Thanks again to everyone who commented and gave your input. I hope I made the right decision. Anyways, on to the chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, Suzanne Collins does.

Chapter 10

I'm dead. All that planning and preparation, all the work that Beetee and I put in – it's all for nothing. I have barely lasted two hours. From my position, there is no way I can make a move, either to attack or to flee, before District 11 crushes my head with that rock. Pleading will be useless and probably will make it even worse for my family watching at home. No, there's nothing I can do. I brace myself for the death blow. I just hope it doesn't hurt too much.

But the blow never comes. A minute passes, then two. Tentatively, I look up at the boy who holds my life in his hands. He's still holding on to the giant rock, but there is indecision written on his face. I realize how I must appear to him: a pitiful, helpless, unarmed little child. Exactly how Beetee wanted the others to see me. Finally, District 11 makes a decision, lowering the rock to a more defensive position without relaxing his guard.

"The clearing… is a trap?" he asks.

"Y-y-yes… quicks-s-sand." When I find my voice, I'm the stuttering boy from the interview all over again.

"Thanks for showing me. You don't attack me, I won't kill you," he says. "Not today. But stay clear of me, understand?" I nod meekly, and without another word he disappears into the foliage. Heart pounding, I head off in the opposite direction. The giant from District 11 just spared my life. Why? Was it really because I accidentally saved him from the quicksand trap and so he felt like he owed me? Or is it because he doesn't want to be a killer? Either way, I'm almost certain now that his strategy will be to defend and defend, until either the Careers or the Gamemakers force him into a confrontation. I file this knowledge away in my brain; it may be useful later, if my plan succeeds and I survive. Of course, now that I owe him my life, how can I possibly try to kill him?

I turn my attention to the more pressing task at hand. I need to find water, and I need to be safely hidden by nightfall, when the Careers will start their first hunt. But just exploring and fighting my way through the grass proves to be an ordeal. The blazing sun beats mercilessly down from its spot high in the sky. At this time of day, the stalks of grass offer no shade because of the angle of the sun. Instead, all they do is stifle the air around me. What little wind there is blows high over the top of my head, offering no relief. Make no mistake: the arena is designed to make tributes suffer as much as possible before they die. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is the knowledge that others are suffering through worse: the cannons have not yet fired, so that means the tributes at the Bloodbath are still battling to the death in this unbearable heat.

After another couple of hours, I realize that wandering around blindly in the high grass is simply not going to work. I'm expending way too much energy, and the hot sun is dehydrating me quickly. When I stumble upon the path again, some distance past the clearing, I decide to risk it and try to find out where it leads. After all, since the trap was in the clearing, whoever reached this point would have already passed one test.

My decision turns out to be a good one as the path eventually winds its way down into a valley. From the top, I can see that it leads to a spring of fresh water. On the other side of the pool are some rocks that form a little cave that would make a perfect shelter. It looks so inviting that I start to hurry excitedly toward the water without even thinking.

I've only taken a few steps downward when my brain kicks in and I stop abruptly. It can't be as easy as it looks, can it? Remembering the trap in the clearing, I get a feeling that there must be some danger down there. For a few minutes, I stand still, trying to absorb every detail of the pool below me. And then I see a movement at the edge of the grass by the rock pile that makes my blood run cold.

A large animal emerges from the grass. Six feet long. Scaly hide. Low, elongated body and a giant triangular head that seems to be made of nothing but teeth. I've learned about this animal in school, when we studied the different Muttations. An alligordile. During the Dark Days, the Capitol used them to protect sources of water: Rivers, ponds, lakes. Their powerful jaws could snap an unsuspecting rebel in half. We were shown pictures as proof. They move surprisingly fast and are very hard to kill.

My heart sinks. I've found water, but there's no way for me to gain access to it. If someone is going to use that watering hole, they'll have to defeat the monster down there. That person is definitely not going to be me. I'm weak and I'm weaponless and I would have been dead meat if I had gone down there. And considering how well-defended it is, it's probably the only water source in this whole section of the arena.

As I stand there frozen, my attention focused on the monster below, I am shocked by what happens next. The alligordile whirls quickly at a movement on the edge of the pool. A rock strikes it, then another. A moment later, he comes into view. The boy from District 11. In one hand, he holds another large rock, and in the other he wields a long stick – no, it's a spear! It must be a sponsor gift. He's challenging the alligordile for the watering hole! That's virtually suicide. Well, at least for me, it would be. He's a lot bigger and stronger than me, and he's armed. I guess he's come to the same conclusion as I have. If he wants water, he'll have to defeat the Mutt.

I suppose I could go down and try to help him. But he told me to stay away from him. Besides, I'm completely unarmed, so the only thing I could do is be the bait and act as a distraction. But as anyone from District 4 can tell you, the bait usually gets eaten. No, I can't help. But I don't want to stand here and watch his gruesome death, either. Besides, whoever wins this fight will still be blocking me from the water. I scramble up the path, putting as much distance as possible between me and the battle, and trying hard not to imagine what might be happening to the giant from District 11.

