Chapter 13

Of course I'm going. Flint is near death! If I don't go now, he'll die. There isn't a way around it. It's inevitable if I don't get this medicine.

So here I go.

I grit my teeth and scale my way down the tree, landing too hard on the ground. I stumble, trying to regain my balance, and take out the axe, the feeling I'll need it steadily growing. I grip the handle tightly and step out into the cornucopia clearing, keeping a watchful eye on the woods around me. Deciding I can chance it, I run forwards, sprinting flat out towards the backpacks. I can see both packs. Mine and Flint's.

I've reached the table. Grabbing both packs, Flint's out of necessity and mine out of curiosity, I turn to run and find the boy from eleven stood a few metres in front. Effectively blocking my path.

I swear under my breath and wonder about running. But I knew this was going to happen anyway. The Gamemakers would drive us together at some point. So better now than never, right?

I walk forwards, determined, gripping the axe tightly; holding on for my life. The boy from eleven is not happy about this. I'm not happy either, but we've both realised that the games aren't something anyone is happy about. So we know that we have to hold our heads high and bear it.

It's not like we have a choice.

I begin to run forwards, lifting the axe.

I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do this.

I don't want to do this.

I have to do this.

Having reached him, I swing the axe down; but he manages to block it with his scythe and throws me off to the side. I scramble to my feet and run at him again, but this time it's me who has to defend, because he's swept his scythe at me and I have to duck. I get a quick clear cut at his leg though. He howls in pain as my axe sinks into his thigh and I choke back a frantic apology. He pushes me and I land sprawled out on my back, and he's advancing, scythe at the ready. I roll to the left as the tip of his blade hits the space of grass where my torso had been, not two seconds before. I get to my feet quickly and to my surprise I don't use my axe. Instead I sweep kick him in the head. He wasn't expecting it, and is knocked back by the power behind my kick. I hate myself for this.

So run. Run. RUN.

It's the voice inside my head again. And it's right. He's in no position to come after me, what with the wound to his leg and my kick to the head, which I expect caused some dizziness. So I run away, off into the forest, heading towards Flint.

He must have woken by now, and is likely annoyed at my absence. No matter.

I'm alive, and I have the backpacks. I need to get back to him soon. I don't have a doubt that his backpack contains the medicine.

It just remains to be seen what is in mine. The backpack marked 7.

What do I need so desperately?

When I get back to the Lake Flint is awake, looking around wildly, until he sees me.

"Hello?" I begin, trying to sound innocent. He squints a little, and I know he's seen the scratches on my face, but also two backpacks, and realizes where I've been. "Look, Flint, I'm sorry, but I had no choice, now we're both going to be good."

"You could have died." he protests, as I walk over.

"Yes, I know, but I didn't." I say. "Squir- Freckle wasn't as lucky as me." Then I tell him in detail everything that happened; my wait in the trees, the fight between the careers and 11, and my dash for the backpacks. "Look, I'm sorry I left, I know I took a big risk, but I'm okay.

Besides, the boy from 11 and Aquette are in far worse conditions than I am."

Saying that was strange. Up until now they've been far better prepared, extensively armed, and much, much bigger than me. So why am I alive? Even Shimmer was better than me and she died a whopping six days ago, so why? I had a lot of close shaves, but I'm still here. For me it was a matter of luck surviving at the Cornucopia, but then? I could have been killed by the Careers, and Flint saved me, and now only one of them is alive. I could have been killed by the tracker jackers, but Flint saved me again. I could have been killed by the mutts, but I was smart enough to find a way of killing them, the same goes for the rock rain, but Flint saved me. Now, at the Feast, I could have been killed again, but… Well, I was quick enough to get away.

I open Flint's bag and take the medicine, knowing all the while that my own backpack is lying, teasing and unopened. There are two pots inside Flash's backpack. One medicine is a pearly coloured liquid, a plastic spoon accompanying it. I feed some of it to Flint, and he automatically relaxes, the effect the medicine has is like magic. Then I take the second pot, the same cream we received several days ago, I massage it into his injury, and the pain is visibly receding.

"Feel any better?" I ask him, siling slightly. He laughs, his voice cracking little. It's a strange sound in the arena.

"I feel like a completely different person." He grins, looking down at his injury. "I feel like I can run, hunt… You know… I could probably even fight." he muses. It's true, his face looks alive again, and I have back the Flint I met a week ago. He lies back, closing his eyes. "Thank you, Regan, sorry for what happened a minute ago."

