Author's Note: Yeah, I haven't been writing a work again... 'snort'
But it's hard not to when I've done all my work and I have nothing else to do but wait for a job to be thrown my way. Granted I got my excerise today, pelting up and down stairs, checking what computer has what screen resolution... yes, this is one of the jobs I do, going around everyone in my work section and there's over forty of us I think, and asking what their computers screen resolution is. I never want to see the numbers 1280x1024 or 1680x1050 ever again... I'll probably be seeing them tomorrow, but what can you do? It's a good job and I like the people even though at the end of the day I feel stuffed.

Anyway, enough about me, you're not here to read about my whinging. Please enjoy this chapter and let me know what you think!


Chapter Twenty-Eight

When I woke again it was dark and cold. My feet now felt numb, though there was definitely a dull ache in my right foot. It felt very stiff and even if I wanted to, not that I did, I doubted I would be able to move it.

I opened my eyes slowly, trying to get my eyes to adjust to the darkness around me.

"Willow?" I whispered. My throat still felt raw from the smoke so my voice came out as rasps.

Still, she was by my side in moments and I could feel her trembling and wondered why she hadn't lit a fire if she was cold. It took another moment to realise that her trembling wasn't just to do with the cold of the night air.

"Someone?" I rasped.

"I don't know who." She whispered back, "but I saw them just after night fall."

"What were you…"

"I wanted to get us some more wood because we lost almost all that we gathered due to the fire."

"Willow," I tried to reprime her for leaving the safety of the cove but saw little point and I was too tired to get into an argument anyway.

"I didn't get us any," she continued, "I wasn't sure who it was and I didn't want to leave you while you were unconscious."

"Have they?"

"I haven't heard them and I've been listening out for them but last time I saw them, they were heading down the other end of the lake, so they might not come our way." I could hear the hope in her voice along with doubt. We both know that on the whim of the Gamemakers our unknown visitor could be forced to come back this way, over the rocks and stumble upon our cove.

I just prayed they'd be generous enough to not make that happen, for tonight at least.

"Still too risky to have a fire going, even to cook dinner, huh?" I sigh pulling the blankets that Willow had obviously wrapped around me while I was out to the world.

Willow nodded and I sigh again.

I was hungry and a nice hot meal was just the thing that would make me feel just that tiny bit better.

A sponsor gift would be nice right about now.

I looked hopefully up at the sky, but of course, no silver parachute floated down to me. I shouldn't expect one, not with how the day had gone. I hadn't done anything noteworthy enough to deserve a sponsor gift plus I was sure gifts were getting expensive now.

I remembered my previous gifts and cursed myself for not thinking of them before. I asked Willow to bring me my backpack and pulled out the small bottle of painkillers.

I took one and after a while I felt all aches and pains leave my body, I was also feeling sleepy again.

"Sleep Annie. I'll keep watch." Willow said as the sleepiness start take over my body. I wanted to protest and say that I would take my watch, to just wake me in a little while but my tongue was heavy and my eyes were closed before I could get even a word out.

I slept until dawn break. When I woke, my head was resting in Willow's lap. I could hear her soft breathing as she slept.

I sat up slowly, cautious of my feet and looked around me, at the walls of the cove and at the sky above.

All was quiet in the post-dawn light.

I settled Willow down in the blankets I had slept in last night, covering her before I started moving about on my knees. Not the most comfortable way of getting around, but with badly damaged feet there wasn't much more I could do and I was desperate.

After I had relieved myself in the pit I had created a few days earlier to a section of the cove that had a rock over hanging it, making it completely invisible to anyone and everyone. I had also searched this space of the cove for cameras. I had found none, but to add more privacy I had hung up a tarp from under the overhanging rock.

With more effort than it should have caused me, I crawled the rocks and peered out of my cove and looked around me.

I was breathing heavily and simply leant against the top rocks of my cove for several moments, relaxing and catching my breath, while also trying to think how I was going to get back down. Climbing with ones knees and having no feet to catch you should you slip was a real problem.

I slipped carefully back down into my cove, wincing as did so. I sat myself down by the pool, and with gritted teeth, looked over my feet, starting with my left one this time, as I never got that far last time.

Willow had cut the boot off my left foot when she had been caring for me yesterday and had wrapped my feet in white bandages, with thick padding on my soles that made me feel like I was stepping on mushrooms whenever I set my foot down. Not that I was doing much of that.

I carefully unwrapped my foot and tried not to throw up as I looked at my foot's sole.

The sole of my left foot was shredded, with strips of skin hanging from the raw, red flesh. Fresh blood started trickling down my sole as I tried to gently clean out the last bit of dirt that Willow had missed yesterday before I re-padded and bandaged it back up.

