DISCLAIMER: I do not own The Hunger Games. Suzanne Collins does.

Chapter 10

Walking in a place filled with trees and bushes and deadly mutts at night is not a very fun thing to do, as I found out the hard way when the other Careers and I searched for tributes to kill.

I drew a lot of unwanted attention to myself as we searched. I accidently stepped on twigs and got stuck in a gigantic cobweb (thank God the big spider the web belonged to wasn't there, 'cause I'm pretty sure it's a mutt's web), and, of course, I walked straight into a mad looking Dora. I'm not an extremely clumsy person, but it was all really really dark, I couldn't see what was right in front of me.

Thank God Cassiopeia ran into a tree four times, because I didn't want to be the only one making a fool out of herself.

We walked fast, too fast for my taste but no one cares anyway, so no point to tell them to slow down. They were all eager for blood, because here, the more blood spilled, the less tributes there are, which mean there's less competition, which means we're closer to win this thing and get back home.

For over an hour we just roamed around, looking at the dark shadows of the trees around us, barely making a shape in this dark place. Well, everyone except Diamond, of course. He had his 'super mega foxy cool night vision glasses', as Ruby said when she first laid her hands on them, and he took them for himself when we realized that the only pair of night vision glasses left in the Cornucopia. He just likes to be in control in my opinion.

Suddenly Dorado, who was right in front of me, stopped, which caused me to crash into him which caused him to growl at me.

"What's wrong?" Diamond asked Dorado quietly.

I could hear more than see Diamond walking to stand next to Dora. "Heard something," Dora said quietly, I didn't even know he was capable of saying things quietly.

"Where did this noise come from?" Diamond demanded.

Dora probably made some kind of a gesture towards the source of the noise, 'cause the next thing I know Diamond led us all very quietly to a pretty big clearing in the middle of the woods. There were fewer trees here and I could see things around me pretty clearly, which made me feel quite relieved. I hated the feeling of complete blindness.

I didn't see anyone though. I kept looking at the ground around me, squinting my eyes hard to try and see something, anything, besides the regular plants.

"I don't see anyone," Ruby said loudly.

Diamond immediately hissed at her, "Shut up!"

She rolled her eyes. "So rude."

Diamond ignored her and looked around him with his 'super mega foxy cool night vision glasses'. He looked at the ground first, then he started looking up. He froze when he looked at one of the trees there.

"What is it?" Shane asked him and looked at where Diamond was looking. We all did the same, but I couldn't see anything, so I just felt extremely dumb when everyone started whispering excitedly, "We got one! There's a tribute right there!" I decided to nod along with them importantly instead of telling them that I just couldn't see him.

"Hey, little twig! Why don't you come down here? We'll take care of you real nicely!"

"No we're not, we're going to kill him," Shane said, blinking stupidly at Diamond.

Diamond didn't even bother to explain what he meant by saying 'taking care of'. "Don't be shy, come down!"

I could now see a clear movement on the tree, which made me feel a little bit better. At least now I didn't feel dumb for not seeing it.

"He's not coming down," Shane informed Diamond.

"I can see that," Diamond replied flatly.

"Then what are we going to do then?"

I looked at Diamond, then at Dora, and finally at Shane. They were all very big and I just couldn't even imagine them climbing on trees very well. And they all looked at the tree with blank expressions on their faces, like they had no idea how to even approach it.

"Oh, let me handle it," Ruby said. She took her knife out of her pocket and held it tightly in her hand as she got closer to the tree. She immediately started climbing it. She was very quick and got to where the tribute was in only a few seconds. I could see now shadows of two kids there, one of them was obviously Ruby, the other one was the little tribute. I could see her raising her hand and I could see him moving as far away from her as possible, but he didn't have a way to escape her.

She quickly stuck her knife into his arm. I heard the tribute yelling in pain, I could see a dark shadow falling off the tree, I could see the tribute falling to the ground in a loud 'thump!'. Ruby immediately jumped off the branch she was at, and she gracefully landed on her feet.

Diamond actually smiled at her. "Good job," He said and immediately turned to the little tribute. I could see now that it wasn't a boy like I initially thought. She was a girl. She was just a few meters away from where I was standing.

She looked tiny. Maybe she was twelve, maybe thirteen. I remembered her – the girl from District Six. It seemed like she hadn't eaten in weeks, months even. I could see the bones under her skin, which looked sickly grey, though maybe it looked that way because of the darkness and the moonlight. Her face was so thin and small, it looked like she was already dead. But her eyes… they were very much alive. Huge, shining, frightened.

I felt my stomach flipping when I looked at her eyes.

None of the other Careers felt the same way as me, apparently.

"Oh, you scared, little girl?" Dorado said in a voice that was almost a whisper and kneeled down on the ground next to her. He was holding his precious mace tightly in his hand, like he was afraid to lose it. The little girl was eyeing it in horror.

