read stories, I'm sure you can spare an extra minute!

I just wanted to add that I AM WRITING AND ORIGINAL STORY! It's not on FictionPress any more, I switched it to WattPad! So, please visit me. I think you will really like it. It's not very popular yet, but it's getting there! It'll be a lot more popular when you guys visit, because I know/hope some of you will. It's called "The Elementals" by mimi55337.

Ok, I'm going to stop talking now. This is super long. I may post another chapter for My Version of City of Lost Souls tonight, but no promises! Night, don't let the bed bugs bite! And watch the Hunger Games for me! I got it for my birthday Monday! :D