Author's Note: As was mentioned in Chapter 9, the arena is 121 islands. They are laid out in a grid pattern of 11 rows east and west, and 11 columns north and south. Each island is numbered like the grid pattern on the game of 'Battleship', the far northwest island would be A1, the far southeast island would be K11, and so on and so forth. The cornucopia is right in the middle on island F6.

Chapter 11: Amanda's Gift

2:00 am, arena time:

Caesar Flickerman and Claudius Templesmith seen on the television screen:

"Well, ladies and gentlemen." said Caesar. "It is now 14 hours into the Games. And for those of you who are only just tuning in, we are now going to 'Death Recap'."

He gave a brief explanation of the bloodbath at the cornucopia.

"And now," said Claudius, "the most recent death. For those of you who have only just tuned in, the tribute known as Gloria Goldwater is now deceased. Two hours ago,-"

On the screen there was a replay of Gloria Goldwater's death at 11:15 pm, arena time:

Beverly O'Malley was camping in the middle of a freshwater marsh on island B8. She had built herself a fire and she was sitting cross-legged facing the fire with her eyes closed. She was slowly breathing in and out, meditating.

Gloria Goldwater had spotted the fire in the darkness and was approaching the goth slowly, very careful to not snap any twigs. She held in her hand a wooden spear which was a tree branch that she had sharpened to a point with a sharp rock.

Gloria Goldwater was completely silent as she was right behind Beverly O'Malley and was just about to stab Beverly through the heart with her wooden spear, but Beverly O'Malley felt a slight tingling sensation in the back of her neck. Her instinct. Her intuition. The natural human sixth-sense. The Goth grabbed the rope that she had placed on the ground between her legs that she had found in her backpack. She sensed the attack and dodged to the side at the last second. Gloria Goldwater, taken by surprise, not expecting the Goth to jump aside encountered no resistance as she jabbed her spear and fell forward she landed face first on the ground just inches from the fire. Reacting fast, she quickly got up off the ground. Beverly O'Malley used her rope is a whip. She slashed it sideways and it wrapped around Gloria Goldwater. Beverly jerked Gloria towards her and then punched her in the face. The hard fast movement made Gloria lose her concentration, but for only a brief moment. She swung her spear sideways and it whacked Beverly in the head, the point of impact started to bleed. Gloria swung at her again, this time Beverly grabbed the spear and held it aside, she and kicked Gloria in the gut, and with a flick of the rope it unwound itself from around Gloria. Beverly then whipped the rope across a Gloria again and again. Gloria managed to get out of the way after one of them and lunged forward, Beverly dodged, on the next try Gloria did get her and pinned her on her back and laid several hard punches right on her face. Beverly was pinned and couldn't get free so she tried another approach, she grabbed Gloria's head and pulled her in close, forced her own head forward, and managed to clamp up her teeth onto Gloria's ear, and with all of the strength in her jaw, she tore off a piece of the skin and cartilage of the appendage that was on the side of Gloria's head. The unexpected action of her opponent in combination with the pain caused Gloria to lose her focus as she screamed in pain. Beverly pushed Gloria off of her, spit the piece of bloody ear out of her mouth, took the rope and quickly wound it around Gloria's neck once, and pulled tight. As Gloria became incapacitated by being choked, the bleeding Goth grabbed the wooden spear and with all her might stabbed it right through Gloria's chest, piercing the heart. Beverly took a few moments to let out a breath of exhaustion, and then she heard the cannon fire.

'BOOM!'

Beverly pulled the spear out of the chest of the dead girl and examined it. It was a fine weapon she hadn't made any weapons herself so she thought she'd might as well keep it. She searched Gloria and found a few items, she then had an idea, in the dark she backtracked the path that she thought Gloria would've taken, and she found Gloria's backpack a few yards away. Gloria had been very silent and stealthy, she probably wanted maximum mobility to make the kill, so she had taken off her backpack while she was sneaking up behind her and rested it down against the ground ever so silently. She moved a distance away from the body of Gloria Goldwater and then a hovercraft appeared in the sky and a giant robotic hand attached to a long metal tether reached down and picked up the body and lifted it up into the air where the hovercraft then became invisible again. She then went back to her campsite. She decided to stay near the warm fire. Another tribute would have decided to leave the area in case the hovercraft or the screams and shouts of the fighting tributes attracted others, but her wisdom told her that the arena was very big and that all of the other tributes had spread out, and that it was only by mere luck that this one tribute found her now. Another point of logical reasoning is that if anyone had seen her position given away they would not search for her here because they would assume that she had moved on right away and they would then look for her elsewhere, so by staying put should be less likely to be found. And she was also too tired to move on and she wanted to sleep.

