I walk up to the wall that has separated us. As if hoping I can somehow get through it, but the cold stone is solid and real beneath my palms.

I shout Peeta's name, but there is nothing. He cannot hear me.

I am suddenly alone in these tunnels.

I turn, pressing my back against the new wall. I glance around at the other walls as if at any moment they will start closing in on me and crush me.

There's movement to my right. Something whisks from my tunnel into another. I move away from the wall, following the movement. I do not think it is a person. It is too small and flutters against the ceiling. I am tempted to think it is a bird, but I am also fearful that it is some type of mutt…

I have my bow loaded and ready as I follow the thing.

It picks up in flight. I chase. As I am jogging after it, I hear a distance voice. It echoes down one of the tunnels. I stop, turning to the opening. I wait. I must have heard it incorrectly. It had sounded like…

"Katniss!"

I whip to my right. A wall that had been there moments ago is now gone.

"Katniss!"

I hurry back towards the missing wall. I get just a glimpse of Johanna, shouting my name, moving through the tunnels. Then the wall visibly slides closed in front of me. I pound a fist against it. I can no longer hear Johanna calling my name.

"Katniss!" screams another voice. "Katniss! Katniss, hurry."

That is not Johanna.

Nor Peeta.

The voice is distorted by the caves and the distance between us, but it takes me only a few seconds to recognize it as Prim's. I am hesitant to follow at first. I do not understand. How could I hear Prim?

"Kat–"

The voice cuts into a horrifying, blood chilling scream.

The panic overtakes my logical mind. It does not matter that it does not make sense. Something is wrong with her. I have no sense of loyalty to the alliance, no thought, nothing but a need to protect my sister. I am running down the passage, bow at the ready, further and further from the place where I started. The cold air burns my lungs and the uneven floor catches at my boots.

"Prim!" I shout. "Prim! I'm coming."

Where is she? What are they doing to her?

Only another agonized scream answers me.

How did she get here? Why is she part of the Games?

"Prim!"

I throw myself around a bend, and my shoulder slams painful against the rock, but I keep going. I am getting closer to her. Closer. Very close now. Sweat pours down my face. My shoulder is a static of pain but I refuse to lower my bow.

I pant, trying to get some use out of the thin cold air of these tunnels.

Prim makes a sound–such a lost, irretrievable sound–that I can't even imagine what they have done to evoke it.

"Prim!"

At the next bend, the passage slides closed. I look around wildly for another passageway, and one opens up on my left. I follow Prim's voice. Except, just as I am almost to her, there's another wall. I throw myself at it in frustration. I can hear her voice behind it. "Prim!"

Then I hear another scream, coming from behind me. It is not Prim's. It's Gale's.

I cannot see him down the corridor, but I can hear him as if he is right on top of me.

Then I look up.

Jabberjays.

I have never seen one before, but I can pick out characteristics within it that resemble the mockingjay.

The bird above me opens its beak and out comes Gale's voice, pleading my name.

It isn't real, I tell myself, over and over again. None of this has been real. The same way the mutts last year weren't really the dead tributes. It's just a sadistic trick of the Gamemakers.

None of it is real. Not Prim. Not Gale.

I stand up, bow still loaded and walk purposefully away from the bird. It follows me, and another joins it. This one sounds like Posy.

I stumble through the tunnels, haunted by these birds. I'm utterly lost. I turn one way, then I'm forced to turn back, constantly finding dead ends. Again and again, I run down one way and then turn. I try to beat the walls that are sliding closed right before my eyes, but I fear I will get myself crushed if I keep diving past them.

I try calling out my alliance members name's, but I realize this is useless. If they are also surrounded by jabberjays, they will likely just think I am one.

I lose my temper and shoot down both the birds. I do not take them to eat. They disgust me too much.

Killing them is futile anyway. Three more birds round the next corner, screaming in the voices of my loved ones.

I just start running with abandon, not stopping. I keep going and going, sure that if I move too fast, they will not risk moving walls that may crush me. This is a stupid thought. Out of nowhere the ground beneath my feet slides away. I fall some six feet, and land hard against mossy stone. The fall has knocked the breath out of me and I just lay there for a moment, clutching my bow.

This tunnel, beneath the one I had been in, is about half the size. It is barely tall enough for me to walk upright. I do not start running wildly this time. I am afraid they will slip the ground out from under me again.

Another jabberjay comes at me. It is a small, crested black bird, and looks so harmless, but then it opens its beak, the sound of my mother's voice ringing clear as a bell from it. It hits the floor with a thud, my arrow through its heart. For a moment, I stare at it, then I collect my arrow and start moving.

I begin to hear another voice; and it is my voice. I hear myself screaming in the distance.

Then there is Peeta's voice, shouting my name over and over again.

"Where are you?" Peeta is shouting, begging, and his voice is so full of anguish and sorrow that I immediately run towards the sound.

"Peeta!" I shout, but the call is drowned out by the jabberjay emitting my screams. "Peeta!" I try again, futility. He can only hear the jabberjays.

I come around a bend and down the length of the entire corridor, I see him. His head is twisting from side to side, watching the jabberjays flutter on the walls around him. He is distraught and alone.