My right foot I didn't even touch, no way was I going anyway near that huge, bulky bandaged appendage that had once been a perfectly working foot.

I trusted Willow's healing skills enough that I had little to no wish to check her handiwork with my right foot. It was numb (for the moment) and felt stiff and secure, so why mess with it. I might check on it when it all but falling off but until then, it can stay the way it is.

I was just chomping on one of the roots that had managed to survive the fire yesterday (Willow had lost her backpack, but had managed to save one of her water bottles by thrusting it into her jacket pocket.) when I heard a strange sound echoing around the arena.

I frowned.

It sounded like a… Hovercraft. But I hadn't heard any cannons and this one sounded… larger than the ones I had heard previously.

Someone died nearby? But still, I had heard no cannons, so…

My curiosity got the better of me and I was once more crawling up and out of my cove, once more resting upon its rim as I took in the scenery around me carefully. What I saw made my mouth drop in disbelief, along with sending a large surge of fear through my heart.

A large hovercraft was flying over the burnt forest towards the lake, below it hanging from many strong cables was the golden Cornucopia.

What were they…

The hovercraft and it's golden cargo was now over the lake's sand shore, a fair distance from where my cove was but still too close for comfort. Why couldn't they have left the damn thing where it was? Why had they moved it? I had never heard of a Game were the Cornucopia was moved from its original place. So why change the rules now?

The cables were released from the Cornucopia and it dropped with a slight thud onto the sandy beach and the hovercraft flew away.

I continued to lean on the rocks and watch the Cornucopia for any signs of movement. But there is nothing and the early morning is once more silent. That is until the sound of trumpets erupts from all around. I hear below me, Willow let out a squeal in surprise and fright from the sudden and unexpected sound.

"Good morning tributes!" Claudius Templesmith greets us all loudly and enthusiastically, "Happy Hunger Games."

I roll my eyes as he continues on this ramble and slid back into my cove where Willow is looking at me nervously.

We both know what is coming, the offer for a feast. And sure enough, Claudius is enthusiastically inviting us to a feast, adding, "And for those of you haven't noticed yet but we've had a slight change of location. You will now find the Cornucopia by the lake now, so if you could all make your way there tomorrow morning, all of you will all be in for a pleasant surprise."

Oh, yes, I'm sure. I actually snort at his words, the surprise of how exactly you're going to die. Everyone knows that the feast is just a smaller version of the first day's Bloodbath. Only a true idiot or someone who actually stood some chance of survival would take it upon themselves to attend a feast.

Lucky for both Willow and I, neither of us are hungry, what with plenty of fish at our doorstep, though we would have to take extra care not to draw attention to ourselves for the feast will for sure bring out Jade and even though she would be hard pressed to actually find our cove, I didn't wish to give her any extra help.

"Now, now," I hear Claudius chiding someone, maybe me for my indifference and lack of interest in the feast, "Hold on. I can see there are some of you who wish to decline my invitation to this feast. But know this, this is no ordinary feast. For this feast will supply each of you with something you need, something you desperately need."

"What," I whisper to Willow, "New feet? I doubt it."

I grin as she giggles.

"Now, I know some of you doubt me," Alright, so that comment was probably most definitely directed at me, "But if you do decided to attend the feast, you will find something of great use to you inside a backpack with your district number on it, at the Cornucopia at dawn tomorrow. Think hard about refusing to show up. This may be your last chance in the final sprint to the end."

Oh yes, that so wasn't directed at me.

I couldn't help but actually glare up at the sky above me, my eyebrow raised, knowing my expression probably read, 'are you serious? Seriously'.

I would also like to see how they thought I would actually get to the Cornucopia. I couldn't walk and there was no way that I stupid and/or desperate enough to even try crawling there.

I crossed my arms around my chest and glared defiantly at the sky above me. It was all well and good to move the damn thing, but I still couldn't get there and I wasn't stupid enough to even try.

"I could."

I jumped at Willow's voice, suddenly aware that I had been speaking out loud.

"Could what?"

"I could go. Tomorrow, I could sneak out and grab our things and run back."

"No, you can't!" I cried.

"Why?" now she was the one glaring with defiance.

"Because… because… Willow, you just can't."

"They said that there will be something for everyone, meaning me too."

"I know but you know what the feast is. Why they have them, to draw us out and pit us against each other."

"I'm small and fast." She argued. "I'm not as fast as you but I'm still fast and I know how to swim so I have that advantage over the others." She went red as I raised my eyebrows at her 'knowing how to swim'. She could keep her head above the water and dogpaddle but that was about it.

