Black Ice (The Hunger Games--Fanfic)

t e n

"Ladies and gentlemen, let the seventy-third Hunger Games begin!" The voice of Claudius Templesmith seems to linger around the arena for a while, and I listen to it ringing in my ears, then I run.

I go as fast as I can, and away from my metal plate towards the cornucopia. The building isn't difficult to set apart from anything else, or any other place I have been to. Nothing else I have ever seen has a weird little horn on the top, and stands with such a different shape.

I see the careers as they huddle together and collect as many weapons as they can.

I should probably run over to them, but I don't. I walk, calmly. Like an idiot. They seem to have everything under control, and by the time I am there, they have taken a lot of weapons and killed a lot of tributes. If I counted the cannons right, there is already 8 people dead, which takes me by surprise.

Arlo hands me a knife and I point it at another tribute who tries to come nearer and picks up a gun from one of the tributes who lies on the floor, dead.

He walks over. It's not the boy from seven, it's the boy who (if I remember correctly) actually comes from district eight. He wanders over and raises the gun.

Almost like it's an instinct, I do a sort-of-hop and then swing my left arm back and hit him with the knife square in the chest. It isn't quite his heart, but the amount of blood he has already lost causes a cannon to go off, and I turn around to face the other careers, who stare at me like they weren't expecting it.

But I imagine that they weren't.

I hurry over to him, and pull the knife out of his limp, lifeless body, because when the bodies are collected, I will loose the weapon, and I'm uncertain whether or not I will manage to find a new one. Once I have wiped off a little of the blood, I put it in a pouch that Krystal hands me, where all the other knives are, and then walk along with the other careers and we head through the long grass.

Running is difficult, but I'm not behind because neither of the others have exceptionally long legs anyway.

This almost seems like one of the stories I read in school, about a reckless group of teenagers who ran away from home and hid out in the forest.

Did I just call myself reckless?

Well, it appears that I just survive the bloodbath, I feel I owe it to myself for lasting more than ten minutes.

I can hear the aircraft that come in to take the dead bodies out, and I can vividly imaging their families back home, crying into each other's shoulders and wiping their eyes on salty sleeves, collecting broken pieces of tissue on their cheeks and in their eyelashes.

They are gone, forever. And as difficult as it may be for me to realise, soon all but one of us will be too.

I've made it this far, I can keep it up for a while longer. I don't want to get killed within the first 24 hours, because then I will not be doing any good for my district.

Shadow seems to pick up that the most of us are tired, so we stop, sitting in the long grass. It's a little bit risky, as we are more vulnerable, and easier to attack from above, but it seems to be a risk we're willing to take.

"Shadow," Krystal calls.

I assume that the two of them are the main leaders of our little alliance.

"Yep?"

"What happened to the boy from seven?"

I can feel her looking at me, but I don't stare back, because I don't want to seem bothered, because I'm really not.

"He's still out there...somewhere."

"For now," I can't help myself.

I decided to add that to show that I am not afraid of him. But I know I can't hide all the fear from my voice, because there is a little laugh, and I know that it was probably Krystal.

Gosh, I want to kill her so badly.

But I cannot. If I kill her right now, Shadow will kill me, and then I have no chance. Even after that, the others might turn on each other too.

But by that time, I will be dead.

I decide that if I want to do it, I should wait until there are less of us, and then I might stand more chance of an escape.

I know that I wont win, but I try to give myself a little bit of hope for whatever might happen. I still want to see Alex's eyes, and the lines by his mouth when he smiles, after we have been swimming in the sea.

The way he looks at me. The way he looks at everyone. He's so kind and forgiving, and he loves and puts his trust in a lot of people. He could almost be clueless.

Innocent.

He is probably watching me right now. If he could read my thoughts, what would he be thinking? My little brother. I suppose he would be shocked.

Maybe he wants me to be one of the dead people. Maybe.