District Three's Kendrick Reeves's POV

"Come on." I told Caia encouragingly as I half helped, half dragged her forwards. "Just a little bit further."

Caia was getting weak, sleepy, and dying, and it wasn't because of a bad excuse either. She was horribly injured, and the sheet of clothing fabric that I shoved into her eye before wrapping it only seemed to absorb the blood that was building up in her socket, not stopping it. Slowing it down maybe, but it still continued to bleed. She was losing blood, fast, and there was no way that I could stop it without a proper medical kit.

Time wasn't on our side anymore, because I was also injured, though I wasn't going to bleed to death like Caia, but I was still worried that something would happen. After all, who knows if I got infected by those mutts? If Caia had gotten infected. Their hands and nails and teeth looked infected. Their whole bodies looked like they were infected with some sort of disease, and I didn't like it one bit.

The only thing that comforted me was the hope that the gamemakers had only made them to look sick and weren't actually sick. They wanted a show, the mutts were only for tributes that really annoyed them and had nothing to offer for entertainment. The audience wanted to watch tributes kill tributes, not mutts kill tributes. The mutts were supposed to look the way they looked to scare the tributes, not slowly kill them and ruin an action packed show.

But then again, this was no ordinary game, and the one controlling it all was no gamemaker. He also showed no regard for Capitol regulations.

That meant that he could of tampered with the mutts, injecting them with poison, making them living, moving factories producing dangerous cocktails of death.

Instead of hoping that about the previous thought, I should really be hoping that real gamemakers will come back and fix this game, or that we find a room with a medical kit sometime soon. Hopefully both would happen, that would be the best outcome.

Caia was hobbling on her weakened feet, and it made me feel bad and sorry for her. If I wasn't so injured myself, I'd carry her, but I tried that when she first started to get tired, and I had dropped her straight to the floor, causing her to yell in agony. I swore not to do that again, I was too injured and had lost too much strength, I couldn't even carry her.

"How much further is not much further?" Caia asked. Her voice was soft and quiet from exhaustion. I knew that I had to let her rest somewhere, and I didn't want her to rest out in the open where some other tribute, like Zeal or Daria, or Selene or Carrita, or Calamity, could find her. Especially not Calamity. I hate to admit it, but if he hadn't run off for some reason, I'm not sure I could of beaten him. He was a career, and fought well, and all I had was the practice that I had done back home.

"The next room we come across." I told her. "A room that you can hide in."

"Are you leaving me?" She asked. The way that she said it made me feel as if she expected me to be leaving her just because she was no a burden to her.

"No." I told her. I wasn't leaving her because she was a burden. Well, I kind of was, but it was for her own good. I wasn't leaving her, and she wasn't a burden, I was just going to go off alone to find her some medicine on my own, because she just couldn't keep up with me, and if someone decided to attack us, she'd be defenceless. If I fell, she'd fall with me, but if she wasn't with me, then she'd still have a chance of, hopefully, outlasting the other tributes in the arena. It was dangerous out there, and I didn't want anything more to happen to her.

While the other tributes were out searching for each other, fighting each other, weakening each other, Caia would be bidding her time, either waiting for me to come back for her with a medical kit, or waiting for the second last tribute to die. Either way, it was better for her to lie low then to be in direct danger at this point. "I'm just going to make sure that you're safe."

Caia's feet continued to, mostly, drag on the floor as I held her up by my arm and shoulder as I continued to guide her forwards. Why'd I have to be so weak right now?

The next room we came across will be where she'd go in and wait for me. The arena was becoming too dangerous for her. She needs time to heal, a place to stay safe until she her eye at least stops bleeding. Because right now, in her tired, weakened state, she wasn't even a walking target, she was a target, plain and simple.

I continued to walk with Caia when we reached an opening. I looked around the room and saw that it was like a lunch room at school. It had rows of metal tables and matching chairs, and the place where they served the food was to the side. It was abandoned, but it looked like people had been here, there were signs of fighting in the area. Chairs were knocked over, dust was swept from areas on the tables and floor, and there was blood drops on the floor and tables.

I followed the blood drop trail leading to the kitchen area, holding the lead pipe in my free hand, just in case there was somebody still here.

I didn't like that there might still be someone there, but I needed to leave Caia somewhere, and this was the closest place in our area, and if I kept Caia standing for too long, she'd likely pass out and never wake up. She had to rest and recover, there was no way around that.

Taking slow, cautious steps, I approached the kitchen, listening for any signs of life. The only things I could hear were my heartbeats, Caia's breathing, and the sound of something sizzling. That made me even more cautious. Someone was probably using some of the cooking equipment. Damn. This didn't look good.

I continued forwards going around the counters and shelves, until I hid behind the corner behind where the sound was coming from. I lifted the weapon I was holding and quickly left the wall and was ready to strike someone over the head, when I saw that nobody was there.