"It's okay, you deserve this, and I had to do something." I say smiling.

I look around, checking the forest once again for assailants, which has become the norm for me. Paranoia is a side-effect of the arena. It's then that I catch a glimpse of my backpack out of the corner of my eye. Curiosity winning over a possible threat, I reach for it, my fingers itching. I have to know what's inside. I unzip it and peer inside. Several objects lie at the bottom of the bag and I reach in and take them out.

The first object is a circular pot. It's a medicine that scars injuries. I suppose I need that; during the Games I've suffer several rather painful injuries, and haven't yet had the time or the medicine to treat them properly. Here I am now with both. Before I examine the other items I take some of it and smear it on my injuries and give the rest to a watching Flint. There... We both feel better, new, in a good enough condition to fight.

The second thing I have inside the bag is a kind of venom we use in my district to hunt; most of the girls use this method, like me, rather than use weapons. We cover the fruit or grass we know the animal eats, and in seconds, we have it. The venom takes most effect through inhalation, although eating it is equally dangerous. But here I have it not to hunt, for something else, and I know which is the Gamemakers purpose. But how do they know about this? Then I realize, as I am one of the eight finalists, my family was interviewed, my brother for sure gave that kind of information. Thank you, Dwight, I love you. Then there is my third gift, and it is something I never expected.

I'm worried about Aquette. If I receive three gifts, she'll receive more than me; after all, her bag was bigger, and her district richer. Flint opens my bag to see what there is inside.

"Don't smell the bottle, it is venom." I advise him. "It's used to hunt, but we can use it for something else."

"And what is this?" he asks taking the third gift.

I stare at Flint as he regards the third gift.

"That, Flint, is a fire starter." I tell him. I dislike fire starters. There have been too many accidents in district 7, where a fire has got out of hand.

As a district that specialises in lumber, fires are usually a problem. And I'm annoyed that I've lugged this great big backpack, halfway through the forest to my lake, and I only have a few small gifts. It might be useful, but I'm still annoyed.

"Well, look. We don't need one. We have matches." He points out. I look up at him, frowning.

"That we do…" I murmur. I take the fire starter and turn it over in my hands. I stroke the pieces together and a large spark flies.

"It's very good…" I mumble. It is. You could start a forest fire with something like-

Oh.

I look at Flash. He hasn't realized yet.

"They want us to… they want us to burn down the forest." I manage to choke out.

This is clever. It's very clever. The Gamemakers always want to drive the remaining four tributes together. So they chose me to do it. They know that I'm going to have immense trouble doing it. I'm from 7. To burn down a forest is unthinkable. I live in a forest. Watching it burn…

What's more, knowing that I did it will be unbearable.

And it will make for great television.

What if I refuse? What if I decide that I'm not going to obey the Gamemakers?

I'm just thinking that when my eyes fall on the bottle of poison. They'll kill me. And it won't be slow. It won't be an easy death. So I'm going to have to burn down the forest. Flint is staring at me.

"What?" I ask him, irritably.

"You don't want to, do you?"

"Of course not. I live in a forest back home." I mutter, staring at the fire starter. "But… This could end the games once and for all." I say, closing my eyes.

There is another problem… Ending the games once and for all means losing Flint. If I die and he wins, we won't be together. If I win, he dies and we get the same result. The only chance we have is if we both die. The Capitol can't reach us then. But I don't want to die. And I'm betting he doesn't either.

So we don't talk about it.

"I feel like tonight's the night." I mumble. Flint nods. It's the last time I'll see the lake. My beautiful, secret, special lake. It's going to burn at my hand.

I'm going to miss it.

We pack up our supplies and begin the walk through the forest. We want to be fairly close to the cornucopia when the fire starts, so we have a chance of getting away. I take one last look at the trees, with their colourful branches. I take one last look at the lake, blue waters sparkling in the dying sunlight. I take one last look at the beautiful surroundings and then turn and walk away.

I don't look back.

IT'S BEEN A WHILE. SORRY. I haven't updated for what feels like years, seriously. But what did you think of this chapter? And thoughts?

Also to address questions I've been asked, his name was Flash on the original story I wrote, but I changed it to Flint. If it ever says Flash, I'm sorry, sometimes it slips through on the editorial process.

Once more, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and please let me know what you thought!

Lucy XXXX