Shake It Out Chapter 21, a hunger games fanfic

Shake It Out

Regrets collect like old friends

Here to relive your darkest moments

I can see no way, I can see no way

And all of the ghouls come out to play

And every demon wants his pound of flesh

But I like to keep some things to myself

I like to keep my issues drawn

It's always darkest before the dawn

And I've been a fool and I've been blind

I can never leave the past behind

I can see no way, I can see no way

I'm always dragging that horse around

Our love is questioned, such a mournful sound

Tonight I'm gonna bury that horse in the ground

So I like to keep my issues drawn

But it's always darkest before the dawn

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back

So shake him off, oh whoa

~Shake It Out, Florence + The Machine

Well it was just a dream, just a moment ago

I was up so high, looking down at the sky

Don't let me fall

I was shooting for stars, on a Saturday night

They say what goes up, must come down

But don't let me fall

Don't let me fall

They say what goes up, must come down

But don't let me fall

Don't let me fall

~Don't Let Me Fall, B.O.B

Shake It Out

Chapter 21: Fallen

The fifteen-year-old boy wakes to a cool and calm voice. He is surprised. He was usually woken to a shrill voice telling him to get up so they'll stay on schedule. But it's a different voice this morning. But then Cato remembers what day it is. The day they go into the arena. Cato shakes his head, stretches and sits up to meet Cinna's cool gaze. There's a hint of sadness in them, and Cato can tell he's upset about what's going on.

That he and Dawn are going into the arena.

"It's today, isn't it?" Cato says as he climbs out of bed and gets changed into something to wear to go to the building under the arena. Where they get cleaned up for the slaughter. Where they get prettied up only to have their clean skin get coated in blood.

"Yes," Cinna replies with a small nod.

Cato groans, "I was hoping it was just a dream."

"Well, I'm having a feeling so was Dawn." Cinna says when they walk into the dining room to find Dawn playing with her food.

"Eat," Cato says to Dawn. "You need to keep your strength up."

So she does. As does Cato. Eating enough food to keep their strength up, but not too much that they would be slowed down or feel ill in the arena. Words aren't spoken, until Dawn brings up something that has been bothering her all night.

"Can you swim?" Dawn asks out of the blue.

"Swim?" Cato looks at Dawn as she nods her head. "Yeah, I can. I'm alright at it, why?"

"Because, we're going into the arena and, who knows? There might be water." Dawn explains with a shrug. "A lot of water."

"Normally if there's water, it's around the Cornucopia." Cato says with a shrug.

"So basically, we have to be ready to run and swim." Dawn says with a twinge of annoyance in her voice.

"Yeah, basically."

The rest of breakfast is past in silence, no one wanting to embrace the fact of their imminent death. Or if they're lucky, one of their deaths. Before Cato knows it, he and Dawn are boarding the hovercraft and getting the trackers put in their arms. Dawn ends up sitting next to Satin - just her luck - while Cato sits next to Lux. Cato isn't sure, but he has a feeling that someone had them sit in these seats on purpose.

The whole trip is spent with Cato and Dawn having conversations - using their eyes - with Cato sending Dawn glances that basically say, 'are you okay?' or 'we can get past the bloodbath' or 'how have you not killed Satin yet?' Cato stops doing that when Dawn sends him an irritated glance, basically telling him to shut up.

When the hovercraft lands, the Careers laugh proudly. Cato sees Dawn looking at Satin, smirking. To him, that basically says, 'keep laughing, just wait until I ram my knife down your throat.' They end up in their private rooms, and when Cato gets to his, he sees Cinna waiting for him.

He hands Cato some light weight clothes with boots that barely weigh anything. Cato looks up at Cinna curiously. "It doesn't absorb water."

"So there'll be water?"

"Apparently so," Cinna nods. "Go take a shower."

Cato quickly has a shower and it clears his mind of unwanted images so that he can focus on the real problem. He and Dawn had discussed their strategy the night prior. They would run to the Cornucopia and grab light weight items and a backpack. Dawn had said she would get the weapons while he would get the backpacks, no matter how much Cato objected. He has now decided that he'll just go with Dawn's plan.

Because if one of the factors fail, then everything else will just fall apart.

They will flee the Cornucopia and head to the nearest means of shelter. If there is no shelter, then they'll just run, and run fast. They will part ways at the final six - it was until the final eight, but they think that waiting until the final six will be better - and then may the odds be ever in their favor!

Cato puts his tribute arena clothes on and steps back into the room where Cinna is sitting at a table. He stands and walks over to Cato and pins something to the tight jacket. Cato looks at it curiously before he realizes what it is. The sword pin Mrs. Everdeen gave him in the justice building, his District token.

Cato looks up at Cinna with a grateful expression."Thank you."

Cinna nods. "It barely got through the the checks. They thought it could be used as a weapon, but eventually, they let it slide."

