That night, the night before the games, I wouldn't sleep. I couldn't sleep, scared that when I entered void of unconsciousness I would either be frightened out of it and wake up screaming, or that I wouldn't be, and I would have to watch horrific nightmares for the whole night.
I decide to go and wander through the apartment, I would've gone and sat by the window but I saw a figure there. It was Austin.
"Hi," I said awkwardly, given the fact that I had just pinned him up against the wall and yelled at him.
He didn't seem phased in the slightest. "Hey," he said as he looked up. I sat opposite him in the window.
"Can't sleep?" I ask, in an attempt to keep the conversation going.
"No, course not," Austin almost laughs.
"I'm sorry about how I reacted," I say quietly.
"It's fine, I know you meant it as a compliment," he smiles slightly.
I look down from the window and see a bunch of Capitol people, cheering. Most likely because the games start tomorrow.
"Listen to them," I say in absolute disgust. "Half of us are going to die tomorrow and they're out ready to fucking bet on who lasts the longest."
"Yeah," Austin looks down too. "I just... I don't want them to change me."
"What?" I ask. "How would they change you?"
"I don't know," Austin looks to me now. "Turn me into something I'm not? I just don't wanna be another piece in their games."
"You mean you won't kill anyone?" I suss out.
"No," he shakes his head. "I mean, I'm sure I would, when the time comes, but I just keep thinking of a way to show them that they don't own me.
"If I'm gonna die, I wanna still be me," he says. "I wanna be the baker, the friend, the son and the brother that everyone knows me as, not some monster the games created. Does that make any sense?"
I nod. "Yeah."
"So... who do you wanna be?" He asks me.
I sigh. "I wanna be... Willow Hawthorne. The girl who hunts in the woods, trades in the Hob, lives in the Seam, the girl who can hit anything with an axe. The girl who has four siblings and two friends she'd do anything to protect, the girl that I was before the games. Before the reaping. Before my..."
I trailed off and close my eyes as Austin looks at me. I open my eyes in shock as I realise how much I've given away about myself to a boy who doesn't even know me.
"I'll, uh... see you tomorrow," Austin says, standing up.
"You too," I say, pressing my lips together.
I stay at that window for at least another hour, sifting through memories in my mind, trying to figure out who I am and who I am not.
☘︎☘︎☘︎
The morning of the games. Haymitch and I were in an elevator. I was going to where I needed to be.
Basically, before the games even start, all the tributes are placed underneath the arena, and from there, they get in these pod things that will take them upwards to it. This means that all the tributes will be placed in a big circle on their metal plates. The cornucopia lies in the middle of everyone.
Then, for sixty seconds, we wait, and if we step off our plates, then the mines in the ground will blow us sky high.
Anyway, after the sixty seconds is up, the careers and stupid people run towards the cornucopia, to get weapons and supplies that lie in its mouth. There's normally a bloodbath right then, and that's when the majority of the tributes get killed.
"They'll put all kinds of stuff in the mouth of the cornucopia to draw you in," Haymitch warns me. "There'll even be axes there. Don't go for them."
"Why not?" I ask incredulously. Yes, I'm one of the stupid people who would try to get a weapon and then get killed. Probably brutally.
"It's a bloodbath, they're trying to draw you in," Haymitch says patronisingly. "You turn, run, find high ground, and look for water, water's your new best friend. And don't step off the plate early, the whole area's mined and they don't disable it until the sixty seconds is up."
The elevator doors open and reveal a hovercraft that'll take me and twenty three other tributes to the arena. I look at it for a second before turning to Haymitch, who grabs my shoulders.
"Willow," he says slowly. "You can do this."
We look towards the hovercraft before I ask. "Any last advice?"
He scrutinized me for a second before answering. "Stay alive."
I smile slightly and head for the hovercraft.
All the tributes are strapped in securely, so that (a) they can't kill each other before the games begin and (b) they can't commit some kind of suicide, trying to get out the slow death they're destined to have.
"Give me your arm," a woman with an injection needle is saying. When she gets to me, I ask. "What is that?"
"It's your tracker," she answers shortly, embedding one into me and moving on.
When I finally get to the little underground room, bleak but the last bit of the real world I'll ever see, I see Cinna, my amazing stylist, waiting for me.
I instantly hug him, clinging onto him for dear life. Literally. "Here," he says once we pull apart, giving me a jacket (no doubt of his own design) that I swiftly put on.
He also gives me the mockingjay pin. "Where did you get that?" I ask.
"From the outfit you wore for your reaping," Cinna shrugs. "I assume you know they let you wear one thing from your district in the arena, like a token?"
I do. "Thank you," I nod. He zips up the jacket as some intercom on the wall says. "Thirty seconds."
I look towards the stupid cylinder lift that I go up to the arena in. Cinna puts a hand on my shoulder and that turns me back. "I'm not allowed to bet, but if I could, I'd bet on you."
He misses my cheek softly and I convey every kind word in the world to him by one one second look.
I head towards the cylinder and get inside it.
My last look of the world is Cinna, and I'm happy with that.
I slowly feel myself start to rise upwards, and for a second, all I see is blinding light before I adjust to my surroundings.
