The 73rd Annual Hunger Games

Chapter 15- Cannons and Hearts

Solis and her crew had about five milliseconds to look at me questioningly before all heck broke loose. I pulled my trident with tears in my eyes and charged at Mitchell Oak. I stabbed at him immediately, and he didn't know what hit him. His cannon blew before I could even pull it out of his neck. There was already blood everywhere. Amber backed into the trees for shelter as I started fighting one-on-one with Sonny. Don't get me wrong, he seemed like he was a nice guy.

But that was before he aided in capturing Cyrus.

He stabbed at me with his awl, a practically ineffective weapon against my trident. Still, he got a lucky stab on my shoulder, and above my eye. I stabbed at him and it grazed his left hip.

Then, he got really lucky, and raked the awl across my side, immediately soaking me with blood. I stumbled and caught myself, jabbing upwards with my trident. I stabbed Sonny in the gut, and he fell to the ground. I didn't hear his cannon, though, so I sidestepped him to make sure he didn't stab me in the foot. I couldn't bring myself to take the death blow.

"Fight me yourself, Coward," I said to Solis. She ran her knife around Cyrus's cheek, leaving a thin trail of blood. He laid there, unconscious. He looked like he was sleeping, except for the blood covering him.

And I looked like a nice girl, except for the blood covering me.

Solis stood up, and picked up her knife. Except it was long and covered with blood. I didn't want to think about how that was Cyrus's blood, or how it was pumping so freely all over the ground. I tried to block the image of him out of my mind, but I couldn't do it.

Solis smiled, knowing of my inner struggle."Worried?" She slashed at me with her knife.

"Not in the least," I said, pushing her blade aside and jabbing her. She sidestepped and slashed. I blocked it with my trident.

"Well, so you know Cyrus better than me? Here's a secret. He loves me." She smiled.

"Cool. I guess not anymore, because you just tried to kill him." I said, making sure to jab my trident at her extra-hard.

She looked at me, seeming to struggle for a minute, then regained her composure. "Whatever," she parried my hit, but it seemed to twist her arm wrong. "His cannon should be firing any second now."

As if on cue, a cannon fired, signifying the death of a tribute. My heart fell to my chest. "Cyrus!" I half-yelled, half-wailed. I stabbed violently at Solis with my trident. I stabbed and slashed, and hit her multiple times, sweat breaking on my upper lip.

"This is useless!" She said frightened, when I cornered her to a tree. He's already dead!"

"Have you ever heard of revenge?" I asked her. I took the death blow, and the cannon hit, as the tears soaked my face, washing off the blood of my opponents. "It's a terrible thing. I wish I could remain innocent in the Games, but It's impossible."

I ran to Cyrus, who was still lying on the ground in a pool of blood. I took his hand, which was terribly cold. I fell of my knees and sobbed, the events of the past five minutes rushing back to my brain.

Then, I felt a knife on my back. "Don't move and I'll make this as painless as possible. Solis might've been easy to kill, but you have no idea about me," Amber said.

I rolled quickly to the side, and grabbed her arm, the one holding the knife. I hit her temple very hard with the hilt of my trident, hearing a crack! She fell to the ground, the cannon sounding a few moments later. I couldn't even see her body because the tears building in my eyes. I fell back down to my knees, and was overwhelmed with grief, and pushing madness.

I was about to have another episode, and no one was there to hold it off, so I did. But this time, I was screaming names. "Cyrus! Why, why, why? Amber, Solis, Sonny, Mitchell, Robin..." I continued all of the names of the dead that I knew until I got to my baby sister's name, and I couldn't even say it, so I screamed and weeped.

I felt my father's, or Finnick's, whoever it was, arms wrap around me, comforting me from my episode. My subconscious usually picks people who've comforted me before. But when I opened my eyes, there was one bloody hand wrapped around my wrist. I looked, astonished, to see Cyrus's eyes cracked open. There was blood mottled on his face, and soaking his clothes, as well as mine. "You're alive! How?"

He painfully pointed to the rope on his mouth, and I cut it off and waited for him to explain. He just burst into tears, and I joined him too. I figured that we were both emotionally strung out. I pulled him up into a sitting position, and he wrapped his arms around me and wept as I did the same. We just sat there for what seemed like an eternity, until sunset.

I looked at the sky, sitting beside Cyrus. The Capitol sunset was setting all different colors of pink, purple, red, orange, and yellow. He looked over at me, his eyes smiling. "Now I know what it's like to have an episode."

"No fun, is it?" I asked. He shook his head quickly. "That's what I thought."

We sat in silence, as the sun set. We were without a doubt remniscing about the details of earlier. How I killed three people. Cyrus finally got it thorugh to me that the cannon that fired that I thought was his, was Sonny's cannon.

The moon had just peeked over the horizon when Cyrus said, "We should go back."

"Yes, we should. I can't stay here any longer," I said.

"I know how you feel," He responded. So us two bloody, severely wounded teens limped back to our base. Blood was still flowing from the gash in my side, and Cyrus had blood pumping on the ground as we walked. I hate leaving this big of a trail to follow, but what can we do?

I helped him climb our tree, and we shared the last fish. "We need to fish again," He pointed out.

"You got that right," I agreed. I was about to comment on how he should never risk a mission like that again when the anthem blared out into the landscape. Sooner than not, four faces appeared in the sky. Solis, Amber, Sonny, and Mitchell. Seeing their faces made me feel sick. They all had a family back home.

I shook the thought out of my mind as the temperature rocketed downwards. It was at least twenty degrees cooler than when the anthem started.

I shivered. I saw Cyrus in the warm sleeping bag, because I was taking first watch. And I asked him something that was bugging me since she said it. "Earlier, Solis said something about you loving her. Is that true or what?"

He snorted. "Of course not. She always made fun of me because I wasn't evil. And did you see the look in her eyes?"

"I know, right?" I said. The conversation died down as Cyrus settled into sleep. His breathing gradually got slower, and I knew he was asleep.

I sat there on watch, in the cold night air, until I saw the patch of red on the sleeping bag. Cyrus was bleeding still! I almost slapped myself. How could I have forgotten?

I pulled some gauze out of our emergency kit and started patching up his wounds with the gauze. I also bandaged up his bigger wounds, like the one on his shoulder, or the one on his right temple.

I took extra care when tending the cut on his face that I saw Solis cut. Then, I packed up the medical kit, and climbed into the sleeping bag, back-to-back with Cyrus, grateful for the warmth from the sleeping bag, because it mirrors body heat.

I felt the soft thud of Cyrus's heart, and the quick thud of mine, because the blood on my side was slowly getting larger by quantity. We were out of gauze.

I hope I survive until morning.