Survivor | The Hunger Games

ch.13

"Take my hand,

We'll walk the trail,

Give us a day,

We'll make It there."

A soft voice sang.

"In hollow town,"

The voice continued, soothing the unconscious girl's headache.

"I'll make it all better,

I promise we'll be safe,

So, take my hand,

We'll walk the trail,

Give us a day,

We'll make it there."

Lana's eyes fluttered open. Beside her sat the boy from 3, Declan. "What's going on?"

Declan gasped excitedly. "Emery! She's awake." Lana looked at the boy, seeing three of him. She held her hand to her head as her ears rang. She realized he was also holding her hand in his tiny one. Emery stopped skinning the snakes she had hunted and quickly grabbed her bow and arrow. She readied one, pointing it at Lana.

"Declan, get away from her." Emery ordered. Declan lets go of Lana's hand and races over to his sister.

"Don't hurt her, Em." Declan begged. "She's not going to hurt us. She saved me."

Lana was able to prop herself up on her elbows. "We don't know that for sure." Emery responded. "She could've been coming for you next after taking down the one from 2." Once Lana's eyes fully adjusted, she noted she was in a terribly lit room with curved walls and a short ceiling. She was also lying on a thin blanket laid over the hard sandy floor.

"Please. Emery." Declan begged. "She's a good person."

As soon as Lana heard what Declan said about her, she flinched. The second she regained her consciousness she remembered what she did to Darian. What she did to him does not make her a good person.  "How do you know I'm a good person?"

"What?" Emery questioned, confused as to why she would try to make herself look like anything else.

"How do you know I'm a good person? I killed a guy. I killed him with a weapon I use to hunt in the sea with as a little girl." Lana said in a sadden voice. "If anything, you should just kill me. I don't deserve to still be here."

"That's not true." Declan said. "My mom says every life counts. Every year, when the games would happen, she'd tell my sister and I that all those people who committed heinous acts still mattered, dead or alive. Whether they knew it or not their choice to take one life for another was a choice they were forced into. It's human nature for a person to go into fight or flight mode when put in a situation that could potentially result in their death. And since you refused to kill me, they were going to kill you and so you reacted in a way a lot of people do, you fought."

Lana blinked away a few tears. "Your mother sounds very compassionate and understanding."

"Which is why she makes such a great therapist." Declan goofily smiled.

Lana sat up and wiped the snot coming out of her nose. She looked down at her hands and images of what took place between her, Iris and Darian flashed through her mind. Lana began crying, her crying soon turned into sobs as she cupped her face and curled up her knees. What Declan said got through Emery and when Lana started sobbing, she knew how right he was. Emery sat her crossbow on the floor and went back to skinning the snakes. Declan wanted to comfort Lana, but Emery stopped him. "Stop, she needs to be alone. How about you start the fire, I'm almost done with these snakes."

Lana continued to cry for the next few hours and when Declan tried to offer her food it only made Lana's cries worst. Once it was creeping up on nightfall Emery put Declan to sleep. Emery then walked up to Lana who wasn't crying as loud anymore and nudged her arm with her foot. Lana tried to ignore her, but Emery wouldn't stop. "I'm not stopping until you get up."

"Why don't you both save us the trouble and just kill me now." Lana muffled into her hands.

"Trust me, I wanted to leave you out there to die when I found my brother, but he insisted on bringing you with us and keeping you alive." Emery scoffed. Knowing she had no other choice, Lana got up. When Emery saw how bloodshot Lana's eyes were, it made her uneasy. "Follow me." Lana moved like a zombie following Emery. She didn't want to talk; she didn't want to move, and she didn't want to be alive. The guilt from taking Darian's life was eating her from the inside out. "We're going to have to get on our knees to get out. By the way if you haven't noticed were in a cave." Once the girls were out, Emery and Lana stood back up.

A few seconds later the announcements began. Pictures of the kids from 8 appeared as well as the girl from 12. When the announcement's ended Lana was left confused. "Wait, I heard the canon go when I---" She couldn't even finish the sentence. "How long have I been asleep?"

"About 2 nights. The first night you were unconscious we saw him in the sky along with the boy from 6." Emery explained. "Then on night 2 that you were blacked out there was no one."

Lana remembered how beat up Iris was and the fact that she was still alive astonished her. "So, including tonight that makes this a total of 4 nights that we've been in the arena?"

"Yeah." Emery confirmed. "Almost half the tributes are dead."

"Have you had to kill anyone yet?" Lana asked.

"Thankfully," Emery gave Lana a pitiful look. "No, but when your allies ambushed Declan and I, we got separated. There was so much sand blowing in my eyes that I thought Declan was running right beside me and when the wind stopped, and I cleared my eyes I noticed he wasn't, and I prepared myself to go back to the hut and kill anyone if I had to in order to keep my brother alive."

"That's good, that you would do anything to keep your brother safe." Lana said as she thought about her brother who wouldn't do the same. Lana usually gets angry thinking or talking about her brother, but she was just too tired and drained out to feel any of that at the moment. Emery caught a crack in Lana's sentence and realized how thirsty she must be. Emery took off her bookbag and pulled out a 32-liter water bottle that was still three quarters full

"Here, this is yours." Emery handed it to her. Human instincts kicked in as Lana took the water bottle from her hand and gulped almost all of it down. Not only her throat but entire body felt entirely better afterwards. "I hope you don't mind. When we saw that, and a few other supplies come down from the sky we couldn't resist to drink some."

"Sky?" Lana questioned.

"Yeah, from a sponsor." Emery answered as she pulled out a note from her bag. She handed it to Lana and as she read it her heart dropped.

I should've been there to say goodbye. I'm sorry.

Hold on, I still believe in you.

- F.O.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she started crying again. Lana could just imagine him saying this to her in person and he could've if he had just taken her to the jet with Mags. Lana folded up the note and tucked it inside her shoe. "Finnick Odair, right?" Emery asked.

Lana nodded, wiping her upper lip with her arm.

"He sounds like he really cares about you." Emery said. "Why didn't he say goodbye?"

Lana sniffled back her tears and looked at Emery. "Honestly... I don't know."