Neither of us slept much that night, nor did we speak. We'd settled on a pair of chairs in the living room, overlooking the Capitol. I found myself missing the grey and concrete high-rise buildings of district eight. The buildings here were high, too, but it wasn't like home. It was awake, even now. We could see cars driving along the roads, people small like ants walking along. Some of the houses were blinking in different colored lighting even though it was late. It was like someone was always awake, the city always thrumming with a close to hysterical light.

"What do you think the arena will look like?" I ask. My voice sounds hollow. It doesn't fit into the room, like my tone and accent never were made to grace these rooms.

"I don't know", he mumbles, and I can hear the fear in him. I can feel it too. A never-ending nausea settled in the pit of my stomach, the ugly sensation of electricity beneath my skin making my fingers tremble even when I sat still. I couldn't relax, my shoulders tense, making me tremble as if I was cold. I draw the plush, purple blanket closer around me as if it will help. "Maybe it'll just be a forest. That's what it's been for a while now. Audience favorite, I suppose", he says.

I sigh and move in my chair. We've pushed them as close to each other as we can. I look at his profile. His nose is sharp from here, his hair messy. His stylist didn't like the mark the hair ties left in his hair, so it's flowing over his shoulders. It clearly annoys him, proven by the way he fusses with it, blows it out of his face and puts it behind his ears.

We sit there for a while. I wonder, briefly, if we should be talking about stuff. Our lives. Have one last discussion or something, but it feels unnecessary. Everything that needs to be said is said. We swore on blood not to hurt or kill each other, we know we'll protect each other. I don't need to tell him or hear him say he loves me, because I know.

Once we return to our rooms for the night to catch even a couple hours of sleep, I do nothing but cry. I sob, and sob, and sob, my snot and tears sinking into the silk of my pillow. I run to the bathroom to throw up, I scream and I cry, as if the sound and the tears will expel the dread that's taken root in me. I'm scared of death. I'm scared of Fedya's death and I'm scared of mine. I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die-

The next morning, I'm quiet and feel like a zombie. Once I passed out the night before it was like the emotions inside of me had turned into a hard block of concrete. I felt apathetic, the only resemblance of an emotion I had left the little creature of anxiety in my stomach. Fedya looked about the same, and we walked hand in hand as far as we could, until we were separated. They had to pull us apart in the end, peacekeepers pulling at us until we let go. None of us cried or fought back, but we held on until we couldn't any longer.

Tigris dressed me in my clothes. A pair of grey cargo pants, a shirt made out of the active material that peacekeepers' inner shirts were made of to wick the sweat away, and a black hoodie with a zipper. Proper boots. I tried to analyze something out of it all, but I was drawing a blank. I came as far as considering that it wouldn't be too cold if we didn't get a jacket, but that was almost more of a reach than just a guess. Tigris puts a headband in my hair to keep my bangs out of my eyes. She doesn't speak and neither do I.

I step into the tube that's meant to lift me into the arena. I don't know where we are. We were driven in small cars through an underground tunnel before we arrived, everything looking so similar that it'd been impossible to guess how far we'd travelled.

"Fight, Freya", Tigris says before the door closes. "You are not without hope yet."

I don't know what to think, and I don't have much time to do so, either. The door closes and the platform I'm stood on starts moving upward.

*

The first thing I notice are the buildings. They're all around us, huge concrete buildings. They look more inviting than the ones we have at home, with balconies and different shapes and colors, quite a few of them white or yellow. In the horizon, past the cornucopia, I see one single red, wooden house, lower than the other ones at only two levels.

I realize we're situated in the middle of a crossroads. Five different asphalt roads converge here, in the middle of it all. I hear the countdown begin at thirty seconds. The cornucopia looks similar to the old, rusty cars strewn about the roads. It's shaped like a cornucopia still, of course, but the hull of it seems to be made out of pieces of cars; it's a patchwork of rusty pieces with a bunch of different colors, all flaking off.

The roads are covered in vegetation. I realize we're standing in the middle of an old, abandoned city. Or at least something made to look like one. It's nothing like I've ever seen in the Hunger Games, but it's everything I've ever needed. There's no forest or nature in sight if you don't count the vegetation that's growing through the cracks in the ground.

Ten seconds.

I see something move in the corner of my eye, far down one of the streets. I look that way, trying to figure out what it was. An animal? A muttation? All I see is a shadow, and then it's gone.

5 seconds.

Shit. Hysterically, I draw my eyes away from everything around me and try to find Fedya.

