Disclaimer: I really don’t know about you but if I was the one who wrote the series (PJO and THG) I’m sure the ending wouldn’t be like that. I would be even more infuriating…my friends told me that I had a habit of making people frustrated. I dunno if it’s true…sorry about the babbling..

Percy’s POV

The arena….

Is….

BIPOLAR?

I. Am. So. Dead.

The arena are circular in shape ( I think…). Half of the arena are covered in snow. Heck, there’s a blizzard going on! And the other half is a desert. A damn, barren desert. With absolutely no living thing in sight. The Cornucopia is set in the middle of the two weathers (?), looking pristine and sparkly in the blazing sun. The goodies Haymitch had warned us not to get our hands on are spilling out of it. You know, like the old Roman myth about the origins of Cornucopia or the horn of plenty. Think about good, happy things and goodies will spill out of the Cornucopia. And this is definitely a horn of plenty of needs.

Okay, keep calm. You are going to survive.

HOW THE HECK ARE WE GOING TO FIND FOOD?

Oh, right…

The goodies at the Cornucopia.

This will definitely the bloodiest bloodbath there will ever be.

Okay, get your head in the game, Jackson, I tell myself. But trying to keep my focus on the game is proving to be hard. Because my mind is like, ‘How are you going to survive?’ and ‘You’ll be dead in a minute’. Oh, damn…

“ Ten. Nine. Eight…”

Well, might as well fight for my life.

“ Five. Four. Three…”

Here goes nothing.

Then, the gong rings.

I sprint to the middle of the arena. Right towards the Cornucopia. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Katniss doing the same thing. Well, at least I won’t be the only one who ignored Haymitch’s advice. I duck as a boy from District 3, Luke or something tries to stab me with a knife he had scooped up. But I was faster. I twisted his knife-arm and he dropped the knife, yelling in pain. I quickly pick up the knife, and without any mercy, I slit his throat.

It was really horrible. Seeing him drop dead at my feet with his throat slit open, his eyes open. I must’ve pressed the knife really deep into his throat for him to die that quick. Never mind about that. I continued my sprint towards the Cornucopia when I noticed a strange shaped bronze sword, like a leaf, lying on the ground, unnoticed.

This is it. This is the weapon designed for me. But before I could get to it, the crippled boy from District 7, Grover hobbles over to me, holding a long machete. He swings at me, full speed and I duck, the blade merely missing the top of my head a couple of inches. I had no choice. This kid is going to kill me if I showed mercy. So, I stabbed him right in the chest with the knife I took from Luke. He splutters in surprise, looking at the protruding knife in his chest and topples over, starting to gasp for breath. Fighting to live.

I quickly pick up the leaf-shaped sword and went back to where Grover was lying. He was starting to have breathing difficulties. Blood trickles down from his mouth. Then, I don’t know. I kind of tuned out the others (which was stupid of me, really) and I kneeled next to him. I wrenched the knife out of his chest and he gasps in pain.

“ E-e-end it, p-p-please,” he choked out to me. “ P-p-please…”

And I slit his throat open. He gasps; his body twitches a little before going really, really still. His eyes were still open. And, just like Luke’s, his eyes were glassy and lifeless. My second kill. I look at the knife that had wounded (and killed) him and decided to keep it. Hey, who knows? It might come in handy.

I got to my feet and look around, just in time when that girl from District 6, Annabeth came charging at me with an axe. I manage to parry her attack. We were slicing and dicing the air for several seconds before I slashed my knife at her left knee. And she collapses in pain. She tries to get to her feet but I knocked her down with the hilt of my sword.

Again, she tries to rise but this time, no mercy. I slashed at her right hand it nearly got severed. I slash again, this time at her face and made a really, really deep gash across her nose.

“ Don’t,” she whimpers as I raise my sword again. “ Please don’t.” Before I could say or do anything, she gasps and her eyes widen in surprise, before she started coughing and blood got sprayed all over me. She looks at me, though her eyes were nearly glassy and unfocused, before keeling over. That’s when I notice a knife sticking out of her back. I look up and my blood ran cold.

