A/N: Well, here is the next chappy. One after this may be the last (gaspeh!). I still need 2 comments if you guys want an alt-POV; otherwise, I am pretty much done with the Hunger Games for a while. Well, R&R if you'd like. I do love reviewers. :3

Despite my newfound hatred of Twig, I really can't do much on this horribly empty stomach. So, ignoring my itchy trigger fingers, I start going backward, toward somewhere I can spear a decent meal.

But good-sized gaps in the roots are still an hour or so away. I'm about to just stop and make do with the tiny openings here when I a sudden screech splits the air. It's not human. It's a gull's call.

I look up, and, sure enough, the annoying little bird is up above me, circling around. I'm sure he'd make a good meal, and he's flying low...

I step back from my poor fishing spot and pull my throwing arm back, carefully watching the dumb bird that refuses to notice me. Just before he reaches the spot I'm aiming at, I hurl the spear, and it speeds straight for him, as expected.

But suddenly, the dumb little bird changes his course, and my spear flies straight past. I watch blankly as the weapon continues in a wide arc to land in a tree that's probably a day's walk away.

What. Just. Happened?

I slump back against a tree trunk vacantly, staring up at the air like my spear is going to suddenly fly back toward me.

But it's not.

Did that really just happen? Did I really just throw away—literally—the only chance I've had in this place? My only source of food? My only defense? My only weapon?

Surely I didn't. Surely I'm just imagining things. I've been doing so well. Nothing like this could happen…

Only the sudden cannon blast jerks me back to consciousness.

I wonder who died. Maybe it was Shaw; after all, I don't think he could last long on half of a bottle of water.

But whatever just happened doesn't matter anymore. I've handed myself a death sentence with my impatience, and no matter how many of the other tributes kill each other, I'm not going to win. Without food, I can't travel. Without water, I have no time. Without a weapon, I'm reduced once again to a sitting duck.

I look through the trees in the direction of my spear, but there are so many branches I can only see a few feet away. I can't go after it because I don't have enough water or energy left to get there. But I can't not go after it because I'm completely helpless without it.

So, either I sit here and weaken—right by the Career camp—or I exhaust myself but possibly find my spear—even though I'll be too weary to put it to good use.

Well, I think I'll go marching off to my death instead of sitting here waiting for it.

So off I go, boldly stumbling through roots and scrambling up branches, in pursuit of my only faded hope.

I've been hiking for a few minutes—making very poor progress in the cramped spaces—when something shiny catches my eye. My spear! How did it end up here? I was so sure it'd gone much further. But then again, my eyes don't work as well when I'm exhausted, right?

I shuffle forward enough to reach for the gleam—it's splattered with blood, only furthering my knowledge that it is mine—when a root catches my foot. I tumble over, only getting caught by other branches enough to just stop my neck from piercing itself on the blade beneath it.

I stare, bug-eyed from shock, at the roots and specks of water right below me for a few moments. All this, and I almost get killed by my own weapon. Now, wouldn't that have been ironic?

Once I've settled down from almost killing myself, I slowly lean back on my feet. I have to be careful; a snapped branch could hurl me right back down onto my spear.

So, after a few minutes of standing up, I finally get to see my prize.

But it's not my spear.

It's Phemus's axe.

I go ahead and pick it up, but unlike Phemus, it takes me both hands, and I can barely lift it to my waist.

Oh, what am I doing? I can't use this. I bypassed the axes stand in the Training Center like it was the plague—I couldn't have lifted anything back there, and I was wary of the beginners throwing them around—so I have no idea how to use it. I have a vague idea from watching the last few Hunger Games, but everyone that had one then could actually lift the stupid thing.

I try swiping it through the air, landing about a centimeter into a tree branch before the axe slips back out.

What am I doing? I should just drop this and go on to find my spear before someone else does. But it was so far away… I can't honestly believe my eyes played a trick on me just because I didn't get a meal, after all.

It is hot around here, but I've always been resistant to high temperatures. Not from being in District 4; it never got this hot there save for late summer. It's just kind of something that was always there.

If I don't respond to the heat, it couldn't have been a mirage. Of course, I don't think something as simple as a flub in distance perception could count as a mirage.

So, I have no hope getting my spear back, especially from the useless struggle with this thing. Even after swinging it around for a few minutes, I haven't gotten the hang of it at all.

Well, crap. I guess I might as well keep this; it is better than nothing.

But now I don't have a decent chance to kill Twig anymore.

I stomp the ground—or web of roots as the case may be—in frustration. Now I've done it. I should have gone and killed him right there on the spot. So what if the other Careers finish me off? I don't have a chance in these Games, anyway. I never did.

Well, I might as well head back. The sun has started to fall from the sky, and I'm probably pretty far from their camp by now.

I swing the axe up a bit to clear a branch—a thin one, of course, since I can barely swipe with this thing—and start toward where I think the Career path is.

Scree! A seagull is flying above me.

As if I didn't think badly enough of them before.

