Man, I wanted to die.

I had a headache. Something was seriously wrong. Was I dead? No, I felt uncomfortable. Dead people weren't uncomfortable. I had to open my eyes. I had to do it. I didn't know where or who I was but I had to open my eyes.

Ok, that's that. I opened my eyes, but everything was dark. There were a couple of neon tubes on the ceiling, but they didn't provide much light. I was in some sort of small room.

After a few seconds my mind began to become clearer. I remembered my name, I sat up.

I saw my hands – they were sunburnt, but not burnt from the blistering ashes. The ashes! The volcano! I slowly checked my legs and my arms, but there were no burns. That arena couldn't have been a dream. But where was I now? Was this some sort of final-twelve thing?

I was feeling good and even healthy. They must have taken care of me after they released us from the first arena. Mentally I felt exhausted. Physically I felt superior. I would be able to beat Jess to pieces.

Oh no. She was dead. It seemed so incredibly long ago. How long ago were the preliminaries?

God, I didn't know. Where was Kara? I had to tell her everything about the arena.

'Tribute' a television screen popped on 'You've woken up'

The head Gamemaker was speaking to me on a video. I narrowed my eyes and tried to pay attention, but my mind wanted to wander.

'At the moment we're on a hovercraft that is taking us to District 34. As you may or may not know, that is the northernmost District so you'll have to adapt to the climate change.

This year we have decided to grant you a favor by cancelling the face-to-face fights. All twelve of you will go to the semifinals and six will eventually battle in the final arena. The Head City has chosen the most exciting natural arena there is and there were hardly any adaptions necessary to make it suitable.'

I was sitting on the edge of the bedlike thing where I had been laying on. The words of the head Gamemaker scared me. This arena could impossibly be good.

'You'll be able to keep all your possessions from the previous arena. On top of that, you all receive a flashlight.'

I had a vague feeling on what was waiting for me, but I didn't dare to think about it.

'We've added a twist. One single muttation will be released in the arena alongside you. This mutt will not hesitate to slay you, unless you manage to slay it first. If you manage to do so, you can earn a conversation with last year's victor, who might give you some live-saving advice before you enter the last and final arena. But for now: good luck. What's lost is lost and can never be recovered.'

The screen went black and I was clawing my nails into the fabric of my 'bed'. It was so silent I could almost hear my heart beat. Well, if I still had one.

I wanted to clear up my mind. Almost everyone I cared for was dead. Kara was dead. Timothy was dead. Mika was probably dead, I couldn't imagine he'd have survived the last minutes of the previous arena. Rose and Flora were long gone and even Jess, who I had disliked, was gone. Strangely, that thought upset me slightly.

I had to deal with all these feelings later. I had to push them away, no matter how strong they were pushing on me.

Some big enemies were already defeated. I had been so focused on Kara's death I'd forgotten Alexandria was gone too. I took a deep breath – I would never see her again. She wouldn't come for me. But those sisters of her, what about them? And Fabio had to be around too.

I wanted to win again. I wanted to win for Kara and Timothy, for District 1, for Charlotte and for Mrs. Johnson. My original goal was revived. I was going to show those people in the Head City I was a winner, not a random joke. Twelve people left. Eleven deaths to go.

I heard a vague rattling sound and turned around. Clouds of misty gas were being sprayed in my room. Oh God, not again. I got off my bed, ran to the farthest corner and held my breath.

They were not going to make me fall asleep again…The gas crept up to my feet and started twirling higher and higher. I was running out of breath and kicked the wall, but that only hurt my foot.

'Shit' I managed to push out of my throat when I became dizzy and sleepy. Within a few seconds I was laying on the ground, drifting away in dark dreams with faces of dead acquaintances in them.

I woke up. Or did I not? I opened my eyes and closed them again, but it remained black.

I was confused for a few minutes. My brain wouldn't accept the total darkness of this place. It was chilly, but I felt I was wearing a jacket and long pants. Ok. I had to take this slowly.

I was somewhere where it was completely dark, equally as dark as what you see when you close your eyes. This was the second arena. Six people were going to die in this black hole.

I moved a little and suddenly I felt myself slipping away. I was paralysed with fear while I seemed to be rolling off some sort of hill, except the floor didn't feel like soft, green grass but rocks, nothing but sharp rocks. I felt my clothes and skin tear while I rolled down. Eventually I laid still. I still heard some rocks moving, but then it turned awfully quiet again.

I needed light and I needed it now. This didn't make sense and I felt some warm blood on my face. I realized I was wearing a backpack on my back.

The flashlight! The man in the video mentioned a flashlight? I tried to move carefully, touching the materials around me. It was all rock and a flat surface. Ok, it was safe…I think.

I got my backpack and blindly I started to touch stuff in it. When I felt the leathery grip of the flashlight I sighed. Time to see the arena. I pushed the 'on' button and suddenly there was a bright beam of light.

I quickly turned it off, without having spotted what this environment exactly was. All I knew was that literally every single tribute would be able to see me from far away with that flashlight. It was like making a fire: 'come and get me, I'm here with my flashlight!'

I looked around, but I didn't see any other light sources, meaning there were no tributes around. I had to take the risk. I took a deep breath and turned the light on again.

My mouth fell open.