Shane joined him. He seemed rather excited. "It's a good thing that you're scared, little girl," He said, smiling sickly at her. "We're planning on giving the Capitol a show to remember. Bet it's going to hurt a little." Dorado and Cassiopeia chuckled at that. "But look at the bright side – you're going to be unforgettable."

The girl tried to move back in a hopeless attempt to escape, but Diamond immediately stepped forward and held her arm tightly in his hand. The girl hissed in pain, because it was the arm that Ruby stuck the knife into.

"Oh, you're not going anywhere," Diamond said flatly, an unreadable expression on his face.

He then turned to look at all of us. "Anyone wants to make the first hit?"

Shane smiled. "I'll go first." He took one of Ruby's knives and, slowly, started cutting off the girl's index finger in her right hand.

The girl immediately yelled form the awful pain. I immediately closed my eyes.

Ruby, who was standing next to me, put her hand on my arm lightly. "Open your eyes," She whispered, barely audible. "You're a Career. You can't look away."

She was right. Looking away from it would mean that I'm weak. So I slowly opened my eyes to see Shane cutting off the poor girl's fourth finger.

She was screaming at the top of her lungs, and Shane, who was getting sick of it, took the four fingers that he cut off her hand and stuck it in her mouth to silence her. She almost chocked on it, and the blood, her blood, dripped from the fingers to her lips.

After Shane finally cut off all of her ten fingers, Dorado decided to join Shane. He took the knife from Shane's hand and started curving with it on her face. The blade of the knife cut through her delicate, sick skin, and her blood started pouring from it. He wrote the word, 'bitch' on her forehead, then on her cheeks and nose and chin wrote a few other curses. The girl was shaking terribly, and I could still hear her making noises, but her fingers were still in her mouth and prevented her from screaming. She was crying though, and her tears mixed with the blood on her face.

I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to run away from there, to throw up, but I was a Career, or at least pretending to be, so I stayed in my place and forced myself to watch the little girl getting tortured to death.

I had to take a huge breath when Dorado popped out her left eye with the knife.

And then couldn't help the tears that ran down my face as he took out her other eye as well.

Blind, pathetic, a bloody mess, the girl fainted on the dirty ground, looking like a broken horror doll.

Shane smiled in satisfaction. "Good job," He said to Dora.

I immediately wiped the tears off my face and looked around me at the other Career who didn't participate in it. Cassiopeia was looking at the little girl with a look of disgust. Ruby looked at a point in the distance, and probably tried to not concentrate on what Dora and Shane were doing. Diamond just looked at the girl with this unreadable expression that was on his face before.

Dorado wiped the blood that was on his fingers on his pants and got to his feet. "What now?" He asked Diamond.

Diamond stayed in his place for a few long moments, then he stepped forward and took Dorado's spikey mace. He stood next to the unconscious girl, mace in hand, and raised the mace higher in the air. In a quick, powerful move, he stuck the mace in the girl's stomach. Pieces of her flew everywhere, a piece of her skin and another thing from inside of her hit my cheek and I immediately got it off me.

The cannon boomed almost immediately.

I looked at what was left of the girl from District Six. Her legs were the only things that were left untouched. There were empty holes where her eyes used to be, curses were written with the blade of Ruby's knife all over her face, and her fingers were still inside of her mouth.

I wanted to throw up again.

I was actually glad she finally died. Thank God her suffer was finally over.

Cassiopeia looked at the girl. "We should continue with our hunt," She said simply, in an uncaring tone.

All eyes turned to Diamond, because even though no one said anything about it, it was clear he was our leader.

He looked at the damaged girl on the ground blankly for a few long seconds, then shrugged. "I'm actually pretty tired. We can continue with the hunt tomorrow morning."

Shane looked disappointed. "But –"

"You can kill more tributes tomorrow if you want, or you can go hunt them down all by yourself," Diamond said flatly. "We –" he pointed at all of us except Shane, "- are leaving. We can't be exhausted if we want to kill more tributes."

Shane couldn't really argue with that and decided to shut his mouth and not say anything in response. We all started following Diamond out of the clearing as he put on his 'mega super foxy cool night vision glasses'.

Ruby, who was walking with me now and was right next to me, smiled at me softly. "It's finally over."

I didn't know what to say in response to that, so I just made a noncommittal voice and continued walking.

Ruby scratched her head, then frowned. "What the hell..." She pulled the thing that was in her hair out and looked at it. She got it closer to her eyes to see it clearly, then she made a horrified squeak and threw the thing away.

"What? What was that?" I asked her, concerned.

Ruby shivered. "A piece of skin."

So.

That was gross.

Sorry about that chapter. I am terribly sorry. But this is the hunger games, and it's a dark story, and there are some horrible parts in there.

Hope it wasn't too horrible to read as it was for me to write it.

Also, am extremely sorry about not updating it for so long. School hard, you know. Hard to find time to do anything but studying or sleeping.

Oh, and I got to a conclusion that I really need a Beta, because the things I write are almost unreadable. Anyone's interested?

Hope you all have a lovely day, despite just reading this horrible, horrible chapter :D