Disclaimer: When I looked in the mirror this morning, I wasn't shocked to see that I'm not Suzanne Collins.
The sun in the sky makes things hard to see, but I spot Karma shaking her hair out and putting it in her usual super-high ponytail. She looks at me, not straight in the eye though, and nods. I nod in reply. She's about six platforms down, so it won't be too hard to find her when it's time to start.
"Ladies and gentlemen… let the 76th annual Hunger Games begin!"
Us, the tributes, have 60 seconds to work out a plan. Maybe if I- no. If I go around the- no. If I run through the Cornucopia- oh no way,, I'll get killed within the first five seconds!
I look at Karma. She's making two people running with her fingers. "Follow" she mouths. I nod. She points her thumbs to herself. "Me." I nod again. My heart is beating so hard that I think it's going to break through my ribs. The gong sounds and my eyes fly over to Karma. She jumps off of her platform and crouches down before running towards the Cornucopia. Is she crazy?
I groan and chase after, making sure nobody is behind her. She's going after a spear that's propped up on a tree. She's a yard away when another girl blocks her. Karma doesn't hesitate; instead, she jumps right onto her back and knocks her down. Karma stands up, brushes herself off, grabs the spear, and hurriedly beckons me over.
She disappears into the woods, and I'm about to follow when a boy falls on me. He's gasping for breath, a knife lodged in his stomach. Unintentionally, he coughs blood on me. I push him off, determined to find Karma. I run into the woods where Karma was. I don't see her until someone grabs my sleeve. It's Karma- thank the heavens.
"Casey!" She yells and hugs me. "Oh my gosh, It's horrible out there!"
"Tell me about it." I say. "Some guy was just stabbed and fell on me." I shudder as I try to squeeze the wet blood out of my jumpsuit.
"Well, we need to move unless we want to end up like him." Karma says. I just noticed how close to the bloodbath that we are. I nod and follow Karma, avoiding her spear. There are branches three feet off the ground- that Karma has no trouble jumping over. I, on the other hand, take some time to get over. Karma doesn't seem annoyed by this though.
We walk, or in Karma's case, swing- since she's swinging from branch to branch- for hours until we come across a clearing with a stream of clear water.
"We're going to have to stay here for a while." Karma says, wiping the sweat from her forehead. "They're going to show the tributes soon and it's going to get dark. What do you think?"
"Yeah, we should stay here." I say, panting.
"Okay." she says. "Let's start setting up camp."
"Wha- can't we just rest for an hour or two?" I say.
"Sure." She replies. She starts breaking off branches from trees.
"Oh, thank you." I say.
"We can rest, after we build camp." she says. She shoves half of the branches that she broke off to me. "Okay, let's start building shelter."
"Ugh." I groan. "Fine."
The whole time we work, Karma barely looks me in the eyes like she used too. Maybe she decided that now that we're in the arena we have to keep everything professional. Well it was a nice week while it lasted.
When we finish making shelter, Karma sighs, closing her eyes. "Wow, that took forever!" she says. "I bet the Capitol's trying to kill us. Giving us all that food last week just so we'll get used to it, then throwing us in- well- here."
Nope, Karma's still Karma.
"You know, that's pretty true. Maybe they are." I say.
"I was only kidding." she says. "I mean, do you really think they would try and kill us before we even went into the arena?"
"Well it's possible." I say. She looks like she doesn't know how to reply, so she doesn't. instead, she sits cross-legged and plays with the head of her spear.
"Can you believe I got this?" She says.
"I can't believe you went running through the Cornucopia like that." I say.
"Look, the spear was sharp, it got my attention." She says. Karma gets up and turns away. She picks up her spear and puts the sharp end near her head. Then she turns her head to the side, grinning evilly. She licks the sharp point. "And you know I like sharp things."
We both burst out laughing.
Huh, who knew that on my first day in the arena, I'd be laughing?
"Hey, I'm hungry." Karma says. "Want to find something to eat?"
"Yes!" I say.
"Okay." She says. She walks over to me, staring at my hands. He grabs my wrists, moves under me, and picks me up on her back like in the training center.
"What are you doing?" I laugh.
"I'm taking you to the Land of Places Where We Search For Food." She says.
"Oh, I've heard that's even nicer than the Land of Stuffed Dummies That We Use To Practice Killing People!" I yell.
