SURPRISE! I'm back 2 days early! My parents just decided to come home early (my grandparents only live 4 hours away so we just drove)Anyways new chapter yayyy! I wrote this by hand while I was at my grandparents' house and typed it when I got home! I hope you like it! Thanks for the reviews, and to my new readers, welcome! To answer a question, I just skipped district 9 because I didn't get tributes and I decided just to kill them off, I let one live pretty far into the games so I could start Haden and Whitley's Relation/Friendship! So yeah, enjoy, and review away! WARNING! There is another bad word in this chapter….
Samantha Sten
The amount of energy it takes to pick myself off the ground is almost enough to make me black out again. My eyesight is fuzzy and I sway under each puff of wind. Somehow, my normally tangly tresses fall almost elegantly around my shoulders. It takes a lot of determination, but I lift my hand and manage to run my thin fingers through my smooth hair. I don't know for sure but I think it's about 4 in the morning and the surprise will probably take place at about 8 since that seems to be about the time the sun rises around here. I suddenly notice that the arena is completely silent. No twigs snap and even the birds are quiet. It's eerily quiet but the absence of noise gives me time to think. Each of my dry breaths seems louder than a train horn in the silent forest. Even though my eyes are watering from the wind, they still feel incredibly dry. I close my eyelids and allow myself to sit in the silence for a few moments longer. Without noises to distract me, my mind wanders to thoughts of Blake. My heart catches in my throat as his image surfaces to the front of my brain. It takes every last bit of remaining strength I have left to keep myself from bursting into tears. It's hard to explain how someone you've only known for a short amount of time can make such a huge impact on your life.
There are no words to describe how I feel right now but its ok; I don't have to explain myself to anyone anymore. I open my eyes slowly and reality starts to sink in. Even if I make it out of the arena things would never be the same again. In some ways I still feel like the 5 year old version of myself that believed in Santa Claus and Miracles and her dreams and the color pink. Yet in many ways, I feel like the pessimistic helpless version of myself. I don't know which one I am anymore.
My hand creeps towards the 2 knifes I have left. One is long bladed and has a green handle. The other is the infamous orange handled knife that is almost completely useless to me. As if to prove myself right, I turn the orange handled knife over in my hand and lazily throw it towards the base of a nearby tree aiming for a large knot. Sure enough, the knife sails right past its target and instead nails a quite dangerous pile of leaves. My eyes close shut again as I realize exactly which version of myself I am.
Hailey Gracefield
I shake and shiver uncontrollably from the chill of the arena. The energy I waste trying to keep myself from shaking only makes me colder. I feel Dorn slip his muscular arm around my waist as though he senses how comfortable I am. I let myself lean back into him and absorb some of his body heat. Just as I get comfortable, his arm slides back and his hand laces through mine. I'm about to ask what he's doing when he crouches to the ground and motions for me to do the same. I lower myself next to him and Dorn grabs a sharp looking stick.
"We need a plan." He explains as he begins to draw a pattern in the dry ground. I watch as he draws each part of the arena layer by layer until a drawing of the entire thing sits in front of us. "We can assume this "surprise" will take place at the center at the cornucopia." he says while placing a star on the cornucopia. "The other tributes will probably hiding inside the entrances of the maze so they can see what's going on." I nod my head as he continues, "We should hide on opposite sides of the arena so maybe we can ambush the last tribute to make it to the surprise." Dorn cocks his head curiously to the side as though he were asking my thoughts about the plan. I shrug nonchalantly as I reply.
"Sounds good to me." Hopefully we'll be able to take out one other tribute so we can have a better chance of making it home. It's still weird to me though, thinking about killing people. A shudder runs through me and I promise myself if I have to kill someone, I'll make it quick. Dorn stands up and runs a foot over the marked ground to disguise our trail. He rubs his hands on his dirty jeans and looks back at me.
Something in his brown eyes somehow still makes me heart flutter when he looks at me. Some days I wake up and ask myself what I'm doing. Am I really letting myself fall in love in the middle of the hunger games? Dorn takes a step towards me. And then another. I can feel his face coming closer to mine and for the first time, I hesitate before returning the motion. I close my eyes. Is this right? It's hard not to second guess yourself when you don't know what you're doing. I'd never even been kissed before I met Dorn and sometimes I wonder whether things are moving too fast. But then again, it's difficult not to fall hard and fast when I feel like we're so goddamn perfect together and every second could be our last. I don't hesitate a second longer and stand on my tip toes to reach his lips. I feel the heat rush away from my blushing face quickly as my mouth presses just right against Dorn's in a familiar way. My heart beat starts to race as I realize something is different about this time. Something is more desperate about this kiss, like it will be the last. Just to prove myself wrong, I pull away and look at Dorn who looks nervous himself. Our eyes meet briefly before I kiss him again. I am suddenly aware that my jacket is unzipped half way and a cool breeze is blowing on my collar bone. I don't move to zip it up though, it makes me feel a little dangerous and I like it.
Haden Saen
I know we can't stop, but I'm completely exhausted. We've been walking for a good 2 hours now and I'm starting to get tired. Whitley and I are on our way to the center of the arena so we can arrive hopefully before anyone else. It's around 5 in the morning I think so we still have a good 2-3 hours to go before the surprise.
Whitley and I walk silently next to each other without saying a word for a another half an hour before something startles me. I jump about a foot in the air when I realize something is moving behind us. I freeze and out of the corner of my eye see Whitley do the same. I turn my head slowly until I'm facing backwards and can see what's behind us. I find myself face to ….er head with the faceless.
One last thing. Someone asked me who I think would play the characters of Dorn and Hailey if this was a movie I guess so here they are.
Dorn: He's supposed to have kind of dirty blond hair but Max irons matches my image in almost every other way.
Hailey: This one's kind of complicated. So the person who "created" Hailey actually told me she should look like Samantha Burton, but for some reason, I always kind of imagined her as a brunette skyler Samuels ( like in her IMBD picture)…and with brown eyes…ok I'm kind of an awful person for imagining her different…
So yeah, you can let me know if there are any other characters you want to see how I imagined.