Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

"Robin!"

The sun is already in the mid-afternoon point and I'm getting worried about Robin. Where is he? Is he okay? Did he even get away form the cornucopia alive? Yes, he must have, I saw him running off when I ran in to get knives and supplies. But what if he isn't okay? Maybe the careers or another tribute found him and killed him?
I am so lost in my thoughts that I hardly notice the tribute in front of me. I take a step back, ready to throw a knife at them, but am interrupted by her saying,
"Woah, hold it nine!"
The sassy 13 year old from District 7. She isn't armed and it doesn't look like she has any supplies to her name.
"Uh... Sorry. I'm not going to kill you, I promise. Have you got any supplies?"
"Nah. I just legged it out of there as fast I could. Didn't want an axe in my head did I?"
"Look, I want to keep you alive. I have plenty of food and quite a lot of knives, so I'll give you some stuff. Maybe that'll keep you alive long enough to survive that games, huh?"
"I mean you don't have to..."
"Do you want some supplies or not?"
"Go on then."
I give the girl a short knife, an empty pot, a small pack of beef jerky and an orange.
"Thanks nine! See you later!"
"Bye,"
I'm not quite sure what to say. She was such a cool customer that it didn't feel like we properly talked to each other. I mean, sure, I gave her supplies, but only because I met her in training and we hit off, and because I think she deserves a chance at these Games. But I feel like she's going to stab me in the back, literally, at some point.
I keep walking forward, in a direct line from Robin's starting plate. he can't be much further, there's only a certain distance a 12 year old can run or walk in three hours. What if the cannon that went of just after the Bloodbath cannons did was his? I just hope that I don't meet someone else before I meet Robin.
I hear footsteps up ahead, trudging along the desert floor. Instinctively, I pull a knife out and carefully approach to find out who it is.
"Robin!"
My brother spins around and smiles when he sees me.
"Iris!
He runs towards me, evidently happy as happy as I am to see him as he is to see me and that I'm not dead.
"So what did you get? At the cornucopia I mean?" he asks.
"I got two backpacks, and enough knives to last the rest of the games,"
"Great! I picked up this before I ran, but I'm not quite sure what it is,"
Robin passes me a small grey cardboard box, so I open it. Inside are five thin tubes, a bit like straws, with words on them. Two say antibiotic, one says tracker hacker medicine and the last two say burn cream.
"Oh! It's a kind of medicine set!" Robin exclaims.
"Great. I got these backpacks from the back of the cornucopia, so they should have good stuff in,"
We each open a backpack and pull out the stuff and put it on the floor in front of us.
Robin takes out a box of spearheads, a bottle of water, a sheet of plastic, a pack of dried fruit, some more beef jerky and a small loaf of bread. I take out a few metres of rope, matches, water purification tablets, a little plastic box, a blanket, a roll of bandages, a few cereal bars, an empty water bottle, a packet of oranges and a tin of corned ham.
"Well... that's a lot of stuff."
"Yeah. Should we split the things we need between the two backpacks, so if we get split up we will be okay until we find each other again,"
"Good idea."
I give Robin about half the supplies and almost as an afterthought one of the big knives from my knife vest.
"Thanks Iris! And, um, what happened in the Bloodbath? I kind of want to know."
"Okay Robin. Sit down, and I'll tell you. But we have to keep walking after."
Robin and I sit on two rocks on the desert floor. He picks up his water bottle and takes a few sips.
"Well, I leapt off my plate 2 seconds early, and landed down the hill just as the gong went off. I wanted to be the first to the cornucopia, and I was. I ran to the back and put two oranges, a cereal bar and a pack of beef jerky in my pockets for the journey, then put on a vest of knives. By this time the careers were in the mouth, grabbing weapons and killing the other tributes, so I knew I had to get out. I grabbed two backpacks, shoved a few more knives into my vest and started to leave. But before I could, the boy from 11 ran up with a spear, about to plunge it into my heart. But I remembered something I did with Jonen, and I back flipped out if the way before killing him with his own spear. Then I was going to run out of the cornucopia, but I had dropped the backpacks, so I picked them back up and got ready to run out again. By now the Bloodbath had stopped, and the careers were on the cornucopia mouth, choosing more weapons and supplies. So I grabbed an axe and ran out, but before they could get me I swung it into the boy from one's leg and kept running, up the hill and down the other side."
"Wow. I seriously underestimated you, Iris. I could never do any of that."
"We have to keep going now. I want to find a place to set up camp before it gets dark. Come on."

Hello people! This is usually the bit where I write about what I'm doing, stuff I did while writing, but to be honest when I wrote this back in March/ early April I don't think I was doing anything interesting. And at the moment I am lying in bed and debating whether to go and get breakfast or not.
Random fact! Lego is the largest tire manufacturer in the world.

-Katherine