Just might be enough, though, I sigh. Jade couldn't swim, nor could the rest of the Careers and I doubt that any of the remaining tributes could swim either. But there was still the small problem of the…

"What about the Kraken?" I ask because I knew that if a fight started on the beach it would disturb the great squid from wherever it was and it would come investigating.

Her face paled but she continued to glare at me with determination.

"If the Kraken comes, all the other tributes will be distracted by it and I can dart in, grab our stuff and be back here before they realised I was even there."

It was a huge risk she wanted to take, there was no certainty that the Kraken would come if a fight (which is inevitable) breaks out tomorrow morning and there was always the chance that she would get hurt and I wouldn't be able to help her due to my feet.

"Well, if you're going to go," I finally sigh after we've argued over this for at least a couple of hours, "only get your stuff, don't you dare try and nap anything that's meant for me, do you hear?"

"But…"

"No, Willow. You go for your own things, don't worry or think about anything but whatever is meant for you. Grab it and then get out of there."

She looked at me, chewing her bottom lip as she did so.

"You really don't want me to go, do you?"

"No, I don't." I grumble, "But I can't exactly stop you now, can I? Or," I pause, thinking, "I could, but it would probably just get us both killed."

"Like?"

"I don't know. Scream at you at the top my lungs to get back here, something along those lines. I could always tie you up." I add with a wicked grin and she backs away from me, a small smile of her own playing her lips.

"Why do you think they did it? Move the Cornucopia over here?"

"Hmmm, I have a few ideas, but none that I particularly like." I reply wincing as my feet started to ache again.

"Like?"

"Moving closer to here because they think I'll feel tempted to crawl out and take my chance at napping whatever they put out in the hopes it will be something for my feet." I shrug, "or they've put it there to draw out everyone who wants me dead and lure them in this direction somehow."

Willow looks worried for maybe a split second before she shrugs her scrawny shoulders. Damn, I had hoped to scare her off. I really didn't want her death on my conscious in my final moments of life.

"Only Jade really wants you dead." Willow says and I pull a face.

Isn't Jade bad enough? Besides, Jade wants everyone dead. And truthfully, everyone in this game wants everyone dead so that they can win and live. I tell Willow this but she shakes her head, unconvinced.

"I don't, Garth doesn't. And you don't, not really, or you would have let me die in the fire."

I open my mouth to argue, to point out that that was different, but as usual words fail me and I can see her point. The smart thing to do, a true survivalist thing to do, would have been to have left Willow in the burning forest to perish instead of doubling back for her, taking her hand and pulling her along with me. And the smart thing for her to have done was to have left me to die when she saw I was trapped underneath that tree.

She should have walked (ran) away, not stayed, risking death, to help me get free. I wouldn't have begrudged her if she had left me to burn, but she hadn't and so here we were.

"Yes, alright." I sigh heavily.

And together we tried to come up with a plan for her to safely sneak to and from the Cornucopia without being seen and harmed.


Author's Note: So, as you could tell, this is a filler chapter. And for those of you who are wondering why the hell I moved the Cornucopia, well the simply reason is; Annie has a broken foot. She isn't going to be walking over rocks, beach, through a forest and over a meadow to get the Cornucopia. She can't, it isn't possible, she doesn't have the adrenaline to get her there and back, she doesn't even really want to go to the feast. She is essentially in Peeta's situations with the Feast. Only she's actually in a lot better shape than he was. She just has a severely broken foot not a leg that is about to fall off any moment from blood poisoning... mind you, that still could happen to her, hmmm...
But anyway, that's way I moved the Cornucopia to the beach, besides its a really different setting from Katniss's Feast. Speaking of which, I was writing my Feast today (at work) and what I've written up is so different from what I imagined, it just took a life of its own, like most of this fic, but it's quite different. I know a lot of you want Jade dead and that you want her to be killed at the Feast but that's too much like Katniss's Feast if you get what I mean. So Jade won't be dying at the Feast... But someone will be... And I leave you with that to chew over. I'd like to read (because I am a disturbed person) who you all think will die at the Feast or would like to die (now you will the disturbed person).

Here's the list of options;
Jep
Sera
Cole
Garth
Rude, red headed boy (He's name is Dallas by the way. I'm not sure if that will ever be said in this fic because things have changed so much since when I originally planned it)
Cisco (the only tribute you haven't met yet. Again not sure if he'll ever appear, 'pouts'. I like Cisco and I do hope I can write up his story one day)
Titus
And finally Willow (But she shouldn't be on this list because she isn't ready to die yet)