Liberosis - The Hunger Games

20

The sun had begun to peak over the clouds as I sped through the jungle, not looking back not looking for anything, not until I found them. I watched overhead as a hovercraft cut through the atmosphere in the direction of the body. I stumbled onto the shoreline, as the hovercraft stopped over a body.

My heart drummed in my ears as bile rose into my throat, I craned my head over a rock and watched as the body was lifted into the air, a heap of near-black hair hanging from the lift. "Toni," A voice whispered causing me to gasp and turn around, pressing my trident against the intruder's neck.

"Beck," I exhaled a sigh of relief, wrapping my arms around the boy's shoulder "Are you all ok?"

"We're fine, Viva and Tiberius found us when you were off finding food, chased us around half the island, they didn't find us, but they found her," He explained, "Come on, we need to hide," He added, leading me into the jungle where Thorn and Elsie were waiting anxiously.

"Aurora," Thorn breathed, tackling me into a hug, "We heard a cannon last night after the anthem, I was so worried." He opened his mouth to add more but I cut him off with an answer before he could ask the question.

"The district 7 girl pulled an axe on me, Sage got to her first, though," I explained, Elsie moved ahead of the three of us, picking useful plants from the trail, "District 7 got me good though," I chuckled, showcasing the brutal gash on my left leg.

"And where's Sage now?" Thorn questioned, glancing around warily.

"I don't know," I responded blankly, I knew she wasn't far behind us, she'd made a promise to me and if I knew anything about her, it was that she kept her promises, "She was separated from the rest of the Careers- It's them, Viva, Tiberius and us now."

"I hate to be the one to say it, but if we want one of us to get out of this, we need to start playing offensively." Beck added, "Don't give me that look, Thorn, you know it's true,"

It was true, we had gotten out of enough killing by hiding, laying low but we would not be able to do it forever. It was an ugly truth, but still, one we would have to bear, ugly truths seemed to be all that was ringing in my head. Mostly they came in the form of Andante's voice, telling me I had to separate from them if I wanted to protect them. Finnick's voice told me to stay, I had been through so much this far with them, I would not be protecting them if I left. At least three of us were doomed anyway.

We set up camp in a small clearing central to the island, it was close to the stream but had escape routes on any side if need be. The four of us were quickly running low on supplies but we were determined to make it work. Elsie sat on her sleeping mat with a handful of daisies making a small crown of flowers mindlessly.

Thorn had not let go of his sword since they found me, always keeping a tight grip of the weapon, he had not said a word since we set up camp, instead, he scoured the trees for any sort of activity. Beck had been scoping the area for any activity, return around noon, out of breath. "Careers are set up not far from here, I think they're planning to start hunting day times."

Thorn nodded stoically, "Let's get moving then,"

I felt more tired as I moved, the days were growing hotter the more time we spent in the area. I had spent over a week in the games and had grown accusation to the odour of sweat, my hair was a greasy mess, though my face felt very dry. Lips cracked due to both thirst and heat exhaustion.

We stopped to eat as the sun reached its highest point in the sky, I washed my face with the water in the stream, caring less and less if the unclean water would kill me or not. At this point I was begging for death, tired of fighting, tired of hurting, just tired in general.