A/N: Only two days late posting, yay? I really am so sorry, and here's your chapter.

Chapter 2

Around dawn, I wake up to see Riana's face right in front of me.

"I want to give up!" she whispers. "I don't think I can do this killing any more. I don't want to murder anyone else."

Carefully, I push her off me and look around. Tad is sitting by the fire. He is the only person awake apart from Riana and me; he took over on watch at what we reckoned was midnight.

"Don't give up," I whisper back. "We need you in our plan to kill Tad."

She looks at me like I'm crazy.

"Are you kidding?" she hisses. "I'm never going to give up, because I'm going to win! Shut up weirdo, and go back to sleep."

I roll over, baffled. What was she on about? One second she's going suicidal, the next she's a vicious... thing. I've never seen anything like it!

Well, that's not true.

When I was very little, just before the Dark Days began, my oldest sister, Aimee, brought home a cat. To start with, it was the sweetest thing, and would sit on her lap for hours on end, allowing itself to be stroked.

But then my mother found out. She and my sister – who was only nine at the time – had a huge row about it. And that was when the cat struck.

I don't actually remember the whole thing, only the cat on my sister's lap and the clawed mess that was left of my sister afterwards. She still has the scars.

That was then, this is now, and I'm still in the arena, somehow falling asleep at some point.

I am woken by a cannon shot and lots of shouting. It takes me a few seconds to figure out what is being yelled.

"Her body was a mutilated mess!" yells Tad. "How could I have done that?!"

"Exactly!" says Robert. "He doesn't have the tools."

Hang on, what?! Robert is defending Tad? I pinch myself, hard, and draw blood. Yep, it's real.

But why?

"Shut up, Robert!" screams Rachel. "You're telling lies! That mess could've been made by anything!"

"QUIET!" roars Drew, who has just woken up. "Can one of you bickering idiots tell me what's going on?"

"Yes," snarls Alexx. "This morning, Riana was killed. Her body was found over there by Tad – who was on guard. It is a mutilated mess."

"So?"

"So we can't trust Tad to be our leader if all he's going to do is kill us and mutilate our bodies overnight! Or are you too thick to see that?!"

"But it wasn't me!" cries Tad. "Look, whoever did this will still be here, waiting for the next of us. Divide and conquer, they say, and we're being divided and are ready to be conquered!"

Everyone stares blankly.

"Who's with me?" asks Tad, his voice edging towards desperate or hysterical or both.

No-one talks or moves. Even Robert has given up his false opinion.

After a few ever-lasting seconds of silence, Alexx suddenly lashes her whip at Tad, creating a gash across his chest.

Divide and conquer. The words spin around in my mind, bringing forward but not quite revealing a long-lost memory.

Divide and conquer.

Alexx's sudden attack starts a sort of free-for-all at Tad within the group. Divide and conquer. Metal flashes. Blood spills. Divide and conquer, divide and conquer.

Tad's tattered body lands on the ground with a boom! Oh no, that's the cannon. Blood pours from his wounds, staining the ground a vivid red.

My breaths come short and fast. Divide and conquer, divide and conquer, divide and conquer…

The images flicker through my mind like birds taking flight; my mother arguing with Aimee, my oldest sister. Divide and conquer. The world around me going up in flames. Divide and conquer, divide and conquer. Screams ringing out through the house, through the district. Divide and conquer, divide and conquer, divide and conquer.

"Frances!" Rachel's voice floats into my consciousness. "Frances! Frances!"

My eyes jerk open.

"What?" I ask.

"Are you ok?"

No. "Yeah, I'm fine."

I breathe deeply and wipe the cold sweat from my face.

And then I throw up.

I haven't been sick for ten years. That's a long time. And in ten years, I've forgotten how awful it is, especially when there's nothing in your stomach.

"Hey, calm down, you little liar. Come on now, lie down."

I do exactly as Rachel says and I'm asleep in seconds.

"Andrew?" says Sarah, my amazing girlfriend.

"Yeah?" I reply.

"When are we moving?"

"Tomorrow."

We're currently on the sixth island, a pretty wood of beech trees. If I had some paper, I would draw it, but I don't.

We've been here since day one, and we're getting up and moving again tomorrow.

Moving will be quite a big operation, as I have all my traps to transport, but I know we can't just stay in the same place or we'll get targeted by the Gamemakers.

That happened a couple of years ago, actually. A tribute tried to just live in a hole, but she got chased out by mutts. It was awful.

