Who said something about Zombies? How did you know that they're my favourite horror film scary thingy. I love Zombies! Thank you for the brilliant review Guest person, and prepare to see some Zombies! These were originally going to be sea monsters, but then your brilliant review came along, and I just wanted to make you happy! So…

Will you review?

Disclaimer – I own a pet Zombie. Called Rupert Murdoch. But I don't own the Games O' Hunger.

Reanimating

A groan next to me.

I groan in response to the sound, angry at my sleep being disturbed.

"Shut up Movii!" I mumble, she always wakes me up early in the mornings and it isn't fair.

I grab her wrist and attempt to push her out of the bed we share, so at least I can get a good night's sleep. She groans in response again.

"Seriously Movii, if you don't shut up I might…"

Hang on just one second…

My eyes fly open and I take in my surroundings.

Dark skies, black cliff, blanket.

I'm not in my house am I?

And Movii is not here as far as I am aware.

I relax at this, recognising this means I can take another few minutes as a nap, something I rarely get back at home. I sink back under the blanket, and try to get back to sleep again, the harsh fibres of the blanket making my skin itch.

A groan next to me again.

Wait.

If Movii isn't here, who's groaning?

I jump up out from under the blanket, and grab my pack and spear from next to me. I swing the pack onto my back, ready to escape the tribute who's hunting me.

Oh crap…

Is it the Careers?

Dou?

Kai?

Or none of the above.

In front of me stands a boy.

He's small, and I immediately recognise him as the one from district 5. 12 years old, the youngest here.

Something is wrong, really wrong.

He stands in front of me, looking like a rag doll, one leg trailing uselessly behind him; foot pointed the wrong way around, towards the sea. His skin, which was once a tan colour, is now hanging loosely off his skeleton, a green tinge which does nothing to disguise the deep maroon colour of blood that I can see surrounding his neck. His dark hair has fallen out, leaving clumps of it here and there, as if someone had taken it to themselves to pull out all his hair, and left the job unfinished.

That wasn't even the worst part.

The majority of his face is just…

No longer there.

I can make out a nose, and the bottom half of a lip, along with what seems to be an eye, hanging loosely from the socket, swaying as he moves forward, the foot dragging behind it like deadweight.

I hold in the impulse to vomit, feeling the bitter tang sting the back of my throat.

Something is seriously wrong here, even if you consider this scrap of skin and flesh normal.

Which it really, really isn't.

He moans again, and I really can't blame him, and I notice that most of his teeth have separated from his mouth.

The bitter tang increases in strength.

I have a nagging feeling I have forgotten something, as I back away from the boy, crawling away under the blanket, unwilling to kill just yet. Why did he come here? Why is he still here when I am holding a weapon, and he has nothing?

I wince as I place my left arm on the arm, and when I move my right arm, putting all the pressure on my left, I gasp in pain as my arm collapses under my weight, useless.

The knife must have hit the muscle yesterday, and I'm sure that the only thing keeping me swimming yesterday was adrenalin.

I can feel my body's reaction to the blood loss too, my breathing is quick and shallow, and when I look at my hands, I can see that they have become pale and pallid.

I use my right hand to push myself up, sitting upright now. I pick the spear up with my right hand (the only working one at the moment) and aim it at the boy's face.

Can I kill a 12 year old?

"Go away" I say loudly, attempting to keep the fear out of my voice. "Leave now and I won't hurt you"

He looks at me, and for a few, glorious seconds, I think he might be leaving, but he opens his mouth and emits a piteous moan.

The nagging sensation grows in intensity, when suddenly realisation hits me, winding me like a shark has rammed into me, and I stumble backwards, become entangled in the blanket at my feet and trip, the wall flying up to meet my head.

The boy from District 5 is dead.

I saw his face in the sky yesterday.

The boy in front of me is dead.

And he wants me dead too.

My head seems to explode, and a sharp 'crack' rents the air, reminding me dully of walnuts we get for Christmas.

The pain explodes with my head, causing dizziness to befall me. I stagger upright, feeling unsteady on my feet. I hold my arm out to the wall for support, and moan in agony as my left arm collapses beneath me again, and I crumple to the sand again.

The boy is only 7 feet away now.

I push myself up the wall again, using my right arm as leverage, holding the spear out to him, trying to keep the nausea and dizziness from overcoming me. My ears are ringing and I am finding it hard to see, dots of bright lights are exploding around my field of vision, but I try to keep looking at the thing that was once a 12 year old boy.

He stretches his arm out, and it brushes mine, cold as death itself, and I panic, thrusting the spear into his abdomen, panic and calmness filling my bloodstream.

He, it looks down at the spear sticking out of its heart.

Then he looks back up to me.

And he keeps coming.

