Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here again with a brand new chapter for Gamemakers Plan: Part I: The Winning Mistake, where Jonathan encounters a rouge, Lone's alliance advances their game, Katie experiences a setback, and the team returns to the chessboard to plan, all inside Chapter #11: Spearhead. Enjoy!

I awoke with a start, sweat pouring down my face. God, it was that same heat again. What was up with the heat? I remember there being an arena one year where all the tributes died to some terrible attribute named frostbite. Did the Gamemakers decide that dehydration and skin cancer was somehow more appealing to a mass audience? Something felt odd, when I woke up, and I turned over, to say good morning to Katie, the syllables catching in my throat as I turned.

Gone. Vanished. Katie wasn't lying next to me. Her arm wasn't strapped across my chest. My district partner was gone.

I sat up in a panic. "Katie?" I said, turning around and looking at the rest of my surroundings. There was no sound of a scuffle that would've awoken me in the middle of the night, nor a cannon signifying her passing, and there wasn't any fresh blood, else I would have smelled it. All that was there from the night before when she painfully rolled over her shoulder in the middle of her slumber, which was the only instance in when I woke up, and the same stain likewise appearing on my pants from the time she shifted a bit downwards while dreaming, muttering to herself.

Likewise, with her lack of appearance, a lack of a response.

This brought me to a stand, and I grabbed my bow. "Katie?" I said once more, rising my voice in alarm. I couldn't shout it much louder than that, that would've meant unwanted attention, and trying to find my district partner in a realm of unwanted attention wouldn't prove all that advantageous. "Katie?" and this was more of a yell, all I was willing to advance.

She couldn't be dead, she couldn't. I am also a light sleeper, and I would have heard the sounds of a struggle or something. Anything!

Where was she?

Her knife was missing too, the weapon she had taken just to get that wound on her shoulder, with the first human I ever killed - did it mean Thatcher would have unfinished business? I was looking forward to the idea of 'unfinished' business, just as much as I was looking into finding Katie - and that started to build a pressure on my forehead. It reminded me of Rose holding my hands in hers, her perfectly manicured touch, with painted nails, and her auburn hair in a bun with those chopsticks... - I missed her, I missed Rose the most of those on the team - and what she said.

"Don't lose her," my stylist said, clutching onto me like a child holds her favorite doll. "Don't lose Katie in the arena, or yourself."

And well, here I go, and I've lost Katie. Can't do anything right, it seems.

"Katie?" I said one more time, a bit louder, trekking away from the spring slightly, the ground soft and damp underneath my feet.

Had one of the cannons represented her death and I was asleep for me to notice? Come to think of it, I forgot what Katie and I did last night. I was just sitting down, waiting to fall asleep, lamenting Lyon's passing, and she comes across my camp via happenstance. I bandaged her up, I admitted there wouldn't be a single hope in her mind of me getting with her - I don't think I should have been so harsh, should I? There was a better way to say no, but it didn't show to me then - and she fell asleep. She curled up onto me slightly, halfway through, and she wasn't trouble with nightmares like I was a few times. These nightmares weren't special, alternating between dying at Arman or Lone's hands, but Arman was dead, and he couldn't hurt me anymore. Lone, on the other hand... thinking his name sent chills up my arms sometimes.

Katie awoke once, about an hour later, while I still kept watch, stomach growling, and she starving. Ripping open the rest of my packaging, her and I nearly ate all of my food. Wasn't much, and I'd have hardly called it dinner, something I had entirely forgotten about, but bill me, I suppose. Katie mumbled something, eyes shut, after she finished off the last dried piece of fruit in one of the tiny plastic pouches, and she passed out before I could ask her what it was she had said. I couldn't tell what it was, her mumbling turning into incoherency. Didn't matter, I guess.

It had been after that when she curled up next to me, but I don't know if it had been because she wanted to, or just because it was some auxiliary response, some sort of normal thing she did at home with a stuffed animal or something along those likes. I ran my hand through the blood stain on my pants - I guess that would explain where this slick blood stain on my leg came from - and my fingers came back clear, meaning it had dried. I left her laying there, on my shoulder, and then she fell down farther still onto my thigh, and I couldn't bear waking her up then, either.

What would Bailey think? I don't know; perhaps she wouldn't think of anything; she wouldn't be awake when that happened, it was almost three in the morning. I couldn't sleep, and fell asleep shortly after, and when I opened my eyes again, it was daylight outside, and now, Katie gone.