4 Seconds.

I can't find him. Is he behind the cornucopia? I need to decide if I'm going to it or not. Is there anything I need there?

3 Seconds.

Where is he? I can't yell for him or I'll draw attention to myself. My eyes land on a bag on the ground only a few feet before me, a set of ropes attached to its side. That's what I need.

2 Seconds.

I look further ahead and see another bag with what looks like what I need to build traps. Where is Fedya? What do I do?

1 Second.

Once the gong goes off I act on instinct. Stupid instinct, maybe, but I run for the bags and I scream Fedya's name. I can't hear him. I grab the first bag, then run for the second. A sword swishes past my head with just a millimeter to go. I watch, as if in slow motion, how some of my hair slowly fall to the ground before I step back. I need the bag. I need the bag. I feel something hot dribble down my neck but I feel fine. I lunge for the bag. I can't even see who's got it out for me. I just book it.

You're fast, I remember Fedya telling me when he was angry with me. I channel that, and I run. I have no clue if I'll make it out, I just race down the road where the least tributes seem to run, and I don't stop for as long as I can manage. Buildings, cars, and other things I don't recognize flash past me. Things with two wheels, things with four that don't look like cars. Vehicles of all kinds. Then, a bike.

I look behind me. I can't see anyone. I throw the bags I've grabbed onto it and cycle away. It's rusty but it works, and I thank my lucky star.

In the end, I throw myself down in an alleyway, trying to catch my breath. My body is trembling from the adrenaline and the exertion, my shirt sticky with blood by my collarbone. With shaking hands, I trace the blood upward. I'm not dead, but I don't know what's wrong, either. I reach the top of my ear, then, and realize it's missing. Like, full on missing. Whoever had been trying to kill me had cut my ear off. I leave it be and just sit there, staring, for a good while, trying to figure out what to do next.

I need to look through the bags I grabbed. I need to find Fedya. I have to find water. I need to wash the blood off. I need to make sure my ear doesn't get infected. I can feel the pain now, sharp and almost blinding down the side of my face and through my scalp. For a good while, I'm paralyzed, unsure of what to do first.

In the end, I start looking through the bags. No water, no weapons. There's two ropes, a few metal stakes with loops on the top, two bags of nuts and raisins, twine and metal thread. One of them even has.. Liquid Soap. How helpful. Got to stay clean my last days alive. They'd known I'd go for this bag after I rigged the traps during training. I look to the sky. It's blue. I can't see the sun, so I'm not actually sure how far away the evening is. I re-pack the bags. I should've just grabbed one.

Fedya. Wound. Water. Fedya. Wound. Water. I repeat it like a mantra to myself. Stay alive, I tell myself. Find Fedya and protect him. What if he's dead?

I don't have time to spiral into thoughts of Fedya's death. A scream splits the air around me. I fly to my feet and run out into the street to see what's happening. Down the street, far enough that she can't see me, I see the boy from district eleven. He stands deadly still, blood dripping from his mouth. For a moment I can't see what's wrong, until I look away from his terrified face. He's impaled on something black and oily. It's somehow pulsating, like a horizontal stalagmite protruding from the wall behind him. It ripples and moves back. Slowly, what had been a sharp spike turns into liquid and shadow, drawing back into the wall. He falls to the floor and I hear the cannon that announces his death in the distance.

I don't look at his body, just at the shadow that's killed him. It's returned into the white stone wall and turned flat, moving and swirling around almost like a drawing of a pitch black school of fish, expanding and elongating like it's alive. Every now and then its surface ripples and becomes 3D, until it's a shadow again. It moves up along the wall. I'm quick to hide behind a dumpster - but not before looking at the wall beside me closely and carefully. The shadow disappears around the corner of the building. What a diabolical creation.

I step out and start walking. I consider the rusty bike for a moment, but I decide it'll be more of a hassle than anything. If anyone catches up with me or sees me on it, I'll lose precious time if I have to get off of it. Instead I wear one backpack on my back and one on my front and start trekking. I'm not sure where I'm going. The city feels like a maze. Even though I make seemingly random turns, I swear I see the same old shops more than once. Either they've taken the same part of the city and laid it out again, or it's somehow turning me the wrong way, or it's turning beneath my feet. I stop, bewildered, when I see the same shop for the third time. I've been walking carefully in the middle of the street to stay as far away from the walls as possible, but I'm starting to get thirsty. I'm going to have to go inside one of the buildings to try to find water.

