When I was younger, after one of my worser memory blips, I woke up in the school playground. It had been a week since my last memory. A week.

I had thought it was so terrible, with all of this time gone in an instant.

Now I wish for a moment like that.

The fire is in a large clearing in the woods, and I'm right in the center of it, vulnerable. I had walked into a trap without even thinking of any other possibilities. I had seen people do this in previous games, and even when I saw the clearing was empty, I walked right to the center of it. Ellia was high on a tree right on the edge where the forest broke out into a clearing, opposite to where I entered.

Before I have any time to react or run, another arrow is shooting at me. Dodging at the last second, I attempt to make a run for it, but it's useless. Ellia has the best leverage. I could run for miles, but she could easily trail me at this point. She has already begun climbing down the tree. Despite my dismal chances, I sprint towards the way I came in, bag and spear jingling on my back. My spear! I could use it somehow, throw it back toward her while I was running...But would it be worth it? I was running helplessly, and if I missed, I lost my spear.

At this point, I'm only halfway out of the clearing. Ellia is down from the tree, and is preparing an arrow. I can only hope she misses. As I take a sharp turn toward the left, I notice something. Or someone.

I wasn't the only one to fall for the trap.

From the other side of the woods line, not far from Ellia's tree, I see the tributes from district five emerge, and from where I was going to exit came in Micah accompanied by Carla. They could kill me. I could kill them. I should try to do something, defend myself at the very least. However, in my attempt to get away from Ellia in any possible measure, I just scream.

"RUN!"

I turn over my shoulder to see the tributes from district five have retreated immediately. Micah and Carla, only about a hundred yards ahead of me at this point, hesitate for a moment, but then run back where they come in. Micah had a knife on him, he could have easily thrown it at me, seeing how I was flailing in the open. But he didn't. By the time I got to the woods line, Ellia was charging at full speed toward me. Apparently, her first arrow had missed. That was dumb luck. I wouldn't get lucky twice.

I enter the forest.

I dodge, trees, twigs, bushes and plants trying to get out of there somehow. Ellia wouldn't be far off behind me at this point. I'm so discombobulated that when I come to a small cliff, I don't even notice. Before I know it, I'm rolling down hill, hitting my head and body on rocks all the way down. The drop off leads to a small area with a pond and a couple of trees. Still unable to stop myself, I roll into the pond.

My first instinct is to swim to the other side of the pond. Peering my head out above the surface, I notice a rock jutting out from the center of the water. Since I practically grew up on the beach, it doesn't take long for me to swim over to it. Once I get to the rock, I glance over at the land, and I see, in a tree at the bottom of the grove, Carla and Micah. They saw me, obviously, but they did nothing. In my moment of exasperation, I give them the same benefit, and turn my attention back to the rock. I figured I could hide behind it in case Ellia came down to the area looking for me. I pushed my back up against the rock, closed my eyes, and tried to control my breathing. I didn't know how close behind me Ellia had been, and if she had seen me fall into the grove.

A scream interrupted my thoughts. This scream was not a scream of pain, or even fear. This was a scream of anger, a scream made by Ellia.

"Where the hell did she go!" I heard her yell, the sound echoing down. "She wasn't far ahead of me, she couldn't have climbed down there-"

"Calm down Ellia," I heard another voice belonging to Reagan say, "Somebody could hear you!"

"Who cares?," She replied, still frustrated and angry, "She's gone! We should have never underestimated her. Jewel was-"

"Jewel was what?" I heard Jewel's voice pop up, "Jewel was right? Oh, the stupid Jewel, the stupid blonde Jewel was right? Let me hear that again Ellia, Jewel was what?"

"Jewel if I hear you talk again I swear on my life I'm going to punch you in the face" Ellia responded. "You made one good point. That is all."

"Why don't you just respect me? I could win this just as well as you. Reagan and Beau could win this just as well as either as us, and you make them follow you around like they're your little slaves."

"I don't need this from you," I heard Ellia's voice darken even more, "Just shut up and-"

Ellia's voice stopped suddenly. What had happened? Could she see me?

"Don't even try to move sweetheart," I heard Ellia yell.
I peered out from behind the rock. I wasn't sure if Ellia was talking to Carla or me, and if she was talking to me, there was no point in trying to stay hidden.

