87th Games

Only A Pawn In The Game

I woke with a start. I had already forgotten my dream but it had left me with a dreadful and exasperated feeling.

I felt arms around me and instinctively kicked whoever it was.

“What the hell Scarlett!” I heard Arrow exclaim.

What was he doing here? Startled, I sat back in the hay remembering the events of yesterday.  

Arrow had saved my life. Twice. Slowly, I started to remember all of it. It was Zane’s funeral and I had given the capitol something to remember. I was going to end Bloom’s life for killing Zane but it turns out Jessica, another tribute killed him. Then she was going to kill me but Arrow saved me. Cue bitter resentment. My life was like a soap opera.

I looked around for my horse trouble. She wasn’t where I left her and understandably I began to freak out.

Arrow probably spared my life so he could kill me another day. Trouble was my ticket out of here and he knew it. He killed her while I was sleeping.

I quickly got up and ran towards Arrow’s revolver gun. I remember district one gave it to him. I had no idea why, he was obviously mental. I fumbled to grab it and hastily put my finger on the trigger pointing it towards him.

“Get up!” I ordered.

Arrow was still on the ground clutching his shin.

“I said get up” I repeated loudly to him.

He groaned loudly and got up slowly. He limped his way in front of me.

“What the hell did you do?” I screamed indignantly, my voice sounding a little strained. I couldn’t believe Arrow had killed Trouble. I bet he thought I was next, that I was only a pawn in his game.

He smirked a little, putting his hands behind his head.

 “C’mon Scar, I didn’t do anything” he lied, shrugging his shoulders quickly.

“You did! I’m going to kill you, you little-” I ran out of words. He killed Trouble! He was arrogant, dumb, annoying and he killed my horse! I should have killed him when I had the chance. I don’t care how many times he ‘saved’ my life. He was going to pay, just like Bloom was!

He laughed a little and let his hands fall to his side.

“Shoot me” he replied nonchalantly.

“You don’t think I will?” I fixed my stance and took aim so that I could shoot him easily. I had never shot a gun before, let alone really seen any aside from my father’s big shotgun. He used to go hunting with it in the jungle beside our district. He got caught by one of our peace keepers and they confiscated it. They could have killed him, but like I said, we had relatively placid peace keepers in our town and they knew that in poor districts like 10 we had to hunt to survive sometimes.

Arrow hunched his shoulders and hung his head dramatically.

“Do it” he sighed. I could clearly see that his face wasn’t reaching the sincerity of his words. He was laughing quietly to himself and I had no idea why.  

I braced myself and pulled the trigger.

“Say goodbye” I shouted.

I heard it click. No bang.

“argwhuwha-?” I looked at the gun and opened the revolver’s cylinder. No bullets.

I dropped the gun in shock and Arrow burst out laughing.

I leaped over to him with my arms out stretched. It wasn’t the first time I tried to strangle my fellow tribute from district ten. We had a love-hate-relationship. Scratch that, it was just a hate-relationship.