Her heartbeat pounded to the beat of the drum of the dark, but Charlotte told herself she was not afraid. Her trident firm in her hand, her quiver resting against her back, what more did she need? And darkness means nothing. The last few blackouts had been practically as uneventful as daylight had been, so why did this one send her mind into a fog of suspicion? And why was it getting increasingly hard to tell herself that that scuffling sound was just her imagination?

Her hand brushed at her neck,for one heartbeat her pulse pumped against her fingers as she felt shakily for an arrow. Pulling it from her quiver, fingers tight on the fletchings she nocked it clumsily to the string. Just in case. It wasn't as if there was anything around here she needed to use it for. It was a precaution. Nothing to fuss about.

Yet at the faint herrr of breath by her ear her arm snapped into action, yanking back the string and releasing the arrow in the direction of the sound. Her head pounded as she squinted, trying to guess where it had landed, but the darkness had swallowed it whole and it had vanished into the silent distance.

No sooner had she reached for the next arrow, than something hard and cold bumped her knee and then was gone. Her arm shook, she clutched at the string, praying that she was pointing it in the right direction, let alone aiming at anything. Whatever is out there, whatever just did that...I'll get it. I can't even see the bow I'm holding but I'll hit it.

Something brushed lightly at her shoulder, she whirled around. Surely they must be close, to do that. She loosed the arrow and prayed for it to strike. But silence was the only reply.

Her heart seemed to be leaping up and down and she wasn't sure if that rumbling was feet hurrying past or just the sound of her fear but she loosed arrow after arrow at this noise and that disturbance, pleading with herself, begging for the silence to end with the thump of a target.

The return of light saw her on the ground, her hands wrapped around her ears, cradling her head, bowed over the bow at her feet. The comforting weight of her quiver had gone, its contents only air.

After waiting for her eyes to accept that yes, there was now light, she sat back on her heels, trying to coax more and more air into her panicked lungs. Wrapping her arms around herself protectively, she searched the undergrowth for her arrows, but whatever had teased her in the dark had taken them. Looking up to the sky, she felt dread return to her, fast becoming a very familiar feeling.

Dusk is here, but night will soon return.

"Iresse? Iresse." She prodded her a little harder.

The girl stirred groggily. "Congratulations, you have mastered basic identification. Click here to print your certificate. Want a gold star as well?"

"No. But the faces will be up in the sky in a minute. I don't want to watch them on my own." Anita stared at a patch of moss. On second thoughts, a gold star would be rather nice, if the girl from District Five just so happened to have any on her.

"And you thought there was a slight chance that the loud pompous music might NOT wake me up?"

"Um-" she shrugged. "Just wanted to make sure."

"Make sure what? That I'm still alive? Word of warning. If my eyes are closed, but I'm still breathing, then the answer is simple: I'M NOT DEAD."

"Don't you want to know who's still alive?"

"I want to know if I'm alive; and being something of an expert on myself, I can say with quite a bit of confidence: yes, I'm alive. Who else do I need to know about?"

"But- the others-"

"Anita, you're not fooling me. I can tell you're alive. Your lips are f-ing moving."

"But the careers-"

"I don't care who else is alive and who isn't. Although I hope at least they're not hideous, I'd rather not waste my last look of this world counting my killer's zits."

She turned over and grunted; and Anita sat back on her heels against the tree. Their clearing was somewhat cosier in the dark; and tonight the gamemakers had decided to differentiate between blackout and nighttime with a scattering of stars, which made guarding a morose misanthrope somewhat more entertaining.

This particular misanthrope had taken to hating especially loud noises; and as the anthem crescendoed into the night she groaned vehemently and automatically reached for what Anita assumed would be a pillow to block out the noise. Upon realising that no pillow was available, she scowled (Anita couldn't quite make out her face, but instinct told her she was scowling) and slammed her head on the ground in frustration.

There had been three cannons, she remembered, so at least the loud music would not disturb her irritable ally for too long. The boy from District Four was first. Anita could not remember much about him, apart from the fact that he seemed almost as grumpy as Iresse. Now he was gone Iresse could probably be sure in the knowledge that she was the unrivalled Grumpiest Tribute in the Arena, a status that was probably ridiculously useless and totally lacking in prizes, which funnily enough would only make the winner grumpier. She smiled at the thought.

At the sight of the boy from District Five, she turned to Iresse to try and gauge her reaction but there was nothing much to measure: the girl was as cross as ever. But Anita sensed there was a heaviness in her sigh as she rolled back over. She wondered if she should say something to try and make her feel better, but nothing came to mind that would not make her ally angry or irritated, so she left her options open with silence.

We are both alone now, she thought. Nobody but each other. It was the strangest sort of feeling and she did not know if she would ever get used to it, if she ever could or had the time to. Five more days of games. Could a person change so much in just five days?

The boy from District Ten was last and Anita thought back to remember what he had really been like, but she wasn't sure. She couldn't picture him very vividly or recall his voice. His smile though, goofy yet wan, that stayed with her. She wondered what he had been like as a person. He could have been as prickly as Iresse or as warm as Sadiki. With that smile, he could have been either or maybe both. At that her eyes flicked back to her ally, but the girl was asleep again already. Maybe it was possible to be both.

The music had gone; and the light that the hovercraft had brought went with it, leaving flashes of it imprinted on the back of her eyes when she closed them, from staring too long. It flared grey blue, like strange lightening. That thought made her remember strange lightening hitting a tree, over and over and over again...

She was running through the arena, her prey deliciously close, the pants and sobs getting louder as the distance between them shrank, squeezing out their hope with it.

