A/N: This chapter actually freaked me out when I wrote it, and I've been plannign what happens here for quite some time. Just a few things to say to all of you in answer to some of your questions - Martha-Rose Fall was from district six, not nine, I do actually check each chapter after writing it, going over it again, but when that happens I sometimes add more sentences of description and feeling to it, so therefore you might find a typo or spelling mistake (most likely typo) where I have added more, but if I was to check again it would take an extra half an hour or so, which hinders my updating speed which is something I am very proud of. So yes, I do proof read it. Unfortunately my proof-reading is a bit of a fail and at times bundles of typos can slip through, so I'm currently going through Gnawing hunger and proff-reading the whole thing, as I will do to Shattered Hearts later. Dizzy got the black liquid, which was some type of fuel, from the heap of supplies, sorry if that wasn't that clear. well anyway, read, and review - I'm so happy with how many of you have turned up to read and review this, we barged past the "200" reviews barrier, in the last chapter. I just hope I can make this more successful with more reviews than "Kill Or Be Killed", which has about 365, so that's a target to set for, make this my most successful story ever! Come on everyone, try and contribute a review and help me out here, because everything you've said has been ultra-helpful so far!
Suddenly a high, piercing laugh erupts throughout the forest from the television causing me to leap out of my seat in shock. It's the same laugh cat-girl produced on the first day, but so much more louder and terrifying; in control and seizing of power. It's a laugh that you can't help but fear, as it shrieks from cat-girl's mouth simply as would word tumbling out of her mouth, I know for certain that that laugh is the laugh of a madwoman. Then the laugh, if you could call it that, is followed up by a shriek piercing the sky, but not any old shriek, that shriek is one of words, cold and callous, barely decipherable, but words none the less.
"Come here now, let's end it sooner rather than later!" cat-girl shrieks into the forest and I can see Dizzy pause momentarily, thinking it over. They're only a mile or so away from each other; they could get together in about half an hour.
"If you come now I'll go easy on you, kill you simply," cat-girl hisses louder than possible, her voice piercing through the forest. Dizzy stands up, contemplating the words, then smiles slightly, a slight knowing smile which is merely a twitch of the mouth, but an action so emotionless and wicked that I find myself shivering uncontrollably and have to grab hold of a fluffy pink cushion to cover myself with, not that it helps much but really, thinking about it, it's the thought that really counts. That small twitch of a smile that sprouted out of Dizzy's mouth, almost in recognition, is definitely one smile that I'll never forget.
So Dizzy simply, barely a blink in her decision, heads off to the sound of cat-girl's voice, something I never would have done. Or would I? I would have wanted the hunger games over as soon as possible, wouldn't I? So maybe facing cat-girl like Dizzy does on the screen in front of me is exactly what I would have done, but the way Dizzy handles the situation is beyond belief and certainly not something I would have done, or could have done.
Cat-girl is calling manically, laughing wickedly too, into the darkness around her, standing in the middle of a small circular clearing in the forest, waiting. Then Dizzy's figure finally skulks out of the shadows, she didn't wait or anything; just went straight into the clearing without a moment's hesitation. A sly smile flickers onto cat-girl's face and she hurriedly twirls around, paralysing darts flying in the air towards Dizzy's neck. If those hit her she'll die without a doubt, and it won't be pretty. But Dizzy simply ducks the darts within a blink of her eye and continues walking emotionlessly towards cat-girl.
"Oh, it's you, I didn't know which one of you to expect, but I guess you were the highest option out of all of them," cat-girl sneers, "I just hope you're more fun than that last one I had to deal with, could barely put up a fight at all. D'you call that exciting? I do not."
Dizzy doesn't even bother replying until she is standing almost exactly one metre away from cat-girl, just staring at her with her cool and calculating yet almost unblinking eyes.
"Well then, how do you want to do this?" purrs cat-girl maliciously, clawing the air with her fingers in excitement. Dizzy just blinks, and then slowly, very slowly, begins to sink to the floor.
