Author's Note: Sorry for the wait on this chapter. I've been really busy with my course as we are coming to the end of term and I haven't had much time to write. However, I'm heading over to America next week and while I doubt I'll be able to do any writing there, I still want to post a chapter or two before I go.

The beginning of this chapter is sort of depressing, disgusting and I wouldn't have the faint hearted reading it aka me. However I can't stop you from doing so but please don't give me a hard time over how horrible and digusting this chapter is. It was hard enough to write and I can't change my storyline now, however I have tried to lower the gore-factor, but still, it's kind of gross and to me at least, a little disturbing.

Chapter Nineteen

I honestly thought that the day couldn't get any worse, but this is the Hunger Games after all, and making things worse is their specialty.

While Jade roared ahead of us, the rest of us walked in silence. It's hard to believe how loud these five were just four days ago. Now it's like someone's switched the light and fire off from within them, only Jade has the same amount of energy and vigour as she had when she entered the games.

"Hey, you lot!" We all jumped at the sound Jade yelling back at us, "come and take a look at this."

Glancing at each other the five of us headed for the second time today in the direction of Jade's yells, each of us dreading what we'd find when we reached her.

And we weren't wrong to dread.

The moment I joined Jade I felt like I was going to be sick for the second time today.

"Jade…"

"Hey, I didn't do this." Jade snorted as she and the rest of us looked around the small clearing that we found ourselves in.

Charred bones littered the ground by a dying fire and they weren't just any old bones, I was sure of it, but rather I had strong feeling that they were in fact human bones. This feeling only grew when I saw the softly moaning girl lying by the dying fire, her arm and foot missing, both having been crudely cut off by something that was definitely man-made. There was blood all around her, it was amazing she wasn't dead yet.

I stared at her, then at the charred bones, then back at her and then I threw up. Up until now I was able to keep my nausea under control but today hadn't been a good day, so I think can be forgiven for giving into my almost constant desire to throw up.

And I wasn't the only one who was sick either, though I was the most violently ill.

The sound of heaving stirred the poor girl out of her almost lifeless state and she looked around at us with terrified eyes. She could only be about thirteen years of age.

When she saw us she didn't seem to understand who we were; she didn't scream or try to move but then this might simply be because she had no strength at all.

She simply stared at us, big tears rolling down her cheeks.

I couldn't understand how she was still alive with the amount of blood that she had clearly lost when she lost her arm and foot.

Without thinking I took a step towards her. I was over my nausea now and now all I saw, all I cared about was helping this poor girl.

"Hello." I said softly as I came to crouch down by her, gently smoothing her mattered blood tangled hair from her face. She was quite pretty.

"Hi." She whispered back, her pale, almost white face was screwed up in pain, "hurts."

"Yeah," I said, "yeah, I bet." I licked my dry, cracked lips which for some reason caused her to cringe away from me.

"Hey, easy, easy. What's wrong?"

She shook her head, more tears flowing down her face.

"Come on, it's ok. We're not going to hurt you." HA! With Jade around wasn't that biggest lie ever spoken? But the girl seemed to calm down a little, by my words or because of my stroking her hair, I'll never know but whatever it was, it calmed her down enough for her to talk.

"You have to leave… leave before he-he comes back." She whispered raggedly.

"Who comes back?"

"He ate Lilly." I stared at her not sure that I had heard her right. I mean, I couldn't have, could I? I look around me at the bones littering the camp site and feel nauseous again.

"He's going to eat me next." The girl sobbed, "It hurts."

I open my mouth and then closed it again. I shook my head and kept running my hand over her head, moving her head onto my lap.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Beka."She breathed, "My name is Beka Carson, from District Six."

"Hi Beka," I say, forcing myself to smile at her, "nice to meet you. I'm Annie Cresta from District Four."

Beka smiled up at me weakly.

I could hear Jade getting impatient behind me but I ignored her and none of the others said anything so I just kept talking to Beka.

I don't remember what I said, everything and nothing probably, but she didn't complain, she just listen to what I said, her body relaxing against mine, her eyes closing and her breathing becoming shallower overtime.

I hadn't been wrong in my judgment that she was quite close to death when we found her, so I just kept talking to her until she breathed her last breaths of life.

