𝐆𝐋𝐎𝐑𝐘 & 𝐆𝐎𝐑𝐄. ᵀᴴᴳ[1]

15

       SAGE MADE HIS WAY ALONG THE EDGE OF THE ARENA UNTIL THE ARENA BEGAN TO LIGHTEN. He didn't care to sleep, he didn't want to sit, he didn't care at all for how well he took care of himself. All he could think about was the fact that there were six tributes left, and he was one of them. Every minute he was in the arena, he was one minute closer to either dying or to winning and going home. In a way it felt thrilling to know that he was so close, but he was terrified at the same time. Tributes from Twelve usually never made it this far. Families from Twelve usually knew that once they were reaped, they were dead. But Sage wasn't. And he was terrified of what his family was thinking.

        Did they think he could do it? Did they truly think that he was going to win? What if he came so close just to lose, just for them to have their hope of him coming back to Twelve ripped out from beneath their feet. If he didn't go home, he didn't trust Katniss not to take out more tesserea every year. Starting next year. And he didn't feel like President Snow had been bluffing when he said that Katniss would have been right where he was if she had been old enough. If he didn't win, there was no telling what would come of Katniss or Prim.

      Then again, he had no idea what things would even be like if he managed to win. If he managed to go home, sure he would be living nice in Victor's Village. He'd be home, but would it even feel like home anymore? If you had asked him two weeks earlier if he thought he would have been capable of killing anything besides an animal, he would have said no. But now he had killed people. Sure it was between him and them, but they had their own lives a week ago. They had been a person with goals, regrets, dreams...and it was all gone because of him. Thinking about it that way made him feel sick to his stomach...

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be in the final six." Sage told himself aloud, he had to remind himself that what he was doing in the arena was a good thing. He was surviving, that was what he was supposed to be doing...

         As Sage moved closer to the trees, to stay as far out of the sun as he could, a sound cut the the near silent air in the arena. The sound of a cannon. Then another. Then another, and then silence. But the silence was brief before the sound of growling seemed to surround him. He barely had time to really realize that there was three more tributes; including him. Because over the edge of the arena, the source of the growling revealed itself as a creature that didn't look like anything he was familiar with. It wasn't even close to resembling anything he had ever even seen in a textbook at school. It was covered with black fur that laid flat across its skin. It's eyes were barely visible, but Sage could tell it was scanning the area before it set its sights on him. It's claws were thick and curled perfectly to dig into the stone as it pulled itself onto the rocky level ground and as it stood up straight, it was only a couple feet tall. It's lips rolled back to reveal teeth that were bigger than any other animals' that Sage could think of.