"Given in, have you?" chuckles cat-girl with a serious amount of glee as Dizzy sits down, cross-legged, breathing simply and staring into the space between the two of them, "well, I suppose it was to be expected. You could never actually match me, let alone defeat someone with my ultimate ability."
Dizzy then, without a reply, reaches into her belt and withdraws a sharp knife with an edge almost like a saw, rigid and deadly, placing it firmly on the moist forest ground in front of her, half way between herself and cat-girl.
"Laying down your weapons, are you? Well I'm afraid to break it to you, but you've got three more there, you might want to add them into the mix." Cat-girl taunts.
"This is all I'll need to defeat you," Dizzy says simply, her eyes fixed firmly onto the knife in front of her.
"Oh yes? And how do you plan on doing that?" cat-girl chuckles as though it is all one huge funny joke to her, which it probably was at the time. The only thing was that I know what's going to happen, and it's no joke to me.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," Dizzy almost chants in a monotonous tone.
"Well I'm glad you've brought that up," cat-girl teases, but I can see she's looking slightly ruffled by Dizzy's reaction the whole situation, and as if that wasn't enough Dizzy closes her eyes.
"Well, I've always liked a game of blind man's bluff; but I warn you now, I'm liable to cheat!" hisses cat-girl with a sudden lurch towards Dizzy, but then she smiles slyly and steps back to her original position again, "Might as well milk the moment, eh?" she chuckles.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," Dizzy continues, her voice steadily moving as it would to a beat.
"What are you playing at?" cat-girl asks, looking at Dizzy with a new found interest, contemplating if there could be a hidden message beneath her words.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," replies Dizzy in the same steady tone.
"Then why the heck are you mentioning it?" cat-girl shrieks, perturbed.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," Dizzy chants, eyes shut as if she was sleeping, looking almost as if she's possessed.
"I'm done toying with you!" yells cat-girl angrily and charges forward at Dizzy, or rather she starts charging forward, but doesn't get past the first step, "what, what's happening?" she asks, her voice suddenly becoming like a little girl as she seems glued to the spot, almost in fear. She tries to move forward again and I can see her body straining to move, but it doesn't work and she just stays glued to the spot, struggling until slowly, as Dizzy's chant echoes around the clearing, she starts to calm down and settles standing, her whole body relaxed and her eyes a cloudy milky colour.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," Dizzy's voice recites, simply repeating the same phrase all over again.
But then, into the darkness of the early morning and the crisp bitter air with the moist dew drops forming on the wet ground like frosting on a cake, cat-girl takes an almost menacing step forward, a placid look on her face that I've never seen before. How did Dizzy win then, if cat-girl's advancing towards her? Cat-girl's doing exactly that, hands outstretched while Dizzy is simply sitting on the floor chanting the same weird phrase with her voice as it is, almost melodious.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important," the chant continues, burrowing its way into my skin and cat-girl steps forwards once more until she's looming right over the knife, fingers outstretched yet a calm look on her face like she was sleepwalking, like this was the most natural thing in the world to do at all.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important."
Cat-girl bends down slowly and grasps the knife firmly with true grit in both of her hands, jaw relaxed as is the rest of her body as she looks straight forward, her eyes having a glazed over look fixed onto them. The serrated edged knife held in her hand is pointed at Dizzy's non-moving body, calm and carefully breathing in and out, in and out and the knife seems to rock slightly with that movement, Dizzy's breathing, as if it was one and the same.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important."
And with those words that sprout from Dizzy's mouth, cat-girl raises the knife and plunges it down into flesh, warm sticky blood flowing from the fatal wound, and with the echoing sound of cannon fire a limp body collapses on the floor, dead. And so Dizzy, as the last one standing, or rather, sitting, is left, she has become the victor of the 68th hunger games, as the commentator proudly chirps. Dizzy simply stands up; eyes still closed, and sighs loudly almost in regret. As she takes to her feet her mouth says it for one final time, more of a whisper than anything else. And so there is the victor of the 68th hunger games, Drisabella Combe, the twelve year-old girl from district nine standing above the dead body of the cat-girl, who plunged a knife into herself after all she had done to fight for survival.
"Don't look at the knife; don't think about the knife, the knife is not important."
