kill for your love - the hunger games

(028) five tributes vs. the arena

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KILL FOR YOUR LOVE.

act two.

(chapter twenty-eight, five tributes vs. the arena)

the arena, 75 ADD.

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"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games begin!"

The sound of Claudius Templesmith's voice echoed around loudly, nearly shattering Juniper's bones as she tried to get her bearings. Something was blinding her eyes, but there was definitely a breeze that danced around her. It wasn't too intense, but it wasn't nice either. 

She had a minute. Juniper had a minute. And she had to find Finnick and Everdeen. But where was Finnick and Everdeen? Where was she even? She couldn't make sense of her surroundings, only seeing white, and could feel the anxiety rising with every thud of the clock. She could also feel something cold lap over her feet. Where was she? As she demanded the question, nearly hissing it, the world slowly came into focus. 

Her metal plate was surrounded by blue waves that danced around her boots, water spreading out in every direction. Blue water. There was a pink sky as Juniper looked up and she realised there was a white-hot sun beating down upon them. So, desperate to find out more before her time ran out, Juniper raised an arm over her eyes to block them from the blinding light and it helped her massively as she spotted the Cornucopia sitting on a circular island in the middle. But radiating from the circle were thin strips of land like spokes on a wheel. There were at least ten-to-twelve of them. And between the spokes was water. Water and a pair of tributes.

Yes. 

There were twelve spokes, each with two tributes balanced on metal plates between them. Juniper looked around to see who she was partnered with and clenched her jaw at the sight of Gloss, who stared at her like she was a creature in need of putting down. But Juniper tried hard to not look at him as she realised something. 

She couldn't swim. 

She didn't have a reason to. There was no possible way she could have had lessons in Ten because there simply was no water deep or big enough for her to swim in. And whenever there were Capitol parties, she would steer clear from pools with the fear of drowning herself lurking over her. But now, she was surrounded by blue waves, all that seemed too rough for Juniper. 

But as she stared at the waves, and then the Cornucopia, she could feel herself becoming faint as everything disappeared from her mind except for one thing. 

Her arena. 

(The silver, shining Cornucopia. The perfect circle of all the other twenty-three tributes. The swampy, thick moat that surrounded their pedestals, reaching all the way to the little island the horn was on)

The blue waves were replaced by the sludgy swamp that once surrounded her three years ago. The golden Cornucopia was replaced with the silver one. The sandy island the horn was on changed to a muddy one. And suddenly, Juniper was transported back in time, back to the Seventy-Second Hunger Games. 

(Their eyes looked soullessly into the sky as their murderers thrashed around with weapons, hunting the rest as they scavenged for supplies. But as Juniper reached up, her hand clinging onto the slimy, thick mud, it distracted her)