A/N: Just a note to let you know that there is a full tribute list on my profile if you need it, and to say that you can PM me any time with questions about the story, or just for a chat!

Also, I have a new SYOT open if you want to have a look.

Now, enjoy this instalment...

Chapter 4

"Are we going to stop here?" Sarah asks as I look around. We are in another forest, but his time thicker, and full of pine trees. It has a lot more brambles than our last stop so is overall less picture perfect and worse for camping. However, it will be excellent for hiding and placing my traps. We would've stopped in the field on the previous island but the tributes from One, Two and Four were there, so we decided to move on. This island, however, looks to be deserted.

"Yes," I say. "We are stopping here, Sarah."

She lets out a sigh of relief and takes off her backpack. Personally, I didn't think it was such a difficult walk, but Sarah obviously thought otherwise. Not that she said anything; she wouldn't want me to slow down too much.

She's like that, my Sarah: she suffers in silence for the good of others and hopes for the best. That's why I love her.

It's also quite strange that she found the walk hard. It may sound ignorant, but Sarah looks fit. No, she is fit. A little walk like that should be easy for her.

Not that I would say anything in complaint about that, either.

Sarah knows me, so starts clearing space in the clearing for our little paraffin cooker and my traps. I start setting up in a few of the brambles around the edge of our selected spot.

It takes me about ten minutes to set one trap, so Sarah starts cooking something on the stove.

Within an hour, I've done six big traps and within tow I'm finished.

Dusk settles and Sarah snuggles up to me as we fall asleep in each other's arms.

For once, I'm not on watch, so I go to sleep. When I wake, it's still night. I'm not at all tired, so I take over from Drew to watch. There isn't a cloud in the sky, giving clear view to where the stars should be.

But they aren't there.

Instead, there is only blackness. A deep, dark blackness that is as fake as Alexx's hair colour. It sickens me.

At home in District Ten, I would go out star-gazing with my Dad when he wasn't too busy. He taught me how to find and name constellations, how to use a telescope, how to read the very essence of the stars. The fact that the sky I may die under doesn't have stars makes me want to cry.

Oh, how stupid do I sound? I could die tomorrow, but all I care about is whether or not the sky will have stars if I do!

I haven't been star-gazing in years anyway. I couldn't before the Dark Days; I was too young. Then during the Dark Days, there wasn't enough time, and Dad has been busy trying to scrape a living together for the past six years. And star-gazing without Dad is like a chicken without feathers: it works, but doesn't seem right.

Once, I tried going with Peter, but he just went on about how the stars science of the stars is so amazing and clever, and I got a headache.

But now, the one chance I could get before I die to star-gaze properly, and the stars aren't there. It's the saddest thing I ever saw.

So I don't look. I don't look and I'm not so sad.

Morning comes, but I don't wake the others. Not yet.

I should kill them now.

What?!

I could kill them while they are vulnerable. Yes.

Wait, no! NO!

The part that doesn't want to kill seems to be disconnected from the rest of me: a separate person that the rest of me just finds annoying.

I am going to kill Alexx. I'm going to make her shirt match her hair.

The non-sadistic part runs over to the crazy part and shakes its shoulders.

What was I thinking?!

I'm not really sure.

A faint rustle distracts me from my internal battle and diverts my attention to a flash of long, brown hair, disappearing through the grass.

When I check, I find that three more unlabelled cans have gone.

And then the cannon fires.

A cannon fires, followed directly by Sarah's scream. I abandon the squirrel I am detangling from a snare and run to her aid.

I can't see her at our camp. The scream rings out again.

"Sarah!" I call. "Sarah, where are you?!"

I run around the perimeter of our encampment, calling her name until my voice is hoarse.

When at last I find her, she is kneeling over a body, sobbing. The body is caught in one of my lethal traps, but I don't care.

"Sarah…" I whisper, kneeling beside her. "You're ok. You scared me so much, Sarah!"

"It's Yevgeniya," she sniffs, pointing down at the skinny body I now recognise as the girl from Five. "We were going to ally with her, remember? She came looking for us. To ally. And now she's dead because of us!"

I sigh and put my arm around her, drawing her into me. She sniffles again.

"She was such a good friend," Sarah whispers into my chest. "She was so clever. I remember one time she told me about what her escort was wearing and how fashionable it was. She just knew so much about the Capitol; her family had links."

"Go back to camp, Sarah. I'll re-set this trap." I sigh. "We can't do anything about Yevgeniya now."

Sarah nods and fakes a smile, making my heart chip a little in the process. "Yeah," she whispers. "We're alive, it's ok."

I set up the trap again and lay Yevgeniya out next to it. Just as I am about to go, some artist's instinct in me takes over and starts to organise her hair and the brambles around it so it looks like the ground is beginning to swallow her up. Sarah comes over and watches for a few minutes as I finish off.

I turn to see silent tears streaming down her cheeks as when I am finished, and it takes me by surprise; I didn't mean to make her cry.

Her mouth is twisted into a grim line like it isn't quite right but she won't say anything.

"She was a fashion lover." I say. "And she cared about her appearance, so I made her into a work of art."

Sarah doesn't look at me – I'm not sure she even heard me – and just walks away, fiddling with a strand of her blonde hair.

And where my heart chipped before, a crack appears.

Alexx wakes up around noon and demands that we kill someone. Everyone else is already awake: Drew is hunting, Rachel is tending to the fire and I am looking through the grass at random intervals for the owner of those blasted eyes.

Then Alexx starts pacing and talking to herself about tactics. Rachel joins the discussion just as Drew comes back (Empty handed) and asks me what I'm looking for. I somehow don't want to tell him about the eyes so make some nonsense up about rats. He seems to take it, but I stop looking even so.

Something about those eyes has unnerved me and left me anxious. Nervous energy is puring out of me in vast quantities like sweat.

I have to do something!

My hands start to fiddle with our supplies - counting it all out, sorting everything by colour, sorting it alphabetically by contents...

Then I start to look for more to encorporate into my sort, grabbing the bag with my stuff from the cornucopia in, which I still haven't properly sorted out since I got it.

At the bottom lie two sachets of the red poison which killed Talor of Three. (Or was it Alek? It was one of the siblings.) On top of them is a jar of chloroform with a fabric cover. That is going to be very handy, though I have no idea how or when.

Next to the chloroform is a tin of dried fruit - the first thing I choose to actually take out of the bag (I felt the other two would be better as secret weapons).

Finally, in a side pocket, I find the tin with a leak. said leak is now about the size of a... Well, a mouse could probably fit through it. I swear it used to be smaller, though.

But how would it grow anyway?

And, more importantly, what is even in the tin?

I try to pull the top off, and fail. It must be a screw lid, I think, so I try unscrewing it.

Nope.

I try pushing and pulling and twisting it everywhichway.

Despite all this, though, nothing works. The tin will not open.

I grab a bayonet from the floor and try to lever the tin open, but instead get a vicious glare from Alexx for damaging her weapon.

Pulling won't work and I've pushed every corner of the thing. It won't lever open and it isn't a screw top.

So how do I open it?!

I throw it down in frustration and the lid pops open as the tin tips to one side, spilling the contents all over my foot.

I scream and scream.

The pot contains a very strong acid.