A Million Fireflies | A Hunger Games x KOTLC Fanfiction

Chapter 5

Rocking from side to side in the tree. Biting my fist even though blood is starting to trickle from it. Letting the sadness spill through my eyes. Each shaky breath is coming out of my mouth in a burst of steam. The icy air pinches my face. My hands. Everything is numb, even through my thick winter jacket.

A cannon fires in the distance. I jump and nearly fall out of the tree. I'm shaking even harder now.

The sky lights up and the Capitols anthem is blares.

I see the face of the monstrous girl from 2, which surprises me. I wonder what her fate was. The boy from District 5, and the boy from 10. I bite my lip when I see Tam's face light up the sky. Then, I see Melanie. I'm very confused for a moment, and then I realise she hadn't been there when Tam was killed by the boulder. She'd ditched us in that moment. Very loyal.

I count it off on my fingers and figure out there's just thirteen of us left.

Thirteen children have died in the past forty-eight hours.

My heart jerks and I feel a sudden urge to be sick. I fight it off, and lean back in my tree, tucking my knees up into the oversized woolly jacket.

A few hours later the sound of dry leaves crunching under bare feet awakens me. I stiffen in my tree, frozen by fear. The crunching gets louder and louder.

Someone's here.

I stay as still as I can, hoping I'm completely camouflaged in my tree. After a few minutes, I begin to doubt that I heard something in the first place. Just as I lay my head down again, someone bursts into the clearing. I can't move now or they'll see me, but I can just make out the outline of a boy. I don't know who it is. No one I remember right now.

Without thinking, I sit up to get a better look. Mistake.

For starters, my knife falls off the slim branch I had sleepily balanced it on. Both these movements, from my knife and I, are heard by the boy. He grabs an arrow from the quiver on his back and readies his bow, spinning towards the noise. I glance down towards my dagger, which is (barely) lodged in a branch below me.

My brain is rapidly trying to come up with a plan, but I needn't bother. The boy lowers his bow, seeming to have come to the conclusion that it was just a bird or a rabbit. I want to sigh at his ignorance.

A second passes and the boy's back is turned now and I think he's sharpening his arrows. I take the chance to snatch my dagger. I have to reach down and strain until my arm nearly pops out of its socket but I can dislodge it from the wood and pull it up. Then a thought hits me.

The boy is still working his way through the arrows, sharpening them with a stone.
I could do it.
The boy is tall and fit, with a mass of blonde hair. I've realized who he is now - Keefe Sencen, District 2. A career.

I raise the knife and brush a gap through the leaves with my fingers. The knife is now poised carefully, but my hand is shaking. My lip starts bleeding because I've been biting it so hard.

I can't do this.

I can't do it.