Note: I am back! This chapter took longer than I expected to write, since it's twice the length of previous chapters, and I had to make tons of references to The Hunger Games.

There will be three or four more chapters after this one, and I am trying to finish the story by the end of August. I won't be doing much for the rest of the summer, so I think that this should be pretty easy to do.

As always, I would like to thank my most recent reviewers: CCullenGirl, CleoKatra Emerald, and pjoy11. Everyone, please review! Even if you think this story is terrible! (but if you do, why are you reading the 11th chapter?) Actually, review especially if you think this story is terrible. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. (praise is too!) And reviews motivate me and blah blah blah, you've heard it all before. But seriously, review.

There is a Career Pack conversation in this chapter, where each speaker is only identified by first voice, second voice etc., or inferred names. See if you can guess who is who. First person to review with the correct answers... um... I'll review one of your stories. I know, this is a cheap way to try to get reviews, but who doesn't like reviews?

Disclaimer: There is some dialouge from The Hunger Games in this chapter that I needed to use. I did not write it. I will not pretend that I wrote it. Well, I did type it into a document, but that's not what I mean. I also don't own The Hunger Games or The Twilight Saga. Obviously.

Enjoy!

That night, after watching the rerun of the interviews, I said my goodbyes to Zella and my escort. Then, Sage and I went to bed. I'm sure neither of us slept, since one of us was a vampire, and the other was probably terrified of what would happen the next day.

Morning came, and I walked with Alban to a hovercraft that we would ride to the catacombs below the arena. As I climbed onto a ladder to board it, something froze me in place, and I was slowly lifted into the air.

I was brought into the hovercraft, but not released from whatever was keeping me still. A woman approached me with a needle.

"This is a tracker that will be injected into your arm." she explained. "It will help us keep track of you in the arena."

She brought the needle to my left arm, and attempted to poke it into my flesh, but nothing happened. As a vampire, my body feels like it's made of marble. I didn't think that it would be a problem—until that moment.

"That's interesting…" the woman said, confused. She tried again, stabbing my arm until the needle snapped. Meanwhile, I was motionless, wondering how I would be able to get out of this.

She sighed. "I bet Otho gave me one of those old needles… Seems his head is always in the clouds… Oh well, we can just…" she paused, thinking for a moment. "We can just secure this on top of your skin."

She sauntered off, and then returned a few minutes later with some flesh colored tape. She somehow got the tracker out of the needle, stuck it onto my skin, and slapped the tape over it.

"Hmmm," she muttered, "you're really pale. If the cameras get a close-up of you, the audience might notice that something is strange…" She paused, checking some moniter. "That's interesting, it says you're dead." She chuckled to herself. "It must be because it's not in your flesh. Oh well, we'll be able to tell when you're dead." She smiled and walked away, having no faith that I would survive.

If I was a human, I would probably wouldn't have any either.

I was finally able to move, and blankly stared out the window as we soared over land. Eventually, as we neared the arena, the windows were obscured and there was nothing to distract me from my thoughts. Alban tried to make conversation, but did not succeed.

We landed. Alban led me into my Launch Room. I showered and brushed my teeth. He helped me into the outfit that all the tributes would wear in the arena. And we waited.

"You don't have a token?" he timidly asked, after a long and awkward silence.

"No." I answered curtly.

"Oh." he replied meekly, letting the silence fill the room once more.

Finally, someone told us to prepare for launch. I stepped onto a metal plate. A glass cylinder enclosed me, and I was slowly transported up into the arena.

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games begin!" exclaimed Claudius Templesmith, the announcer, in his distinctive voice.

I looked around the arena for sixty seconds. A forest. Some plains. A lake. Not bad.

A gong sounded, and tributes sprinted off their respective metal plates to the Cornucopia. I paused for a miniscule amount of time, considering my options. Stay and fight for supplies I didn't really need, or run to the forest?

I went with the latter.

I jogged—well, jogged in terms of vampire speed, sprinted in terms of human speed—for a while, until I thought I was a decent distance away. I started walking.

Much later, cannons started to ring out. Eleven shots in all, each representing a dead tribute at the initial bloodbath.

I continued walking until nightfall. Then, I slumped underneath a tree, waiting for the anthem to play.

A few minutes passed until it did. I looked up at the sky, wondering who had died that day.

The girl from Three. She was unremarkable, but I still felt sad at her death. Somewhere, a family would be mourning.