Sarah sighs and leans her head onto my lap. I smile down at her and fiddle with her wavy blonde hair. She's so beautiful. She deserves so much more than I can give her. That's why I'm protecting her; we're going to make it to the last two and then she can win and go home to her family in District Seven. My family doesn't need me, but her family does.

I am willing to give my life for her.

When I wake up, the camp is in chaos. Not a panicked chaos, more of a friendly chaos, but chaos all the same. It's amazing that only four people could make such a mess.

It appears that someone found some wine.

Alexx and Drew have disappeared into our tent along with a couple of bottles; Robert is actually talking to Rachel and Rachel is laughing a lot.

Basically, everyone's drunk.

Great.

Suddenly, I notice something: a pool of water by the side of our camp. As I stare, it grows, and many more pools of water appear and grow with it.

We're being flooded.

"Robert!" I yell. "Robert, the water!"

"Huh?" he says, his speech slightly slurred. "What vater? I shee no vater!"

"But…" I give up. He's no use. I'm on my own here.

I try to gather as much of our stuff as possible and shove it into various bags that are lying around. When I'm done, I call to Rachel.

"Hey, Rachel!"

"What?!" Her voice is normal; she's not actually too bad for drunken-ness.

"We need to go!"

"Why?" she moans, slumping.

"Because we're going to drown!"

This wakes her up. She opens the tent, wide.

"Hey, Lovebirds, get yourself dressed! We need this tent and shleeping, I mean sleeping bag!"

When they don't move, she pulls them out and collapses the tent. I grab Robert and some bags and head for the bridge.

"Go!" I hiss, pushing Robert across. "Hurry up!"

He frowns at me moodily, but keeps moving. When we reach the other side, I load him down with bags.

"Stay here," I say, and start to go back for the others.

"Why should I do vat you shay?!" Robert demands sleepily. "I'm the bosh! I shay… Go back!"

"Shut up or drown," I say, and run off to help Rachel, who is having trouble with an over-aggressive Alexx.

"No!" Alexx shrieks. "Give me back my tent!"

"Alexx!" Rachel hisses. "Alexx, we have to go!"

"But, Rachel, I have a whip and-!"

Luckily for Rachel, a disorientated Drew chooses this moment to barrel into Alexx.

"Hey, honey…" he slurs, lifting her up and taking her across the bridge. "Let'sh leave theesh idiotsh."

Rachel sighs, grabbing a bag and sauntering over the bridge, giggling quietly. I follow, running from the rising water.

Around halfway across, Rachel staggers over and grasps at the rope holding the bridge up. Screaming, she grabs hold of the rope just in time, while letting go of the two bags she was carrying.

Push her off, Frances!

I mentally recoil at the thought. That would be so evil! She's hanging from the edge of a bridge!

She's a competitor, out for your blood. Kill her while you can!

No!

I look down. Subconsciously, I have reached for my serrated fan. Part of me – the part I knew existed before now – is horrified. I grab Rachel's hand and pull her up before I can change my mind or do anything awful like chopping her fingers off. We cross the bridge normally from there.

When we reach the fifth island from the middle, we make camp. As I am most rested of the group, I guard again, this time with Rachel, who is now sober, if a little hung over. She dropped the tent, so the others are sleeping around the fire.

Along with the tent, we lost at least half of our stuff, meaning we only have a few things: sixteen unlabeled tins, four potatoes in foil, and four buns. All of which will divide perfectly between the group if one of us were dead.

"We need to go hunting tomorrow," I mutter to Rachel. "We're low on supplies."

But Rachel is asleep.

So I sit alone and survey the surroundings.

We are on a circular field of tall, green grass. As I stand and walk to the edge, I notice that there are two islands to my left, both slightly bigger than this one. There should be four, but the other two have sunk. To my right lie seven islands, all slightly smaller than the last.

The other two have sunk.

No. No, they didn't sink; they were claimed by the sea.

The sea which rises every day to claim another island, forcing the remaining tributes onto smaller and smaller islands!

I stare at it all, gobsmacked, until a faint rustle interrupts my revelation. I turn and watch in speechless horror as a hand reaches out of the grass and grabs four of my tins, then disappears again, only to reappear on the other side of the camp to snatch a mace from Robert's side. Then two eyes appear next to where the hand disappeared from and stare at me in fright, like a calf before the axe. A flash of brown hair and it's all gone.

Leaving me to wonder who – or what – it was.