This wasn't good.

Rose's words echoed once more, and I wanted to shut my brain off, to stop thinking.

I needed to search for her. She found me last time, and this time I needed to find her. Not only because I wouldn't believe that she would be dead, as that would have been something that would have snapped me awake. Plus, I would be haunted forever by her ghost if she died, somehow, up against me, and I hadn't noticed. I groaned, and realized it was only the third day in the arena with eleven dead... only the third day, and it felt like I've been here for ninety-five years. Maybe, I would escape with her quicker than I realized, however, had been the second thought to come around. The alliance rule in all, which surely her and I were considered allies. Thirteen tributes left, and all she and I had to do was eliminate eleven of them after that, and it meant we could go home.

My limbs didn't want to cooperate and from the tingling feeling in my arms. I had slept on it, the blood finally coursing through my veins after a few more steps away from the creek.

I found Katie's knife a few feet away from me after that, one of them at any rate, no blood on the blade, which slowed the heartbeat in my chest. However, that rose a new concern inside my mind. Why would she drop her knife? What would compel her to drop her only weapon? I know for a fact she didn't pick up any others that she and that District 9 girl were fighting over, so why drop it? Unless it wasn't hers, which was a very well considered option, however... I just didn't want to think like that. Because, on the other hand, that would mean someone left a random knife on the ground.

I picked it up, sheathing it in my quiver, and as I ran, it made a rattling noise inside the tin, clanging up against all the other arrows. I removed it from that spot - foolish thinking on my part, I'll admit - and simply stuck it in one of the pockets of the backpack, and if it fell out, it fell out. Nothing I could do about it, I suppose. "Katie?" I called again, now a good ten to fifteen minutes away from my old spot. In the distance, just peaking over the trees I could see the white tips of the mountain in the far back side of the arena. Would she dare venture that far?

God, it was so hot. I've mentioned it a lot, but that's because it is. The heat is unbearable, to the point where I wish it was a summer back in Twelve, as I could go take a dip in some pond without the threat of being killed. I don't get that luxury now. Coming to a branched path in the arena, which was marked with a single tree, a few different fruits hanging off of it, I used one of my arrows to shoot an apple off of one of the high branches. The fruit had only been that high up, and I don't think I could dare try climbing it; a fall could mean a broken neck, and a broken neck equaled death. I stuffed that into the backpack as well, since I wasn't feeling all that hungry.

My search continued, and it felt like I had been searching for an eternity... must've only been an hour at this point, when I'd occasionally look up at the arena clock. I had come across another water source, leaning down to fill my canteen up again from the tiny creek, when something rushed past me in the bushes. I looked up, tensing, hand immediately going for the bow and an arrow to lock it in place.

I stood upright, drawing back, but not too tightly, so I could aim. "Katie?" I whispered once more, and then I stood still, aiming and firing down the middle through a pair of trees as someone went blurring by, a black and white blob, but definitely a tribute, as I saw the fiery red outlining of the tribute jacket. My arrow soared between the two trees, not hitting the tribute. The person didn't look like Katie, let alone feminine, so it must've been one of the male tributes, and that list was ever so thin.

Quickly drawing another arrow, I took a few steps forward, running a few feet ahead, and to my left had been the crossroad I took at the apple tree, and ahead of me to the right - I was mostly sure - was the path to the Cornucopia, as straight ahead, not left or right, coming into view was the mountain. Another rustle to my right caught my attention, and when I turned, someone slammed into me at full speed, both of us grunting out in pain as we collided, falling to the ground. My bow went flying out of my hands due to the lax grip, since I had begun to aim, and something flew out of the other tribute's hands too. It took a moment for me to catch my senses, but by the point I felt cold metal between my fingertips, the tribute was gone, dark hair blending in with the green, a trident in their hands. Trident, huh? As the tribute turned slightly, to look behind them, I caught a piercing gaze staring straight at me, and the silver number on their chest, over by the left side, shone in the sun.

9

I just ran into Thatcher, who was running around like crazy, and he was running in the direction of the Cornucopia. My arrow was still taut on the bowstring, but I lowered my weapon. He was the one running away, and I didn't feel like chasing him. I couldn't see any blood on his weapon - the choice of a trident seemed rather foreign, but he was good with a spear, I had seen, so perhaps they were the same thing, in truth? - so no instills of panic rose in my veins that the blood may have belonged to Katie.

