Act 10
'Allies and All-Lies'

The beginning of the second day greeted me with the artificial sun blaring into my face. I hadn't gotten much sleep, having been woken by the anthem. I watched as the tributes that had died had their portraits projects onto the sky through holographic images. A quarter of us tributes had died in the Bloodbath and one soon after, making it a total of nine to die on the first day. While that wasn't an uncommon number for the Games, in fact it was in the lower range of the average, it was still disheartening. So many people I thought would be nice and could have been good friend material; they were now either dead or sanctioned murders.

I had slept in the tree uninterrupted though. I was actually surprised the Careers hadn't chased me, but there could have been reasons for it. Because I was so sickly looking and weak, they may have thought it was fine for me to get away for now. That I might be killed by the conditions easily or they could simply kill me later. They had probably already built up a camp around the Cornucopia as to store their supplies and catch any tributes trying to steal it. I had wasted my only chance to get supplies from the area and now would be forced to live off the land.

After looking around at the ground and deeming it safe, I descended the tree. All I had were the clothes on my back and I would have to make due as I continued to scale the mountain. As I did, the trees started to become more and more few. If I did find a remote cave I would want to start a fire to keep warm. With so little trees, I figured it would be smart to correct branches as I climbed for fire wood. And that I did.

"Looks like we got a runner," shouted a voice.

It was a voice I knew all too well. It was the voice of the killer of Seraphina; Aur. In a reaction to the sudden shout, I dropped the sticks I was carry and quickly scaled a nearby tree. I stumbled a bit getting up, even gave myself a minor cut on my leg, but I got up.

If I was only as good of a climber as Nova is… was, I thought, correcting myself in my head.

The shouts had come from the other side of some brush, but from the tree I was able to see the scene. They hadn't even noticed me, instead were shouting at a green clad child. Looking closer I noticed it was Gavin, who was indeed running from a group comprised of three older teens. Looking closer, all three of them were Careers.

There was the golden child, Aur. Her jacket was literally a golden colour, which seemed to fit the idea I had of District One and their annoying wealth. Her golden hair seemed to flow into the jacket, like almost melt really. She had a wide grin on her face as she chased Gavin. She defiantly didn't seem heartbroken about the early loss of her district partner. She was even running with her district partner's killer.

Helena was running right beside Aur, though didn't seem to be having as much fun as the other was. She instead had a harsh, intense look on her face. It was like watching a predator chase its prey. The blade she brandished looked thirsty for blood. I could only imagine the torturous death she would lay out for Gavin if she actually caught him.

The other in the trio of girls was Delphine. Delphine seemed as easy about this entire situation as Aur was. Delphine was trying to race ahead, as to apparently corner Gavin, though he seemed a bit faster than her.

"You little runt! Just accept your death already!" shouted Aur.

Aur was horrible. She would not be someone I would ever want to be around. Then again, anyone who could kill so easily, like Helena or Aur, I wouldn't want to be around anyway.

"Leave him alone!" another voice shouted.

I looked over to see Douglas, in his brown jacket, came in. The three girls seemed caught off guard by someone actually stepping in to help someone. So much so, Gavin was able to run away and hide off in the brush.

"You let the bug get away," complained Aur.

She looked towards Helena and Delphine, as if silently asking permission to show her anger. Delphine noticed Douglas was weaponless and nodded at the others. Helena quickly took notice of this too and Aur, only after the other two pretty much pointed it out for her.

"You made a big mistake," muttered Delphine.

I had noticed that was Delphine, holding a couple of knives, and Helena with her sword closed in on Douglas, Aur was slowly drawing her bow. She was doing it so slowly and smoothly, I couldn't tell if Douglas had seen her through Helena and Delphine's brash movements. They were moving so hurriedly towards the District Seven boy that it was actually hard to miss Aur's weapon being readied. And as I once again puzzled over whether to shout out a warning, Aur released her arrow. Everything else happened so quickly.

Douglas seemed to have noticed Aur and easily dodged the flying arrow, though because he was focusing on that, he didn't ready himself for Delphine and Helena coming at him from both sides. Douglas grabbed Delphine by the wrists and threw her aside. She was much smaller than him; it was probably easy for him. He whipped her around and launched her at a raging Helena. As she was flung by him, she released her weapons almost instantaneously. Douglas was now armed with two hunting knives.

