There was one advantage of the skyscraper. There were computers everywhere, and although we weren't able to use them, they showed the faces of the deceased and the most important: the time. Right now it was exactly twelve o'clock, midday. Two hours had passed, still four to come. I was at one third.

I had

I heard countless cannons and explosions. A least fifty or sixty, so this building was getting emptier and emptier. I couldn't help wondering which tributes from District 1 were already dead. Was Kara alive? I hadn't really paid attention to the portraits on the computers.

I was on one of the lowest floors. The past two hours I had seen a few people but I hadn't attacked them and they didn't see me or didn't attack me as well. About half an hour ago I was on one of the floors were a bracelet had exploded and body parts had spread all over the room. Most of the floors were just offices and long corridors, but there had to be other spaces as well, like cafeterias. I hadn't found one yet.

I looked on my bracelet. Time on this floor was already running out and I had to move. I went down again. I gripped my axe while approaching the door of this floors' office and opened it. There was no one to see. Slowly I crept through the room. It had started raining and everything outside was grey and sad. On the floor were a few blood splatters. I kneeled, observed and saw they were not that old. Maybe a hurt person was staggering around this floor. The splatters were part of a track that led to a second door. I made as little sound as I could and tiptoed to that door. It was not locked. I didn't hear a sound, so I opened it and looked around the corner. Nothing to see.

I went in, looked over my shoulder, saw the computers displaying someone from District 5 and took a breath. The silence was deadly, but I smelled blood again. It was already familiar to me after two hours. The number of blood splatters increased and when I saw they didn't lead to the third door this floor but to the backside of a desk, I held my axe tight and stroked over my knife to make sure I still had it. Slowly I approached the desk. There was more and more blood on the floor. Finally I got there, collected some courage and looked over the desk.

My eyes narrowed by the sight. It was awful, maybe even worse than the bloody explosions everywhere (hey, a cannon went off), because you could recognize this person, well, as a person. I had passed corpses before in these two hours but they didn't seem to have died that atrocious, but behind the desk was laying a person who had been shot in the head with several arrows. The head was covered in blood and the longer I looked at the corpse, the more arrows I discovered. What the hell? There had to be a person with a bow around, and this person knew how to handle it. I turned my face away and wandered to the third door.

The next room was almost identical as the one before. I walked around again, but when I heard a soft noise my heart dropped and I dove behind a desk.

It didn't sound like bloodthirsty noises. It was sobbing. Someone was crying, not that loud but loud enough to be heard. What if it was a thirteen-year old? The sound came from the stairs. If I wanted to get off this floor, and I had to in a few minutes, I needed to pass this person. In other words, I had to fight this person. It was important for sponsors. However, I wasn't going to fight a crying thirteen-year old! Even I wasn't ready to do that.

Well, I didn't have a choice. I had to leave this floor.

I stood up and walked in the direction of the stairs and the crying. It became louder once I approached it and I knew it had to be right behind the entrance to the stairs.

Finally I had enough balls to open it. Damn, I was afraid of a crying person. I was in a building with –roughly- maybe ninety others who were all going to kill or be killed.

The person started speaking to me even before I saw her.

'Please don't kill me! Please don't!' she cried.

I turned around and finally saw her, sitting next to the stairs. She wasn't thirteen. She was at least my age, maybe older. I think she might even have been taller than me, but judging her figure, she came from East. Tears were running over her cheeks and dropping on her shirt. She didn't seem hurt, but she had a few blood spots on her clothes. She was blonde, something you didn't see often in East. When she saw my axe, with the dried blood of my only victim on it, her eyes widened.

'Mercy! Please!'

'Wow, relax' I said. Why was she, a tall, big girl, so afraid, so terrified? Based on first looks, she didn't have to be. She didn't look as unhealthy as some others from East, so she had to have some strength in her muscles.

'What's going on? Are you hurt?' I asked, doubting on what to do. Even though she wasn't thirteen, it still didn't feel like a good idea to kill her somehow.

She didn't answer my question but remained terrified of me and began crying even louder.

'Hey, can I do something?' I knew it was risky to offer someone I just met help, but it seemed unethical not to. We had to help each other; we weren't participating right now out of free will. And maybe Mrs. Johnson would see my heart-warming actions.

She stared at me with big, watery eyes. 'You are nicer than all the others'

'Were there others? How many have passed?'

She said I was nice. Wow.

'I don't know, I've been so afraid all the time, I can't remember. You aren't going to kill me, right? Right?' She asked.

'Er' I began 'of course not'

That seemed to comfort her and for the first time she smiled. 'Thank you so much. I'm so scared, I want to go home!'

'Me too' I said 'I think everyone will.'

She was trembling from top to toe and still didn't seem to relax completely. Was I that terrifying?