I looked at the scene in front of me, and saw that a flat stove was cooking something small, something that looked and smelt like burnt flesh. Pieces of skin were on the stove top and sizzling like thin strips of meat.

I turned behind me to see if someone was approaching me from behind, and saw no one. That was a good sign, I guess. I walked forwards and turned off the stove before I started to look around the kitchen to see if there was anyone still there.

I didn't find anyone.

I sighed in relief as I placed Caia down gently on the floor, letting her lean up against one of the metal ground cupboards so that her back was to the wall, careful not to irritate her wounds anymore then they already were. "Okay Caia," I told her as I let go of her. "Just rest up here, I'll be scouting out ahead for some medical things."

"I thought you said you weren't going to leave me." Caia replied weakly.

"I'm not leaving you." I explained, feeling bad that I was going off and leaving her alone. "I am not abandoning you if that's what you're thinking." She looked relived, but still worried. "You need to rest, and this is probably the safest place that you can be in right now. There are still other tributes out there and I don't want you be out there when they find you."

"They'll find me here." Caia said.

"They'll eventually find us anywhere with time." I told her, thinking of how Calamity found her not too long after the bloodbath started. "Listen, I'm not going to be gone too long, and you can't stay on your feet while we're looking for things to heal you, so the best thing you can do is just stay here and wait for me."

"But what if you don't come back?" She asked. I didn't want to answer that question, even though it was something that I had put into consideration from the second I had thought of leaving her here.

"I will come back," I told her, trying to keep some of that optimism that my friends, especially Mac, liked hearing from me. "So don't you worry." And if I don't come back, just wait it out, because there's not much else you can do. Wait out, don't fall asleep, and don't die.

I then handed her the lead pipe that was in my hands, she took the weapon from me. She needed that weapon more then I did. I was strong, she wasn't, and if someone did find her here, then she'd need all the help she could get. "If anyone except me comes towards you, bash their face in." Caia nodded, understanding. "Remember Caia, I will be back, with medicine, just hang on until I get back. Don't fall asleep."

I turned around and started to run when I heard Caia speak again.

"Kendrick."

I turned around and faced her, wondering what she wanted to say.

"Yeah?" I asked.

"Thanks for being my friend."

As soon as she said that, something in my mind started to click.

Friends. Were we really friends with each other?

I thought of my friends back home and wondered if we were like them.

We kind of weren't. My friends and I would have fun together, we were in the games together fighting to survive. My friends and I talked about stuff that we liked, we mostly argued. My friends and I did things together, we fought together. My friends and I looked forward to seeing each other, and while I did look forward to seeing Caia again when I got some medical equipment, I wasn't looking forward to the after party.

But there was also something else to put in that equation. Yes, we argued with each other. Yes, we had gone into the games together. Yes, we had fought with each other. And yes, there was the dreaded end to look forward to. We had done things together, like friends, I guess. We had gotten close to each other, close enough that I was willing to do things in order for her to survive, to get her to return home. Stupid as it was, because I wanted to live as well, but at the same time, I didn't want her to die.

Yeah, we were friends, as different as our relationship was.

"Your welcome." I told her with a smile before I turned around again and started to run off in search for medicine.

Caia. If we hadn't been thrown into the games together, would we of became friends? If none of this had happened to us, would we of been something back home?

I thought about it, adding in what our lives were like and what I had thought of her before all of this.

Before this, I had always thought of her as the bossy, know it all girl from school. I might of talked to her, but with her lack of social skills before then, I don't think I'd of gotten very far with her. A conversation or two later, and I probably wouldn't of bothered with her anymore, as bad as that sounds. I liked interacting with new people, but there was a breaking point to everything. Caia also wouldn't of gone up to me, she wasn't that social. She said she sucked with people, and I found that to be true in the beginning, but as she got to be with me for the past few days, she eventually opened up to me. I don't think she would of done that back in District Three. And if we were back home, there was the social difference that usually divided the district for the simple fact that she was rich, and I was poor.

Would we of became friends if the games hadn't thrown us both together? No, we wouldn't of. But because of this partnership, this game, and the time we got to hang with each other, we did become friends. The games did odd things sometimes, and I was glad for that.

Caia was a good person once you got to know her.

District Six's Adrienne Quintus's POV

Though the screens had dried blood on them, making it harder for me to see through them, but I still couldn't help but watch what was on them.

At first it was nothing, but then I found out that by using the buttons and knobs, I could watch what had been recorded by the Capitol, and I had found some really interesting things. Some goodbyes were sad, like Victory Valentine and Jeremiah Sentris, saying goodbye to their younger siblings, saying that they'd come back home for them. They told them not to worry about what their parents wanted them to do, because they were going to change all that. Whatever that meant.

