The 64th Annual Hunger Games

Chapter Seven

At first sign of the careers my feet are telling me to run the opposite way, but my brain is yelling at me to run down the mountain. I take the first step down the long slope and before long I can hardy keep from tumbling over. The wind is whipping through my hair and I can't even tell how fast I'm running. I jump over a small bush that stood between two trees ahead of me. I land crooked on my ankle and end up tripping on a root. Im rolling down the mountain now and I only come to a stop when my side slams in to a large pine tree. I sit on the ground holding my ribs in pain. I dont think they're broken, but I'll probaly have a largre bruise there tommorow. My ankle seems to be fine and I take a moment to look around.

Without even realizing it my feet carried me past the group and halfway down the mountain. Something else is happening though. The ground is shaking. I look up at the peak and I see a large rock being pushed off a ledge. I stumble back on to my feet race down again, being chased by more than just a group of careers now. The ten foot wall of snow and rocks screams behind me. I can hear boulders slamming in to tree trunks, and the cracking on branches. The careers must be practically in the mass of the disaster.

Somehow I hear the cannon fire over the roar of the mountain and my own heart beating in my ears. I'm not sure who died, but I'm glad its not me. I hear Skit behind me scream Lark's name. I vaguely make out the sound of a body slamming in to a tree, followed by a boulder, and cracking bones. The cannon fires. I cringe at the thought, but keep letting my feet carry me down. Small bits of snow are flying up and stinging my face. Even more rocks are slamming in to trees as they tumble down. My legs can't take much more running, but the field is still far ahead. I see a large tree a few feet ahead and duck behind it, letting the remaining snow and rock flow around me. I don't know how I'm alive.

I quickly squat behind the trunk and I breathe deeply. The wall of snow has started to decrease in size, but still flows around me at a high speed. When I don't see or hear the careers again I assume that they hid in a similar fashion as me, or climbed a tree. The avalanche continues for a few more minutes, then stops suddenly.

By now I'm pretty sure everyone in the arena is awake and I should probably find somewhere to hide. I treck towards the cornucopia area, hoping to pick a new direction from there. I turn around to see Latch, Skit, and Roar half buried in snow behind a tree, but perfectly unharmed. This most likely means that the avalanche had killed a tribute who was sleeping somewhere in the rocks or greenery. Suddenly the lake with the monster sounds a bit more appealing than staying here.

I manage to make it out of the snow and I find myself in the meadow again. The careers have piled up the supplies near the horn, but no one is whatching them right now. I run towards the pile, limping a small bit on my left ankle, and look around. I grab a bag of dry meat, two more spears, an empty bottle, and what looks like a compass, but instead of directions it's split in to four, even, colored sections; light blue, pink, green, and orange. Currently the needle is facing in the blue direction. Once I've got my loot I decide to go back to the lake and figure out everything from there. I eat five crackers, drink the rest of my water, and get on my way.

The journey dosnt seem to take too long and I don't see any tributes on the way. When I sit down in the reeds I realize how hungry I really am. I eat a small portion of the jerky-like meat I picked up earlier and fill up my two bottles full of water. I decide to count up my supplies again. I have my five knives, six spears, two full bottles, the cloth, crackers and meat, and the compass with the colors. I'm surprised that I hadn't lost any supplies whilst running for my life.

I find it weird that it's not even noon yet and so much has happened in the past couple of hours. I set up the twigs around me in the reeds, and lay down like I did yesterday. Before I fall asleep I hold the compass in my hand and notice that the needle is now pointing at green. I put it back in my pack, then close my eyes.

I wake up shivering and look at the sun. It's only a bit past noon which means I slept for about two hours. It takes me a second, but then I notice what's happened. The usually sunny, warm, lake is now starting to freeze a small bit in the center. The beautiful green trees that surround the area have turned to deppressing oranges, reds and browns. Some trees are compltely dead.

The area looks where I found Ceffa last night; like Fall. I gather my things and look up at the mountain in the distance. The snow has completely melted and flowers are beginning to bloom. I can barely see the snow covered tips of the dead trees to my left. If Ceffa is still there she must be freezing. Through the dead trees to my right I can barely see that the pink trees and flowers are even brighter and warm looking. The four areas have stayed the same, but the seasons rotated. I pull out the compass and see that the needle is pointing in the same direction, but underneath it the color spun to orange. The compass tells you what area and season you're currently in.

I stare at the the device for a small bit longer than I notice something I didn't before. I lift up the small compartment on the lid and find what appears to be a timer. It's counting down to something. Whatever it's counting down to is going to happen in a little less than twelve hours. I take out one of my knives and carve numbers in to the edge to label the areas. The area with the lake will be number one, where I found Ceffa, two, and so on.

I decide to start heading towards area two in hopes of meeting up with Ceffa. The quick drop in temperature takes me by surprise when I walk in to the area with the dead trees. It seems colder than when I was in the mountains. Before I get too far in the area I hear someone's footsteps around me. I look to my left and see Ceffa sprinting towards me with a knife in her hand. She approaches fast, but I roll out of her path in time. I turn my head to see that she continues to run with out losing momentum the tackles a tribute that was hiding behind a tree.

I quickly run towards the action and grab a spear out of the tube. I don't throw because they're rolling around on top of each other and I don't want to hit her. Eventually the larger boy has her pinned to the ground by her shoulders and Ceffa makes a strange face like she's looking at something behind him. His turns his eyes and she slips her legs out from under him. She kicks him in the stomach and sends him rolling in the snow on the ground. She drops her knife on the ground, than proceeds to jump on top of him, ramming her knees in to his shoulders. She quickly grabs his head with both her hands and twists it fast at an awkward angle. The cannon immediately fires.

She gets up and dusts herself off. I've never seen her like that, though I've only really been with her about three times. She walk towards me.

"Check behind you back next time." She says teasingly. I toss her knife to her and she cathes it by the handle.

"Your welcome for the water!" I say sarcastically with a smile.