Time passes, days winding by like minutes on the type of clock I feel like I haven't seen in ages, even the memory of one slowly being erased from my mind. 

I make the difficult decision to leave the cornucopia. 

Already the stains of blood and ash bring up unpleasant memories, but they've only worsened with the hours, and so I know that I have to pack up my stuff and actually try to win this thing. 

I don't think I've truly comprehended the cruelty of these Games, even after a lifetime of focus on them, weeks of living them. Even inside them, surviving through death after gruesome death, they don't feel real. Why would a child die before my eyes? I'm just a girl from District Four; an important man's daughter. Things like that don't happen to people like me. 

They happened to my father, though. They drove him mad with substance abuse, and now, I'm beginning to see why. 

The Games tear away a part of you. They drag you in with the small promise of hope, and as you survive, if you survive, that hope only grows. But it is at a cost--because nothing can grow without sustenance, and the hope of the Hunger Games consumes human life. 

Each tribute's death brings me one step closer to a life of wealth and safety. And yet as I watch the hope pour from their eyes and add to my own, it hurts. It really, really, fucking hurts. 

'Stop it,' I want to scream. 'Stay alive. Don't die, please. Don't let me lose you.'

But they were lost long before they were reaped, and so in the end, the outcome is always the same. 

We all die eventually. It's an inevitability everyone is prepared for from a young age--and yet, how unlucky do you have to be to receive that death in the form of a public massacre, aired on mandatory television?

There is a chip in my shoulder, beyond the electronic kind embedded there by the Capitol. A chunk missing from my overall whole, a part of me that I will never grow back, because what sort of nourishment could replace the lives lost in these Games?

I will never completely understand my father, but now, I think I partially get where he's coming from--although nothing I puzzle out can make sense of his coping methods. 

My father is hurt. Deeply, deeply, hurt, and the only way he can think of to repair his broken body is through the weak tape of alcohol, not even considering the iron bonds of time. 

He's long gone, and I've accepted that. 

But I'm not. I am still here, and (as far as I know) I am still sane, so my duty to this cruel life is to make the most of it.

***

I pack supplies into a large bag, taking only what I know I'll desperately need: daggers, of course, stored in the sheath that doubles as a belt; plenty of food and water; warm bedding; small bottles of medicines I found deep within the piles of stuff Taura collected. They aren't much, but I have no doubt my small store will keep me alive. 

I start off into the forest at dawn, because I can't afford to waste any daylight hours (although all I've been doing for the past day is wasting time), and no matter how unthreatening Lua seems, I'm not wandering these woods at night. Even within the eerie silence, I'm sure all sorts of creatures are lurking, waiting for any sort of unsuspecting prey, an easy meal. 

Learning from my previous adventures in desperately scrambling down trees, I decide to opt for a cave instead. It's not like a tree would do anything to protect me from Lua, anyway--if anything, it would be the more obvious choice. 

There is a small formation of boulders off to the left side of the arena, surrounded by a thick grove of trees, that I finally decide on. I crawl in a small opening, half-worried the rocks will fall down when I'm not watching, trapping me inside here. But, then again, that'd be a very anticlimactic death, and the Gamemakers want a show, don't they?

Maybe tomorrow, I'll go looking for Lua, if only to provide that entertainment to my viewers.

Could it be too late to receive gifts from donors? They get more expensive as the Games progress, but...

No, it won't be happening. No one will be rooting for me now--imagine Lua winning! Against all odds, she defeats the much older girl, going down in history as the youngest victor thus far! What an accomplishment; her family must be so proud!

If I win? It's nothing circumstantial. Just another seventeen-year-old career from Four, a girl who was woven into the morbid fabric of the Games from the very beginning, entrenched in all the action. 

From the start, I have not been the chosen victor, or even an interesting option. A bet on me would be nothing but wasted money. I have been the less-than, the girl who sticks to the careers like glue when she's barely one herself. 

It's no surprise that no parachutes have fallen from the sky in favor of me, no rich sponsors wildly bragging about how "She's going to win, I'm sure of it." 

I accept that fact that gifts are a far prospect from my current situation, and settle in to my cave, arranging food in that small alcove there, the one in the corner, farther from the entryway. There is a hole in the center of the ceiling, an opening that shows off the gorgeous (fabricated) sky, boasting millions of stars, twinkling as if to remind me that there is still beauty in the world, however bleak it may seem sometimes. 

The anthem plays, and I am irrationally afraid that Lua will sneak in under the cover of darkness and the loud noise, slitting my unsuspecting throat. 

There are no deaths tonight, obviously. And yet, my mind invents new deaths, reminds me of the ones I have seen flash across this night sky--and the ones I haven't; the ones I've missed. Like Terra. I didn't even get to say goodbye. I laid beside her as she died, as the life seeped out of her body via Taura and her bloodthirsty ways. But that was not a goodbye. With Terra, nothing would have ever been enough of a goodbye, just as nothing was ever enough of a hello. 

With Terra, nothing was ever enough, in any way. But that is okay--I have no reason to speak ill of the dead. What's done is done, and what's dead is dead, and I can't change that, so I must accept it. 

"I'm sorry," Terra whispers in my mind: her last words. After everything, after my confession, after our short-lived day of happiness, she apologizes. 

I think I know why, now. 

Terra was a tiger.

She was fierce and dangerous, the kind of animal whose bad side you don't want to get on, and yet, if looked at through a lens of love and admiration, she was nothing but an oversized housecat. Her fur was soft, and her eyes were a pretty shade of green, and she purred at my kind words. But she was careful, too, switching up at the slight sense of danger, ready to defend herself, no matter what it took. 

Her claws were sharp, but the look in her eyes was soft, and that was enough for me. 

It still is. It always will be, because as Terra is stagnant, so are my feelings for her. Maybe someday, in the (hopefully) far future, we will meet again. 

It hasn't been long in days since Terra's death, but it feels as if it has been years. I have lived a thousand lives, watched a thousand children die, and I feel changed. 

Or, perhaps it's the exhaustion speaking: the type that curls up in your bones and stays there, the type that sticks its tongue out at you and decides that it does not want to leave. 

Who knows?

I lay beneath the skylight, flanked by the small pinpricks of starlight. Danger surrounds me, and yet I am enveloped in the blanket of hope, warm and safe in this hostile environment. 

It doesn't take long before I am pulled into sleep.