A Second Chance

Not Again

It's been a few days since Cato woke up, and I came to visit him everyday since. He's been practicing walking with the physical therapists but he doesn't have lunch with any of us. Right now a lot of the non-careers are sitting with Glimmer, Marvel, and I. I now know all of the tributes names, which I'm not sure is a good thing. We all share what our home districts are like, and I'm a little shocked by how bad things sound in the poorer districts. District 11 sounds by far the worst. Thresh says that the Peacekeepers are really strict, and that they have to work in the farms almost all day.
A girl named Anne says that in her district, District 6, there was a morphling epidemic. I think I may remember hearing something about that, but we were mostly sheltered from that sort of news in District 2. I start to feel very tired after hearing all about the suffering in different districts, I suppose I'll go to my room to rest before we watch the Games tonight. I head for the doors that lead to the hospital, but I stop when I hear footsteps coming behind me. The District 3 boy, named Satis, tells me about how he's sorry about not protecting the pile of supplies and food we had in the Games. I tell him that it doesn't matter now and he shouldn't feel bad about it.
   "It was Katniss by the way," I try to say in a comforting tone, "she blew up the food."
   "Oh, I kind of assumed it was her. It was a pretty good plan she had though, having someone else set a fire to distract you and the others."
  "Yeah, the one who set the fire was Rue I think. But why did you leave-" I stop mid sentence when I see someone approach us.
   "Clove, can I talk to you about something?" Asks a red haired girl named Finch.
   "Um, I guess but-"
   "It's really important."
   I say goodbye to Satis and turn my full attention to the girl.
   "Follow me," she says while taking my hand and leading me down the hospital hallways. I'm concerned as to what she wants to talk about that's this important. Just as I'm about to escape her grip she opens a closet door and pushes me inside.
  "Hey!" I scream at her.
  "Shh. They'll hear you. "
  "What is so important that we had to meet in a closet to talk about it."
  "They put security cameras in our rooms so we can't talk there. But what I have to tell you is really important. Remember when Anne said that she thought we might be used as tributes in the 75th Hunger Games, and with it being a quarter quell and all that would make sense.
  "Please don't tell me that's what's actually happening. I knew it was a good theory but I didn't want to believe it. Who would the District Twelve tributes be?"
"I heard the trainers talking at the knot tying station, they were saying something about not wanting to train us for the Games because they would know us too well by the time we die." I stare at her in disbelief. The room starts spinning and getting smaller and smaller and by the time I manage to open the door I'm already running and pushing the staff out of the way to get to my room. I can't find it. I can't find my room. Where is it? Everything's still spinning but I can't stop running down the hallways, until I finally reach my room. I close the curtains, lock the door, and just start screaming into my pillow. I begin sobbing uncontrollably and I won't be able to stop until I cry myself to sleep. I just have one final thought on my mind until I fall asleep. I can't kill these people, not again.