Annie Cresta- Beyond the Sea

Chapter 28

I saw it coming and ducked just in time. I heard it swish above me and felt it pick a few hairs out of my head. The axe buried itself in the cornucopia wall. That helped me, considering she'll have to come near me and my trident to get it back. But she pulled a sword from her belt. "Nice duck. That would've hit you right here" she said, making an X over her forehead.

Bello had stopped crying, but her eyes were still red and puffy. Her broken brown eyes had faded into a deep colorless black, like a monster out of a child's nightmare. It looked bad with her messy, frizzy blonde hair.

I swung my trident at her, but she blocked it with her sword, getting it caught between the first and second prong. She tried to pull it out, but she couldn't, and I had control of her sword. She struggled with it, used her sword's and my tridents' connection as an advantage, and forced me to follow while she walked in a full circle. Now she was next to her axe. I needed to break her sword. And so, with a lot of force, I slammed my trident to the ground, the sword taking all the impact. With a loud crack, it snapped in two. My trident was (thankfully,) safe.

Bello dropped the broken hilt of the sword and turned her attention to the axe. With her strength, she pulled it from the wall, and now had a weapon. She charged at me full speed, screaming and raising her axe above her head. I tried to move, but I was too late. This time I couldn't move fast enough to get out of the way.

She slammed it down, and it cut deep into my side. It felt like white-hot metal digging into my skin, I screamed an crawled away, not daring to get up. If I thought the arrow wound or the cuts on my skin was bad, it was nothing compared to this. I crawled far away to the back of the cornucopia, where I saw Bello was charging at me again. I readied my trident. I have one shot, one clear shot. If I miss, I'm dead, and I'll never see Finnick again, and Bello will be crowned victor. If I hit, Bello goes down, and I win, and I'll go home, safe from the Capitol's reach. My heart was beating fast, although it shouldn't be. What if I miss? Everyone I love will watch me be slaughered. Murdered. And I was engaged.

I aimed though clouded, darkened vision, and thrust my trident at Bello.

It hit her forearm. My world shattered as if someone had thrown an axe into it. Bello was going to kill me. I would never see Finnick again, never be able thank Darcy or Alana, never live in the Victors Village with enough money to buy my brothers and sell them, never get married to the most amazing boy. That life belongs to Bello now. Ungrateful, undeserving Bello.

Wait, a voice in the back of my mind called. I looked, and my eyes widened. The trident had gone through her arm, piercing a wide hole, and it dragged her out of the cornucopia in a glorious arc. She dropped her axe on the way out. A splash sounded, then, after an eternity (in which I was afraid I would bleed out before she did), a canon. And then it hit me that I just won the Hunger Games.

"Attention, attention. I now give you the winner of the 70th annual Hunger Games!" announced a speaker. An unexplainable feeling bursted inside me as I saw the aircraft floating down onto the ground. But then, everything went blurry, and I heard it as if from a distance. What if I died while they were trying to revive me? What if I died while they were drugging me? My mind seemed to go off a cliff, just as I faded into the darkness.

****

I woke up in a hospital gown in a hospital bed. An IV was stuck in my arm. However, all my cuts were gone, and only a mere scar was left where Bello had cut me with her axe. I couldn't feel anything, not even the bed I was sitting on. It was probably the medicine. I ripped out the IV and stood up.

I needed to find Finnick. I need him to know that I am okay. Nobody was in the room, so I walked over to the door and left into the hall. I looked, and I was in shock when I saw who was standing at the end of it.

Staring right into my eyes was none other than my stylist Darcy.