It was the girl from District 2, Clove. She was the one who had beaten me at knife throwing. Oh, no…I think I better clear out before she decides to throw another knife at me. But, chances are I won’t make it out fast enough. Stay and fight? My eyes flicker around the Cornucopia and I saw the other Careers, the tributes from One, the girl tribute from Four and Cato, approaching where she and I were standing.

Run?

Well, I would have liked to say I did but sadly, I didn’t.

And no, I didn’t get killed or wounded by the Careers.

Even worse.

     “ Hey, Twelve,” Cato, the boy from Two call out. “ Easy,” he says, as I instinctively hold out my weapon. “ We’re not going to kill you. At least, not yet.”

“ What do you want then?” I ask him, maybe sounding a little bit harsh and superior. I think it’s got to be with my newly acquired weapon. It kinda makes me feel stronger and braver. That or the fact that I had mercilessly killed two people.

  “ Relax, kid,” he says, grinning. His eyes were glinting in a really, really mean way. As if he has his eyes on a slab of meat he had coveted. Of course, being the person who had challenged him during training (remember when I had made fun of him?), that might just be the case. “ I saw how you fought. I must say, I am pretty impressed that someone who hasn’t been trained professionally to fight in a battle managed to strategically overpower opponents with weapons.”

I blink, unable to fully understand him. Did he…did he just complimented me?

  “ I guess that’s how you got your ten in training,” he goes on. “ What do you say on joining allies with us?”

  “ Allies? With you?” I’m sorry to say, but I couldn’t hide the disgust out of my voice and I am pretty sure the Careers heard it because Clove had raise her knife to throw but Cato calms her down.

   “ Don’t mind her,” he says, gesturing to Clove. “ She’s a little bit on the sensitive side. Touchy, you might say,” he adds. Then, he just stood there, X-raying me from top to bottom. Obviously weighing the pros and cons of keeping me alive. You know, aside from the Careers, I was the only one alive around the Cornucopia. Annabeth was still at my feet, her gray eyes blank, blood still oozing out of the wounds I had inflicted on her. And Katniss (thankfully) aren’t among the bodies. “ Your chances at survival are pretty good if you stick with us.”

  I snorted. “ And how am I going to be sure you won’t stick your knives in me?”

  “ That won’t happen now,” he says in a breezy way. “You know, you have to join us or we’ll just have to kill you now.” Clove grins at me in a very, very psychopathic way.

  I didn’t reply anything. Joining would prolong my life, even for several days or weeks. Avoiding would definitely shorten it. But if I join, they would probably try to use me to find Katniss (because trust me, I know all Cato wants is to stick his short sword in her after she had beaten him at training). Who knows? But maybe if I do join them, I could lead them farther from her. Well, wherever she is. And I could get food easily, too (as they were Careers, they had obviously secured all of the food for themselves. Especially in this sort of arena where food is obviously scarce).

“ Fine. I’ll join allies with you,” I finally say. Cato’s grin probably got wider while Clove scowls.

“ Welcome to the pack, then, Twelve,” he says, holding out his hand. I look at it for a moment (it was covered in blood…) and finally shook it.

  “ Call me ‘Percy’,” I say, not liking it when they call me ‘Twelve’. Hey, I’ve got a name. Use it.

 “ Hey, Percy,” the boy from One say, stepping forward and grabbing my hand. “ I’m Marvel and this,” he waves his hand to the girl from One, “ is Glimmer. That’s Clove,” I nod at her, “ and that’s Thalia,” he says, pointing to the girl from Four.

  “ Okay, enough chit-chatting. Let’s go hunting for some weaklings,” Clove says. I swear to you, I feel like taking her out, now. She is so, damn arrogant.

  “ Let’s wait for nightfall,” Cato says. “ Who knows? Maybe someone will light a fire. Someone is bound to get cold if they went in the snowy section,” he says in that breezy tone I am starting to dislike. “ Come one. Let’s have something to eat first.”

Well, fine by me. I’m starving anyway. I tore some cloth off of Annabeth’s clothes and used it to wipe the blood off of my sword and knife.

******************

It’s nearly nightfall now and Marvel had previously jumped to his feet in excitement, pointing to a cloud of swirling smoke in the winter hemisphere.

   “ There’s our first idiot,” Cato says, grinning in this wicked sort of way.

