Hello citizens of Panem! It's a big, big, big day! It's time to get your dose of the Hunger Games. You know the rules. Schools are shut down, as are businesses. It is now your job to watch and learn from the games. Do not rebel. This is what happens to rebels.

-President Markkus

When morning finally made an appearance, Lucas roused himself from their hiding spot under the tree. They had already used the hiding space before and were happy with staying there again. It was cozy and kept the space at a nice temperature even if the weather didn't fluctuate much at all. That wasn't meant to be one of the challenges of the Game Keeper though. They had found other ways to challenge the tributes.

The unfortunate piece of all of it was that the children were a challenge in themselves. Hormones, friendship, fear; they all came into account. From the very beginning of their childhood they were taught about the Hunger Games. They learned about what had happened to all that went into the arena. Lucas had been through all of the lessons and graduated. When all of the current Hunger Games went down he had been planning to go into the Peace Keeper Academy as a finishing school. Unfortunately, they had denied him any entrance into the school because of his shoulder. The hindrance that never left him alone. Those memories that never left him alone.

Lucas didn't want to let those memories in, but he couldn't seem to stop them as he carefully moved around the brush, back tracking to the spot where he had seen the doors not too long ago. They had been pushed back so far that it would take a while to get back to that point. He didn't dare go near the one that was sitting open next to their safe house. Something about it made his skin crawl, so he stayed away from it. The danger then was the memories that seeped into his head with the pain from his shoulder.

He and his mom had been in their car headed back to their house from District 1. She had business to handle in the Luxury district and was not willing to leave Lucas home alone so she brought the ten year-old with her.

Lucas still remembered her face because his mom had always been the one around when his dad was working on different things inside the Peace Keepers association that he was close to running. She had dark brown hair but she had these gorgeous green eyes that seemed like they would have been Capitol mutt eyes, but they were her natural color. Her friends tried to get her to slip up about some procedure to make her eyes so green in the capitol. No such luck.

Gale always blamed himself for the death of Lucas' mom though in truth it really wasn't his fault. It was District 6. They were in charge of transportation and they should have had the problem fixed before they opened the bridge. They should have made the road wider. They could have done something, and then none of this would have happened.

Lucas was trying to sing along to a song he didn't know the words to and he was making his mom laugh hysterically. All of the sudden she gasped and cut the wheel sharply to the right sending her side of the car toward the oncoming truck. Roads were no new concept they had used them to get many places before the storms and fires that forced Panem together. They couldn't fix this though. What happened, no one could fix. Lucas remembered scream at his mom as the headlights drew closer like eyes of a beast coming in for the kill. He was cut silent with the impact.

The doctors told him how brave his mom had been. She had saved his life, they would tell him. She was his savior. He didn't want her to be. He wanted her to be there holding his hand and brushing the hair from his face. He wanted her not them. He didn't want his father either who could only sit next to him and leave his head in his hands as he held back the tears to be tough for his little boy.

At the time, Lucas thought that his father was heartless. It took years for him to realize that he had been trying to protect him from seeing someone broken down that they couldn't function. Gale had stopped going to work though and was always around. He was up making breakfast for Lucas before waking up was even an idea to Lucas. Then he was there cooking dinner when he came home. For a while, Gale didn't care what Lucas was up to; as long as he was happy. Lucas would leave the house early and would come back well after the set meal time. Lucas decided when he wanted to grow up and when he did life started again.

If Lucas came back from the Games, he was going to get a job as a mechanic around District 2. He had been promised the job before he even found out about the games and was completely willing to take it on. It would give him something to do. He would have something to tinker with. Before he left for President Markkus' idea of a party he had also planned surgery for his shoulder. Gale was going to pay for it and then he would see if the Academy would take him. If not, mechanic. His life had finally gotten easy and now he was sneaking along a jungle looking for signs of a door that led into the obviously hollow innards of the arena.

