Love, hope and sorrow Book 2 - sequel to Let the rest of the life begin!

Chapter 13: The arena

Chapter 13

-Rye-

I'm standing in the tube, it's taking me up to the arena. It tingles in my stomach and I get a death feeling over me.

The tube continues up and up until I see the sunshine.

When I stand on the platform in the arena I look and I find Willow five people away from me. She catches my eye and I just stare into her eyes.

We have to stand here 60 seconds. 30 seconds have passed and 30 remain.

I make a quick scan of the area and I can't shake the feeling that I recognize this place. But where from?

Cornucopia is bigger than when I saw it in the video from my parent's Hunger Games. Well of course it looks bigger, I mean this is in real life right now.

3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

I run off the plate and end up next to Willow and together we run towards the Cornucopia. We're the fastest of all the tributes.

Willow grabs a bow. I grab a spear and a beautiful knife. I'm pretty good with the knife and it just fits so perfect in my hand.

We take two small bags each and take everything we come over on our way from the Cornucopia.

The others aren't as fast as us. They're untrained and runs slowly while Willow and I have had time to take what we need and take off before most people even left their platforms.

We run into the woods and continue running until we know that no one is chasing us.

We stop and fall down to the ground, breathing down and gasping for air. We have been running longer now than we have ever run before, but we made it. That's the important thing.

We lie on our backs on the ground with really high pulses.

"Rye?" I hear Willow ask finally. "How are you?"

How do I feel? I'm tired, starving, thirsty, in pain throughout my whole body, sweating and I want to give up already. So how do I feel?

"I'm good", I lie, but I'm good at lying so she believes me. "How are you?"

"I'm good too, just a little exhausted", she says. "And I'm thirsty".

Yes I'm thirsty as well.

"Yes, we need to find water", I agree and sit up.

I look around and try to see which way we should go.

Hm... Straight forward maybe? Yeah that seems good.

Willow is still lying on her back but now she starts to sit up.

We look each other in the eyes before I stand up and give her my hand to help her up as well.

We begin to walk slowly and keep an eye out for water or the other tributes.

And I still can't shake the feeling that I recognize this location. It wasen't just at the Cornucopia. No, here as well. But why? Why do I recognize this place?

We have been walking for a long while, so of course we get tired, we sit down on the ground leaning against some trees and rest.

I decide to check our bags.

In my two bags, I find: dried meat, a small bottle of iodine, dried fruit, a medicine bag, two pairs of dark glasses, three empty water bottles and a large sleeping bag.

In Willows bag, I find: another small bottle of iodine, two bags of dried fruit and meat, three smaller knives, a slangshot and a small tube you shoot darts with.

"What's that?" Willow asks suddenly and crawl on all four towards a large stone.

"What?"

"It looks like blood", she says and drag her fingers over something on the stone.

"Huh?"

It can't be blood. This is an arena that is built for us tributes. There can't be any blood here. Not yet at least.

I walk up to her and see that it's actually something red on the stone where she has her fingers. Dried blood.

Willow looks thoughtful and also scared. She swallows hard.

"Something feels very wrong Rye", she says.

I sit crouching beside her and put my fingers over the red.

I know what Willow means. As soon as my fingers is in contact with the red stuff on the stone, I get a bad feeling rushing through my body, I get goosebumps and the feeling of someone dying or something.

I quickly pull away my hand and stand up.

"What was that?" I ask scared.

"I don't know, but it feels bad, doesn't it?"

"Really bad as if someone is dying or something", I say, trying to stay calm. "Come on Willow, let's get away from here".

Willow nods and stands up.

We take our bags and continue to walk. And we come up to a stream filled with rushing cold water.

We hurry up and fill the bottles with water and drop some iodine in them because it's needed to clear the water and after that we have to wait an half an hour before we can drink the water.

It's a torment to wait, a really big one. But soon enough we can finally drink the water. We drink up one bottle each before we share the third one and than we fill them up with water again and drop iodine.

Now we're not that thirsty anymore and I look around at the place we're at right now.

I see something, a cave. It looks like someone has tried to hide the entrance to the cave.

"Willow", I say, pointing at the cave.

We run to the cave and enter.

Someone has definitely lived here. And there's so much dried blood here in the cave, I won't ever get this image out if my head.

It feels so strange here. The cave is filled with the feeling I got from touching the stone back there.

But suddenly it hits me. I know the area and I know the cave. It's so obvious that I become angry at myself for not realize this sooner.

"Willow..." I start, but she doesn't let me finish.

"I know", she says.

It's our parents blood. This is the same arena they were in when they competed in the 74th Hunger Games.

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Hey you guys. I hope you liked this chapter.

Please vote and comment to tell me what you thought of it, because I really do want to now what you thought while reading this chapter :)

-Josephine xx