I pull the spear out, my dizziness leaving now, replaced by adrenaline, as I try again, this time aiming for the thing's head, and a sickening squelch fills the air as it enters.

The thing falls down, and I remove the spear, relief filling me.

I sink down to the floor, and vomit, all over the corpse.

No cannon rings out.

He was dead.

I close my eyes, trying to make the blurry vision leave when something touches my arm, cold and clammy.

I jump up, ready to spear the boy again.

But it isn't him.

No…

Surrounding me, climbing up the beach in various states of decay are 10 teenagers, 11 if you include the one I killed.

11 teenagers died in the bloodbath.

And the Capitol couldn't leave them dead, could they?

I spring into action, preparing to stab the nearest one, the boy from 11, who's actually missing an arm, while the other one is hanging on by a thread of muscle, tissue and skin.

Fighting the stab of revulsion, I aim for the head again, that's what worked for the other one.

He falls, and I hold the spear again, looking around for the next target.

They're all around me, and I feel despair rise inside me. Something closes around my elbow and I whirl around, stabbing instinctively at the intruder.

An inhuman scream pierces the air as the small girl's chest explodes with blood.

I didn't know they could scream.

That's when my heart drops out my body.

The girl is Demeter, Demi, Dou's sister. She looks relatively uninjured compared to the others, a small ribbon of red around her neck the only sign of injury, excluding the spear I thrust into her.

At least Kai made it quick.

I lower my spear. I can't kill her again; I can't kill any of them again.

Another cold limb grabs mine and I wrench it off, backing into the knobbly black wall of the cliff.

That's it!

I grab the nearest rock with my arm, and pull hard, not even noticing the black cloth which shows where the knife hit earlier. I pull myself up, and grab another hand hold. Whilst pulling my legs off the ground, I feel hands grab at my ankle, and I kick out, hearing the sickening crack of a skull as my foot hits its target. I swing my weight onto my good arm, and reach for a small ledge with the other, pulling myself onto it.

It's around 10 feet of the ground, but I can still hear their wails.

I curl into a ball, just wanting to sit there, not wanting to have to make any decisions at all.

But I can't stay here forever, the Capitol will see to that.

I smell the tang of iron in the air again, and I notice that the wound from yesterday has opened, blood seeping through the black fabric. Hopefully I can deal with that later.

I still feel woozy and dizzy from the blow to my head, and I put to fingers to the back of my head, and feel the dampness and stickiness that can only mean one thing. I can feel my heartbeat start to slow down, while my breathing remains as ragged as it was from the start. With the removal of the panic and adrenaline, goes the pain relief for my arm, which has begun to complain loudly about the abuse I have put it through, with the climbing of the wall. As I look down, below the ledge, I wonder how I managed to use my arm to get up here, as it is unable to even clench around my spear now, let alone hoist my 160 pound body up to this small island of safety.

But I can't stay here.

I glance up, looking for an escape from this madness and somewhere safe for me to go. My eyes catch something, and after around one minute of attempting to focus, I can recognise a hazy image of a path, which has to lead to somewhere?

But it's about 20 feet above me, but with my injured and bloody arm, what seems to be a concussion, and no adrenaline to fuel me anymore, it might as well be 100 miles high.

I lie on the ledge for some time, staring at the sea dully, while on my right, tinges of pink are showing, indicating dawn. Something stupid in me thinks that when it is daytime, I'll look down and see that it was all a dream, not real and certainly nothing to worry about.

But when I glance down to check this; they remain there, trying to climb the cliff to get to me.

I shiver.

After what seems like hours, I really need to do something. Using my good arm, I push myself up, standing up and gazing at the cliff above. My arm twinges in anticipation of the climb, and I rub it subconsciously, momentarily relieving myself from the occasional spasms of pain that shoots through it.

I try to flex my fingers, and to my utter relief I can still move them, though if I move any of them (apart from my little finger for some reason) a sharp pain, like someone is twisting a knife in the wound again.

Happy with some movement restored, I try to lift my arm up, and it does so, extending (mostly) painlessly. However, when I withdraw it, the knife twists again, leading to an exquisite exhibition of swearing.

I experiment a bit more, and then sit down, exhausted by the pain I've experienced so far. The sun has risen properly now, but the human-mutts are still there, moaning more than ever.

I can extend my arm, and bend my little finger without pain, but all other movements hurt, which more or less makes the arm useless. Even when I do try to move it, the movements are small, and sometimes they refuse to come, and my arm hangs uselessly at my side, nothing like it was yesterday.

Adrenaline was the only thing that kept me going yesterday.

But I have to climb up there, right? I'll just create my own adrenalin.

I peer up at the wall again, and ready myself to climb it, ignoring (or trying to ignore) the throbbing in my limp arm.