Lucas was about to take another step when he notice a clear wall. It was slightly tinted purple so that everyone would know where it stood. The people watching on their screens at home and those of the tributes left alive in the arena. There was no river between him and the wall though. It was right there a couple feet in front of him. "Shit..." Lucas muttered taking a few leaves from a vine at his feet. He threw them at the purple wall and the leaves disintegrated. Lucas looked past the field at the land beyond. All of it looked like it had been burned down by fire and was just lumps and piles of ash. The flood on that side seemed to have never happened.

This was the Game Keepers idea. He was going corral all the tributes closer together with no hope of going back out farther. The silver lining to his situation was small because all that meant was that there were no more crocodiles or alligators. The cloud that surrounded that silver lining pulsed with power. He couldn't get to the doors he had seen earlier. All of the tributes were closer, including the five surviving tributes that had formed a pack.

"NO!" Lucas turned to find where the voice was coming from but he couldn't see anyone. Someone was screaming, but not at him. All of the sudden there were two cannon fires. Two? Lucas searched his mind trying to figure out what was going on, but he didn't have time for that. He needed to get back into hiding. He took off back the way he came making sure his feet stayed silent as he went.

He hadn't realized at the time that the cannon fire was the death of two of the careers from the back. Meagan from District 9 had known what the force field would do when something touched it and had shoved PJ from District 8 into the force field sending him to his death. Shannon had retaliated for the death of her counterpart and shot Meagan then and there.

Shannon then faced the two other survivors in their pack and pointed her gun at them. "You turn on me and you both go down. Betrayal means death, understand?" she snapped and the two nodded. There was no question that, if it came down to it, Shannon would win. Emma and Owen from District 7 only had a set of throwing knives and a bow and arrow. Shannon could swing around her gun happily with the silencer on it to keep the noise from reaching the other tributes in the arena. She was the danger in the arena. With a look into her eyes one could see that with the death of her partner insanity was setting in.

Lucas took a deep breath as he settled back into their little hide out. The door was still open and sitting there like a tease just waiting for someone to walk up and test the possibilities of escape. Lucas crawled into their safe house sitting just inside the entrance. He moved the camouflage he had created before he left to cover the entrance to their hideout. He would sit on guard now. He drew his knife and settled in only looking at Prim for a moment to make sure she was still sleeping there.

There was no sign of anyone close so he allowed himself to just sit there for a while. When Prim did wake up she crawled up from her spot to sit across from Lucas. "Good morning," she whispered since they were so used to talking in hushed tones. Lucas looked over at her and nodded as if that was his only return. "How long have you been up?" Prim wondered as she looked over their small food supply. Plenty of water, but almost no food. The honey and some bread.

"Long enough to walk around and be back before you woke up." Prim looked at him like she was about to protest about the danger in that act, but Lucas held up a hand stopping her. "I've gone hunting too, Prim. I was walking around and the field keeping us stuck in here has moved. We can't go back out to where the river was and if you touch the field it burns you."

Prim took it into account and then she looked at him a little more skeptically. "What were you looking for?" she wondered as she curled up into herself to keep warm. Her clothes were still somewhat wet and needed to be dried out soon before she began to chafe or catch something from the chill.

"One of those," Lucas motioned to the door with his drawn knife. The view led out to where the door was open sitting there like a test to them.

"When did that open?" Prim demanded glaring at him as if he had kept a huge secret. For a moment she let her temper get to her that she had gotten from her mother; she managed to shove it back though. He had let her sleep and knew that it was really of no worry to her as long as it stayed there. "Never mind Lucas," Prim looked back to the door where she weighed the possibilities.

So many people had been upset by the idea of another Hunger Games. It disgusted so many of them that she started to wonder how many of the people in the Capitol itself were looking to revolt against the idea of the Games ever coming up again. As she sat there and looked at that way out she thought maybe that the possibility was there. She crawled out of their hiding spot with Lucas struggling to follow her.