I'm on a grassy plain, with the Cornucopia in front of me. All the tributes stand on their plates, round it in a circle. To my right, I see a field of some sort of crop, but to my left, front and behind, there's woods. That's my best bet.
Fifty seconds.
I look at the other tributes. Some are smirking, some are terrified. Some are just standing there.
Forty seconds.
I try to see if Austin is there, and I do, he's about five tributes round from me.
Thirty seconds.
I hope that if I die today, Posy, Vick, Rory, Gale, my mother, Mrs Everdeen, Katniss and Prim will be okay.
Twenty seconds.
I look towards the weapons at the cornucopia. I spot a bow, some knives, a sword and-
Ten seconds.
Some axes. There the are, inviting me in. I'm driven by the urge to ignore Haymitch, I could make it-
Five seconds.
I look to Austin. He gives a small shake of his head.
Then the sixty seconds are up.
If fucking Austin Thatcher hadn't distracted me, I could've made it before the careers got me. As it were, I was too busy thinking about that to get in and grab my weapons.
I watch as the careers obliterate everyone, killing one, two, three, four tributes.
I see Clove and Glimmer digging through stuff at the cornucopia, nobody would dare go for them anyway.
I see all the smart ones, like Austin and Rue and Foxface, rush into the woods without a backward glance, trying to save themselves. But I'm determined not to leave with nothing.
I spot a small pack about five metres away, and sprint towards it. I pick it up and don't hesitate to run. But I trip over, and the boy from, I think, Six, almost has me, before he keels over and reveals Clove. I can see the knife in his back. She throws one at me as well, but I block it with the pack so the knife lodges in it. Thanks very much, I think, before getting up and running.
I sprint throughout the woods, finally feeling like I belong somewhere for the first time in ages. That's when I bang straight into Foxface.
"Argh-"
"Ugh-"
"Oh-"
With many shouts and groans, we roll down the slope that we've just met together, shouting in both pain and fear.
It's only when I hear her voice, her small voice, yell, that I think twice.
"Please don't kill me!"
This could be an act, I tell myself, as I look down at Foxface, who I'm now basically on top of, her eyes wide and scared, and her body shaking. She could be making up that she's scared and then she could get a weapon out and butcher me.
But no one can act like that.
After a long pause, I say. "I'm not going to kill you."
Foxface breathes a sigh of relief as I get off of her, preparing to run away from her then so we can continue fighting in the games, and perhaps run in to each other later.
But Foxface does something very different.
"Be my ally."
I turn, for a second frozen, and say. "What?"
"Be my ally," Foxface repeats. "I-I'm smart, I can do a lot- and we'll have a higher chance of surviving-"
She cuts herself off and I contemplate this.
When I was younger, I once decided that if I ever went into the games, I wouldn't have any allies. That's because when you're in an alliance, you grow closer to the person, whether you like it or not. And you can't have friends in the Hunger Games. Because you might have to end up killing them.
But Foxface is right. She's smart, and even though I'm of pretty good intelligence, it would be good to have a second pair of eyes.
I also know that she'll be able to help me survive in the games, because she always has her wits about her.
So I say. "Okay."
Foxface's face lights up. "Really?"
"Yes," I say, keeping my face straight. "I'll be your ally. I-I can hunt, and gather, and I-"
Foxface starts already picking up her stuff and handing me mine, a small smile on her face as she says. "Come on, let's go, we need to get as far away from the bloodbath as possible by tonight."
And, as starts to run, I try not to let the same smile show on my face.
It's just an alliance, I think. Just an alliance. It's not like I'm going to start caring about her or anything.
Little did I know I was to laugh at myself for thinking this later.
☘︎☘︎☘︎
Fozface and I run and run and run, trying to get far away from the careers before the fighting stops happening at the bloodbath.
We eventually stop as the sky is getting dark, both of us panting.
"Right," I say. "We have to find a tree with a long branch... one we can both fit on."
Foxface is the one that finds it. A sturdy oak that we both climb nimbly, sitting on a strong branch.
I soon learn Foxface didn't get anything from the cornucopia, so she gasps as she sees the bag I managed to wrangle.
"Open it!" She says excitedly.
It's a small bag, but it holds a lot. There's a rope, a water flask that I open eagerly, but the assholes that created this haven't even left me any water. There's another jacket, a coil of wire, and a heat reflecting sleeping bag.
"There's a lot there," Foxface says. "That'll be really useful-"
Boom.
Foxface's eyes widen and I mutter. "The cannons."
In the Hunger games, obviously the people watching can know how many are dead, but for the tributes, they have to pay attention to the cannon. Each boom represents a dead tribute.
The fighting at the cornucopia must have finally finished by now, because at every other time but the bloodbath, the cannon goes as soon as a tribute is dead. However, to keep things simple, since there's so much killings during the start of the games, they only do the cannons after everything has finished.
Boom, boom, boom.
"One, two, three, four," I count quietly, Foxface keeping count on her fingers.
Eventually, the number totals to twelve. The horrifying thought forms in my head as I lock eyes with my newfound ally.
Half gone already.
Then an even worse thought.
What if Austin's one of them?