"It's now or never" I mutter under my breath, and I swing my right hand up high, clutching my hand around an outcrop of rock.

I try to lift my left arm, and with some pain, I do so, wincing as I close the fingers around a rock. As I let go with my right arm, to climb higher, my arm screams in agony, and the pain causes me to let go, instinctively.

I topple backwards, and the breath leaves my body as I slam into the ledge.

Oh crap…

I'm slowly slipping off, my upper torso and head are sticking over the edge. I whirl my legs around, until they find a gap in the rock, and I jam my foot in, glad for my large feet.

I exhale audibly, and try to build up the courage to sit up again.

Something builds the courage up for me.

The aforementioned something yanks my head back, and the force causes me to yell out loud. I push (and pull) myself upright, hearing a sickening r-i-p sound as I do so. When I feel warmth around my head again, I realise that the r-i-p was in fact my hair.

I put a hand up to my head, and feel a bald patch, filled with sticky liquid. I remove my hand quickly, feeling quite ill.

"What the…"

I turn to the edge, carefully, and peer over it, and see the large boy from 7 holding a chunk of blond hair. He must have grabbed it as I was leaning off the edge. If my hair was any longer I could be down there at the moment, and I have no idea what they'd do to me, but I'm sure they don't want to give me a hug.

I subconsciously bring my hand up to my short hair.

Thank goodness for stupid, childish dares then?

I realise now that I can't climb that stupid wall any more than I could pogo up the cliff wearing a top hat. Any attempt to do so would probably result in more pain, or even death. So far today I've managed to destroy the use of one of my arms, cause what seems to be a concussion and get half my hair ripped out by some undead thing.

The concussion probably caused the hair-loss thing too.

Interfered with my judgement? Or I was an idiot. Or maybe it's a mixture of both.

I still feel dizzy, though the ringing in my ears has gone now, and my vision is returning to normal. I've got a headache now though.

And I still don't know what to do about the horde of the undead currently waiting patiently for me to come down and become their breakfast.

I can't climb up to the path above, I'm pretty sure my arm would give way again before I got up there, and I almost fell to my death the last time I tried.

But the only other option is down, to the sickening crowd of murdered tributes, who are dead, but walk around like the living, trying to make me like them, dead and alive at the same time.

I peak over the small ledge, and feel even more ill than I already am. In sunlight their pallid skins look worse, sicklier, and the smell…

How did I not notice the smell earlier?

Trying hard not to wretch, I observe them. They are all standing within 2 feet of the cliff, pushing each other out of the way, unable to climb but still pushing into the cliff.

Can't climb down then.

Then an idea hits me.

It's a stupid idea, especially when you consider the injuries I already have, and how that isn't going to help when I have to fight someone.

I've seen people fall that far and break bones.

But I've seen people fall that far and be completely fine too.

Mostly the second one though.

It's 10 feet, so around the height of my house.

That's not that high, if you think about it...

Back home, when I was still a child, I climbed onto the roof of the house. I think it was for a dare, as most things were back then, and it took ages to get up to the roof in the first place, and I think I stood on Marlin's head to get up.

Long story short, was an idiot, climbed onto the roof, fell off the roof, flew for 10 feet, managed not to break any bones. Just.

I'd do anything for a dare back then though, hence the short hair.

I always have done that, rushed headfirst into situations without thinking about them, and getting seriously hurt as a consequence.

And I can't turn down a dare.

So I fell 10 feet before, and nothing broke, so what are the odds I can do it again? I'm hoping they're high, but seeing how I've managed to mess everything else up today, I can't say I'm confident in my jumping abilities.

The ledge overhands by a couple of feet, and I could probably get my jump to take me forwards an extra few yards.

The undead seem to be congregated in a line 2 feet wide, but I would only end up about 5 feet away from them when I land. That leaves nothing to chance. If I fall, I have seconds to get up again.

"It's now or never…" I say, repeating my words from earlier. Those 4 words brought me such good luck, didn't they?

I push myself against the wall, mentally preparing myself for the leap.

Luckily my legs are still fine, though they seem to be the only part of my body that doesn't ache.

I take a deep breath, and – uttering a loud war cry – sprint to the edge of the cliff and leap, soaring through the air as gracefully as an eagle. Piloting a blimp.

Or so it seems.

That's when I land.

There's no cracking sound, which floods my body with relief, and I'm still upright, but the landing sent a shudder, a shockwave up my leg, turning them to jelly.

I stagger forwards, as the undead do the same thing; suddenly realising their quarry has escaped the ledge.

The feeling in my legs has started to come back, and I increase in speed, diving into the sea again, like I did yesterday.

No knife in my arm today though?

Improvements!

Always looking on the bright side, aren't I?

