These Are My Games

by Miranda Reynolds

Raven just wants to take care of her family, but on her last Reaping, her name is called. This is the story of her Games, and the love she finds. This story will start with her Games and continue through the Hunger Games trilogy. HaymitchxOC

7. Day Two

I wake to the birds chirping and sunlight coming down on me. It takes me a moment before I remember that I am in the arena. I stretch and search around my hidey hole to make sure that all of my belongings are stored before crawling out into the open.

All I can hear is the sound of nature. I don't hear screams or sounds of threat. I make my way back to the river and refill and purify my water. Where are Ivy and Barker?

I had gestured to them to meet me in this area, so they should be here somewhere. They weren't dead last night. Did any cannons go off while I was sleeping? No, surely it would have woken me.

I decide to wander around and hunt a little while looking for them. I strap my canteen back to my bag, pull out a knife, and begin to walk slowly and as soundlessly as possible. I walk for a while then come to a stop near a tree, listening to my surroundings.

I don't hear anything, so I continue to walk. I am making sure I stay within the forest area, hoping to eventually find my allies. I eventually see a rabbit contentedly munching on some greens by a large tree. I flick my wrist, sending a knife through its neck. I quickly clean my kill and bury the mess, so it won't be easily seen. I use the parachute from my soup last night to hold the raw meat until I feel comfortable making a fire later.

As I continue to wander, I look for signs that any person has come through the area. I pick some greens and berries as I walk, making sure to keep myself fed. I come across a patch of dirt that looks disturbed, like someone had taken off into a sprint from here.

There are shoe prints in the dirt a little farther. I place my foot next to the tracks. The footprints are slightly smaller than my boot is. I decide to follow the tracks. Maybe they will lead me to Ivy or Sky.

I walk slowly, so I won't be surprised by anyone and so I won't startle the person I am following. I do my best to cover our tracks, but that is next to impossible.

I hear a snap of a twig and quickly hide behind a tree. I keep listening, glancing around me to make sure I don't see anyone. There is a whistling now. Low pitched and definitely not a bird. It is coming in short spirts. PHWWWWHHT! PHWWWWHHT! PHWWWWHHT!

It keeps going and stops. Then it starts again. I count the whistles. Seven. There is a pause, and they start over. Seven.

I make sure my knife is ready to be thrown and step out from behind the tree. I can't see anyone, but the whistling is coming from right in front of me.

Oh, this had better be Ivy or Barker. I whistle back and wait for a response. I hear a twig snap from the directions the whistles were coming from and then hear a whisper. "Raven?"

I sigh and a smile forms on my lips. "Here." I whisper back.

She soon comes into view, her face pale and her hair a mess. "Oh Raven! Thank goodness I found you!" She is still whispering, but the look on her face is one of pure relief.

"I was wondering where you were." I respond once she is closer to me. I pull her behind a tree to continue our conversation. "Have you seen Barker or Sky?"

"I camped in the trees last night. I just recently worked up the courage to come down. And the hunger." She smiles a little, her hands clutching her stomach. "I haven't seen them. You don't know where they are?"

I slip my pack off my shoulders and start rooting around to give the girl some food. "I haven't. I had to settle in for the night last night and have been wandering around all day today. You are the first I've seen." I finally find a nutrition bar for her. "Here," I hand her the bar, "don't eat it all at once. Save some for later. I have a rabbit that we can roast at dusk, too."

Her eyes widen and she grins, taking the bar from me. "Thanks so much!" I watch as she hungrily rips open the package, breaks the bar and puts the larger piece away. She takes a bite of the bar and grins. "I feel better already."

"Good. We have to keep moving." I look around. "Let's head toward the swamp area. We might find our other allies."

She nods, still chewing on the food.

"Do you have a weapon?" I ask her.

She pulls a large, heavy looking axe from behind her. "I got this when the girl from Nine dropped it when she was killed. I just waited for everyone else to move on and grabbed it before they could take the body."

"Great." I smile at her. "Smart thinking."

I gesture for her to follow me, and she does, thankfully silently. There is no talking, and her feet are fairly quiet on the forest floor. As we walk, we stop every now and then to take drinks from my canteen. She is grateful for the food and the water.

