Day 2. Mid afternoon

District ten's Life Lee's POV

One moment we were walking the streets looking for animals to hunt, and maybe some items that could aid us if we searched in the buildings. Who knows, we might find something that be useful to us if we only just looked. I doubted it would be easy to find something that wasn't at the cornucopia, but I could dream couldn't I? We had plenty of water with us, Rayne's backpack made sure of that. With seven, half liter bottles filled with water and a good sized jar of iodine, we were set for more then a couple days in terms of water. Food on the other hand was the problem, the two ears of corn that were also in Rayne's backpack had been eaten by us yesterday. And today, we had eaten the apple that was in my backpack for breakfast today. My backpack contained a basic first aid kit containing roll up bandages, a needle, and thread. Those items plus a single pair of night vision glasses and a blowgun with six darts. I never held a blowgun before, let alone used one, so I doubted that I could even hit anything with this weapon even if my life depended on it. I didn't like it, but I kept it anyway, who knows if it'll come in handy later on. An ax or a hatchet would have been a better weapon for me, for the one simple fact that it's the only weapon that I could really even use. But the blowgun would have to do for now. At least until I found something better.

One moment we were walking the streets of the abandoned city, looking for animals to hunt, or items that could aid us if we searched the buildings hard enough. But as we were heading down the mossy, ruined street, we heard something that sounded a lot like low, rolling thunder heading towards us.

"What is that?" I asked Rayne as we stopped near a four way intersection of the mixed and matched concrete and grass road surrounded by ruined buildings. The sound sounded a lot like rolling thunder, but it wasn't like any thunder I had heard in my life, but it sounded familiar some how. Very familiar.

"I don't know." Rayne told me. She sounded as confused as I was. What kind of thing could produce a sound like that? I tried looking into my memories for what that sound could be. But I couldn't remember what made that kind sound. No, not sound, more like sounds, there seemed to be more then one thing producing this. Ahh this was frustrating, I recognized it, but I couldn't name what it was. Think Life think, what could it possibly be? No sooner did I get into my thoughts when I saw a blond haired boy rush past us with inhuman speed. That guy had ran faster then I had seen Rayne run, and Rayne was fast, he just zipped past the two of us without seeming to notice us, and that surprised me. As the rolling thunder came closer, I wondered if that's what he was running away from. I wondered. Not much sooner did a boy, which I recognized as the district one boy Griffin, run past us. Same as the blond haired boy that ran past us, he didn't even seem to notice us, he didn't even glance this way he ran past us with sweat and blood pouring all over his body while huffing his lungs out. Right behind him was the little district two girl that Rayne had tried to choke out in training. She wasn't as fast as the other two, but she was keeping close to Griffin. Again, she never even noticed us as her sweat drenched body ran past us. Ok, either two careers were chasing a non-career, or three careers were running away from the thunder. This was weird, and it didn't look good either, not in the least. Curious of what they were running from, I looked in the direction of where the three runners had came from, and saw a swarm of black coming towards us. The black swarm was a huge number of giant black rats each containing two red eyes. I was so shocked and so scared of the sheer number of those things that I felt as if I was going to have a heart attack. I saw what must be hundreds of them running down the street, towards us. I felt the impulse to run surge though my entire body as they approached us, we couldn't take them all on.

"Oh shit." I breathed out in shock as I saw the swarm get closer and closer to us while the rumbling of thunder got louder and louder. I turned to Rayne and desperately shouted to her "we've got to get out of here!" I didn't want to die by getting trampled by those things.

