Glimmer's Story

Chapter 17

 "Where's Lavena!?" I repeated. When nobody replied, I started frantically searching for her and shouting her name. When I came across Aaron, I slapped him on the face and pushed him on the ground.

   "What the heck was that for!?" he yelled.

   "Where is Lavena!?" I shouted.

   "Don't know, don't care," he said.

   "Glimmer!" someone shrieked. I turned around to see who said it, but all I saw were trees.

   "Lavena?" I called. I heard rustling in the trees and bushes, but I couldn't see anyone. I took a couple steps back and hit something behind me. An extremely loud growl echoed through my ears and by my guess, it was a Capitol mutt that I ran into. Oh joy.

   "Glimmer," Aaron whispered. "Run." My legs took off as fast as they could into the woods. Why would the Capitol put these mutts in so soon!? Wasn't the audience satisfied by me almost drowning? The creature was catching up to me, and I was tripping over twigs and branches in the woods. It wouldn't be much longer until it caught up to me. I jumped up onto the nearest tree and started to climb, even though I hated the feeling of bark scraping across my hands. I wasn't terrible at climbing trees, I just wasn't used to it. District 1 wasn't exactly the home of all trees.

   As I was pulling myself up to the nearest branch, I felt claws sink into my back. I screamed, but forced myself to stop because it would just draw more mutts and tributes near. I clenched my mouth shut, forcing myself not to scream. Tears blurred my vision, but I didn't stop climbing. The pain was excruciating, but knowing that death lied below me, I had to keep moving. When I was about 20 feet in the air, I took the risk of looking down.

  The monsters were all black and about four feet tall. They stood on four legs, with paws that had    four inch claws. Their teeth were extremely sharp, and they all had red eyes. It looked so... unreal. Apparently they couldn't climb though, so I was safe. I searched for any of my allies, but I couldn't see a thing in the dark. I heard multiple things, though. Screams, growls, cries of agony. It was like torture knowing that your friends were getting hurt, but you didn't know which ones or how. The anthem played, but the only one that was up in the sky was the girl from District 8 that Peeta finished off last night.

   The back of my green shirt was now red, the only weapons I had on me were a couple knives, and my tree was surrounded by Capitol killing mutts. I was screwed. I could probably take out a few of them with my knives, but I could barely see a thing! Then, a crazy thought crossed my mind. If I could jump from tree to tree, I could get back to the camp, or fall and get eaten by mutts. It was an insane idea, but I wasn't just going to sit in a tree and bleed to death!

   The branches got closer together, the higher up you were, so I climbed as high as I dared and looked at the distance I had to jump. Was it really worth it? I guess it was worth a try. I gathered any of the remaining courage I had and leaped to the other tree.

   I made it! For a while, I jumped from tree to tree until I grabbed onto a branch, and it snapped. Adrenaline spread through my body as I fell closer to my death. My hands fumbled to grab on to anything and I was so relieved when I got a hold of a branch. I continued jumping and soon I was so focused, I lost all the mutts, and I got back to the camp.

   When I got back to camp, I didn't feel much better. Peeta and Aaron were the only ones there, and they were both soaking wet. "Where is everyone!?" I said.

   "They were chased by the mutts just like you," said Peeta.

   "Well what about you guys?" I asked.

   "We were chased too, but Peeta and I had the sense to jump in the lake," said Aaron.

    "What happened to you?" asked Peeta.