"I got it from..." Cato mutters as Cinna looks at him, urging him to continue. "I got it from the mother of the girl I love."

Cinna smiles. "Then we'll make sure you get to give it back."

Suddenly, there is a loud voice echoing from the speakers saying that tributes should get into their tubes. For the first time since Cato arrived in the Capitol, he feels fear. Cinna nods at him, tells him that if he was aloud to bet he'd bet on him. Cato get's into the tube, then feels it rise and he closes his eyes when he feels the fresh air hit his face. Then, his fears are confirmed when he hears the water sloshing over his pedestal.

Cato can form one clear thought. It would help to have the wings right now, Cinna. "Let the seventy-second annual Hunger Games begin!" Claudius Templesmith's voice booms from the speakers from some unknown position.

He manage to catch Dawn's eye three pedestals down, and she nods at him, before she turns her attention to the Cornucopia in the middle of the tributes' circle. As the sixty second countdown begins, Cato surveys his surrounding. The Cornucopia lies on a bed of lose rocks to slow the tributes down. At the side farthest away from the tributes, the rocks turn into sand then it turns to grass before tall trees come into view, and Cato can take comfort in one thing.

There are woods.

The woods are his comfort zone, and from what he's heard, Dawn is somewhat comfortable there too. Cato's eyes land on the Cornucopia when there's twenty seconds left of the countdown before the real Games begin.

20... Keep calm.

19... Keep focused.

18... I won't fall.

17... I won't fall to pieces.

16... Neither will Dawn.

15... I won't freeze in time.

14... I'll keep going.

13... Gale, keep Katniss safe.

12... Maybe even Bread Boy.

11... Forget the past.

10... Keep up with the present.

9... Keep up.

8... Start.

7... Keep up in the chase.

6... I might be hunted down.

5... Or I'll hunt someone down.

4... Like a wolf.

3... A predator.

2... A beast.

1... A monster.

Let the Games begin.

Cato dives off of his pedestal and into the water as quickly as possible. He's slightly relieved that it's likely that most of the tributes won't know how to swim, apart from the Careers. But swimming, Cato assumes, would be in their Career training. So he plows through the water with one goal only:

To reach the backpacks dotted around the Cornucopia.

It's what Dawn said he should do, so why question it? Cato is gasping when he reaches the pebble covered land, though, he quickly gets to his feet and grabs two backpacks. For some reason, the Careers haven't noticed him. He sees that they are going after the tributes who are trying to swim, and failing terribly. Cato turns his head when he feels a great force yank his arm, nearly causing him to lose him balance.

"C'mon, Taylor!" Dawn shouts, pulling him along to the grass. He soon gets the idea and starts sprinting off towards the woods, with Dawn right next to him. It seems like it takes ages to reach the woods, when in reality, it only takes them a minute.

Nonetheless, they keep sprinting through the woods until they think it's safe enough to stop. They aren't gasping but they are slightly out of breath. Their stamina is truly amazing. Cato looks through the backpacks and is generally surprised with what he finds. In both backpacks, there are two razor-sharp knives, a litre of water, a thin sleeping bag and a packet of some food Cato has never heard of before, by all he knows is that it's a lot of meat. Some genetically enhanced meat that won't go bad until after a week. The Capitol obviously wants these Games to be long.

It feels like a dream, it doesn't feel real to Cato. It feels like he's up in the sky, watching everything unfold. Maybe he was, but then he came plummeting back down to the earth, falling through the clouds, through the air, before hitting the ground. He doesn't really know why he's here. Because the odds aren't in your favor, eejit. There should be a parachute to save him from the fall that he'll endure when reality really sets in.

"Here," he says, passing Dawn one of the backpacks. She accepts it with a nod and hoists it onto her back. "What did you get?"

She grins at him. "A sword and a spear."

He laughs breathlessly, taking the sword that is in a scabbard, and ties it around his waist, tightly. "There's some food, water and knives in the packs."

"They want a longer Game of chess," Dawn says.

"Yeah."

"Do you want to give them one?"

No. That's the first thing Cato thinks. Obviously, Dawn knows his answer will be this, but he doesn't dare say it. He wants the Games to be over as soon as possible, but that would mean more killing. He doesn't want that either.

But his answer is still no.

"Thought so," she smiles, and begins walking aimlessly away in a random direction.

He picks up his pack and jogs to catch up with her. "I didn't answer."

Dawn shakes her head. "Your silence speaks volumes, Cato."

The cannons have just begun.

The sound echoes around Cato's head, louder than the screams he usually hears at night in his dreams. Nine. Nine of them are dead in one day. Careers normally get a lot more than that. Cato was hoping that the Careers would take out as many as possible before he had to. But he still has to now. A small part of him - minuscule, to be completely honest - wishes that someone had killed Dawn in the blood bath, just so their would be no chance of him having to kill her.

Coward.