"Couldn't agree more!" She shouted before I saw her turn one hundred and eighty degrees and start running away with inhuman speed. What the... Frustrated that she seemed to abandon me to these rats, I turned as quickly as I could and started running to try and catch up with her. Rayne was already a fair distance away when I started running. Goddamn Rayne, slow down and wait for me. I continued to follow Rayne until she turned a corner and disappeared. Damn, if I get too far away from her I'll lose her. I ran up to the building she ran behind and did a sharp turn to get behind it. I then felt something grab my right arm and pull me hard, so hard that I thought my arm was going to be ripped out of it's socket, and it surprised me so much that it scared me. I nearly slammed into the building wall as the thing pulled me towards it. I was scared and ready to attack whatever had grabbed me until I saw that the thing that grabbed me was Rayne. I let out a breath of relief, but then I felt something slam into my mouth and shut off the air coming out of my mouth. "Be quiet." I heard Rayne harshly hiss at me "You want them to find us?" It took me a second to get out of the shock I was in and realize that she was talking about the rats.

I wasn't going to say anything, but Rayne kept her hand on my mouth, and she pressed hard. It felt like she was trying to suffocate me, and for someone of her figure, which was even thinner then my scrawny body, she was unbelievably strong, and that scared me.

As the rumbling thunder of the paws of the rats ran past our hiding spot, I remembered where I had heard the sound of low rumbling thunder before. Back home in district ten, when a herd of animals were being moved from one place to another, they'd make that sound, the sound of tens or hundreds of hooves moving across the ground.

Horses, that was the common cause of the noise. Even though it was rats running by us and not horses, I thought of how Old Den, our old faithful horse, who somehow got scared and crushed my sister Faerie to death. I felt like crying because I remembered that. Poor Faerie, being crushed to a bloody pulp until she was unrecognizable. It terrified me. And that memory caused me to remember that I couldn't breathe though Rayne's hand, I felt as if my chest was being crushed from the lack of air it was receiving. I tapped Rayne in the arm to tell her that I couldn't breathe. But she didn't seem to notice. I was scared, was I going to die here?

District one's Lynsa Fylar's POV

Guarding the cornucopia wasn't a difficult job, not in the least. It was super easy, nobody tried to attack us or anything. In fact, it seemed so easy to some people, because one of us was sleeping on the job. That was how relaxed everyone was here. Nothing to fear, not a care in the world. It was safe here, and I liked it. I looked over to Shoney with his bandaged face, sleeping soundly with not a care in the world right now. And there was Arrowe climbing the cornucopia just because he felt like it. In fact, I seemed to be the only one taking this job at least kind of seriously. Ah well, what could you do? I wasn't about to wake Shoney up from his nap, it just seemed rude, and Arrowe looked like he was having fun and I didn't want to spoil it for him. After all, why would I need to disturb any of them, it's not like anything is going to-

A loud, high pitch scream then pierced the sound of birds singing in the background and startled me so much that I almost tripped over my own feet. It was so loud and close I wondered what had snuck up on us. I heard where the screaming came from and quickly loaded an arrow onto my bow string and turned towards the source of the sound. There I saw Tharizdun with a little red haired girl slung over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. That girl was screaming at him and pounding her arms on him in a desperate attempt to escape. But while her arms were flying around like crazy, I wondered why her legs weren't even moving in the slightest.

"What's going on?" I shouted to Tharizdun as he approached the cornucopia with a huge grin on his face. What was happening? What had he done to her? What was he going to do to her?

"I'm going to have fun with this girl." He answered. Have fun with her? What did he mean by that? And that grin on his face scared me, what was he thinking? I worried for that little girl now.

"Define fun." I said to Tharizdun wondering what was going on, or what was going to happen as Tharizdun pulled out a thick coil of rope from one of the many crates near the golden horn. He didn't seem to hear me, or he just didn't care that I said anything, he just grabbed the coil of rope and threw the little red haired girl down onto the crate in front of him. "Hey!" I shouted releasing the arrow and let it fly towards him. The arrow flew though the air before hitting the metal of the horn and bouncing off two inches away from Tharizdun's head. "What are you doing!?" I didn't like where this was going, not one bit.

"This doesn't concern you, leave, leave, leave, leave."

"Help me!" I heard the little girl cry as she began to be tied up by the rope. As she got lifted up, I saw that her kneecaps seemed to be missing. But as I studied her knees, I saw that they weren't missing, they were broken. I gasped at the realization, the pain she must be going though. "He's gonna rape me then kill me!" What!? I felt shock and disbelieve course though my body when I heard those words.

