I relive that night a million times. Seeing Birch's dark silhouette sitting so calmly on one knee, hiding in the grass, being frozen and barely breathing. I see Boeh's huge green eyes, her crazy smile, her already bloodstained knife… Each time I see it in front of me, I become more and more terrified. Then I imagine myself in Birch's place. Cleaning my weapon and suddenly being stolen away by the psychotic girl from Three. Getting tied up and her putting my feet over that fire. The pain of burning flesh and muscles, dripping blood… Her knife turning up the corners of my face in a smile. Her stabbing me…

"Nate?"

The little voice snaps me out of it. Priscilla says, "Try to sleep. I'll keep watch."

We exchange an extremely sad glance, but she climbs out of her sleeping bag before I can stop her. I hand off the blanket to her and walk to the sleeping bag, lay down, and close my eyes.

When I look back over at her, though, she has the blanket pressed to her nose, inhaling deeply. She doesn't move the blanket from her nose at all, inhaling and exhaling rhythmically.

Suddenly, the call of sleep is impossible for me to reject, and I decide to give into it and get the nightmares over with.

And there it is. The hallucination I always get nowadays when I'm stressed out, when I'm scared, when I'm guilty. His blue eyes, just like I remember them, frown at me. "You're an idiot," he says when he knows I've looked over to him.

"I know," I groan.

"You never should've volunteered," he informs me matter-of-factly.

"I know that, too," I growl.

"You can't blame Dill, Nate!"

"Yes I can. I can blame Ashley, too."

He pauses and tries to take me by the shoulders, but he can't touch me. "Nate, you know she wasn't herself. You know she was manipulated!"

There's a long pause during which I just glare at him.

"Elijah, look, I can NOT do this. I am in an Arena, and I am supposed to be fighting to the death! I'm terrified! I need you to console me, not tear me down!"

"Nate, do you love me?"

I jump. "What?"

"Do you love me, Nate? Everyone seems to think you love me."

"I know that."

"Do you love Platinum? Priscilla sure seems to think so."

"Maybe they're all wrong. Ever think of that?"

"Hey, I'm a hallucination, Nate. I come from inside your head. I'm just here to ask you all those challenging questions you don't want to think about. Because we all know that you miss me and you can never reject me because I'm dead and you're guilty."

"Thanks for being gentle with me, Lij. Sure is appreciated."

He tries to make the best of it, tries to smile, but he just can't. I can't, either, even though I try to joke around.

"Do you love him, Nate? Do you love Platinum?"

"No." The answer is frank and honest. "No, I don't."

"Then we're back to square one. Do you love me?"

"I…I…"

"Do you love me, Nate?! It's such a simple question!"

"Elijah, you are like my brother. Of course I love you!"

"Nate, you know what I mean."

"I…I don't swing that way, Lij. No. I don't love you, like that."

It feels like the world's just been lifted off of my shoulders. The specter disappears and the rest of my night is dreamless, thank goodness.

The next day we stay by the side of the stream. My mind is flooded with memories of Boeh stealing Birch away, so every half an hour or so, I make sure everyone's still there. I suppose it's not exactly a half an hour each time, especially when Cutter whispers, "It's alright, Nate."

"Huh?"

"You've been asking us every ten minutes if everyone's here. We're all alright. You don't need to be so paranoid."

"I'm not paranoid," I say gruffly. But I stop asking if everyone's here vocally, instead I just steal glances behind me every once-in-a-while.

We walk until it's lunchtime again and we all sit on the dry grass and Cutter unloads the backpack.

For once, I'm relieved to stop. We sit in a circle, so I can see all of them at all times. Look, I know that all of them will have to die for me to win, and I know that they all will, but I don't want any of them to have to die quiet like Birch did. The way Boeh tortured him was just cruel and inhumane. Imagining any of them having to go through it just makes me sick. We eat quietly in the tall grass and talk amongst ourselves. Then we pack up our stuff and set off walking again.

A little later into the afternoon, we finally see two figures in the distance. Two think, petite, little figures. Obviously two girls. The question is who?

We get closer, very quietly. Then I give a nod, holding onto my sword tightly, and we take off in a run towards them. The 11 girl, who has red hair tied in two braids with two green bows, notices us first. Her green eyes go wide and she takes off running. Her ally, the girl from Nine, gets up and runs, too.

We chase after both of them, and they both run away from us for an amazing amount of time. Cutter loads and shoots an arrow at them, and it hits the 11 girl in the ankle, and she trips.

So I guess she's going to be our kill. Suddenly, the Nine girl helps her up and pushes her forward. 11 screams but keeps running and it turns out that Nine is our kill. Priscilla throws a knife and it hits her back, then she falls and I'm able to put my sword through her chest.

