'Hey Abbey' I heard someone say 'Please wake up. We need to move a few meters'

It was Mika, tapping my arm.

'What?' I murmured sleepily. He pointed at something. I sat up and followed his finger.

He was directing to the mountain on the middle of the island. It was the only peak on the island, lonely standing in the middle. I narrowed my eyes and saw what he meant.

Three miniscule figures were making their way to the top. It was hard to recognize them, but I assumed they were the District 18 sisters.

'We can see them, so maybe they can see us. I think they are going to the top to have a better view on where everyone is. Pretty dumb, if you ask me. The jungle is so dense you are safe there, but for now we have to move our stuff to the edge of the jungle so they won't see us.'

'Right' I said. It was still early in the morning and my hands were shaking. I felt weak. It might not come as a surprise, but starving felt really crappy.

'Timothy' said Mika suddenly 'What is that?'

'I don't know' Timothy said. I saw what he meant. The spider bite had turned black and blue. I crouched to him and examined it more closely. I had no idea about anything medical, but it was for sure this was definitely not good.

'It won't stop itching and since a couple for hours it feels like it's burning.' He said.

'Don't worry, we'll do something' I said. I looked at Mika, but his eyes said he had no knowledge of what to do. I opened the medical kit. There was a lot of stuff in it, which would probably come in handy for all sorts of things, but not a venomous spider bite.

'Let's just…' I began 'see if there's something in the traps. The animals had the whole night to get trapped.'

'Hey, what about-' Timothy said.

'It'll only take a minute' I said 'we need to eat. We need to be able to think. Just stay here. Alexandria won't see you.'

He didn't seem happy, but eventually agreed. Mika and I got everything we need and took off.

When we reached our first trap, still untouched, I felt the same disappointment as yesterday, but now it was mixed with desperation. 'This is seriously fucked up' I said, and we moved to the next one.

But the second one was empty too. At that moment I was really aware of my rumbling stomach and leaned against a tree.

'How long does it take for a person to starve to death?' I asked slowly, staring at the untouched trap.

'Couple of weeks, depends on the conditions. We won't make it past a week and a half if we don't eat' Mika answered. He was pale and shaking on his legs, just like me. This was the first day and we were dying already.

'I can't recall seeing any edible animals or plants, too' I said, remembering everything I'd learnt at training.

'Let's go back…the animals won't come if we stay' he remarked. We walked back to the beach, tripping over the occasional root, and had to shake our heads when Timothy looked at us hopefully.

'Well, all we can do is hope seven people die quickly, so we make it to the final twelve' he said.

'What if they do those fights from last year again? You know, with two people?' I asked, shivering. I was though, but that thought crept me out.

'Not unless they've come up with something more cruel' Mika said. I wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. Suddenly a cannon went off. If that was good or very, very bad, we would find out at midnight.

Hours passed. The sun got lower once again, the sand became walkable, the sea sparkled in the orange light. Mika had fainted once, probably from the hunger. Within days we would become so weak we wouldn't be able to defend ourselves, and I didn't know how big this island exactly was, but sooner or later Fabio or Alexandria would come.

I felt like fainting too. I tried to drink as much as I could, just to have something in my belly, but all it made me do was pee every half hour.

Mika and Timothy were resting in the shadows, desperate and weak. I was walking around on the beach until they waved at me.

'Come here' they were saying without a sound. I rushed to them and sat down.

'What is it?' I whispered. They pointed at the woods behind us. I wasn't able to see much, but I could clearly distinguish a girl, struggling to make her way to the beach she'd seen. Our beach.

'What do we do?' Mika asked me, slightly panicking. This was my time. Combat was my thing. They were counting on me.

I crouched to our knives and put them both under my belt. The tip was sticking in my flesh, but I didn't care.

The closer the girl got, the faster she walked. She saw the beach, she wanted the protection of the place, she wanted the sea.

'K-kill?' Mika whispered.

'I don't know' I answered quietly. She didn't seem like a direct threat, but we were weak.

The seconds ticked away and as soon as she set foot on the beach she dropped her backpack. She didn't see us. She was very short, and very young too, maybe thirteen or fourteen.

I couldn't hold myself in for longer. I wanted to see if she was armed. I hid my knives.

