Author's Note: Think of this as an early Christmas/mid Chanukah present. Enjoy and Happy Holidays readers.

Chapter 14: Open Up

I'm up before I realize what I'm doing, dizzy as I adjust to the light. We're all up, ready for the gas, Eli a little groggier than Chiffon and I. We wait, tensed, for what seems like an eternity, but the gas never comes.

"This is a strange Arena," Chiffon mutters to herself, slouching down beside Eli and tugging at her blonde hair. I instinctively go to play with my own hair until I realize it was chopped off by Rhapsody. I fiddle with my fingers instead, trying to ease my nerves. It doesn't work.

My stomach agrees with her, so does my dry mouth. With Eli staring at his dwindling water supply, I take a careful sip from it, treasuring the tiny amount I allow myself to drink. Already, we're running low on water. Eli was kind enough to let me share his, but it's hardly enough for one person let alone two. Our food supply is suffering too. I only planned on a party of one when I stocked up two days ago, and most of that is gone. Eli takes two gulps of the water and a big handful of the peanuts I gave him, ignoring my glare.

"You need to better ration out the food Eli. Can't be eating and drinking like you're back home," I try my hardest to keep my voice friendly because I really don't want to hurt his feelings. He chuckles and takes another quick sip of the water to spite me.

"Mother would say something like that, minus the home part of course," he tells me, looking to the side as he reminisce a humorous memory and smiles. It's somewhat of a bitter smile. "Does it really matter?"

Chiffon immediately scolds him, speaking how I'd imagine his mother would sound. "Don't say stuff like that. It's just the sleepiness getting to you."

"I'm sorry." He doesn't mean it. How can he when we all feel that way inside. We all have that little voice insider our heads, the scared little tribute struck with Reaping Day sorrow, telling us the truth, telling us what it will eventually come down to. No one says more on the topic as we start back our search through the District Six building. No one says much of anything really. Only simple, one-word stuff. We aren't in the mood to talk, not even the usually chatty Eli. He doesn't make random remarks like usual. Chiffon doesn't bother to object when she's put to the back of the line again. I don't have the energy to throw out any snarky comments, or the interest.

We stay in uninterrupted silence throughout our search. I'm beginning to give on up whatever it is Eli's looking for in this building, and so is Chiffon. The colder each level gets, the more annoyed she looks with the direction we're going in, groaning at every empty room we find.

"Enough Eli," I'm the one who has to say it. I've lost count on what level we're on. I can see my own breath up here, making me wonder how I'm still alive. "There's nothing here. We'll freeze to death if we go any farther."

He isn't listening, too busy searching room after room. "Just one more level, please. It's gotta be in here."

"What's gotta be in here? Tell us what you're searching for," I yell at him. He's had us on this wild goose hunt and has yet to tell us what we're doing all of this for. I'm tired, cold, hungry, thirsty, and paranoid. I don't feel like him and his bogus ideas anymore.

Eli looks hurt for a moment then explains himself, "Medicine. There has to be more than just parts in this building." As he finishes his sentence, he opens a door to yet another pile of oily parts. He motions for us to follow him up the stairs shivering in the process, but I don't move. Has he lost his mind? District Six produces transportation. Where does medicine fit in there?

"We've climbed at least twenty flights of stairs already. You're wasting my time. I'm heading back to the room. Chiffon?" I give the girl one chance to come with me. I don't actually want her to come along with me, but if she agrees with me, Eli would no doubt follow suit. She's clearly torn between her initial ally who's trying to drag us to our deaths and me. When she turns towards Eli, I don't know why I bothered.

Rubbing her arms for warmth, she's uncertain of what to say first. "Just one more level?" she gives the boy a smile.

He couldn't be any happier with her choosing him over me. He nods his head like a dog greeting his owner and smiles. "Just one more."

"You said that seven flights ago," I interject, though they both ignore me.

Chiffon turns around to look at me, giving me a nod. "We'll be back. It won't take long." She rushes up the stairs to meet her ally, already forgetting I was ever there.

I head downstairs. This is the perfect time to end the alliance here. It'd be easier this way, quicker, no one would get hurt. I could slip away to another building, tough it out by myself, let the other tributes or the Gamemakers take care of Chiffon and Eli. I should leave now, right this second…so why don't I move? Why do I stay in this cramped District Six room we've called home? On second thought, I should stay. Alliances that end too soon never go as good as planned. I could meet the pair again and then what? There won't be any second chances then. And what if Eli really does find medicine? He'd have better weapons and better supplies than me. I can't let that happen. This is making me angry. I don't know what to do.

