Chapter 26: To Roast a Marshmallow

Girl Power Alliance: Day 3

One time when Rose was a little girl, and her parents, brother, and sister were still alive, they went on a camping trip. It was when the five of them were still alive, a happy family.

Her father decided to take them on a trip, a camping trip, just in the backyard of course. They had a huge yard, full of trees and rocks and semi-flat grass. It wasn't the proper camping experience without sleeping on a rock and waking up with a knob in your back. At least, that's what her dad said.

So that weekend, after class, they all filed into the back yard and made a shelter. A proper shelter, with wood and leaves and anything else they could find out there.

They made a fire, Rose and Casey had gone out to find wood that wasn't wet from the rainstorm the night before. Dynami helped their father set up the fire, they made the flames go super high.

They roasted marshmallows to make s'mores. It was the first time that Rose had ever had one of those. Her father had saved up for weeks to have enough money to buy the chocolate. There was enough for them to have four each. Although, her father let Rose have one of his, so she had five.

Yet, she still wanted another, because they were so delicious. She knew why they were called that now.

They lay by their shelter, wrapped up snug in their sleeping bags while they looked up at the stars.

Her father pointed out each constellation, Rose tried to commit them to memory. The big dipper, the little dipper. O'something or other.

It was the safest and most secure that she had ever felt. Lying there with her mother's arms around her, Casey's feet over hers, and her brother and father laughing and talking. They were all having a good time.

It was her family, and she liked being with them.

This was absolutely nothing like camping with her family.

Camping with Myrrah, Delaney and Meleana, there was nothing like it whatsoever.

First of all, Rose had forgotten how to make a shelter. Delaney was clueless. Myrrah was clueless and Meleana was clueless. All four of them had no idea what was going on. And their shelter thingamajigger looked dangerous.

The other three were snug as a bug in a rug (or something like that) while Rose took watch. The other three had already taken their turn, and now it was Rose's time to try and stay awake and make sure that nothing dangerous was headed their way.

First watch and last watch were always the two easiest, it was the middle watches that were the most difficult and Rose was glad that she had last watch.

It was almost morning and she would be waking them up soon. They would fight over the last cookie and decide what to do. But until then, she would let them sleep a little bit longer.

So she looked up at the sky. The stars were gone, the sun was coming up and the moon was going down, saying goodbye as they passed each other.

She pondered eating the last cookie but knew that the other three would not be happy if she munched on it.

There was a noise coming behind her, the first she had heard, and she hurried into the shelter to wake the others up.

She would need backup if there was another tribute around.

"Shh," she whispered, putting a finger to her lips as the others woke with a start and tired to remember where they were.

It was day three of the Games, and they hadn't encountered any problems since escaping from the Blood bath and they were all on edge, wondering when the next skirmish would come. Wondering when the Gamemakers would drive them into the path of another tribute.

"What is it?"

"I heard something," Rose explained, the four of them put their ears to the wall of their helpless shelter, listening, but they didn't hear anything.

"It was probably just the wind," Delaney said as she rummaged through the pack, looking for something to eat, "Hey, where's the last cookie?' She turned to Rose, "did you eat the last cookie?"

"I swear I didn't," Rose whispered back.

"Well it was there when I went to bed," Delaney shot back, she had had the watch before Rose, and it was apparent that Delaney was cranky when woken up.

"You must have had it."

"Stop arguing," Myrrah whispered.

The four girls exchanged looks of blame, but none of them coughed up to stealing the cookie.

"Ooh, found it," Delaney said, "sorry." Rose glared at her. Delaney ignored her as she broke the cookie in half and then broke each half into half and distributing each quarter among them.

"Some breakfast," Myrrah said as she took a bite.

"Its better then nothing," Rose pointed out, as she ate it crumb by crumb, savoring each one.

"Mm," Meleana's was already gone, she didn't know how to savor.

"Might as well make it last," Delaney was following Rose's example.

The girls had forgotten why they had been woken up before the sun was high up in the sky. Instead, they did what all girls did upon waking up in the morning.

They ran their fingers through their hair and complained about their makeup and appearance.

"Argh, I think I'm getting a pimple appearing," Meleana complained, Myrrah peered at her face.

"No, you're good, it's just dirt," Myrrah said.

"I'm going to have so many pimples, my face will never go back to its flawless self," Delaney complained. Rose rolled her eyes and got up, she didn't care about her face as much as Delaney did.

"We need to find a water source," Myrrah said as she joined Rose outside.

"It's the rainforest," Meleana pointed out, "it rains, like, all the time. When the rain comes, we'll fill our empty canteen."

So they waited for the rain. But none came. Not a single drop.

"I'm thirsty," Delaney complained, "and hungry."

"The Gamemakers hate us," Rose muttered. Meleana agreed.

"We have to find a water source, we need water to survive."

They agreed, so they packed up and dissembled camp, making it look like no one had ever been there. It even looked even better then it did before they had gotten a hold of it.

They started on their journey looking for a stream or a river, or something so they could get clean water.

"One of us has to have a sponsor."

"Right, one sponsor is going to provide water for four girls, I don't think so."

They had to get their minds off of their current position. So they began to play a game, trying to distract themselves from the dangers.

"I spy with my little eyes, something…yellow," Myrrah said as she led them.

"The sun?" Delaney responded as they walked, careful to watch out for the roots. Myrrah and Rose were in front, Delaney and Meleana were behind and Delaney had to constantly steer Meleana over the roots. Meleana had already tripped twelve times. Delaney was keeping a count.

"How did you know?"

Delaney shrugged, "Good guesser?"