"Peeta!" I call.

This time he hears me. Our eyes meet and he begins running toward me. I pick up my own pace.

The Gamemakers have other plans.

Just before we reach each other the tunnel before us is cut off with a sharp, sudden, and silent movement of stone, blocking our paths. I throw myself against this wall in anger.

I stumble back from it, seething with frustration. I can still hear Peeta and the jabberjay with my voice.

I move along that same wall. I run my hand across it, as if I could find some secret latch, some magic lever, to move the stone again.

I press myself against the stone, straining to hear him.

That is, I was doing that, until the floor underneath me sweeps aside and I fall, slamming into another mossy floor.

With a vicious and painfully final shudder the stone ceiling above me slams closed again.

I can no longer stand straight in this tunnel, with how short and narrow it is; I have to crawl to move.

Still clutching my bow, dragging it with me, I crawl along the passage. The air is even thinner here.

I have to get out of here.

I round three corners before I can hear another voice. I switch directions to follow it. I do not recognize this voice at all, but if the jabberjays are torturing someone with it, it's likely one of my alliance members.

The Gamemakers have given up on the magic and mystery of the tunnels. They are simply shifting and changing them constantly around me. They seem to be herding me in a specific direction. I grip my bow tightly. I cannot shoot in this narrow passage. If they are leading me into a fight, I am in trouble.

A woman's piercing scream echoes through the tunnel. This woman does not speak, just continues such a long, drawn-out errant call, I wonder how the jabberjay has managed to do it.

Eventually, I just stop crawling, trying to catch my breath. Sweat drips down my neck. I rest my forehead against the cold stone. I close my eyes and attempt to collect myself.

"Katniss?"

I open my eyes. Johanna crawls in the tunnel in front of me.

"Where are the others?" I say quickly, afraid to get cut off. "What happened to you and Finnick?"

"I don't know. We got cut off by a wall. The Careers, too. You are the only one I have seen."

"I saw Peeta, but the Gamemakers cut us off, too," I tell her.

"I hear Finnick."

I pause, listening. Yes, I can hear Finnick, too. He is shouting.

"To the right," Johanna says, indicating a passage next to me.

We crawl for some time, constantly changing directions, until, eventually, I realize following my ears is not the best means to track a sound in complex underground tunnels that echo.

"Finnick!" I shout, wondering if my voice will travel the way his is. The wild scream continues. I can only assume it is for him. "Who is it?" I ask Johanna.

"Annie Cresta," Johanna says.

"Who?"

"Annie Cresta. She's the girl Mags volunteered for. She won about five years ago," says Johanna. "He's loved her forever."

That would have been the summer after my father died, when I first began feeding my family. My whole being was occupied with battling starvation. I do not remember those Games.

"She didn't look too stable during the reaping this year."

"No," Johanna agrees. Her voice is grave.

There is no further comment. There is no need for one by the tone of her voice.

So that's who Finnick loves, I can't help thinking. Not his string of fancy lovers in the Capitol. But a poor, mad girl back home.

The closer we seem to get to him, the further he really is. Gamemakers must not want us to meet up if this is how the tunnels are leading us. Slowly, our own hauntings find us. The jabberjays' wings beat around us, slapping at our faces. I try to push them away, but they are insistent.

Johanna is shouting curses.

"I know they aren't real!" she screams. "They're dead! Don't you remember? You killed them! This doesn't do anything!"

Shouting at the Capitol is not going to help, but I am not about to tell her that.

It is getting more difficult to crawl, as if the tunnel is getting smaller. I feel the claustrophobia. It would be so easy for us to die here, for us to be trapped forever. Crawling for an eternity without getting anywhere. Johanna is falling behind, and I tell her to keep up, or we could get separated by a wall again. She wraps a hand around my ankle as we crawl to help ensure they cannot do that.

Not long after, the ground beneath me opens up, and Johanna is not prepared. My ankle slips from her grasp. This time all I can see below me is blackness; it is not a short fall. I can hear Johanna's shout as I fall only for a moment, and then the floor closes again, ensuring she cannot follow me down.

I clutch my glasses to my face and keep a strong hold on my bow, but my arrows have flown from the quiver. I can only hope to collect them again once I land. If I land safely.

I brace myself, but the smack of the water still hurts.

I struggle to the surface with my hands full. Once I surface, I see that I have landed in the reservoir. Thankfully there is no water current. My arrows fall around me, floating on top of the water. I swim around, collecting them before they have a chance to sink. Some do.

The water is so cold.

After I have collected the arrows, I start to swim towards the rocks that are to the side of the reservoir, and then I stop, stunned.

Chaff stands poised on the rocks. He has a spear in his hand.

We stare at each other.

I am utterly defenseless, treading the cold water. I am just far enough away to make it difficult to hit me and to kill me with that hit, but he still could have thrown the spear at any time. It is his only spear, though. Perhaps he has only not attacked me yet because he does not want to miss.

I raise one of my hands above the water as a sign of peace.

"Where are the others?" he asks, his voice harsh.

"I don't know. We were separated. I am alone," I tell him.

