In The Arena

IN THE ARENA PART 1

The pedestal is rising up. I'm standing on a silver circle. My mentor told me that if I stepped off too early, I'd get blown up. I don't want to be known as the tribute who got blown up because he stepped off too early. That would suck. 60. 59. 58. 57. 56. I say goodbyes to people in my head. 'Mom, Dad, Allee, goodbye. I might not come back... I might not see any of you again. I'll try my best. I love you all.' 37. 36. 35. 34. I've never had friends. I chose to shy away just in case someone found out what I can do. That's why, even though I come from a district where everyone volunteers, I am here. My name got called. No one volunteered.... 29. 28. 27. I have no strategy. I don't wanna go to the Cornucopia, because I'll get killed and I don't wanna run away without anything, because I'll have nothing that can help me... 17. 16. 15. 14. I've decided to grab something close and then run into the woods. That's what one girl did 11 years ago did. There were 2 victors that year..... I have decided not to show my superior fighting skills. Even with those, I'm still afraid that I'm going to die. I'm scared. I have no idea how far I'll make it... Ten. Nine. I'm scared. Eight. I'm a career tribute and I never even made it in with the other Careers... Seven. Help me. Six. Five. I need to win.. Four. In a few seconds, the 85th Hunger Games will start..... Three. Oh god... Why am I the one who needs to be here? Two. I wish the games don't exist... One......

IN THE ARENA PART 2

I run a few feet in front of me and grab a brown backpack. I turn and run, occasionally looking back to see if anyone was going to kill me. I make it into the woods. I look back, and I see that nobody is following me. I run and run and run. I decide to stop before I pass out.. I need sleep. I barely got any last night because I was so nervous for today. I climb up a tree easily. I sit down on a branch high up and look through my backpack. I find a metal slinky like thing, a pack of almonds, and a small bottle. I look inside the bottle, and the bottle is a quarter full. 'that's nice,' I think. So far, so good. At least I'm not dead... It's nighttime now, so I decide to sleep in the tree. Then when I hear multiple footsteps down below me...

IN THE ARENA PART 3

I carefully look down without making too much noise, and I see the other Careers.. Great... I climb down a bunch of branches, so I don't accidentally kill myself when I do what I'm about to do. I say to myself, 'One. Two. Three,' I jump down to the ground and stand there. I hope to make it in with them. They just stand there looking at me as if I just grew wings. I say to them, "hi, my name is-" but then the boy from District 2 cut in and said, "Yes, we know what your name is. It's Aria." My district partner, Alexander said, "would you like to join us?" I say, "sure," this is getting even better. I'm not dead yet and I just joined the Careers, where I belong.

IN THE ARENA PART 4

We decide to go back into the tree. We all can climb, which is good. The District 2 boy and girl tell me their names. "My name is Aryana," says the girl. "I'm Austin," the boy says. Cool, we're all A names... We stay there until the Anthem plays with the fallen tributes. Girl from 5,both from 7, both from 8, girl from 9, girl from 10, and boy from 11. Eight in the first day, and 16 left... Who knows how long this can last... I'm surprised that the idiots from 12 are still alive. Just because their mentors are "The Girl on Fire" and "The Boy With The Bread", doesn't mean they're not still stupid enough to die. Before everyone went to bed, Alexander gave me a knife out of his collection of them that he found at the cornucopia. I slipped it into my sleeve.

Because I'm new to the Careers, I have the first watch. It's probably as much welcome as I'm going to get. It's been about 2 hours when I hear footsteps. Crap... I wake up Alexander to tell him there was someone down below us. "What!?" he snapped at me. "SHHH!!!" I shot back. "There's someone below us!" I whisper. We wake up the other Careers. And we plan to attack. The tribute still doesn't know we're up here. It's the girl from District 11. She makes a fire. 'Are you stupid!?' I think. We climb down a few branches and all four of us jump to the ground next to the District 11 girl.