Safe and Sound

Chapter 11

This morning was very hectic. I was instructed to wear a simple outfit. I was led to a hovercraft, which I climbed into. Next thing I knew, I was being injected with a tracker, at least I think that's what it was. We all we being led to the arena where we would have a few minutes below to talk to our stylist. 

All that was done below was my jacket was being put on and I hugged Peeta with all my heart. I didn't let go till I had to go to the tube that would lead us up to the arena. He had whispered advice into me ear. I shuffled over to the tube and Peeta followed me up to the point where he had to stop. The sound-proof tube closed and I put my hand up to the tube and Peeta did the same. A tear came down my cheek and he smiled a little. I nodded at him and he did the same. 

The tube started moving and I turned around to face where I thought we would face the Cornucopia. When the tube reached the surface I saw all the other tributes. I looked at my surroundings and saw the Cornucopia. It was surrounded by weapons and supplies. I looked down and saw the ground convered in snow. All around was a pine forest and there was snow everywhere. I looked around and found Liam. He looked at me with a nod. I glanced back over at the clock and it was counting down from 60. 

I thought about the advice that Peeta gave me. 

"Whatever you do, don't pair up with Liam. I know you will want to, but in the end you'll only end up getting hurt. You've seen how good he is with a bow and you don't want to be that person that he shoots that arrow at, now do you?" 

"No." I simply put. 

"Don't step off the pedestal too early either. A land mine will go off and you don't want to die before you start," He explained. I nodded, understanding what he was saying. "Don't go for the Cornucopia, either. It's a death trap. Find water."

That was mostly what he was talking about. I nodded at everything and got everything, now I just had to put it in action. 

I was searching the Cornucopia for a knife and a backpack. I think there could be some useful things in there, so I had to find one. I laid my eyes on a knife and a backpack right next to eachother. Jackpot! I knew that Peeta told me not to run to the Cornucopia, but I needed a knife. 

When I looked up at the clock it was at 10 now. I got myself in a position of bolting and waited for the gong to ring. 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... The gong rung and I jumped off the pedestal, running to the Cornucopia and grapping the knife and backpack. I turned around and found a tribute coming at me with a knife. She pounced onto me and I fell to the ground. I was dodging her stabs and getting one in my arm. I felt a scorching pain running through my arm, but I had to get her off me. I grabbed my knife and slashed her cheek and she jumped off me, holding her cheek. She lunged at me again and I fell down in an awkward position.

When I fell to the ground, an arrow whizzed past me, just missing me and hitting the girl square in the chest. She fell to the ground, dead. I looked to where the arrow had came from and Liam stood there, and let out a big sigh, coming over to me and embracing me in a hug. "Thank goodness you're alright!" He said. I looked at him with a shocked expression. He could've killed me! Peeta was right. I couldn't trust him. He had a bewildered look on his face when I didn't smile, so I ran as fast as I could with Liam screaming my name.

I ran into the forest and ran smack-dab into another tribute. She looked familiar. I looked up at her face and she looked like my friend Rose. I looked at her with a confused expression clear on my face. She had a surprised look on her own. "May? Is that you?" She asked, her look shifting to confusion. I nodded slowly. "Oh my gosh! It's me Rose!" She pointed to herself. I cocked my head to the side and furrowed my eyebrows. I soon recognized her and embraced her in a bone-crushing hug. 

"Oh my gosh! I missed you so much! How did you escape?" I asked. I wanted to ask her so many questions, but she just laughed. 

"I think we should move first. What happened?" She pointed at my wounds and my disjointed foot. She just noticed them. 

"A tribute attacked me," I summed up. She nodded and helped me up. We walked- well she did, I hopped- to a rock to sit down on that was very far away from the Cornucopia. "Now, tell me what happened?" 

"Well..." She started, but was cut off by a cannon going off. There was 16 cannons. That meant there was 14 tributes left over. I wondered who was killed. At least, Rose was with me. I was just hoping that she wouldn't die. "Now where was I?" she joked. We both laughed a bit. "Ah yes. When I was delivering the message to Bradford, I heard that Wolverhampton was bombed, so I stayed in Bradford and a very nice family took me in. Their last name was Malik. There was a son named Zayn, three daughters named Doniya, Waliyaha, and Safaa. Zayn made quite an impression on me. He was quiet and mysterious, but whenever I needed to talk to someone, he always was there for me," She explained. When she said Zayn her eyes lit up and a smile appeared. I nodded, telling her to go on. "Well not much things happened. Just school, and things like that. But then some time later, the same things happened to Bradford what happened to Wolverhampton. We were bombed and we had to join the Capitol's districts. I was scared, but I always staying with the Maliks. I felt like they were my second family. What happened to mine?" She asked. I haven't really thought much about her family.

"They were killed by the bombs. I'm sorry," I explained. Her face fell and she nodded. There wasn't anything she could do about it. 

"It's alright. At least I had the Malik family. What happened in Wolverhampton, while I was gone, huh?" She asked, with her shoulder lightly nudging me. I smiled and shook my head. She always joked at everything. 

I told her about Jack, my family, Liam, Ol' Sally, pretty much everything I could about the district. She nodded at everything, understanding it. We finished explaining what had happened in the last five years of our life and we heard more cannons. 2 more were killed. We both checked through our backpacks, which she managed to grab one also. There was an empty canteen, a rope, a thin black sleeping bag, crackers, some fry beef strips, iodine, matches, wire, and sunglasses. We both had the same things in our packs. Rose had a different weapon thought. She had a small spear. Was she good at that? I guess so. 

We were now looking for water. There had to be some around here somewhere. We walked-hobbled for me- around some more and found a stream of water. It was frozen over. I looked at Rose and she had a thinking face on. I looked back at the water. "Could we get it if we whack it with the knife and spear?" I asked Rose. She nodded and we both got down on our knees and started to hit the ice with the butts of the weapons. The ice soon broke and water was visible. We filled up our canteens with the ice-cold water and started to look for animals to kill. 

I found a white fox, prowling around and I instantly thought food. I stalked over near it and threw my knife at it. It hit the fox and killed it. It made a screeching sound and fell to the ground. I picked it up, tying it to my side. We went off to find more food. We soon gathered some rabbits to eat also. We couldn't kill all the animals at once, or else they would go bad, so we killed one by one. We needed to make a small fire to cook the game, so I moved over to a secret place and made a small fire with the skills I learned at the training sessions. 

The animals were soon cooked and Rose stomped on the fire, seeing as I couldn't. We both ate the rabbits and saved the fox for later. We got up and started to look around for a sleeping place since it was getting dark. We found a large tree and climbed up and sat on one of the larger branches. We pulled out our sleeping bags out of the pack and laid it on us. We watched the sky for a bit and the Panem sign came up and showed the faces of the tributes. I counted off the tributes and none of them were Liam. He was alive. I don't know why, but that made me happy. I can't fall for him. I just can't. The Panem sign came again and the sky was just full of artificial stars. I looked over at Rose and she was asleep. I figured I needed to sleep too, so I did.

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A/N- HEY! Did you guys like it? I know it was long, but I just didn't know how to end it! So thank you guys for reading and keep on waiting! Vote and comment! Love you carrots!

-Cyn <3