A/N: The second day is so long, so I thought I'd divvy it up!


11.

It's a clock. It starts with Katniss stating it quietly and starts circulating throughout our camp. But it doesn't make sense. A clock?

"It starts at midnight," Wiress murmurs. Midnight. And then I remember. The fog started at midnight. At least, I think that's what the bongs were now.

"You were very smart to figure that out, Wiress," Katniss approvingly. I make a mental note to listen to whatever Wiress has to say from now on.

Peeta gets a large leaf and a pointed stick, etches a circle onto it, and divides it up in twelve sections, adding 'fog' in the twelfth section, and 'monkeys' in the first section.

"Don't forget to add the wave at 10:00," Katniss adds.

"Now what?" Peeta asks.

"We go back to the Cornucopia," I say decidedly.

"What do we do with...this?" Katniss asks, pointing to the coil of wire. I tense.

Johanna, who has now rejoined our group, says, "Oh, that thing? Beetee risked his life to get that out of the Cornucopia. How he got the knife in the back. But I don't know why he would have wanted it. I mean, he could garotte somebody, but could you imagine Beetee garotting people?" I shoot her a look that says 'you are SO obvious'. She seems to get the message because she doesn't say anything more.

"He won his Games by setting up that electrical trap. It's the best weapon he could have," Peeta notes.

We walk to the Cornucopia. It's not that far. In fact, we could probably walk around the whole arena in less than an hour. I pick through the weapons. I lost my tridents in the fog, so I get another one. Katniss gets more arrows. Peeta gets a knife. Does he actually know how to use one? Wiress and Beetee get nothing. Johanna disappears for a while, until I get closer to the mouth and hear a sharp whizzing. Then a clang. I peer out cautiously and find an axe dug into the sun-softened gold of the Cornucopia. Wow.

Katniss is standing with her head cocked for a few seconds. Then her eyes widen in alarm. Right before Gloss comes barreling into the Cornucopia with a sword. Before I have time to react, he's already lying dead with an arrow in his head.

"Get down!" Johanna shouts as Cashmere comes running. In less than a second, an axe is buried in her chest. Johanna goes and yanks it out. Out of the corner of my eye I see Brutus and Enobaria approaching. And then something crazy happens. The arena, or at least the Cornucopia, start spinning. At first slowly, and then so fast everything is a sandy blur. And then, just as suddenly, it stops. And Brutus and Enobaria are nowhere to be found.

"Everyone okay?" I ask as I scoop sand out of my mouth. "Everyone still here?"

"No," Mags says as she points to Beetee in the water. I dive in and get him as he's still holding the spool of wire.

"Now what?" Johanna snaps.

"Let's go back to the forested area..." I say uncertainly. My previous idea to go to the Cornucopia turned out not to be great, so I don't know.

Wiress starts singing something.

Three little mice decided to play

Up on the clock in a curious way

They turned the hands of time and ran

And so the clock's tick tock began

Weird. But it seems to make her happy so I turn away.

We continue through the forest. I poke around the plants. They're not just green like normal vines are, but purple and blue and burgundy.

Katniss clears her throat. "So maybe we should—" but stops as a girl's voice screams her name. She bolts off toward it. "Prim!" she screams. "Prim!" I look at everyone with confusion on my face until I hear something that sends chills down my spine. Annie screaming.

"Annie!" I scream, running toward her voice. I see Katniss a few feet in front of me. "Prim!" she screams again, her eyes searching the forest wildly. And then she stops screaming and grabs her bow. She aims for a tree. The tree is screaming? No, she's aiming for a bird on the branch. This must be a jabberjay. I can't remember every seeing one. I thought they all died out after the Dark Days. And Annie's voice is spewing right out of its mouth but gets cut off as an arrow gets buried in its head.

"It's okay, Finnick. It's not your...Annie."

And then something in me snaps. "No, it's not Annie. But where do you think they got her voice from?" Katniss' eyes widen.

"You don't think they..."

"Yes, I do," I say, my voice shaking. What are they doing to her to get those noises? And then I hear her voice again. Coming from a different bird. Katniss shoots it. But then another one comes. And another. Soon there are dozens of them flocking around us. Every tine someone screams Katniss' name, she looks closer to tears. "Gale!" she shouts. I cover my ears. I can't hear this anymore. Katniss runs around frantically, trying to get away from the birds. And then gets flung back. I walk closer. No, not flung back. There's a wall. Not a force field. I can reach out and touch it, like glass. But it's thick and, judging from how everyone else is pounding on the opposite side, impenetrable. I close my eyes, trying to block out the cries of pain. After what seems like an eternity, it stops.

"Are you okay?" Peeta whispers to us. The barrier is down too.

"Those screams..." Katniss says, staring straight ahead at nothing.

"I heard it. The first one. Prim."

"They're torturing her," she says in a daze.

"No. Not real. They wouldn't do that. We're down to the final ten. What do they usually do now? Interview our families. They're fake voices. And everyone loves Prim so much anyway. It wouldn't sit well with the audience," he says quickly, obviously trying to make her feel better.

"Can they do that?" I ask slowly. The idea of them generating voices never occurred to me.

"They definitely can," Beetee tells me. "Our children in our district learn a similar technique in school."

"Oh."

There's silence for a while.

"How long was it?" I ask.

"An hour. It must have been one of the wedges," Beetee says.

More silence. And then a silver parachute floats down. I reach for it. It's more bread. Rolls, actually.

"Are these from your district, Beetee?" I ask. He nods, his eyes meeting mine. District 3. Twenty-four rolls. Third day, twenty-fourth hour. Fourth day, first hour. Both mean the same thing. Midnight. It all starts at midnight.

We split them up and eat silently. It's starting to get dark out. Too quickly, it seems. I volunteer as guard tonight. I just need time to think. As everyone starts drifting off, I find a place around a hundred feet off.

For the first time, I allow myself to relax a little. My eyes wander around the jungle, graze over the shimmering water farther away. They make their way up to the sky. I crane my neck, trying to find the constellations that are so visible at home. But as I look closer, I realize that the stars are too uniformly sized, too equally spaced apart, just like polka dots. I turn away in disgust. Even the very stars we're under aren't real.

But nothing in the Capitol is real.


A/N: Had to let Wiress live too! Trying to remember how the book went but some of this might not be in perfect chronology so..yeah!