"Tomorrow, there will be a feast at the Cornucopia," came the voice of Claudius Templesmith, echoing it's way into their little cave, "And this will be no ordinary event. You all have something that you need dearly. It will be there, marked with the number of your district."

Katniss turned to Peeta. "Your medicine."

"Or," said Backpacky, "It could be morals. You both need that."

Peeta ignored the bag. "No, Katniss. I won't let you."

"You'd do the same for me."

Peeta grabbed her hand. "Promise me you won't go."

"You'll die without it."

"I can't have you risking yourself to save me. You can win, Katniss. You can go home," Peeta squeezed her grimy, sweaty hand.

Katniss gave him a skeptical half-squint. "I don't know. Cato and Thresh are pretty crazy."

"Just promise me you won't go."

"Nope."

Peeta looked at her desperately.

"Kiiiiisss," said Backpacky.

Katniss grabbed him by a shoulder strap, and dragged him to the mouth of the cave. Picking him up over her head, she hurled him into the river with shout of rage. He skipped across some slippery stones before settling into a current, where he burned his white eyes into Katniss as the water inched him downstream.

"You will rue the day," he said.

Katniss choked back a sob.

"That's right, rue the day! Pun intended!"

"WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?!" Katniss shouted into the forest.

xxx

Night seemed to come unnaturally fast, the sun rolling away and the darkness creeping up behind it. Somewhere Katniss imagined a Gamemaker pulling some lever, as if he were simply switching the lights off. She took up her bow and arrows and climbed out of their little cave into the moonlight, which also had an unnatural quality to it. It felt too white, too perfectly round and huge.

Katniss made her way through the forest, wondering whether the other tributes would come, and what their plans would be. The empty Cornucopia shone in the artificial moonlight. A table with the promised packs was set in front of it. A tiny one, barely bigger than whatever form of medicine she assumed was in there, was marked with a twelve.

Foxface and her annoying fox shaped face dashed out of the opening of the Cornucopia, snatched up one of the packs, and lept into the forest not far from where Katniss was concealed behind a tree.

"I should've thought of that!" Katniss slammed her fist into the trunk of the unfortunate plant.

"You should've," said Backpacky.

Katniss tried to catch a look at Foxface through the greenery. Sure enough, the orange bag was now on her shoulders, staring back at her with it's cold eyes.

Angered by the site of her old equipment, Katniss broke through the bushes and made a run for the table, bow in hand. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the girl from one, and her adrenaline spiked. She got a shot off, but the girl ducked and rolled out of the way like she had been training for this her whole life. The career flicked a knife toward her, and Katniss knocked it away with her bow. The girl was on her faster than Katniss's brain could manage, given the distance, and she felt the air vanish from her lungs.

Clove pinned her to the ground and it became apparent quickly that Katniss could not unseat her.

"How the heck," panted Clove, "Did you block that knife with your bow?"

"What?"

"You hit my knife away with your bow. Do you even understand how impossible that was?"

Katniss spit up into her face.

Clove wiped it away with her sleeve. "Jeez, I'm just trying to explain-okay, look," she picked Katniss's bow up off the ground and traced the widest part of it with her finger, "This is about three inches. My knife," she produced another blade from inside of her jacket, "Is less than a centimeter across."

Katniss looked at her defiantly.

"It's incredibly difficult to hit a moving object with another moving object. I mean, look at baseball. There's a reason that if you can hit the ball three out of ten times, you're probably going to be one of the better players. And that's all those guys do. They train, all day, every day, to try and be able to hit that ball with their bat. And here's you, swinging this tiny thing, able to block this even tinier throwing knife."

Katniss kept up her glare. "What are you saying?"

"I'm just saying that it's ridiculous, and that if you somehow win, you don't deserve to."

Katniss bit the inside of her cheek, then shrugged. "Fair enough."

Clove cackled. "Anyway," she pressed the cold blade down against Katniss's cheek, "Where were we?"

She squirmed and kicked, feeling hot blood run down the side of her face.

Clove grinned. "A little fight in ya, I like that."

"Then you're gonna love me," Thresh picked her up off the ground and slammed her into the Cornucopia in one motion. She screamed for Cato, and he bashed the back of her skull against the metal. Her cries were cut short by a hollow crunch.

"Jeez, I was waiting for you to actually do something cool," Katniss pushed herself up off the ground.

"I will let you go. For Rue." Thresh picked up his own bag from the table, his eyes darting around the edges of the clearing.

"Hey, maybe we could team up too? Not that you need help, probably, but, I mean, it's coming down to the last couple people, huh? So maybe we could just team up until we got Cato-"

Thresh took off, his abundance of gear jostling.

"No? Okay. Cool. Whatever. I still have Peeta."