The twenty three other tributes and I stand on round metal plates, equidistant from each other, that are arranged in a circle around the cornucopia. The cornucopia glints golden in the bright sunlight, its mouth overflowing with the things that will help us survive.
Sixty seconds. I have sixty seconds to take in my surroundings, sixty seconds before we can move from our metal plates and the killing begins. I was right about the trees. To the left is a large area of woodland, it will be covered in there – that is where the tributes who are left after the bloodbath will go to hide. I may not be one of them. To the right is a large, clear blue lake, this may be the only fresh water source, in an attempt to draw us all to the same place. My allies and I must take the lake. Across from me there is a steep drop and I cannot see what lies beyond it.
Twenty seconds. My heart thumps with adrenaline and my mouth is dry with fear. The countdown fills my ears louder than my heartbeat; soon I will need to act. I need a plan. I need to think. But thinking is hard when your death is imminent. Cato is on a metal plate six tributes away from me, his eyes are fixed on the cornucopia and I know that is where he will go; straight in, straight to the weapons. That is where I must go too. I can't see Marvel or Glimmer so I assume they're on the other side of the cornucopia and that it is blocking them from my view.
Ten seconds. There is a small belt of knives not far from me, they're not the best I've seen, the better weapons will be closer to the cornucopia, but they are the closest weapons to me. They're also small which means I can attack from a distance, by throwing them at my opponents. I have made my decision when the claxon sounds.
I sprint across the hard packed earth and scoop up the belt in a swift movement. My heart drums so loud in my ears I can't hear anything else. I spin my head round and see the boy from District Nine advancing on someone. I don't think. Can't think. My knife whizzes through the air and embeds itself in his back before I realised I was going to throw it. He slumps to the ground, the handle protruding from his flesh.
I lock eyes with the girl he was looming over, it's Katniss; the girl who showed me up time and time again, who undermined my romance, who was better than me in every way. Her eyes are wide with terror and she turns and flees. My second knife lodges in her backpack. I grit my teeth, but let her go.
I stay locked in the same pace, having trouble with thinking straight. I just killed someone. I tried to kill someone else too; I will kill more people soon. I will kill them or they will kill me. I wonder what his name was, what he liked to do in his spare time, whether he had a family, a girlfriend, someone who will mourn his death – someone who will wait eagerly for mine, to see the vengeance of the boy they loved. I feel sick.
"Clove!" It is a cry, a scream, a pained strangled sound of a voice and I know what's coming. I look up to Cato's face, contorted in fear, but not for himself. I twist my body round and stab a blade into the first thing it comes across – someone's stomach. I look into my victim's face, it's the girl from District Seven – she holds an axe above her head, ready to deliver the death blow and instead receiving one herself. Her body crumples, smaller in death and I sprint away from it so I don't have to watch the light leave her eyes.
I run to Cato and our eyes lock, conveying all the words we can't say right now. He grips a sword in his right hand and my stomach turns when I see how red it is.
"How many?" My voice is breathless and it catches on the lump in my throat.
"Five," he replies without emotion. Five. Five people he has murdered already, in the space of...I don't know how long. Time lost meaning when the boy from Nine keeled over.
"I got two," I manage to choke out, "Boy from Nine, girl from Seven," Cato just nods at this. I'm about to ask about our allies when I see them walking towards us, dragging the boy from Twelve with them.
"Let go of me!" He cries, "I'm with you, okay?!" His blonde curls are tousled, his face scrunched up in distress and there's a cut on his left forearm. He seems unharmed apart from that, though. Marvel and Glimmer throw him to the ground in front of Cato and me.
"He says he can help us find the girl on fire," Marvel smirks at Peeta, lying on the ground.
"I can," Peeta urges. Cato looks at him like he's dirt and my heart thuds, suddenly scared that Cato will kill him, even though I have no emotional ties to the boy.
"Fine." Cato snarls, "But if you try anything...I swear, I'll kill you in a heartbeat," Peeta nods and scrambles to his feet. I'm not certain but I think Cato steps between me and Peeta in a protective manner.
"What's the strategy?" Glimmer asks as she digs an axe blade into the ground.
"Go through the supplies, wait till its dark and go looking for the others," I am surprised to hear my own voice giving the orders. Cato and Marvel start collecting the supplies that were furthest from the cornucopia and Glimmer and I head to the mouth to root through what's useful and what's not. A dark part of me wonders whether now is the time to bump Glimmer off but I shake it away, we may not be friends, but Glimmer is my ally.
The golden horn is full of crates of food and racks of weapons; their metal glinting dangerously. I run my finger over the blade of a dainty looking knife and wince as it draws blood, the red dripping onto the earth. Glimmer shoves aside a burlap sack of apples and gasps. The boy from District Three crouches behind it his eyes wide, hands fumbling for a weapon. My knife is already at his throat.
"What are you doing here?" I press the blade onto his skin and beads of red gather at its serrated edge, the same way the blood from my finger did.
"I – I can help you! Please!" He pleads with me, begging and whimpering, "Please, please don't kill me!" His brown eyes brim with tears and it feels like a punch in the gut. I've already killed two children today, what will it do to me to kill another? It is not a question I can afford to be asking, I will kill someone else in this arena, I know it, I will not go down without a fight. It's strange, what these situations do to you. Everybody wants to be the hero, help others, be a good person and all that, but in the face of death it is much easier to let someone else take the blow rather than endure it yourself. Or so I have found out. Clove. I have to remind myself to think about what's at hand. Remorse can come later, now is the time for action. The boy in front of me is sobbing.
"District Three, right? You work with electrics?" My voice is frantic but I don't know how to control it. The boy chokes on his words.
"Yes! Yes, please, please..." he breaks down, but a plan is forming in my head.
"Glimmer," I turn to look at her, "I know how we're going to protect our supplies while we hunt," I find myself grinning.