I closed her eyes when I heard her cannon sound. It was then that I heard the sound of staggering footsteps running in our direction.

I looked at the others and they were already moving for the trees, away from the body of Beka and away from the nearing running foot steps.

I was up on my feet and up a tree the moment the source of the footsteps entered the clearing.

"Oh no, no, no." I whispered as I stared down at the source from up my tree. "No, no, no. Titus?"

I watched him as he wailed when he saw that Beka was dead, a bloody axe hanging limply from his huge fist, blood surrounding his mouth.

He's wails grew louder as he heard the Hovercraft nearing to pick up Beka's body.

I squeezed my eyes shut as he swung his axe and I heard the sound of metal hitting flesh than bone. I opened one of my eyes and immediately wished that I hadn't. Titus had cut off Beka's other arm and was beginning to chew on it.

Oh… I squeezed my eyes closed again, gulping to keep myself from throwing up again.

I heard him growl as the Hovercraft appeared in the sky above our heads. Every time it tried to take the Beka's body, Titus kept pulling the body away from them, growling and actually snarling at the Hovercraft.

It took several tries before the Hovercraft actually used some kind of electrical force to get him away from Beka's body.

He howled and cried when he was finally able to get to his feet and he saw that Beka's body and the Hovercraft were gone.

I stared down at the baby face that was crying huge tears, his sobs making me want to climb down from my tree and hug.

Stop it! I growl at myself, he eats people! He – eats – other – tributes! He'll try and eat you if you went down there.

But still he's cries were getting to me and I felt my own tears rolling down my cheeks as I listen to his miserable sobs. I could hear words that sounded like 'mama' and 'dada' along with names like 'Aaron', 'Will' and 'Beka'. Even my name was muttered in between his sobs.

After awhile he fell into a miserable sort of state of silence before lumbering off into the forest, he's axe dragging behind him before it slipped from his grasp and fell onto the forest floor with a thump.

After a few moments, I climbed down from tree and the others came out from wherever they had been hiding.

"That was…" Merle started.

"Don't," Sera and I both said, holding up our hands to stop him from saying anything further, "Don't say anything more."

"Right," Merle said, looking a little green himself.

Jade wandered over to where Titus had dropped his axe and picked it up, giving it a few experimental swings before grinning.

"I'm keeping this." she informed us.

"Ok, fine. Come on; let's just get away from this place." Cole said, looking in the direction that Titus had gone.

"I never thought…" Jade started, sounding like she is about to laugh, "I never thought I see something like that in the Games, especially not mine!"

I tried to scowl at her but I was now just too numb to do so. My facial features simply wouldn't work the way I wanted them too.

"He was-he was…" Sera whispered looking into the forest, her bottom lip trembling. I put an arm around her and she started sobbing again.

I glanced at her brother who was eyeing his twin with concern and worry, he's eyes like mine were flicking in the others direction, hoping that none of them noticed Sera's break down.

"Come on Sera." Jep whispered as he came to stand with Sera and me, "we have to move now and if the others see you like this…" he trailed off for he had said enough for Sera to once more pull herself together. I wasn't sure how many more times she'd be able to do this or how much she would be able to take of the games, but I didn't want her to die because of the others thinking she was weak and useless to them.

I looked at Jep, and honestly started to wonder how much longer he and his sister would still be with us, and I didn't mean that they had been killed by the others but in general, when they would leave our group and try and survive on their own. A part of me didn't want them to leave and another part wished that they had left earlier, so as to have spared Sera of everything that she had seen while being with our group.

We managed to calm her down before the others noticed her hysteria over what had just happen, or maybe the boys did but they were ignoring us and Jade was too busy muttering away to herself to notice.

"So, what now?" Merle asked as we started moving away from that horrid clearing.

"Snares," I say though it comes out as more of a mumble, "I want to check the snares."

"Okay." Merle said. I saw that he and Cole were continuously looking around us. Obviously Titus had freaked them out more than they had let on.

"I'll come with you." Sera said moving to my side so fast she almost pushed me over.

"I'll go too."Jep said and I wondered if now was when they were planning to disappear. I wouldn't stop… I might even disappear along with them but…

I looked over to where Merle was standing, watching us.

