The sun is gone. The last rays have faded from the sky. Cato should be dead by now, but he's not.
When will it end? When?
I can hear the mutts growling and snarling as they make a chew toy out of Cato.
I actually pity him now. Wow. Never thought I would even think that.
The growling moves around and inside the cornucopia, under us now.
I think it's been an hour – maybe more – since he fell. He would've been dead by now, but whatever sort of body shield he's wearing is preventing the mutts from eating him alive.
I can hear him moaning in pain as they chew the unprotected parts of his body. Katniss hears him, too. She shudders now and then when he moans. It's very cold now, too, so that's not helping much. The scorching metal the cornucopia is made of is now ice cold.
The cold I can handle, but my leg in the other hand isn't making much progress. Even though I have my hand pressed against the gash, the blood flows freely, leaving a warm trail as it runs down my ankle, pooling in my shoe. As the night progresses I feel weaker and weaker. I don't really feel pain though, just an uncomfortable numbness in my entire leg. I don't tell Katniss this, because I don't want to worry her, but of course I don't fool her.
She takes off her jacket, removes her shirt – I feel so weak I can't even really appreciate how beautiful her bare skin looks in the pale light of the moon – and then zips the jacket back on.
She makes me lie down, and then checks my injured leg for a few seconds. She rips a sleeve off her shirt, wraps it twice around my leg, above the gash, but under my knee, and then ties a knot. She takes her last arrow and secures it in the knot, twisting it very tightly. I clench my teeth together to prevent from screaming.
"Don't go to sleep," she whispers to me in a concerned voice.
"Are you cold?" I ask, though I know she must be freezing.
I unzip my jacket and she presses tightly against me as I fasten it around her. I feel much better with the little extra heat. I wrap my arms tightly around her – well, as tight as I can, anyway.
"Cato may win this thing yet," she murmurs after a few minutes of silence.
"Don't you believe it," I tell her firmly, pulling her hood up.
We lay there, shuddering harder as the temperature drops even further. By this point Cato's moans just add to that torture. No one deserves to suffer so much, and so long. Not one of us deserved to suffer so much. Yet here we are. Freezing to death. Freezing and bleeding to death in my case and in Cato's. How is any of this fair? How does any of this bring pleasure and excitement to all those monsters watching us back in the Capital?
"Why don't they just kill him?" Katniss whispers as if reading my thoughts.
"You know why," I say, and pull her closer to me.
After a while my eyelids feel too heavy, and my whole body just screams for some rest. I jump startled every time I begin dozing off and Katniss yells my name, each time louder. I take a deep breath and fight against sleep. Against death. Not for me, but for her. If it were me, I would have given up already. It's just so tempting to just close my eyes and never open them again. But I must fight. I can't leave her alone while the Game is still on. As strong as she is, I know she'll feel scared if I leave her.
I know it must seem like the time has stopped for her. That's how it feels like to me. So I begin pointing the moon to her every so often, so that she sees the progress it makes on the sky. So that she know that time is passing, and this will hopefully be over soon. Hopefully.