"We will have to refill the canteen soon." I tell her. She nods and follows me back to the river.

I am leaning down filling the canteen when a cannon booms. I jump and almost drop the canteen into the river but am able to keep hold of it.

"I wonder who that was." Ivy says, looking up to the sky.

"Hopefully not one of us." I respond as I drop the iodine into the water. She nods and we continue walking.

We must be almost to the swamp area when I hear footsteps running toward me. "Climb." I order Ivy. She nods once before quickly scurrying up a tree. If I weren't so scared, I'd be proud.

I dart behind a tree and the running slows down, the person panting as they come to a stop. I hear them talking to themselves, "Well, I know I saw them here."

From above me, I hear Ivy. "Barker?" Her voice is soft but catches the boy's attention.

"Ivy?" He looks around and finally looks up. I hear his feet move and he walks toward her voice and into my view. I see him smile when he finally spots her up in the trees. "Did you find Raven? I swear I saw two of you walking this way."

"I'm here." I step out from behind the tree. Ivy moves down her tree and drops very near where I am standing.

His grin grows even more. "I am so glad I found you two." He hugs Ivy quickly and sends me a smile.

"We need to keep moving." I reach in my bag and find him a nutrition bar. "Eat that sparingly."

He begins to work on eating, and we all continue to walk. "Do you have a weapon?" I ask him.

"No." He says through a mouthful. I sigh and hand him one of my knives. "That is all I am giving you, so use it wisely."

"Yes, ma'am." He says with a smile.

We walk for a while in silence before Barker starts talking. "How did you even get a bag?"

"I grabbed it from the bloodbath." I whisper, trying to convey the need for silence.

"That is so cool!" He says, not quiet enough for my taste. "I was too scared to go anywhere near those!"

"Look," I cut him off, "you need to stop talking. You are going to draw anyone within listening range to us."

His eyes widen and he nods before looking down to the ground. I see that Ivy sends me a thankful smile but pats Barker's back. We continue in silence.

I hold up a hand and stop walking, the other two stopping right behind me. I listen for a moment and hear some laughing in the distance. "Climb." I order. I am not sure if Barker can climb like Ivy can, but at least one of them can get out of the way.

Ivy scuttled up the tree closest to her and hunkered down near the trunk on a higher branch. I darted behind the nearest tree, out of sight from the direction the laughter was coming from. Barker ran, loudly, over to another tree, and began attempting to climb like Ivy did. He was not a climber, then.

"You hear that?" she hears a boy ask, and the laughter stops. Barker either didn't hear them or was too dense to know that they could hear him and continued to try to climb the tree.

I tried to motion to him to stop moving, but his eyes are wide as he looks at me, and then, he is tackled to the ground by the girl from Four. As soon as that happens, I see the boy from Three run up next to her.

I don't think, I just flick my wrist and send a knife in their direction. The knife buries itself in the boy's skull just as the girl lands a terrifying blow to Barker's face. The boy from Three hits the ground and the girl starts slightly, and before I can flick another knife at her, she pulls her own knife and stabs Barker in the throat.

All I see is red and all I hear is my heartbeat as I sprint at her. She doesn't have time to react before I tackle her to the ground and stab my knife into her arm. She lets out a scream and rolls away from me, and I flick my wrist, my knife finding its way to her back. She howls in pain again and falls to her knees.

I walk up to her and pull my knife from her back. Her eyes are wide as she stares at me, pleading.

"Please, don't!" She begs. There is blood running down her back, the backs of her pants are slowly turning red.

"You hurt that boy." I tell her. "You should have left him alone." I plunge the knife into her eye, retract it, and then slice the blade across her neck.

She collapses to the ground, gurgling slightly before falling silent.

It is the sound of two cannons firing that bring me back to the present. I sprint over to Barker to find Ivy already with him. His eyes are wide as he stares up at her, gurgling from the hole in his throat.

"Relax. We are here. Its safe now." Ivy is talking to him with a reassuring voice. I kneel beside him and his eyes dart to mine.