Clutching my head, I put the arrow back into my quiver, and ran into the direction of the mountain, the grass turning to gravel as I got closer and closer, it crunching underneath my feet.

Katie, still missing, and me, feeling a whole lot less confident right now.

The mountain wasn't very tall as I approached it, maybe only four or five hundred feet high, as I had read about there being those in some books that were beyond tall, in the thousands and tens of thousands range, numbers I couldn't really fathom, more or less able to say 'a lot', and have it done at that. It wasn't a steep climb either, me just walking up it really, and from the height, which was quite high, I could see almost the entire arena out in front of me. The Cornucopia was a small ovation out in a clear circle, not in the dead center of the arena like I expected. I couldn't see any tributes however, the tree cover too thick, and I didn't feel like firing an arrow at random somewhere and hoping it'd strike someone dead.

Ducking into the first cave opening I saw, darkness met me, the only light being slight holes in the wall which had sunlight pouring in. I kept an arrow drawn this time. The last instance I can recall of there being a cave or opening on the side of a mountain had been just six or seven Games ago - I forgot who won that year, either someone from District 1 or 7 I think - which was infested with mutts, those Capitol genetically mutated animals and freak shows that sometimes appeared in my nightmares. Bats terrorized any tribute that went crawling in - did I mention the room they were in may have only been four or five feet tall? I'm not claustrophobic, but that... that's too much - and if someone managed to kill one, any others right around it would go berserk, digging their fangs into the tribute's neck. Three different people died to those bats in that year's Games, and they've haunted me since.

I came across another fork in the mountain path, this now opening me out to full sunlight, and I realized that I had wandered in a circle, now on the back side of the mountain, the side I couldn't see. I sniffed the air, frowning. Did- did I smell smoke? Smoke meant fire, and fire meant other tributes. I pressed myself up against the rock outcropping, trying to keep my feet as highly elevated as possible to not make any sound. Taking a brave step out from the shade, and gazing around a high ledge, simply by crouching, I could hear voices. Multiple voices. No more than three, I think, but that still made my blood turn to ice. I couldn't handle two at once, let alone three, and one person to fight against didn't help either.

I saw the wisp of smoke emerge from their fire, whomever they must have been, and their dumb decision. It was stupid to light a fire at night, and it was stupid to light a fire in the middle of the day too. Any tribute who'd see it would know exactly what was up. I craned my head to hear the voices, none of which who were Katie, but none that were easily discernible, especially over the thaw of the wind at such a height. It felt even hotter at this altitude, than it did back in the glittering forest. I realized, then, as the main voice came into play it was the three Careers: Leeane, Altha, and the girl from Four, who I am sure Altha called Zelina. What a name, huh? I frowned in confusion, that such 'smart' people would do something so stupid. Why, of all people, would the Careers light a fire at the top of the mountainside? It was a beacon now, to every tribute, that someone was there, and I didn't see them when approaching this side of the mountain, so I doubt they would see anyone making their climb up either. I was just imagining what Henry must have been thinking, sitting in the Viewing Center, let alone what these victors must've been thinking. I reached for an arrow, drawing it back, in case one of them decided to get up.

Another sound came to my right now, me crouching down around a ledge to the left. More voices. Shoes touching the ground. Who would this be? Seriously? I tightened my grip on the arrow, straining my head again. Couldn't hear Katie's voice out of it all. Looking down, I didn't see any other way out except going the way I had gone back inside, and then down the slope, which kept me protected from the horn of the mountain. The other way was a clear, sheer drop to your death to the bottom of the forest, a small section of it wrapping around the base of the mountain, a mesh of emerald resting against a sheen wave of gray. The voices were getting louder, louder and louder still, but I heard someone mention the wisp of fire. So the Careers were noticed too, huh?

I crept to the other side of the entrance, peering around that, there being a considerable gap from me and the other way up. A trio of tributes, all carrying axe blades. One tribute turned around and pointed at something, and the water in my mouth went dry. It was when I saw him. It was Lone, and the two with him were both tributes from Ten - Huron and Amelia, I believe - the trio sneaking up the eastern side of the mountain. Lone was going to ruin the day again. I didn't notice Rachel or Thatcher with them, and I knew where Thatcher was already, having hit him earlier, but Lone's sister not being with the group did not appease me in the slightest. Their weapons were clean as well, glimmering silver blades in the sun, and I drew back on my arrow. From this distance, maybe... just maybe. But did I shoot Lone? Or should I shoot one of the tributes from Ten? I drew back my arrow regardless.

