A/N: Thanks to melliemoo for reviewing the last chapter! The support is appreciated :)

As with most of the chapters from now on, this one focuses on a scene described in the original Hunger Games book. I hope you all enjoy reading the chapter :)

"What do you get for pretending the danger's not real?"

- Roger Waters, 1977.

Chapter Thirteen

Scarlett Weaver (13), District 8 Female

7.00 pm, Sunday 19th July, Day 1 of the 74th Hunger Games

Pink Floyd - Sheep (1977)

The further I travel from the Cornucopia, I'm aware that the tributes will be spread more thinly and, theoretically, I should be more safe.

However, I feel just as on edge as I did standing on the pedestal at the Cornucopia.

Even if I had managed to sleep well last night, today would still have been the most exhausting of my life. As it stands, I'm surprised I've managed to keep going this long.

Young, small and unfancied as I am, I know that I don't have the strength or the knowledge to survive the arena without supplies, where the Gamemakers' every move serves to unsettle us. And that's without twenty-three other tributes hunting me down.

So I had no choice at the start of the Games but to run inwards towards the Cornucopia, towards the bloodbath. Small and slow as I am, the Careers already had weapons before I arrived, but they had also all already picked their first targets, leaving me free to grab one moderately-sized rucksack and sprint away into the woodland that makes up over half of this year's arena. Since then I've been eager to put as much distance between myself and the dangerous Careers as possible, desperate to make the chances of them stumbling across me as low as possible. The Gamemakers may force us together eventually, but every day that I can get through before then is a bonus.

As I've travelled through the woods today, they have slowly evolved from sparse pine trees to a thicker, more varied covering, which has suited me perfectly. The thicker the foliage, the less likely I am to be spotted.

I have travelled almost all day on edge, not daring to take any time to eat, only stopping briefly to check the contents of my rucksack. It's bright blue; I'm sure the Gamemakers chose a colour that would stand out as much as possible on purpose. Inside it, I've found a flashlight, a pack of matches, a full pack of crackers and a bottle half-filled with water. Conscious that it's the only water I have to sustain me, I've been following the slope of the land, heading down a gentle valley. Eventually, if I keep moving downwards, I am bound to meet a lake, a river, or some other body of water.

Frustratingly, my backpack contains no weapon. Being honest with myself, I doubt I have the skill, the strength or the guts to actually fend anyone off using a weapon, but I feel vulnerable without one. As though I will never be able to take a moment's rest without fearing I might get caught.

As the day has passed, I've continued my slow path through the woods without seeing any signs of another tribute being nearby. The only sign that time has passed is my slow descent, and the sun falling through the sky towards the horizon. Now, in twilight with the light fading around me and my visibility falling quickly, I'm starting to look for a suitable place to stay the night. At first I had thought that I would just find a sheltered tree to lie against (I would attempt to climb, but at my age I'm too short to reach for many of the branches) but as the temperature starts to drop off far more than I had expected, warmth is beginning to become a concern.

Suddenly the lack of shelter begins to panic me; if the night is going to become freezing cold, what am I going to do? Back home in District 8, it isn't uncommon to see the poorest of us suffer through cold winter the nights; those of us who are homeless, or too poor to afford fuel. It wasn't even uncommon so see poor souls huddled in doorways, in bushes, who had been unable to survive the night. The chilling sight of them often tormented me when I was younger.

Before I can think too deeply into the pressing issue of warmth overnight, I'm caught off guard by the sound of the Capitol anthem playing overhead. For a moment I'm confused, but I quickly realise what's going on. The deaths recap! I haven't given it a thought all day. At home when watching the Games, every night they recall who's been eliminated, recapping how they died. Obviously in the arena they won't show us how everyone else died, but we'll be shown their faces on a large screen in the sky. It only makes sense that we know who we're still up against.

Praying that half of the Career Tributes have been eliminated early, I rush to a gap in the trees and look up to where I see the Capitol seal shining brightly in the sky; the hovercraft carrying the screen is invisible.

When the cannons finally fired at the end of the bloodbath earlier today, I made sure to pay attention and keep count effectively as the shots kept coming, all the way up to eleven. Nobody else has died since then, but having eleven tributes out on the first day is still a higher number than most years, if not unheard of. I'm almost halfway home already, although I know that getting this far was, comparatively, the easy bit.

The first face in the sky belongs to Flux, the girl from District 3; honestly I don't remember much about her from my time in the Capitol. I was far too busy worrying about other, more imminent threats to pay much attention to her.

The second tribute shown catches me off guard; Caspian, the boy from Four. I force myself not to cheer, to laugh in excitement, knowing that one of the Careers has been eliminated on the first day. All six of them usually make it into the final ten tributes; I've been given a real dose of luck there.

Sadly, his district partner has made it through, as the next face I see belongs to the boy from District 5, whose name I can't even remember. Even though he's my competition, I feel bad that I can't remember his name. If I don't remember it now, how long will it be before everyone else forgets his name, and he becomes a forgotten statistic in the Games?

How long before I become one of those statistics myself?

