The Great War.

XIII

"The Girl From District 12."

I feel my muscles tearing with every step I take, yet I try not to stop, even though I feel like I'm being burned alive. After running for a few meters, I start coughing again, and I feel sharp pain piercing my head. Marvel and Tara frequently pause to recover their breath, so it would appear that I'm not the only one who is struggling.

"Come on! Move!" Glimmer screams with a raspy voice. "We're almost there."

"Marvel! Tara!"

I've decided not to yell anymore. My throat hurts, and I feel the taste of the blood in my mouth. We've lost time, and when we catch up to the girl from District Twelve, she has already climbed up a tree.

"How's everything with you?" She screams cheerfully, about twenty feet above the ground.

We exchange confused glances. I wouldn't be too happy to be in her position. The boy from District 12 avoids looking at her. I wonder what the sponsors from the Capitol are saying. There's no chance he'll receive any help from the people who sympathize with the girl.

"Well enough," Cato says, mimicking her tone. "Yourself?"

"It's been a bit warm for my taste," She replies, "The air's better up here. Why don't you come on up?"

"Think I will," he announces.

After giving the situation some thought, I'm absolutely sure that he won't reach her. The branches become more fragile as the height increases. She can climb to the top of the tree because she probably weighs at most eighty pounds, but the branches will snap under Cato's feet. I don't say a words because if he falls from that tree, he could break his neck. I just smile because whoever dies, it'll be one less problem for me.

"Here, take this, Cato," Glimmer says, offering him the silver bow and quiver with arrows.

No one has noticed the obvious, and I won't mention it either: I'm the smallest in the alliance. My build is similar to the girl from District 12, although I'm sure I weigh a bit more. I can easily climb the tree, but I won't do it because I'm not going to risk myself in such a foolish way. I want her dead, but I won't put my own safety on the line.

"No," says Cato, pushing away the bow. "I'll do better with my sword."

The District 12 girl keeps ascending, and I estimate that she is now about forty feet off the ground. I clench my fists, hoping she'll take a wrong step and fall, but it's Cato who ends up falling from the tree. He hits the ground hard and then quickly gets up, swearing and yelling nonsense. I think I've seen this scene before. Glimmer starts climbing the tree, but when she's about ten feet up, the branches begin to crack under her feet. She stops and quickly comes back. It turns out she's not that stupid after all.

Glimmer takes her bow and starts shooting, and I can feel our reputation deteriorating in front of the sponsors. I take back everything I said because that girl is, indeed, absolutely useless. We're making fools of ourselves, and the situation worsens when one of the arrows embeds into the tree trunk near the girl from District 12. She takes it and laughs at us while waving it in the air.

"How do we bring her down?" Tara asks. "She's too high up."

"Clove, throw a knife at her or something," suggests Cato.

"Oh! Why didn't I think of that before?" I ask sarcastically. "Maybe you could chop down the tree while we're at it, you absolute idiot."

"What if we set the tree on fire?" Marvel suggests. "I can't think of anything else."

"Fire?" Glimmer asks, almost yelling, "Do you even hear what you're saying? We almost got killed by a fire."

Twilight arrives, and our chance to catch her disappears. We continue tossing around ideas, but they only seem to get worse.