It's what he feels like. A coward. He doesn't even know why he feels like a coward. He's in the fricken Hunger Games fighting for his life and he feels like an utterly hopeless coward. He hasn't killed himself yet, just to have an easy escape route from this hell that he'll endure over the next few weeks. Or shorter. So, why does he feel this?

"Careers are sloppy this year," says Dawn.

"What?" Cato asks.

"The Careers," says Dawn from the branch on the tree opposite him. He's never seen these types of trees, but they hold their weight, so he doesn't mention it. "They normally kill a few more. Ten's been the least amount killed in a bloodbath."

"Well, Satin is in the Careers, so it decreases the kills they get."

"Point taken." Dawn carves 'Dawn Lucas was here' with one of her two knives into the trunk of the tree, just for the fun of it.

"What exactly are you doing?" Cato asked.

"Carving 'Dawn Lucas was here' into this tree," she can almost here the laughter from the Capitol audience at this moment.

"Well, hurry up. It'll get dark soon," Cato explained. "Have you had anything to eat?"

"No."

"You should."

"I'm not hungry."

"You should at least have a little. To keep your strength up," Cato explains.

Dawn relents and settles on having a few strips of what she thinks could be beef, with small sips of her water. She'll conserve her food and water so she won't run out that easily, so she'll have some food and water for as long as need be.

When darkness falls, the Capitol anthem plays and they play pictures of the fallen tributes. The first face is, surprise surprise, Satin Lytle.

"Well," states Dawn. "I think we can safely say that we all saw that coming."

The next face is the District Three boy, then both from District five, the boy from Seven, the boy from Nine, both from Ten, then the boy from Eleven. The only name he knows from the fallen tributes is Satin, none of the other eight he can identify. But he can picture one thing, their families crying over their loss, the fact that they'll never see their children again. Cato thinks the boy from Eleven was only thirteen.

Too young to die.

"You okay?" Dawn's voice whispers. "You know, aside from the fact that nine kids just died."

"I guess," says Cato. "I'll get through it."

"You better," says Dawn. "I don't want to have to kill you because you're so depressed it ends up annoying me."

"Should one of us keep watch?" Cato ignores her last statement.

"No," Dawn shakes her head. "We'll be alright for tonight. Careers are too heavy to get this high and we're well concealed."

"Okay," Cato pulls out his this sleeping bag and lays it out in front of him. He leaves his backpack on his back in case of an emergency, and also keeps his sword on him. He slides into his sleeping bag and basically hugs the tree, so he won't fall out.

"Night Taylor," he hears Dawn whisper through the darkness.

"Night Lucas." Cato says, closing his eyes. He twist and turns, but sleep won't come to him. Eventually, he finds that he's rather warm, very warm, so he slips out of the sleeping bag and shoves it in his backpack, before settling against the tree once more, clutching onto it for dear life.

Then, he drifts into the sweet abyss of sleep. His dreams - he doesn't have any. It's slightly ironic how his nightmares have stopped when he's in something that should cause horrors to ingrain themselves into his head and never leave. Nightmares when he's safe, none when he's in grave danger.

Cato would say it was one of the best sleeps he'd ever had.

If he hadn't been so rudely woken.

The sound wakes him up, but he doesn't open his eyes, thinking this rushing sound is all just in his head. But it's not. It's too loud to be just in his head. It sounds too real to be just in his head. He hasn't heard this sound before, but for some reason, the smell of the thing creating the noise is familiar. But he can't link it to anything else. It's the rushing sound that alerts him, the volume increasing immensely.

His eyes fly open just as the first wave blows him from the tree.

Ooooo! Cliffy! Not really. Just a short introduction to the Games. I'll make my excuses for not updating. 1. I'm an idiot. 2. I'm writing two books for fun. 3. I get writer's block. 4. I've been ranting about this show called 'Hollyoaks' because there is this crazy b**ch who might drop her baby off of a building 5. I discovered Divergent.

Divergent. It's an amazing book. I've only read the first twenty chapters, but I NEED MORE. I orded it from amazon a few days ago, AND IT HASN'T CAME.

RANDOM HUNGER GAMES THING WITH ME: I went to the library in school with two of my friends, kay? And when I walked over to drop my bag on the ground, the librian - that makes him sound old, he's only 26 - was talking to this girl and I heard "... Yeah, it's supposed to be better than the Hunger Games."

Then I was like, I just froze, dropped my bag, then went "WHAT?!" He was like, "This book, Gone, it's meant to be better than the Hunger Games." I just went , "No, no it's not." Then I went and read Mockingjay, and randomly quoted the trilogy to freak my friends out.

PLEASE REVIEW! IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME! I'm glad that you care to review, fav and follow, I really apreciate it. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK!

I also so have a new Catoniss moto: "Sometimes you just have to say 'screw canon,'" PLEASE REVIEW!