Midnight Azalea-A Story of the 34th Hunger Games

Chapter 17-The Alliance

"Hazel," says Aris. She peers into the girls eyes, who's a little flimsy. The golden cockroaches are gone, all cramped up in their decaying tree. "I see they're afraid of arrows, and they all work in a pack. Only one arrow pierced into a mutt...and they all fly away."

"Actually, if one cockroach is killed, the others hide away, but revenge is good options," says Hazel. Her voice is piped up and exaggerated. She sounds like she's very intelligent through her usage of vocabulary. "One and done. Also it's easy to fire."

The anthem of Panem plays:
The Fallen:

Nina, district 6.

"The Careers killed her," says Hazel. "Poor Nina, her district has no chance."

Bitterly, Aris says a dry speech. "Well the odds have never been in their favor. I haven't seen one Victor from that district."

That can't be true because about seven years ago, when Aris was still alive, the victor was Manetta from 6. She knew advanced weaponry and took out the Careers with a spear and some sais. But I decide not to say anything. My eyes are open, and now I see the woods.

We're propped up in a tree in suspense. Then when I look down I'm frozen.

Below is rushing water. Just water gushing from whatever direction flows to my right. "It's flooding," I say.
B
Hazel twists her head at me. "It's been that way for hours. Just don't go down there!"

I study her bow. The curve is friendly and the bowstring is tight. Her arrows, which are propped up against the trunk of the tree, are perfectly straight. They're tips are sharp and metallic, the feathers are too!

"The bow," I say quietly to Aris.

"She can use them," says Aris back to me. She grips a spear, which I guess is that girls figuring that we didn't have it before. "She also has a pack. Just in case we get hungry she has dried fruit and beef."

The rumble of the water below is starting to hurt my ears, so I put my hands over them.

Aris points at a spot in the opening in the trees. "Movement." With courage she stands on the branch, her spear in hand. Hazel stands too, bow and arrows prepared, one pinned for the opening.

The whizzing of a knife is enough to make me turn over. It's serrated edge is linear. I grab it and stand amongst my allies, but fear swallows me and I take a dive over the edge.

Gripping into the branch, the last thing on my mind is being shot in the side with a knife. Water splashes onto my fingers and my grip lossens. Aris pulls me up and no cannons fire, but if one did I couldn't hear it because of the roar of the Rapids.

Up on the branch I steady my stance and I throw my knife just into somebody's ear. I make out the blonde curls and I know it's Belle. She screams in pain, most of the sound swallowed by the Rapids. A spear comes are way but something stops it. A burst of static, and the whole clump of trees come down.

I know how to swim, so the waters may be lethal but I can handle it. Aris, though, doesn't take it well. Belle is crying, submerged. She eventually hits a tree and her broken head announces the cannon fire, though I barely hear it.

Maximus is yelling, and Athena is barely keeping her head up. Hazel's bow swings past me but I grab it, and Hazels arrows fall among me. I manage to grab three, and that's it. Athena grabs a mace and swims at me. She tackles me and throws me into the water. The mace is swung at my head a few times but I dodge it. We near the edge of a cliff, and my back contorts when I am flung against a rock. I grip onto it for dear life, my hands stained with blood. Athena is pushed over the rocks, and the water isn't kind. She grabs her sword and stands on a rock, jumping across to come and stab me. Land is nowhere to be found, and I can't climb this tree because of my hands, so I dive into the water and grab an arrow. I mock one, and then the force of a burly guy blasts me over the deep end.