"What!?" I heard Shoney and Arrowe shout behind me. I jumped up in fright from hearing their voices. When did they get there? I felt as if my heart was going to jump out of my chest. And would Tharizdun really do that? He was crazy, I knew that, but would he seriously do that? I didn't have to wonder long as I heard the sound of fabric being ripped apart in front of me. I saw the little girl's shirt get ripped off, followed by her undershirt, then her pants, then the other items until she was completely naked. I felt anger rush into my body as I reached for another arrow in my quiver. No, I wouldn't let him do that, there was such a thing as going too far. I grabbed an arrow, only to feel the side of my body be hit by something hard.

"Hold her down!" I heard Arrowe shout as a pair of arms grabbed my arms while another grabbed my legs.

"Let go of me!" I shouted angrily at the both of them for stopping me from killing that bastard. I heard the little girl scream as Arrowe and Shoney started to haul me away from whatever was happening at the cornucopia.

"You can't kill him," Arrowe told me with pain in his voice "not unless you want Griffin, Lucifer, and Howl to hunt you down." He was right, I knew he was right, those three would kill me if I killed Tharizdun. Those three wouldn't care what he did as long as he killed anyone that wasn't our ally. I tried to shake my way out of their grips, but I couldn't get out as they lead me into the jungle. I felt sick that we were just leaving that girl to her doom, even if she was our enemy.

District three's Nessa Christine Johnston's POV

No no no no no! Those were the only thoughts going though my head as Tharizdun ripped my clothes off and exposed my body to the world. I didn't want anything to happen to me between now and death, I wanted to die now. I hoped that the game makers would kill me with a lightning bolt, or that they'd send in mutts to kill me before this monster did anything to me. I wished that they'd do something, anything to stop this. But you don't always get what you want.

As I felt his erection break though me, I felt sick and miserable, not only from what was happening to me right now, but from the thought of how the Capital would allow something like this to happen. And from the thoughts of my mother and father, they were most likely watching this right at this moment. I felt tears run down my cheeks as my district partner did his dirty work on me. What he was doing to me, it hurt, it hurt a lot, and I couldn't help but scream the entire time as my body felt as if it was being ripped in half. I was sick and angry to the core of my body. But the one thing that over came every other feeling inside of me was sadness. So much sadness that I was almost chocking on it.

"Since you're my district partner, I won't let you suffer for too long." Tharizdun said to me, even though his voice contained no kindness and no mercy inside. I didn't think of why he said what he did and did what he did, I was just glad that he had stopped.

I then felt extreme pain as something was sharp was cutting the top of my head. I screamed as loud as my throat would allow me to. The burning pain ran from the right side of my head and steadily made it's way across to my left side. I wanted to stop whatever was happening to my head, but I couldn't move my arms because of these ropes.

My head was still burning when I saw the collector dangle something red and bloody in front of my face. I couldn't focus too well on it because of the pain on and in my head and the tears the blured my vision slightly. But I looked at it for a second and instantly saw what it was. I was horrified to see that it was my hair, my red hair with bloody scalp still attached to it. He scalped me! "Red hair with brown skin isn't natural," I faintly heard him say to me "just thought I'd let you know, know, know, know." I then saw him lean in towards me and felt sharp knives dig into my neck before I felt liquid hot magma course though it. I didn't even need to think about what he had done, I knew already, he had done it to twenty seven other girls before me. And the pain was beyond anything that I had ever felt before.

As my red hot neck began to cool and darkness started to flood my vision, I thought of how I had failed my family. I had failed to come back to them, and I had failed to show my mother and father, that I really was a miracle to them.

A/N: Well, what do you guys think of my horrible rape scene. I'm going to need to do more research on it and get better. Darn it rape fics, do more in first person view. I wrote Life's POV about six different time and I'm still not that satisfied with it.

To MyDarkTribute: When did Alexander say anything to Tharizdun about Nessa?

Death list

18th place: Nessa Christine Johnston. Ripped apart by Tharizdun.