A few minutes later, I reach the edge of the clearing and plunge off into the grass to one side. Exhausted, I decide that I have to rest and think. This is as good of a spot as any, since there's a good chance that anyone or anything in my vicinity will take the path and fall into the sand trap.

I try to evaluate my situation. I won't last long without water. Maybe there is another water source, but if there is, it's sure to be as well-defended as the first one. Besides, it's highly unlikely that I'll find it in time. I might as well move up the schedule. No point dying of thirst before trying out the most audacious plan in the history of the Games.

Lying here on the ground in the warm sun, I manage to do something which I could not do last night in my luxury bed: I fall asleep. I'm jolted awake by the sound of the cannons firing to mark the casualties of the Bloodbath. I'm disoriented and groggy, but I manage to count at least 10. Did Pixie make it? I don't remember seeing her at the Bloodbath. Maybe she got out of there quick. But there was so much happening, I can't be sure. What about Vincent? From the look on his face when I saw him back at launch, he was planning to head inward, toward the good stuff near the entrance of the Cornucopia. The odds of him having survived are not very good. I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter either way. They both have to die sometime in the coming days for me to go home. After all, there can be only one victor.

I spend the rest of the afternoon thinking about the ten dead tributes. Ten children whose lives have been cut short. Ten children already being packaged into plain wooden boxes and shipped back home to their families for burial. Of course, compared to the thirteen others who will die later, they are the lucky ones. At least their suffering was short, and their families can begin to grieve right away, rather than gaining hope as the field shrinks, only to have it snatched away from them before the end.

Night begins to fall, and my heart rate increases. Soon the faces of the dead will appear in the sky. And soon, the Careers will be out hunting, if they aren't already. If they happen to find me out here as a pack, they'll probably kill me before I can get two words out. I just have to gamble that they won't. I think my odds are fairly good; I estimate that the chances are over 90% that the Careers will first hunt in the forest, where it looked like the majority of the Others had headed. At least, from the quick glimpse that I had when I fled the Bloodbath.

I start moving in the direction that I memorized earlier as being that of the Cornucopia, though I don't dare take the path. I know I'm not very far in, but I need to get to the edge of the field before the end of the first day's recap, or I'll be in more or less complete darkness.

I don't make it. Either I underestimated the distance back to the Cornucopia or I overestimated the amount of time I had before nightfall. But I'm still surrounded on all sides by the tall grass when the national anthem sounds and they start showing the death recap for Day One. I broke the streak! Goal number one accomplished.

Any feeling of elation is immediately wiped away as the seal of the Capitol is replaced with the face of the first dead tribute. It's Pixie. The sight of her face brings a mixture of emotions boiling up inside of me, but I force myself to ignore them, because when you are in the arena, the faces in the sky are the only way of keeping track of who's been eliminated and who's still in the Games. If Psycho Knife Girl were to die, for example, it would be a waste of effort for someone to worry about getting knifed by her.

The next face is a surprise: the Career boy from District 4. The Careers almost never fight each other during the Bloodbath, because doing so would allow the rest of the field to do the one thing they most desperately want: to escape the Cornucopia with weapons and supplies, enough to hide and ambush the hunters later on. And from what I saw, these Careers were not interested in fighting each other… yet. Hmm, I guess one of the Others must have gotten lucky and taken him out, although for the life of me I can't figure out who it could be. The most likely candidate, the boy from District 11, had run straight for the field like me.

The rest of the casualties are Others: the boy from District 5, both from District 6, Vincent and his district partner from District 7, the boy from District 8, both from District 9, and the girl from District 10. Wait… that makes 11. I must have miscounted the cannons earlier today. So who's left? Five Careers. The girls from Districts 5 and 8. Gimpy from District 10 – that's a shocker. And both from Districts 11 and 12. Both from District 11? That means the Giant must have won his battle with alligordile. He's quickly proving that his training score of ten was well-deserved. I'm still missing someone… Oh, it's me, duh.

The Capitol seal appears again after the girl from District 10, indicating that the list is complete. After a few seconds, it disappears, plunging the arena into the darkness of night as abruptly as a light bulb being turned off.

The emotions finally overwhelm me. It feels like the darkness is not only surrounding me, but inside of me as well. Pixie is dead. The poor, helpless little girl that I have grown to care about in the past week is gone. Her body lifted out of the arena in a hovercraft and sent back to her grieving family. Her life ended in minutes by this barbaric slaughter that they dare call a Game. I've never hated the Capitol as much as I do this very moment.

I'm glad for the darkness, because it should make it hard for the cameras to pick up the tears that are streaming down my cheeks. I touch my hand to my heart and raise my palm up to the sky, parting my middle and fourth fingers for our district's traditional farewell salute. "Geegee, Pixie," I whisper.

I spend the next hour thinking over all that I have already experienced in one short day in the arena. I grieve for Vincent, too, although it's not as strong because I only ever had one conversation with him – a conversation in which he may or may not have been sincere with me. But it doesn't matter any more. Whatever strategy he had, Panem will never know.

