A/N- Okay, so I'm going to have this be from Glimmer's and Cato's points of view (Honeyshine and Wingbreeze didn't want Clove) so yeah, and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I will never EVER EVER own the Hunger Games. Sadly.
Cato
A bright, unrelenting light in my face wakes me up, and I blink a couple of times before I realize it's just the sun's glare. I sit up - or try to - hitting my head on the rock that I forgot we were sleeping under. Looking to my right, I see Marvel, but there's no sign of Glimmer. Wait...what? Where's Glimmer? I prod Marvel awake.
"Do you know where Glimmer is?" I ask.
He yawns and blearily opens his eyes. "What?"
I sigh. "I said, do you know where Glimmer is?"
Marvel closes his eyes for a second, but then they snap open again. "Glimmer's missing?!"
I roll my eyes at him. "What do you think?"
"We have to go find her!" And with that, he attempts to sit up, but also hits his head against the rock. "Ow!"
"Not yet. First we have to eat breakfast. The problem is actualy finding some breakfast." Secretly I agree with Marvel - we should go find Glimmer before anything else. I know that both of us would never forgive ourselves if anything happened to Glimmer. Strangely, I feel a slight tug of guilt at thinking about breakfast and Glimmer when who knows what's been happening to Clove? However, I ignore the tug and look around to see if there are any animals we could eat. There is nothing. Absolutely nothing.
A shout from Marvel makes me jump and turn. "I found some squirrel tracks, and this weirdly shaped print in the ground!"
Upon closer inspection, I see that Marvel is right. And I find myself thinking that how could Marvel not see the obvious? The "weirdly shaped prints" are actually the marks of boots! And these boot prints look a lot smaller than mine or Marvel's, so they must be Glimmer's! Because who else would be out here besides us?
"What do you think those prints are?" Marvel asks.
I can't help but sigh dramatically. "Marvel, those are boot prints."
He chooses to ignore me, but instead turns and follows the tracks. They stop after about 20 minutes, where it's really easy to see signs of a scuffle. There's even some blood on the sand. Marvel turns pale when he sees the blood. I think that I know what he's thinking: Please don't let that blood be Glimmer's. I know this because I am thinking the same thing. Besides the signs of a fight, I also see two parallel lines heading off toward the right, which luckily happens to be the direction we need to head to get to the Capitol. Every now and then, there's a stray boot print somewhere by the two parallel lines, and I come to the conclusion that the lines are someone or something being dragged. The boot prints that appear are too large to be Glimmer's.
"Marvel, do you think that whoever or whatever was here dragged off Glimmer?"
Marvel jogs over. "Maybe...let's follow these lines and find out."
We start sprinting this time. Now, I don't feel the tug of guilt deep inside me because we are heading toward the Capitol and Glimmer.
After five minutes, the trail stops at a large green plant with spikes sticking out of it. I gently touch my finger to one of the spikes and yelp, hastily pulling my finger away. My finger is bleeding just from that one gentle touch of the plant. But that gives me an idea.
Using the knife that Clove gave me, I saw off one of the spikes and hold it like another weapon. It's flexible enough not to break easily, yet pointy enough to stab through leather and kill.
A rustling sounds behind us. Marvel and I whip around from where we were standing examining the plant. A hissing laughter starts to join the rustling, and all these noises remind me of a video we once watched in school. I didn't really pay attention, but I think the noises come from an animal called a snake. Soon, a symphony of hissing, rustling, and rattling is playing, and all of a sudden a human voice laughs along with the orchestra. The figure steps out into the open. It's a girl, though not Glimmer. Her strapless dress has a pattern of diamond shaped snake scales on it, and I think it's made out of pure snakeskin. Behind her, two snakes are pulling some sort of cart, and on the cart, tied to a pole, is Glimmer.
Glimmer
I watch, as if in a trance, both Marvel and Cato's mouths fall open. This girl with her stupid animals - they were snakes, right? - tied me to a stupid pole. One of her snakes even bit me, and I just assumed that there was poison in the bite because I couldn't move my body. Marvel snarls something at the girl and pulls out a knife. Cato already has a knife in his hand and some weird round white spike thing. The poison is affecting my brain too - slowing down my thoughts, pulling me into drowsiness.
I don't even ask myself how Marvel and Cato got here. I guess they just did.
Now the girl laughs at Marvel and Cato, enraging them. I can see Cato on the edge of losing it and going crazy, the way he did when the supplies in the arena blew up. I want to warn Marvel and Cato, to warn them about- about- I forget. What was I going to warn them about? It doesn't matter anyway, I can't even open my mouth. My eyes start to close, slowly, and I can hear Marvel yelling at me not to. Wait, I can actually hear the words he's saying?
I focus harder and try to listen. Marvel is shouting something about falling unconcious and going into a coma or something. I can't be bothered with such nonsense. My head is spinning now and I'm afraid that if I don't succumb to sleep, my head will burst into pieces.
A sharp pain in my arm snaps me out of the semi-sleep, and when I look down, I see a white spkie protruding out of my arm. Luckily the spike isn't buried very deeply, but it hurts so much that my head immediately clears. It is then that I realize I can actually move again.
The snake-girl looks at me for a moment, and I try to pretend that everything is the same. As soon as she turns around, I struggle silently against the ropes. Since the girl assumed that the poison would prevent me from moving, I guess she didn't think that she needed to tie the ropes any tighter. I manage to twist my hands out of the ropes, and then, wincing, I pull the spike out. Using it, I stab it through all my other ropes. However, I had forgotten about the snakes behind me. They hiss warnings to the girl, who promptly turns around, and, seeing me no longer tied to the pole, snaps her fingers.
The signal is meaningless to me, but to the snakes, it definitely tells them to do something. They slither onto the cart, and immediately try to wrap themselves around me and the pole. Using the spike, I try to stab them, but the spike had hit my right arm, and my left arm is useless when it comes to fighting. For a few moments, I manage to kill several of the snakes, but then they start wearing me down, forcing me closer to the pole. I attempt to jump off the wagon, but a wall of snakes blocks me. Suddenly, they all just drop down, dead.
I look to see what has caused them to do this, and it appears that the snake-girl is dead. There's several slash marks all over her body, so I guess Marvel and Cato tried to fight her. Marvel and Cato are bleeding too; I assume that the girl was a lot stronger than Cato or Marvel anticipated.
My right arm, the arm that was stabbed by the spike, begins to feel like it's burning. I gasp in pain and clutch at it. Marvel and Cato are as surprised as I am, but we all see that there isn't just blood flowing out of the wound; there's also a dark purple liquid.
"It's the poison." says Cato.
"I know." I hiss through gritted teeth.
When the pain subsides, and the poison is completely out of my system, Marvel, Cato, and I start again on the long trek toward Clove and the Capitol.
A/N- So...this chapter stank. Well, I think it did. What do you think? The reason that there are snakes here is because I was so totally out of ideas that I kind of was desperate. If you have any opinions, constructive critisism, or just want to say something, go ahead and review or PM me! Have a nice day! And just sayin', the next chapter's gonna be from Marvel and Clove's points of view. Well, bye till next time!
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