The canon boomed.

Diandra shot up from her sleep, along with all of the other careers that happened to be woken up. She rubbed her eyes. "W-what happened?" She stuttered.

Cole stood up quickly, walking over to Jess who had been pointing down. Skya joined them, followed by Diandra, who were all looking down at the petrified body of their fellow career Jacob.

"You heard her, what happened?!" Cole shouted at Jess. 

"Don't ask me! I just woke up when he was taking his shift, and he was just dead!" Jess replied.

"Wait, you left him in charge?! We weren't doing that till tomorrow!" 

"I was about to pass out, Cole!"

"Well then who said you didn't kill him?"

"Why would she kill a fellow career?" Skya jumped in. "We're in a pact."

"Exactly!" Jess said.

While the hovercraft came in to pick up the boy from 1's body, the careers continued fighting, though it was mostly Cole and Jess that did the arguing. Jess pointed out that there was a knife wound in him, and claimed that she didn't have any knifes, and that she wasted them all in the cornucopia, but Cole went out to the outside and proved her wrong.

Skya jumped in on one part and told them that they should just go and hunt the other tributes, even if she didn't agree she wanted to stop the fighting, but then Jess pointed out that their guard was dead. While the three argued even more, Diandra sat down on her bed. She hated the games, and wanted nothing more than to go home with her mother and dog and eat her dinner.

"Okay then, Skya and Diandra can watch the supplies. Cole and I can split up to look for other tributes," Jess said.

"A twelve year old, watching supplies?" Cole asked sarcastically.

"And a fifteen year old," Skya popped in.

"Did you forget? We're careers!" Jess didn't want to acknowledge the fallen boy to her right.

Behind the cornucopia, nobody noticed the boy from eight most know as Alexsandr running away faster than he ever did, holding a bloody, stolen knife in his hand.

***

She woke up to the sound of a canon. She brushed the hair from out of her face, sitting up in her tree. Rosaline started to wonder who it was who had been killed, then wondered if it was one of the little kids, like Venus, or one of the older ones, like Alexsandr. Sure, she was scared, but also knew a few strategies of her own. Like for starters, to never have allies, for they turn way to easily (as she would know after studying the games for her whole life), and second to let each other fight each other until they end up killing each other of vain. 

Rosaline started to debate whether she should stay put or go towards the sea, it was a tropical island arena, after all. She decided on trying to get food. She moved the leaves she had used to warm herself and started climbing down the tree. She thought as she moved every foot; how was she to make a weapon to catch food, if she didn't even know how to start a fire?

She started to worry. Turns out, she didn't know anything that she could do to survive. Rosaline looked around for some sort of twine or rope, but had no luck.

Fishing, she thought. Food.

She took a large leaf off of the ground, and made up her mind. She was going to improvise, once she was at the sea. 

She started taking off toward the sea, occasionally tripping over leaves and twigs, hoping that she didn't direct attention to her. She wasn't fast, she never was. She tired easily, so often had to stop and take a breath before continuing.

Finally, after hours of running (or that's what it felt like), she finally reached some sort of sea. She checked around, making sure no one was there, and looked for fish. She thought she saw some, so started making a net. Using anything she could, she tried to be resourceful, but after a while she couldn't seem to find what she needed.

Close to giving up, Rosaline finally found something helpful. A large, sturdy piece of leaf that she could use to help create the net. She secured it, and looked at the net she had made. It sucked, and she knew that, just by looking at it she didn't think that she even had a shot at catching a fish. But she still got into the water, already getting soaked all the way through. Right as she saw a fish, she casted the net. No, she didn't trap it. She had to swim to get it back.

But then, something stopped her in the moment. The sound of shouting tributes, coming closer.

Rosaline panicked, and desperately tried to find a place to hide. The sounds were getting easier to hear, and she almost stopped breathing. She had no choice but to make as much noise as she needed to, and run.

She ran more than she thought she could. She was still on the shore, and saw the faces of the allies from twelve, and panicked even more. Chancey was holding a homemade spear, that looked like it could pierce Rosaline in an instant. Joel was trailing behind her, holding a rock in his hand. She didn't think a rock could hurt thrown from how far away he was, but still ran.

She finally entered the woods, and didn't even know if Chancey and Joel were still following her but she still ran. The only sense of navigation she had was avoiding trees. Hearing another noise, she ran even faster. She thought she would've passed out by then.

Then, she fell down. Taking a second to register what happened, she almost threw up. But when her eyes did focus, she saw the girl from seven's flowing brown hair and brown eyes.

Demi stared at the girl from eleven. She hadn't seen her, neither did Rosaline, and didn't know what to do. Neither of them did. Demi found a rock on the ground, and started to haul it at Rosaline, but stopped. They breathed heavily, afraid the other would do something, but no one did. They just stood up, and ran in their opposite directions.

***

The bow and arrow landed in his grasp, and he felt the smooth wood against his palm. Zeon loved that feeling, it made him feel so powerful. He especially loved the feeling of letting it blow through the wind and hitting it's target perfectly. It's not that killing people made him happy, just that it was somewhat satisfying, and he did want to win, of course.

Zeon had a few obvious targets. Number one was the careers, of course. If he wanted to win, they would be the one to beat. Number two would be Fiona. She was so fast, he didn't know if he could ever keep up to her, the one thing that would be helpful in the games; outrunning enemies. And lastly, Alexsandr. Yeah, he saw him carrying the knife that he used to kill. Alexsandr didn't even pick anything besides a backpack up from the cornucopia, definitely not a knife. And even if he did, why did it look like it had just been used?

He hadn't really decided where he would run, for he was more of an improvisor. He had trained himself to go long without food, just in the case of him being thrown into the games. And when his cousin got picked, he saw no better opportunity to take his place.

He took his bow and arrow and carried it with him when he walked. He was going to find a tribute, and try to kill them, if he could. He had no idea where he was going, occasionally hearing sounds that would make him draw his bow.

He thought about his home. He thought about his cousin, Hemrey, who he had taken his place for back in District Seven. He was only fifteen, Zeon being eighteen, himself. He knew him the best out of his whole family, making inside jokes whenever they could that his mother begged them to stop. He remembered how sometimes him and Hemrey had dinner together, sometimes giving their leftovers to Hemrey's pig, and how Hemrey told Zeon that if he came back, he would give him his pig, his most important possession, and leave his home and live with his cousin in The Victors' Village. No matter how much he told him to keep his pig, he refused.

Zeon couldn't leave that.

It was countless hours of walking. He would have given up if he wasn't so determined to win. He would have just set down his bow and made a fishing net, instead. But he wasn't hungry.

Then, he heard the rustling near a tree. He quickly drew his bow, pointing it to the sound. He moved closer, trying to see who it was. As his eyes focused, he looked at two boys, two he recognized from four and five, walking around and holding a branches in their hands. His hands trembled. 

Just a simple shot, he told himself. And you're closer to victory.

Then, one of them tripped over a branch in the ground, the one he thought was from four, and the boy from five kept him up. The boy thanked him, wiping a few dirty tears from his eyes. Zeon kept the bow up, tracking the boys, and pulled the bow back further, aiming at the boy from four. But as he saw the boys wiping more tears from their eyes as they pick at dried blood on their hands, he pictured Hemrey when Zeon had to leave, pushing back his tears that eventually dripped onto Zeon's shoulder when he hugged him. And he put the bow down.

He couldn't do it.