A while later, my thoughts finally return to my own situation and the task at hand. I am still alive, and I have a plan. I can hear Beetee's voice in my head telling me to think and work out what is happening with the other tributes. What do I know? The Career pack is down to five, which should be helpful to me. Without my assistance, they'd have to hunt with only four, which is potentially risky since the two from District 12 are undoubtedly allied. The tiny girl from 11 might be with them, too, since she is clearly not with her district partner here in the field. The other three are probably out on their own – none showed any friendliness to any others during training.

The most urgent issue is that four of the five Careers are probably out hunting right now. I need to get back to the Cornucopia, determine if the Career camp is nearby, and play my gambit. I can't do that if I stay where I am right now. But moving through this field in almost pitch blackness proves to be virtually impossible. I can only move at a snail's pace, stopping often to listen for any sign that something or someone is near me. The slightest breeze causes the grass to rustle menacingly, and the jagged stalks which were already spooky in the daytime appear even more sinister at night. Soon I'm practically shivering with fear. Or maybe it's the cold. The temperature in the arena has dropped rapidly since sunset. Despite being mercilessly hot in the day, it is now bitterly cold at night.

After about an hour, I give up for the night. I'm hungry, thirsty, cold and exhausted. I don't have a clue how much farther I still have to go. And I'm very likely to blunder into a trap or make so much noise that someone will find me, if I keep trying to move. At least if I stay still I can listen for sounds of danger around me. Curling up as best as I can under my jacket, I try to rest, all the while cursing myself for my stupidity. I should have started to move sooner. Now I've probably lost my window of opportunity for tonight, which means a whole second day without food or water. It's a horrifying prospect.

I guess I must have eventually dozed off, because I am once again awakened by the sound of a cannon. A single shot, indicating that, in all likelihood, the hunting Careers have found a victim. There's no way of telling who it was until the death recap many hours from now. Looking around, I realize that dawn is approaching. It's still mostly dark, but the eastern sky is growing lighter. I look ahead of me and through a gap in the grass, I can just make out the hill that leads back to the Cornucopia. I'm actually fairly close to the edge of the field. Maybe it's not too late!

In the few minutes it takes me to reach the end of the grass, I begin having second thoughts. If this doesn't work, I'm dead. I don't think I can make myself do this. But somehow, at that very moment, I hear Beetee's voice echo in my head, as clearly as if he was standing next to me. "If you choose an alternate strategy, you will still almost certainly die." If I don't go up there right now, I'll suffer through an unbearable day of thirst and hunger. And if I'm lucky enough to survive it, I'll still have to make the same decision tomorrow night. Come on Max, you have to do this. I take a deep breath to steel myself, and quietly creep up the slope towards the Cornucopia.

As I peer over the edge of the plain, I can see that I'm in luck. The Careers, as expected, have made camp near the lake. A lone girl – District 4, I think – sits motionless guarding the supplies; the others must still be out hunting. Here goes nothing. I slip out onto the plain and creep towards the lake. The words of my mentor ring in my head: "You must appear weak to them. Never give them a hint that you have a plan or they'll never trust you."

It's a strange feeling walking out into the open. I'm still scared to death that this might fail. But there's another feeling, a feeling of anticipation and almost… excitement. It's the same feeling that I used to get back in the Shop after finishing my repairs and powering up the product to see if it works. All of our planning, all of Beetee's hard work, have led me to this moment.

I'm about twenty feet from the lake when I see the Career – it's definitely Mermaid Girl – stand up and creep toward me. She doesn't appear to be armed, which is a good sign, although she's strong enough to kill me with her bare hands, of course. My heart is pounding with fear, but I force myself to pretend that I don't notice her, and reach down as if I was going to drink the water straight out of the lake.

As soon as I bend toward the water, Mermaid Girl closes the gap between us with surprising speed, grabbing me from behind before I can react. Boy, she's strong! – she lifts me up and tosses me on the ground with very little effort. "Well, well, well, what have we here? A little rat looking for a drink? What shall I do with it? Kill it quick, or give you a show?" It's when she asks the last question that I realize she's talking directly to the cameras. Playing it up for the sponsors. Well, that's fine. I'm about to say the words that will completely upstage her anyways. Hopefully nothing interesting is happening in rest of the arena and the cameras are trained on us expecting to see a kill. I start shaking as though I was terrified for my life, but as I do so, the thought hits me that I'm actually not. I've been surrounded by fear from the moment I left the launch room, but as long as I'm following the plan, it's a healthy fear.

"Y-you don't have t-to do this," I say, looking up at the girl towering over me.

"Of course I do," she laughs. "The only question is whether I will make it quick or slow. How about this? If you beg for your life, right now, I won't make it hurt… too much." She begins to lean toward me menacingly.

"Wait! I can help you guys!" I cry out, allowing my voice to rise in desperation.

"What could a sniveling little rat from District 3 possibly contribute to our alliance?" she sneers.

This is it. This is my moment.

"I can reactivate the land mines for you."

And thus endeth Part II. Four chapters left. (Although several of you have requested a Beetee epilogue/one-shot, so we'll see what happens. I'm not sure if I'm going to write it yet, and if I do, I may or may not make it a separate story.)