I wake up to find the tree shaking, and I cling to the branch, staring below me. I fully expect to find Celeste or Dixon at the bottom of the tree, but I don't see anyone. I glance at Anika on the branch the other side of the trunk. She's doing the exact same thing, glaring at the ground like she's missing something. Eventually she looks back at me, confusion and panic spread across her face.

'Earthquake.' She says with a sigh. 'Has to be.'

'There's already been an earthquake…' I say slowly, because I was in it when Dixon was chasing me, and the ground fell away.

'I know.' Anika answers gravely. 'Which means the earthquake is just the beginning. They're sending something bigger.'

Something suddenly occurs to me. It was me who was in the last earthquake, and that was recently. That was only yesterday, and I was by the boundaries. And they don't like people by the boundaries. Maybe they're still after me? Maybe they still want me dead because of that? They can't keep me in this, for sure. I've given them a bad name, I'm positive of that. I'm not fine now, by any stretch of the imagination – even mine. They can't let me win.

'Anika,' I whisper, and she turns her head to face me, a concerned look appearing on her pale face. 'd'you think they'd even let me win?'

'What?'

'I mean, if by some miracle I actually looked like I was going to win this… would they let me? I mean, I've caused trouble…' She's still looking confused, so I elaborate. 'All that stuff that's gone on with Finnick before I even came into the arena. That caused a fuss, and surely it mustn't have been all good. And now I've had all this mental crap in here…'

'They have to give everyone a fair chance, Annie.' Anika tells me strongly. 'Everyone that's here now has the same chance of winning. You, me, Celeste… Dixon. We're all even right now.'

I swallow and nod back at her. What would happen to Finnick if I died? Even more pressing, what's happening to him now?

'D'you think he's okay?' I ask Anika quietly. I don't even need to tell her who he is, she knows.

She runs her hand through her hair and sighs. 'I don't know.' She says frankly. 'You know him one hell of a lot better than I do.'

I nod, but I can't stop the tears that are building up in the back of my eyes. 'But… in Kane's letter… it said he was taking it really badly…' Anika just looks at me, and in her eyes she's telling me not to cry, not to get emotional about it. 'I just don't want him to be upset about it. It'll do so much more damage than he thinks.'

'What do you mean?' Anika pries.

I swallow back my tears and look back at her honestly. 'If he falls apart, he'll be just as crazy as I was. Maybe more so.' I sigh and brush my hair off my face. 'It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.' I say with a sigh, trying to hold back all the many tears I can feel behind my eyes.

Anika nods, she knows she doesn't need to say anything right now. I hope he's not taking it too badly. I really don't want him to get hurt because of me… If I'm strong enough, I can get back to him. But I honestly don't think I can. The Gamemakers will be so against me by now, I've given them so much trouble…

My thoughts break when I hear the sound of running water, fast running water. I flick my head around to where it's coming from, and see a huge tidal wave heading our way. Too fast to act on it, but not fast enough to eliminate the time to think.

'Grab on!' Anika screams at me over the noise. The second I've managed to cling onto the trunk of the tree, the wave hits us. It's rushing past me, grasping at me skins, slapping at my face and snapping at my legs. I can't breathe, every breath I'm trying to take is filled with water, and I can feel my lungs slowly starting to collapse with a weight I can't place. My eyes are stinging from the fast moving water, and I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, even loading than the roaring of the water.

It subsides as fast as it approached us, and leaves me gasping for breath, still clinging onto the tree. Anika's breathless too, but I think she held her breath. She reaches around the back of the tree, and I can feel her thump me on the back a few times, before I spit out all the water I inhaled.

'Okay?' She asks me.

'Yeah,' I answer, my voice now raspy from the coughing. 'you?'

'Sure.' She says flatly.

We both look down below us at the ground, except it's not there anymore. All we can see beneath us is water. For miles all around, just water.

'What do we do now?' Anika asks sadly, all the previous hope in her voice disappearing with every word. I shake my head, because I don't know. Anika can't swim. We both know that. She is going to die here. Soon. I should have thought about this sooner, in order for one person to leave, everyone else must die. Therefore, both myself and Anika cannot leave this arena alive. I can't think about that, though. I really can't. She means more to me than Nick ever did, and if she dies… when she dies…

There's a scream from somewhere really close by. Anika turns to me, wide-eyed. Celeste. We both peer around the trees, trying to see where her voice is coming from, but we see something else instead. Far off in the distance, but just within our view, there seems to be a hole in the water. And when I look harder, I can tell it's a whirlpool.

'Shit,' Anika whispers to herself, as she notices it to. 'I'm not getting out of this one.'