'Hey you' I said. She shook and quickly turned around. Her eyes were big and so scared I almost became shy.

'Don't hurt me! I have no weapons!' she screamed.

'I've heard that before' I said, thinking of Hayden and the preliminaries 'Turn around'

She was quick to obey. She was telling the truth – there were no weapons on her.

'You're from 9, are you?' Mika asked, who walked up to me.

'Yes. I'm Anastasia.' She said, apparently scared to death 'I killed no one during the preliminaries, my training score was a 5, I was allying with Bella from District 32, but I lost her today.' She blurted out everything.

I watched her for a few seconds. Then I asked her if she knew anything about other tributes' movements.

'No' she said high-pitched 'please, just let me leave, I won't bother you, I'll do anything'

'We should do so, Abbey' Mika whispered in my ear 'it is the right thing to do'

Anastasia looked at me, then at Mika, then back at me, almost bewildered.

'Then one question, 9' I said 'where is the food?'

I was hoping and praying that she would knew more. She had to, otherwise we were lost.

'Of course, of course' she said quickly 'It's hidden under the ground. Almost every root is edible, try them if you don't trust me. Bella told me, they eat them too in their District'

'My God' I exclaimed 'How could we have been so stupid! By the way, where is Kara from District 1?'

'Please let me go' she begged 'I don't know any more things'

I turned to Mika and whispered: 'if we kill her, it's one person less to worry about'

'Yes, but this is a human life we're talking about! She's done nothing wrong, she's done us a favor!' he mumbled back.

'These are the Games. Ethics don't matter anymore' I argued quietly.

'Sane persons in the Games only kill when necessary and this kill won't be necessary'

'but she might betray our location to anyone!'

'To who?'

'I don't know, that ally of hers?'

'She's moving!' Mika suddenly screamed. I turned around and saw Anastasia run for her life, back to the jungle. However, I was faster. I fetched my knife and threw it. It hit, to my surprise. The blade was stuck between her shoulders and she fell down immediately. She shrugged and then the second cannon of the day went off.

Anastasia from District 9 was dead.

We were silent for a couple of seconds which felt like slow hours. Eventually Timothy spoke.

'You know, Abbey, sometimes you're really scary'

'Thanks' I said darkly, and slowly moved to the body. There was no blood, which made it slightly easier to behold – the corpse of a girl who I'd spoken with only minutes ago, who I would have spared if she wasn't so dumb to run away. The third life I'd taken in the Games so far. How many more were there to come?

Dealing with it was surprisingly easy. I assumed the pain and regret for everything I did would come later, when I was dead or a victor for a long time.

'Are you mad at me?' I asked Mika.

He shook his head. 'No.'

'Please-' I began, but he waved the rest of my sentence away. 'Let's just see what's in her backpack before we go to the jungle and dig up as many roots as we can.'

'Thank you' I said to him, and I meant it.

Anastasia's backpack contained a bottle of water, a sleeping bag and a couple of things that looked like muddy, brown carrots. We poured some water over them to clean them, and then we carefully took a bite. It didn't taste that good, but I instantly knew it wouldn't kill us. This was definitely edible. We were saved.

'Are you coming, Timothy?' Mika asked when we were ready to go into the jungle.

'Yeah, one minute' he murmured, and got up. He was in pain, it was clearly visible. He was limping when we made our way to a spot where we could dig. The late Anastasia was right. Within minutes we had arms full of roots and carrots.

'Do you think the others have found out about this too?' I asked.

'I don't know, if they're smart I think yes. I thought I knew something about nature, but it turns out I'm wrong. How could we have overlooked this?' Mika said frustrated.

'Games stress' I said wisely 'Let's go back. It's getting dark.'

'Timothy!' Mika suddenly shouted. I turned around – Timothy was laying on the ground, sweating and pale. He was trembling uncontrollably.

'What the hell' I whispered when I saw his leg. Bright red veins were crossing his leg, and they all centered around the spider bite. Some veins had become black.

Mika just stood there, petrified. I kneeled beside Timothy and felt his forehead. He was breathing heavily and he was very hot.

'He has a fever' I determined quickly 'we need to get him back to camp. We might not be able to treat the bite, but we can do something about the blood poisoning and fever…I hope.'