The others laughed quietly. They knew that they were on screen, that every move of theirs was being filmed. They had to be careful, watchful for any trap that might be in the arena. It was life or death, other tributes were out there, maybe stalking them, watching their every move.

"What type of animals do you think are out there?" Rose asked. "There weren't many last year."

"No idea," Myrrah replied, "but I'm sure there are some good traps out there, to make up for the lack of them last year."

They trekked on, wondering, watching, thinking.

Myrrah found the first trap. She was in front, her right foot was in the air, about to take a next step. But instead of hitting ground like she thought she would, she hit dead air instead, disappeared in front of their eyes.

"MYRRAH!" Meleana shouted, glad that it wasn't her, but still frightened beyond belief.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked, running to the hole where Myrrah had disappeared into.

There was no answer.

The three girls called her name, all the while listening for a cannon to signal her death.

"I'm okay," Myrrah finally called up to them.

"We'll get you up," Rose assured her, running around looking for a vine or a rope or something.

"Hurry," Myrrah said, "I think there's something down here."

Rose was glad that it wasn't her down there, she was glad that she was still on solid ground with Meleana and Delaney, but she also felt bad for Myrrah, down there all by herself.

"AHH," Myrrah shrieked, "get me out NOW!"

"What is it? What's down there?" Meleana asked, shivering as she conjured up the worst possible thing. Actually, just being down there would be awful. She was claustrophobic, she hated being in tight, dark spaces. And that hole where Myrrah was trapped was certainly a tight, dark space.

She was going into a panic thought just thinking about it. A few years ago, Meleana had gotten stuck in a tube. Her older sister had been watching her -well, she was supposed to be watching her- but Karla was never good at babysitting. So Meleana had snuck away, wondering just how far she could get without being caught. And she found herself at the construction site in town.

Somehow she had gotten stuck in a plastic tube and her lungs constricted and she couldn't breath.

She passed out in the tube because she was so frightened and woke up to find her mother hovering over her, like a scared mother hen worried about her chick.

Meleana had been majorely claustrophobic ever since that day. And she felt a panic attack coming on just thinking about Myrrah down there by herself.

Rose came back with a vine and they fed it down the hole.

Melena felt a tug that meant Myrrah had grabbed hold of it, and the three of them pulled with all their might.

Myrrah appeared, dirt on her face, a frown on her lips, her eyes were scared and frightened.

"Thanks," she babbled, "I thought I was going to die down there."

"You're safe now," Rose assured her, giving her a hug. "It'll be okay."

"For now," Meleana pointed out, "who knows about tomorrow."

It began to rain fat drops of water, hitting the tops of their heads and their bare skin. They pointed their faces upwards and opened their mouths, catching the water between their lips.

It felt so good on their parched throats.

"Stop," Myrrah said first, common sense coming back to her. The others looked at her in confusion. "We've wanted it to rain all day, and now it does, something is up, they want us to lower our guard."

Her logic made sense. They whirled around, wondering what trap was waiting for them now.

Was it a mutated animal? Another tribute?

"We should get out of here," Meleana said, making a break for it, and falling flat on her face.

Delaney reached down to help her up.

There was a noise, similar to what Rose had heard earlier.

"Run?"

"Run."

They ran.

"Is it just me, or is it super hot right now?" Meleana asked as she tried to watch where she was going. The branches were out to get her though and she stumbled a few times, luckily she hadn't had another nosedive.

Her feet were burning, as if the ground was on fire.

"It's not just you," Rose shouted back.

"RUN!" Myrrah yelled at them. Flames were now licking at their feet.

It was a forest fire, and it was raging angrily.

The Gamemaker's loved their fire; there was always some sort of fire trick each year. It usually never happened this early in the Games though. Guess they were defying the rule book.

The four of them ran, Meleana falling farther and farther behind as she tripped and stumbled. Her clumsiness was definitely a curse right now.

At least Delaney was having trouble as well. Myrrah and Rose were way ahead of them.

Delaney ran like her late sister; she was slow and out of shape. Funny, Meleana had pegged Delaney as a runner.

Rose and Myrrah were soon out of view, Meleana hoped that they had gotten out of the fire, she just wished she was out of it as well.

Delaney grabbed Meleana's arm and they pushed through the flames together, trying not to give in to the pain on their heels.

"This isn't fun anymore," Delaney whispered as they ran. Meleana was sure that she had heard wrong.

"It's not supposed to be fun," Meleana whispered back.

They heard a shriek. "That sounded like Rose," Delaney said. They picked up their pace, fighting through the flames and finally reaching a patch with no angry red wall of hot burning fire.

Rose and Myrrah were locked in a fight with a giant boa, it was constricted around Myrrah, closing around her body and cutting off her air supply.

Rose was trying her hardest to kill the snake and free Myrrah, but to no avail. She was losing the battle.

Delaney and Meleana jumped in to help.

"We could sure use that fire now," Delaney grunted as she tugged. Poor Myrrah; first a black hole, then a snake. Someone wanted her dead.

"Snake s'more, sounds delicious," Rose muttered as she found a stick and began to beat the snake.

It hissed.

Somehow, the three of them managed to untangle Myrrah, and she fell to the ground clutching at her neck as she struggled to breathe again.

They watched the boa slither off to where the fire had been raging.

"I hope it burns," Myrrah gasped.

The four of them were safe, for now.

To roast a marshmallow, one had to have a fire.

Trivia Question: Who won the 51st games?

Previous trivia answer: Colt had 5 sisters. Nat, Shyla, Delaney and Tisha and Tori. Tisha and Tori were twins who died when they were 8.

~*Misty*~