Grain & Blood | A Hunger Games collection

Tomorrow

Annoyed by the flood of memories, I stand up and start walking randomly. This is my life at the moment, walking and sleeping and trying to have zero human interaction where possible. And it's working, boring me so much that I want to make my move now, in the middle of day. I could at least wait for the night... Nah. I'll do it tomorrow, on day 8.
It's been a week since the games started. I don't want to believe it, but it's true. Robin died 4 days ago, Titus died yesterday, Nikki died again today... Why though? Why do 23 children have to die in the Hunger Games every year? Enough either starve or catch an illness that they can't afford to recover from. But it's because the Capitol doesn't want us to have freedom, because freedom leads to a revolution which leads to power. And they're doing a great job of it. Before the Games, I had never properly left District 9. A few times Jonen and I would duck under the electric fence at the end of the wheat fields, but since the fence was on the majority of the time we usually were stuck inside.
I stop wandering aimlessly and find a good tree to climb. This one is a sycamore, I think, with the wide green leaves and the sticky sap. It reminds me all too much of the tree in Jonen's garden, the one we were sitting in the day we decided on training together. And now I'll never go home.
Annoyed at myself for being focused on the past, I take one of my knives and re-open the cut on my cheek from where Kamalyn attacked me the on day 4. Day 4? I think so. The pain helps me concentrate, gives me a little bit of hope to cling to. A hope that one day I won't be able to feel pain anymore, dead or living in Victor's Village.
I keep climbing and curl up in a fork in the branches. Just in time, too. Because not 2 minutes after I'm up, Kamalyn runs past, a few birds and rabbits in her hands. Hunting. This could be the perfect time to kill her, while she's caught off guard and not aware of my presence.
Silently, I scramble down from the tree and land a few metres behind her. Kamalyn's stopped running and is aiming at another rabbit. She'll be concentrated purely on that and won't notice me. I stop, pull out a knife, and throw it straight at her head.
In the few seconds it takes for the knife to land, she spins around and stares dead into my eyes. Then the knife hits, in her forehead, causing blood to trickle out of a 2- inch long gash. She won't necessarily die, but there's a chance she could bleed to death.
A few seconds and the shock of what's happened has fully registered on Kamalyn's face. A few seconds and she's fallen to the floor. A few seconds and she's screaming for Rift. I could kill her now. Then this would be over. But Rift is coming, I can hear him, and there's no time. No time for killing if I want to survive.
I turn and start running away. I'm not sure which way is away, but I know that I'm leaving the scene of brutality. And I know that if Kamalyn dies, there will be no brief respite from the fight, Rift will hunt me down as soon as he possibly can. And then one of us will die. One of us will go home.
The next half hour I spend curled up in a tree, listening eagerly for a cannon.
Nothing sounds, not even slightly.
She's alive.
I should have gone back and finished her off when I could.

Sorry for no upload yesterday. It's been a hectic vacation, and I've had my laptop and phone confiscated. Don't ask why. So this chapter I spent 3 hours writing overnight and another 2 hidden away in my wardrobe on my tablet, so my parents don't realise that I've been on devices. And now I've finally had the ability to publish it.

-Katherine