'Right' Mika stuttered, and without any efforts he swung his long, skinny friend over his broad shoulder. Timothy was moaning softly.

What kind of cursed spider had that been? I checked my legs, paranoid there was one on me too, but they were clean.

At the camp we found some aspirin for the fever and gave them to Timothy. He was conscious and fell asleep after I'd assured him we would find a cure.

Mika was staring at the sea. He was slowly chewing on a root. I walked up to him, but he didn't talk to me.

'I don't know anything about blood poisoning' I said eventually.

'I get it. He's dying.' Mika said.

'Don't think like that. There must me something we can do. We have food, we can-' I felt my voice dying away.

'He has a day. If he's lucky, two. This isn't normal blood poisoning, Abbey. I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone for now.' Mika told me.

'Oh- ok' I said 'Just…stay strong.'

I felt his pain too. Yes, it was a pity that Rose and Flora had died and I even felt a slight regret I hadn't made a proper, meaningful apology to Jess before she died, but Kara wasn't dead and I had forgotten how I felt after I became an orphan. Hurt was part of my daily life, but loss wasn't. Still, I could imagine how he felt…I guessed.

And by that the sun went down for a third time.

Timothy was in serious pain, even in his sleep. I tried to ignore his regular sobs and wanted to sleep, but I just couldn't. This was the first night I wasn't able to close a single eye. I knew Mika was awake too.

The night was a torture. It was colder than usual and I had goosebumps on my legs. The short pants weren't really suitable for these temperatures, but I didn't want to get up and get a sleeping bag. I wasn't hungry anymore, but I was worried for Kara.

She hadn't been amongst de fallen of the day. We'd watched the portraits, but we just saw our victim Anastasia and the death of the morning was her ally Bella, who Anastasia told she'd lost.

Did Kara know about the food?

As soon as I felt the first warmth of the sun I rose. I wasn't tired, although I hadn't slept at all.

I immediately checked up on Timothy. He was still asleep, but even paler than yesterday. His leg was swollen and full of black spots. I knew that he would die if we didn't amputate his leg, and if we would try to amputate his leg, he would still die because of our lack of doctor skills.

I walked around for a while to get my thoughts straight. I was stressed and I couldn't keep my hands still. I needed something, morphling maybe. I noticed a little pillar of black smoke on top of the mountain. Maybe Alexandria and the other two had set up their camp there. At least they were far away.

I ate some disgusting roots, drank some water and sat down again.

'Abbey' said a weak voice. It was Timothy.

'You're awake' I said, and ran to him.

'Barely' he remarked, and I couldn't help laughing softly.

'I'm in pain' he breathed 'Am I going to die?'

'Yes' I said. I said it before I realized it.

But he seemed calm

'How long? Don't worry, it will be a blessing' he mumbled.

'Mika said a day. Maybe two' I said, dipping the sweat on his forehead away with a wet cloak 'But it doesn't have to be like that. Two people died yesterday. We have to outlive five persons to be taken to the next arena. And guess what, last year they healed all the injuries of the tributes before throwing them in there!'

'I don't want to be negative…' Timothy said softly 'but I will be one of those five. There won't be five deaths within a day.'

'There will. Even if I have to make them happen personally.'

I knew why we weren't getting any medicine from sponsors. I had tons of sponsors, but Charlotte was probably somewhere being under the influence of morphling and Laika didn't want to persuade her anymore to sign his sponsor deals.

Still I didn't regret my decision to attack him.

Timothy's condition worsened every hour, but we couldn't do anything except giving him fever medicine. He seemed afraid, but I could barely look at him suffer. I hated this island, I hated the spiders, I hated the fact that this was such a beautiful place.

It became afternoon and nothing happened. No cannons, nothing. Just the waves crashing on the beach and the sounds of the jungle.

The sun went down and the light of the fourth day died.

'How's he doing?' I asked Mika while we were getting new roots.

'Better than I thought' he said. I smiled, but he added that it was just a delay from what was destined to happen.

'How can you take this?' I asked.

'I can't' he answered.

There were, as expected, no faces in the air at midnight. This time I was really tired. Sometimes I was awake, sometimes not, but my dreams were short and unclear.

