Better late than never, right? At least I let you know!

-x

Actassi POV

"Is it really you?" I asked, my voice coming out more of a squeak than I'd been meaning.

Something about her seemed to change, like ripples moving across her skin. I frowned.

"Mom, are you really, well, mom?"

She nodded silently.

I bit my lip. It seemed impossible. There was no way my actual mother would be allowed in the arena. But it was hard, for my beleaguered mind, to accept that it could be a hallucination.

Hallucinations don't break twigs.

"Why are you here?"

She rippled again, before gesturing behind her. I was supposed to follow.

"I think I should stay here," I said blandly.

The ripples, and she gestured even more frantically. Most likely, I was hallucinating, again. My brain mused over the suggestion. How could I justify that? She was already walking away. I had no time to make the choice.

"Wait up!" I called, grabbing my parcel, not even taking the time to pick up anything other than the short knife already inside of it.

In my haste, I disregarded direction, though I could barely have been able to decipher my location, had I been trying. Everything, of course, looked different without water. I had only the steady crunch of her footsteps to guide me in her general direction.

Blindly, I ran even faster; she was moving very quickly, though the tiny amount of sludge beneath the desiccated bracken still tugged at my sneakers.

"Hey, mom!" I yelled, my only indication as to her whereabouts being the crackling of the parched soil.

I had never run, or boated, so far in that particular direction. Not even with Kali. Though the sun beat down like the heating mechanism in a cod smokehouse, every island seemed darker. One covered with waxy-leaved trees, and claw like roots. Another, almost too small to qualify as an island, nothing but sparkling black sand.

Even if I had time, I wouldn't have stopped at either. But the desperation to see the apparition appearing as my mother lent wings to my feet.

I could have sworn I saw the sun drop just a fragment in the sky. Panting, I began to slow down. Only then did I realize that the sounds that I had been following; the crunching of leaves, the shifting of silt, were gone.

Something rustled in a shadowy shape ahead of me, and I jumped.

The air was pitch black. The sun had been abruptly turned off.

What had happened? Did I really run that long? No, my calves were not nearly sore enough. The Gamemakers.

Even they couldn't change the time of day. Right?

There it was, again, a faint rustle. Not from the darkness in front of me, though. Above me.

Something wet, but too viscous to be rain, slupped sickeningly onto the back of my neck. I felt it with my fingers. They came back dark, though I couldn't see colors in such an abysmal night.

Slowly, I began to tilt my head back, looking up above me.

I immediately wished that I hadn't.

Running would have been easier.

Hetcher POV

Behind my blinding haze of nothing, I could feel the gelid water as it trickled past my lips, and Diane beside me, slowly breathing.

I had thought that by then I would know what terror was. Watching Diane shudder in the bottom of a boat, feeling the girl from Two's eyes rake over me, being trapped between a cave and a silvery cloud of death.

Terror was being alone.

Before my injuries, I had been many things, in many stages of consciousness. The moments when I could sense Diane's absence were the worst of my life. She was risking her life for some water, and I was lying in a cave, barely breathing.

Role reversal, in all honesty, sucks.

Today, though, I saw light. For the first time inn what felt like years. Coming from the corner of my vision, so far off that I could barely even see it peripherally. But it was there.

"Hetcher? Hetcher!"

Carden POV

Come on. Come on. Come on.

The courage I'd felt the day before was gone. Full, warm at last, I'd fallen asleep. But who was I kidding? For the first time in the arena, I dreamed.

Someone was singing. Their voice, though imperfect, was human. Human, and reminiscent of my father's.

It echoed beautifully through the trees, the woods near my home.

The song was a simple one; no one was quite sure how they knew it. But I had sung it to Arvid, and I must have heard it from someone. Maybe it was the singer?

Axes spin

Trees fall down

Chop, chop, chop!

Woody bark

Dry and brown

Chop, chop, chop!

Dancing leaves

Whirl 'round too

Chop, chop, chop!

In the sky

Big and blue

Chop, chop, chop!

It was silly, young, and funny. All the things I missed about myself. Leaves fell in slow motion on the wind, like in the song.

