I'm having a contest! ^^ It's an art contest! I'd appreciate any and all fan-art for this story! (Just keep it clean!) All entries can be submitted to DeviantArt on my page: JustAnotherTomboy. Just tag me and I'll see it! The winner gets their picture as my book-cover here on as well as a shout-out for their DeviantArt and/or FanFiction. Good luck! (If you would like to participate in this contest but do not have a DeviantArt, PM me, and we'll try to figure something out.)

~Julia

I run back to the camp, scared on who died.

Piko is standing over Defoko's lifeless body, knife in hand. My ally has betrayed us.

"Defoko!" I scream and run towards her.

"Piko! You monster! How could you?!" I pounce on him and rock his shoulders.

Piko grabs my head in his arms, headlock style.

"Defoko!" I shout. "You killed her, and now you're going to kill me!" I struggle in his grasp.

"No! You have it all wrong!" Piko shouts.

"Then drop me!" I shout.

Piko covers my mouth and nose. I grab his arms, desperately scratching them.

He falls backwards into a ditch when—

BOOM!

A huge explosion goes off. Defoko is blasted sixty feet into the air.

Her legs fly around her, and her arms are just limp.

"NO!" I scream under Piko's hand, "DEFOKO!"

Smoke flies everywhere. Piko just saved me by jumping into a ditch and covering my mouth and nose.

Defoko lands right next to me. The explosion dies.

Piko lets me go and I run next to Defoko.

"Baby…" I whimper, holding her hand, which is slowly losing warmth.

Piko walks up next to me, he's coughing. I feel horrible for accusing him of Defoko's death. He used his hands to cover my mouth and nose, so he must have sucked in a lot of debris.

"P-Piko?" I ask, trembling.

"Yes?" He looks really sad.

"How did she die?"

He looks alarmed.

"It was that girl, SeeU, the one with the cat ears. I came back with berries and saw Defoko in a net, still as stone. I went to cut her out when…" He looks down.

"What?" I ask.

"SeeU came out of the trees and set off a land mine. She laughed and said, 'What fools. She was already dead. I killed her.' That was when you came back and the explosion happened."

I squeezed Defoko's hand, now cold. My tears dripped down her face.

"You were close to her, weren't you?" Piko says.

I nod, and then I start to weep.

"NO! Wake up!" I slap her face, but it's useless. I broke my sanity, my composure diminished. My breaking point had been reached.

Piko knows we're being filmed. "Rin! Stop!" He pats my shoulder; I shake it off and snap at him.

"How dare you tell me to calm down?!" I shriek. I stand up and get in his face. "Defoko is dead! You let this happen! Why didn't you take her with you? She's twelve! A twelve-year-old cannot fend for herself, because G-d forbid something happens! Which it did! This is all of your fault! You bastard!"

He looks at me with large eyes, they're watering. "I know this, Rin! It's my fault and I'm sorry!" His eyes, which were watery, are now replaced with rage. "But where were you?"

"Watching Miku commit suicide!" I sink to my knees in the dirt. My eyes are covered with my hands. "She was so nice to me!" I screamed. "Here," I jab the suicide note in his face, which is in a mix of shock and sadness. "Read it!"

He opens the letter up and looks at it. He unfolds the note further. "I-it says something about me in it," he says in a voice that makes it obvious that he's crying.

"I-it does?" I ask. He hands the note to me.

I look at the spot that Piko has opened up. It says right there:

Dear Piko Utata,

I folded this part of this letter into our secret language. This part of the letter is for you. There is something I've always wanted to tell you, so, here goes…

I'm in love with you! And I'm sorry that you weren't able to know this until I died. I am so sorry.

Goodbye,

Miku Hatsune

"Is this what you want? To see innocent children die like this little girl?" I point to Defoko's lifeless body. "Or young women with bright futures like Miku Hatsune? To watch brothers and sisters kill each other like Ted and Teto Kasane? Is this what you want? This is sick! I don't care if I don't get any food and supplies now. This is sick. This game is sick. The people who bet on our survival are sick. Defoko was one of my best friends back home and you killed her. Dying at twelve is sick." I rant to the hidden cameras. "This is why I hate the Capital!"

Piko says something as well:

"The girl I love is fighting for her life and sanity."

Who's that girl? I wonder.

"I won't ever see her again after the Games. Why do you do this to us? That is all I have to say."

That was really deep.

I kneel down to Defoko's side and close her eyelids.

I sing an old song I wrote for Len on his birthday. Defoko liked it and asked me to sing it for her all the time.

I called it, "Servant of Evil."

Piko wanted to sing a song too. He sang it off of the top of his head and called it, "The Disappearance of Defoko Utatane."

