I'm not on vacation anymore. Now that I'm in school (It starts Tuesday), updates will probably be once week. Oh, the summer flew by way too quick.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games, peoples.
I treat the knife wound on my shoulder with some medicine that i just got from a sponsor. After about ten minutes, it becomes nothing more than a scratch. This Capitol stuff is like magic.
Maddie and I work out a schedule for guarding. I take seven hours while she sleeps, then we switch. We sit back across the cornucopia and snack on berries as we listen to the anthem and watch the faces of the fallen.
First up is the tiny blonde boy from District 3, named Emil. Then the rude girl that I killed with glee, whose name is Elasha, and her district partner. All the careers survived of course, and I guess Caroline did, too. The boy from six. Both from seven and eight. The boy from ten. Both from eleven and twelve. The anthem plays and the light fades to black.
Maddie sighs and lies down. Wishing me goodnight, she rolls over. All of a sudden she sits up straight. "Do you hear that dinging noise?" she asks. I look up and see a parachute with a bundle attached to it. She grabs it. When it lands on the ground, I can see that it's a sleeping bag.
"Yay!" she exclaims. She unrolls the sleeping bag and climbs into it. "Wake me up when your shift is over. We can swap places," she says. After a few minutes, I can hear her breathing slow.
When she's asleep, I go around to the other side of the cornucopia. Digging through the pile, I unearth a trident, two belts of knives, and two pairs of throwing axes. I can almost hear Finnick groan as I toss aside the traditional District 4 weapon that I told him I was going to use during the games for the axes, which are usually only used by District 7 tributes.
I arm myself with three of the knives from one belt and slide the axes into the weapons holders on my pack. I grab the other belt of knives and put them beside Maddie as I settle back down. I get as comfortable as I can and try to occupy my mind by planning my dream wedding to stay alert.
My shift flies quickly, and before I know it, I'm getting to my feet so I can wake Maddie up. I'm about to tap a shoulder when I hear a cannon. BOOM. She jolts awake. "What's happened?" she screeches. I calm her down, telling her that it was a cannon. Her shoulders sag in relief as we trade places. I slide into the sleeping bag and fall asleep almost immediately.
While I'm sleeping, I have the most vivid dream that I can ever remember having, about my first kiss. I was fifteen years old, and it was the night before the 59th Hunger Games. Marlin had only won a year before, so we hadn't been dating for long. We were having a picnic on the beach, in the sunset. "So tomorrow is the reaping. I just want to tell you that I love you, and I hope that you won't get picked," Marlin had said.
I had been kind of taken off-guard, because he had never told me that he loved me directly before. I thanked him. I sat up and looked out into the ocean, and so did he. "The sunset is beautiful, but not as beautiful as your eyes," he said. I blushed. His first sappy comment!
All of a sudden he leaned over and kissed me, really quick. He leaned back, cleared his throat, and started to say how late it was when I leaned over and kissed him back. He smiled and helped me pack up the blanket and the basket. Then he walked me back to my house. On my doorstep, he kissed me again, longer this time. The he opened the door for me, hugged me, and walked away.
It should be a good dream, but I wake up gasping and screaming bloody murder. It almost gives Maddie a heart attack, and I can tell because I see her jump from a sitting position to her feet, weapons at the ready. She calms me down enough for me to let her pour some cool water onto the sleeve of my jacket and makes me wipe my face with it.
I'm sweating badly, and tears are pouring freely down my face. Maddie helps me out of my jacket. She asks me what's wrong and I try to tell her, but every time I try all that comes out is a whimper.
When I'm back to normal, I take in my surroundings. It's already about eleven in the morning, so I tell Maddie that I'm going to check River's traps. When I reach them, I find that all three have a fat rabbit entangled in the rope. I fill my bag up with berries that I know are edible, thanks to training, then I untangle the rabbits.
My ears pick up a slight splashing noise from behind me, and I turn around to find a knife hurling towards my face. I duck instinctively, and the knife lodges into the tree where my head had been mere seconds before. I throw my axe. A few seconds later, hear the sickening crunch that tells me the axe has found its target.
The boy from nine pulls the axe out of his thigh and falls to the ground. I lean over him. His blonde hair is matted to his face from the humidity of the swamp. Blood is staining the bottom of his jacket and his pants crimson. I pull the axe out of his leg. He grabs my ankle and I shriek as I try to shake him off.
"Please… have mercy," he begs desperately. Is he asking me to kill him or to let him go? Well, he'll die anyway from that wound, so I might as well kill him now. It would be doing him a favor. "Don't worry, I will," I say. I drive my axe downwards, and his cannon booms almost immediately.
I wipe the blood off the blade with some leaves as I head back to camp. "ViVi, is that you?" Maddie asks. "Yeah, it's me. The boy from nine snuck up on me and tried to knife me, so I killed him. I got the rabbits, too. The others should be getting back soon, so let's cook these before they go bad. Man, I hope that cannon last night wasn't one of theirs," I say. She looks at me weirdly. "Why would it be for one of them? They're Careers!" she says haughtily. She blows on the fire and gets the spear we used as a spoke to cook the rabbits on last night ready while I skin them.
Pretty soon, we're taking them off the fire. They're cooked perfectly. A boy's scream pierces the silence of the swamp, and Maddie jumps to her feet. "That sounds like Alistair," she says worriedly, biting her bottom lip. "Why would it be for him? He's a career," I say haughtily, mirroring her words. She smiles. "You're right, I'm probably just paranoid," she says.
Around noon, I spot Anna running down one of the paths straight towards us. I don't see any of the boys. I wonder where they are. Anna comes to a stop and catches her breath. Then she delivers some really bad news. "Alistair… he… he got attacked by an alligator mutt. He lost his leg, and Oliver and River are carrying him back. He's going to die pretty soon."