"Would you like to hear about my family?" I ask him. He nods slightly, and I begin to tell him all about my mom and my sister. "My sister is four years younger than I am. Sky, the boy from my district, is her best friend. She and I would walk to school together every day, and if you could see some of the things she draws, you would agree with me that there is no better talent in the world."

He is staring at me, and Ivy is now too, tears in her eyes. "My mom, she is so strong. After my dad died, she just took in as much washing as she could. She kept us going as best she could. I started getting tesserae and helping her with the washing and sewing that she took from some of the miners."

Barker's breathing has slowed and his eyes drifting closed, he has one hand griping onto Ivy's. "My sister likes to think of jokes to tell while she is doing her homework and my mom and I work on laundry. She says it passes the time better. She thinks she would rather work than go to school, but I tell her otherwise. I won't let her drop out from school; she needs an education."

I see his hand drop from Ivy's and a cannon sounds. I stop talking and Ivy wipes her eyes. We both stand and I give her a hug. I pull her small frame to me and squeeze.

"Thank you." She whispers into my shoulder. "For talking to him. That made it easier."

"Of course." I respond.

We take a moment to catch our breaths and continue to walk. Neither of us speaks, and Ivy stays very close to me. I have killed three people now. Three kids. I'm not sure why she feels safe with me.

The ground under our feet slowly becomes softer. The ground gets wetter and marshier. "We are getting to the swamp now." I tell her.

She looks around us and nods. "Is that a good thing?"

"Well, maybe we find Sky in here." I speak. I never said the kid was smart.

Just as the words leave my mouth, a parachute lands in the bottom branches of a tree nearby. I walk over to it and grab it out of the tree.

I take the parachute off and store it in my bag. The tin holding the gift is engraved with the number 12.

"I guess its for you." Ivy says.

"Whatever it is, we'll share." I tell her. She smiles slightly. I open the container to find another canteen and 2 more knives. I slip the knives out of their sheaths to get a better look. These knives aren't like the others I have. They have much bigger, serrated blades.

"Do you want one of the knives?" I ask her. She thinks for a moment before nodding. I hand her a knife and she slips it's sheath onto her belt, and I do the same with the other. I also hand her the new canteen. "We can each carry one. When we find the river, we can refill."

She smiles at me and speaks, "Thank you."

I nod and tuck away the tin into my pack. "Let's go."

I assume that Haymitch sent me that gift at that time because I was heading in the right direction. He would send me something to tell me when I was doing something he wanted me to do, and we had just been talking about where to go. So, we must be going the right way.

"You must have a lot of sponsors if they are sending you weapons this early." Ivy speaks after we have been walking for a few minutes. The ground here is very soggy. Every now and then, one of our boots gets stuck slightly in the mud and we have to wrench it free.

"Haymitch told me that I would get gifts only if I was smart." I tell her. "Apparently, this is intelligent." I say as I yank my foot out of the mud again.

She giggles slightly at me. "I wonder if I'll get anything."

"I'm sure you will if you need it." I tell her.

"But I am not like you. I don't have the skills you do. I can't use a knife or anything. I just hide when danger comes." She says, looking down at the ground.

"I can't climb trees like you do. That is extremely impressive." I tell her. "How are you that good at climbing, anyway?"

He smiles at me, "they always send the lightest ones up to cut the high limbs on trees."

I nod. "I just assumed you cut the whole tree down."

"Sometimes we do. But when trees are close together, you trim the limbs off first, so they are less likely to damage the others on the way down." She explains.

"I see." I nod. "I don't think I could go very high. In District 12, we go underground, not up to the treetops."

"I don't think I could go into a mine. That would be terrifying." Her eyes are wide as she looks at me.

I just laugh. "Well, lets be happy we aren't in each other's shoes, then."

She smiles, "Fine by me." She finishes with a slight giggle.

"Barker didn't go into the trees. He couldn't climb like I can." She says, quietly, looking down at the ground. "He helped in the mill. After the tree was already down, he helped make it into lumber."

I keep walking. Let her talk. Apparently, she needs to.

