The Third Everdeen

Chapter 9

In the morning I inspected the immediate area to make sure I was alone before jumping off the tree. I needed to get to high ground. After trucking through the forest for most of the morning, I found myself to be be on a cliff. I continued to travel upward, I needed a good vantage point.

I had begun to lose track of time, when I noticed how dark it was getting I quickly picked out a sturdy tree, climbed up and tied myself down like before feeling grateful that it was an uneventful day.

~

The next morning I awoke anxious. I had the right mindset considering a few feet away a forest fire was accumulating. Swiftly untying myself, I stuffed the rope into my bag and jumped out of the tree, running away from the fire. It seemed to follow me as I tried to evade it, it even cut me off in some places. Out of no where, a huge fire ball came charging in my direction; I dodged it but kept running. Not even a beat later, I could hear another one coming at me; colliding with the tree directly to my right, narrowly missing my shoulder. As I ran away from the tree, It exploded and the force caused me to fall downhill. Once I got back on my feet the ground started to shake, suddenly a tree, still engulfed in flames collapsed not even a foot in front of me. I had to stop myself from running into it before changing my course. 

I ran toward a large boulder and was about to climb it when a piece of a branch fell onto my pants and burned right through to my leg. I immediately fumbled to the ground screaming. It looked like a third degree burn and it hurt like a motherfucker. My hand couldn't even get close to touching it. Looking away from my wound, another fire ball was launched and this time it was aiming for my head. Reluctantly, I was able to roll away in time. I stood up, ignoring the pain in my leg, and continued running; trying to now find a safe place to tend to my burn.

After running for a few more minutes I felt my feet get wet. I had made it to a stream; I submerged myself into the cool water. The burning sensation was gone replaced with a numb feeling in my upper leg. As I was in the water I looked around. Suddenly I heard laughter; looking over some of the rocks a few feet away the careers where approaching me. Cato first, then Glimmer and Clove right behind him, then Marvel. Peeta took up the rear, it really hurt seeing him with them. 

Cato looked up and smiled,  "There she is!" he looked right at me. All of them, except Peeta, erupted in laughter and started running toward me.

I scrambled out of the water and ran into the forest. They taunted me as the followed, they were joking at who would get to hurt me first. I made it to a clearing with a bundle of large secure trees. I found one that was easy for me to climb, but that would be hard for them to get me. As quickly as my burned leg allowed I started climbing, and I didn't stop until my leg was practically screaming for me to stop. Facing the base of the tree, I cautiously looked down and saw Cato struggling to climb it. I had to stop myself from laughing when he broke an extremely thin branch and fell to the floor.

"I'll do it myself," Glimmer muttered as she prepared an arrow. She shot the arrow and it was nowhere close to hitting me. Cato took the bow from her and shot at me, he was even worse.

"Why don't you try throwing up the sword?" I joked.

"Let's just wait her out," Peeta suggested. I was feeling very hurt, "She's got to come down at some point. It's that or starve to death," he said. Damn, he actually has a point. "We'll just kill her then." Ouch that's mean.

 Cato gave him a dirty look but agreed, "Somebody make a fire," he ordered, shoving the bow back into Glimmer's hands walking off.

The rest of the careers went to work but for a split second Peeta was just looking up at me. I really wanted to just break down and cry but I knew I had to be strong. I moved my back against the tree and extended my leg, trying to ignore the excruciating pain, the physical and the emotional.