Sorry it took longer for me to update, my laptop's hard drive broke and I lost everything, I had the beginning of the chapter on there and after everything went away I didn't have any motivation. So now I am using my mom's laptop who doesn't have a good Word program, so there is probably a lot of errors, sorryL but I hope you like anyway!
My slumbers are filled with blurred visions of an arrow piercing Clora's chest. It feels like I'm watching a movie, the details are filled with what little words Kyler gave me the night before, and it's horrifying. I see it over and over again until I wake up.
When I do wake up everyone is still asleep. Well, not Kyler, he is laying in the tree with is eyes on the ground. His face is blank, I wonder how much sleep he got, if he got any at all. His light orange hair is hanging over his eyes. The sun is shining in his face, I can see the light reflecting off of his green eyes.
My throat is dry and soar, if I tried to talk I know I probably couldn't. I need water, I turn my head quietly and look at the creek. My legs hurt whether it be from running so much yesterday or from sleeping on the hard ground. I get up slowly making little noise so I don't disturb Nick. When I get up Kyler shoots his head up quickly, but he does not say anything. I walk to the creek, sitting on a rock that let me easily bend over.
I let my fingers run through the cool water to wake myself up first. The feeling of the water immediately reminds me of the place up in the woods that mom used to take me. It's like I can hear mom's voice in every splash of the water on my warm skin. When I am finished reminiscing about District 12, I bend down and cup my hands together. I take a few sips out of my hand until I can feel my throat easing up.
Then I hear a noise. It sounds like someone coughing. The sound stops right away, as realizing it could be heard. I could tell it was distant, but it was coming this way. I look back at Kyler's tree and see him looking at me also, he heard it. I stand up checking my pocket to see if the knife I got from Nick was still there. Kyler slowly gets out of the tree grabbing one spear.
I don't want to leave Nick behind, but I don't want anyone sneaking up on our camp either, so Kyler and I walk into woods where we heard the sound. I know whoever made that coughing noise will not slip up again and make another noise. We're standing in a small area in the woods, that isn't that far from our camp. But it was far enough for Kyler and I to want to go back.
I turn my head slightly to the ground near a tree root. I see a black boot, it is hanging out from behind the big tree in front of me. My hand reaches to my pocket immediately, ready to protect Kyler and myself. I hear some rustling then a sigh of relief.
"Oh thank goodness, Keanan, it's just Hailey and Kyler." it's the voice of Jace. She comes out from behind the tree and goes into my arms lightly. "Wait where's Nick?" she says looking at me with wide eyes. Suddenly Keanan appears too, looking at me expecting an answer.
"Nick is back at the place we set up at, he was asleep." Jace and Keanan look relieved again, but then Jace looks back up at Kyler and I.
"Keanan and I saw what happened to Clora, it was horrible." Jace shakes her head as if she is shaking the memory away. I immediately look at Kyler standing next to me, his face doesn't move, not even twitch. I look back at Jace telling Jace with my expression not to mention it anymore.
We walk back to the camp, Keanan tells us that they heard one cannon this morning, I probably slept through it., When we got back to the camp I expect Nick to be sitting in his spot on the log, or by the creek. But he isn't there. I look around the entire camp with panic filling my chest. Ideas that scare me come into my mind. Maybe the careers took him, maybe he went to the careers, he ditched us, because he never really cared. I think what would hurt me more than him dying.
Jace must sense the panic in my face because she pats me shoulder, "I'm sure he is near by" she gives me a smile, I hope he is near by more than anything. I just want to see that face looking down at me with happiness, concern, anything, I just want those gray eyes back in my view.
Jace and Keanan stay together, sitting on the rock I sat on a little bit earlier by the creek, Kyler is sitting there too but farther from them keeping his head down. Only maybe five minutes have passed, but it feels like a lifetime. I am sitting on the log Nick and I were sitting on before. It's warm like he is still sitting next to me. But when I look over my shoulder he is not there.
That's when I notice someone standing behind the log. I look down at just his feet, usually I would yell, jump, or grab my knife. But instead my head moves slowly up, seeing the face I've been begging to see.
"Nick." his name just rolls off my tongue. I look at Nick's hand to see him holding his backpack. Jace, Keanan, and Kyler turn their heads. "You scared me half to death, Where'd you go?" I look up at him, hoping he wouldn't think I was stupid or laugh at me. Fortunately he doesn't, he just looks back at me.
"Well waking up to you gone wasn't so great either." I know he is right, it was bad just to leave him here. "I went looking for food, you know berries and stuff." He smiles again motioning that he is over the whole me leaving him stranded thing. "I was hoping you weren't captured and killed in the night." he jokes around.
Jace, Keanan, and Kyler come up Jace and Keanan looked thrilled to see Nick up and alive. I am happy to see that his hand has healed a little bit. Jace and Keanan reveled that they had no food. The only backpack they got was filled with a tent. Nick gives them berries right away, that we make sure are not poisonous. I cut them a slice of bread from Nick's backpack. They eat their food quickly and then gulp the water down.
After a while of hanging around the camp and hunting small animals near by it's finally dark out. At night when the Anthem plays, they show only two deaths. The one I slept through and the one that we heard while we were hunting. One death was a girl from District 11, and the other one was surprisingly a Career. The girl from District 3. That's twelve dead. Twelve down, twelve to go. Five Careers, Five of us. And 2 other tributes that I don't remember their names or faces.
In the middle of the night I wake up from a terrible dream, that I don't quite remember, it was just horrible enough to make me want to stay up in this gloomy arena. When I walk out of the tent from Jace and Keanan's bag we set up, I see Kyler standing his short height. He is looking out at the water throwing rocks. I walk over slowly to him making sure I don't scare him when I say his name.
"Kyler." he turns his head slowly. He looks at me with the same blank expression that so often haunted his face. "Listen, I know what you saw was…it was horrible." he looks away throwing the rock he had in his hand into the water. He sends it flying but it skips over the creek, and makes ripples over the water. "But it wasn't your fault Clora died, it was her choice to save you." He looks back at me now.
"Yeah, but that's just it. Why did she choose to save me. I am going to die sooner or later." he swallows hard keeping his intense green eyes on me. "I mean we all are really, careers always win, right?" he looks at me, I cant believe he is saying these things, like he is just waiting for his death to come.
"That's not true." I say sitting on the big rock near by. "My parents weren't careers." I leave out the part about dad being a career, because it didn't help the situation, and he wasn't really a career in my eyes anyway.
"Whatever, your just in denial. Just because your last name is Marllark doesn't mean they'll bend the rules for you. You'll probably die, and Nick will die too. At least you can be with him wherever we go after we die, there will be no Hunger Games there."
The words he says hits me like bricks in the face. He doesn't say them with much hatred, but he sure isn't happy to say them either. I look back at the twelve year old, that's face looks as old as my father now, so dumbfounded. Maybe it surprises me so much because there is a little bit of truth behind his words. Maybe deep inside my head I was hoping the announcer would come and announce that there can be two winners.
Kyler looks at me and doesn't say anything, he just disappears behind me into the darkness that is the gloomy arena. I look up at the moon, wondering if it is the real moon or just a fake one the Gamemakers made. I feel sick to my stomach like I could throw up.
All this time I thought Kyler was a young ignorant little boy he was a intelligent man who knew what happened at the end of Hunger Games. People die, loves end up secrets, and things never turn out the way you wanted them.