"Goodbye, Defoko." I whisper into her ear and walk away without looking back.

,,,

A few hours later, Piko and I have regained our composures and were scavenging for food.

"So," I ask him. "Who was that girl you said you loved?"

Piko stops.

"I mean, it couldn't have been SeeU. Maybe IA? Or, mmph—!"

His lips were pressed against mine.

We stayed that way for at least ten seconds. His eyes were closed but mine were wide open in surprise and shock.

He blushes.

"It's you," He says and runs away, leaving me dazed and confused.

I sit down on a stone and cry.

What's going on with me?

,,,

I find Piko an hour later at the blown up campsite.

"Hey you," I say to him.

He blushes. "Hey, I'm really sorry about what I did I—"

I put a finger to his lips. "Shh. It's fine." I smile. "You didn't do anything wrong."

He smiles and leans in again; only this time he doesn't make it to my lips.

BOOM!

A gun fires.

"Agh!" Piko coughs up blood and then falls in my arms.

"No, no, no, no, no!" I cry, as he struggles to breathe, a hole in his back. "Not on the second day, do not die! I'll never forgive you if you die!" Teary-eyed me hiccups. What happened to the girl that never cried?

SeeU steps out from behind three trees.

"Hmm. Lover Boy got hit because of you," She says in that Korean accent of hers.

"SeeU. Please. No." I look at her. "Don't."

She smirks and points her gun at me. "And why not?" She asks. "He's just Piko, nobody special. Now you… I think you're special." She walks up to me and lifts my chin up with the barrel of her pistol.

SeeU grabs my face with her hand and hoists my up on my feet. I hold onto Piko by the waist and he limply leans.

"Drop him," SeeU says.

I hold fast to Piko.

"I said, drop him!" SeeU orders, slamming the butt of the pistol into Piko's head. He moans and a bloody patch appears where he had been hit. I lay him down on the dirt gently.

"That's better," She cooed. "Now, like I said, you're special. I could use you."

I grit my teeth.

"Oh? You seem upset. If you're worried about food, or a warm place to sleep, I've got plenty of both, don't worry. What is it that you want?" SeeU sighed.

"Piko!" I shout.

She smirks. "You really are special." She drops me and I put Piko's head in my lap.

"No matter. I'll let you go this time, Kagamine." She says. "But be warned. I will find you again."

With that, she jumps into a tree and takes off.

"Hey, Piko, you hanging in there?" I say to him.

I get a low moan in response.

"I wish I had medical stuff." I mumble.

I look back down to Piko. I notice how unnaturally pale he looks, and how cold he is.

"No, not you too." I say, my voice cracking.

I breathe in and out. He should live Rin. My brain told me. Just ask for help.

"Help!" I scream out, and then I realize what a stupid move that was.

I hear a mechanical sound. Like a bzzt!

Then I see it… a bag. I scramble for it and read the letter. To Rilane-chan . Thank-you for caring about the two tributes of District 5. Use this well. From the people of District 5.

I open the duffle bag and gasp. This is enough for Piko. Gauze, cream, some spray, tweezers, bandages, and medical tape.

"Thank you people of District Five." I say.

BOOM! a cannon fires. My stomach drops.

I scramble to where Piko is. I lay my head on his chest. I hear the faint ka-thunk of his heartbeat. Someone else must've died.

I start unloading the contents of the duffle bag.

I look at Piko. "I'm going to have to take off your shirt. Is this okay?"

He barely manages a nod.

I sit him up and cut off his shirt with a stone.

I blush hard and try to ignore the fact of a boy's naked top half lying on my chest.

I take the tweezers, stick them in the bullet wound, and pull out a lead ball.

This causes Piko to wince.

"I'm sorry, Piko," I whisper.

I reach into the bag and take out something called, "Anti Germ Disinfecting Spray."

It sounded useful so I sprayed it on Piko's head and back. I then took out some gauze and wrapped it around his head to stop the bleeding, and I put on a huge amount of medical tape to secure it.

I wrap gauze around his back in a diagonal fashion so it goes over his left shoulder and then wrap it horizontally in the lower back area. I pray that it will stop the bleeding and put medical tape on the gauze to secure it.

It got dark, so I head over to a fairly hidden cave, carrying Piko like a princess, his weight a burden. I put a bunch of rocks in front of the entrance and it gets darker.

I'm very cold, and Piko is getting warmth back. I lay him down on the mat and lay my head across his bare chest (minus the gauze).

I'm tired, and I plan to sleep the entire night.

"Goodnight, Piko." I yawn.

I hear an interpretable mumble.

It was better than moaning.

I bury my face in the gauze, and sleep.