Disclaimer: I own nothing anyone recognises.

Feedback: Much appreciated.

AN: From this point onwards, this fic will be told from Katniss's POV; chronology-wise, we start relatively early in the Seventy-Fourth Games, at around the end of the third day at the point when Katniss was staying on the outskirts of the main arena after finding water (although things are different for a few other Tributes, as you'll see soon enough…).

AN 2: Credit should be owed to Relena Mishima, who served as inspiration for a few character details of one of the less-developed Tributes in these Games; if you haven't read them already, I can recommend her series Valkyrie on Fire, starting with "I Am Not a Victim".

Twice Chosen

Even after watching the Games for years, it was still surprising to realise how much the Gamemakers edited when they were putting together the day's highlights, particularly this relatively early in the Games.

Seeing Peeta with the Career pack earlier had been a surprise, but I had already resolved to put that aside and focus on staying ahead of the Careers and gathering supplies until I had to confront anyone. Confronting them as I was wouldn't do any good, but after I'd managed to find some water and refresh myself, I felt more comfortable focusing on finding somewhere to rest for the night before I decided on a clearer plan. So far there hadn't been any trumpet calls since the girl from Eight had died after the Careers found her campfire, but I was hopeful that the other Tributes were doing something that would keep the Gamemakers engaged for a little while.

I was about to settle down for the night when I found my attention being drawn to a cliff-face a short walk away from my current location. For a moment I thought about just ignoring it, but the more I looked at the cliff, the more I began to consider the potential benefits it might offer. I'd been lucky to escape attention in the tree the night before, but after all the times I'd seen past Arenas offer such a variety of features, I wasn't going to overlook the possibility of finding a more secure place to rest for the night.

Making sure everything was in my bag and on my back, I headed up the hill towards the cliff-face, and soon found myself looking at a surprisingly deep cave in the shadows of a particular corner of the cliff. It was a surprise to find something this well-hidden in the arena, but I supposed it made sense for the Gamemakers to 'mix it up' a bit and give some of the non-Careers a potential base as well.

Walking cautiously into the cave, I was surprised to find that it was actually relatively deep; I didn't know where this cave was in relation to anything else, but this still seemed like an unexpected geographical detail in an Arena. I kept glancing back as I walked further into the cave, but while it wasn't that deep, it turned out to be surprisingly wide once I had walked through the entrance. Reaching out to carefully touch the wall nearest me, I moved carefully around the cave, feeling the rough rock against my fingertips-

My eyes widened in surprise as my fingers came in contact with a strange substance I didn't immediately recognise. I may not like the mines, but our schools still focused intensely on geological details such as the structure of rock formations, and this definitely didn't feel like anything I'd expected to find here. When I looked at the wall, I noticed a faint redness about it where my hand came in contact with the strange crystal, but it didn't feel particularly hot, and it seemed to be leading me to focus on a particular part in the middle of the wall.

As soon as the idea had occurred to me, I wondered where that particular thought had come from, but the more I thought about it the more it seemed as though there was something in this wall that was leadingme somewhere. I didn't feel as though I was being made to do anything, and I definitely still felt as though I could leave here if I wanted to, but there was definitely something in this cave that felt… I had no idea how to describe it, but-

"What the Hell is that?"

Spinning around in shock, I found myself looking in horror at two of the other Tributes standing at either side of the mouth of the cave. I immediately recognised the large figure of the District Eleven male tribute, whose name I remembered was Thresh, but it took me a moment to recognise the red-haired girl on the other side of the cave entrance as the District Five girl, and even then I couldn't immediately recall her name. Quick as a flash I pulled out the throwing knife Clove had tried to kill me with and held it defensively in front of myself; it wasn't the best weapon, but I had to at least try-

"Easy, easy!" Thresh held up his hands, the girl on the other side following his example.

"Easy?" I repeated, even as I kept the knife between me and them; the girl might be unarmed, but Thresh would have clearly been the bigger threat even without that curved sword at his side.

