There comes a time in every person's life when they have to ask themselves if they are being stalked. I had to ask myself this as the oncoming evening began to stretch the shadows in the stifling jungle. I'd been aware of the way my footsteps had mysteriously echoed with every step I took for a while now. I was very aware that it could very well be someone trying to get up the nerve to kill me and quite frankly I would have liked to see them to try.

I was livid. Bugs bit my skin that was covered in a thick layer of grime and made it itch. I had never been one for warm environments having grown up in near freezing conditions and the rainforest was completely stifling. Sweat dripped from my forehead like water being squeezed from a sponge. I literally had all I could do not to start punching a tree and screaming obscenities for no reason.

It wasn't until the day was almost over until I exploded though. "Dammit creep! I know you are following me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as I spun around unslinging my bow from my back like the sane, rational person I was.

There was a long pause as my eyes scanned the thick foliage that draped had whoever followed me from my vision. I was just beginning to wonder if I was stark raving crazy and just yelling at leaves when a small, pale faerie peeked meekly into my vision. Rolf. His face flushed red as he let out a forced chuckle and his blue eyes met mine.

I really should have just shot him.

I watched him raise his hands to me in surrender as his wide eyes processed the sheer jerkiness my ever-present resting bitch face. "Don't shoot! I mean, I made a temporary truce with all faeries-"

My arrow was flying before I even fully processed the statement. The arrow pegged itself in a tree mere centimeters from Rolf's wispy blonde hair, his head snapped around and he gaped at it in shock. "Goddamnit! What the hell does it take for you freaks to realize I'm not a motherfucking faerie! I mean really, do I look like a faerie to you?" I demanded stomping over to him half wanting to strangle him and half wanting to just put myself out of my misery of having to deal these idiots.

Rolf hesitated a second, quite obviously participating in the dangerous pastime known as thinking. "I misspoke. I'm sorry. I meant I have a truce with everyone who came from the northern hemisphere." His voice was a tad shaky as he looked at me timidly, his eyes slowly drifting from my face and to the rain forest behind my shoulder.

I was about to tap into the kindness in my heart and tell him to get the hell lost before I stabbed him with my arrows when his eyes suddenly widened, "Down!" He screamed as his spiked fist came barreling toward my face. My lightning quick reflexes didn't fail me now as I dodged his blow, a spark of fury igniting in my chest- and to think I was just about to be nice to him.

I went straight from my duck into a tackle as I grabbed his waist and pinned him to the ground. "Oh my God- No wait, Levi, stop!" He choked as my hands grasped his neck. "Behind you!"

"You think I'm stupid enough to fall for that trick? You just attacked me!" I cried the fury of the familiar feeling of betrayal spiking my blood. I hated faeries, I hated them more than anything else on the face of earth. They were all the same.

Suddenly a sharp pain exploded in the back of my head, toppling me from his back. An explosion of light ripped across my vision as my face crashed into the moist dead leaves that layered the ground. I forced myself to my elbows, my head screaming in pain and the world swimming before my eyes. "Bitches! You're all little twig bitches!" I screamed without even knowing who I was yelling at or what had even happened. "Damn you and your twig bitch conspiracy!" My voice cracked as I crained my neck around toward where I had pinned Rolf. He was gone.

A sharp 'umph' caught my ear and I crained my head to look behind me, my eyes falling upon the vampire, Patrick, collapsing to the ground. Blood gurgled upwards from his throat and flowed to the ground. My eyes settled on a bloody stick he grasped in his hands, then they flitted up to Rolf whose spiked knuckles dripped with Patrick's blood.

I swallowed hard as my aching head realized what had happened. Two people had been following me. (Wasn't I popular?) When one tried to talk to me the other had taken the advantage of my distraction to try and kill me.

And Rolf had chosen to try and save me.

And then I attacked him.

And then he had actually saved me.

I cringed as I stared at Rolf who had seemed to lose all interest in me as his hands brushed the red skin that was rapidly turning a black and blue. I suddenly felt sort of bad for the mix up, it was a strange emotion that felt very foreign in my chest. My cringe intensified as I realized that I, Levi Rixton, had been saved by a frilly pixie boy. Shoot me now, please.

"Um." I know it was lame, but really it was the only thing I could say. I wasn't about to apologise or thank him, that would require humility. Besides, my statement completely captured my feelings.

Rolf turned to me, his thin eyebrows arching above his eyes as if he couldn't believe what I had just said. "Um." He repeated a small smile stretching across his face, it wasn't a happy smile though. It was more of a 'I-cannot-believe-I-just-heard-that-hold-me-back-I'm-going-to-murder-him' smile. "Um? Thats it? You realise I just saved your life?" He folded his hands across his chest daintily as he continued to give me the death smile.