I'm scared of what I'll find on the inside. The shadow creatures on the walls - where can they go? Will they follow me inside or do they stay on the outer walls? In a small room I'll have no chance of survival.

"There!" Someone screams, followed by menacing laughter. I whip my head around to look. I feel the familiar sensation of watching myself from outside for a moment. Like I'm still at home, seeing myself on the TV-screen. I've seen this scene so many times before, never truly considering that it could be me one day. In the first Hunger Games I remember watching, this happened. I was six or seven years old - it's a tale as old as time. The careers weren't stingy with creating alliances. They liked gathering together, which had always been odd to me. Maybe they were high on the adrenaline, never fully realizing the seriousness of the situation. Sometimes they had sex, too, but the Capitol were prude enough that once that started, the cameras cut away. The fear and adrenaline making everything more colorful and more intense, mixed with the knowledge that you'll die soon - I supposed it made sense to some degree. No matter what made sense, though, they always allied with each other and hunted down as many as they could, until they inevitably turned on each other until only one was left. It was more a rule than an exception.

"It's that chick from district eight!" The boy from two shouts. I don't waste my time staring like so many tributes on TV have done before. I hear the clinking of their weapons as they run, but even with two backpacks, I'm quicker than they are.

I realize, soon, that it won't help to just run. The street is long and they can see me wherever I go. I have to get inside one of the buildings. It'll slow me down, but it'll slow them down, too. I don't know if the doors are locked. I might be killing myself by slowing down, but I'll certainly kill myself If I run until I fall over. I throw myself over to one of the doors along the street and pull on the handle. It opens. I could almost cry, but I don't have time. I fling it open and rush up the stairs just on the inside.

There's no time to make good, well-considered choices anymore. I rush into the apartment on the right. That the doors are unlocked can either be a very bad sign for me or a sign that the game designers simply decided not to have locked doors in the arena. Who knows. I certainly don't. The room is a sparse living room. There's an arch open into a kitchen and a door to what I assume is a bathroom. I need to hide somewhere.

The ventilation. I can hide in the ventilation. I stare at the square hole by the ceiling. I remember hiding in it when I played hide-and-seek with Fedya when we were children. It's right above a dresser. I throw myself onto it, hitting my shins on the edge as I do. I can barely feel it, can barely feel the stinging in my ear anymore either. My stomach lurches as I hear the door downstairs open, someone calling for me.

"Eight", one of them sing-songs. I don't reply. I've removed the grate. I throw my backpacks in there, almost getting stuck in one of them. The footsteps in the stairs are coming closer.

"Where'd she go?" One of them asks. If they just choose the right door, they'll find me. They seem to be fighting about who's going where. I realize I'm crying. I lift myself up and slide into the metal-lined space. Only a second after I've placed the grate back in place the door to the living room opens. I press my hand to my mouth and try to wriggle backwards as quietly as possible, so they won't see me through the metal bars. They're tight together but I still feel like they could see me. I lower my head and keep my sobs inside, barely even breathing as the girl and the boy that have entered prowl through the room.

"Come out, wherever you are", the boy sings, "We know you're here, you little coward. "

I stifle a sob. It feels like he's talking into my ear. If they find me now, I'll have no way to escape. They'll kill me and leave me to rot in here. I feel as if I'm bathing in my own panic, like the space I've crawled into is closing in on me. I have to stay quiet. I have to stay quiet. I have to stay quiet, or I'll die.

"She's not fucking in here, Diamond", the girl mutters, "I bet the others have already killed her", she adds. He says something I can't hear. My body tenses up and I can't help but whimper as I hear somethin crash to the floor, and I'm quick to bite my own fingers until they bleed. I hear the door close.

I don't dare move for a very long time. I heard the door close, but they could still be there, fooling me. Maybe, when I lift my head from where it's hidden in my arms, they'll be there, right in front of me. I lay still, quietly crying, until it's dark. Only when Panem's anthem starts playing and the TV in the living room lights up do I wake out of my fear-induced coma. I made it. I survived the careers.

I push the grate away and crawl out. It's an unceremonious tumble, but I make it out. Not just me, but with my backpacks as well. For a moment I feel hysterically giddy, but it doesn't last long. On the Tv, I watch as the tributes killed today start flashing past on the screen. I look out through the window, briefly, realizing that not only is the sky lit up with the broadcast, too, but several of the windows of the opposite building have lit up like their TVs are broadcasting, too, looking like a bunch of square fireflies at night.