Annie Cresta- Beyond the Sea

Chapter 21

I never forgot that scream. It seemed to have put my mind on a tightrope, and I felt like I was slipping.
"Dallas!" I yelled, panicking. "Dallas!"
Safiya looked concerned. I could hear his voice as if from a distance, "Annie, no- they're baiting you- Annie!" He kept trying to calm me down like I was a pet bird who was trying to fly from his cage, but I pushed past him. I bursted through the bushes, trying to find where he went, where I could save him. I could hear Safiya racing behind me, calling my name, begging me to come back, telling me that this is a trick, that they're using him to get to me. He sounded a lot like Finnick, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't be. The scream sounded again, and I ran faster to it, but I didn't think I could make it. These legs were made for water, and if this were a river I know I could save him, I know it. His voice played tantalizingly in my head like a broken song. "For District 4".
Suddenly, I reached him. Him and the careers, minus Tanzanite. They should've been expecting me, but none of their heads turned when I bursted onto the scene.
"Dallas! No!"
The careers were tortuing  him when he caught sight of me. Then, just as the girl from 1, Bello, raised her axe, he screamed my name.
"Annie-!"
Bello slammed down her axe on his neck, and his canon sounded.
"NO!" I screamed. But it was too late. He was dead.
I felt like I was falling off the tightrope. I didn't save him, why couldn't I save him? Why wasn't I fast enough?
"Look who decided to come? It's the girl who never drowns!" Came a voice from a fading smirk. In my head I was falling, flailing my arms. Then something took my hand and pulled me away quickly. I was hanging onto the tightrope with one hand.
Then I snapped back into real life, though real life wasn't quite relevant anymore.
"Go, go, go!" It was Safiya, he was pulling me away from the careers who were chasing us through the forest. Boy, the careers were like small speedboats, how fast they ran. I, myself, ran as fast as I could, and soon over passed Safiya. He was a pretty quick little kid, though, and could still somehow keep a measurable distance away from the careers.
Suddenly, over the mountain appeared something massive and gray. It was a large stone wall towering over us, even though it was about 50 yards away. It was a massive dam full of water. Suddenly, Finnick's voice rang somewhere in the working part of my head.
"You have to get to the highest point possible before midnight the third day".
But it still didn't make any sense. That wall had to be at least five feet thick.
Then I spotted a cave with a small entrance.
"In there!" I pointed, and Safiya and I quickly darted inside. I knew Bello could easily slip inside with us, so with Safiya's help I pushed a medium sized boulder over the entrance. It was surprisingly light for its intimidating stature. Nothing could get in, unless you were small enough to fit through the cracks of the rocks.
And I didn't believe, though heavily trained, the careers could turn into spiders.
Speaking of, the careers where trying to get in, but they failed. Safiya and I kept all our weight on the boulder, just in case something happened. Their fists on the rock reminded me of rain. "You'll have to come out sometime!" Bello wailed, someone else laughing. She stared at me through the cracks. She had brown eyes, similar to Safiya's. Only, Safiya's were soft, innocent, and forgiving. And whole. Bello's were evil, and dark, and cracked, letting in streaks of a lighter brown, and maybe even some weird cream color, in the middle. Soon, the careers left, probably hiding somewhere near, thinking we can't be in here forever.
And they were right. But we could outlast them.
I still couldn't help feeling like I was falling apart, though.
I was trying to hang on to the tightrope, but it suddenly just seemed to snap all together. Sending me falling to the fiery hole below, rope falling ontop of me like a long, thin snake. I wanted to scream for Finnick, but no noise came out.
I curled up in a ball in the corner of the cave. I stayed there for a while, trying to calm myself down. How the hell did Finnick survive this? I almost didn't last a day. A sigh escaped my lips.I longed for someone to talk to, so I turned to Safiya.
"How long did I sleep y-yesterday?"
"The night," he replied, looking distant. "You needed your rest to heal, so I took watch until I was too tired. So I covered us in nature to keep us hidden and fell asleep next to you."
"D-did you see who died?" I asked him shakily. He sat down across from me.
"The girl from 2, boy from 3, your.. Dallas.. " I winced at his name, but he continued. "Nobody from my district, all of district 6, the girl from 7, all of 8, the boy from 9, and all of district 10,11, and 12," he replied. Ok, so 16 fallen. That's a lot. Only 6 more, not including Safiya and I. That must be some sort of new record, sixteen dead in two days. The careers must've been busy.But I just nodded, gathered back some insanity, and asked, "Hey, Safiya, do you like singing?"