Some were surprising, like Timer Carther crying to his family of kids. The oldest one looked to be only twenty or something. He kept on saying that he was sorry, and that he should be able to control his anger. Other's were surprising as well, like Vida Rosalyn Harkle actually having a friend and Trim Fetching crying with his family before his father, a shallow bastard, telling him to man up and stop crying before leaving.

And some were interesting, like Perla Freuff getting attacked by three other kids who then took away packages that were delivered to her from her previous visitor.

Then there were things such as the conversations between tributes at the chariot rides, and during the training back in the Capitol, and even things during the off hours. From there, I learned that Colton had actually lived in the Capitol. He asked our escort if she remembered him, and when she said she didn't, he asked if she remembered the dwarf named 'odd boy'. It was then that realization dawned on her face, so I knew that what he was saying wasn't bullshit.

I watched tributes interact with each other when they thought that nobody was watching, some of those things I didn't want to see or hear.

Perla Freuff getting thrown into a wall by her district partner, Tanner Hart. Calamity talking to himself, attacking himself and everything around him. Victory and Jeremiah getting kidnapped in their sleep by masked invaders.

The thing was, I watched those tributes do things, and learned a lot about them. I learned things that I shouldn't of known about them, things that they wanted to keep hidden, things that wouldn't of been possible without the Capitol spy network.

The Capitol had done no interviews, so I couldn't see if my mom was any different from the way she was in front of me, but maybe that wouldn't matter, because she was probably off banging someone anyway, not caring that her only daughter was in the arena, about to die, and saved everyone from dying at the cost of her still being in danger.

I watched my own goodbye time and time again, watching my mother getting my name wrong and me shouting at her and fighting her. But for some reason, I wasn't as bad at her as I was before, because when the choices came for me to kill her, and my friends, and every other tribute in this arena came up, I had thought of her a different way.

She had taken care of me, and that was what a mother was supposed to do, despite how much of a crappy job she had done.

I guess that's why I couldn't stand to kill her, even if she made my life a living hell.

I guess that's why I have such a short temper, I just can't stand people in general, especially guys. My mom would just let me do almost whatever I wanted, and some kids were envious of that. Their parents would tell them when to do this and that they should do something, but my mom almost never did any of that, so I just did what I wanted, when I wanted, and nobody was there to stop me.

She didn't care if I beat up some kid if he or she annoyed me, just as long as that person wasn't her 'friend'.

I didn't know right from wrong, all I knew was that when I wanted something, I wanted to get it, so I did what I needed to do in order to get it. That meant stealing from someone, or taking it from them by force. That got be a bad reputation along with being the daughter of a slut. But I didn't care, it didn't seem to me that my reputation couldn't get any worse then what it already was. I was right, it didn't get any worse, they just annoyed me and did things to me more often. It was the same old shit, just more of it.

It wasn't until Maria and Taylor came along and showed me that what I was doing was wrong. It was wrong to steal just because I wanted something, and it was wrong to beat up someone just because I felt like it.

I still did it though. I knew it was wrong, but I still did it, because of my short temper I ran into fights that I wanted to get in, to beat up those that made fun of me, or those that I didn't like in general. My mind just took over, and my basic intents told me to go with the flow, and I followed.

Follow your heart, I heard someone tell me that before, and I had kind of lived by that ever since. So wither something was right, or wrong, or just strange, I followed what my so called heart told me to do.

That's just how I lived my life, and looking at how deep my life was in the hole, I learned to laugh at myself, because of who I was. The funniest thing about me was that I cared about people way too much sometimes.

I wanted people to like me, but at the same time, I just didn't care what they did or thought of me. When I beat someone up, I would wonder if I had gone too far, if they really deserved to get beat up. And most of the time, the answer was no, but I did it anyway, though it wouldn't feel as good. When I was younger, it was better, back when I didn't think too much. But as I got older, I started to think more and more about other people, making it harder to feel good about what I did.

There were exceptions to who I felt no remorse for though, and most of those were my mother's clients. Some of them were all right, but most of them would see me and get ideas. And those that got those ideas would often act upon them, causing me to usually put an end to their relationship with my mother. After all, there were other girls out there, my mom was just the easiest one to fuck with.

I hate to admit it, but when she lost one of her customers, our lives would be a little bit worse then it was before, and I didn't like that, because my life was then made harder then it already was. And though I hated to admit it, I loved my mom. I loved her, but I didn't like her. There was a difference.

She didn't abandon me when I was born, so I guess that counts for something.

But saying that I loved her might be pushing the limit, because I still hated her because of things that happened around the house.

When Calamity had kicked the door in before knocking me down to the floor before he started to tear my clothes off, it reminded me of my mom's clients. They would do their thing with her, pay her, and then leave her alone. Then they would try to find me if they had seen me earlier, or they would see me for the first time after leaving my mom, then they'd start to ask if I was for sale. But if I hid good enough, they would just slip right past me, but with what little we owned, there wasn't any good hiding spots around.