Back to Caesar Flickerman, and Claudius Temple Smith sitting in front of the camera on the television screen:

"Well Caesar," said Claudius, "I got to hand it to Beverly O'Malley, she outwitted her stealthy opponent that snuck up behind her, she fought well, she won her fight, and she advances to the top 14."

"I agree with you about her Claudius," said Caesar, "it was an exciting fight, as I was watching it, I was on the edge of my seat for every second of it, I mean I thought that Beverly was going to die as Gloria silently snuck up behind her, but when she dodged to the side at the last minute and Gloria fell over and lost her focus, I thought that Beverly then had Gloria, but then when Gloria hits Beverly in the head, gets past the makeshift whip, and pins Beverly to the ground and starts punching her in the face again and again, how was Beverly going to get out of that?"

"Well Caesar, as we all saw, Beverly's got teeth." said Claudius. Both of them then gave amused laughs at the double meaning.

"Ladies and gentlemen," said Caesar, "as always, we will continue to give you frequent updates as the Games progress, around the clock."

"And now," said Claudius, "our next guest that we will be inviting onto the stage with us right now is…"

The sun had just risen. Light could be seen at the tree tops of the Arctic forest. Amanda Snow had been maintaining a constant vigil while her teammates slept under the comfort and light of the warm gas fire.

She walked over to Lisa, and shook her shoulder. Lisa woke up with a start. In a flash of movement held up a fist sized rock in her left hand that she was about to bash Amanda in the head with. Amanda reflexively, defensively, grabbed Lisa's hand and the rock with her's.

"Shhh! It's only me," Amanda said in a whisper, "but you were wise to be prepared to fight. I'm just going to step away from the main group for some privacy okay."

"A Hunger Games arena can be dangerous," warned Lisa, "maybe I should go with you."

Amanda smiled at her friend's concern.

"I can take care of myself, but thanks anyway." said Amanda. "I'll be back in five minutes."

Amanda then walked away from the fire and she immediately felt the frigid arctic air that was being artificially generated by the Gamemakers climate control. She went out of visual sight of the fire pit. She relieved herself. She was then about to go back, when she heard a loud clunk right beside her. She spun around in the spot ready with her spear, but there was no one there. What she did notice was a Rectangular box that was a little under a yard long. The box was attached to a Silver parachute.

A gift from a sponsor. 'What could it be', thought Amanda. Amanda took off the cover of the box, and underneath the cover was a silk cloth that was covering the contents, and when she opened the silk cloth she was in awe at what she saw. It was a magnificent sword. The hilt bore the seal of The Capitol, the blade wasn't very long, only about 21 inches, but would still do the job. The handle was wrapped in a soft black comfortable silicone grip. Along the side of the box was a set of 10 throwing knives. Both the sword and the knives were made of pure titanium. The knives had extra weight added onto them because the knives are going to need a little heft. Amanda picked up the sword, it was so light, she could hardly feel it weighing down her arm at all. The 10 knives were in 10 small sheaths that were on a shoulder strap, the knives were meant to be worn down her front. The sword was in a scabbard with a shoulder strap, the sword was meant to be worn on her back.

Amanda then wondered, who in the world would have bought this for her? And how did it cost? The price for so much as a single throwing knife would have been enormous! But all of these items combine? She couldn't even fathom how much they cost. But for the time being, Amanda knew not to dwell on that. With the lack of weapons at the cornucopia, she knew that she now had a distinct advantage over her competition. With renewed confidence, she put the shoulder straps of the weapons over her shoulders, her knives in front, her sword on her back, and she walked back towards her friends.

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