And we set off. On and on we tread in the snow. Trying to hide in this part of the hemisphere is pretty risky since the snow will show your footsteps. But the good thing is it’s got this really, really big pine trees with really, really thick leaves. Whereas the desert hemisphere, all you can see is red sand and sand blizzards and this weird, short and pointy plants that Marvel said are called cactus. Really not a proper hidey-hole but Marvel said the cactus is an excellent source for water.

   As we were trudging the snow, the Panem anthem came on (they precede the death recap) and they start to show the simple head shots of all the dead tributes. The first to come on was Luke, the boy from District 3 and then his female counterpart. Then the boy from District 4 (no wonder he wasn’t with the Career tributes…). The boy from 5, Jason.  Annabeth (6) and her male counterpart. Grover (7) and his female counterpart. The boy from 8. Both from 9. And I wait in anticipation. Wondering if I’ll see Katniss in the sky tonight. There’s the girl from 10. And then, the anthem came back on.

   Phew….

So, both tributes from District 12 survived the bloodbath on the first day.

Twelve dead already.

And eleven more to go.

*************

I nearly walked on the girl.

“ Careful, you idiot,” Clove hisses at me.

We were crouching behind a big, pine tree. Our breaths were coming in curls of smokes. But the pine tree we were using as a spying-lookout was pretty big and wide so we weren’t too worried she’d notice us.

   “ It doesn’t matter if she notices us,” Cato murmurs back, his eyes on the brown haired girl. I squint at her (it was really dark now) and could only make out her silhouette which was made clearer from the fact that she was sitting close to a fire she had conjured. But from the way her ponytail hung to her back and the way she was hunched, I think she might be the girl from Eight, Katie. We had trained together at the Camouflaging Station (Katniss had refused to train there because she deems it as ‘not useful’) and we had probably had some good times goofing off with the paints. Even the trainer had fun with us.

  “ She doesn’t seem too dangerous,” I mutter to the Careers. “ Do we really have to take her out?”

  “ Percy, have you seen any of the other Games’? The ones who seem weak might be a really, really dangerous opponent,” Cato tells me, his expression was bored. “ Come on. Let’s go and finish her.”

And he was the first to approach her. Seriously, for a guy his size ( he was twice bigger than me), he had velvety treads. The girl didn’t expect it at all. First, he was like tapping her shoulder in this inquisitive way. Next thing you know, she was on her back, her eyes wide open, her mouth open in mid-scream, a deep gash across her face and a short sword stuck in her chest.

“ That was  a quick one,” Marvel comments. “ She didn’t even have a chance to beg for life.”

I really hate this. The fact that they are killing for fun and don’t even feel a teensy bit of remorse. I know you guys would probably say, ‘ Hey, Percy? Yeah, just to tell you this: you killed TWO people.’ but that was because they came at me with weapons, poised to kill me. And believe me, I’ve been thinking about it all the time we were hunting for victims. Like, how Luke’s eyes stare at me. Empty, yes but staring at me nonetheless. And how Grover had begged me to end it. As for Annabeth, I still have her blood sticking on my face. She, too, had begged to get over it quickly.

Damn.

“ Well, she’s dead. Come on, let’s go,” Cato says, wrenching his sword out of Katie’s chest. “ More victims to find.”

We continue our trek with Cato in the lead.

 “ Why haven’t I heard any canon blasting?” Marvel suddenly asks.

“ Canon? What for?” Cato asks, as he continues to slash at the branches and roots that were getting in his way.

“ Um…the death signal. The signal that shows the girl you just stuck your sword in is dead,” Glimmer says, reminding him.

“ So, you mean she’s still alive?” he turns on her.

“ Maybe,” Glimmer shrugs.

“ No. I know she’s dead. I stuck her myself!” he snarls at her.

“ Well, where’s the cannon?!” she shrieks at him.

 “ Shut up! Both of you!” And they did. And the other tributes look at me in astonishment. “ We’re going to waste more time hunting, not to mention some might’ve heard your shouting and had probably fled. I’ll go back and finish the job,” I say, going back the way where we had come.

And I am fool, you know?

I left my back undefended.

A perfect shot, really.

Just one stab with a knife or sword in the back would end my life.

But of course, I’m important to Cato’s quest on finding Katniss so there’s no way he is going to kill me.