"Esteban," I look up at the gray ceiling, knowing he's listening. "I need you. Please."

It's too late. Their footsteps are getting closer now. If I run, I'd find a knife in my back. So I sit and try to hide behind the arrogant mask I've created since the interviews. Panem's watching.

"Found it! Told ya they were in here." Eli shouts when they enter the room. In his hands and sticking out of his jacket are piles and piles of colorful wrappers and medical supplies. I immediately feel stupid for leaving. It was just one more flight of stairs, it wouldn't have killed me. And all of that medicine. They have so much!

Chiffon is visibly disappointed to see me, smirking so I won't mistake it. "You're still here."

I smile back, not for a second letting her phase me. "Ain't going nowhere Blanca. Now, sharing is caring." I hold out my hand for the medicine. She tosses me a few packets of something I don't recognize and sits down, going through the stuff they found.

I look at the little amount she gave me and eye the girl. "Don't play me Chiffon. I gave you two almost half of the food I had. This isn't enough," I demand.

She doesn't look up from what she's doing. "Tough."

I really don't understand why she's so mean all of the time, but I don't like it. I won't tolerate it. Eli stops me from yelling at her when he steps in front of me and gives me a handful of some rectangular objects. They're wrapped in shiny green paper and in gold print reads 'Vroom! Vroom! Bar'.

"What the hell are these?" I eye the brightly colored things in my hands. They're pretty heavy to be so small.

"Vroom! Vroom! Bars. They're stimulants." When Eli sees that I have no idea what he's talking about, he starts blabbering on again. "They keep you up for a 3 hour maximum. Then you take one again. The Capitol loves them. There's a skyrocketing demand for it. It's a perfect blend of natural and artificial ingredients consisting of peppermint and high fructose-"

"I get it." I honestly stopped paying attention after the second sentence. I unwrap one of the bars and stuff the rest in my already bulging pockets. It's a bland, white color with a whiff of vanilla. Before I can take a bite, Eli lowers my hand.

"Careful now. They're known for being extremely addictive. My mentor eats them like candy. He's a mess." With that, I roll the open bar close and stuff it in my pocket. I'll use them only when I need them. That may be a lot in this Arena. The energy bars are nice and everything, but I need more than that. That freezing cold was nothing to play around with in this thin jacket. I deserve everything else they found.

"Got some more stuff?" I pat him down like a Peacekeeper, not waiting to hear his lie. This gets Chiffon's attention. As he nervously reassures her everything's okay, I find gauze, a jar of pills the reads 'Pain-Off', and a tube of some cream.

I make sure I sound confident, and a little threatening. "You know, just in case." Just in case this alliance ends quicker than I want it to. I down two pills of the medication to get rid of this throbbing headache courtesy of Domitia from the second bloodbath. I hope that was the right amount to take.

"Let's go back. I want more stuff," I suggest. There has to be more medicine up there.

Chiffon stops me before I can leave. I push her out the way. She jumps right back in front of me. "No. There's no more left."

I stare at her in shock. She has to be lying. "What do you mean there's no more left?"

"We smashed the rest of it."

This is one of those moments when someone says something so stupid it couldn't possibly be true and even after it's proven true, you still don't wanna believe it. "Why in the world would you do that?" I hiss, and then look for Eli to tell me she's lying. He shrugs and nods his head.

She lets out a small laugh and leans against the door. "So no one else will get it, obviously. You may be the strongest of us Giovanni, but we," she points to the two of them. "We're the brains of this little team we have here."

I take a seat far away from the both of them. Pick and choose your battles Giovanni. This cold is kicking your butt anyway. It goes silent, with the pair side by side sorting out their rewards until I bring up another issue, a more important one. "What about the food? Better yet, what about the water? Nuts, berries, and the spit of water we have left won't do us any good."

"Too dangerous. We'll let the sponsors take care of it," Chiffon retorts back. She doesn't sound too confident in putting her health in the hands of a few rich Capitolites.

Always the positive one, Eli adds optimism that even he couldn't believe in. "I'm sure between the two of you, and maybe me, we have plenty of sponsors. And Giovanni, you were pretty high up in the polls before the Games started."