The boy from District Ten - yep, his name definitely was Huron - dislodged a decent rock that had been stuck on the side of the hill. It came free when his boot nudged it as he walked, and it tumbled down, crashing and crashing against the mountain's face, shattering down below into the trees somewhere. Well... if the Careers didn't know Lone was on them, they did now. I dashed to the other side, craning around the side, just so I could barely make out the tributes.

Leeane looked up at the noise, and then stood, bow in hand, quiver in place. She stood on her tiptoes, eyes widening at the view of the tributes. She screamed something indiscernible - "Enemies!" I could bet, actually - and some other word and she was gone, abandoning her allies with a bag and her bow, blonde hair flapping in the wind as she took off for the other side, not even standing to make a fight. Lone was bearing on the girls at this point, he and the District Ten tributes cresting to the top of the slope. Zelina turned to throw a spear when Amelia leaped forward at her, slashing upwards with her axe, and the spear clattered in two pieces down onto the ground, leaving her defenseless. Lone seemed to have been standing back, not engaging in the action, as Altha seemed to simply vanish off of the precipice. Zelina looked at Amelia, eyes wide, and before she could beg for her life, Amelia kicked the Career in the chest, making her fall flat onto the ground, before the girl raised her axe, and swung it downwards.

I winced at the cannon, and at the absolute inhumane scream that ripped out of Zelina's throat.

Leeane, on the other side of the hill now, I could see her just a ways away, stopped to look back at the slope, hearing Zelina's last moments. She gave one last glance, bow drawn, but all for naught, as she was gone, her blond hair vanishing into the trees as she ran down the mountain. I kept myself pressed up against the side of the mountain, hoping my hair wouldn't peek out over the edge. Amelia wrenched her axe free, and I was about to go the way I came when Huron exclaimed something fierce, reaching behind a boulder, grabbing someone by the hair.

Another girl began kicking and screaming, but it wasn't Katie. Altha's dark hair crested over the rock, a knife at her side clattering onto the stone as Huron wrenched her over the boulder, throwing her in front of Zelina's corpse. Lone joined the pair from Ten, all three armed.

"Just found her," Huron growled, and I pressed myself into the rock face harder. They mustn't see me, they mustn't see me! "She just tried to stab me, the bitch!" I winced at the language. Altha couldn't even fight or beg for her life, just looking at her enemies in the face.

"You should've run like Leeane," Amelia sneered, gripping the girl under her jaw, forcing her head back.

"It should be your kill, Lone," the boy offered, turning to their leader. "It was your decision to come up here."

Lone looked at Altha with a saddening gaze, and I could hear, just barely over the din of the wind, how hard Altha must've been breathing. "No," he said after a moment. "You found her, Huron; she's your kill," and he bowed his head. "Amelia, hold her."

Altha began to babble, babbling incessantly on how she could be useful, as Amelia let go of her jaw, and then grabbed her by the back of her hair again, wrenching her head back. The pleas kept coming, as Lone turned his back, and Huron readied his axe. I wanted to tear my eyes away from it all, but something compelled me to look, I couldn't look away, and I could feel the bile building in my throat. Altha pleaded once more, Amelia tightened her grip, and Huron slashed the blade across the Career from Two's throat in one quick swipe, ending her life in seconds.

A cannon fired almost instantaneously, and Amelia dropped the girl's corpse right alongside Zelina. Huron grimaced, wiping the blade against his pant leg, and Lone turned side face, the two tributes joining him. I let out a shaky breath, not noticing how I had held it in there, must have kept it in.

Lone surveyed the mountain from his perch, and it bore into me while he was surveying, still, that Rachel and Thatcher weren't with him. Why wouldn't his sister be there? If Lucas was in the arena with me, I wouldn't want to leave his side, and he wouldn't want to leave mine. Yesterday, when they attacked the Careers on the beach, the District 10 tributes had been left behind, since it was Lone, Rachel, Thatcher, and Lyon who I saw then. My head still hurt from colliding with the guy from Nine head-on. He was gone, lurking for a tribute, which was my best bet. Did he separate from them? My world would change for the better if that was the case.