"What are you doing?" He demanded grabbing her arm with his good arm. "We are not going near that thing until someone else tried going close to it first." Lucas searched her eyes for some sign that she understood his fear, but he couldn't seem to find that. There was a determination in her eyes that didn't come near the world of surrender. "Primrose, don't you dare."

"Lucas, what if it's a way out?" Prim demanded. They were both starting to raise their voice which wasn't going to help their situation at all. They were all closer now and there was no way they could get farther away. They were trapped. Lucas had already told her that. Why was she doing this? Why was she risking it? "The Game Keeper might be on our side. He might want us to get out. The Game Keeper probably knows we're innocent, that our parents our innocent. We might be able to walk out right now!"

"This person running this show is not on our side! Dammit Prim! It's a game! They want us to go after it. They want us to have ideas planted in our heads that someone out there is on our side. No one is on our side! You go near that thing and you don't know what happens!" Prim looked at him with wide eyes. Ash had yelled at her like this, but Lucas? Lucas never seemed the type, but Prim guessed that everyone was the type when it came down to it. "Get back in to the safe house." Prim stood defiant until Lucas moved closer towering over her. He had let go of her arm, but just the look in his eyes could send someone to insanity. "Now."

Prim moved back into the tree and Lucas swapped out his knife for his gun. He pulled the camouflage into place and set himself up so that he could see through certain holes of the mesh. While he sat there he used his knife to cut chunk off a fruit that looked like a black apple which was the name he knew it by. He ate chunks of it and squeezed small portions of honey onto each piece to make it a little sweeter. Prim sat against the back wall and used a stray stone to try and sharpen her dagger's blade while she picked at the same fruit and had some bread though her meal wasn't as pleasant because she had refused to sit and eat with Lucas who had the honey. It could have been making her blade worse in actuality; she could have cared less though. It gave her something to do and that's all she wanted. It looked like they would be sitting there safe for a while.

Near nightfall they headed out into the woods. The visibility at sunset made it a little easier to move through the woods unseen. Near midnight when the anthem began to play they took off. They ran at full speed back to their hideout and slipped back in before the anthem ended. They went unheard. They used their jackets they were given going in to the Games to cover the way in so that when their watches lit up no one would see it. Prim spent the last bit of light crossing off the names of the fallen. There were seven of them left in the arena. Lucas spent that last bit of light without the light of his watch. He left it in the back of the tree's cavern and moved closer to the door where he looked for any other light from watches on other tributes.

Nothing. Their competition was not going to be stupid when Lucas hoped for it. Either that or they were still far enough away to be unseen. Lucas settled back into his spot from earlier taking over the guard for the night. It wasn't that he didn't trust Prim. He trusted Prim with his life. The question was now if it was one's own life and curiosity that got them in trouble. Unfortunately, no matter how much he wanted to protect her Lucas fell asleep on the job and Prim was up just watching him waiting for him to fall asleep.

When he did Prim got up carefully. She walked up to him and carefully pulled his gun from his hold. She checked the clip for ammo and then loaded it again as quietly as possible. The click of it made Lucas twitch and he crossed his arms over his chest and turned his chin towards his good shoulder. Prim found a cruel smile that bloom across her lips that no one could see in the darkness of their hiding spot. On the screens at home Peeta was watching her. Gavin was asleep with his head against his father's leg. School was canceled for the games as ordered by President Markkus. The stores were closed too which left Peeta and Gavin home alone to watch Prim struggle. He shook his head as he watched her. He may not have liked Gale but his son was no idiot. She should have listened to Lucas, but she didn't.

Prim moved the camouflage out of the way and began to move toward the door taking a couple steps and looking around to make sure no one was there. Her breath moved into the air and disappeared all together. Anyone out there would never have realized she was there. The cameras had all gone into night vision and she was a shade of green. Her eyes were bright against her surroundings. Then another pare of bright orbs made it onto the screen.

