Heart of Gold • Finnick Odair

-16-

ROSALIE POV

I wake up to the sound of rain against the leaves, I reach my hand out to feel the relief of cold rain but retract it as soon as the 'water' drops onto my hand and causes a searing pain.

I groan before waking up Ralph who is on a branch just below me, "morning Sunshine, don't touch the rain," I warn him, "I think it's acid." That would explain why the cloudy sky had a green mist to it.

I pull my hood up over my head and roll my sleeves back down. Reaching into the bag, I apply some of the gel and pull out the bandages and wrap some of it around the palm of my hand which had blistered and was painful to touch.

"We need to find safe water, and some proper weapons." Ralph speaks up, and I agree.

We untie ourselves from the tree and climb down, pulling our coat sleeves up over our hands.

The acid rain eventually stops and we are able to free our hands from our sleeves, we keep our hoods up in case of the dripping leaves. As we are walking, I notice a man-made shelter. I stretch my arm out on front of Ralph to stop him moving on.

There is one person asleep in the den and as they sleep, the girl with dark red hair from District 8 creeps up on the sleeping person and reaches into their bag, she pulls out a bag of dry meat and takes some, not enough to be too noticeable but enough to make a nice snack along with the two crackers she stole. She makes a quick exit before they can wake up and heads back to the bushes.

"I have an idea," Ralph drags me down into the forest until we come across a bush of berries, poisonous berries. I catch on to his plan and begin to collect them too. As he grabs some more, I set down a leaf on a fallen tree and we start to set the berries on top. We stayed close enough to the redhead so she'd be in the area.

Once we've made a decent pile, we begin to search for more 'food' out of view from the pile. After a few minutes, we return to find a couple of berries missing, followed a few moments later by a canon. A hovercraft comes to lift a body not too far from us and I manage to see a glimpse of red hair before the sun blinds my vision.

Now there's only ten more tributes remaining, including me and Ralph, four of which are careers.

We continue on our mission for water. Luckily, the juicy groosling had provided us with some moisture but I could now feel my mouth watering as I throw my knife at another one. I put the bird in my bag and we continue on.

After a while, we come across a large pond of water. There are two problems, however, 1) the water has the same suspicious green hint that the clouds full of acid rain did and 2) the four Careers walked up to the pond just seconds after we arrived.

Luckily, we weren't as eager and had stayed hidden in the bushes to assess the situation. Unlike us, the young ginger boy from District 4 ran straight to the water, crouched down, and cupped a handful of it in his hands and started drinking the liquid. The other three Careers watch the boy to see if it's safe and, just as they are about to get a drink, the boy starts to choke as the acid water swells his throat up from the inside. He's gasping for air, clawing at the ground, looking at his allies as foam starts to leak from his lips.

As the others are distracted by the boy, Ralph and I use the opportunity to run the other way before we are caught. As we are running, another cannon goes off, only three more Careers left now.

Once we are a safe distance away, we stop to catch our breaths. Seeing as it's late afternoon, we start another quick fire to cook our raw groosling. We will save one for tomorrow and eat one in a tree once we've put out the fire.

Soon, the bird is cooked and Ralph is putting out the flame. We pack the meal and find a tree to climb.

Once we've found a suitable tree, we climb up and secure ourselves in for the night. As the sky darkens and we eat our share of groosling and berries, the faces of the dead tributes appear in the sky.

The girl from District 5 had died as well as the ginger boy from 4 and the dark redhead from 8 we knew about.

Now there's only 8 tributes remaining. Ralph and I, three careers, the girl from six, the boy from seven and the boy from twelve.