I swallow, as I can feel a lump in my throat as she says that. 'I can help you…' I suggest meekly. She laughs coldly, and shakes her head at me.

'Don't be stupid, Annie,' she says softly. 'you can't help me swim through that.' She takes a deep breath, as Celeste starts screaming again. 'I'll take her out. I'll go for Celeste. Neither of us can swim, so we can drown each other. Then you're on your own, and you'll have to take Dixon out alone.'

'He can swim.' I tell her quietly.

'You can swim better.' She replies strongly. I breathe in deeply and don't reply. She's right. I know she is, deep down. But I wish she wasn't. I don't care about Celeste, and I loathe Dixon, but I'd love for Anika to make it out alive. She's helped me so much, for no reason, as well. She had no obligation to me, and yet she's helped me throughout this entire experience. I owe her everything, and now she's going to die here.

The screams get louder, as we finally see Celeste, floating into view not too far away from our tree. She thrashing around and gasping, her arms flailing around as she tries to stop the current pulling her away.

'Let's do this.' Anika says, barely giving me chance to reply before she grabs my arm, and pulls us both out of the tree, and plummet straight into the cold water. I surface quickly and take a gasp for air, dragging Anika to the surface with me. I keep her floating in the water while she finds Celeste in her view again.

'Just help me get closer to her,' Anika starts. 'then as soon as I grab onto her, you go and find Dixon.'

I don't reply, I just look at her. I can't talk, I know my voice will shake if I do. I just cannot even express how much I owe her for what she's doing.

'Annie,' She snaps around to face me. 'listen to me. You are going to win, do you hear me? You are going to let me kill Celeste, and I'll drown doing it. If you're going to win, you'd have had to kill me, anyway. Did you really want it to come down to me and you? You are going to get back to Finnick. You're going to kill Dixon, and you are going to make it out alive. That's not negotiable, Annie. That's what's going to happen. Do you understand?'

I nod at her, biting my lip to stop myself crying. 'Thanks.' I manage to say, even then my voice shaking.

She shakes her head and gives me a smile. 'Don't mention it.' She turns away from me then, her eyes trained on Celeste. 'Now, let's go.'

I do what she says, and help her swim towards Celeste. She sees us coming, but there's absolutely nothing she can about it. She just screams more, shouting at us not to hurt her.

'Go after Dixon!' She yells at me, tears streaming down her face. She ducks her head under the water involuntarily, then bobs back up, coughing and spitting out water. 'D-don't kill me!' Through all the hard comments she's made, and violent acts she's committed… underneath that she's as scared as the rest of us. She was pretending, just like I was when I got reaped. That blank expression I put on my face, and letting everyone believe I was a Career, that's exactly what she's been doing. She is a Career, but she's been pretending she's confident, pretending she's not terrified inside. I feel a tweak of guilt, and a little closeness towards her. But not enough to erase the anger I feel towards her for her sadistic behaviour ever since I first set eyes on her. Even through her lies and false confidence, she deserves this.

Anika lets go of me. I feel her hand loosen its grip on my arm, and I that's when I can feel her slipping away. This is it. This is the last thing she's ever going to do in her life. But I don't have time to dwell on it. I'd rather not watch her die.

I start swimming away before I can see much. I catch a glimpse of her grabbing Celeste around the neck, before they both drop under the water and out of sight. That's it.

I force myself not to look back. There's no use. Anika's right. If I'm going to get out of here, she needs to die. I should be thankful she was willing to help me do it, rather than get in my way. She had a lot of opportunities to kill me, and she never took them. I owe it to her to let her go out the way she wants to. I need to locate Dixon now.

A cannon goes off, startling me, and I momentarily freeze, letting a wave of water into my mouth. I spit it out and shake my head. That's one of them gone. It's impossible to tell which. A second cannon rings out now, and that's for certain that they're both gone now. Anika and Celeste are both dead. There's only me and Dixon left. Only him standing between me and getting back home. I can feel the anger rising up inside me. He is not going to stop me. I want to kill him.

Something grabs me from behind, grabs my legs, and pulls me under the water. I try and struggle to turn around, but it won't let me. It takes me a few seconds to think of it, but I kick whatever it is, hard. It lets go and I whip around. Dixon.

'Told you it would be me and you, Annie!' He shouts above the water, an insane grin on his face. I can feel my eyes changing colour, and I have honestly never felt more angry than I am now. His actions led to Nick's death. He stopped Ruby killing herself. He killed Oz. He tricked me.