"Pissed that Leeane got away," Amelia growled.

"You'll get your chance once again," Lone said, and his voice sounded oddly pensive, as if he was stuck in some deep mental state. "They clearly aren't smart. Camping out in the open. Lighting fires..." a shake of his head. "No, the Careers have failed, and we're going to kill them all."

"Well, what do we do now?" Huron asked.

"We wait for another cannon. Our work is done for the day," came Lone's reply. "We hear a cannon, meaning that another tribute has died. That will mean Thatcher came through with his suggestion," he snapped roughly, immediately getting rid of the pensive act.

"I have faith in him," Amelia said.

"I don't," Huron muttered to himself.

So Thatcher was out in the arena, lurking for someone... and it seemed he found me, yet didn't kill me? I wasn't going to ask him why that was the case next time I saw him. I didn't want to see him again, was the case. I heard Lone say something that caught my attention, as I tightened my bowstring. "Let's get back to camp. My sister must be missing me painfully," he ordered. "Besides, we did what we needed to do today; we found Careers. Now it's just time for Thatcher to do what he promised?" What did he promise? "He promised one or both deaths from Twelve. Katie and Jonathan will have no idea he's after them."

My heart welled in my throat, blood turning to ice. Thatcher was out there hunting Katie... hunting me. Katie wasn't safe, and that meant Katie wasn't dead. She's alive, somewhere in that awful arena. Lone turned to around, axe strapped at his side. "Let's go. Their bodies are starting to smell."

I was gone, with my bow and arrow, back into the cave entrance I had ducked inside before coming to the top. I don't care if Lone or Amelia or God heard me and decided to run after me; I had to reach her, I had to reach my district partner. I would protect Katie to the last second of my life, because that is what our partnership meant. District partners were to stick together.

I hope I'd find her before Thatcher did first.

I was running as fast as I could without stopping, my feet colliding onto solid rock, onto bits of gravel, before it changed back to the damped moss floor of the forest. At this point, the sun was starting to sink beneath the sky some, it getting later and later and later. Hopefully, as it started to get dark, wherever Katie was, she'd return back to my creek if she could find it. Back to the fresh source of drinking water. Back to me. I needed her to come back to me.

That was where I went first, that point where I was halfway to the apple tree and the beachline, coming up empty. Thatcher wouldn't return to Lone until he had either her or I dead, if that was what I would take Lone's words at for some sort of face value. He wouldn't rest till we died, and I wouldn't rest till I found her. Quickly filling up my canteen, and counting all my arrows in the quiver - twenty-four, to be precise - which was more than enough, and I raced off, as I returned to my camping spot first, she not being there, and there being no signs of her having been there in the last few hours.

Instead of heading to the left like I had gone earlier, before the Careers were all killed, and instead of the right, which was in the direction of the beach, still soaked in Lyon's blood and Thatcher's treachery, I took off to the dead center, to the hopeful direction of the Cornucopia. It still baffled me, throughout the day, why Katie would have abandoned me in the first place? She knew of the alliance rule as well as I did, and her leaving me didn't fit, it didn't fit at all. When I found her, I was going to tell her something, a few things actually, and then I was going to hug her tight and never let her go.

Another crossroad. So many damn crossroads. It was an oak tree, surrounded by a few feet of clear space, meant as a marker, I'm assuming, for the arena. I rested against it to take a sip of water, when my eyes darted up to look at a single spot, a branch just in arms reach of me. A handprint covered in blood was wrapped around the wood, it dripping, which meant it was still fresh. Oh shit.

"Katie!" I called again, but I didn't care how loud I said it. It was getting dark soon, and darkness didn't settle with me. I didn't want to hunt Thatcher at night and try looking for her too. If it got dark outside, I wouldn't be able to see her blood, if this was her blood. I took off to the left of the fork in the path, which was highlighted by another blood stain on the grass, it fresh too, as it seemed to run in the moss it was laid upon.

Another tree trunk, this time covered in more blood, but a puddle. How wounded is she? Did the wound on her shoulder get worse, or did she- is this even Katie's blood that I'm looking at? A rock had it too, and on and on and on I went running, but I couldn't find her. I had to head back to my crook, and just hope and pray that she'd show up. I don't know what I would do if I found her dead, or if a cannon woke me up in the middle of the night and her face shone on the projector in the sky. Bailey would kill me, since she lost her best friend, and I'd lose Rose too, for not keeping her promise to heart. I couldn't lose Katie, after having her be on the fringes of my life for so long, and to then step into the forefront.