"How bout we all go." Jade said sounding unbelievably bright. I felt Sera shudder beside me, but she said nothing.

No one argued with Jade's suggestion so we all headed in the direction of where Merle and I had set up our snares yesterday.

Only…

"Where is it?" Merle asked me when we came to the spot where I'm sure we had set up a snare, only there was no snare…

"We set it up here." I said slowly, crouching down beside where I can see the earth has been disturbed. A snare had been set up here and had been removed. Not destroyed, but disassembled and taken.

"And someone's taken it." Merle finished for me.

"WHAT?!" Jade shrieks.

I glanced up and over at Merle and Cole who I can see are both thinking the same thing as me, whether or not our other snares were in the same shape as this one, meaning that they were gone too.

We kept going and sure enough all our snares are gone. Jade's once bright and cheery mood is now disintegrated into a foul, murderous mood that has even Cole keeping quite a significant distance from her.

"We can always head back to the lake?" I say when I look to the sky and see that dusk is close approaching, making now a perfect time to go fishing.

"Are you insane?" Sera cried, "with that thing swimming around in there?!"

"Are you hungry? Do you want to eat?" I asked since I know that they've eaten through all their provisions. I have some left, but I'm keeping what I have left for when I really, really need it. Which I feel will be soon, what with the way things are going within our group.

Since it quickly comes clear that the lake is out, we keep walking until it is completely dark and we are all exhausted. We try to catch food on the move but we are all too loud and all possible food is scared away before we even have a chance of seeing it.

Completely exhausted and hungry we set up camp in a clearing with none of us having any idea where we are or how far away from the lake we had walked. Which I can't help but think isn't the brightest of ideas, but then again, we aren't the brightest bunch of people.

We have berries and roots that I've found during my gathering, but this doesn't appease the others who are sitting around the fire grumbling and complaining.

Jade the loudest of them all. I don't know what she's hoping to achieve by this, but she's seems to be quite determined to get the message across to someone that she is not happy. I just curl up in my sleeping bag, forcing myself to ignore her and to not think about the day in anyway.

"That's more like it!" Jade yells suddenly causing me to jump. What on earth was she on about now? Then I saw a silver parachute floating down to where Jade is. I had completely forgotten about sponsors and gifts.

I shake my head and lie back down, ignoring Jade's delight over finding that she has been sent food which she doesn't share with any of us – not that anyone challenged her about it – nor did she save anything for later, she ate it all up from the sounds of it. Stupid.

I close my eyes, too tired to fight sleep, too tired to dream which I didn't. Dream I mean. I slept so heavily that I missed the anthem and the death recap; I also missed my turn of being on guard duty, Merle taking it for me until I woke up myself a couple hours before dawn.

"Wow," I mumbled, surprised, "I slept."

"Not surprising since you haven't slept more than a couple of hours in three days." Merle says from where he's sitting by the fire.

"Couldn't sleep." I reply as I move over to where he is and once more curl up in my sleeping bag.

"Hmmm," he says as he pokes the fire. "I wonder if anyone ever regrets it." he says unexpectedly.

"Regrets what?" I ask stupidly, still not fully awake.

"Becoming a Career or allying with them." He explains slowly.

"All the time I'm betting." I yawn.

He looks down at me with a grave look.

"Do you?"

"Do I what?" I'm a little slow when I first wake up and as Merle said I haven't slept more than a couple of hours in something like three days.

"Joining up with us."

"Didn't have much choice in the matter. You called out to me remember." I reminded him and he actually looked a little ashamed.

"Yeah… sorry about that. Could have saved you a whole heap of grief if I hadn't. I mean, you could be happily holed up by the lake right now, fishing away when you needed to eat, doing your own thing while we lot go about killing ourselves. You do know," he says looking down at me again, "that you're probably the only reason that we haven't yet."

I snort.

"Oh sure."

"I'm serious. How useless were we that first day here? None of us would have thought to make snares or head for the lake for water. Heck we could all be dead right now from simply eating those nightlook berries."

"Nightlock." I correct him idly, thinking over what he was saying.

In a way he was speaking the truth, that first day they really had been useless and hadn't been thinking of how they were going to survive the games in the long term but…

"You would have eventually, when you got hungry enough, headed for the lake and started fishing." I remind him.