"You're a bunch of bitches, you know?" said Douglas. "You are chasing a defenseless kid, treating as if his death is a game to you."

"It's called the Hunger Games for a reason," said Aur.

"It is called the Hunger Games because the Capitol looks at it that way. We are not the Capitol, so why are you acting like you are?" asked Douglas.

Aur scowled at the teen. I was just shocked that he was able to talk to them like they weren't anything to be intimidated by. I was too choked up to warn him, so the idea of me actually talking in that situation at all would probably be too much for me. I may get a bit spirited on a normal day, but these Games brought out the scared side of me.

Aur went to shoot another arrow at him, but he instead threw a knife at her. It hit her hand almost square on. Her screams echoed through the landscape. I covered my mouth, as I really wanted to laugh at her. In my opinion, she deserved a whole lot worse for what she did to Seraphina. She pulled out the knife from her hand causing it to bleed profusely.

"Enough playing games," said Helena.

The District Two tribute had thrown Delphine off of her and gotten up. She grabbed ahold of her sword and aimed it at Douglas.

"That's what I was going to say," said Douglas.

Helena cried a warrior's cry as she charged Douglas. She appeared too much for him, as when her sword clashed with his only knife, his knife went flying into a few bushes nearby my tree.

"Shit," cursed Douglas before Helena's sword pierced the right side of his chest.

It would have hit his lung where the sword got him. And with the promise of his death certain, Helena wiped off her blade and turned her back on him.

"Where are you going?" asked Aur. "Finish him off."

Aur seemed to want to get revenge for hurting her, but Helena merely shook her head.

"He is going to die. Look, he cannot even move," she said, pointing at him.

She was right. He was laying on the ground, curled up in the fetal position and clutching his chest where he got stabbed.

"Let him die slowly," finished Helena before walking away.

Delphine quickly chased after her. Aur just huffed and walked over to the dying Douglas. She whispered something that sounded like, "That's what you get, dick", or something like that and kicked him in his face before running after the other two.

When it was certain that they were gone, I climbed back down the tree and raced over to Douglas.

"Hey, you're from Dezji's district right?" he asked, looking up at me. "Calico, right?"

I nodded. He was dying, truly dying.

"You know, this hurts," he said. He took his hands off of his chest to reveal a nasty wound. "I don't want to die slowly. It hurts so much."

He was crying now. I didn't want to see him die slowly either. There was one this I could do however. I got up and walked back over to the tree I was in.

"Please, don't leave!" cried out Douglas. "I don't want to die alone!"

I wasn't going to leave him alone. Instead after finding what I was looking for quickly, I walked back over to his limp body and kneeled down beside him. I took hand and squeezed it.

"I wasn't planning on it," I said.

He looked at my other hand and his eyes grew big. Resting in my other hand was the knife that he stole from Delphine. It had landed at the base of my tree. I had retrieved it to relieve Douglas of his pain. I looked over opposite of me to see a small flowering bush amongst some snow. Douglas followed my line of vision and rested his on the bush.

"It is beautiful," he said. "To have something so beautiful in such a nasty place; it makes you wonder how it can survive."

"Yeah," I said.

I was crying now; knowing what I was about to do. I released his hand and gripped the knife with both of mine. Positioning it just right, Douglas continued to speak.

"Thank-you," he said, smiling while staring at the bush.

"You're welcome," I said.

And with that, I brought the knife down with as much force as I could muster. Douglas died that day, not because of Helena's wrath but because of my mercy. He died looking at beautiful flowers and a smile on his face. And as I looked down at his lifeless body, I dropped the bloody knife onto the snowy ground. I just broke down after that. It was then I realized these Games were all lies. They weren't there to teach us the lesson of our ancestors, but to torture us. I had always known that the Capitol saw this as entertainment, but I didn't realize just how bad it was. Now I knew and I don't think I will ever be able to forget.

So there is the death of Douglas. It truly messed Calico up to have to kill Douglas, but she managed to. It is now her first kill. What do you think? About Douglas' death, about what Calico will do next, and who will die next chapter. Yes, there will be a death next chapter, too.

Deaths in this Chapter

*Douglas - Placed 15th; Killed by Calico.