"Prim," Lucas stumbled to his feet struggling with the use of only one arm. She took off immediately in a dead sprint straight for the door that still shone with a clean almost hospital like light. "Prim, no!" Lucas shouted and all the screens at home went white as an explosion filled the arena where Lucas and Prim were. Lucas fell to the ground covering his face, but as soon as debris stopped flying he was trying to get to his feet and ran toward where Prim had fallen. Spots were in his vision and no matter how many times he blinked they waited to clear.

Lucas ripped off his sling and used both arms to drag her back to their safe spot. She was writhing in pain and almost got out of his arms until he started to move faster. "Prim you have to stay quiet," Lucas whispered to her. The shock of what happened was about to fade and soon the pain would begin to overrun her commonsense. He got her inside the tree's base and moved the camouflage into place as she began to scream. Lucas put a hand over her mouth looking around wildly. "Prim, Prim..." she didn't seem to hear. "Primrose, listen to me!" She seemed to calm down but he didn't move his hand. "You have to stay quiet. I need you to tell me what to do. There are a lot of explosions in your District, right?" She nodded. "Okay, tell me what to do." He lifted his hand and she shuddered making her whole body shake.

"Shrapnel, little pieces of debris. You have to get them out," She moved uncomfortably and arched her back as another wave of pain seemed to hit her.

Lucas looked around for something he could use. Tweezers, something. There was nothing. Then a huge silver beetle crawled his way and when he was about to dismiss it, it settled to the ground. Its legs pulled in and the head pulled in as well. The wings on the back of the beetle parted exposing tweezers. Was this all he got? Was this all his sponsors could afford? He said it to no one in particular, but the first few words were not kind, "...you're all a bunch of soulless fools. This is Markkus' doing. Not ours..."

Lucas pulled the short sleeves off his shirt and used half of one to fill Prim's mouth. He had to keep her quiet. He had no painkillers for her and was about to dig into her skin with a pair of crap tweezers from the heartless folks of Panem. "I'm so sorry Prim..." he whispered and began work.

Lucas had his gun tucked into his waistline at the small of his back as he knelt near the giant puddle that had been there since the flood. He washed off the tweezers and set them on the ground. Then he submerged his hands in the murky water. What used to be a couple shades of brown and green became red. The spots were cleared from his vision but every now and then he would blink uncomfortably as if dislodging the last bit of dirt and dust. The night had been a terrible scene from the worst of medical disasters, but he was sure that he got most of the shrapnel out. Surprisingly there wasn't much.

Lucas stood tall and looked around as he stretched. No one would come near the disaster zone so they should have been safe for a couple days. The doors to freedom had closed once again and had caused all sorts of trouble. Luckily, Primrose had gone right to sleep when some of the pain subsided. They didn't have any jackets to cover their doorway at night anymore since he had used those as bandaging. The bottoms of his pants were gone as well so now he was in shorts.

He told himself it could have been worse. Lucas wasn't sure if it could have though. When there was a sound off to the side Lucas pulled his gun and pointed it toward the noise. When the animal came out confusion passed over Lucas' features. A deer? Food was the first thought that crossed Lucas' mind and then he thought better. A gunshot helped no one, not them and not the deer. The only person it would benefit would be the tributes trying to track them.

When another noise entered his hearing range he whipped toward it afraid it was a tribute that had tracked the deer. It was Prim. She was still holding onto the tree as if letting go meant her death. "Lucas?" she called out putting herself in danger if Lucas hadn't been there. Lucas walked towards her in her direct line of vision. "Lucas?" she called again. When she caught the sound of his footsteps she sighed in relief before worry passed her features. "Lucas, I can't see."

Sorry all. My feed was somehow interrupted by our President. I'm very sorry. The Game Keeper should be able to hold the feed now. He seems to know I'm up to my old tricks. Be safe my mockingjays, be safe.

Sincerely,

wisegirlindisguise