"What do you want? A gold sticker?" I snapped before I let out a long sigh. "......Thank you, okay?" I forced the words from my mouth as I found the leaves under my elbows suddenly very interesting. I felt sick. "Why would you do that?" I asked suddenly, sitting up and making eye-contact with the boy I had saved.

Rolf seemed to relax, the death smile falling from his face as he accepted my thanks. "Save you?" He snorted rolling his eyes as if I were an idiot- which I assure you I am not. "Because I want an alliance with you, I was trying to get at it earlier but we were interrupted." He glanced down at the now still body of Patrick.

I didn't want an alliance. I just wanted to be left alone, that was all I had ever wanted. My chest was heavy with a feeling of debt though... I owed him. I slowly got to my feet and kicked a tree, my emotions flaring inside of me as they often did. "Fuck my life!" I screamed before letting a long deep breath flood my lungs as I turned to Rolf. "Fine. Alliance it is, however I am headed to the snowy mountain and me going there is not open for debate."

"You're going to have to stop doing that." Rolf commented following me as I began to tread further west toward the snowy region of the arena.

Did I even want to ask? "Doing what?" I grunted purposely letting a tree branch snap back and hit his face. I was really mean.

Rolf's face crunched up as a red mark appeared across his face, "Screaming like a banshee whenever it suits you. You will alert just about every tribute in the area of our whereabouts." He said curtly.

I sent him a grin, "Thats the plan! I love stabbing stupid things and this arena is full of them!" I said trying not to remember the sick feelings that had invaded me as I had killed during the bloodbath.

To my surprise Rolf laughed. I think it was the most bizarre thing I've ever witnessed, I stopped walking completely and just gaped at him. He either thought I wasn't serious about wanting to attract people to stab or he actually related to my statement and found it humorous. I had seen people laugh with each other before, but I'd never actually had it happen before. I had no idea what I should do.

"You're funny.On a really twisted level that is." He commented before his face became serious again, "Seriously though, you have to stop doing that, please."

I was a free man-bitch who screamed whenever he felt like, obviously Rolf didn't understand this. Suddenly I felt really torn about just flat out telling him no, this wasn't like me. I chose not to say anything as the two of us continued to trek west toward the mountain.

We had only gone a few yards before Rolf piped up again, "You know, perhaps instead of going to the mountain we should head to the pine forest. I think the weather would be friendlier there." He commented airily, though he looked at me out of the corner of his eye clearly gauging my reaction.

I stopped walking and looked him directly in the eye, "Are you trying to manipulate me?" I demanded as the realization occurred to me. Rolf tried to look away but I didn't let him.

"Yes and no." He said finally after a long pause. "I'm merely suggesting we go somewhere else because I would prefer to remain unfrozen and quite frankly I think the pine forest is a better place to hide."

My desire to be kind had completely vanished. "No, we are going to the frozen mountain. I have lived in a climate like that for three years and I'm sure neither of us will freeze to death. This, like I so kindly told you before, is not open for debate. If you want to go to your stupid pine forest though, please feel free to go by yourself. I hope the pine needles poke at least one of your eyeballs out."

Rolf snorted indignantly. " You-" Rolf never got to finish his retort because that was when the rain of death began.

There was no thunder, there was no clouds there was no warning. One second the sky was sunny and happy and the next it was dark and buckets of water were drenching me. The water was sickly warm as well, so it wasn't even refreshing. It was like.... the sky gods were peeing or something. Okay that was a terrible comparison. I had officially grossed myself out.

I tried to breathe in but I must have taken in twice as much water as air. I coughed as the water entered my lungs.

"My wings!" Rolf cried and then promptly burst into a coughing fit. I peered upwards through the pounding rain to see that his silver and maroon wings stretched out limply on the ground.

"You poor thing." I drawled looking at him heartlessly. Don't get me wrong, I knew what it was like to have wings. I knew that when they got wet they were soggy, itchy and gross, however I didn't care. "If they really hurt you that much, maybe we should just chop them off." I made a dramatic gesture of spitting the water that had made its way into my mouth while I had said that.

"You maniac!" He yelled to be made sure that he could be heard over the roar of the rain. It pelted my back like hail plastering my thick brown hair to my head, I wiped it out of my eyes only to have the water drag to back down again.

Rolf broke off into a series of gurgled coughs as he forced the water from his lungs. "Do you think it is possible to drown while you are standing up?" I croaked, scared to breathe in or open my mouth too wide.

The only response I got was a sickened look. "In the arena? Thats probably the plan." His voice quivered slightly as we both realized that we were probably going to die from water intake. Shit. This was actually a really embarrassing way to die. I could see my headstone now; here lies Levi Rixton who accidently drowned in a rainstorm.

They say near death experiences force people together and they were right. Rolf and I went from about to kill each other to actual allies.

