As with all Hunger Games, there's some explicit violence. I'm not sure if it's too explicit for FFNET, but I guess they'll let me know the hard way if it is. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Hunger Games are about to begin. This arena is wooded with saplings all around us growing taller the farther out I look.

We, the twenty-four tributes, are standing on our small, round platforms watching and waiting for the countdown to end. I look in back of me and see two cliffs divided by one great wall and at the foot of the wall begins a calm river that winds its way into a pond near the cornucopia.

To my left, I see two tributes from District 3 and 7. Immediately to my right is the girl tribute from District 12, and she's nothing but skin and bones and shaking like a leaf. There's even a faint smell of urine from her direction. I can't blame her; District 12 hasn't won the Games in twenty years and didn't for many years before that.

Farther down I can see Ryan, his sights are set on the cornucopia. If only there was a way for me to get his attention, to tell him not to try for the supplies, but he doesn't look in my direction at all.

The countdown ends and the buzzer sounds to let us know its safe to leave our platforms. Ryan has already taken off for the cornucopia, and I hop to the ground to chase him.

I see in my periphery children fighting each other everywhere; it's a bloodbath. There is a body of a girl I have to jump over to keep pace behind Ryan, and I barely register who it is. It's the girl from District 12.

Ryan slips into the cornucopia behind a pair of boys locked in a knife fight and by the time I reach them, one of them is laying on the ground dead with the other's eyes fixed on me. I have nothing to defend myself so all I can do is back away from the glint of sharp metal pointed in my direction. The boy, the District 2 boy, grins at me as though he knows a secret: that I'm already dead and I just don't know it, yet.

He never sees Ryan behind him with the sword in his hand, so it was a shock when it skewered him and I watch as the point exits his chest. It disappeared, and the boy drops down to the ground lifeless. Until this moment, I hadn't had a free moment to really see the dead with their lifeless eyes staring at me, beyond me. But I see this boy staring at nothing with his mouth still wide open in pain or shock, I'm not really sure which in those last moments.

My legs turn to jelly and I collapse to the ground because I have the time to look around me and see all of the dead. It's gruesome with gashes opening up flesh all the way to the bone and the fear frozen on their faces. I don't hear Ryan calling for me to stand until he drops his sword to pull me up by my shoulders with both hands.

I hear him yelling at me, but he sounds so far away and muffled, and his face is hazy as though it were something of a dream. I can't understand the one word he's yelling at me over and over again.

The word finally sinks into my brain: "run." My vision is coming into focus and sounds are becoming a little sharper and my eyes level with his. He slips his hand in mine and it comforts me as it did the first day I met him but I see a flash of silver and then something sprays across my face, blinding me.

I wipe my eyes and open them to see nothing but red, and in front of me Ryan's looking down at the ground. There's nothing there, but he spends precious seconds staring. It's only then that I see someone standing in back of him, a knife held in her hand that's dripping with blood, and I look at him again.

I take his hand in mine and pull it towards me to get him to move, but it only makes his head flop to the side and that's when I see it in the daylight: the deep gash in the side of his neck. His head flops down again, but the movement is enough to unsteady his body until he tips over and onto me.

I scream and flail against what's left of the boy I knew, barely aware of the girl from District 2 taking steps in my direction.

From the side, there's someone screaming and it distracts her, causing her to decide what's more important. Eventually she runs off, and I'm left alone with Ryan's body on top of me. There's an ache in my jaw and my throat feels as though I've swallowed a mouthful of sand. I'm still screaming, I realize, and I have no desire to stop.

Somehow, over the piercing sound of my voice, I hear another voice screaming even louder. It's telling me to run and it gets louder and louder until I can't hear anything but the command it gives me. The sound is so loud, now, that it's starting to hurt so I slide myself from underneath Ryan and crawl away. When I'm a few paces away, I pull myself up and stumble onward. Eventually I walk and then run.

It's still talking to me, telling me to keep running, but it's not as painful anymore. Now, it's more soothing and comforting and makes me feel as though if I keep running I might be safe.

The saplings are easy to run through, but the taller trees are thicker and growing close together, so much so that I have trouble weaving between them. The farther I run, the taller and wider the trees are.

The voice inside my head tells me to stop, and I do. There are several thick bushes clustered together, and they are covered with thorns, but the voice reminds me that this is nothing new for me.

When the administrator of our community home was angry with me and Ryan for whatever reason, we used to hide in the wild rose bushes growing in the back of the building. They were always covered with thorns that hurt, but we grew used to them.

And so I squeeze through the thicket, ignoring the shallow and deep scratches, until I'm nestled in the center of them. There's nothing but the sound of my heavy breaths that eventually lull me to sleep.

The sun starts to set when I wake, but I don't feel awake fully and I'm not sleeping. It feels as though I'm in that place in between when I hear that voice in my head speak again. "You'll be safe, now," it says, but it's not coming from my head anymore. It's coming from beside me, a shadow, but too weary to be frightened.

"You and me?," the shadow says and with the voice I suddenly remember when I was twelve years old, without parents, and feeling so alone. I recognize that voice now that some of the fog of sleep has left me.

"Ryan?"

"I'm here."

I want to cry; I want to scream. I'm not sure I can do either because my mind has come to a screeching halt. It's too busy trying to reconcile the sight I'd seen at the cornucopia with the shadow sitting beside me. I cover my ears with my hands and rock back and forth until I'm too tired to do that anymore

Starting this story, I saw Annie's experience to mirror Katniss's but in a funhouse mirror sort of way. That's where I sort of took this story.