This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang, but with a whimper

-The Hollow Man

I jumped away from Phox's limp body just as the cannon sounded. I squinted through the rain to see an all too familiar figure.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?" I yelled at Roman.

"You're welcome." Roman took the knife out of Phox's stomach and rinsed the blood off in the rain. I didn't like this at all.
"'You're welcome'?! What the hell is wrong with you?" I had never been so angry and upset at the same time.

"Yeah. You're welcome." Roman repeated. "You obviously weren't going to do it, and the poor guy was in pain, so I did you a favour."
"'The poor guy'?" I stood up and started advancing towards Roman angrily. "You did me a favour? Go. To. Hell."

"Look, I'm sorry he's dead, I really am, but you look like you're about to collapse, and killing Phox would have put you in danger. When was the last time you ate or drank something?" Roman asked, just as the rain subsided a little.

When was the last time I had something to eat or drink? I had been running on adrenaline the past few days, and I couldn't actually remember eating or drinking. The anthem started playing, showing Ottilie, Thistle and Phox. The Gamemakers were obviously not expecting anybody else to die.

Not unless I kill Roman. Roman saw the change in my eyes, from angry and flustered to concentrated and sure of myself. My hand itched to reach down to my waist where my knives where hanging, waiting to be used.

"Wren, stop it. I'm stronger than you and you know it. I don't want to hurt you but I will." Roman stood his ground. Cold rainwater trickled down his bare arms, but he wasn't shaking- he was stood still and solid. He was almost scary. Almost.
"I hope you rot in hell." I spat, bringing my knife up. I could feel my heart pounding faster and faster, the rhythmic beat resonating through my whole body- too loudly. The next thing I knew, the knife was slipping from my fingers, the ground was coming closer and closer, and Roman's arms caught me just before everything went dark...

I woke up on a sofa, wrapped in a blanket. I had to be dreaming. I wasn't back in the real Capitol, I was dreaming. I was still in the Games. But this had to be real- I knew this because in dreams, it can't be this painful.

My chest hurt, and it was hard to breathe. It felt like I had been holding my breath for a long time but instead of taking in huge gulps of air I could only manage small gasps. My body shook with chills that came as suddenly as they went.

Roman came out of a bathroom holding a wet cloth, which he put on my head. It was ice cold and made me shiver again.
"Don't!" I rasped, pushing the cold cloth away from me.

"I have to, Wren, you're burning up." Roman told me.
"Stay away." I huddled the blanket around me as a protective barrier and tried to squash myself into the corner of the sofa, but I could barely move. I was too tired, and my chest hurt too much.

"Wren, I think you have pneumonia." Roman told me, as if that would make me less edgy.
"Where am I?" I asked him, looking around.

"You're in one of the apartments in the arena." Roman told me. "I got a key for it at the Cornucopia."
"That's really valuable." I noted.

"Yeah. I think that Django Valentine tried to mess with us- he put the least valuable things inside the Cornucopia and the most valuable nearer the edges." Roman told me, dabbing my head with the cold cloth despite my protests. "So whoever risked going right into the Cornucopia was going there for no reason."

"I don't know. All I got was some iodine pills and a belt of knives." I said. "That doesn't seem so valuable."
"Are you sure? I mean, where would you be if you drank some of the rainwater and didn't purify it first? You would be dead like Finola what's-her-name from District 10."

"Someone else died? When? How?" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, I saw I was keeping watch out of the window this morning, and I guess she was so thirsty she was willing to drink puddle water. Anyway, that's my point- she didn't have those iodine pills like you. And without your knives, you might not have been able to defend yourself from the mutts." Roman told me.

"You've seen them too?"

"Yeah. Three- my parents and my sister. They didn't fool me though."

"How come? They fooled me with Katniss, and Phox with Peeta." I winced at the mention of Phox's name, eyes watering with tears. I didn't cry though. I refused to cry in front of Roman.

"Well, for one thing my parents are dead. And for another, they called my sister by her name." Roman told me.
"And that was suspicious because..." I trailed off, waiting for him to explain why his parents calling his sister by her name was suspicious.
"Because they never knew my sister." Roman's eyes were solemn and sad. "They died seven years ago, in the bombings. My mom died about three weeks after my sister was born, and I had to raise her."

"Seven years ago... how old are you?" I asked.

Roman looked at me sadly. "Seventeen." He gave me a second to do the math.

"You've raised your sister since you were ten?" I asked, feeling so sorry for him. Roman nodded.

"Yeah. I knew I couldn't do a good job, and I tried to get someone to adopt her, so she would be better off, but nobody would take her in. They had their own problems and couldn't afford to look after a baby, so I had to raise her. Don't get me wrong, I love her to bits, but I keep wondering if she would have had a better life if I tried harder and gave her to an orphanage or something."

"No! That wouldn't have been better- trust me, I stayed in an orphanage for three weeks before I was handed off to live with a group of strangers in an apartment that we all shared- you made the right decision."
"You think so?" Roman's lip quirked into a smile.

"Absaloutely." I nodded earnestly. Roman smile got bigger. "Why are you smiling?"

"You're so... emotional. Haven't you noticed? You care about people more than you should, all I had to do was tell you about my sister and you finally calmed down enough to let me help you." He told me.

I bit my lip. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
Roman considered it for a moment. "With anybody else, I think it would be bad. But with me, it's good. Especially now. Be right back, I'm going to go get the soup." He left me without further explanation.

I let him go silently- I still didn't really forgive him for killing Phox, but a part of me knew he was right. I wouldn't have been able to kill him. And if I did, I probably would have tossed myself off the edge of the city platform for putting him out of his misery.
"Here, drink this." Roman bought a steaming bowl of soup to my lips.

"Ugh. Not hungry." I pushed the bowl away. "And even if I was I wouldn't eat that."

"Come on, I know it doesn't smell good, but it has medicine in it. You need to get better as soon as possible." Roman took a spoonful of the yucky-smelling soup and held it to my lips. Fortunately, it was hot enough that I couldn't taste what it tasted like, and even though it scalded my tongue it made me warmer. Eventually, I took the bowl from Roman and started eating on my own accord. When I finished the bowl, I felt ten times better.

"Well, that's the third bowl you've eaten in five days, I think that you're almost healthy again." Roman said.
"I've been here for seven days?" I asked.

"Yeah. I couldn't leave you unconcious in the rain, and you were exhausted. Did you eat or drink anything?" Roman called from the kitchen.
"No, not a lot, I guess." I admitted. "There wasn't any time. Hey- how come you don't have pneumonia?"

"Oh, well, after I got you back here and you were still unconcious, I took a shower to warm myself up." Roman told me. "Speaking of showers- that's what you should do."

"Fine." I went to stand up. My chest barely hurt now. Then I noticed something. "Where are my clothes?" I asked. All I was wearing were my underclothes.
"They were soaking wet- but I think they're dry now." Roman told me. "Don't worry, I didn't look, if that's what you're worried about." He added as an afterthought. I blushed and huddled the blanket closer around me as I went to the bathroom.

The water warmed me up and my chills stopped. I used my fingers to untangle my hair, which was still in the braid Katniss had done on the day the Games started. I turned off the shower and wrapped a towel around me, then put my dark hair up in a high ponytail. Both my green and my brown eye were bloodshot and tired looking. I sighed and started drying my skin with the towel- this apartment didn't have the proper Capitol showers that dried you as soon as you stepped out.

I heard a bang come from the other room and stopped suddenly. Everything was silent for a few moments until something crashed loudly. I wrapped the towel tightly around me and peeked outside the bathroom door. My heart froze when I saw who it was- The Careers.