The wheels in my brain spun as I yanked two large umbrella leaves from the tree and cupped one of them over my nose. I shoved the other one to Rolf, "Here these should keep most of the water out of our mouths while we get the hell out of here." He took it and mirrored my motions, I used my free hand and grabbed his skinny wrist in my hand and tugged him into a full out sprint.

My lungs burned as my feet pounded the ground harder than the rain. The shrubbery seemed to attempt to reach up and grab my legs trying to trip me. I pushed myself faster, I was not going to be the idiot who manage to drown in the rain.

Then we were out of it.

The rainforest ended abruptly giving way to a swirling vortex of snow, I tripped as my shin hit the freezing drift and I fell face first into the snow. I don't think I had ever been happier to see snow in my life.

I sat up grabbing a fistful of snow and flinging it at Rolf. "Snowball fight!" I laughed suddenly, in the mountains I had never had anyone to play with beside a raccoon that I had taken captive and attempted to befriend. It had run away after the snowball fight. Everything did.

"No." Rolf looked even smaller and skinnier than usual, it was as if his entire bone structure had folded on itself. "My hair is freezing, my wings are freezing my soaking wet clothing is freezing, I think I have better chances in the downpour."

He did have a point, in the freezing temperatures our wet clothing was beginning to turn to ice. I didn't really care though. I knew without a doubt that out of all the places in this arena that this was the place that we had the best chance of surviving in. In that moment, I didn't want Rolf to be like the raccoon- not that I cared. I could totally survive without anyone, I'd done it for years. "If you don't leave I'll give you my parka until we hit a cave. The inside of my parka is actually pretty dry."

Rolf let out a long sigh and pinched his face. "This isn't apart of my plan, I had a plan...." He murmured to himself before he stretched a smile across his face. "Fine. Just give me the dahm coat." He stretched out his shivering hand toward me expectantly.

Awkwardly, I unzipped it and shrugged it off. A cold blast of air ripped through my long sleeved shirt, making me shiver. I didn't really mind though, the cold never bothered me anyway. Rolf took it and wasted no time in wrapping himself in it, the coat was actually a couple of sizes too big. I decided to refrain from commenting on how he suddenly resembled the fat mayor of my town. "Come on, we need to find a cave and start a fire before we die of hypothermia." I said as if it wasn't much of a concern.

Rolf just let out a strangled laugh in response. He was definitely not a fan of the cold, which was odd because he must have grown up in it. As we started the long trek up the mountain I suddenly realized that I had never seen Rolf before the games. There was only one faerie settlement and only one school and yet I'd never seen him, he hadn't been apart of the group that had tormented me as a child either.... Was it possible that he hadn't grown up there at all?

My thoughts were interrupted by an all too familiar purple head suddenly poking from behind a rock, Rolf jumped in startlement letting out a cry as I whipped out my bow, barely flinching. Magnus screamed as he saw my arrow aimed straight at his face, "No! He's my boo!" Magnus pointed urgently at Rolf. "Alliance? Boo, save me from the angry man-faerie-thing!"

"I. Am. Not. A Faerie!" I screamed letting my arrow fly, it nicked his ear, making it gush. It would be a lie to say that I hadn't intended that to happen. Magnus blinked at me, his eyes wide like disks. I let out a sigh and turned to Rolf who was blushing deeply. "No, you can't keep him."

Rolf looked at his feet, "We actually did have a predetermined alliance. I'm not about to backstab him."

Why? Of all the people in the arena Magnus scared me the most. He was just so... happy. I'm aware that he had been drunk most of the time during the pre-games and that he must be sober by now, right? There was no way he got alcohol into the arena.... Maybe he wasn't so unbearably happy. I let a long sigh escape my throat as I slung my bow over my shoulder again.

Magnus let a tense smile play across his face as he slowly came out from behind a boulder. "So I was actually just coming from this cave up the mountain because it's freezing. I'm not very rugged, like I thought it would be smart to wait out the other tributes in the cave because I mean what tribute in their right mind would come up here? And then I realized that there was a reason for that. So, long story short we don't want to go up there." He giggled and tucked a strand of violet hair behind his ear.

I put a hand on Magnus's shoulder trying not to think of the happy-cooties I was probably getting. "Magnus, the one rule of my alliance is that we stay in the mountains. If you have a problem we that you can leave, if not, could you show us the cave?" I said in an even tone trying not to be a man-bitch.

Magnus's gold eyes slid over to Rolf who shook his head vigorously in warning. He looked back to me and flashed me a grin, "Alrighty then, human icicles it is! Follow me!" He turned on his heel and began trudging up the steep, icy path of the mountain with Rolf and I on his heels. I stared at the warlock who began skipping and wondered how the hell I was going to tolerate him and not loose my sanity.

Was this what having friends was like?

Shoot me now, please.