The 73rd Annual Hunger Games

Chapter 20- The Winner

I struggle to scream, lying on the ground with the hand clamped around my mouth. I writhe around, fearing that this is a career tribute, going to kill me before I can take any of them out for Cyrus.

"Shut up!" I hear a familiar voice hiss in my ear. "There will be a time for rebellion later, now, you have to live!"

I look down at the hand around my mouth, and see a familiar ring, with a lightning bolt on it. I go slack with relief. I peel the hand off of my mouth. "Okay okay. What are you doing here?"

Cyrus sits up, and I follow suit. We're sitting cross legged, facing each other. "Well, an obvious gamemaker trick, a fake looking mom of mine somehow got into the arena, and tried to kill me. I figured that I should come make sure that you didn't get killed by the fake.... whoever they sent to you."

I immediately felt stupid, because Cyrus immediately knew that the person he ran into was a gamemaker trick, and I believed that Ray was the real deal the moment I set eyes on him. "So.... What you're saying is..... You came to rescue me?" I said, trying not to laugh.

"You know, I could've just let you stand there and yell at the sky while the careers killed you." Cyrus said.

"The careers are all the way down at the Cornucopia. There's no way they could've heard me," I said.

"Didn't I tell you? The careers heard you start yelling and started coming this way," Cyrus said.

"No! You didn't tell me! Where are they?!" I ask.

I hear footsteps and shouting in the distance, coming closer. The careers. "Shhhhh." Cyrus whispers.

"I know, you idio--!" I try to whisper-yell, but Cyrus clamps his hand over my mouth, and tackles me into the bushes, not a moment too soon. As soon as we got out of the clearing, the careers came in.

"I know she was over here, I just heard-" I hear the female from District 2, Caiti start.

"Well I didn't hear anything!" Kyle says.

"Shut up, Kyle, we're probably scaring them away," The male from 1, Denim, says.

"That's what I said!" Caiti exclaims.

"Well, if you'd stop talking--" Kyle starts, but the male from 2, Aries, cuts him off.

"Just shut up, all of you!" Aries says.

"Cyrus," I whisper. "We should attack, element of surprise,"

"No, it's suicide," Cyrus lowly whispers, so quiet I can hardly hear, even though we're right next to each other, a tangle of limbs because of his bright idea to tackle me earlier.

I slowly untangle myself. "No, just knife one of them, and then we can storm out," I said.

"No." Cyrus says.

"Why not?" I whisper. Just our luck that the careers start arguing loudly, so they can't hear our whisper argument. We both silently sit up and face eachother like we were in the clearing: crossing our legs.

"Because!" He whispers.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" I whisper yell.

"I don't want to!" Cyrus whispers.

"Why not?!" I whisper yell again.

"Because!" He whisper yells. "We'll be the only ones left!"

"If we win! And if we are the only ones left, we can just go our seperate ways! And if we lose, odds are, I'm going to be the one to die anyways, because I have the least advantage!" I whisper yell.