Enemies to what? (Clato)

Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters except my own. They belong to Suzanne Collins, along with the locations.

Clove POV

My fingers slip through the liquid before me. I have always loved the feeling of water. It gives me a sense of safeness, and reassurance. As my mind tangles up with my thoughts, my eyes catch on the larger part of the fountain. I swiftly walk over there, and eye my blurry reflection in the water. My eyes scan it, and what they see dissapoint me. Maybe Cato and his friends are right, I am small. I look worthless. My eyes though green give me a look of weakness. They are tired and red. My face is small and skinny, my cheeks sunken from hungry nights. I look away from the reflection and walk along the outside of the barrier. As I stop at a small spout, I look around as I slip my dirty training sneakers off of my feet. I stretch my toes before lightly stepping over the barrier. As my foot makes contact with the cool liquid I let out a small sigh of pleasure. I quickly twist my head to the sides, seeing if there was anyone around to hear me. Hopefully the sound of the water from the spout muffled it. I am only able to see dark streets with glowing streetlights off in the distance.

I pull up the end of my pants so that they are just above the knee. With that I walk slowly, careful not to make a splash, and place myself by the spout. My hands go down to the bag around my waste, and ease it open. Carefully extracting an empty bottle, my eyes are fixed on the spout. This is the moment I've worried about. There is nothing I can do to muffle the sound of the spout being blocked. I know it takes 10 seconds to fill, so I prepare myself for the time. With a deep breath, I put the bottle up to the spout head. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. The spout is beginning to gurgle. 4. 3. 2. 1. I pull back the bottle and quickly place the cap back on it. I sigh in relief. My eyes flit down to the bottle, and see that it has a few scratches from being pushed up against the spout head. This was my father's bottle. Placing the bottle back into my bag, I turn back to the barrier of the fountain. Like before, I slowly make my way back to where my shoes are. I don't bother to dry off my feet, knowing that I will be cold and possibly wet during the night anyway.

I slip my filthy socks on, grimacing at the smell and then repeat the process with my shoes. I look around one more time before slowly backing up into the forest by the fountain. The light pitter patter of footsteps fill my ears and I look back.

"Hey! Whoever is there, stop!" A voice shouts. I freeze, at the sound, and slowly turn back. In the dark I can make out a man. He has muscles, and stands tall. 

The figure walks closer towards me, and I instinctively take a step backward. What I didn't know was that a tree was behind me. As my body collides with it, my head snaps back, and I curse loudly enough for the figure to hear me. I reach for my head, my fingers flying over my scalp, searching for an open wound, or a bump. As they search, they glide over a small bump, which I know isn't that bad.. A surge of pain still runs through me though, and I grit my teeth to contain a yelp. The pain brings my mind back into focus, and I notice the figure has gotten much closer than before. The decreased proximity allows me to make out certain features such as a bit of spiky blonde hair, and a large arm filled with muscles rushing towards me neck. My instincts begin to take over, but my head injury has made me dizzy, and I was a second to late. 

My body collides with the tree once again, and the arm is pushed up against my throat. I try to reach for a knife in my bag, but the pressure on my throat increases. 

"Now, what do you think you're doing?"  I try to answer, but with the arm there, all I am able to get out is a bit of garbled speech. As if sensing I will not be able to answer the question, the arm loses a bit of the pressure. Allowing me to move my head from the side, and my hair out of my face. As I get in a more comfortable position, my face becomes clear, and I hear a gasp.

"Clove?" My eyes shoot straight up to the figure and are met with a pair of icy blue ones looking directly back at them.