I'm snapped out of my momentary panic as more faces appear in the sky. I make sure to keep track of the numbers on my fingers. Jason and Victoria from District 6, Aspen and Veronica from District 7. None of their deaths make much of an impression on me; I would rather the faces of the Careers be shown instead of them, but I can't remember much about any of them but their names and faces. I interacted with none of them during my time in the Capitol; thinking about it, I barely interacted with anyone.

The eighth tribute dead today is one I definitely had contact with; Aidan Frost, my district partner. Just a year older than me, we were poles apart in the Capitol. He was tall, strong and outgoing. I was small, weak and timid. Never wanting to be burdened with me, he ignored me for much of training; all the time he considered finding allies, he never stopped to ask me if I wanted any help in the arena. I don't blame him; I can understand why nobody would want to team up with me. But to see that for all his plans, he never managed to get away from the Cornucopia... It hurts. I know his family; his sister's in my year at school. I can't imagine what today has been like for them.

I'm removed from my thoughts again by the remaining tributes' faces shown in the sky over the arena. The last tributes to have died today. Harvey and Ayra from District 9. The girl from District 10; another one whose name I can't remember...

Then the Capitol seal is back in the sky, the music rises to a final crescendo, and then silence falls over the arena once again. Time to begin the night shift.

Just thirteen tributes left alive now. Only one more death and we're halfway through.

After the relief of getting through the first day unscathed passes, the bitter cold of the night regains my attention. With little shelter, I pick a well-covered tree nearby, wrap myself up in my jacket and try to push the cold from my mind and get a good night's sleep.

However, it doesn't seem to be enough. I can feel my body heat seeping away into the cold earth, feel the sharp tug of the cold biting at my exposed legs, feel my hands and feet become numb. My breath hangs in clouds around me.

Within an hour, I'm certain that it's so dangerously cold tonight that I'm not going to be comfortable enough to sleep. Quickly changing priorities in my head, I decide that it will be better to sleep during the warmer days, and keep myself moving at night, when I will be more difficult to spot and able to keep moving to stay warm.

However, for today that means keeping myself up all night. Still, it's better than the alternative of slowly freezing to death while staying awake anyway.

So, abandoning my plans for sleep, I set off across the arena again, trying to keep to the same trajectory I had been using before night fell. I consider using my flashlight, but the later that it gets into the night, I'm aware that other, more dangerous tributes like the Careers have had longer to catch up with me. So the flashlight stays in my pocket as I try to keep as low of a profile as possible.

Four or five hours later, and I'm starting to realise that my plan hasn't exactly worked. I'm still freezing, shivering to the bone as I traipse randomly through the woods, never able to see more than twenty metres ahead. For the past couple of hours I've been toying with the idea of making a fire, of settling myself somewhere secluded with some warmth, and it's starting to win me over. If anyone runs into me in my current state, I don't have a chance of defending myself. Even if I light myself up like a beacon with a fire, I'll have complete control of my body again, and I might be able to put up a fight. And anyway, I'm so far from the Cornucopia by now that the chances of anyone finding me must be next to none, surely...

My mind made up, I keep walking for a few more minutes until I find a patch of willow trees, their long, sweeping branches largely protecting me from view, hoping that they will keep me hidden. As exhausted as I am, I can still remember how to set and start a fire from survival training in the Capitol. Weak, numb and shaking as I am, it takes me longer than I would have liked, but I soon get a small fire going. It's energy and warmth seems to rejuvenate me immediately.

With little else left to do, I curl myself up beside it, grateful for its glow, using my backpack as a pillow. After one of the most stressful and tiring days of my life, it doesn't surprise me that I almost immediately drift off to sleep.

I'm woken with a lurch to the sudden pressure of someone pulling on the back of my collar, lifting me into the air. I hear raucous voices as I'm slammed backwards into a tree trunk, pinned there with both my feet off the ground by a powerful pair of hands.

It's the Careers. All of them.

"Please... Let me go..." I whimper instinctively to the boy from District 2, whose hands pin my shoulders to the tree.

Cato chuckles at me. "Let you go? Sure, if you can tell us exactly where we can find the girl from Twelve." I shake my head frantically from side to side, looking past Cato to his allies, who ring me menacingly. I see no sympathy in their faces, no weakness in their stance. This is it...

"I don't know where she is," I begin, speaking frantically. "But I can help you find her, I can-"

My voice cuts off as the spear goes through my stomach, gasping and screaming as I writhe in pain, crashing to the floor next to the dying embers of my fire as Cato's hands release me. I can hear cheering and laughter, but it feels faded, distant, compared to the pain spreading from my core, overriding my senses. Short of breath, my heart spiralling out of rhythm, I'm vaguely aware of the Careers' voices fading away into the distance, the sound of footsteps leaving my broken body behind, but before I can question it I'm already fading...

I rise from unconsciousness for just a few moments, coughing and hacking as the breeze blows the final embers from my fire into the sky around me. It's almost morning, the first glimpse of daylight showing through gaps in the canopy above.

Somewhere above me, the face of the boy from District 12 slides into my view.

I don't have the energy left in me to be surprised. I try to talk to him, to say anything, but I can barely raise my voice above a meaningless, mumbling whisper.

"Shh," he tells me, a finger on his lips. "It's all over now. You don't have to suffer anymore. It's going to be all right."

And with his knife, he guides me back to sleep.

A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please review! :)

I'll be back soon with another chapter :)