All That Glimmers Isn't Gold

Eleven

Glimmer

I woke up to the smell of burning wood. It was one of the worst, but one of the best smells I had ever smelled. It reminded me of the smell of the food I used to eat back in One. It smelled warm, and it felt warm too. I heard the crackling of twigs, branches, whole trees falling down. Shouting all already me.

I finally came to, and fully woke up. A little rabbit ran right around my feet. I grabbed my bow and arrows, and instinctually ran away from the fire as well.

Marvel was pushing me along. We ran in the direction of the cornucopia, away from the fire. Cato was far ahead of us, gaining distance. I looked behind me at the wall of fire, and saw Clove running a little slower. She had a harder time jumping over fallen trees with her short legs.

"Marvel. Get Clove out of there, she needs help. She needs help." I couldn't stop coughing from all of the smoke. It felt as if my lungs were shriveling up and coming out of my mouth.

Marvel lagged behind, I assume to help Clove. I kept running in the direction that Cato was. He slowed down, to what it looked like the green trees again, and disappeared. I sprinted harder to catch him, but ended up falling on slippery rocks.

Why were they slippery? I closed my eyes and kept coughing. I rubbed my eyes, and I finally realized that he had fallen in the water, and I had fallen in the water too. I coughed up the water that I had inhaled.

I heard a splash next to me, followed by another splash. I looked over at Marvel, who was frantically coughing, and at Clove, who was just standing there, trying to catch her breath.

Cato started laughing, and then laughed even harder. "Is that it? Is that all the game makers can throw at us?"

I heard a final splash, and looked over at the boy from 12, gasping for air.

"And you," Cato laughed some more. "Were we even close to that girl? Huh? Your lover? The girl that you can't go home to because she'll be dead, and you'll be dead? And we'll all be dead?"

Cato stood up and grasped his sword. "Maybe we should just kill you now."

Clove rushed towards him and tried to calm him down. "Cato, we need to find her. Cato, please."

I stood up and rebraided my hair. "We really need to get a move on if we were planning on taking the cornucopia."

Marvel nodded his head in agreement. "Let's go, Cato. Nature will take care of Peeta. We'll find Katniss."

We started walking down the stream. I looked over at Marvel, who was just looking down at the ground. I looked over at Clove, and Cato, and finally Peeta who hadn't said a word the whole morning.

I stopped, and started laughing.

They all looked at me with a crazy look.

"This game is changing us." I laughed harder. "Cato just lost it, I'm losing it, we're all losing our minds."

They slowly started smiling, then chuckling and laughing at the situation. "Was that fire even real?" Clove laughed.

Peeta was the only one that was silent, and Cato seemed to notice. "Come on guys, let's go find the girls on fire!"

We all cheered and laughed some more, and started to hastily walk down the stream, having a good time.

"There she is! There's the girl on fire!" Marvel pointed out.

And indeed, there she was, gasping for air in the stream just like we were. She saw us, and took off in the opposite direction.

"Let's get her!"