So, I survived that one weak moment…

…and now I am kneeling next to the dying girl from District 8.

I checked her pulse, her eyes for signs of life. She’s still alive, but only just. We could’ve gone on, leaving her to suffer before dying because there is no way a person with a wound that bad could survive.

So, I’m doing her a favor by quickening it.

“ Hey,” I whisper to her. She couldn’t see me because partly it’s dark, and partly her vision was clouding. “ It’s me,” I say, taking her hand. “ Percy from District 12.” She may have given off some signs that she recognized me. “ I know you’re in pain so…”

“ P-p-please,” she whimpers and I immediately remembered Grover. It’s repeating all over again. “ P-p-please k-k-k-kill m-m-me.” She coughs a bit and there was a bit of a strangled sound : she was choking on her blood. “ P-p-p-please,” she says, giving my hand a little bit of squeeze.

My sword was already in my hand.

And the next moment, she was laying still, her eyes open, blood still trickling down her mouth, her throat slit open. The hand she had squeezed me with lay lifeless on my lap.

“ May the odds be ever in your favor. Even in death,” I say to her, before closing her eyes.

 “ She was still alive?” Cato asks me when I get back to the pack.

“ Yeah, but not anymore,” I say. I swear, I could feel myself going heartless by the minute. Okay, maybe I ended Katie and Grover’s life because I felt sorry for them but I actually killed Luke and tortured Annabeth first. Oh, no…am I becoming a monster? “ Let’s get going.”

And, maybe for the briefest moment, I thought I spotted a pair of eyes, glinting in the dark overhead. And it was glaring balefully at me. And I think it might be Katniss.

*****************************

We didn’t find any more victims the next day.

Or the next.

Or the next.

It’s been three days and we didn’t even find any sign of life in the winter hemisphere (since if you hide in the desert hemisphere, you’d be dead by now).

“ Won’t be long, now,” Cato kept saying. There’s now a mad glint in his eyes and I suddenly realized that we are all going to die because, no matter what, Cato is going to win this. Because, Cato, no offense but I think you are cracking.

And, really, it wasn’t long. Cato really does know how to make a prediction because right then, an avalanche suddenly descended on us.

“ RUN!” I yell, though of course, they didn’t need telling. I grab my sword (which was lying on the ground near my feet) and ran (my knife was safely strapped to my waist, in a sheath I made from some pine leaves) as fast as I could. Maybe this is it?

We’re going to get buried under heaps of snow.

Oh, but that’s not all.

Suddenly, sharp, shards of ice were shooting everywhere and it was virtually impossible to duck here and there without getting impaled or stabbed by the shards. I got nicked here and there. A small shard of ice impaled itself on my upper arm, probably making a shallow hole. Then, these really big snowball start to fly all around. I could hear someone getting hit (and by the sound of the scream, it would probably be either Glimmer or Thalia). I nearly got hit too but I manage to roll around on the ground. All that rolling made me pretty oblivious to my surroundings for a while because I suddenly found myself at the base of a huge pine tree. I start to get up but this stack of ice suddenly fell on me. A really big one impaled itself on my right arm (how the heck am I going to hold my sword upright?) and I roared in pain.

And I knew it, right there and then that this might be how I die. Getting impaled by giant ice shards to death. Because this ginormous ice shard that was hanging from the pine tree was visibly shaking from the avalanche quake and it was directly above me.

That was when Thalia came to my rescue.

She wrenched the ice shard out of my arm and pulled me to my feet. “ Get going!” she roars at me. We both ran for cover, the other Career tributes nowhere to be seen. After running senseless, we found a boulder that could provide shelter for us.

And the other Career tributes were there.

Damaged, scathed, impaled by little ice shards but still alive.

Cato looked murderous.

Well, Cato. Looks like someone had felt bad leaving me to die like that. Obviously they had planned to leave me there, stuck because the ice shard had impaled my arm to the ground and die because another ice shard impaled me in the chest.

“ Are you okay?” Glimmer asks me as she took in my bloodied state.

“ I’ll live,” I reply, checking the huge, gaping hole in my arm. The bleeding doesn’t seem to bad so I’ll work on it later.

And there was nothing we could do except to wait for the avalanche to stop.

It felt as if the avalanche went on for ages.