I would tell them that I wasn't my mom before trying to leave, but they would grab me before they forced themselves upon me. I'd fight them and tell them to get off of me, but they didn't stop, and that's how I started to hate men in general, because the six year old girl didn't know the difference between them, and other guys. All that little girl saw was a guy that had raped a girl.

Then on her first day of school, they mentioned her mother, and that solidified her hate on men. I now knew that not all men were the same, but that six year old mentality still lingered in me, and every time I saw a guy, that little part of me would start shouting 'danger! Danger!' And I would listen, because a large part of my life consisted of me getting raped by full grown men.

I learned to fight, and as soon as I got to be twelve years old, I became noticeably stronger. I was no longer the easy little girl that could be submitted easily, I could actually fight them, and though I couldn't match them in strength, I learned to fight dirty. I'd go for their eyes, their groin, I'd bite them, claw them, smash things over their heads, throw dust in their eyes, anything that I could do and use to get them off of me.

The rapes declined, but they still went on.

I fought Calamity, but he was stronger then me, and persistent.

He broke my legs so that I couldn't fight back as well, but I still did everything in my power to stop him from doing what he wanted to do to me.

I failed.

He overpowered me, and he had his way with me before he left, laughing in triumph, just like my mom's customers did. The only difference between him and them was that Calamity was a kid himself, and those eyes of his were as soulless as the emeralds that described his eyes. They were not filled with lust, like my mother's clients were. That, in my opinion, made it so much worse, because he was doing it for fun, to show that he was dominant, not horny.

He, was worse then anyone back home, and I didn't think that there was such a person existed.

The way I see it, nobody really cares about me, nobody except my friends, but it was probably for the better that I left their lives. After all, how much trouble had a given them by just being their friend? Too much in my opinion. They didn't deserve to be made fun of, or get mixed up into my fights, because they should be able to go into town without any harassment. They had so much to live for.

I on the other hand...What did I ever do that was so great? I didn't work, I didn't help anyone, all I did was take what I want, when I want. I fought people that I didn't like, I was a burden to my mother, and to the district in general.

You saved people. A voice inside me told me.

Yeah, I had saved people. Would someone else of volunteered? Would they of put their lives before their own? Like me? Like Colton? Another person that had been harassed by the district because of something out of his control?

It's funny, we were the freaks of the district, the easy targets, someone to make fun of when you couldn't think of anything else to do. We got made fun of just because they could say things to us, do things to us. And yet, we were the ones that saved everyone. Colton said during the interviews that he was going to win the games so that the district could respect him.

I made me think. Would they really respect him, or would they just not say anything to his face. Sure he would of gone home a victor, but would anything else change?

If I went home a victor, would anything change for me?

My mom would still be my mom, and I would still be the daughter of a whore. Kids wouldn't get over calling me the slut of the district, they just wouldn't say it to my face, or maybe they still would. I wouldn't know, I wasn't going to go home, because I was going to die in the arena.

I would continue to fight, continue to try and live, but I had bitten my tongue out. My mouth was filling up with thick, warm liquid that poured out of my mouth in drips.

But even with death upon me, and after being raped by Calamity, I couldn't help but laugh. Laugh at this game, laugh at this situation, laugh at my well being and life in general.

The district didn't think highly of me or Colton, and yet, we were the ones that saved their sorry asses when nobody else wanted to stand up and volunteer. Us, the freaks of District Six, were the ones that saved everyone.

How many more would of died if we hadn't volunteered? If they didn't respect us for saving their lives, then they weren't worth befriending anyway. Why should we do anything for ungrateful bastards that didn't respect us for saving their lives?

I looked at my token, the bracelet made of leather that had metal charms attached to it. The one that was handed to me by a little kid that couldn't of been more then eight or something years old. 'Thanks for saving my sister.' That's what she told me before she hugged me and left.

Just having that happen to me, made it all worth it. I can't believe that I hadn't thought of that moment until just now. Just before death.

I smiled as I felt the warmth of my blood flow out of my mouth. Suddenly, death wasn't so bad. Someone, other then my friends, was thankful, so I guess, it was all worth it. There were people out there that knew that I was worth it. And that, was all that mattered right now. I was worth something.

Say it with me Adrienne. I am worth it. Say it! SAY IT! SAY! IT!

"A- A- A- A- Um...Wu...Wu...Wu...Th...Th...Th...Th...Ehh...

A/N: I could of gotten this up about two days earlier, but I was busy playing UFC Undisputed 2010. It's a fun game, but it brought back memories of my one and only fight in MMA. By the time the kid was done with me, and I had woken up, I felt as if I was breathing under a pool of thick, melted chocolate with soft marshmallows swirling around in it.

Anyways...Death...Death everywhere.