I launch myself at him through the water, my hands finding his neck and pressing down as hard as I possibly can. He struggles at first, as I took him by surprise, but then I feel something close around my neck. Something tightening, ripping at the skin… my necklace. Finnick's necklace. He's trying to strangle me with Finnick's necklace! I gasp for breath, trying my hardest to tear his hands away from my neck, off my necklace.

'Ironic, isn't it?' He says through gritted teeth, his face impossible close to mine as he leers at me. 'He sends you this to try and keep you alive, and I'm using it to kill you.'

I've got some strength from somewhere, and I honestly don't care where, and I manage to loosen his grip, enough to be able to shout 'No!' before I can break his hold on the necklace. As I force his hands away, I notice the necklace go speeding off in the water, as well. I watch it go, wishing I could have it back… that was keeping me sane…

The current underneath us suddenly becomes stronger, whipping us towards the whirlpool at an astonishing speed. I can feel myself behind ducked under the water, and I can see Dixon making failed grabs at me under the water. I need to find something to hold on to. I can barely see anything, but my arms find something solid, and I grab onto it with all the strength I have. I feel something snap in my leg as my body carries on travelling before it's brought to a jolting halt as I'm holding on and stopping the movement. It hurts like hell, and I can't help but shout out, but there's nothing I can do about it now.

I force myself to forget about how weak I feel, and how much my leg hurts, and manage to haul myself up onto the rock I've been holding onto. It must be the top of the caves, but I really don't care. It's above the water, so it's safe. I take a few well earned gulps of air, before I realise Dixon's had the same idea. He's climbing up the rock as well, and horrible and sour look in his eyes.

'It's not that easy, Annie.' He growls at me, as he joins me on the rock. 'What are you going to do now? Push me off the rock? You're not strong enough.'

My head finds some strange déjà vu in that… 'You're in the arena, I've just come at you, neither of us are armed. Hit me.' 'knock me over.' … Finnick. He prepared me for this. He's right. Neither me nor Dixon are armed. If I push him off this rock, he'll drop into that water and head straight for the whirlpool. What did I do when I did this with Finnick? How did I manage it? I just… I can't… I distracted him.

'You're right.' I tell Dixon. 'I'm not strong enough.'

He grins at me and relaxes, a cold grin etches onto his lips. 'Didn't think so. It ends here, Annie. I would say I'm sorry… but I'm really not-'

And I launch myself at him. He dropped his guard, and gave me the opportunity to strike. I struggle with him for a second, maybe less, before he loses his balance, and the only thing holding him above the water is me.

'Well done,' he says in a whisper. 'but can you really kill me? Can you actually murder me in cold blood? Are you a killer?' Although he may not be in a position to laugh, his eyes are. He might be right. Why am I holding him up? Why don't I just let go? I want to let him go! But my body won't let me! He's grinning at me, he knows I can't do it! What am I meant to do now? How am I supposed to win if I can't kill the one person standing in my way? What am I meant to do!

A gold sparkle catches my eye. My necklace! It's coming towards us… I don't even think about it. I drop Dixon like a hot coal, and scoop my necklace out of the water, clasping it into my hand to make sure I don't let it go again.

Dixon's shouting incomprehensible things at me, between dropping under the water and being slammed against tree trunks by the current. He's right next to the whirlpool, and I'm about to watch him die.

'Bitch!' I hear him shout at the top of his voice, before I see him disappear into the centre of the whirling water. A cannon sounds and everything goes silent. The water stops instantly, leaving a strange, eerie silence in its wake.

I swallow. What happens now?

'Congratulations.' I almost jump out of my skin when I hear Claudius Templesmith's voice boom out across the arena. 'Annie Cresta, you are the Victor. You will return to the Capitol shortly.' And that's it. It's just me.

It's a terrible thought, that twenty-four of us came into this arena, and they are all dead now. I'm the only one left. It's just me in this vast arena, with nothing but silence. I find myself crying, and I'm not sure how long I've been crying and not realised. Every emotion I've tried to push back into my heart today has resurfaced. Anika… she's dead. She killed Celeste and I don't even know which of them died first.

I look up the sky and still see nothing, so I curl up on my rock and cry. I know it will look bad, but I don't need sponsors now. It doesn't matter anymore. Nothing does! I let myself cry how much I want to, screaming into the silence and I don't even know what I'm saying, tears streaming down my cheeks. I see blood below me, and that's what makes me stop. I gasp, as I forget again that I'm alone. My first thought is that Dixon's come up behind me and cut me… but he's dead. It's just me. I look down at my hand and realise that I've been gripping the trident on the necklace so hard that I've cut my palm. I've got three round cuts from each of the prongs on the trident. I didn't even feel it. I still don't.