This Is All Just A Game [The Hunger Games]

12 - The Escape No One Achieved

Chapter 12: The Escape No One Achieved

“I don’t understand you,” Sienna commented from behind me.

We continued to walk back the way we had come, towards the Cornucopia.

I glanced over my shoulder at her, walking beside Ivan with her pack strapped on tight. She continued, “When I first met you, you kid around with me. Now you’re all tense and would flinch even if a bee buzzes past.”

“That’s what happens in the games’, Sienna. Plus, you haven’t seen the things I have,” I returned my gaze to where we were going.

“What have you seen?” Ivan asked.

I say only one word.

“Death.”

No one else asks me anything else afterwards.

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Sienna’s humming.

I can’t place my finger on exactly what song she is humming, though it is familiar.

“What are you doing?” Tosh asked her, a tad bit annoyed. He’d been doing his best to concentrate on his surroundings, like me, since I had come back. Sienna wasn’t helping.

“She’s humming, brother,” Marinie stated before Sienna could. “Is it your birthday, Sienna?“

“Why would it...” Tosh trailed off, his cross attitude disappearing. “Oh.”

“Happy Birthday to me. I’m a hundred and three,” Sienna quietly sings, stepping up from the humming. “Hurrah, hurrah. We all fall down.”

No wonder I couldn’t place my finger on it. She’s mixing up the words of ‘Happy Birthday’.

“I thought so,” Marinie sighed. “Happy Birthday. I would give you a present. But I don’t have anything. How old are you now?”

“Thankyou, Marinie. Your presence is enough of a present for me. My birthday was actually yesterday, I think, but I didn’t realise till now. I’m officially 16.”

I’m the last to congratulate her. “Happy Birthday. How time flies...”

I can feel Sienna’s gaze on my back. “How old are you?”

“17,” I shrugged. “But that doesn’t matter.” I stopped suddenly, hearing something other then our footsteps in the dirt. I held up a hand for them to stop, and they did in less then a second, freezing.

“What is it? What do you hear?” Ivan hissed.

It had been a scream, barely audible, from a large distance away behind us. My eyes widened. “Marinie... you watched the other Games’, right?”

“Yes...” she said slowly, confused and anxious.

I turned to face them, but didn’t actually look at them. I looked behind them, where the white mist was supposed to be. Instead, it was gone.

Instead, upon the horizon a green mist was taking its place. It looked like a wave.

All colour drained from my face. “We need to run. Now!”