This may look short but... OK it's short; but I wanted to make it nice and quick because I'm tired:-0 *yawn*. I told myself I'd finish this before I went to bed which was a REALLY bad idea because now I'm too tired to write a really long authors note. Just review, OK?

In the end Lumina and Hercules sort it out for me. My sponsors may be supplying the steady flow of cash but they're the ones who are directing it to me and deciding what to give me and where and when to give it. A silver parachute tumbles out of the sky and I reach up and catch it. Inside is a pair of boots. I look carefully at them. Why would I need a pair of boots? They're almost identical to mine. But when I turn them over I realise. On the bottom of the boots are spikes which can be used to grip onto ice. I look at my two remaining daggers and smile. This might actually work.

I grip onto my daggers like my life depends on it – actually, my life does depend on it since I am balanced precariously high up in the air with only my shoes and daggers to hold me up. If the Gamemakers send an avalanche now it's all over, but they won't, I'm making too much good TV. Getting rid of me now would defeat the whole point of the show – to make a message, and the more imaginative my death the better. I don't mind, as long as I live for longer I refuse to let it get to me. I remember hearing about this technique a while ago, I don't know when from. Ideally you would use two pickaxes, but my daggers seem to be working fine, even if one is smaller than the other.

The idea is that you cut out holes with your pickaxe, or in my case, a knife, and then you slowly edge your way up. It only works if you have the special boots though, ones with spikes in them so they can grip the ice. My slightly improvised method seems to work and I ignore the cold biting away at me, burrowing its way under my layers, and keep on swinging upwards. The slippery surface is hard to get a grip on, but once you start you can really get in the swing of things. I make sure I don't overdo it though and always have three limbs firmly planted into the ice.

I make it to the top without a blemish and am about the relax when I realize the ice at the top has slowly eroded away and become thinner so I can't get up last few metres. Fury engulfs me but I push it back and try desperately to ignore it. Anger means acting rashly, acting rashly means mistakes and mistakes mean death. I coolly look up and try to calculate the angles of everything, which trying to look unfazed. It's hard knowing that all the eyes of Panem are on me and I want to scream out loud, but that probably wouldn't help at all. It would alert the others of my position and probably make me less likely to gain any sponsors.

Then the snow starts to fall. It starts off with a slight patter of snowflakes and then soon turns almost into a full blown blizzard. I can barely see my hands in the ice, let alone navigate my way back down. It's up or nothing now. I'm about to swing my axe up when I notice the ice carving over my boots and slowly shift and re-grip each one alternately, then do the same with my hands. I have to get up there, I can't keep this up for much longer, but how do I?

Then I see it. There is an overhanging rock just above me which loops up. If I could lasso it I could just the rock to pull myself up. I carefully remove one hand, keeping the knife in the ice and use it to unzip my backpack slightly. Luckily the bit I open has the rope next to it. I carefully tug the rope out and stare at it in my hands. Finally, I have something. I hurriedly zip my backpack back up and hold the rope in my one had. The thing is I don't know how to make a lasso – the stupid instructor never told me how. I decide I'll have to use a noose, even though it may not work it's worth a shot.

A thought penetrates my mind. What if I wasn't the only one who came up to the mountain, someone else must have singled it out for a quiet spot. But yet something holds me back – if someone else got to the mountain then there would be a less perilous way up, maybe on the other side. Why hadn't I thought of that? Now I'm stuck up on the middle of a slippery slope with only a half finished noose for company which really isn't a prime model of what a noose should be. Great, I think, that's what's keeping me alive – a rubbish noose.

I finish the noose and admire my handiwork. It's passable, just about, but it was hard making to with one hand and even harder because one end is frayed and has become unravelled from where I cut it. I try to block images out of my mind about what happened when I cut it so I concentrate by throwing the noose towards the overhanging rock. To my surprise it hooks over the rock with ease and seems perfect when I tug it. I thought it was meant to be third time lucky every time you did something like that, but I suppose that is just in films and I have to remind myself that what I'm doing is real and I'm not just some superhuman fictional character who can overcome everything and anything; I'm just me.

I tug the rope and it stays so carefully I withdraw the knives from the wall of ice and lean back, resting back on the rope. For one terrifying moment I think it's going to snap but it just shifts and holds my weight. Slowly, though the darkness is terrifying and the snow blurs what little green tinted vision I have, I hoist myself up. It's a bit like abseiling but backwards and it requires all of what little energy I have just to move upwards. I move though, progressing at a snail's pace but progressing none the less. Finally, after what seems like an hour, I grip the edge, the ice almost burning me with how cold it is.

I heave myself up and over the edge with a sigh and collapse at the top of the vertical ice cliff. Finally I've got to the top of this, but what's next? There has to be something in my brain – a little plan that's been formulating, but I just find empty space. I wanted to get up here and I have, but what now? Do I just go back down? I look at the face of ice I just climbed, already healing itself of the scars I dented into its pure surface. No way am I going back down after that. There's only one I thing I can think of doing – go up.

So I take my breath and look at the sky to see what the sun says the time of day it is, but I am only confronted with darkness. I forgot, the black is impenetrable and everlasting – it will never go. I sigh and start climbing the mountain. I may only have a few hours left before I should start setting up camp for the night, but I should use them well. So, up it is. Up until I reach the peak.

Also I wanted to say that I am aware that this chapter's title is the same as the tenth book in 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' by Lemony Snicket, but I just say that's his fault for choosing that name. He evidently went forward in time, saw my chapter title and used it! So no, I'm not disclaiming this, saying it belongs to Lemony Snicket, I'm saying it belongs to ME and he better appreciate it! :-)