The Hunger Games: Book Four - How it Might Have Been ... Gale.

Page Twenty-One

*AN* Sorry I've been gone so long! It was my 18th birthday last week and I was super busy all week! Now I'm back to regular updating, even though I'm hitting NYC in 2 days. Thanks for the constant support, and hold on tight for the next update!

Peeta

The mutts growl and bark viciously, and I can hear their sharp claws scrape the metal floor as they race after me. I'm already out of breath, almost unfit after being locked up for so long. I'm weak, no energy from lack of sustainable food. But I still have my wits.

I know from past experience that mutts are not agile, but large and ferocious, built for strength not speed. I begin to take sharp turns, hoping this new Capitol hasn't fixed the mutts' agility problem. The corridors all look the same, metal on metal, but I keep running until I am hopelessly lost in a maze that would take months to figure out. In my state - sweating and adrenaline-fused, figuring it out is impossible. 

A bark echoes through the halls as I turn a corner, using all my self-restraint to prevent me from peering around my shoulder at the advancing hounds. Suddenly, a sharp pain hits my face, simualtaneous with a clang. I have hit a dead end - probably broken my nose from the impact of running into the wall. I reach up and swipe at the blood, assuming it's scent will fuel my attackers even more.

My wits are all I have left. I can't turn back - they're too close - and I can't fight them all without dying. The Capitol want me to run, but I am almost sure now they have manipulated my situation just as they did when I was in the Arena. They've put this wall here to test me.

"Think back," the speaker crackles to life abruptedly. "Memories and experience are often the most powerful weapon one can have." And they're right.

I think back to the 74th Hunger Games, when all that were left were Katniss, Cato and I. The sound of the cannon as Thresh met his death is still vivid in my mind, ringing in my ears with a sharp clarity. I can feel the leaves of the forest slapping my face, feel the snares of vines catching my feet, hear Katniss's controlled breathing as we sprinted, hand in hand. Thinking of her fuels me more.

I remember how we escaped the mutts. It was an escape that sparked a Rebellion - how could I not remember? But there's no Cornocopia here. I have to think on my feet.

Along the wall are little metal holders, the sort that would have held lamps that illuminated the halls back in the day. Now they are bare, creating an ascending pattern on the metal walls around me. My handcuffs are still on, a tiny piece of chain dangling from them.

It's a long shot - but it's my only hope.

The mutts are gaining fast - I can hear their snarls and breaths.

Flinging myself forward, I quickly and skillfully loop the chain into one of the metal holders, propelling myself up the wall. I kick off my shoes, my toes giving me better grip. My shoes clatter to the ground as the first mutt rounds the corner. I loop my second wrist around another hook and pull myself a further three meters up, scaling the wall like some sort of animal. The mutt belows barks and barks, jumping onto the wall and scraping it with razor sharp nails. I don't look down to see it's teeth, smell it's breath. I keep propelling myself higher and higher up the wall, towards the roof that seems so far away, I cannot see it.

More mutts join the first mutt now, and I take my chance and look down. They are revolting in apperance - hunched over like broken miners, with burnt skin showing and tufts of hair sprouting here and there along their arched spines. Their eyes are vividly human, causing me to shiver. Ramming themselves against the wall, one mutt almost nips my ankles. Another mauls my shoes, making shreds of them. I swallow hard, knowing that they could have been me instead.

"Well done," the speakers crackle, and the mutts yowl. "You have done what we have told you to do." The mutts should be going away now. I should be rewarded. I have learned that the Capitol have many ways of teaching a lesson, no matter how harsh. But death would be too minor of a lesson for me. They are trying to tame me; break my spirit.

Then something surprising happens. "Correct. This is a lesson." They have heard my thoughts. "And here is another for you. When you climb, you must fall. It is logic. And logic always wins against luck."

When you climb, you must fall.

The mutts lick their lips and bark again, and my heart sinks. The holders on the wall begin to retract into themselves, leaving my chains hanging on nothing. My handcuffs open and suddenly I am falling, thirty meters, unstoppable, into a pit of mutts.

Death should have been too minor of a lesson - but this was the New Capitol.