cloves games - a hunger games spin-off

The girl from District 8.

We head off towards the woods, and follow the fire. It takes us hours, and we don't bump into anyone on the way.

Everyone agrees to let Cato kill her, partly because they're all scared of him. I only agree because I know Cato will make a good job of it.

After hours of walking, the fires still smoking away through the trees.

Finally, we see the blaze. It's the girl from 8. She starts to beg.

"Please don't kill me, no, please, I'll leave here if you don't hurt me please!"

Cato laughs like a maniac before shoving his sword into her stomach. He pulls it out slowly, a huge smile plastered onto his face. The metal is glistening with her blood against the light of the fire.

We start to clear out. We stop a minutes walk away, and Marvels tells us to keep going, the hovercraft won't get the body if we're right here.

"Is she dead?"

"Yes, I killed her."

"I didn't hear the cannon."

"I'm telling you, I killed her."

"We should make sure."

Peeta volunteers. "I'll go."

There's a small rustle in the tree above us, but I'm sure it's just a bird taking flight.

He takes his small dagger, and disappears.

We start to talk again. This time it's Glimmer who talks first.

"Why don't we just kill loverboy now?"

"He said he'll lead us to her."

"And you trust him?"

The cannon goes off.

"No. But if he helps us find the girl, we're keeping him."

Then Peeta's back. We all stop talking. Cato asks if she was dead.

"No. But she is now."

"Good. Let's clear out."

And we leave.

We've been walking for a while when it starts to get really hot.

"Ugh. We should sit down." Cassia groans and throws her head back.

Then she screams. She screams and sounds quite a bit like District 8 when she was dying.

"What?"

We all spin around, expecting another alliance of tributes standing there, armed. But no.

It's a huge wall of fire. We run, run like it's life or death. Which it is. Live, or die a very hot death.

I'm quite small, and fast, and I easily outrun the others. Me and Glimmer are a few steps ahead, trying to get back to the lake, our safe space. I hope the fire doesn't follow us there, all our food is there.

Peeta, at the back, shouts, I think he's been burnt. But I don't care. I just want to get out, and if that means throwing 12 into the wall of flames, so be it.

The heat of running, and the heat of the flames is overwhelming. I want over anything to just stop, to sit down for 2 minutes and catch my breath. But if I do, the fire will get me. So I just run and run and run. It's getting harder and harder to breath, I can taste the smoke in my mouth, I can hear my raspy breathing, feel my heart pumping.

I trip, and roll down a steep hill. I think the others think I've done it on purpose, because they're all rolling too. But the trees are getting thinner and thinner, I think we're near the edge of the forrest.

I land in the field which holds the Cornucopia and Lake, and run over to it. I lie down in the shallows of the lake, and gulp in the water. I eat some of the fruit we have, and go to sleep, Cato keeps guard.

When I wake up, the others are getting ready to leave, and go hunt some more tributes down.

"Do you think it was that girls fire? The one we killed?" I ask, washing my face in the Lake.

"No. Peeta says it was something from the Capitol, says the fire was in a perfect straight line, wasn't natural." Marvel says, drinking next to me.

We grab some water bottles, a loaf of bread, and some spare weapons and put them in a bag. Cato puts it on his back, and we head off.

We follow a small stream for about an hour, it's really light now.

We hear some splashing around, at first it seems like nothing, but then someone groans, as if from relief.

"There she is!" Marvel spots her.

It's District 12. We run, shes on the other side of the stream, shes just ahead of us. She runs through the trees, she's quite fast, but so are we.