𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔯 ℭ𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔰𝔢𝔡 - Clove and Cato/Clato

XVI

I woke up.

This was something I had never thought I would do again.

I glanced around in confusion at where I was. The birds were chirping; it seemed too peaceful. Maybe I didn't wake up and this was heaven. I stayed lying still, blinking only when I needed to. Then, it hit me what happened. Someone had saved me. I tried to sit up to see if he had gotten the antidote, but I whimpered in pain.

"Clove!" I heard his voice as he rushed over to check on me. He looked healthy and unaffected by the snake venom.

"You did it," I said hoarsely, trying to regain my voice.

He held me close to him. I could feel the tears streaming down his face. "You scared me," he whispered. "I thought I lost you."

I pulled away only to look him in the eyes. "I thought I lost me, too," I whispered back. "But you saved me.

"You saved me first," he replied. "And almost died trying to save me again."

My eyebrows furrowed remembering that a cannon was shot right before I blacked out. "Wait, did you kill Katniss?" I asked, remembering that she was in the cornucopia when I almost died.

He shook his head. "No, she didn't stick around. She had run off as soon as Thresh grabbed you."

"Who died then?" I asked.

"District five. I found her with a handful of night lock as I was carrying you back." He reached around in his pocket and pulled out a handful of berries. "It's just us and district twelve left," he said. He planted a kiss on my forehead. "We can still make it."

-

The night began to fall earlier than usual, and I knew that this could only mean one thing. The finale. I looked over at Cato wondering what they had in store for us. I knew they were speeding up the ending of these games since there were only two districts left that could make it out alive.

"I say we head to the cornucopia," Cato suggested. I nodded in agreement, knowing that our best bet would be to stay there.

We trudged through the woods, staying quiet and vigilant. At any moment anything could jump out at us. I could hear the leaves crunching below my feet and my heart pounding in my chest. "Cato," I whispered, "if I don't make it out of here, I just wanted to say-"

"Don't," he interrupted. "We're going to make it out of here."

Then, I heard a crunch from behind. We turned around swiftly and readied ourselves for battle. Nothing came out for a while, so we let our guard down and continued walking.

Cato looked at me. "Probably just a squir-"

But he couldn't finish his sentence. In a split second, a large canine monster tackled him to the ground. He fought it off and stabbed through its jaw; blood splattered all over him. He tossed the creature away from him, and checked to make sure I was okay. Something was off about the creature's face, but I was not going to stick around and investigate. "Let's go!" Cato called to me. I ran behind him as he took the lead.

I could hear as more and more of those dogs emerged from the woods charging after us, but I did not look back. We drew near the edge of the woods; the opening of the cornucopia made its way into view. We continued running until we reached cornucopia. Cato immediately picked me up and tossed me on top of the structure. I reached down for him to pull up. "Come on," I grunted, struggling a little with his weight. He yelped as a dog grabbed his ankle, but I pulled harder. "I got you!" I called, pulling with all my strength.

He pulled up and flopped over onto his back, catching his breath. I looked down at the pack, but they could not climb up after us. I squinted down below at them wondering why they seemed off. I gasped and stepped back when the realization hit me. These creatures were almost human-like with their features; in fact, they resembled our very own tributes. I felt nauseous looking down and seeing Emerald and Marvel snarling up at me.