Finnick and Annie

A Gift from the Capitol

 I spent the rest of the day in my cave. I ate my three bags of dried fruit since I didn't want to go out and find food. I drank all my water and slept until the next morning. I woke up the next day with the memories fresh in my head. I couldn't stop picking at the blood in my nails, even when most of it was gone. The cut on my left arm had been bleeding in my sleep since I had completely forgotten about it. I tore off my bloodstained left sleeve, washed it and then used it to bandage my wound.

I decided to go outside and check my traps for food, but then changed my mind when I saw a silver parachute floating in my direction. It fell in front of my feet a few seconds after, and I bent over to open it up. Wrapped in silver cloth, was a small picnic basket. It contained a large plate full of food, with silverware included, and a bottle of water. I sat down on the log, and practically inhaled my meal. I usually ate a lot, and I hadn't had a proper meal in two days. I ate the whole thing in just a few minutes, and drank the entire bottle of water, then I looked around at the trees, where I was sure a camera was hidden, and I whispered a "Thank you."

Since I had nothing better to do, I decided to go to the stream and fill up my water bottles, and clean myself up a little bit. I hid my stuff in my cave and took only my spear with me.

I walked for a couple minutes and finally reached the side of the stream. I took off my shirt, which was now more red than white, then sat down near the water and started scrubbing. I scrubbed for a very long time, but the blood wouldn't come off completely. I cut off the right sleeve as well because there really was no point in having only one, and sat under the blinding sun as I set my shirt on a boulder to dry. I took off the thick, black pants Celia had made me wear over the tighter, lighter pants. It was very convenient for the different temperatures in the arena, and since it was warm, I decided to only wear the other ones at night.

I took off my shoes and walked into the creek with my spear. I stood still and saw the fish swimming around my legs. I could kill a fish in a second with my trident, but this weapon felt weird in my hand, it was too light. The head wasn't heavy, so I had to hold it differently. I tried to spear a fish several times, but I failed, and just got frustrated and walked back to the side of the river. Then, I heard a cannon. I looked up at the sky and watched hovercraft retrieving the dead body.

"Crap," I whispered. The hovercraft was very close to where I was. I knew they were hunting me down, but I wasn't ready to fight them! Not when they were still four and all I had was a spear! I put on my shoes and grabbed my clothes and ran back to my cave. If they were this close then I wasn't going to stay around and wait for them to find me. I stuffed my sleeping bag, rope, net, and the rest of my clothes in my bag. I zipped up my jacket and slung the bag over my shoulders. I hid the parachute and tried to clear any sign that I had been there.

Then I started running. I could hear shouting in the distance. Had they spotted me? I was trying to be fast, not quiet. So I just ran, down the mountain, which was extremely difficult. I was so concentrated on not tripping on the roots of the trees, that I got my arms and face scratched by branches that I didn't see, but I never stopped. I kept running until I was at the edge of the woods. The lake and the cornucopia were in plain sight. I considered running to the other side, there were more trees over there, but the careers couldn't be too far behind me, and I would have to run through the open to get there, and then they would definitely spot me. I rested for a minute, sure that I'd lost them, but soon after I heard some movement in the distance.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" I whispered. I looked around frantically, trying to make a decision. I could either run to the lake, the woods or the grassland.

"There he is!" screamed Jem, "get him!"

"Fuck." It was as if my body was moving on its own. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the lake. I turned around and the four careers were running towards me. I ran straight into the water and started swimming. I swam deeper into the lake and stopped when I was far away enough that no spears or arrows could possibly reach me. It had been hard, swimming with my backpack on, so I took it off and then realized that it could float. I held on to it and watched the careers to see what they would do. I was pretty certain that none of them could swim, except for Serena, but even she was not nearly as fast or as resistant as I was. My father was a fisherman; her parents had pretty meager jobs that didn't have to do with the ocean whatsoever, and she didn't even live close enough to the beach to go there for fun.

