The first thing I was aware of was the soft fabric under my back and the damp air on my face. I could hear the soft easy breathing of Rivera next to me. A warm feeling wrapped itself around my chest sending a wave of easiness through my body. I smiled sleepily as I rolled onto my stomach and nestling my face into the covers.

Then I woke up, my muscles going rigid as the wheels in my brain began to turn. I was in the Hunger Games. The last thing I could recall was perching on a box, waiting patiently for my trap to spring. I didn't remember closing my eyes, but I must have because now I was lying on a bed. A sharp intake of air reached my ears.

I was in a fight to the death and someone was lying next to me.

I opened my eyes sharply to find myself staring into two wide hazel-colored eyes that mirrored my own confused terror. I blinked as my brain took in the Ash that lay across from me, from her long wavy blonde hair to her tall but muscular body. It was Peridot, the Career from One. Her fear was gone in a second though, replaced by hard anger. "You aren't Garnet!" The girl before me cried recovering quickly, her arms shooting outwards and crashing into my chest sending me tumbling backwards off the side of the bed. My shoulder collided with the hard stone floor sending a wave of pain through my body.

My clammy palm shot toward the hilt of my sword, my heart thundering in my chest. I wasn't fast enough though. Peridot jumped from the bed and stood before me, her eyes blazing. "What did you do? Where is Garnet, you pig?" She screeched, pointing her long sword at me.

I blinked not entirely sure what she was getting at. "I'm confused. Please don't kill me?" I suggested trying to keep the fear from my voice. My eyes didn't meet hers though, they were transfixed on the tip of her blade that hovered dangerously close to my neck.

Her strained laughter curled into my ears like nails on a chalkboard. I managed to tear my gaze from the sword and meet her penetrating gaze. "Thats funny. Stop playing dumb." She snapped venomously. "You must have snuck up on Garnet and I while we were sleeping and have... done something to her and dragged me up here! Dammit I will rip you to shreds! Now tell me what you did to her!"

I really should have pointed out the major flaws with her theory at that point. I should have pointed out that it would be stupid for me to drag another tribute away from whatever this 'Garnet' was and then hop into bed with the tribute I kidnapped, waiting for them to wake up and murder me, but no. I was just incapable of thinking straight and prioritizing my thoughts even in the face of death. "I-isn't a garnet a type of rock?" I spoke hesitantly, then I furrowed my brow. "Oh. Nevermind. A peridot is a type of rock too and you quite clearly are a person. Garnet is a person then? Did you decide to team up because you were both named after rocks?"

She stared at me for a long second as if she was trying to decide what she should do next, her eyes reflected the confused battle that seemed to be going on in her head. I attempted to smile to help her along, but I think my attempted smile only looked constipated. Her gaze became cold as she quite apparently had come to her conclusion. Somehow I already knew what she was going to say before she said it, "Whether you hurt Garnet or not you still have to die, and on the off chance you did, I'm going to make this painful."

"Crap!" I screamed throwing myself to one side as the blade pierced the air where I had been only seconds before. I jumped to my feet ripping the sword from my belt in one fluid movement. She spun around, her blade barreling through the air to meet my own. Our blades clashed loudly in the otherwise silent room as my training took over and I sent a kick barreling into Peridot's stomach, her body folded over from the force of the kick.

To my horror I felt an eruption of pain in my stomach. I looked down in shock expecting to see that something had hit my stomach- except nothing had. That meant.... I looked up to see Peridot's sword flying toward my stomach. "No! Peridot! Our lives are linked!" I yelled, trying to duck under her powerful swing. A devastating emanated from my shoulder as the razor sharp sword skinned it.

I collapsed to my knees and bit my tongue to keep from crying out from the pain that wracked my body. I glanced down at my shoulder and gagged, through the torn material of my shirt I saw the bloody bone exposed next to a bloody hunk of skin that still hung to my body by a thin piece of flesh. I looked up at Peridot who hovered above me grasping her shoulder that was as bloody as mine. Her face was contorted as she looked down at me in frustrated defeat.

Through the sharp pain I tried once again to smile at her, "So now do you believe I had nothing to do with this?" If only I hadn't had to lose part of my shoulder to prove it. The gamemakers must have done this.... I looked over toward the girl who towered above me. I wondered why they had tied my life to hers out of all of the other tributes, not that I was complaining, I wasn't alone now. My curiosity simply daunted me as it usually does.

