The 25th Annual Hunger Games

12 ~ 12-15 Day 4 (Part 1)

By morning, the water was already 2/3 up. I had to wake the others, and we packed our things away.

I was scared. And cold. I barely slept last night. I was terrified that the arrow tribute would come back.

I dragged myself out the tent, resting on the velvety grass. The girls emerged after about ten minutes. Zander was taking his time.

"Zander went fishing." Charlotte explained.

"Shouldn't one of you have gone with him?" I asked, worried. None of the weapons seemed to be moved.

"He will be fine." Aubrey replied.

I nodded. He would be.

I trailed along the top of our mountain, and noticed the water had stopped rising now. Wel not completely, but not enough to be noticable.

"Hey Zander is back!" Charlotte yelled. I turned round, and Zander trudged up to me, holding two fish.

The first thing that struck me as weird was his eyes. They were duller than usual. They were red. And his eyes are never bloodshot.

The next thing, was a pin-sized bight on the underside of his arm. Barely visible, but clearly there.

The third and final thing, was the sweat. It was almost freezing.

"Zander, are you feeling okay?" I questioned.

He nodded a bit. "Yeah." He turned round and walked towards the camp.

The sudden beeping of an object next to me startled me back to reality.

The silver parachute, with a capsule attached to it, landed beside me.

"Watch Zander. Use this. You have 3 minutes. -D&P" I read to myself. I almost dropped the capsule when I opened it. There was a baby spider in it.

I looked over at Zander talking to the girls.

In training, we had learnt about different insects. And some of them you have to be bitten again, for the venom to leave you.

But why would Zander need this?

A scream came from the girls. Zander was holding Aubrey by her hair.

What the hell was he doing?

I closed the capsule, and ran towards the girls, pulling a knife out.

"Let me go!" Aubrey screamed, he pulled tighter. He dragged her backwards, to the cliff edge, and held them both over.

"I will do it." Zander's voice was raspy. And cold.

"No. Zander." Aubrey attempted to reason. Zander pulled a knife from his pocket. A small knife that would have been noticable. He held it to her throat.

Charlotte touched the back of my hand, and I looked over at her. She had the best aim. She hinted at me she was about to throw.

Distracting Zander, I dived at him. Charlotte launched the other way, and side on, threw the knife at Zander's hand. The knives clanged together, and went spinning past my head, one knife catching my ear.

I ran towards the capsule. Zander had let Aubrey go, and managed to get to the weapons. He chose the sword. his strongest point. I snatched the capsule, and got ready to throw the spider.

As I launched it, Zander moved.

I lost the spider, not knowing where it had gone.

I grabbed a sword, and we started fighting. I could never beat Zander. I parried his strike, and rolled away, letting Charlotte go him in hand-on-hand. This was a real fight. Zander was going to get hurt.