When I Died

Chapter 33

I wake early, when the birds are starting to sing. Bonnie sleeps beside me, silently. I crawl out of my sleeping bag and go outside to the dying fire. No one else is up, so I start collecting more sticks and building the embers up. I manage to get a small flame so I sit beside it, warming my freezing hands.

A noise comes from behind me and I spin around, but it is only Percy, climbing out of his tent.

"You're awake." I say.

"Yeah."

He walks over and sits next to me. I can't help myself. I lean by head against his shoulder and his scent comforts me.

"I missed you." I whisper.

"I did too."

We sit in silence for a while, but it's not an awquard silence. It's a peaceful one.

"What now?" I ask, finally.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean. What do we do? All the remaining tributes are in an alliance together."

"I wouldn't call it an alliance. More a group of friends that only just met."

"Well, yeah. But what will happen?"

He sighs. "Lets not think about that now."

Slowly, others dribble out of the tent, but I keep my head resting on Percy's shoulder. Daisy comes out of her tent, yawns and sees me and Percy.

"Eww! You guys aren't boyfriend and girlfriend, are you?" She says with a frown. We laugh.

The last few people come out of the tents and Juliet slides next to me.

"Hey, how you feeling?" I ask.

She shrugs.

"A little head ache, but I'm fine.

Percy stands up next to me.

"Is everyone here?" He asks. He looks around and we nod.

"Good. We need to talk."

Before he can say anything else, summer buts in.

"What now?"

The question hangs in the air.

"We stay here."

"But..."

"But what? "We aren't about to kill each other, are we, nor that we ever will. You can't kill a friend." Percy says.

"But how will the games end?" Summer asks.

"Who cares. We can survive in here. We can get water, food, clothes. Lets live for as long as we can in here. If Max doesn't like it, so what? He can easily blow us all up if he wants to. We will just be saved from the burden of killing one another." I say.

Percy wraps his arm around me.

"You've changed. A lot. You are determined and no longer timid." He says. I look up at him.

"Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"Good. Definitely good."

He leans in and his lips touch mine.

"Uhg. Get a room." Tyan says.

We pull away, embarrassed and Ruby elbows him in the ribs. He grunts a sorry and rubs his side.

She gives me an apolegic look and I shrug.

"So what, we just wait." Summer asks.

"Pretty much. We can move down to the lake so prim can play with her powers," Percy winks at me. So Tyan must have told him. "And Juliet can figure out any others she might have." I look over to where she is sitting and am relieved when I see that he necklace is back around her neck.

"When do we go?" Daisy asks from next to me.

"Right now if we want." I reply.

"Ok."

So we pack up the tents and start trekking down towards the lake. I walk with Summer on the way, and play with the small bit of water around my neck. Tyan plays with his own powers, and I think of how much better he is at using the necklace than Dian. He makes fire play around the leaves of the trees and they don't catch alight, then he brings the flames lick our heels before he extinguishes them.

When we reach the lake, I immediently feel better. The small slapping of the water on the wind calms me and it's vast blue refreshes me. We pull out the tents and build them up, then Daisy turns and looks out at the water. Without a warning, she shouts and runs into it, splashing everyone. Suddenly, everyone is in the water, even Dian, splashing and playing about. Daisy comes up to me and whispers something into my ear.

"let's show them all our trick."

I nod and she dives under. I see her silhouette in the darkness of the water and pull a current strongly from under her. She flys up and out of the water, soaring in the air for a small second. Then I pull some water under her and bring her back down again. I do it again and this time she does a backflip. She lands back in the water and the next time round, she does the splits, before landing back in the water. The next time, instead of slipping back into the water, she goes extra high. Tyan laughs and his necklace glows. She slides back into the water and with one last thought, I pull her up into the air one last time. She does a bow before slipping back under the surface. She surfaces, beaming and everyone starts clapping.

We get out of the water and lie in the sun for a while, letting it dry us off.

Then I sit up and start playing with some water. I make a figure in the sky, running around, then make her pick up a water bicycle and start riding about, before falling down and splashing all over Bonnie.

"Hey, I just got dry!" she shouts at me and we all burst out laughing.

We spend the rest of the afternoon swimming and playing about.

~~~

Tara looked down at the laughing children and something snapped in her. She couldn't do this. Max had asked her to think of a way of killing them. At first she had been honored. She had been chosen to kill them. Now she was having second thoughts. Not just on killing the remaining tributes, but about being a game maker. Backing these games. Only now did she see the full extent of what she was doing. What about the children's family? Sure, Prim's already thought she was dead and had gone back to district 12. Katniss had announced a few days ago she was pregnant.

But what about the rest of them. They weren't orphans. In fact, she knew the little ones parents from when she herself had once lived in district 11. So long ago.

Her mind suddenly realized how hurt they must have gone through to lose Rue, and now she was given the task to kill Daisy and her closest friends. As she looked down and watched the children, she came to her senses. Even though she knew the consequences, she had to stop Max. She wrote a short note, attached it to one of the silver parachutes lining the walls, and sent it down into the arena. A determined feeling stuck in her heart as she went off to her lunch break. These children would not die in her watch.

~~~

A small silver parachute floats down and I catch it and unwrap it. It contains a note.

'dear tributes.

I have to make this short. My names Tara, and max was outraged when you all agreed not to kill each other (or something like that). He came up to me and asked me to think of a way to kill you. To make it short, I don't want to do that and I don't plan to. Just do what I tell you. I will send down a small box of pills. Make sure all of you eat one at the exact same time. These give you unkillable protection for 1 hour in which I will send down the thing that will 'kill' you. As soon as it reaches you and touches you, you will go unconscious. I will take out your bodies as dead and then, if all goes right, you will get home. I will send the pills tomorrow at midday.

Tara.'

I pass it around to the others and they all read it. As falls over me, an overwhelming feeling of hope fills me. For the first time in ages, I had a chance at going home.

___________

There ya all go. I wrote most of this on mums iPad in a car on the way to the snow, so I hope it's ok!

Xela732