For the first time since I'd opened my eyes I got a good look around the room, it was a bedroom like a majority of the rooms in the house with a high posted oaken bed and a vanity that held a shattered mirror. It wasn't in nearly as bad condition as the one I had bunked in after the bloodbath, but it was just as haunting. Long cobwebs hung from the ceiling like drapes tickling my skin every time a cool draft from the window shifted through them. And then there were those portraits of the dead tributes that seemed to decorate every room, staring at me with their dead expressions. The more I saw them the more I felt like they were mocking me, reminding me always that very soon a ghostly portrait would be all that remained of me.

Peridot had remained silent throughout the time it took for my eyes to scan the interior of the chamber. "My supplies aren't here." She her voice was cold and strained as if there were thousands of thoughts running through her head that each were pulling for her attention.

"Mine aren't either......." I trailed off as I saw that my backpack was nowhere in sight. Slowly, careful not to disturb my throbbing shoulder I stood up, slipping my sword into my belt. "We can rip up some of the pillows to bandage our shoulders." I stared at the dusty, moth eaten pillows and curled my lip. "Actually I'm just going to use my shirt. I'll probably get an gangrene or something from using those things." I contradicted myself and shrugged the light shirt over my head, the slight movement sent a blinding wave of pain through my body, conducting a symphony of black spots that danced before my eyes. Yeah, I would have to remember not to move that way again.

Peridot smirked at my apparent distress and peeled back the red comforter in the bed, revealing the mostly clean sheet beneath it. She tore off a corner and keeping an expressionless face she bandaged her wound. I'd like to say that I was just as stoic as I ripped a strip of my shirt free and wrapped the sweaty material around my gushing shoulder, but that would be a lie. I almost cried.

"The door is locked." Peridot's sharp voice came from behind me as I finished tying the knot snugly around my wound. I turned around my eyes settled on a large hardwood door that towered above Peridot who was stood before it staring at it venomously. She threw a glance over her shoulder her eyes fixing pointedly on me. "Do you see anything I could pick the lock with?"

I slowly turned around in a circle then walked over to the mirror and my fingers carefully pulled a long sliver of broken glass from it. I jogged back over to Peridot and handed her the sliver of glass. "It probably won't work but it's worth a shot?" I asked rather than said as I rubbed the back of my neck self-consciously with my good arm.

Peridot barely acknowledged me as she took the sliver of glass from my hands and held it before her eyes as her long slender finger pricked the tip of it before she slid it into the lock. There was a slight scraping noise as she jiggled to around for one long tense second before the glass snapped. I sigh, "I'm sorry." I shrugged, leave it to me to pick the one piece of glass that would break. "I can go get another one?"

Peridot shook her head and stood back of straightening her back, "No. I felt inside there, the lock feels like it's rusted shut. I don't think that we would be getting out anytime soon by trying to pick it with shards of glass." She said the irritation apparent in her voice.

I looked over at the window, mostly covered with ragged curtains. "What about the window?" I suggested hesitantly. It seemed logical to me but then again there was probably some factor I was failing to consider.

"Yeah.... I think it's going to have to work." She mumbled walking across the room. I trailed behind her watching as she peered out the grime covered glass and groaned in dismay.

"We are on the top floor aren't we?" I asked, jumping to the worst possible conclusion as I stood beside her and followed her gaze to the rose covered ground below us. It seemed to spin, I felt a wave of nausea wash over me and I look a step away from the window.

Peridot let out a sarcastic laugh, "We aren't on the top floor but we are high enough that if we jumped we would die, and I'm not doing that again- at least not like this." She grabbed the rim of the window and hoisted it us so a fresh wave of wind hit us, I shivered looking over at her. The Ashes were fallen tributes from previous games, resurrected for a second chance. I wondered what it was like to die.

Peridot's eyes settled on my bandaged shoulder and a smile stretched across her face. "I know how we are getting out of here." She said bolting over toward the bed and throwing the cover up rashly. A thick cloud of dust plumed in the air around her, sparkling as it caught the sunlight. "Come on, we are making a rope to climb down with." She beckoned to me, her voice filled with a sudden resolve.

Peridot ripped a strip of the sheet as she had done to bandage her shoulder minutes before, "Whats-your-name, you tie them together while I rip more strips." She said dismissively barely looking up as she shoved some strips into my hands.

"Umm, my name is Saragateus." I smiled awkwardly, obediently beginning my task of tying the rope securely together. The knot I used was simple, but effective nonetheless. I wound the material together tightly with each sharp twist of my fingers.