When I woke up because it was morning, I knew this day would become one of the worst of my life. This was the day Timothy would die, that was certain. I had grown to care about him. I didn't care if he was a nerd, or skinny, or wearing glasses. I would have bullied him if he'd lived in District 1. However, I felt I was becoming a different person.

Most of the time he was unconscious. Mika and I kept giving him medicine and water, but the fever remained. The sun was burning us alive. Somewhere during the afternoon a cannon went off.

'See? Only four people to go until the final twelve.' I said happily. I stared at the spot where the portraits usually appeared, as if they would right now.

Barely a minute had passed and we shook when another cannon boomed.

'There's a fight going on' Mika said. I saw a glimpse of hope in his eyes. Three more, and then we would be freed from this arena and our wounds, Timothy's wounds, would be healed. But asking for three more seemed unrealistic. How big could that fight be?

However, that hope, which overpowered our misery, disappeared slowly. We wanted to hear more cannons, but it remained awfully quiet.

When Timothy started to cough up blood in large quantities, I knew that his final hour had arrived. The stars shone happily in the sky and a huge yellow moon lit the beach we were on.

Mika held his friend's hand and couldn't stop whispering that he had to be strong. I sat beside them. The leg where it all began was nothing more than a piece of rotten flesh now.

'One of you has to win' Timothy uttered. We nodded. It was painful to see a person die so slowly, certainly a person who you'd gotten to know. Tears were pouring out of Mika's eyes, but mine remained somehow dry. I guess my mind wanted to save my tears for Kara.

'We'll kill every single spider in the jungle' Mika promised and he smiled through his tears.

Again Timothy coughed blood. I caught it in a big leaf I'd found in the jungle and threw it into the sea. The killer fish could have it.

'Abbey' Mika said 'He's unconscious'

I walked back to them and sat down. I checked his pulse. 'He's still alive though. Maybe he's just asleep'

'Tim? Can you hear me? You can…go, if you want to…' Mika couldn't bring himself to saying more. He wasn't ashamed to be a sixteen year old crying in front of the whole world.

I kept checking the pulse. It was slow. The silence was killing me.

'Just stay strong' I mumbled.

'There will be no more pain…we're here.' Mika whispered.

For a minute nothing happened. I stared at the deadly pale face of Timothy, covered in sweat and blood.

'We'll stay here' I eventually added, and suddenly the lips of the dying boy curled into a miniscule smile. Seconds later I felt the pulse fading away.

'No' Mika said inaudible. 'NO!'

A cannon broke the night's silence. This time my eyes became watery. Mika was frozen at first, but then he raised, picked up a stone and threw it into the sea.

'FUCKING ARENA! FUCKING HEAD CITY!' He screamed 'HE WAS MY BEST FRIEND'

'Stop it!' I emphasized 'Everyone can hear us!'

'WHAT DID HE DO WRONG? WHY DID HE DESERVE THIS?' He continued.

A tear rolled down my cheek when I turned my face away from Mika, who was still furious, throwing stones into the sea, as if he wanted to hurt it. I felt more vulnerable than ever when I reached out for Timothy's white face and closed his eyes. I brought his hands together over his stomach. They would pick him up as soon as we were gone. And if we didn't go, they would make us with a flood or something. I wiped my tears away, only to instantly produce new ones, and raised. I walked to Mika, grabbed his arm to make him stop throwing things and hugged him tightly. My arms barely fitted around me because he was bigger, but it didn't matter. This was my sign of respect. He hugged me back and was instantly silent.

'I'm sorry for your loss' I said quietly. He just sobbed.

Moments after that the anthem started playing. Three people today, a record. Parties everywhere in the Capitol to the Head City. The first portrait appeared.

It was Kara. Her grey eyes stared at me from the sky. My eyes widened. Her photo was gone before I knew it, only to make place for Alexandria's. I knew there was something with that name, I knew who that was, but it didn't matter. I still saw my best friend in my head and didn't know what it meant.

Finally Timothy and then the sky was black again.

Mika hugged me even tighter.

'And I'm sorry for yours' he said.

Long chapter, I just couldn't find the right moment to split it in two so here you have 3545 words instead of 2000 :)

Thanks for reading!