The Hunger Games - Through the Fire and Flames - Book 1

Chapter 18

I sat by his body until I heard the sound of the craft above. I walked ten paces to my left and watched as the giant claw came and took the bodies of 11 and Phoenix away. The minute the craft disappeared a voice spoke.

"Congratulations on your victory but I'm afraid your time in the arena is not yet over. A few rules have been broken on your part, the sentence is death"

I scrunched my face up trying to understand what I had done wrong that was so bad that I was to be murdered. "What did I do?" I shouted back to the skies.

"That doesn't matter, what is done is done." the voice replied

So I won but I am going to die a anyways. Sorry I couldn't keep my promise dad.

"The sentence is death but instead we have decided to allow you a chance to play for your life-" Wasnt I already doing that, and hadnt I won? "-Out of respect for your loss we are throwing out the absolute death penalty and adding in 12 more tributes who volunteered to join you."

Who would volunteer when there was nothing worth dying for?

"Please prepare for the arrival of the Careers from the Districts 1, 2, and 4."

"But that's only 6!" I shouted back

A short but audible laugh was heard before the voice spoke again. "Silly me I forgot to mention we have specially picked 6 people just for you as allies to make it a semi fair game they should be arriving any moment. You have 5 hours before the careers arrive. Good luck" the voice disappeared.

Just as it promised a hovercraft appeared above me and a large clear box was being lowered. The only thing I could make out for several moments were their feet until they were in the ground.

I only knew one person and she was from District 12- Lia. I ran forward and threw my arms around her and began crying.

"What are you doing here!" I screamed at her. "Why did you volunteer?"

She shook her head. "I didn't volunteer I was taken from school and thrown on a train they didn't even tell me what was going on until I was being placed in the box."

I tilted my head upwards. "You have no right to do this! Take them back and just kill me! Kill me just let them go home!" I screamed.

No answer, of course. Stupid Capitol. I took a deep breath to center myself. I gathered the bags and walked around giving two tributes one each.

"If we are going to have any chance we need to find food, water and shelter. I need to know what all you saw on those televisions?"

"We saw everything even when you disappeared into the sleeping bag with my brother" a boy spoke.

My head turned up to look for the owner of the voice and found him near the back.

"Who are you?" I asked him as I walked forward.

"My name is Blaze I'm the brother of Phoenix and Ember, District 2." he finished.

I was about to reply to him when a voice said 'tick-tock'. I nodded my head and led the group on. We needed to find shelter or at least a good place to set up snares and traps to guard our perimeter.

"How much time left?" Lia asked as we passed the tree where I killed the man from district 5.

"I don't know two-three hours at the most."

A light skinned girl walked past me into the clearing and looked up towards the sun for a few moments before she returned to the group.

"We have 3 hours and 12 minutes"

"How do you know?" I asked her.

She introduced herself. She was Oreale from District 9. They specialized in grains. Oreale worked in the fields as a sower, she learned to tell time by the suns place in the sky.

We continued in walking across the clearing, past the Cornucopia and into the trees on the other side. Slowly our time trickled away. Three hours turned to two when we stopped. By a large cliff was a bush but it wasn't big enough to conceal us all.

"What are we going to do?" Lia panicked. "we are going to die aren't we?"

I did my best to sooth her. Let's just sit and rest for a few minutes I told them. We sat against the wall and began eating a fruit. Suddenly Lia screamed and jumped to her feet.

"I felt something touch me" she gasped.

I got carefully to my knees and investigated a small gust of cool air was coming from a space in the cliff.

"Hand me a pair of goggles quick!" I said

Seconds later a pair of the night vision glasses were in my hand. I placed them over my eyes and looked inside. It was a cave a small cave, shelter.

"You found it Lia, you found shelter."

I called forward the biggest person to see if he could fit in and he was able to slid in with minimum difficulty. After him the rest of us slid in. It was small and we wouldn't be sleeping laying down but scrunched up. I didnt care as long as I had shelter. I passed out night vision glasses to my group so we could all see and then we just waited. According to Oreale the Games was starting.

That night we had our first scare when we heard foot prints nearing. I held up my finger and told them not to move. As well I covered Lia's mouth with my hands.

I watched as a female stuck her face down by the crack. She looked right at me but only I saw her. She got to her feet and ran off with her ally whining about them not giving them night vision glasses. Once we were sure they were gone I let out a breath and dropped my hands from Lia's mouth.

"They don't have goggles" I told them. "There is our angle"