When it finally stopped, we had probably gotten some sort of frost bite or something because I could feel the tip of my nose cold and hard. My limbs were sore from all the crouching under the boulder and all. And my wounded arm feel deadened to me. How am I going to defend myself when I can barely move my arm?

We didn’t move even though it felt as if an hour had passed since the avalanche stopped. It was silent. Except for the occasional icicles falling and the snow dripping off the trees.

 “ Do you think it’s safe to move?” Marvel suddenly whispers.

“ I think so,” Cato replies, peeking out from under the boulder. “ I think it’s already safe. Come on,” he says, climbing on to the boulder. We followed him, glad to be able to stretch our limbs. And Glimmer, for some reason, is fussing over my wound.

Marvel had a first aid kit in his pack, so Glimmer  started to attend to my wounds.

“ You don’t have to do this, you know,” I mutter to her when Cato, Clove and Marvel were a little bit far off. Thalia was kneeling next to Glimmer, watching her cleaning the gaping hole in my arm.

“ No, if we don’t get this clean up quick, infection might set in and you could lose your arm. Or worst, your life,” Glimmer murmurs back.

“ How do you know about healing?” Thalia asks her, looking a little bit shock.

“ I don’t always spend my free time training for the Games,” Glimmer snorts. “ Sometimes I’d read the books about minor wounds and how to take care of it.”

“ Hey, hey,” Cato shouts at us. “ Are you done yet? Let’s go, let’s go!”

“ What’s up?” Thalia shouts back.

“ We’ve got our eyes on our prize,” Clove says, looking positively gleeful.

“ Our prize?” Thalia repeats, looking a little bit fearful.

“ Yes. Our little Miss Katniss Everdeen,” Clove says, her eyes travel over to me. No surprise there. She must want to see how I’d react to that.

I got to my feet. “ Lead the way then,” I say grimly.

Cato cackles madly as he and Marvel race towards where they say Katniss was. And I could feel my blood turning to ice because I saw that Katniss was stuck in a pile of snow. And Cato was nearly there to her. Any moment now and she’ll be dead…

He suddenly shouts in frustration as several  shards of ice fell in front of him, nearly impaling him. With the spare time the icicles had bought, Katniss managed to free herself before scaling up a nearby tree. Cato looks back at us in rage, trying to find who had caused the ice shards to drop. And since I was the only one who could be suspected, he lunges at me with his sword. Luckily for me, I managed to parry his attack since my sword was already in my hand. But only just. And my right arm felt as if it went right into flames.

“ You betrayed us!” he snarls. I swear to you, I think he might’ve gone a little bit cuckoo. The glints in his eyes are proof enough. “ You betrayed us and saved her!!”

“ I didn’t do anything!” I shout back. “ It was nature! The ice shards were due to fall anytime! I swear! How could I ever manage to do that!”

But he wasn’t going to buy it.

Next thing I knew, I was being attacked by him. He was slashing and stabbing at me with his sword. Luckily for me, I was a pretty good swordsman. But being good is not enough because Cato is an expert. So, it was only a matter of time before he will manage to overpower me.

And overpower me he did.

I was on my back, my sword had skittered a few metres from me and he was on top of me. He had this very, very mean and vicious look on his face. His sword was raised, ready to end my life. The other Careers stood a little bit behind him, looks of terror on their face ( except for Clove ). Clearly, they had never seen him lose his mind.

“ I’ll let you off, Twelve. This one time. Only,” he snarls, the tip of his sword was hovering close to my neck. If he had a change of heart, I’m a goner in a minute. Or a second. “ Stand aside, and let me kill her. Don’t make me kill you too,” he warns me before getting off of me.

“ Percy?” Thalia rushes to my side. “ Are you okay?” she whispers to me as Cato and the others stride towards the tree where Katniss was.

“ I’m okay,” I say, getting to my feet. “ He asked me to let him kill her. I don’t know if I can let him do that.”

“ I know that feeling.” When I look at her questioningly, she continues, “ He was the one who killed Patrick,” she murmurs to me. “ Patrick is – was - the boy from my district.”

“ I thought you Careers stick together,” I say, feeling a little bit surprised.

