Victors : A Catching Fire story

04

    I was finally in the arena, the cornucopia was in the middle of a giant lake/ocean thing, and there was jungle all around it. To get to the cornucopia I'd either have to swim there or swim over to those rocks and run. I'll just swim, I'm a fast swimmer so I should get there before most of the others. I look around and great I'm next to Gloss. The cannon goes off and I dive into the ocean and quickly swim to the cornucopia, and I was right, I was one of the first people there. I see the same vest from my last games that held my knives. I grab it and it already had tons of knives neatly stored in its pockets. I grab one and look around in front of me is Katniss and Finnick, he walks over to grab his trident out of someone, and someone is coming for Katniss, I grab my knife and throw it at them, Katniss turns over to me with her bow drawn and I flash a smile, she puts her bow down and points it at someone else. I spot Peeta in the water fighting with someone. "Finnick!" I shout and Finnick runs over followed by Katniss. I'm already in the water swimming over to where Peeta is but they both are underwater, and a cannon goes off. Peeta rises out of the water, and I help him over to the rocks. We all run into the jungle and keep running until we all stop for a breather.  
"God it's hot." Peeta says.
"We need water." I say. The canon fires three times and Finnick chuckles. 
"You think that's funny?" Katniss asks. 
"Every time that canon goes off, it's music to my ears." Finnick responds. "I don't care about any of them." Katniss pulls out a machete.
"Let's keep moving." Peeta says while standing up. Katniss follows, and I help Finnick up. We all are walking with Peeta in front. Katniss moved to the back, but this arena is beautiful but very hot. 
"PEETA NO!" Katniss yelled as Peeta hit a forced field and flew backwards, knocking me and Finnick over. "Peeta!" Katniss yelled. Finnick pushed her over and started CPR. After a few pumps and a few breaths, I could tell Finnick was getting tired, being dehydrated and doing CPR is not a good mix. 
"Finnick." I tapped on his shoulder to let me take over. I did a few chest compressions before doing two breaths and then back to chest compressions. "Come on Peeta." I whispered and he woke up. I backed up and Katniss hugged him. 
"Peeta, oh my god." Katniss whispered. "You were dead, your heart stopped." 
"It's okay, it's working now." He said. I watched with a smile on my face, I could tell it wasn't truly an act anymore. Katniss helped him stand up and she hugged him again. We kept on walking again and after a while Katniss stopped us and climbed up a huge tree. I sat down to wait for her, and I sighed. Finnick walked up to me and sat with me. 
"You okay?" He asked and I nodded. 
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thirsty." I say. I look over at Peeta and he's looking at the ground. "Peeta, are you okay?" 
"Yeah, I'm okay." He replied and Katniss climbed back down from the tree. 
"We're at the edge of the arena, I couldn't find any signs of fresh water." She says. 
"We should sleep, I'll take first watch." Finnick says.
"Not a chance." Katniss says.
"Honey, that thing I did back there for Peeta was called 'saving his life'. If I wanted to kill any of you, I would've already done it." Finnick got up and went over to a comfier spot. 
"I'll take first watch." Katniss said. I fell asleep pretty quickly, I was in a comfortable position, and I didn't have to take a watch. The Panem Anthem started playing which woke me up, I didn't really care about all of the people it showed, none of them held any importance to me so I was thankful for that. There was a chiming noise, a parachute. Katniss opened it. "Drink up, it's a spial." She took a rock and banged it into a tree, a few second later water started pouring out of it. We all drank some and I've never tasted such good water. 

    After a while of celebrating water, I fell asleep. There were loud bongs that woke me up this time. 1, 2, 3 ,4 ,5 ,6 ,7 ,8 ,9, 10, 11, 12. "I counted twelve." I say. 
"Midnight?" Finnick said. 
"Or the number of districts." Katniss said. There was lighting in the distance which made me jump but it only hit one tree. 
"That's weird." I said. 
"Marina, try to get back to sleep." Finnick said and I listened. I closed my eyes and fell back asleep. But of course, you can never stay asleep in this arena. Katniss woke us all up by screaming. 
"Run! The fog is poison." She yelled. I immediately got up and started running behind Katniss. I hit all of the plants out of my way, and I tried to run as fast as I could. The fog started closing in on me and it hurt so bad, I screamed so loud and fell to my knees, but behind me, Peeta helped my back up and we kept running. Katniss fell and Peeta helped her up, but the fog got them both pretty bad, while we were running Peeta fell, and he couldn't keep going. "Marina please help, I can't carry him." Katniss begged. I ran over to them, and we supported Peeta and kept going. There was a hill that we didn't see, and we fell down it and landed near water. I groaned from the pain of the spot where the fog had gotten me. I could already tell these games were going to be hard. The fog was getting closer to us, and I prepared myself for death, and a painful one. As it got closer it hit a force field and stopped, I'm not dying this time, thankfully. I just laid there in pain until Katniss started moving. "The water helps." I army crawled over to the stream and sunk into it. It gave instant relief even though it hurt, it felt better as the poison came out of my skin. Peeta and Katniss were wiping off their spots, but I got out to get Finnick.
"Come on Finnick." I dragged him to the stream, and he groaned when I put him in the water. "It's okay." I said as I scrubbed his spots off. Peeta got up to get water and once Finnick could move he started cleaning his trident. Me and Katniss were just sitting in the water scrubbing our skin. 
"Thank you, for helping me with Peeta." She said. 
"It's fine, we are allies right?" I said and she smiled at me. 
"You've already helped him twice, thank you I don't know what I'd do without him." 
"Anytime Katniss." I smiled but I saw monkeys getting pretty close to us. "Mutts." I stood up and grabbed a knife and both Finnick and Katniss stood up as well. 
"Peeta walk over here slowly." Katniss said. A few monkeys started screaming at us. Katniss shot one and they all went crazy, I threw my knife into one and turned around to throw one into another. I threw another knife towards one that was going after Peeta. These monkeys are crazy.
"Get to the beach!" Katniss yelled. I killed a few other moneys before following Katniss and Peeta who were dragging a person to the beach. 
"Finnick!" I yelled and he started running behind me. As we ran to beach, I almost tripped a few times but luckily, I didn't, I killed another mutt that was going after Katniss and we all made it to the beach, I stood behind Finnick watching as he scared off the rest of the mutts. I was trying to catch my breath, Peeta and Katniss were in the water with the morphing they dragged. I sat down facing the water and watched as Peeta relaxed her. Finnick sat next to me and grabbed my hand, I didn't even realize it was bleeding until now. Finnick cupped up some water from a wave and tipped in onto my wound, I winced at the pain from the salt water. 
"Hopefully this helps, try it keep it clean." Finnick said. 
"How am I supposed to stop the bleeding?" I asked. 
"I don't know, maybe it'll stop." I look over to Peeta and Katniss who are sitting on a sand away from me and Finnick. How am I supposed to kill her? Finnick went into the water to catch some fish. 