It was a cave. A huge, enormous cave. I had never been in one before and I had only seen one on television twice or thrice. There were stalagmites and stalactites, sometimes over ten meters big. I was suddenly aware of the sound of dropping water everywhere around me. Some rocks looked as if they were molten, but that probably had something to do with the water. There was a little stream on my right, wetting my clothes. I saw I rolled down a tiny slope. There was a lot of height difference and no clear paths. I turned the flashlight off and leaned against a rock.

I couldn't figure out if I was afraid or impressed. They said there were hardly any adaptations necessary to make this a suitable arena. They probably were damn right. Raw nature was the best killer available. I wasn't afraid of the dark, but I felt defenseless. Anyone could be creeping to me right now, following the sound of my breath. And then there had to be a mutt.

I turned the flashlight on again and shone on the floor around my feet. I got up carefully and got my backpack. Six people had to die. Challenge accepted. I climbed up the rock wall again and analyzed the environment. Was I supposed to make a camp or something? I looked into my backpack. There was a lot of water left and at least a kilo of roots from the previous arena. I estimated it wouldn't take long for six people to die in this environment, so I wouldn't have to worry about food. Not that there was any here. There were rocks and stones.

My breath formed little clouds of mist and I grew aware of the cold. On the one hand I wanted to move and kill something so that we would be released from here, but on the other hand that was a synonym to suicide.

I don't know for how long I sat there. There was no way to tell the time. After a few hours maybe, I heard a deep, animalistic roaring sound, echoing everywhere. I bit my lip. It was annoying and impossible to estimate where it came from because everything was so hollow here.

I put my hand over my flashlight, dimming the light and turning it red. That was better. I had to move, I didn't want that beast to find me. There was a walkable trail on my right, so I carefully went in that direction. It was extremely slippery and I had to hold my breath when I saw a deep canyon on my right.

The silence was deadly, almost as deadly as the roaring sound I had just heard. It was weak to admit to being afraid – I knew the cameras were watching me, so I had to look though.

The first sound that broke the silence shook me enormously. A cannon fired and the noise made the entire cave tremble. I heard rocks falling and even a female voice screaming. I felt the stones under my feet slightly moving as well and I gripped the nearby rocky surface. I heard the screaming again – it was closer this time. I held on to the surface tight and then removed my other hand from the flashlight, revealing the bright beam of light again.

'Help me!' someone shouted. I pointed my flashlight in the right direction.

I saw an avalanche of rocks on the other side of the 'hall'. A dark-haired female I did not recognize was standing on the edge of the canyon, crying and trying to avoid the rocks. I could see her damaged face and she kept staring into my bright flashlight until a medium-sized stone hit her back and pushed her over the edge. Her terrified scream made me cringe and my arms were holding on to the rocky surface so tight it hurt. Another cannon went off, announcing her death. I closed my eyes and prayed her death had been quick. The rumbling sound of rock avalanches continued forever, or so it appeared.

When everything became quiet again, I was crying. I could not hide my weakness any longer. Tears were streaming down my face. They were salty and tasted like dirt. I just wanted to get out of here. Just escape. If I had to go through more of this stuff, I wouldn't want to win.

Everyone was already dead. It would take me three steps to reach the endlessly deep canyon, then I would jump, die and escape.

However, I didn't do it, and I didn't know why. I got up carefully and eventually reached a fairly walkable plateau. I slowly walked around in the dimmed orange light, while covering my flashlight. I was hungry, but it wasn't top priority right now.

After a while I heard fighting sounds. The acoustics here were horrible – Because of the echo I could not tell if the fight was close to me or further away. Either way, eventually someone died, since a cannon fired. Number three, I thought. Still nine contenders left.

I walked for a while and began to smell the faint, metal-like scent of blood. I remembered the first time I had actually smelled blood – back in the skyscraper during the preliminaries, where the whole floor was splattered with the remains of once a young man or woman.

My heart was pounding when I saw the color red splattered on the floor. It was an unwelcome variation after all the black and grey. My flashlight followed the track of blood and led me to the corpse of a girl. I recognized this one – it was the red-headed sister of Alexandria and Hayden. I never knew her name or her skills, but what I did know was that Hayden was the last one of the three who had to be eliminated.

I turned my head away from the body. I did not want to search her for supplies I would probably never use. Her blood was still warm and it would probably make me throw up to touch her. Clearly she was murdered by someone. The mutt? A tribute? Both?

However, the mutt was already closer than I had bargained for.

I think the last time I updated was Christmas. I cannot express how sorry I am. It is due to various things, a writer's block for example, but here's another chapter. Since I do not have that many readers, it comforts me slightly that not many people were affected by the huge gap between the chapters.

I have rediscovered FF after reading My Immortal, the infamous "worst fanfiction of all time". Hilarous, I promise you. I can almost say it was the main inspiration for continuing my story. My hope is to once write many more parts of this series - I've already planned a big part of the third games and I'm actually kind of looking forward to writing it, but of course I'll have to finish this one first.

I cannot promise you a new chapter soon - but I will post a new one, be it tomorrow, be it next year. Me posting a new chapter after four or five months proves that writing a new chapter is always somewhere in the back of my head.

For now, I bid you all goodbye and until sometime!

Tessa