"Yeah, you're a flame right?" Peridot asked pausing her vigorous work to look over at me. I nodded, pleased to finally have her attention. "What's that like? You know having absolutely no past other than your training?" She turned back to her work after the words left her lips, but it was apparent by her slower pace that she was listening.

The question took me off guard. I'd thought about it so many times but suddenly it was impossible for me to put into words. "It's terrible." I said under my breath. "I have no idea who I am. I have no idea if I was ever loved, if I had a family, or even why I was sent to the training facility in the first place. I assume I must have done something unspeakable, no one should have to go through this."

Peridot furrowed her brow in perplexity. "You realize you probably volunteered right? You look like you are from the capital and the tributes from there are mostly volunteers. I mean right now you can't imagine why you would volunteer, but who knows who you were before you lost your memories. You could have been an entirely different person." She commented airily as if it wasn't a big deal, but it was. I felt a sudden weight crushing down on my chest. I had spent so much time pondering and trying to figure out who I was, never once considering that I may not like who I was. What if all that awaited me in my past was pain and misery? With Peridot's one statement I had suddenly become terrified of discovering my past. I wanted nothing to do with it.

I knew nothing though, it wasn't something I had to be concerned about, I tried to sooth my racing mind. It had been years and I still couldn't recall anything- or could I? Chills ran up and down my spine as I remembered lying deliriously in the bed. I'd been at ease when I had first heard Peridot's breathing because I had thought it was someone named Rivana.

There was no one at the Flame Training Facility by that name.

Whoever she was she was undoubtedly from my past. It could have been a fluke that I remembered it.... but more than likely my memories were coming back whether I was ready for them or not.

"Saragateus, are you okay?" Peridot's voice broke through my train of thought, I looked up and saw her staring at me with an odd expression on her face.

I forced myself to laugh, "Of course! I just was thinking." I said softly, then I realized that she probably would assume that I'd been thinking about exactly what I actually had been pondering and for some reason I was desperate to keep it from her. "About the rope." I added hastily.

She stared at me coldly and I knew that she wasn't buying it. "Well. In that case lets try it out. I think that this should be long enough." She commented gesturing to the bed sheets that I had tied while we were talking and now laid in a pile at my feet. I let out a small breath of relief that she decided to let the issue lie.

I bent over and gathered up the flimsy rope in my arms, following Peridot over to the ajar window. Keeping a firm grasp on the end I let the rope tumble from the window. "is it long enough?" Peridot demanded peering over my shoulder at the white rope that was getting caressed lightly by the breeze.

The rope was only six feet short of the ground, that should definitely be long enough. We could just jump the last meter or so without getting injured- assuming of course that rope held until we got down there. Peridot stepped back from the window and gestured broadly to it. "Gentlemen first." She said cocking her head to one side slightly.

I bit my lip and furrowed my brow, "I thought the saying was 'ladies first'?" I asked genuinely confused, I could have sworn I had heard multiple people at the training facility use it like that.

Peridot rolled her eyes, "Just go first." She demanded taking the end of the rope from my hands and walking over to the bed to secure it. I wanted to suggest she went first, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. Peridot was just so... intimidating.

With painful caution I swung my legs over the rim of the window. My muscles went ridged, just don't look down, I told myself as I squared my feet on the side of the glass castle and put all my weight on the rope. My heart pounded wildly in my chest as very slowly I began to inch my ways downward. My shoulder stung like hell from the strain of holding me up. I just had to keep going, it was all I could do.

Step by agonizing step, inch my tenuous inch I made my way toward the ground. It was the one thing that made this whole thing worthwhile, I swear I was going to kiss it as soon as my feet hit the ground.

Without warning Peridot's voice ripped through my ears. I looked up in utter horror to see a white snowy owl soaring towards me, it's claws extended toward me, ready to slice through my flesh.

I froze. I was trapped. There was nowhere to go. I stared transfixed in horror at my oncoming death.

I think those seconds may have been the longest moments of my life, the scene playing out like a capital film set to slow motion. I flinched as I watched the owl widen it's tallens when it was just inches from my head preparing to grasp it.

And then something streaked out of the sky knocking into the owl, the momentum sent the owl tumbling downward. A huge explosion shook my body, shooting upwards from my feet. I barely managed to hang on.

After a long second I worked up the willpower to look downward, there lay the owl that had been about to devour me with a sword sticking from its scalp, and on the ground a few feet away lay none other than Peridot. I let out a strangled laugh of relief as she sat up and squinted at me. "What are you looking at? Hurry up and get down here! I got us dinner."