I scoff at the mention of the Capitol polls. Voters have the minds of toddlers, and we have no clue where we stand now that we're in the Arena. "That was pre-Games stuff. Besides, the District Eleven building is filled to the brim with food and I'm sure the District Four building has plenty of water."

We here noise outside. It's not the bombs. It sounds like…water? No, like a river. I didn't see a river anywhere in this Arena. Where is that noise coming f-

Water explodes from the District Four building.

"How bout we go down there and get us some water?" Eli jokes. No one laughs.

There seems to be no end to it; waves and waves of it keeps rushing out, more than what the building could possibly withstand. At one point, a figure appears in the waters. Seconds later, a smaller one is tossed out of the building, spinning in and out of the waves. From this high up, I don't recognize either tributes and the chaos erupting doesn't help any. What I can see is that for the first tribute, the waters are effortless. They shoot towards the near drowning little one like a shark ready to devour its prey. Must be one of the District Four kids. The waters recede, soaking the outer layer of the Arena. Before the little tribute, who we realize is a girl camouflaged in silver paint, can catch her breath, a knife embeds itself in her chest. The corpse splashes down in the now deep red pool around her.

BOOM!

Instantly, the water is sucked through the floor. The person who I now know for a fact is Penelope tries to fight to get her knife against the gigantic hovercraft, almost succeeding until she slides off in mid-air from the girl she killed. Slamming the ground with her fist, the Career sprints back inside the Four building.

Chiffon sucks her teeth and shakes her head in disgust. "Like I said, too dangerous. We'll wait two days. There's enough to last that long. If the sponsors don't come through by then, we'll go."

Two days past and nothing ever comes; nothing good anyway. What they do give Chiffon makes me reconsider the already questionable common sense of the Capitolites: love letters. We're fighting for our lives in here and they're giving us love letters? Have all six of our mentors died or something?

She's been given seven of them so far, all from different people. One was even from a woman. The most recent, reeking of perfume, reads in sparkling blue cursive:

My beautiful baby doll,

Hair golden like the lace you produce. Skin silkier than all the fabric of District Eight. Eyes that'll put the brightest gem to shame. When you leave the Arena, you'll be mine to treasure. Any desire, need, or want will be fulfilled. The worries of a district dweller, never again my darling. Fight well.

Waiting for my wife,

Aemilius Bertonili

Every time Chiffon receives a letter, she gives the cameras her prettiest smile and thanks whoever wrote to her. In reality, I know she wants to ball up every letter and throw it out the windows. Who writes to a fourteen-year-old like that, asking to marry her? Disgusting. At least this one came with a pack of cookies. Minty ones. They're gross. I'm not in the position to complain. We devour the rest of the food supply and chug down the little water that was left.

Between the free time, the starvation, and the slow dehydration, it gets boring. You never really think about that when you're watching the Games on TV. If we're not killing each other, running for our lives, or trying to find supplies, there's nothing else to do. Plus, these gray walls are slowly driving me crazy. I'm not used to being trapped inside a building all day. The little factories that are in Ten are in the West Village, far away from where I live. I never knew how much I could miss the basic parts of life: total sunlight, blue skies, dirt. The cliché is true: you never know what you have until it's gone.

I've always hated that saying.

Only one tribute died in the two days, and that was from the District Four fight. It was Ramona, Eli's district partner. To my surprise, he showed little reaction. Then he explained why. She had refused to join the alliance. He explains to us that she was truly confident that she'd used her mentor's way of winning, camouflage, to become the next Victor. Called him a "jedlik" right before the interviews, which is apparently a derogatory name for the lower class of District Six. Even in the Hunger Games, the little girl held on to her hateful ways. Such an ungrateful brat.

Since boredom's driving us insane, we talk. We open up. Can't do much else. It's amazing hearing about life outside District Ten. Each of our districts has its quirks, charm, corruption, despair. Eli goes first. He sounds like he's been dying to tell us about his. District Six is basically the heart of Panem's railroad. Cargo, tributes, or Capitolites, everything passes through it. He goes into detail about daily life. It's one of the smaller districts, third to Eight and Twelve. There, trains are manufactured, operated, repaired, and dismantled. The lower-class handles that, he tells us. The middle-class produces hovercrafts and owns the factories. That's the stuff we learn in school. What we don't learn is that the upper-class creates medicine for the Capitol. So that's why he was convinced there was medicine in here. As he spills dirty secret after dirty secret about Six, I keep thinking how much of this is being blocked out right now, how our entire conversation has probably been edited out and the cameras are focused on the others. What Eli's doing is far from rebellious, yet at the same time it's not what Panem should hear.