"We're not going to fight you," the girl said, looking at me with a tentative smile before her gaze shifted to the strange wall behind me. "I just… what is this place?"

"I… I don't know," I said, lowering my knife slightly even as I kept my gaze fixed on them both; they both seemed to share my cautious intrigue at this cave, but I wasn't going to drop my guard completely. "I was just checking out the cave, and…"

"Yeah… me too," the girl nodded, her sharp features putting me in mind of a curious fox as she looked over my shoulder. "Seriously, what is with this place?"

"…No idea," I conceded, turning back to look at the wall; I wasn't going to forget that we were currently adversaries, but if neither of them were going to attack me, this was early enough in the Games that I wasn't going to attack them either. "I thought it might just be a good place to use as a kind of base, but all this… it seems a bit too neat."

"Yeah, not like the Gamemakers to give a non-Career this kind of possible edge…" Thresh said, voice trailing off as he reached out a hand towards the wall. As soon as his fingers came in contact with it, unlike the red light it had produced when I touched it, the whole wall seemed to pulse with what I could only think of as a black light.

"What-?" the girl I was going to call 'Foxface' for the moment said, reaching out to touch the wall herself, only to be met with a strange blue glow in turn.

"That's pretty…" a voice said from behind us. Turning back, I was once again shocked to find Rue, the tiny District Eleven Tribute, standing cautiously at the door.

I inwardly cursed at this turn of events; I had no problem waiting to confront Thresh and 'Foxface' until after they did something to me, but I knew that I really didn't want to have to kill Rue.

"What're you doing here, little girl?" Thresh said, a defensive edge to his tone as he looked at her. He didn't look as though he was going to do anything to her, but at the same time, he seemed to be just as aware as I was that these Games could only end one way.

"I was… following her," Rue said, indicating me.

"Me?" I repeated in surprise.

"It… seemed like a good idea?" Rue shrugged uncertainly. "I would have gone with Thresh, but you went the other way, and…"

"You went for the woods rather than the fields, huh?" Thresh nodded at the youngest Tribute with a brief smile. "Good call; get lost and hide until you've got a plan."

"Thanks," Rue smiled back at him before she walked further into the cave to touch the strange wall herself. The four of us waited for a moment, but the crystal showed no sign of responding to her touch like it had the other two.

"Maybe it-?" I began as I placed my hand against the wall again, wondering if whatever powered this trick had run down, only to be met with a more intense version of the same red glow I'd noticed earlier. As though on cue, Foxface and Thresh moved forward to touch it again themselves, and the wall once again pulsed with the same inexplicable light show it had created earlier.

"OK, that's weird, right?" Thresh looked at me after the strange black light had faded from the wall.

"Definitely," I nodded at him before I glanced at Foxface. "Does this remind you of anything?"

"You're asking me?" The girl looked at me in a pointed manner.

"Well, you're from Five; I just thought you might have some idea about-"

"And you're from Twelve, but I'm not asking you what this wall's made of-"

"I don't know what it's made of, but I wondered if you might have an idea how it's doing that-"

Thresh cut us off when he slammed his sword into the centre of the wall, creating a deep crack in the crystalline structure. As he stepped back, he raised the weapon to prepare for another attack, but the crack seemed to expand rapidly up and down the wall before the crystal wall seemed to basically pop open, revealing five small glowing objects inside it.

Their colour was hard to make out in the dark cave, but it looked like each object was about the size of a hand, with a thick outer layer made of something that looked like gold, around a central crystal of some sort. Each crystal was a distinct colour from the other four, and also seemed to match up with the lighting pattern it had displayed so far; red, blue and black were clearly visible, but I could also see a yellow one and a colour I was going to tentatively identify as pink until I had a better idea.

"Did you-?" I began as I looked over at Thresh.

