Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

Not the time

I climb carefully out of the canyon, trying not to make any sound. The sun is up and my estimate is that it's around 7 in the morning, which means my family will be watching. So I'm going to stay strong, for them and for Jonen.
Dry leaves crinkle underneath my feet, a constant reminder that it hasn't rained since the games started. The stream has been slowly drying up, and where it was a gush of water filling the banks, it's now just a small trickle down the middle. When it goes, the only other water source will probably be the stream around the cornucopia.
Maybe I should go back there now. It'll take me the whole day, and I'll be caught in the mid afternoon sun. Is it a risk I want to take?
Yes. If I'm getting away from the remainder of the careers, I'm potentially expanding my life by maybe a few days until they come looking for me.
Someone has an arm pressed against my throat, and applying pressure. Trying to strangle me? I don't go down so easily.
I fall limp, and their grip loosens, so I spin them around until I'm staring dead into their eyes.
The girl from 1. Perfect.
"Iris? But... but you're dead?"
"Do I look dead to you?"
"You fell off a cliff, we heard your cannon..."
"Falling trees make a lot of sound, don't they?"
Her face turns ghostly pale.
"Anyway..." I make a slash at her neck, but she ducks, and we tumble together for a moment, before I have both her arms pinned behind her back and a knife at her throat.
"Please, please, no please let me live I'm begging you..."
Should I let her go? Should I be gracious, and release her? No. Now's not the time.
"Okay," I say, positioning a knife directly behind her heart.
The knife pressed against her neck slides away, and I plunge the other straight through her skin, into her heart from behind.
She turns and looks me dead in the eyes in the last moments of her life.
"Nice knowing you, Crystal," I smile as she drops to the ground, embedding the knife further.
Her cannon booms and I laugh then walk away.
She was weak, surprisingly so for a 16 year old career. My guess is that if she wasn't good at archery, the other careers would have left her out of their alliance all together.
I begin the hike out to the cornucopia, whistling under my breath. There are 4 people left. Rift, Kamalyn, the boy from 6 and I. And, overall, I'm the youngest. Rift is 18, Kamalyn 15, the boy from 6 is either 17 or 18 and I'm 14. Huh. If I win, then I'll be very surprised.
My thoughts start wandering to Robin, but I try my hardest to shut them out. But he was just a child...
The trumpets play, signifying an announcement. What happened? Have I won? Nope. Just Claudius Templesmith telling us that there will be a feast tomorrow at dawn, at the cornucopia. Do I need that? It's where I'm headed, so I guess I could go.
Well, now that he's announced a feast, the careers are probably going to come too.
The sun crawls in a high arc across the sky, its rays beating down across the desert. I don't care how hot, how barren this place is, but with no other people around it feels so lonely. They might be trying to kill me, but murderous company is usually better than no company. Especially when you're lost in a desert.
I alternate between walking and jogging for the rest of the journey, tying to conserve energy for the walk up the cornucopia hill. If it was any normal temperature, easy, but something around 100 degrees Farenheit? No way.
The plateau comes into sight, a rocky, sandy outcrop rising through the dust. Half an hour later, half an hour of tough walking, I'm at the bottom of the hill.
The ascent begins, each tuft of dry grass getting in the way of my route. By the time I'm half way up, my legs are exhausted and I sink into a large clump of grass until I'm hidden from view. Then I drink half a bottle of water, eat a few crackers and some of the chocolate.
When I'm about to get up and keep going, I hear exhausted, thumping footsteps and wheezy breaths from about 4 metres to my right. Oh crap. This is a terrible time to be here, when I could be found any second.
The footfalls stop and the sound of dry grass crinkling tells me that he has sat down. And when I stick my head up out of the grass, I can see that he (the boy from 6) is a little further down the hill than I am, which means that I'm probably safe going up.
The rest of the route isn't that hard, but maybe that's because I'm paranoid that he'll see me.
When I reach the top, I stop for a moment, not really to admire the view, but more to see if the careers are coming. But the haze is a low hanging cloud that is imparting my vision to a maximum.
I begin my descent, but as I do so my foot slips on a patch of chalk and I begin rolling down the hill towards the cornucopia.

Hello people.

-Katherine