“ We traditionally do but Cato felt Patrick was too weak so he killed him. At least Patrick won’t have to deal with him like the rest of us,” she explains as we walk towards the tree the others were clustered around.

“ How’s everything with you?” Katniss calls out. I had to hide my amusement because it is funny; the way she had asked was as though she was only asking about the weather.

“ Except for some cramped limbs and nearly frost bitten toes, I’d say well enough,” Cato replies. “ How about yourself?”

“ It’s very cold, to be honest. Not at all my taste,” she says. “ But I think the air up here is warmer and there’s no icicles up here. Why don’t you come up?”

“ Think I will. My legs are cramp as hell,” he says, starting to climb the tree.

“ Cato, take this,” Glimmer suddenly says, holding out her bows and arrows.

“ Nah, I think I’ll do better with my sword,” he replies, before continuing to climb the tree.

I look up at the tree and saw that Katniss was probably well twenty feet up in the tree. There’s just no way any of us could catch her in the tree. Except, probably, me. But I could fall down to my death should she ever go up higher, or climb to the more slender branches which will definitely snap under my weight.

I watch Cato scaling the tree, trying to catch Katniss. But of course, she would never give in without a fight. Sure enough, she is already thirty feet higher. There’s no way Cato can –

CRACK! SNAP! THUD!

Told you so.

Cato is on the ground, looking surprisingly bewildered. I had to bite my tongue so that no one could hear (or know) me laughing.

“ Damn you!” he suddenly swears, already on his feet. “ Damn you! I will get you!”

I swear I could hear Katniss giggling from up the tree. “ It’s not that hard, you know!” she calls out.

“ Let me take her down,” Glimmer suddenly says. Before any of us could agree, she start to climb the tree. But, of course, like Cato, she is much heavier than Katniss and there’s just no way she could reach Katniss before breaking her own neck. Sure enough, you could hear the branches starting to snap under her weight. Though she is clever enough to stop and climb back down. “ Don’t worry,” she says, notching an arrow in her bow and aimed for Katniss. “ This will get her.”

She shoots. But it is very clear that, like me, she is not even capable to wound Katniss with the arrow, let alone kill her. To make things easier : she’s not a good archer.

“ How are we going to kill her?” Glimmer mutters to Cato. “ She’s way up there and none of us could get to her.” Uh oh…I don’t think I’d like it if any of them tells me to go and climb the tree.

“ What’s the use of plotting now anyway?” I burst out. “ I mean, it’s nearly dark now and anyway, it’s not like she’s got anywhere to go. We’ll just deal with her in the morning.”

Cato walks over to me, growling in frustration. “ If you even think of helping her, I will run this thing through your guts and leave you to suffer before finally dying. Just imagine that : lying in the cold, hard ground with snow falling on you, with this giant hole in your guts, blood leaking out of you like there’s no tomorrow.”

I think about it for a moment. “ Not nice,” I say, shaking my head.

“ Good,” he punches me in the shoulder (mind you, my right shoulder and the pain is already creeping up from my arm). “ I’ll go and find some firewood. You set up camp,” he orders me before trudging off, finding firewood. Clove, Glimmer and Marvel went with him while Thalia stayed with me.

“ That was a close one,” Thalia breathes out in relief. “ You don’t think she’ll try to escape?”

“ No,” I say confidently. “ She won’t.” I look up into the tree, and Katniss had lowered herself to the lower and bigger branches where she had set camp. And we didn’t talk much after that, putting all of our weapons and supplies in a circle. Then Cato and the others returned with lots of firewood and some food.

We didn’t talk at all that night. I was drowned in my own thoughts, thinking about how twisted fate had made our lives. We should be at home, probably preparing for bed. Addy and Prim would still be goofing around, Mrs. Everdeen telling them off and trying to shoo them to bed. Katniss and me planning what to do after school the next day, either to go gathering or hunting.

All of those seem preferable than what we are going through now. I’m not supposed to be with the Careers and Katniss is not supposed to be up in the tree with killers at the base of said tree.

Man, life sucks…

A/N: Well, that’s chapter 19. What do you think about it? And I it’s pretty disturbing that Percy killed those who were close to him in the PJO series but really, they’re all fighting to live so…yeah…hope you guys won’t get angry or anything with me. And as usual, RATE AND REVIEW! thanks…J