"The tributes from Three and Four that you- "she stopped herself, "that killed him, they just train. Don't they? Just train to kill us?"

"Yeah, they do." I tell her. I keep looking around us, listening, looking for any sign of Sky.

"That must be awful. A trained killer." With that, she trails off, and stops talking. I can tell that she is still thinking, still picturing their bodies and the gruesome way that I killed them. Still seeing Barker's eyes as he bled out and suffocated on his own blood.

I can only think of finding Sky.

The mud has started to almost cover our boots, each step taking more and more effort to lift our feet. I lead us over to a tree and pull Ivy with me. The ground immediately around the tree is denser, and we don't sink as far.

"Can you climb up there? See if you can see anything helpful? Sky or the edge of the swamp? Anything that looks dangerous?" I ask her and point up the tree we are standing by.

She nods and quickly makes her way up the tree. Once she is up a good distance, she stops and looks around. She comes back down and stands next to me. "We are about halfway through. It should start drying up again, soon. I didn't see anything else."

I nod and lead us farther. We begin to make more of a zigzag path, following the trees since the soil that they are in is more solid. We sink less into the mud this way.

As we walk, I start to hear a noise similar to the noises our shoes made as we walked through the wet mud. Since we aren't in that wet of mud anymore, I signal to Ivy to stop. She does and we both go quiet.

Her eyes widen and I know that she hears it too. We start slowly making our way toward the sound and once it is close, I send her up into a tree again. She comes down and smiles, "It's Sky. He looks like he is stuck."

I smile. "How far?" I ask.

"Not far, come on."

I follow her and we come to an opening in the trees. We stand on the last tree, and I see Sky, a few feet out, trying desperately to get his feet out of the sloppy mud.

"Sky?" I call out quietly.

His head whips around and his eyes meet mine. A smile appears on his face. "Raven!" His voice remains quiet, but the relief is clear. "Do you think you can get me out of here?"

"I'll do my best." I tell him.

I stand and think about the things I have learned over the years and in training. "I need you to move your feet quickly up and down as much as you can. You should start to be able to get at least one of your feet out."

He starts doing as instructed, and eventually, he gets one foot free. "Great!" I tell him. "Now, you can kneel and try to work the other foot free. Make circles with the leg you're standing on to get the dirt away from it."

He does as I tell him, and he works himself free. He crawls his way over to us. Once with us, he throws himself at me and wraps his arms around me. "How did you know that?"

"I paid attention in training." I smile at him.

"Why did you crawl?" Ivy asks him.

He looks at her warily for a moment before answering. "It felt like I sank less like that."

I nod. "Weight distribution. Your weight was on your whole leg, not just your foot."

"That makes sense." He smiles. "Now, how do we get out of here?"

"Follow us. Stay by the trees." I tell him.

I lead the two out of the swamp. We make it to the edge of the swamp quickly and I stop the kids before they step out into the meadow. "We should sleep here, in the trees."

"Good idea. They won't be able to see us in the trees like they can in the open meadow." Ivy agrees.

"Ready to climb, Sky?" I ask him.

He shyly nods and they climb a little way into one of the trees. Ivy goes the highest and uses her belt to strap herself in.

"Here, Sky." I toss him the sleeping bag that came in my pack. "You two are light enough to share a limb and the bag."

He climbs over to Ivy and they both climb into the bag and strap themselves to the tree. I go to the edge of the swamp and pick up some sticks to build a fire. The sticks on the ground aren't as wet here, they must have fallen from the tops of the trees.

I make sure that it is dark enough and I start a fire. I roast the rabbit from earlier as quickly as I can and then cover my fire. I climb up into the tree and strap myself to the branch nearest the kids. I toss them some of the rabbit and we all eat, tossing our bones into the swamp.

We are all quiet when the anthem begins to play. The only faces in the sky are the boy from Three, the girl from Four, Barker and the boy from Nine. They sky goes dark and everything is quiet once again.

"Goodnight, Raven." Sky whispers.

"Goodnight, you two. Get some sleep."

There is no more sound from them as I sit and think. I have killed two more people.

No, I didn't kill them.

The Games killed them.