I crunch through a few more trees before slowing down.

I'm really exhausted. I still have a little water in this bottle… I set down the axe and pick up my near-empty bottle, taking the last bit of liquid from it.

There's a snap. At first, I think it must be me, or the axe's weight splintering a root beneath it. But I haven't moved, and when I look down at the axe nothing has changed.

Is someone else here?

Suddenly, there's a sharp pain in my right shoulder. I can't help but let out a shrill yelp of pain as I abruptly drop my empty water bottle. My arm limply falls to my side.

What in the world? I can make out a tiny speck of blood, but no weapon to make it and no person to inflict it.

I shuffle over a bit, struggling to get my axe off the ground with my still-functioning left arm. I don't do very well. I growl a bit and drop the useless weight back onto the roots—it's going to be useless until I figure this arm thing out.

There's a barely audible crunch to my right now, and I turn just in time to see a thin gleam of metal. I instinctively jump to the side, and whatever was just thrown must miss; nothing else of mine is going limp. I look about wildly, trying to figure out where the attack had come from, before I finally see her.

Kalis. The little girl from District 3 that I had completely forgotten about. That I had looked upon sadly in the assumption she'd be quick to die.

But she hasn't been killed yet.

And I think she's planning to kill me.

"Kalis…?" I start slowly, moving a bit to the right so the slight view I have of her increases. I don't get a response. "Kalis, you don't need to kill me," I continue softly, still incomprehensive of her need to murder me in the first place. "We could be allies. I… I have some water—" I shrug my left shoulder, under which my last water bottle is placed— "and an axe… I won't use it against you, though," I assure quickly. Kalis's dark brown eyes stare me down coldly as I gulp audibly.

"I don't need allies here," she replies, her voice quiet but hard. "The only help I need is from my sponsors." She steps away from the small mangrove trunk she was behind, and her eyes probe me again.

"Well, if we ally, you could get things from my sponsors, too…"

Yeah. Sure. I don't even get things from my sponsors.

"…We're talking too much," Kalis finishes, bringing her arm back. I leap away into an empty area before she manages to throw whatever she's been throwing.

"A-Are you sure you don't want to…?" I trail off; she's made it clear that she doesn't want allies by now.

What do I do? I can't just stay here and jump around in the hope that I won't get hit. If I run, she'll be able to catch up—her small body would be even better than mine at navigating the narrow spaces between branches. I could fight back, but I'd have to use the axe. And I'd be killing a twelve-year-old.

Did I already mention I hate, hate, hate, having twelve-year-olds in the Games? I think I did. And now I'm about to try and slaughter one—the exact action I've cursed oh, so many tributes for in the past.

But, I only hated twelve-year-olds in the Hunger Games because they were always so helpless, like Sunil. Kalis is definitely not one of the helpless ones—she's survived this far without any allies, even. So am I really trying to do something I hate, or just something I need…?

I jump around a few more times, though Kalis by now has figured out my game. She's not throwing anything else, but I'd like to keep it that way.

Did I really expect to get through the Hunger Games without killing a person I had no vendetta against? No one ever manages that! Somehow, I led myself to believe I could get out of here by only hiding, letting everyone else duke it out and somehow stepping out victorious.

But now I know that won't happen. If I want to win, to see Mom and Dad and Iah again, I'm going to have to kill. I'm going to have to kill little Kalis.

Well, I can't do it without a weapon; I'm decent at hand-to-hand, but my right arm is good as gone, and I don't think I'm strong enough to track her down—should she take flight—and snap her neck. So, I'd either have to steal her weaponry—I have no clue what's she using, but I'm sure I don't know how to use it—or use the axe, which I don't really know how to use, either. Well, the axe would at least be easy to get my hands on…

I skip over a bit, enough so that my axe is within reach, and grasp the handle tightly with my left hand. Before I can shift it, though, another sharp pain pierces my neck. I cough, panicking for a moment. Is this how I die? At the hands of a cruel little girl, before I even get to defend myself?

But it seems that Kalis somehow missed her mark, even though my short hair should have made it easy for her to aim for the neck.

I tug at the axe, and it slides back some, but I can't lift it up. I shuffle around it quickly, anticipating another attack, and pull at it again. It still won't come up.

Oh, no. Now I've done it. I've stranded myself here with a weapon I can't even lift up, let alone use. Now Kalis is going to finish me off for sure, without getting so much as a scratch on her.

A sharp whizzing noise goes past my ear, and I jerk up to see Kalis's face; she looks very perturbed. She steps closer, readying her arm again.

Suddenly, I hook my foot under the axe and kick hard, managing to get the thing up in the air long enough for me to spin and hurl it at the totally unprepared Kalis. She's struck hard in the stomach and collapses backward.

She doesn't get the chance to throw anything else.

Trying not to look at what's underneath it, I grasp the axe again, limping around with most of its immense weight on my foot as the cannon goes off.

So, I've gone and killed a little girl who was trying to kill me.

Aren't the Hunger Games wonderful?