I wave cheerfully back at the horde, who are walking through the shallows towards me. I really want to vomit, but I have to keep up my appearance. Do I have an appearance left though?

Do I have any sponsors at all?

I swim away lazily, noting the lack of arm-pain I get when swimming. That makes things a lot easier too. Would anyone still be sponsoring me? I think people might have at the beginning, but now? What have I done so far which can be seen as good? Brave maybe, I mean, I went back to the Cornucopia, and went for the spear. Or was that stupidity?

Yep, it was stupidity all right.

My mind switches to the bad things I have done thus far, and it's a l-o-n-g list. So far I've been stabbed in the arm, chased by the undead, lost my hair to the undead, got myself a concussion, tripped over thin air and fallen on a pile of spears, and been stupid enough to go for the spears in the first place!

Not to mention my 'bravery' so far, which I think is just stupidity. Jumping off a ledge into a crowd of dead people who still want you dead? That's stupid. The taunting of the Careers? Once again, stupid. Not finding a safe place to sleep in the first place? That's pretty stupid too.

Who wants to sponsor the stupid, clumsy, bald, injured, mad girl then?

No-one?

I wonder why.

Fuming at myself, I decide to swim to the next beach, where I can make a rope or something, and then try to get up to the cliff path. I could probably make a ladder if I can find some driftwood somewhere, and that shouldn't be too hard to climb, even with my failure of an arm. Lucky thing I'm right handed.

I manage to get to the beach in a few minutes, and luckily, this one is undead-free. I don't think the Gamemakers will set them on me again though, or at least, not yet. They don't want to overuse them. Most likely they'll be used on some other hapless tribute.

I almost feel sorry for them.

But I can't let that 'almost' become anything more.

The beach is smaller, and also higher up. Or maybe the cliff path is lower, because it seems closer here than on the undead-beach. I look up, trying to analyse my situation, refusing to let myself rush into this again. There are more foot and handholds here, and a rock I could drape a ladder or rope over.

It's easy.

A bit too easy.

Maybe the other beach was a trap…

Stupid me, walking into the trap without thinking.

I still don't think I could climb the cliff face, even if it was shorter, so either I have to wait for a sponsor, or make it myself.

I look hopefully up at the sky, but nothing happens.

I swear, and give the sky the middle finger, before walking towards the sea to find some seaweed, muttering under my breath the whole way.

I come back from the sea, lugging around 1 mile of seaweed – Ok, maybe over-exaggerating, but that's what it seems like – and set about the arduous task of braiding the seaweed into a thick note. My eyes are drawn to the bracelet on my wrist, and I smile, hoping Marlin is watching now and not a point when I die.

Or kill.

I keep my spear nearby, my lesson learned from the previous night, and continue my job, ignoring the ache in my stomach, and the dryness at the back of my throat. Or at least, trying to. And not doing a very good job at it.

I weave for the next few hours, stopping only when I have 40 feet of thick, seaweed rope. The sun has moved considerably further down the sky since when I started, beginning to drip slowly off the face of the earth.

I dive, and find driftwood, which I cut holes into with the crap-knife (I refuse to call it a craft-knife, or a box cutter, or whatever it is). At the end of my particularly uneventful day (barring undead tributes) I chuck the rope over the lip of the rock, and pick up the rope that comes falling down. Tying the end down to a rock poking out of the earth, I tie the ladder onto the rope, hoping it will stay attached. I then stand back to admire my handiwork.

Ok, it's lopsided.

And messy.

And Nymph could have done a better job.

But it's mine!

It can (hopefully) support my weight, and I can finally find somewhere safe to spend the night, which is approaching with dangerous speed.

I walk over to the rope ladder and begin to climb, nervously at first; due to how wobbly it is, swaying from side to side, like the sea. (Which has got choppier, I'm sure of it) I am almost up when…

BOOM!

I fall, 10 feet, and land on my arse.

"OH COME ON!" I yell in frustration "ARE YOU TIMING THESE JUST TO ANNOY THE HELL OUT OF ME! BECAUSE IT'S BLOODY WORKING!"

The silence afterwards seems even quieter, as I silently tick myself off for shouting like that when anyone could hear me. But seriously? The cannon goes off just when I am about to reach the safety?

Too much of a coincidence, right?

Then I remember what the cannons signify. Someone has died. It could be Kai, Dou, anyone.

Maybe the undead horde got them, like I thought they might do.

I sigh, and then quickly disguise it as a scowl as I go to climb the ladder once more.

I have just put one foot on the ladder when I stop and turn my face skywards, allowing my scowl to be broadcast across the nation.

"If a cannon, even one tinsy-winsy cannon goes off when I am climbing this ladder, I will win these games, and find the person in charge and rip their fucking nuts off."

Shockingly, no cannon goes off this time.