The boy from Four. Surprising, considering that tributes who have trained their whole life for an event usually last at least twenty-four hours in it.

Sage… I never expected him to last long. But it was excruciating to see his head shot in the sky, knowing that the boy who I had watched the interview rerun with the night before had died.

Both from Six, both from Seven. Two districts lost their chance at a little extra food, a little bit of pride.

The boy from Eight. Again, he was unimportant to me, but certainly important to someone.

Both from Nine. Depressing how it didn't surprise me.

The girl from Ten. At this point, I asked myself why I was doing this. To watch it on television was bad enough. But to experience it, to personally see each tribute in training, in the interviews, and then in the sky? Terrible.

I clutched my jacket closer so that I wouldn't be as noticeable to any passing tributes, closed my eyes, and feigned sleep. Thoughts raced through my head the entire night. I was mainly trying to figure out how to help the tributes of District Twelve. But I came up with nothing that would work immediately.

Just survive. I thought to myself. Once there are fewer tributes, it will be easier to aid them.

The night faded away, and once there was enough light for a human to see, I continued travelling. There had already been a cannon blast early that morning. I walked through the forest, staying in the shadows. There were no more cannons during the day. That night, as I hunkered underneath another tree, I saw that the girl from District Eight had died. I closed my eyes, and hoped she had a painless death.

That third day was boring and uneventful. Most of the time, I was focused on staying in the shade so I wouldn't sparkle in the sunlight.

There were no cannon blasts during the entire day, and no faces shone in the sky that night. I settled myself below a tree, hiding myself as best I could, closed my eyes, and prepared myself for another restless night full of doubts and answerless questions.

But a few hours later, I heard a distant rumbling. I opened my eyes, curious. It sounded like feet pounding the earth. It grew louder and louder, until various animals charged by me. By then, I had smelled it, and was paralyzed in shock.

Fire. The only thing that can kill a vampire.

It took until I could see the hungry flames that I realized that I should run. And run I did. I sprinted away from the inferno, not caring if I was racing at a supernatural speed. I just wanted to get out of there, and quickly.

I ran and ran, until I realized that I had left the fire behind long ago. I stopped, and, for the cameras, panted. I collapsed on the ground. I stayed there quite a while, slowly relaxing.

After a long time, I shakily got up. Blood. That was all I wanted, all I could think about. My thirst for it was unbearable.

Thirst. I groaned inwardly at the very thought of it. I was supposed to be a weak human from District Five. I was supposed to be dying of thirst—and hunger too.

I slowly meandered in a random direction, away from the fire. I was in a trance-like state, and my guard was down. But if any tribute came near me, I would kill them on the spot.

I reminded myself that I had to have control. I couldn't suck the blood of a tribute on live television that all of Panem would be watching.

I continued to walk, until I heard a twig snap. Then footsteps, loud and careless. I froze, and then made myself hide behind a tree.

"Be quiet!" hissed a voice.

Laughter erupted, not too far away from where I was.

"Listen, Mine Boy," boomed a second voice, "we're Careers. We don't need to be quiet. Any sane tribute that can hear us will run."

"But you can't kill them if they're running." replied the first.

"Obviously you haven't met my little friends yet." sang a third voice. Deranged laughter filled the forest.

"Clo-ove," a fourth voice whined, "I thought you said we could take turns with the long-distance killing."

"Like you're going to hit anything with those arrows." retorted a fifth.

"Marvel! Saranna's being mean to me!" shrieked the fourth voice.

"Yes, I can tell, I'm not deaf." replied a sixth voice, probably Marvel.

They were coming closer to where I was. I slowly backed away, and then started silently moving toward where they had come from. Once I got behind them, I was easily able to follow their clumsy trail back to a place that had to be their camp.

It was by the lake. There was a pyramid of supplies, not unlike the Cornucopia, that was covered in a net. There was a boy, who was obviously supposed to be guarding, slumped near the pile, sleeping. On closer inspection, he appeared to be the boy from Twelve. This puzzled me, but Careers had used other tributes as slaves in the past, so I got over it quickly.

I scampered to the water. Without hesitating, I plunged my hand in, and brought the cool liquid to my mouth. I drank until I was sure that people watching would be satisfied by my quenched thirst.

Slowly, I made my way over to the pile of supplies. I wondered if it was safe to approach.

Before I was close enough to snatch food, I realized something. I had heard six voices.

But there were only five Careers left.