"No," he shook his head, looking uncertainly between the sword in his hand and the hole in the wall. "I just… it's like how we found this place; I just felt like I should do it."

"And what an interesting little guess that was," a taunting voice said from the cave entrance. "Look at this; four little outliers, all in one fascinating place…"

As we spun around, I cursed my lack of attention as I found Glimmer and Peeta standing at the cave entrance, Peeta standing slightly behind Glimmer with a sword held awkwardly in his hand while she stood in the middle of the cave entrance, an arrow aimed in our direction. My own experience with the bow made it clear that Glimmer wasn't truly comfortable with that weapon, but if she fired at this range she'd have to be completely useless not to hit anything, and even if Thresh, Foxface or I could get to her before she had her next arrow ready, Peeta was still in a position to-

My thoughts on the potential threat posed by the new arrivals were interrupted when the entire cave seemed to shake around us, just as the crystal wall pulsed once again. Glimmer lowered the bow in shock at the sight, but I didn't have the chance to think about taking advantage of it before the wall seemed to explode in a burst of multi-coloured light and something struck me in the back of the head. I grabbed the thing on instinct, and was surprised to find myself holding the red-centred object that had been in the wall before Thresh cracked it. Looking up, I saw that the other four objects had also struck one of the others; Thresh and Foxface were holding the black and blue objects respectively, while Glimmer had dropped her arrow and was looking in confusion at the pink object in her left hand even as she kept hold of the bow in her right, and Peeta was just staring at the yellow one as though he didn't know what to do with it.

"What the-?" he said, looking up at me as though looking for answers, before the crack on the wall suddenly seemed to expand down the wall to spread across the floor. The rest of our sudden group were able to quickly duck to either side of the cave before the crack could catch us, but Rue, whether frozen in fear or just unsure where to go, was caught in the middle of the cave, practically right in the path of the crack. Thresh and I were just moving to pull her to safety when the crack reached her and Rue fell through the ground, screaming in terror before we all heard a faint splash.

"Rue!" Thresh and I yelled, running up to the edge of the crack as soon as the ground around us had stopped shaking. Looking down, I was relieved to see that the little girl was still alive in the small pool of water below, paddling urgently as she looked up at us.

"Are you OK?" Foxface called down, joining Thresh and I crouching on either side of the crack.

"I'm fine!" Rue called up, even as she looked around herself in confusion. "Wh… where am I?"

"Some kind of underground water system, would be my guess," another voice put in. Looking up, I was surprised to see that Glimmer and Peeta had joined us in looking into the crack, Glimmer's bow slung over her shoulder and the Career looking into the newly-exposed lake with what seemed like genuine concern. "There were meant to be a few of these scattered around, although I'm not sure if the Games have ever used something like this before."

"Really?" Foxface looked at Glimmer, her curiosity apparently greater than her initial fear of the Career. "Never?"

"Well, we've obviously watched more than a few of the old Games back in the Academy, and this is… well, it's the kind of thing that would stand out," Glimmer observed. "I mean, that mass flooding in the Seventieth Games was the last time the ability to swim was a really big deal, and you wouldn't believe the rumours about that one-"

Not wanting to hear more about rumours in the Career districts, I secured my backpack and jumped into the crack; it wasn't that far down, the walls didn't seem that sheer, and Rue might need help getting out, whereas most of Twelve had at least been taught the basics of swimming in case of mine flooding or in case it came up in some future Game.

I only reminded myself of the fact that only one of us could get out of this when I hit the water, but even as I surfaced I didn't regret my decision. Maybe Rue would 'have' to die later on in the Games, but as long as I had a choice I wasn't going to leave a twelve-year-old girl to drown just because it was easier that way.

When I realised that I was surrounded by a strange red glow as I carefully positioned myself in the water alongside Rue, I didn't really need to glance at my jacket's inside pocket to realise that the glow had something to do with that strange thing Thresh had found in the walls.

What is going on here?