"Oh, it is!" She says, quoting me. She sprints out of our camp, jumping over branches and making barely any noise. I close my eyes, only paying attention to Karma's warm skin. I'm getting used to her pace, so I'm surprised when she stops. I open my eyes and see her staring at a backpack in the middle of a patch of uncut grass.
"Does that seem a little suspicious to you?" Karma asks me.
"Yeah." I say. I jump off her back, reluctantly. I grab a twig and prod the bag. Nothing happens. I look at Karma, but she's still staring at the bag. "Er- what do you think's inside?" I ask. She shrugs her shoulders.
"We shouldn't try to find out. Nobody in here would be stupid enough to leave a perfectly good backpack laying around without it being some sort of trap-"
"Hey Pretty, that's no way to talk about somebody." I hear. I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from yelling. Karma spins on her heel.
"Oh… you again." She says, looking Tay dead in the eye.
Okay, I know this may sound selfish, but I can't help feeling jealous that she'll look him in the eyes and not me- even though her eyes are filled with hate towards him.
"Oh, don't sound too happy." He says. "I just wanted to give you your present." He picks up the backpack. "So how about you take back calling me stupid and say 'thanks' instead?"
"I think I'll stick with stupid." She says. "You know, Ty-"
"Tay." He corrects her.
"Whatever. You know, Tay, sometimes I wonder why your little pack is called the 'Careers' since, you know, none of you would be smart enough to even land a job. I mean, look where we are; giving your bag to the enemy. This is no place to be a gentleman." She says.
I have to put my fist in my mouth to stifle my laughter; and it still just barely hides it.
"Oh, but you aren't the enemy." Tay says.
Karma puts an annoyed look on her face. "What are you tal-"
"You didn't think I was just going to give you the backpack without something in return, did you?" He laughs.
"What angle are you working at?" She spits.
"Why don't you come with the Careers and me, pretty?" he says. "We have everything to last you a lifetime. Food, shelter… me." He whispers in his un-clean tone. Karma turns green again, looking as if she's going to throw up.
"Look, Tim-"
"Tay." He says, unusually patient.
"Whatever, Ty, Tim, Tay, same difference!" Karma says. "Why don't you just run along to your little friends and leave me alone because I. Am. Not. Interested."
"Not yet, your not." Tay says. "You'll come along, Pretty." He walks over to her and kisses her jaw-bone. She's turning greener by the second and I can tell that she's doing all she can to not throw up.
"Yeah, sure, that's great." She says. "Bye."
Tay, looking slightly surprised that Karma rejected him, backed away until he was concealed by the woods.
"Okay, let's just find a few berries, I'm not that hungry anymore." Karma says, some of her regular color returning slowly.
"Sure." I laugh. She grabs my hand and pulls me through the woods until we find some blackberries on a vine. Karma squeezes one to make sure they're not too ripe, then we each fill our arms.
The walk back to camp was silent because Karma was trying to focus on getting back to our camp. Once we get there, Karma gives a sigh of relief.
"What?" I ask.
"I was scared that somebody would ruin our camp because we left it so open." She says.
We sit down my the stream of water and dunk our aching feet in it. "Aah." We both moan. We eat our berries in silence as the sky slowly turns darker. We wait for all the cannons of the day to go off since on the first day there are the most deaths. I loose count around eight. I avoid looking at the faces in the sky and avoid listening to the Panem National Anthem.
"Case, let's go to sleep. It's late and we're going to need the energy for tomorrow." Karma said.
Case. That's what Edwin would call me once we became best friends. I guess that's a good sign.
"Okay. After you Karma." I say, stretching out my arms. She crawls into our… I don't even know what it is; all I know is that it's a shelter. I crawl in after. I lay down on the ground that we covered with leaves. Karma lays down next to me and faces the other way. After a few minutes of dead silence, Karma talks.
"Casey, ask me anything." She says.
"Do you trust me?" I blurt out. After a few seconds, she answers.
"Yes." She says. "I trust you more than anyone."
A/N: Well I have some big test coming up over the next few weeks. Isn't that dandy? No. I don't like tests, but oh well. So I've been Reading the Harry Potter series (I'm on the fourth) and it is officially my second favorite series! Behind The Hunger Games of course. Nothing beats The Hunger Games trilogy; it's just a fact. I won't be surprised if that fact wasn't listed in a textbook in the next few years because THE HUNGER GAMES BEATS ALL! Okay! That's it for now, bye!
~Telling Time Backwards