"You're going to have to come out of there eventually!" screamed Emerald.

"Why don't you come and get me?" I yelled back at them. They hesitated, but then Jam pushed Serena into the water. She started walking towards me and when the water was too deep she started swimming. She moved pretty slowly, and I knew I could easily outswim her. She had a knife between her teeth so I held my spear tightly as she came closer. She looked behind her, and then started to swim faster. I could see she was struggling to move so quickly, but she continued forward.

"Finnick," she said between breaths, "swim!"

I watched her confused. She yelped in pain, but continued forward. She screamed and kept swimming, and then I saw them. Around her, rose a mass of fish with sharp teeth, all trying to get a bite out of her. She was very close to me now, the fish still after her. I turned around and started swimming as fast I could. I kept moving forward; we were both near the other side of the lake now, and Serena was closely behind me. I felt a sharp, stabbing sensation on my leg and kicked harder, trying to get the thing off me. I kept on swimming, but the fish were relentless. They were all around me now, biting my backpack and my body, and everything else within their reach.

Despite the sharp pain, I kept swimming until I reached the shore. Serena was near, too, but she was losing a lot of blood. I helped her out of the water and dragged her into the woods, though I knew we were supposed to be "enemies."

"Finnick, you have to go," she said, as I helped her sit against a tree.

"Why did you help me?" I asked.

"I didn't help you," she said.

"You warned me about the fish."

"You were going to start swimming away when I got close anyway."

"No, I wasn't. I had a spear," I said, and sighed when I realized I had lost it. My bag was in very bad conditions, and my clothes had been torn to bits. All I had left were my spandex pants, which did not help me keep warm at all, and even those were very ripped.

"They're terrible, Finnick," she whispered. "Jem is sadistic. He killed that poor girl... it was so disgusting," she shuddered at the thought.

"Nice to know," I said. She was part of their pack! Why was she telling me all this?

"Finnick, I was going to volunteer this year anyway. My sister... she's five years old. She's sick, but my family's so poor. Please," she begged, "please help her. " She was sobbing; from the pain or for her sister, I couldn't tell.

"I will," I promised. Serena wasn't so bad after all. Her eyes moved from my face to something behind me, and she raised her arm, feebly to point at it. For a scary moment I thought it was the careers coming to get me, but when I turned around all I saw was a silver parachute. Attached to it was... I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a trident!

I stood up to catch it and admired the weapon in my hands. It was very similar to the one my father had, only better. I looked back at Serena and she smiled feebly, her head began to loll to a side.

"You can do it now," she said, and then her body went limp and the cannon went off. I wiped a tear from my cheek, and grabbed my things. I walked deeper into the woods and found a place to hide from the careers.

I needed time to clean my wounds and go over my supplies. I limped away from were Serena lay, without looking back. I couldn't stand to see her like that, her skin full of gashes and blood. Her face remained untouched though.

I found a good place to sit and rest, but kept looking back every couple seconds, worried that Jem would find catch me off-guard. I cut off my pants below the knees and tossed the fabric away. My legs and arms were full of gashes and bites, and I was bleeding a lot. I poured some water over my legs to clean them and then wrapped shreds of my damaged clothes around the worst cuts. My arms and chest were full of cuts but none as deep.

I dumped the content of my bag on the ground. The backpack was very tattered, but I managed to hold it together with pieces of fabric. The matches were gone, and one of the lenses of the night goggles had a crack. The net was fine, but the rope was gone. I must have dropped it somewhere. I had lost a spear, and I had dropped my dagger as well.

All I had left was the sleeping bag, cracked night-vision goggles, a net, an empty plastic water bottle, and a trident, which made up for all the other objects I had lost. With this I could actually win. I stood a chance now. I would find the other tributes and hunt them down. I would use the net to set up a trap, and I could get lucky and catch a tribute like that. I wanted to get it over with, even if I had to kill all the remaining tributes myself. I was going to get back home.