TVDU's Hunger Games

Caroline

Caroline

Caroline armed herself with a dagger and picked up a small satchel. That was all she took before racing away from the Cornucopia. She made it in and out faster than the others. Practical and efficient.

She climbed up the steep slopes in the woods. Her hands received numerous cuts on the rocks she used as grips to pull herself up. Soon, she was heaving in and out from overexertion, but at least no one would be able to follow her easily.

She kept running until the sun began to set in the sky. She picked out a particularly large tree with thick foliage and hauled herself up to top. From there, she waited. If he was alive, he would have followed her. If not... Well, that meant he was dead.

"Tyler!" she exclaimed when she saw her district partner limping towards her tree from afar.

"Caroline, thank god," Tyler said. Though the two had known each other in District 7, they had never been close. The reaping was what had brought them together. They had supported each other through the training sessions and the interviews, and within the short few weeks their names had been called out to everyone in Panem, they had become inseparable friends.

"What happened to your leg?" Caroline said, alarmed at how bad Tyler's limp was.

"I'm fine," he said. "It was District 8."

"Kol or Davina?"

"A little bit of both," Tyler winced.

"Can you make the climb?" Caroline gestured to the three.

With her help, he made it up to the boughs at the top. They went through all the things they had managed to get from the Cornucopia. His pile was larger than hers by far, yet he insisted on splitting everything fairly. The food would last them about a day or two, three if they were careful with their rations.

"Those are cool," Caroline nodded to the set of silver claws Tyler had attained.

"The Mikaelson girl has one of these, too. She used them to rip a girl's throat out."

"Ugh," Caroline grimaced. "Let's stay far away from her, then. Far away from all the Careers."

"In that case, we should rest for only a bit, then continue getting away from the Cornucopia."

By the time night had fallen, they had found a hollow area behind a wall of ivy, far from where the bloodbath had taken place. They shared a can of soup and silently watched the anthem play. Six people had died so far.

Caroline took the first watch. Two more cannons sounded in the distance, each of them half an hour apart. She thought of her mother back home. Was she watching her now, or had she managed to fall asleep? Caroline's heart ached at the thought of her mother all alone in their dreary old house. Liz Forbes had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this month, and the only thing that could help save her were the advanced medicines they had here at the Capitol. The hope of winning enough riches to help save her mother was what had kept Caroline going these past few days as she had been paraded around the Capitol.

She woke Tyler up for his shift, and fell into a deep sleep. When she woke, it was morning. Tyler was sitting beside her, leaning against the stone wall of the cave. "What now?" he asked.

What now, indeed. They could stay here for a few days. They certainly had enough food for it. But keeping to one place for so long would bring about vulnerabilities and higher chances of being spotted and hunted down.

"We should leave," Caroline said. "Get further away from the Cornucopia."

Tyler nodded, and they set off at a stable pace. They had been going for about an hour, making small banter and conversations, when all of a sudden, Tyler slammed her against a tree and clamped his hand over her mouth. Panic seized her, and she wondered if this was it. It didn't make sense that Tyler had turned on her already, but then again, logic had never had a place in these games.