"I don't believe you," he says.

I indicate around us. "You would have seen them fall, too."

He narrows his eyes, distrusting.

Does he know about the original rescue mission? Is he hesitating to kill me because of this? Could I somehow win his favor by including him in on the escape plan? Would he believe that? If he knows about the original plan, maybe he would, but if he does not then he would think I have lost my mind.

"Truce?" I ask him, fearing this is futile.

Chaff breaks eye contact. He frowns, and then repositions the spear, and coils his arm, readying to throw it. I turn, ducking under the water. It is difficult to swim quickly without free hands.

The spear barely misses my leg.

I pop back up to the surface.

"Truce?" I say again, angry now. I struggle to stay above the surface while I do so; but I load the bow and pull back the string. I could let the arrow fly. I may be less accurate, and my abdomen muscles are screaming from holding the stance while treading water, but I could do it.

Chaff backs away but does not surrender.

I do not want to shoot him. I wish he would just agree to a truce. I do not want to kill Haymitch's friend. But he may not give me a choice. I cannot swim forever. I will freeze. If I swim to the rocks without his truce, he could ambush me while I am getting out of the water. He's a grown man. Even without a hand he could beat me in weaponless combat.

Chaff opens his mouth to speak, but he suddenly closes it. He looks up.

A parachute floats down between us, landing in front of him.

He does not move at first, still eyeing my loaded bow.

I can only hold the pose for a minute more, maybe less.

"Truce?" I ask for the last time.

Chaff stoops forward and knocks open the parachute. I cannot see what's in it from where I am.

He looks shocked, but then he looks at me and says, "Yes, truce."

"Really?" I say, hardly believing him.

Chaff relaxes completely, sitting down in front of the parachute. "Really," he says.

I have a hard time trusting him. He is far enough away from the place where I can climb out of the water, and if he does not move, then I can get on the rocks safely. Once on the rocks, my bow will certainly be a deterrent from betraying me, as long as I keep that distance.

I swim over.

I am dripping wet.

Chaff glances up at me. "Sorry for throwing a spear at you."

This is the first time I have seen him in this Hunger Games and he looks terrible. He's in only his undershirt and pants. There is a cut running across his collarbones. His jacket is laying out to dry on the rocks behind him. He has a sizable black eye.

"Looks like it sank," I say, relieved he will be unarmed from now on.

Chaff holds up what came in the parachute. It's bread. Made of dark ration grain and shaped in a crescent. Sprinkled with seeds. District 11. The same bread I received in my first Hunger Game, after Rue's death.

Of course, Chaff getting a donation of bread from his home district in an arena notoriously without food is not cause for surprise. But – assuming he has not received any sponsored gifts until now – he would have no choice but to conclude he has received this gift in relation to me, as a message to agree.

Who had sent it though? Haymitch?

The crescent shaped bread is cut into thirteen pieces. Chaff hands me one. I turn it over in my hands, wondering if the thirteen pieces means something, or if it means something to Chaff.

Through a mouthful of bread, Chaff says, "Pop a squat, friend."

I sit, cautiously. I take a small bite out of the bread. It is delicious. I did not realize how much I am craving sugar. All that salty bread from District 4 certainly does not help.

Chaff indicates my claw-marked hand. "Ouch," he says.

"Mutts," I say. I indicate his black eye.

"Careers," he says.

"I have to find Peeta," I say next. "My whole alliance, actually. We had a plan to get rid of the Careers."

"Oh?" says Chaff. "Did Beetee come up with it?"

"Yes," I say, glad that he is asking that. Perhaps he does know about the rescue mission. If so, there is a good chance he will join the alliance and attempt to escape with us. This is a relief.

Chaff tears off another huge bite of bread, chewing loudly. "Okay."

It is that easy.

Too easy.

I nibble on the bread, but it is hard to eat without knowing if my alliance members are safe. Peeta could still be running around in the maze, tortured by the jabberjays. Johanna could still be crawling through the dark. Finnick could have run into the Careers alone. Beetee… oh no, Beetee. He does not have night vision glasses.

The bread tastes like sawdust suddenly. I cannot enjoy it.

My only solace is that there have been no cannon shots.

Chaff and I agree to stay here for the night and then we will move out in search of the others in the morning.

Chaff has shown no signs of hostility since the arrival of the bread. I can only assume that if he knew about the original rescue mission, he must have figured out that the arena is not what it was supposed to be and that the original plans had somehow gone astray. This would explain why he did not want to ally at first. Without a rescue mission, than the Quell is just a normal Hunger Games. While many victors that are in on the pact may have been prepared to sacrifice themselves for me, I find it more likely that most are in on it in the hopes that they can be rescued along with me. Me living for the rebellion is just a coincidental and happy plus.

As we settle in for the night, I stare out across the reservoir with an empty satisfaction. It's the night of the third day, and tomorrow all of our hopes come to fruition. I could just stay here, waiting until midnight tomorrow, then escape on my own. But I won't leave without Peeta. I have to find him at the very least, if not all the others. Our plan was to meet at the Cornucopia. That's where I intend to go.

I do not expect sleep to come at all, but eventually, I fall asleep.