The hours of the night slip by, mixed together in a silent mess as I slip in and out of fitful sleep. I throw up three more times throughout the night until I have nothing left to give and I just retch. I can feel my body giving up on me, and my mind is giving up with it. After everything I've been through since the Reaping, it's all over. My brother is dead, and it's only a matter of time before I'm next.
I can't stop thinking about the moment I watched my brother die. The way I screamed to save him and nothing came out. The blood that ran down his body as Midas' blade pierced his chest. His eyes as they locked with mine in his final moment...
The morning arrives, releasing the Arena from its chains of silence. This does nothing to help my mental state; the overwhelming noise of the Arena around me sends me into another spiral that leaves me in the fetal position.
It must be a few hours later when a new thought strikes me out of nowhere. The Careers are coming.
That thought is what snaps me back to reality. The Careers didn't chase me down here last night, but that doesn't mean that they won't be hunting me down tonight. Midas might want to seal the deal and get rid of me for good. They could be here any minute now.
Overtaken by frantic desperation, I scale one of the trees with my bare hands and feet. Finally, I nestle myself in a crook at the top of the tree, and at last, I feel safe. Nobody will find me up here, I hope.
My feet are freezing; I wish I would've brought my shoes with me. I wish I would've brought anything, actually. The only thing I escaped with was my knife and the clothes on my back.
Hunger starts to creep up on me as the day passes by, but invisible strings tie me to my tree. I know what's going on... I'm not stupid. If I leave this tree, I'll die. The Careers will find me, and it'll all be over. I'd rather starve than see Midas again.
I sigh, nestling myself closer to the tree. Twenty-four hours ago, I was picking berries with Sienna, worrying about the boys fighting. Who could've guessed that it would all be over just a few hours later.
Sienna... I hope she's okay, but deep down, I know that she must be dead. She and Clay were both gone when the Careers approached our camp... they must have chased her out of the camp with her brother and killed them both before they came back for us. It's the only scenario that makes sense, but still, I hope that she's out there somewhere. I hope that she escaped like I did.
My heart twinges at the thought of my friend. Why didn't Sienna try to wake me when the Careers arrived? Why did she leave me behind to die? If the silence of the night hadn't forced my eyes open last night, would I have been killed just like Damien?
That's when it hits me. My grip loosens on my treetop hideout, and I almost slip off of my branch.
If the silence of the night hadn't forced my eyes open...
When I opened my eyes yesterday to see the Fallen Tributes, silence had only just fallen over the Arena. Midas and Trent arrived only a few seconds later. If that's the case, then Clay and Sienna weren't chased out of our camp. The noise would have certainly caught my attention. That leaves only one possibility: they left.
My heart is racing as I think through the implications of this revelation. If Clay and Sienna left camp last night without alerting me or Damien, and the Careers arrived only minutes later... Clay and Sienna must have found them and told them our location.
I feel lightheaded, and I hold tightly onto the tree trunk next to me. I shake my head, as if trying to shake these thoughts away. I'm just in shock after everything that happened last night. I'm not thinking clearly; that can't be right. Clay and Sienna would never betray us like that, not after everything we've been through together.
A noise in the distance cuts through my thoughts, and I look up to see a small parachute slowly falling from the sky. A beeping sound comes from the package as it falls, and my heart rate spikes. The gift lands, tangling itself in the branches of the tree above me. I scramble to silence the beeping device, almost losing my balance and falling in the process. If the Careers heard the arriving gift, they could be here any moment. I scale the branches of the tree as fast as I can, frantically ripping the plastic casing of the sponsor gift open to silence it. With a relieved sigh, I try to pull out the contents, but the case is empty.
I groan as I look closer at the inside of the case - is this some kind of joke? Why couldn't Simon have sent me anything - shoes, a blanket, food...
Upon further review, there are two small items at the bottom of the case. The first is a tiny pin; at first glance, it looks identical to the one currently pinned to my shirt. My District token. After looking closer, though, I can see that it's slightly different. The tips of the lightning bolt contain two tiny letters: S and L. A third letter, L, sits at the center.
Beneath the lightning bolt is a letter from Simon.
This is all you need, the rest is up to you. Keep fighting until the bitter end.
~S
I glance back at the letter S on the pin. S for Simon. The L on the other side must be for Laurentia. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that this was probably her idea. That means that the L in the middle is for me. Luna. No D for Damien. The three of us are a team now.
I still wish that Simon had sent me shoes, but I still cling tightly to my new pin. In the chaos of everything going on in the Arena, I'd practically forgotten about my mentor and my escort. Even though it feels like all the odds are against me, even though even I had counted myself out in these Games, I still have two people rooting for me, and that's enough. I have to do what Simon told me to do in his letter - fight to the end. For his sake and for mine. If there's one thing I know about the Games, it's that nothing is over until the very, very end. Even if the Careers have practically won the Games already, I have to keep fighting. I owe Damien that much.