I forged on, the sky dancing in a plethora of sunburst oranges, carnation pinks, and stunning amaranthines, but all I saw in my ledger was red, copper and crimson all dripping off of a pipe, onto someone's face, darkening up their skin. However, in the end, my search was futile. I looked for an hour and I didn't find her anywhere, following a trail of bloodied moss and rocks and tree stumps and any piece of flora or fauna I could imagine, but nothing worked, nothing stole at me. I was exhausted.

I sat against the trunk of a tree when, plopping down to drain the rest of my water canteen, unshouldering my quiver just for a second. About to lift the canteen to my lips, where I could smell the rust on the rim, I heard the scream. The familiar scream of a girl. Katie. It was Katie. It wasn't my name, it was just a cry of hers in terror, downright terror. I bolted upright, throwing the quiver on, capping my water canteen, and took off running, in any direction I thought she would be.

"Katie" I screamed. My voice rang out, echoing through the trees. This was suicide, I know, but I couldn't- I couldn't. "Katie!" I yelled out once more, hoping her cries would lead me to her. This yelling was bad, I knew it, to let my enemies know I was coming, the one person they wanted eliminated from their sight, which meant they could win. Maybe not to target the helpless girl. It had a semblance of strategy... to take their eyes off of Katie and gun for me.

It could fail miserably and we'd both die instead. Cheery.

My path was one of trodden flowers, as if someone had run this way ahead of me, these flowers crushed underneath a tribute's shoes, a wave of marigold and stunning cerulean, a few periwinkles, but all I saw was the same copper dripping onto these plants as well. Another tree stump had a bloodied handprint, and Katie kept screaming my name, screaming it so loud that the dogs back in District 12 would hear her; Bailey and Lucas and my mother would hear her, and they'd witness me save her, too.

I ran into the clearing, following the flowered path. I stopped, bow drawn, and ahead of me, as it took me a second to see her, my gaze locked onto her position. "Katie!" I screamed her name again. In the center, down the center, that was where I saw her, Katie trapped in a net, hung onto a tree. She was another four to five hundred feet away from me or so, and I'd just have to make that distance. I took out the knife that had been in my backpack, sticking it in the quiver. I didn't care about the rattle.

Then, as I tore off towards her, Katie yelling my name when she saw me, something a bit away blurred into focus too, and like before, like this afternoon, a blob of black. Thatcher. He was offset of me by about thirty or forty feet, with other trees in the way, no definite clear shot. It seemed he had abandoned the trident, since I didn't see its golden glow in the dark, but it didn't matter what weapon he was holding onto, did it? There Thatcher was, barreling down the path, a spear in his hand. I nocked back my arrow, trying to aim at him. I couldn't get a clear shot at all, and I am no archery god. I just- I just have to hit him. I wasn't a very good aim, shooting at a moving target while I was moving myself. I fired, but my arrow missed, and the delay was all he needed.

I just, I just had to reach Katie first, and we'd be okay. Everything would be alright.

Thatcher, after running ahead of my arrow, drew his arm back, spear in hand. He threw with all his might, the spear soaring across the meadow of flowers, past my own projectiles, diving into Katie's side through the mesh of the net.

A guttural cry came out of my throat, and I took the knife out of the quiver, lunging for him, as it left Thatcher defenseless. I sprang forward, my knife sinking into Thatcher's lower part of his left arm. He cursed in pain out of surprise, but it wasn't enough to down him, and I went to swing my bow at him, to club him in the face. Despite there being a literal blade stuck in his arm, Thatcher managed to grab my bow by the grip that would've hit his skull, and he wrenched it into the air, leaving me defenseless. He glared at me, punching me across the jaw, and I sprawled down onto the flowery ground. He wrenched the knife from his arm and was gone, blade with me. Giving me a glare, he vanished into the mesh, a small blood trail behind him.