    A few hours later we all are eating on the beach, enjoying ourselves. "For you." Peeta hands Katniss a pearl and I smile but, in the distance, there's a scream and all the trees are moving.  
"That's odd." I say. There's a huge wave and we all stand up before it floods the beach. A canon fires and a hovercraft fly over the forest. There's some yelling on the beach beside us. 
"Someone's here." Katniss says. I look over to the people, there's three of them.
"Johanna." Finnick says before running over to her. Another person walks out of the woods also covered in blood. 
"Byron!" I shout while running over to him, he smiles at me. "Are you okay? Why are you guys covered in blood?" I ask while Katniss and Peeta walk over to us.
"We were deep in the jungle where I thought it was safe." Johanna said. 
"That's when it started raining." Byron added. 
"We thought it was water, but it was hot, thick blood." Johanna said.
"Tick tock." Wiress kept repeating.
"What's wrong with her?" Katniss asks.
"She's in shock, it doesn't help that we're dehydrated. Do you have fresh water?" Beetee asks. 
"We'll get some." I say. 
"Tick tock." Wiress goes up to Johanna and gets pushed.
"Stop." Johanna yells. while pushing her.
"Hey, lay off her." Katniss pushes Johanna off of Johanna. 
"Calm down." I say.
"What are you doing? I got them out for you." Johanna yells at Katniss. 
"What does that mean?" Katniss says while Johanna walks off. What does that mean? I wonder. Everyone goes into the water to get cleaned up, but I sit down on the sand. After a few minutes Byron comes and joins me. 
"I'm glad you're still alive." He says. 
"Me too." I smile. 
"Has anything weird happened to you?" 
"Yeah, there was poison fog and we got attacked by monkey mutts." I reply.
"That sucks. I'm really not looking forward to the point where we have to kill our allies." Byron stares out at the tree getting hit by lightning. 
"It's a clock!" Katniss yells out. She gets out of the water and starts heading to the cornucopia and me and Byron get up to follow. "The arena is laid out like a clock." She says, "With a new threat every hour. It starts with the lightning, then the blood rain, fog, monkeys, and then at 10:00 the big wave hit from over there." Katniss pointed right in front of us.
"That's genius." I say.
"Where does the lightning hit?" Beetee asks.
"Over there." Katniss points to the tall tree.
"As long as we stay clear of whatever section is active, we'll be safe." Peeta says. There was a loud gasp, and we turn to see Gloss stabbing Wiress. Katniss shots him and the other tributes start running at us. Johanna throws her axe at Cashmere, and I throw a knife at Brutus, but he dodges it. The ground starts moving fast and I get thrown but grab onto the rocks. The cornucopia spins even faster and Katniss gets thrown but I grab her.
"Hold on." I shout, her hand slips and she falls into the water. "Katniss!" I yell. The cornucopia stops spinning and I run over to where she's climbing out of the water. I help her up and she's coughing so I pat her back. "You're okay." I say while moving out of the way for Peeta.
"Let's go back to the beach." Johanna says. We all walk back onto the beach and sit together. 
"So, Brutus, Enobaria, and maybe Chaff are still alive." Finnick says.
"We're safe on the beach, they're outnumbered they won't attack." Byron says. 
"Katniss, help me!" A girl's voice yelled out.
"Prim!" Katniss screamed while running into the forest. Finnick ran after her and after a few second the rest of us followed. As we were running, we hit a force field and Katniss and Finnick were screaming while running towards us. Katniss hit the force field and dropped to her knees, Peeta did the same and tried to reassure her.
"It's okay, they're not real, they're mutts. It's not Prim." He put his forehead against the force field as Katniss screamed.