"I wanted to work in the labs, in the sparkling white buildings across town. Make something of myself. Mother said it was a pipedream but it gave me hope you know?" He stops, sighs, then closes his eyes. I really hope he doesn't start crying.

He starts tearing up.

"I was gonna make enough money so my sister, the older one, could see again. Hours were cut at the job once and things got…unpleasant. She went against Mother and Father's wishes and got experimented on." He sighs. It takes him a few seconds later to continue. "It's been over a year and she's been blind ever since. Guess I'll never get to wear that white coat huh?" He's in Chiffon's smaller arms now, not really crying or saying anything, just moaning a little. It looks odd for her to be doing this. It doesn't look natural for her. Her hands pat his shoulders awkwardly, and she stares off into the distance when she tries to comfort him in what is an attempt at a soothing voice.

To be honest, I'm more curious about this whole experiment stuff than how he's feeling. "Why was she experimented on?"

"The scientists usually test on orphans. No parents, no problem. A lot of people I know volunteer for testing. You get good money for it. Medicine too, the expensive kinds. The more dangerous the experiment, the more you get."

"That's not nice." I can't stop myself from sounding like a toddler whining about a stolen toy. Of course it isn't nice. Panem isn't nice. Why do they hide things like that? There's no point in pretending to be a nice government. What could we do if we found out? Yell, object, get angry? Rebel? We've tried that once and look where we are now.

He lets go of Chiffon and smirks, resting his head on her shoulder. For a brief second, she looks down at the shocking display of affection and stays perfectly still. Is she breathing? With a spot-on Capitol accent, he chirps, "Like they always say in the labs: No better test subject than a human subject!"

Eli doesn't look up to talking about the subject anymore, so I prod Chiffon to squeal about District Eight She's hesitant at first, then talks. It's only on basic parts of her life. "My mother and father own a restaurant by the factories. We make more money than most. Joint ownership will be granted to me and my brother once I return." And that's it. Again, she's full-on Games mode, not revealing much or establishing any friendships. Esteban's probably rooting for her more than me now. That might be why I've only received a damn note since the Games began.

I am genuinely curious about the Eight girl, but more importantly, I need to provide the audience with something. With only one cannon in two days, they must be getting bored. When the entertainment gets stale for them, horrible things happen to us. '"No scandals, juicy secrets, murders, boyfriends?"

With the last part, she gives me a look of fury. "Absolutely none of that is important for you to know," she whispers angrily.

My hands go up in surrender. "Hey, hey now, don't bite my head off. Just asking."

Her hands fly to her hips, clearly not letting it go. "Since you're so gung-ho to talk about District life, how about you share yours?"

So she wants to turn the tables on me. Is it a good idea to talk to these two about stuff like home? Chiffon does have a good point: none of that matter here.

Ah what the hell, why not.

So I talk about District Ten. I don't tell them too much; wouldn't want to get their hopes up of ever seeing it. What I do reveal must fascinate them because they can't stop asking questions. Most of it is answered truthfully. I lie when they start to pry. They don't need to know everything. Their interest shouldn't surprise me; Ten is a gigantic, dry desert. Six and Eight sound like cold, small, cramped places. They're shut up behind factory walls all day while I'm practically begging to go inside after a day's work. Most of the time is taken up by the animals. There's no land to support livestock in Six and food's too hard to come by in Eight to give it away like that.

"District Ten must smell gross all the time," Chiffon makes a face. Eli giggles and fails to hide it when he sees my playful glare.

"It's not the odor darlings. It's the district fragrance of choice," I mock how I'd imagine the lights-camera-action version of Picasso would describe the inescapable scent of manure that sits and settles on any and everything back home. We laugh, all of us, together. We appreciate the moment until we remember where we are. Just for a minute, things felt normal and that's scary. We let our guards down completely and felt comfortable around each other when it's not supposed to be like that. It distracted us.

From the bombs.

From the person whose footsteps were loud enough to hear a mile away.

From the person who ran up the staircases and heard our voices.

From the person who burst through the door, weapon in hand, bruised, ready to fight. Even as they stand right in front of me, I still can't believe it.

"Sofia?"