My mind jumped back to the conversation I had overheard. The first voice, the one the second had called "Mine Boy", sounded afraid. He didn't seem like a Career.

But why would he be with them? I asked myself.

Mine Boy. The only non-Career district with mines was District Twelve. But I knew the voice of the boy from Twelve, and that was not it. Anyways, he was at the camp.

I thought for a bit, and then I realized something.

Maybe they weren't talking about coal mines.

Land mines? I thought to myself.

It made sense. There were land mines around the metal plates that lifted us into the arena. And it was possible that there was a smart tribute that was able to reactivate them.

As soon as I realized this, I heard the Careers coming back. I dashed into a different section of the forest, where I could watch, but where they wouldn't be able to see me.

"Hey! Lover Boy!" shouted a blonde boy, the sixth voice from the previous conversation, Marvel. "No sleeping when you're on guard!"

"Sorry…" murmured the boy from Twelve sleepily.

"Get us food. We're hungry." demanded a girl with dark hair, the fifth voice. Saranna?

"I… I can't… I don't know…" stammered Twelve.

"I'll do it." piped up a small, ashen skinned boy. He was obviously "Mine Boy".

He approached the mountain of supplies. Then, he slowly hopped from one spot to another, getting closer and closer to the pile using an intricate pattern. He grabbed some fruit and meat from containers, then returned to the other tributes, hopping in the same places.

I committed where he placed his feet to memory. The tributes finished eating.

"Let's go," ordered a large, muscular boy, who I recognized as the second voice, "we need to do more hunting."

"Come with us, Lover Boy." commanded a girl with long blonde hair, who carried a bow and arrows, and also was the whiny fourth voice. "We don't need a guard."

Twelve slowly got up, and then joined them. They marched into the trees.

Once I was sure that they were gone, I walked up to their supplies. I replicated the steps of the ashen skinned boy. I picked out an apple here, a cracker there, enough so that my pretend hunger could be satisfied, but not so much that they would realize something was missing. Then, I scampered into the forest, nibbling on my food.

For the next few days, I figured out a routine. I waited until the Career pack left, then I snuck into their camp, drank water, stole food, and snuck back to my hiding spot. I did that as many times as I could throughout the day. I stayed in my hiding place, making sure no one knew I was there—besides the whole country.

There were two deaths on the fifth day—the girls from One and Four. I don't know how they died. The only things I could observe were that the Careers came back to camp covered in large, ugly lumps, that the complaining blonde must have been from One and Saranna from Four, and the boy from District Twelve was no longer with them.

One day, about eight days into the Games, I was minding my own business, until the large boy, whose name started with a C or a K, shouted something, and pointed to a large amount of smoke out in the woods. They gathered their supplies, and after a small argument, brought the ashen skinned boy with them.

That was not unusual, although I did wonder momentarily why there would be so much smoke in the forest. But then I saw something strange.

A figure, crouching in a nearby copse, obscured from the Careers, but barely hidden from me. For a while I studied them, unsure if they were a tribute, or a mutt.

I focused, and made out dark hair in a braid, a bow and arrows, and a flash of gold in the sunlight. I realized that it was the girl from Twelve.

I could just barely see her facial expression. She was confused. Her eyes were fixated on the pyramid of supplies. Her hand involuntarily twitched toward her arrows, and her eyebrows were furrowed in determination.

Suddenly, I understood. She wanted to destroy the Careers' provisions.

I wondered if she knew about the land mines—I guessed that she didn't.

I wanted her to get rid of the Careers' supplies, but I didn't know how to tell her about the trap. I thought for a moment, and then got an idea.

After quickly checking to make sure that the Careers hadn't returned yet, I crept out of hiding, and approached the supplies. I hopped from safe spot to safe spot. Then, I purposefully lost my balance.

I came crashing down, and placed my hands in another harmless place. I froze—eyes wide, trying to act terrified of being blown to bits, which wasn't that hard. Then, I carefully got up, and hopped to the main pile. I snatched my usual choices—crackers and apples—, then made my way back to the forest.

For the cameras, I pretended to examine my bounty. After several seconds of polishing an apple on my shirt, I hear a faint whisper, soft enough that no human but her would hear it, but more than loud enough for a vampire.

"It's mined."

I restrained myself from jumping up and down and screaming "YES!" Instead, I silently nibbled on a cracker. I allowed more time to pass before glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. With the acute vision I once detested, I saw a dangerous look on her face, and a light in her eye.

She had a plan. And the Careers were not going to like it.