It's here.

Stag Browning, District Ten

It's been two days since the last cannon and we haven't eaten for most of that time. Cora is pale and withdrawn. Her eyes have sunk into her head and deep shadows surround them. Jaysper seems just as bad. We haven't spoken for hours.

We're so close. Just four of us are left and none of them, I want to kill. I know that if it came down to it, I'd put my life down for one of them to survive.

It's colder than before. I trace circles on my leg, simply because there is nothing else to do. I suspect Cora and Jaysper are thinking of home, but I try not to. I don't want to think of all the children from the home sitting and staring at the screen, praying for me to win. Maybe willing me to kill these other people. I couldn't.

I don't really notice the trickle of water until Cora nudges me gently. It spills over the lip of the rocky dip upstream and puddles in dips and hollows in the rocks. Soon, a small river is trailing towards us. A flood? But the water isn't clear as it should be. It's getting darker and as I watch, it seems to be getting thicker.

A small droplet runs its course to where Jaysper is sitting. She daps it with her pinky finger, waits a second and cocks her head. "I can't feel my finger," she says slowly. She presses her hand into a small puddle and her eyes widen with fear. "It makes you go numb!"

"Up, up!" I croak. Cora and Jaysper leap to their feet and making they're ahead of me, I weakly jog after them. My limbs feel like drooping plants. Cora is leading us and she runs uphill, to a noticeable mound of rocks.

Just the short run has made my head swim. "We should go up onto that." My finger flops uselessly; I can barely keep my arm up. But still, I help Cora and Jaysper climb onto the wide, flat mound of rocks. Jaysper reaches down to haul me upwards. A few pebbles skitter down the steep sides of the biggest boulder as I scramble for purchase.

When I get to the top, I gasp. I can see the whole arena from here. The lake is black and so are the rapids. The barrier between us and the mountain hasn't changed – the rocks and debris pressed against the invisible wall. I hadn't realised, but this is easily the highest place in the arena that we can get to.

Jaysper is prodding her hand and she brings it to her nose, then to her mouth.

"Stag..." she whispers. "This is blood."

Bronte Pratt, District Six

No no no no. Blood, everywhere.

The lake is full of blood. Natalie's blood.

Blood I helped to spill.

I'm on the beach and the blackness is slowly spilling towards me. I can't move. My feet are glued to the ground.

I can only watch as the blood pools around my ankles. Immediately, all feeling disappears from them and my feet collapse. I'm in the sticky stuff now. Every lap of sludgy blood brings another wave of numbness to my body. It's not long before my knees and lower back are submerged. I can't move if I tried.

I don't even bother lifting my arms. Fingers gone, elbows, now it's up to my shoulders. That's when I begin to struggle. Where the wave washes down my body, redness is left. This is all Natalie's blood. I try to angle my neck away from it – try to preserve as much time as I can. I'm straining but there is no way I can escape it.

Finally, it reaches my neck and I slosh backwards into the water. I try to catch a last glimpse of daylight. But all I can see now is black.

I have some air left in my lungs but not much. I can't feel anything. Maybe I'm just a mind now. I don't have a body to control. I don't dare think of what's going to happen when I finally breathe. Will I know when I die?

Mum's face springs to mind, then dad's. Then Tawni's, her mascara smudged and dripping down her face. Will my death bring that much sadness in the end?

Blood forces it's way into my mouth. I try to cough it out, but it disappears down my throat.

I love y-

Coraline Rige, District Seven

I hear the cannon and I clasp my hands to my chest. "That was Bronte." I whisper.

Stag puts his arm around me. "It's okay, don't worry. It'll all be okay."

I know it won't, but I accept his kindness. One of us is going to live. And the rest are going to die. That's all there is to know.

And so we stay there, huddled on the rock until night falls and we can't see each other any more. I fall asleep with my head on Stag's shoulder.

When the first glimpse of artificial dawn comes, I can't sleep any more. The blood is lapping at the highest boulder. The arena simply doesn't exist. It's submerged. The arena has been flooded with blood. Jaysper slumbers even as the blood nears us. I consider waking her up.

I don't react as Jaysper rolls off our ledge in her sleep. She plunges into the black and a few bubbles trickle to the surface.

Cannon.

Stag wakes in a frenzy, and leaps to the edge and screams her name. Why couldn't we save her? But it's too late. Now it's just me and Stag.

Me and Stag. Stag and Me. One of us has to die.

Stag looks at me gently.

He tells me that he found something he thought I'd like. He reaches into his pack and reveals Monty. I don't cry like I would have before, but I hug him tightly. I think he understands that my gratitude means more than words can say.

When the blood swamps the final obstacle, Stag lifts me up onto his shoulders. I feel empty, but I still clutch onto the little wooden dog.

When the blood touches his feet, he sits down abruptly. I don't think he will be able to feel his feet anymore. I'm safe from the blood though. He lifts his arms up and commands me to step onto them. I do.

It takes about ten minutes for the blood to reach Stag's arms. He can't hold me anymore.

"When I tell you to jump, jump," Stag whispers.

I nod, quietly. I can't believe this is actually happening.

"Jump," Stag calls and this is the last thing he will say to me.

I jump off his poor dead hands and into the murk. I turn around to tell Stag I don't mind that he couldn't save me. I want to hug him before we die. But I can't move my legs anymore.

I twist my torso just as Stag plunges his head below. There are no bubbles. A cannon fires and that's when I begin to scream.

A hovercraft appears above me and snatches me up in metal claws. Blood drips from my legs and I am higher and higher, away from the arena. Monty is gripped so tightly in my hand that I cannot feel him anymore.

As I enter the frigid coldness of the hovercraft, Monty is wrenched from my fist and I scream and scream as they put me to sleep.

It is done.

...

...

...

The Fallen:

Bronte Pratt, District Six [Cause of death: Blood Flood]

Stag Browning, District Ten [Cause of death: Blood Flood]

Jaysper 'Pavane' Grey, District Eleven [Cause of death: Blood Flood]

It's over! But no need to worry - the story is not yet complete.

...

*In the Blink of an Eye