I groaned, getting to my feet groggily, before it all occurred to me what just happened. "Katie!" I cried, running to her, turning around, wrenching an arrow free out of my quiver, forgetting about my bow in the flowers. I rushed to Katie and tore her from the net, she having ripped the spear out of her side. She fell into my arms and I laid her on the grass, she crying out in pain, my eyes welling up with tears. In seconds the green floral area turned crimson. Tears were in her eyes and she outstretched her hand, I grabbing it. From my vantage point, looking at the wound, all the air in my throat expelled in one weak gasp. The spear punctured high, just in the middle of the ribcage. That was a lung or stomach wound, for sure. She- Katie wasn't going to... oh god...

"Katie..." I said her name, and the tears began to fall. "Why did you leave me?" I asked, my voice impossibly soft. "Where- where'd you go?"

Katie gave a weak hiccup, she shaking her head, crystalline tears spilling down her cheeks. "I'm sorry, Jonathan. I'm so sorry," she swallowed, her face getting paler and paler by the second. I couldn't bear look at the wound. I refused. "I was so foolish, leaving this morning," she closed her eyes. "Before I could figure out what was happening, I got trapped in this net like an idiot. It was my fault Thatcher found me."

I felt a lump form in my throat, almost impossible to swallow down. "You aren't an idiot, Katie. Don't say you're an idiot," I brushed a lock of hair out of her eyes. At least those were the jade I'd always know, the jade I'd always remember.

She looked up at me, her voice cracking, her breathing getting shallower and shallower. "I was always going to lose, from the beginning, Jonathan. I always knew that."

"Don't say that."

Katie smiled without her teeth, a phantom one, and the pain shone in her eyes. "Thank you for keeping me company last night."

I cracked a smile, despite myself. "I'd do it anytime, Katie. I'd do it for you whenever."

She tightened her grip, as strong as she could go, and I looked into her eyes directly. "Give Lone and them hell, Jonathan," with whatever strength that lay inside her, it came out here. "Make them pay for it."

"I'll try," I was full on sobbing at this point. "I'll try for you, I promise."

Katie's breathing got even slower, and my knees were starting to merge with the blood. "I know you'll win these accursed games," her grip once again got tighter. "You cannot become a piece of their plan." she coughed, heavy and terrible, copper coating her fingertips. "I have something to tell you something, Jonathan," her throat bobs with a swallow, and her grip with mine started to fall lax. "After you scored a twelve, we were all..." but nothing else ever came, her grip going slack in mine, her head lolling back, and her chest ceased to rise.

"Katie!" I shook her by the shoulders. "Katie!" I screamed, my voice ringing out into the forest, into the great beyond, all the way to District Twelve. "No, no, no!" But, she was dead, no matter what I'd do. A few seconds later, after I released her body, her cannon fired.

I stood straight up, and grabbed my bow from the ground over a bit away, standing over my district partner's dead body. She was gone, and I couldn't save her. My bow felt odd, stuck stiff in my hand. I grabbed the quiver, which had been flung off my body as Thatcher punched me, and slung it over my shoulder, ready to go.

I stared up at the sky and screamed as loud as I could, throat burning as I forced the yell out towards the dome with all of my might. Maybe this would let Lone show up and kill me.

"Kill me!" I yelled at the dome, to anyone who'd hear me. "Kill me!" Someone would pick up the challenge; a Gamemaker would, or Lone would hear me or-

I fell to my knees, sobbing, resting my head in the grass.

Before I closed my eyes to let the sobs wrack through me, my body shuddering, I heard a bird on a nearby tree chirp a beautiful song.

Beautiful to them.

Ruinous to me.

"You will die birds, like everyone else on this Earth. You will burn, and soon your canary song will sound like our cries of death too. Burn it all down..." I thought, and my body went cold, and Katie's corpse was taken into the sky.

Tribute List (Boy - Girl)

District 1: Leeane (District 1 Female)

District 3: Colby (District 3 Male)

District 5: Felice (District 5 Female)

District 6: Lone (District 6 Male) - Rachel (District 6 Female)

District 9: Thatcher (District 9 Male)

District 10: Huron (District 10 Male) - Amelia (District 10 Female)

District 11: Ramon (District 11 Male)

District 12: Jonathan Crimson (District 12 Male)

Ten left, in the arena, and with a heavy heart, Katie has passed away, on Day Three, only four chapters into the Games, which means Jonathan is going to be facing Lone and the others all alone... will he survive? Next chapter, #12: Warriors of the Night. See you all then! Love you all! Bye!

~ Paradigm