We hear a cannon almost immediately.

When we all look up, 11 is gone and we're all panting too hard to be able to put up a good fight. But I think one kill's just fine, for now. We recollect our stuff, then turn around and walk back to the Cornucopia. This time, we get there a little before sunset. Hunting is a little hard tonight, and we have to venture well outside of our boundaries to find a much smaller version of the creature we saw before.

Once again, I'm the designated skinner, so I sit down and start skinning the thing. The others go off to light the fire and I'm left alone. I skin the animal and think, something that's dangerous.

Suddenly, I hear beeping. I stand up and see the flickering red light in the sky. The silver container lands beside me and it stops beeping when I finally open it. I pull out a little container of some mystery liquid. When I open that container, it has a dropper. Suddenly I realize what it must be. Something to purify the water. When I reach in again, I find a lantern. When I pull it out, it looks just like the one Platinum had in his Games. In fact, it very well could've been, considering it seems kind of old. I turn it on and the light makes me temporary blind. I blink and feel thankful for the light. When I reach back in, I see a note.

This is for you, Cupcake, from your ever-so-loving mentor. Pick and choose who you share it with wisely. -Platinum

I smile, but soon realize I can't just sneak a lantern past my alliance. Hopefully nobody recognizes it as Platinum's like I did. I finish skinning it and put the iodine in one of the large pockets of my jacket with the note. Then I use the lantern to walk back to camp.

"Nate! Where'd you find that!?" Melanie asks.

"Woah!" Priscilla says, grinning. I put Cutter's flashlight in his palm and say, "I got it from a sponsor." There's a pause when I decide to not put a target on my back, and then I add, "For all of us, from Platinum."

Cutter is the only one that I know for sure recognizes the lamp. He looks physically uncomfortable when he sees it.

"You can hold onto it," he says, and everyone agrees. I pass out the meat and we all roast it and eat. It tastes good after a long day.

Afterwards, we put out the fire and Cutter says, "Nate, do you want to go get the water again?"

"Uh, actually, I'm really tired," I lie. In reality, I don't want to sleep and the thought of facing Boeh by the stream is horrifying.

"Alright. I'll go," he whispers. I put the lantern in his hands and whisper, "You should take this."

He shoves it back in my hands forcefully and when he responds, he sounds hurt and angry, "I can't." Then he stomps off and I shrug before curling up in a sleeping bag. Melanie is on watch and just as Cutter leaves, the anthem plays and the Nine girl's face shines in the sky. Her name was Clara. Then it flickers off and Cutter comes back. He hands his backpack to Melanie, curls up next to me, and dozes off.

I don't want to go to sleep, but I do anyways.

In my dream, I'm witnessing the events, but when I try to say something, I can't. I'm not in the scene, and yet I'm seeing it. At first, all I can hear is the sounds of muffled crying. When the scene comes into focus, I see Clara in Elijah's arms. She cries into his shoulder and he hugs her and takes her back and forth in that gentle way of his.

I did something like that to him when his mother died and he completely lost it with grief. I took him back and forth, too, but not to a very good rhythm, and I was very harsh with it. When I met him in the room of the Justice Building before he went off to his death, we were locked in a hug very similar to the one in front of my eyes now. When he sways, it's gentle, to a very calming rhythm. Elijah's tenderness is one of the things he's always had that I will never have.

Anyways, he hugs Clara in a very calming way. I shouldn't be able to hear what he whispers, but I do.

"Nate never meant it, really. He's a good person."

She cries into his shoulder and says, "It's a lot easier to hate him if he's your killer."

"I promise he was never like this before!"

"Well the Arena changes people!" she cries into his shoulder, "And he killed me!"

"It'll get easier, I promise."

"He can't kill Holly! If he kills Holly-"

"Sh… Please don't hate him… He has a good reason…"

She scowls. "Sure he does."

But slowly the tears stop anyways. Clara disappears and Elijah gives me a harsh look. "You need to be careful."

"This is a fight to the death, Elijah! Kill or die! You should fucking know."

"I don't regret anything more than that spark of insanity. That caused me to kill a twelve-year-old."

"That's like you."

"You may be in denial right now, but I promise you're going to hate yourself later and feel guilty if you keep killing people."

"I either kill people or the Capitol does it for me. Then I die. It's the Hunger Games, Elijah. They're fucking messed up. Just get used to it."

There's a long pause between the two of us.

Elijah suddenly disappears, scowling, and I scream for him to come back so we can fix our relationship again. But I'm forced into a black, dreamless void for the rest of the night.