A/N: Well, after this I'm off to Florida for a few days, so nothing's coming out while I'm gone. This is probably the last update I'll put out until next weekend, so hopefully this is good enough to hold over.

I woke up in a cave roughly the size of the hotel room I'd fallen asleep in. Except it wasn't the hotel room I'd fallen asleep in. My things were scattered around, but everything seemed to be there, or, at least everything that came to mind that should be there was. I packed up everything and peered out the "door" to my cave, only to find I was staring down a drop of at least 20 feet. Below that was a canyon, and that seemed to be the Arena's environment of the day. Above was an overhang that appeared to prevent anyone from climbing out, essentially trapping us remaining tributes in a red rocky maze, comparable to that of the old-Panem's Grand Canyon.

After making my way down onto solid ground (or in Tooth's case, just jump down), I decided to just pick a direction and go. It was oddly quiet, no distant gunshots, no cannons, no birds. After an hour or so, I came across a waterfall that flowed from the top of the canyon, and stopped to rest and drink up.

While I sat and thought, I noticed a shell on the ground. Then another. Not like a seashell, no, these were bullet shells, huge ones at that. At first glance, I assumed they belonged to a heavy-caliber rifle like my own, but the sheer volume busted that, since there was no way a single person could fire (no less, get ahold of) that many shots. I began to follow the short trail, and discovered an empty box-looking object. The top was open and it has a slant along one corner. What it was, I wouldn't know, but the abundance of shells led me to believe they went in the box. Maybe some sort of extended clip or storage device. Judging by the sun it was roughly noon, and there was no way I could've missed the massive weapon firing off since I woke up. Of course, I might have slept through it, although that is also hard to believe.

Eventually, I decided it was time to get moving again, figured I'd start off in the direction of the trail of shells. For the most part, it was peaceful, just walking along. Of course, that was if you overlooked the fact that there were multiple other people in the area out for my blood. Not long afterwards, the path had a branch off that led to higher ground, and I decided to take the advantage higher ground would provide. The offshoot trail followed the cliff's edge and gave me a view to the path below.

After a while, the higher road I was on sunk back down into the path below, and the adventure continued on. The cliffs opened up a bit to reveal possible the area the cornucopia originally existed in, and I noticed another shell on the ground, just like the others from before. Whoever was leaving these behind obviously took the same path as I had, and, odds are, we'd encounter each other soon enough.

I was already paranoid enough, knowing that there were even people out there, but knowing how close they were, and knowing the firepower they brought with them, my hairs were practically standing on end. Suddenly, in the distance, I noticed something. At first, I passed it off as birds, but it obviously was not. The sound sounded just like a flock of birds, but there were no birds in sight, and the sound did not stop.

KTAWG KTWANG KTWANG KTWANG over and over coming from across the canyon, and as soon as the noise—gunfire—stopped, a cannon boomed off. I took off in a sprint across the wide area to the other end, and abruptly stopped when I could hear two voices coming from around a corner in the cliffs.

A boy and a girl, no doubt about that, and if I had to guess, both from 5 or around that area, since they definitely had the accent. "Another box?" the boy asked and I could head an item being thrown. Shlink, Thump, Click, Shlirrrrnk, Phrick-chick. And with that, I determined where the shells were coming from, and probably where the box came from.

I waited, and it sounded like the two had gone on their way. I peered around the corner, and saw the two a good ways down the straightaway. One was a bit taller than the other, although the shorter of the two was carrying the gun. I looked down the scope and managed to pick out the taller one was the girl, and the shorter was the boy. Across the girl's back was a gun that I could only describe as a short rifle with an attached grenade launcher and no magazine. Or maybe the grenade launcher-shaped attachment was the magazine. I unscoped to see a Capitol dropship fly over to retrieve the body, and that's when I realized…

I just screwed myself over.

The dropship was loud, and the two turned around. And saw me. One of them yelled and they both took off in a sprint at me. I panicked, scoped, and completely missed the chest of the boy. The girl began firing at me, and, although the shots missed, I freaked out and scoped my rifle, pulling out my sidearm and I opened fire, I'm not quite sure at who, but I didn't hit anything. The boy stopped about a hundred-fifty yards out, planted his foot, and began rocketing off his light machine gun. Tooth took off at the attackers, and made it about halfway down the stretch before being shot in the leg and chest, and the mutt collapsed, before vanishing into thin air. Shots were flying everywhere, most of them above my head and I began to back off while returning fire with my pistol. I hit the girl on the arm, and she dropped her gun and fell over. I switched targets and managed to hit the boy square in the chest, but not before taking a bullet to the leg. The second my bullet made contact, the firing stopped, a cannon boomed, he fell backwards, and dropped the terror-rifle. I walked forward and retrieved my rifle, and realized.

There was only one cannon.

I looked up, and the girl was gone, nothing but a bloody puddle and a tube of something. Half-limping over to the tube, I picked it up and noticed it was a clip. A magazine, apparently to her gun. Odd, the cartridges looked very similar to my handgun bullets. The boy, however, lay dead, and I took the opportunity to take what I could before the Capitol ship arrived. There wasn't much, but he did have a bag of granola and a mostly-full canteen, as well as his own handgun with a few extra clips. Also, he had a roll of gauze, or, about half of one left, which I added to my bag.

I wasn't going to try and lug the machine gun, which I identified as an M60 by the engravings on its warm barrel, as well as a rough scratch onto the stock which I couldn't read, although it resembled a heart shape. Maybe those two had something going on. I didn't want to think about it, and I couldn't, with the searing pain in my freshly-shot leg. Tooth was gone, it was probably his time anyway, but there wasn't time to mourn. Hell, I could barely stand, much less walk.

In my medical opinion, the bullet needed to come out, the sooner the better. I drug myself over to the wall of the cliff and began trying to work it out with a knife. I clenched my teeth as I tried to find the metal bullet in my flesh, and, after a bit of digging, I found and extracted the shot. I quickly bandaged up my profusely bleeding leg and tried to stand, but the pain was just too much for me.

The sun was waning low over the canyon and I decided it was as good of a time as any to try and sleep. Exposed as I was, I let myself slowly drift off against the rocky canyon wall.

A/N: Well, this is probably the last thing coming out this week, and a special thanks to Doc Derp for helping me along with the idea for this chapter. Until next time, I've been Pix, and I hope you enjoyed!