Arvid should have been there. Mom should have been there. The scene darkened. The woods were quiet. The birds stood still. They waited for something.

I couldn't be patient like them. Before the dying trees could catch my shoulders, I ran, pushing through brambles. The song began again; eerie and haunting in the empty forest.

A strange wall of foliage sprung up before me, and I had to stop. I wasn't even tired, somehow. Slowly, I pushed through. The vines fell away, revealing a horrible scene.

A little boy, reminding my painfully of Arvid, covered in lacerations, lay in the center. He didn't move. The song crescendoed, as I realized that the dead boy was not my brother.

He was me.

The pale lips twitched, and in a grisly finale, the corpse finished the song. The scraping sound of tiny claws on the forest floor filled the sudden silence…

Gasping, I snapped back into reality. I nearly upset my small bottle of water in my haste to gulp from it, to stop the sore feeling, building in my throat.

I was safe, if you could call my perch 'safe'. I wasn't dead. Neither was Arvid. Neither were Diane and Hetcher.

In all likelihood, Kali wasn't either. I shuddered; there was no way the two Fours could have bested her. No way. It was a shame we hadn't seen the sky that night, though. It would be nice to be sure.

Safety. I couldn't stay safe in the tree. I had to get away from the crabs. The tiny pink shells still littered to forest floor, and I chewed berries in a frantic attempt to calm my nerves.

The tree wasn't safe, and I needed to leave. Already, the nightmare was fading. Already, my resolve was forming. I was going to get down. That very same day, I would find the cruel career, and… I swallowed, hard. Though the crossbow lay against my leg uncomfortably, I couldn't make myself plan ahead that far.

Instead, I diverted my attention to other things. I thought of Hypatia; in the training center, she had told me about a life beyond life. It really didn't make sense, but she had seemed to understand it. I wondered if Hypatia was alive, somewhere. It seemed unlikely, but the whole soul thing seemed believable. A person is so human… So them self. How could that die?

My backpack slung onto one shoulder, I held the crossbow, breathing deeply. I had, at most, three shots to get the angle right. Esther or Franz would have been able to do it in a pinch, but I was alone, now. The thought niggled at my conscious.

I might not be alone much longer.

Quietly, I set a little stick from the pouch in place. Then, on a whim, I replaced it with a little branch I had broken from the tree. I had to conserve the bolts, right? It seemed perfectly straight. In hindsight, I broke a few more off, stuffing them into the pouch, aiming the instrument far into the direction I intended to run from.

Schwishck.

The noise seemed to awaken the living layer of writhing crabs. As one, they surged off towards the noise, though I couldn't see the shaft at all, any more. It had to be enough.

Gloves one, I swung down nimbly, biting my lip as the material, however soft and squishy, bit into my wounded hands. Speed, however, was key. My feet hit the ground with a soft thud, though it must have been louder to the crabs.

I loaded another projectile and shot it off in the opposite direction, not even bothering to aim.

Schwishck.

The tide of grey and shiny pink must have surged after it, because the whirring noise briefly increased in volume, a sickening parody of the sound in my dream. My heart seemed to drop into my stomach, and I ran.

It was the sound. And it was getting louder. I must have hit a tree.

My feet pelted the packed earth, sloping down to the barren field of decayed lake vegetation. I didn't slow down, feeling the force of acceleration push me on. The din stayed at the same level. They hadn't yet found me.

I had to pay attention to the grass, which was difficult to do while simultaneously loading another bolt, fumbling with the pouch. Silently, I begged my fingers to work, carefully loading, and firing.

Schwishck.

As my shoes, soaked with sweat, began to flop around like wet leaves in a windstorm, I slowed. I had fired two more bolts. Only four of the sharp ones, and two twigs were left.

The crabs were gone, though.

I wasn't safe. As darkness suddenly fell, like a ton of metaphorical logs, I was cold, too. I was running low on weapons, and strange sounds emerged from the black zone beyond my vision, causing my to, subconsciously, shiver.

But I had escaped. By myself. I felt my back straighten, and I loaded a real bolt.

Bring it on.

-x

Thanks to ALL of you, for sticking with me on this.

Just thought I'd let you guys know, there's something going on in cyber space.

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