Amelia Odair - A Hunger Games Story

6 - Cowards

I woke up the next day because of the fresh air on my face. "I caught a fish." Liam's voice made me look up. He was already awake and pointed at the fish he was cooking. As my fellow tribute from District 4, fishing and swimming was of course something he knew just as well as I did.

I smiled. "Thank you. That'll allow us to save the rest of the food." We shared it and then hided the leftovers of our berth as well as we could before we left. We were searching a safe space to rest for a while. Of course, it couldn't be away too much from the Cornucopia as we otherwise would be send back brutally by the game makers, directly into the arms of the other tributes.

Luckily, moving in the marsh land was easy for us. We were used to this mixture of reed, mud, and a lot of small lakes from home – it was as if the arena had been adjusted to us. We were searching for food and managed to kill a squirrel together which we kept for later. When it was already late in the afternoon, we suddenly heard a scream, not far away, and the sound of the canon. The face of Jeremy (8) was shown in the sky.

"The careers", Liam said, and I nodded as I had presumed the same thing. Later we would find out that Jeremy had been the only death that day.

-*-

The following day we rested at the clearing which we had found the day before and found out that no tribute had died that day, which meant that, including us, only ten tributes were left.

On the fourth day of the Games we continued walking. We had just reached a swamp when we heard a noise and turned around only to see where it came from. The careers stepped out of the coppice.

Caro was in the front and grinned with a satisfied look on her face. "So there you are." I exchanged a glance with Liam, and we understood each other without words. We would lose a physical fight as they were more than us. The best way to get out of there was to lead them into a trap. "I was just about to say the same thing", I answered, turned away and ran, Liam right behind me.

I heard the careers following us. "Cowards!", Darren shouted, and I couldn't help but smile a bit. He would see.

We had just stopped in front of the swamp, and Liam and I started crossing it slowly. I was right: The careers were following us. But instead of us, they didn't know that a swamp should not be crossed as fast as possible. They were already laughing with triumph but soon were taught the opposite. Liam and I made it outside and when we turned around, the careers were in the middle of the swamp and in large difficulties. Hazel was already in as far as her stomach, but Juan even more – only the upper part of his chest was still showing.

For a short moment I was tempted to give them advice. Then I remembered that I would probably regret that later and ran after Liam into the safe coppice, ignoring the suffering sound behind me.

I winced when I heard the cannon but didn't stop. About a kilometre away we washed our dirty clothes in a lake. "That could have turned out very bad", I said, and Liam agreed. "We were extremely lucky."

Suddenly I heard something beeping and turned around to see a sponsor gift that had landed on top of a tree.

I stepped out of the water to get it. "Who sent it?", asked Liam.

I took the message out. That was close. – F was written on it. "Finnick", I answered. "What's inside?" I opened the capsule to find some bread. "Food." I gave us both some of it when the music showing the fallen tributes came up. Only Juan's face was shown which meant that Caro, Hazel, and Darren had all survived.

"Now there are only seven tributes left besides us", I said. I couldn't believe myself that I was still alive. I had entered the games thinking that I would die as one of the first ones as I believed that my relationship to Finnick would make me a target. But now the number of tributes left had shrunken and I was determined to keep my promise and try to win.