Hey guys! Just a heads up: I'm going to take a break from writing this for a while starting tomorrow. School stuff and what not. Hey, now, don't get all upset- it'll only be for a week or so. I expect to start posting again by next Monday. That's the 15th if you're reading this late. Cheers! ~Oddtom

As her pride returned to her, Cassida decided that she was not going to give Amagi the satisfaction of her victory. Her fear turning to fury, she vowed that she would somehow escape from this place and get revenge on Amagi.

Her eyes slowly adjusting to the dark, she could now make out the outline of the catwalk in front of her in the dim light. Groping for the handrail, she slowly made her way forward into the murky depths.

Mikey felt like he was going to split down the middle.

Now sprawled on the floor, he was caught in the middle of a tug of war between the lizard muttations, which had a solid grip on his arm, and Stella, who was trying to pull him through to the next room. Though she was braced against the door, she was losing the battle.

As Stella pulled on his arm, she could see that it was completely pointless. She was only prolonging the inevitable. Furthermore, the longer she kept the door open, the more exposed she would be to an attack. How easy it would be, she thought, to just release him and be done with it. After all, she had already saved his life once, and what had he done for her?

Nobody would blame her. How could she be expected to continue to risk her life for Mikey when she had her own life to worry about. She probably wouldn't have been able to save him anyway and, after all, this is the Hunger Games- people die all the time.

Making an executive decision, she decided that she would have to let him go if she was to live.

Stella watched Mikey's horrified expression as she slowly released her grip. Then, she watched as Mikey's hand slipped through her sweaty palms, and he was dragged away, disappearing into the darkness.

Stella slammed the door closed and locked it behind him.

Cassida descended the stairs at the end of the catwalk and found herself in a cold, dimly lit rectangular room with concrete floors. She took a few cautious steps forward, but stopped when she thought she heard something emanating from the depths. "Who's there?"

She knew that she probably sounded stupid asking the question, but she didn't know what else to say. In response, she heard something softly snarling at her from the depths. She didn't know what was out there or if it could see her, but she decided to draw her sword anyway.

However, when she reached for her sword, she found that her sheath was empty.

Thinking back, she was chagrined when she remembered that she had left it firmly embedded in the great lizard's tongue. She heard the snarl again, and it was closer this time. Cassida turned to face the threat, slowly backing from it.

The muttations snarled madly as they wrenched and thrashed Mikey about. With his free hand, Mikey batted the creatures' claws out of the way as they slashed at him. In a last ditch effort to get away, he reached over to his left arm, and began to manually twist the elbow. There was a series of soft clicking sounds followed by the hiss of escaping gases as his entire forearm detached.

The lizards had not expected this sudden lapse in resistance, and sprawled backward into the darkness with Mikey's prosthetic arm. A shower of sparks suddenly burst from the prosthetic, illuminating the immediate area. He could see three of the lizard muttations now, and the sight of them fighting over his arm terrified him more than when he had been in darkness.

Without a weapon, Cassida closed her hand around her district token, a single shark tooth threaded around her neck. Remembering what she told Caesar when he had asked about it during her interview, she repeated aloud now what she had said then.

"Nothing can stop a Callero."

She ripped the necklace off and gripped the serrated shark tooth tightly in her fist and yelled out into the darkness. "Come on! I'm right here!"

There was nothing but silence.

She was suddenly hit forcefully in the chest, and fell over backwards. She tried to get up, but there was a heavy weight holding her down. She felt a sharp pain in her chest and, feeling for the problem, found several sharp claws attached to scaly, muscular legs.

The thing was standing on her.

This was not how she planned for it to end. Not before she got back at Amagi for her treachery. She gripped the legs and pushed up with all her strength, knocking the lizard mutt off balance. While it was trying to find its feet, Cassida jumped on top of it and began stabbing at any exposed part she could find with the serrated tooth.

The lizard shrieked in pain and backed away.

Cassida was back on her feet now, swinging wildly into the darkness. Though she couldn't see, she was hoping the creature would come within arm's reach once again so she could continue to slash at it. What she got instead was another solid blow to the chest as the lizard whipped its tail around, knocking her backward.

She hit one of the walls, disturbing a rack of objects that had been hanging there. There was a loud clattering sound as several long, metallic objects fell free and clattered onto the floor. She had lost her grip on the shark tooth during the last hit, and now grasped for one of these metallic object instead, swinging it in front of her as the lizard muttation once again attacked.

As she held the metallic rod, she found a kind of trigger near one end. Pulling the trigger, she saw a shower of sparks viciously snapping across the two-pronged tip. The violet electricity crackled as it lit up in the darkness and Cassida began laughing maniacally. "Come and get me! Cassie's got a surprise for you!"

Stella now found herself alone in the darkness, but it didn't really bother her. Mikey's death was nagging at her, but she refused to get upset. She knew from the beginning that this was going to happen eventually and she had intentionally not placed any emotional value into their friendship. Then why did this bother her?

An image of Mikey ripped open by the lizard's claws and slowly bleeding out floated through her mind, but she violently shoved it away. She hadn't done anything wrong. If anything, he was the bad guy here, leaving her to fight for her life while he moved on to a better place.

She sat down, rehashing all the reasons that she could not possibly have saved him and how if she had done anything different, the lizards would have come through the door to attack her. Though she didn't want to think about it, it constantly nagged at her as she sat and waited for the daylight to return.

As night fell, she could hear the anthem blaring out across the arena, but, indoors, she couldn't see the display in the night sky. Any other night, it may have reminded her how close she was to winning, but she didn't particularly want to see the faces of either Joule or Mikey, who had joined Rachel on the list of people who had died just as she decided to trust them.

She lay down and closed her eyes, but she was not going to get any sleep that night.

After locking Cassida up in the bunker, Amagi had turned and headed back the way they had come. Though she knew that the giant lizard may be awaiting, she preferred the enemy she did know to the enemy that she didn't know. Darkness fell as she walked through the jungle, and she decided to climb a tree to sleep for the night.

Though she had no way of securing herself to the tree, she knew that it would likely be much safer than staying on the jungle floor. With no supplies but the swords on her back, she picked out a large tree with sizable branches that she could spend the night in.

She woke up in the early hours of the morning to the sound of her stomach rumbling. She had not expected to be caught in a situation where food wasn't available, especially after having stowed several bags of supplies, but what would the Hunger Games be without hunger?

Jumping down from the tree, she decided that her best bet would be to look for the pack again. Thinking back, she was sure that it must have been there, she just hadn't looked for it enough. Cassida had made sure of that. However, without that pesky Cassida bothering her, she was sure that she would find them.

She crossed the fence just as the sun broke over the horizon and set off toward the direction she believed the meadow was. Working her way through the jungle, she was confused when the foliage slowly changed to something unfamiliar to her. The trees here bore bundles of long, thin yellow fruits that she recognized from training. Looking around, they were everywhere. She had stumbled into some sort of banana grove.

Happy at her luck, she plucked several ripe bananas and sat down to enjoy the breakfast she had scavenged. As she sat beneath one of the shadier banana trees, something appeared over the treeline to the south that caught her eye. A single column of smoke was rising up from a campfire in the distance.

She was not alone.