The Games We Play

Two

Day Two and Three wasn't much fun. After killing off the girl who was stupid enough to make fire – apparently she was from District 8 – there hasn't been much action. Although we tried to search for living tributes, it was actually difficult. Since half of the twenty four have died, there were only twelve tributes left in this large arena. Out of those twelve tributes, I have with me five. The Career pack was half of that twelve so looking for those six more were difficult. Imagine how much harder it would be to find the only one I was so interested in killing?

"Gawd." Glimmer stretched her arms high in the air. "This is boring. We have been scouting for two days and we haven't been able to find anyone."

I lifted my eyes at her. Glimmer didn't look as fresh as she did when she entered the arena. We haven't bathed for three days but she actually still seemed to look better than most of us. Peeta's arm had healed considerably and he was always trying out his knife with a tree. Marvel was thinner since he found it difficult to eat dried fruit and meat – he wasn't used to this much of discomfort like me. Jeany was in a bad shape, her curly hair was so untamed that she looked more psychotic than I was. Cato was walking around, as he had always done for the past days. He seemed to want to go towards that wheat field but I knew he felt the eeriness of the place. Even though he was not that well off back in the District, we do not have much greenery like this.

The whole arena threw us off.

I was actually adjusting slowly in the arena. Though the dried fruit tasted bad and our source of water (we found canteens which were filled) has dwindled, I knew I was going to last long.

"Alright." Cato turned towards us after watching the forest. "Let's get back in there." He never failed to have us inside that forest. I think he felt he needed to give the Capitol a good show.

Marvel groaned softly before picking up his spear.

"Besides, we need to find water." I spoke and when I did, my throat felt a bit dry. "If we cannot find a tribute, at least we won't be dehydrated." Cato was the leader but I knew he needed my support. Our alliance was obvious to the others because even if Cato would spend time flirting with Glimmer, he valued my opinions more than he would with anyone.

We were a solid team.

We set off in the forest but it was obvious that we weren't going to find anything. We weren't going to find a tribute or water. Everyone was frustrated. We have been walking for two hours and all we found were more trees, rocks and random animals. Cato knew that we were getting nowhere. Careers were not really the best navigators. We actually never strayed off path. I have memorized how we would walk from the Cornucopia to here – straight. We needed to know the way on how to get back to our camp.

I was bored and if I was, the Capitol probably were too.

The Gamemakers should do something about this. I thought silently. As if on cue, the ground shook. Wait. Earthquake? Really? Shit. We were ready to run when the movement stopped. I looked up at the sky...there was something peculiar going on.

"There's fire!" Marvel announced. In a distance, we could see the red and orange wall dancing through the greenery. I squinted my eyes. I wanted to see if there is danger anywhere.

Cato looked at me and then at the fire, "There's something up."

"If there is fire..." I murmured, "The Gamemakers..."

Apparently his idea and mine clicked. The Gamemakers wanted to spice things up. It was not for us, obviously, but for someone else. There was someone in the vicinity and the Gamemakers wanted us to realize that.

Cato and I sprinted off towards the fire, the others had no choice but to follow us. Glimmer asked us questions and Cato answered with a smirk, "Show time." Marvel started laughing at the prospect of finally getting some exercise. We were a happy bunch as we ran through the trees – I even let myself laugh when Glimmer recounted the night we had when we killed off that girl from 8. Glimmer did a great job on wailing since she was pretty much a whiner herself.