He shrugged looking out into the trees.

"I never thought that it would be this bad." He admitted slowly.

"The games?" I guess.

"Yeah. I mean, the way they glorify it back home I thought…" he trailed off, looking up at the sky. "I thought it'd be different."

"What do you think now?" I ask softly.

"That I just want to go home. To just get as far away from this place as I possibly can."

"Yeah… same."

"You knew it was this bad didn't you? From your Grandma and everyone else?"

I shrug.

"None of them like talking about it. I mean, I only found out about my Grandma's games a week or so back and she didn't tell me everything."

"I don't think I could." Merle says poking the fire, "talk about it, I mean. I don't think I could or even want to. I would just want to forget as fast as possible everything that has happened here."

"Same, only they won't let you." Merle looks back at me from the fire, his face twisted into a frown "They'll never let you forget, "I continue slowly even though I know I'm dancing on very, very dangerous ground, "they'll force you to remember your games and every games that you mentor until the day you die."

"Do you want to win?"

"No," I say and my lips quirk into a smile as I stare into the fire, "but I want to get home more than anything."

"How does that work?"

"That's just it," I sigh, "it doesn't. You should try and get some sleep. I think today is going to be an even longer day than yesterday."

"You sure."

"Yeah, I'm not tired anymore. Go on," I smile at him, "sleep. I'll be fine."

"Alright. Well, see you in the morning. I mean, the later this morning."

I smile at him and watch as he gets into his sleeping bag. He's asleep in moments, if he's snoring was anything to go by. For some reason, this made me giggle, then I giggle some more at how silly I'm being over laughing over someone snoring.

I'm shaking my head when I notice a silver parachute and then another falling straight towards me.

Two parachutes?

I looked around at the others who are sleeping. Who did these belong to…

I felt something drop into my lap along with a second. Surprised I looked down into my lap where the two parachutes sat.

Mine? They were both… mine?

Hesitantly, I open the first one and find that a compass is lying in it. It is nice and new and gleams brightly as the fire reflects off its shiny surface, its needle spinning smoothly as I point in the direction that I was pretty sure the lake to be in. North, the lake was north. Though how far north was a completely different question entirely.

This was a wonderful gift, one that I could use throughout the games continuously, never to feel lost again if I get stuck in that awful dark and quiet part of the forest near the mountains. But why would anyone send me this. I hadn't done anything to deserve one gift let alone two and this was such a nice gift.

I turned the compass over and saw that there was something engraved on the back. 'Made in District Five' and above two words that made my heart stop…

'Thank you'

The girl... the girl from our second night here in the arena, she was from District Five.

I shake my head trying to fight back tears. District Five was sending me gift… thanking me for killing their girl tribute.

Why?

I killed her! I stopped Jade from torturing her, but that was only through killing her myself! Why would anyone thank me for that?

I stared at the compass, more than half tempted to drop it into the fire, but something stops me from doing so and I slip it into the pocket of my jacket instead.

The second parachute contained some simple painkillers. Simple but effective. I wasn't sure what I had done to deserve these either but I tucked them into my backpack all the same.

As an afterthought, I looked up at the sky, just straight up and said, quiet but I knew that anyone who was watching would know what I was saying.

"Thank you."

I don't know what I had done to deserve these gifts, obviously something that was making people want to sponsor me.

I hide the parachutes in a holed out tree trunk before crawling back into my sleeping bag and watched for dawn to rise.

Author's Note: Yeah, so I finally got the Cannibal thing in... and believe me I sort of starting to wish I hadn't, but too late now. I hope I didn't gross out too many people. I did try to keep the gore-factor moderately low, but this is the Hunger Games after all. I felt kind of bad for Titus, like Annie does. I really need to stop getting so attached to my characters, it makes them all the harder to kill off.
Annie got sponsors! YAY! Finally, lol. So did Jade... boo... But Annie got two, so YAY. The compass was originally meant to go to the girl from District Five - Her name was Isadora - but when she died, her District wanted the compass to go to Annie as a way of expressing their thanks for her ending Dora's suffering. I don't know, I just thought that it'd be a sweet, but useful gift that Annie might recieve.
Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed and reviews are much loved.