She was moving at a speed faster than she ever thought she was capable of, her feet springing and leaping off the ground and she wanted to shriek with joy because of it. This was the feeling of power, it was so sweet. Soon her axe would burst their blood and the red of it would be even sweeter. She couldn't wait, urging herself on, closer, closer, they were so close now.

A large metal building loomed ahead, weathered with rust and cloaked in greenery, two metal doors embedded in the earth to form a mouth. It made her think of the cornucopia, only no gamemaker worth their salt would allow it to fall into such a state of disrepair. Garcia skidded and felt her breath heave with disappointment. The appearance of the building had swallowed whole her prey's hysterics, sucking them from her grasp without warning. She frowned. Where could they have gone? They could be anywhere.

She stepped closer and realised that was the right decision, for now she could hear their voice, begging, pleading inside the building. Got you now. Going to try and run? Good luck with that. Now you'll know the meaning of the odds not being in your favour...

She chuckled to herself and raced inside, but just as the building had engulfed the sound of her prey, now it swallowed the sight too. The large, low room was completely empty.

There was no hint of life in here: the only green came from the tinge of the fluorescent lights that buzzed and stuttered as they flickered. The walls were hemmed in rust and stitched neatly with bulging rivets that connected panel to panel all around to form one seamless box. She ran her fingers down them, feeling the slide-thrum-slide-thrum as they rode over the bolts. The sensation felt quite familiar, though she could not say from where. She went from wall to wall, each one felt so flat she could feel the ridges and lines of her palm as it pressed upon them. For a moment, her prey was forgotten by this room that she could not quite remember.

It was not until she stopped that she felt the stuffiness in the air, it enveloped her in one suffocating blanket that wiped her skin clammy. She looked up for a vent.

A skull and two crossed bones looked back, telling her only one word.

Toxic.

In one metal yawn the doors rolled shut. As the last slither of natural light thinned into metal rim, Garcia felt its absence spark a revelation.

There is no prey. I was chasing myself to my death. The thought crashed through her head until it was all there was.

She threw herself at the wall and flailed as she slipped down.

"PLEASE!" Her voice had twisted into something terrible. "PLEASE! LET ME GO! PLEASE! PLEASE! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING WRONG! I ONLY- ONLY- PLEASE! I'M- I'M A GOOD GIRL I'M NOT A TRAITOR I WON'T BETRAY THE LEADER! I HAVEN'T DONE ANYTHING! I ONLY WANT- I- I- I'VE ALWAYS OBEYED THE LEADER, AND DISTRICT- DISTRICT TH- THIRTEEN..."

She clawed at the rivets, her nails digging under and the pinching of her fingers was unbearable as the metal teeth held on and would not let go, still they would not break, not when her nails cracked and the bolts were slippery with sweat and blood and desperation.

The hatch opened with a snap and scratch and she stumbled over herself to reach it, but the gaunt shining eyes of a gas mask flashed with her own terror and she scrambled away as they tipped the dusty white crystals into the room.

They landed with a soft, fast tick-tick-tick. Long fingers of smoke coiled up, beckoning her closer. Frantic with terror she stomped and crushed them under her foot, desperately trying to stamp them out, the smoke still curling up from under her foot, stifling it just enough to keep the fingers from here. Stop it stop it make it stop now was all she could think with each crunch, but the hatch was opening again, more tipped onto her head, she screamed as the crystals rolled down her face, hissing into her eyes, sucking her mouth dry, scorching her tongue which went limp as it blackened-

"GARCI! WAKE UP ALREADY!" Calion slapped her across the face.

"What the f*** have you been smoking?" His face was part confusion and amusement, "What were you going on about Thirteen for? And whose the d*** you keep calling "the leader"?" He pulled a dumb face and did a weird gesture with his fingers. "Take me to your leader!" He guffawed at his own joke, but Garcia could not laugh. Not after what she had just experienced.

I'm in the arena, she told herself. The arena, where only children can reach me. Children. They like to eat the souls of children.

"Nothing."

"But this leader guy-"

"I said, it's nothing!" She yelled. "Would an axe in your face help you understand that?"

"Not as much as my sword through your heart!" (Or any other body part, for that matter...)

She ran at that, dropped everything and ran. She could hear him behind her, but she know she was just fast enough to lose him. But if I see any strange buildings, she promised, I will face a hundred Calions before I go in there. She gripped her axe tighter.

She wanted the river, she realised, wanted to sink into it and wash away the nightmare until it was lost beyond the trees. Garcia cried with relief at the rushing of the water.

But mist curled off the river as the sun peeped shyly above the forest and the sight of it dragged her back to hell. She collapsed in shock, but the incline of the bank slid her slowly down, the mist would be reaching her soon, closer and closer and it would crack and burn and she would be back in that room again. She struggled, but her feet could not find hold in the slippery ground and her axe merely sheared chunks of mud off that flew in her face. So close, the water and its breath was inches away, the room was nearly here-

"Found you," Calion grinned. "I win."

Never the predator, she thought, as his sword twisted through her stomach down to the ground, pinning her like a butterfly to a board. Always the prey.

The cannon fired, but not only in the arena.

14) Garcia Franchez

Poor girl :( makes you wonder what she could have been... in an alternate universe. The chamber scene was horrible to write and imagine, probably the most horrific thing I will ever write but I wanted to show just how deeply her suffering and the horrors of 13 were slow-roasting her sanity. And at least that bit was a dream. Unfortunately Calion wasn't...

Alliances: Velvet (loner) Calion (loner) Shayen/Morgan/Lynna/Matthew, Charlotte (loner) Iresse/Anita, Daisy (loner) Aden (loner) Coriander/Jathan