The Game

Retreat

💖Em's POV💖

First his knees collapsed in half as his body convulses unnaturally. His head was the second thing to hit the ground.

I try to look away but all I can see is the body of the man lying in an expanding pool of his own blood, lifeless eyes staring straight at me, straight through me.

I feel somebody grab at my hand desperately pulling me up, pulling me away but I can not stop looking at this lifeless body. Just moments ago, this body had a life, he had memories and experiences and emotions but now all I saw was an empty vessel for that soul.

And then we are running. Again. Feet pounding the ground. I stare straight ahead not thinking, not noticing my surroundings, always running. We run for what seems like hours but can only be minutes in reality, just one foot after another, arms pumping, barely breathing. The only sound I can hear is the blood rushing past my ears as my heart beats erratically.

The hand attached to my wrist begs me to run faster but I can not. I can not do anything I feel paralysed. It was happening again. It seemed to follow us where ever we went on this island. Death. I had not seen a single person die in one year at the training camp yet the first time we are back at this god forsaken island and someone is already dead.

As we reach a cluster of trees we stop and take cover. We turn to look back at the village below us. Nobody has moved. There is a second gun shot. A child stops screaming.

Directly north on the other side of the valley, the opposite side of the village I see 2 people stop running at the peak of the slope. They too look down at the village at the sound of the second shot. He embraces her, then takes her by the face and they run off towards the castle probably to get the militia. We had to move, we could not afford to be captured at this point.

I felt the air become tense as the others also saw the couple run away.

"We have to move." Tom says firmly.
But just as we are about to get up and go, Ash interrupts pulling us all back down.
"Wait, we have to wait for Damien and the others."

So we wait. Barley 5 minutes later we hear a third shot. What was going on down there? I look anxiously at the others.

"We have to go back and help them." Peeta whispers. But Tom holds him down.
"5 more minutes"

And so we wait. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. not a single man had come to us, half an hour after the first shot, so we go down to see what was happening.

Cautiously we make our way to the men, all surrounding something in the centre of the town square. Ash and I push our way through the men to see what all the fuss is about.

4 men kneel by Samuel's body. I gasp and walk away quickly, covering my eyes at the sight. Sam was Damien's right hand man and part of our council. I knew him and his son well, he was kind to me when we first joined the council. How could this have happened?

Logan, another one of the council members tells us what happened. I never really liked Logan, there was just something about him that didn't seem quite right. This, plus the fact that he showed no remorse or sadness at Sam's death was enough to send shivers down my spine so I walked away quickly. Ash hugged me tight. I hoped Damien was okay.

Our time at Islington was beginning to make me feel uneasy. We sat together in the courtyard in silence waiting for Damien to return. The thought of the young couple making me extremely tight chested as I wondered why we had not yet been attacked. I bring my concerns up with another member of the group and they say to leave it with them.