Black Ice (The Hunger Games--Fanfic)

n i n e

Once the whole ceremony is done, I don't hang around and talk with the others, instead I make my way straight off to bed.

I don't want to loose out on any sleep I could be getting to save myself from exhaustion in the arena. I pull on my pyjamas, make sure my room is cool, and then huddle myself under plenty of blankets, because I like the warmth and the feeling of comfort. I am not alone, there needn't be any worry.

But I am alone, I sleep alone, I worry alone and there shouldn't be any signs of it on my face tomorrow when the glass tube takes me up into the arena. Maybe I should just let it all out now, cry now and never again.

But I don't.

I can't.

I wont.

Why would I do that? What is it going to prove. It's okay to cry, but it's okay to not cry, to sit here and think and not feel anything.

Because I don't.

"Listen to yourself, whining and moaning and complaining, stop being ridiculous. No one is going to change what happens tomorrow, only you can, and crying to sleep over it wont even help one of the ants that are likely to get trod on."

I sigh, knowing my midnight muttering was accurate and that I should stop being so petty about it all. Pull myself together, as the boys in the playground at school would spit on the ones who were afraid to swim.

But I can swim.

I realise now that if the arena is made with plenty of water, I can take advantage of that, and float around in it until I shrivel up like a prune.

But the other careers...

They wont hang around waiting for me to pull myself out of the cool waters and besides, I would leave wet footprints on the ground.

Good job I'm not working alone.

I wonder if the other careers are awake too, tossing and turning in their beds tonight, knowing that only one of them will survive and seeing as the odds haven't been in any of our favours so far, goodness knows how things will turn out in the arena.

Maybe I might win.

I like to smile at the thought.

Yeah, if hell freezes over.

It wouldn't happen, but it gives me a little more comfort to know that if there were the chances of me being picked, there may also be the chances of me winning.

Though I doubt it.

I try to clear my mind of all the thoughts that are whizzing through my head, and it takes its time, but it is worth it, because eventually I fall into a deep slumber.

The countdown goes from 60, and before I know it, one second, one last second is upon me. I ready myself and when I know it is right, I run. I run off of my metal circle and head to the cornucopia.

The arena this year is an icy area, but it isn't cold, like you would expect it to be. It's very rare they do that as the tributes die off by themselves, and the capitol wants fist-to-face combat.

I grab a bow, and some knives before I come face to face with the boy from district seven. At first he appears weaponless, but before I know anything he is pointing one of the guns at me.

I see the careers behind him, but they just watch, then kill off some of the others who try to come any closer to the cornucopia. They don't help me.

He rises the gun up to my face and I lift one of the knives up in my hand, but takes his other hand and pushes my hand holding the knife back, and away from him. I do not try against this.

"Why did you even try Mira?"

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you know exactly what I mean."

"I honestly have no clue,"

The gun clicks, and I assume he is readying it to fire. I wait for the pain to take over me, but he doesn't kill me just yet.

The careers and the other tributes I cannot hear the cannons, I cannot hear their cries of pain and hopeless shouts for their mothers. I just watch them and notice how my vision makes everything fuzzy and slow, except for the boy in seven, who is still pointing the gun to my face.

I hear his laugh and his words. his harsh words, in his bloodthirsty voice. Why wont they help me? Why wont the careers help me?

"They don't care about you, they just wanted your skills, but mine is the exact same. It's a win-win situation for us,"

I see Shadow and Krystal, as they spear a knife into Rose, as she falls to the floor and her eyes flash over to me, a deep blue like the waters back home, in district four. It doesn't feel like home, since I have been gone for so long.

I hear the boy's voice again.

"Say goodbye,"

I look into his eyes, as they turn a dark crimson colour, the colour of blood, he pulls the trigger and I don't even see the bullet as it hits me square in the face and I fall backwards. He doesn't look back, and him and the careers run off into the forest, as I am left with the other tributes on the floor

I finally hear the cannon as it goes off in the distance.

But it's not the cannon...

It's the sound of my door as it flies open and hits the wall, and I awake immediately. It was a dream. It was just a dream. It hasn't happened yet.

I jolt up anyways and run a hand through my hair, then look at the door way as Autumn stands there, arms folded.

"Got a little sleepy, didn't we?"

A voice tells me to get ready so I step onto the metal plate, and it begins to rise up and up, and as I feel the wind whip my hair around my face, I get my first glimpse at the arena, and it's deathly presence.

The grass stands tall and like wire in the dry ground, almost as though it has been left uncut for too long, the sun is hot on my face and I can almost tell that there will be hardly any water around here, that it's going to be dry and desert-like and that even the trees are struggling to stay alive. They are deflated and look like they are ready to fall down.

I look around in hope, in desperation that this is another one of my dreams that I have been having, because the cloudless sky is almost too blue and the straw-like grass is almost too yellow and all of us?

We're all one step closer to our deaths.