'I hope my sisters are all right' she whispered, and she started sobbing again.

'Are your sisters starving at home?' I asked, knowing it might hit a sensitive spot.

'No!' she wept 'They came here with me. Both of them!'

I had to stop myself from letting out a scream of horror. I didn't have any brothers or sisters, but I could imagine how horrible it would be to be in the games with them. It might even be worse than with your best friend.

'Oh my God' I said 'I feel sorry for you'

'Thank you, I needed a nice word before I die' she mumbled.

'Maybe you aren't going to die' I said, and hesitated for a while but then I decided to sit down next to her. She didn't move.

'Oh, I don't think I'll die' she said 'I want to win'

I felt like laughing, because she was maybe even weaker than Jess. But then I saw the space we were in from another perspective. I hadn't looked at the floor since coming here because I had to talk to this girl. But now I did, I felt shivers coming up.

'Why…the hell' I began slowly 'Is there so much blood on the floor here?'

'ALEXANDRIA! NOW!' the girl suddenly screamed, very loudly, and I shook.

Everything went very fast from that moment on. Suddenly an arrow flew by right next to my ear, and another only missed my upper leg by a centimeter. I jumped up, gripped my axe and ran to hide for the arrows under the stairs, where I heard someone running on.

'What the fuck!' I screamed. The girl smiled at me, stood up and suddenly I saw a second person. My heart was beating in my chest and I couldn't move.

This person immediately frightened me. She was at least as tall as the crying girl who wasn't crying anymore, and she was older. She was so skinny she resembled a skeleton. I could see the bones sticking out while she was holding a bow in her hands. The bow!

Holy shit. They had driven me in a corner. The skinny girl, Alexandria, pointed her bow at me. The other girl was standing in the corner, laughing. And I don't know why, but the only thing I could think of that this had to be one of her sisters. The same hair color, the same eyes. They had trapped me. Looking at all the blood on the floor, they had trapped some others as well and they had all died in here. What kind of twisted tactic was this?

'Get ready to say goodbye, stupid, naïve whore' said the girl with the bow. She was pointing at my heart. I had to do something? But before I knew what, she had already shot. I jumped in a random direction and I felt the arrow penetrating my flesh, but luckily not my heart. It was my waist. I looked down quickly and saw the arrow sticking out of my hip. It had gone really deep. The pain was unbearable, but the only chance I had of escaping was this moment, the moment Alexandria needed to get another arrow. While I was holding the arrow in my hip in place I took my knife, inhaled and ran past her, making a cut in her arm. She dropped her arrow to cry in pain and while passing the other girl (how could I be so stupid to trust her? How?) I tried to stab her to but she easily avoided the blade. I ran up the stairs and kept running. I heard them chasing me, so I sprinted even harder, saw a random door after going up ten floors or so, opened and closed it silently and hid behind the first desk I saw.

I heard Alexandria and her sister running up the stairs trying to find me and when they passed my floor my heart stopped for a minute. I had never been so scared before, but they ran past. I heard Alexandria calling her sibling Hayden, if I had heard it well. Jesus Christ, Hayden was one hell of an actress. But I wasn't afraid of her. In my head I kept replaying the first moment I saw Alexandria and it frightened me every single time. The hollow eyes, the skeleton-like features and the sharp bow. They must have hidden the bodies of the previous victims of their trap. And there was a third sister according to Hayden! I bit my lip and my mouth was dry.

I started crying. I was in pain, I had an arrow in my waist, but I knew pulling it out would not be a good thing to do. I knew this wound wasn't fatal. But it was going to hold me back.

Death had never been so close before. I was shaking from top to toe. Afraid, lonely and weak and hurt. I heard an explosion from above me. My bracelet indicated five minutes left.

I had to get to the other stairs. I didn't dare to use the other stairs anymore. I had to remain hidden for the rest of the preliminaries. That was the only way to survive. I got up, felt a stinging pain from my waist and made it to the other stairs without falling.

I was so angry at myself for being lured like that into a trap. I wanted revenge, but not right now. On the stairs I passed the corpse of a young boy. I felt myself mentally become weaker by the second.

And like that, another hour passed. The living in the building were decreasing, the death increasing. Less and less competition, less and less moving enemies in the building. Most of the time I hid behind desks until time on the floor was running out. I had to use the bathroom, but all the toilets were locked. I was hungry, as well. There were bottles of water everywhere in the offices, but I didn't dare to drink anything because I had to pee.

It was likely at least someone from our District would be dead already. Who would it be? I could only hope it was one person, and the name didn't start with a K or R or F.

Haha, I've uploaded new chapter within 2 days! I've never been more proud of myself & I'll try to continue this habit :D