But she wasn't talking to me. Jewel, Reagan, and Beau made a semicircle around Ellia, who was staring from the cliff down into the grove. None of them were looking in my direction. Ellia's eyes were geared onto Carla, who was still in the tree to the right of the pond. Micah wasn't with her anymore, I don't know where he had gone to, perhaps another tree. Carla tried to scramble herself, but I knew what was coming. Ellia was the best archer in the training center. I moved my head back against the rock, not wanting to see the inevitable.

In those moments, I was not a part of myself. I wasn't myself. I wasn't Lottie.
Lottie could hear Ellia launching her arrow, and she could hear Carla scream, and fall.
In a state of shock, Lottie kept her hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming.
Lottie heard another arrow whizzing. She didn't want to know where it landed.
She didn't want to know if Ellia had found Micah as well.
Lottie faintly remembered watching Ellia walking away, and she remembered her crew following her. She remembered the tears in Jewel's eyes as she turned.

I, on the other hand, was numb. Gone.

I got back to myself a few minutes later. With Ellia and her crew gone, I dare to fully expose myself from behind the rock.

Carla was face down on the ground, with an arrow sticking out of her back. I hadn't hear the canon yet, could she still be alive?

I start to swim to shore, my mind still blank and my head still spinning. In a daze, I prop myself onto the ground and start to wring the water out of my backpack. Some food was ruined, not all of it, and my spear was okay. Cautiously, I stood up, wrapped my backpack around my shoulder, and made my way down to where Carla was.

Once I got there I knew she was still alive. I could see her body barely moving, twitching slightly, as she lay face-down on the ground, and an arrow sticking out of her back. This is not what I wanted, I didn't want to see her die twice. I was about to get the hell out of there when I heard a voice. Her voice. Muffled, slow, and weak. But there, present.

"Please," I heard her groan, "I want to see. Move me so I can see."

My father once told me that if anyone was injured severely, that I shouldn't move them. I should call for professional help. I guess in this situation it didn't matter. She was going to die, and there was no professional around that would be willing to help her.

I used my strength to prop her up against the tree, at an angle where the arrow would not hit it. There was a second arrow, broken at this point, implanted in her chest. Her mouth was full of blood. As for me, I was conflicted. The smartest thing to do would be to run, but part of me couldn't let this girl be alone in her final moments. So, blocking all of my natural instincts, I sat down next to her.

"I should have gone with her..." She murmured quietly, "The girl..."
"What girl?" I asked.
"The girl...Micah went with her...But I thought I was safer in the tree."
"What girl? Where did Micah go?"
She turned to me slightly, and as she saw my face, her eyes filled with sadness and horror. "I'm so sorry, little blond girl...He didn't mean it."
"What are you talking about,"
"Last night. At the tree. Don't you remember?" The voice didn't come from Carla's mouth. Rather, it came from behind me. "I saw you in the tree, and I tried to kill you."

I turned to see Micah standing behind me, knife in hand. "I hit you with a rock, and then the girl showed up...The same girl from today. She grabbed you and ran away with you...She was fast...I couldn't find her..." He rubbed his head.

Suddenly I remembered. I remembered seeing Micah behind me, and the pain of rock again. And this morning. I woke up in a completely different tree. But I didn't remember a girl. I must have blacked out.

"And then she tried to save me, after you rolled into the lake, and before Ellia showed up, she came again. She told us there was a safe place that we could go. I went. Carla didn't." He walked past me, and then fell to his knees. This was the first time I could see the tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry," He said to her, "I'm so, so sorry."

"Shhh," she said, smiling, "It's okay. This'll be a good death. I'll be ok. Like God."

I saw the life fade from her eyes. I saw her body go limp. I saw her die. The grove went dead silent. I didn't notice how loud the birds were until they stopped singing.

I expected Micah to do a lot of things. Go into shock. Cry. Get angry. Kill me. Instead he did the one thing I couldn't imagine.

He kept talking to me.

"Find her.." He said, "I don't remember what district she was from...I don't remember. But find her. Please. The Girl. She will help you."

"Don't you hear the beautiful birds singing, don't you Lottie Dee?" said my father, "It's only a bad day when the birds don't sing."