I Play To Win

Easy To Love You

Alison didn't know how she was still alive. Maybe she was so focused on coming back home that sometimes her brain manage to work fast enough to save her life. And sometimes Noel was really helpful too. It's been hardly 48 hours since they got inside the arena and more than 12 tributes were already gone. Maybe it was just lucky that both of them got to get out of the cornucopia alive.

This year's arena was by far the craziest one Alison has ever seen in her 18 years of watching the Hunger Games. It seemed to be a typical city from the old world, only it was the version post-apocalyptic of the city. Buildings with various windows broken and even some of the building itself broken by the half. There were many alleys too. And she was in one of them right now with Noel.

Alison and Noel decided that they should stick together, the both of them. They couldn't be with the careerists, especially after they looked like they wanted to eat them alive when they were on the training. And they couldn't be alone too, Alison knew that even if she could she wouldn't be able to be alone in there. But they decided, before they even started the training, that by the end of the games, when there wouldn't be many of them alive, they would go their separate ways and see where it lead.

But for now, they were together eating some of the food they got by grabbing the first bag they saw before running away from the cornucopia. It was pretty quiet, if you didn't count the creeping sound of the fireplace Noel had managed somehow to light up, and Alison would have appreciated more if she could stop thinking about Emily, because generally, that's pretty much what she's been doing when she wasn't thinking about her own death or her new found best friend's death.

Alison needed to think about Emily though. She was one of the very few reasons Alison would do anything to win this game. Well, Emily was one of the very few good reasons Alison would do anything to win this game. And Alison only allowed the good things to cross her mind while she was there, and pretty much since she got to the capitol, because that place could definitely bring the worst in you. And that worst part, Alison knew, was the biggest part of her, and she wasn't proud of that. But since she's gotten together with Emily she had been working on that, because she wanted to deserve Emily, not simply have her. She knew Emily always brought out the good part of her even before they were together, so she used to think about Emily to bring that good part of her.

She thought about Emily, but she tried her best not to think about Emily and her together. Because when she did think of them together she wanted to scream or cry or run away, or all of them together, but none of them were options. Fortunately, when her thoughts began to wander to that place, Noel spoke.

"We're running out of food." He said not looking up from his can of beans.

"It was lucky enough we managed to get these bags with food in it." Alison replied

"Yes, it was." They stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before Noel spoke again. "Where do you think we can find food in here?"

"I don't know." Alison thought for a minute. "Do you think they recreated here those grocery stores or whatever, that they had back there?" Alison wonder.

"I don't have any idea. We should go try and find them by the morning." Alison nodded agreeing with Noel.

That was how their conversations went every time, they only spoke when there was something that needed to be said. And it's not like they ever got much to talk about anyway, they were never close personally, even though they did lived close to each other. But Noel had become a very good friend in those past days.

Soon enough they finished their diner time and decided that Noel was taking the first shift to watch for other tributes. Alison was getting ready to sleep when Panem's anthem started to play and the face of various tributes lit up the night sky. Alison counted 4 tributes, which made the total of exactly 12 tributes down. They were in the average, normally by the second day there were always at least half of the tributes dead. After the last face appeared on the sky, Alison just turned to her side where she was lying down and tried to sleep.

Again, her head was filled with images of Emily. This time Alison just let the images play freely in her mind. It was weird how it played out inside her head as if it was someone else's memories, but at the same time she could still remember how it felt when she saw Emily's face every day. She could still remember how it felt when she had first realized she was truly in love with Emily, and it's crazy how you just realize in a totally random moment. She remembered she was about 15 years when she had that moment. It was all of the sudden, like something had just clicked inside her and then it was just "oh my God, I'm in love with that girl". She remembered how terrified she was to admit that even to herself, she never thought of actually saying aloud to Emily, that's why it took her another 2 years and her dead brother for her to finally say it to Emily. And she remember how that felt too. And afterwards, when she kissed Emily for the first time.

God! The feeling of Emily's lips on hers. She loved that, she couldn't wait to feel her lips on hers again. To feel her arms around her. To even just see her face. Certainly, Alison missed Emily more than any other thing in this earth. She never realized how much she craved for Emily until that moment. She promised herself for the hundredth time since she got there that she would have Emily in her arms again. And the first thing that Alison would do when she got to her district was to kiss Emily until the need for air was bigger than her need for the brunette.

And it was with the thought of Emily's arms around her body, and Emily's lips against hers that she fell asleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A/N - Just quickly note explaning that I decided to post this sooner than expected because the past chapter and this one are shorter than the others so... yeah. And, um, just thanks for reading, the last two chapters will be posted in the next two days or so.