We started walking more, and about an hour into the walk we heard a cannon boom.

"One less tribute to go," Bates added grimly. I didn't enjoy thinking about the number of tributes decreasing, because that just signified that my death would happen sooner and that the alliance would be broken up soon for our own good. Another cannon boomed a minute later. I wondered what happened. Could the Careers have run into another group? We stayed silent and continued walking on.

We had been walking for a short amount of time when we heard a twig snap from somewhere behind us. We discovered that this arena was designed so that if you turn around it's a different way than it was when you came, so we didn't know where we came from, or if we were just walking in circles. Everyone stopped, grabbed our weapon of choice, and turned around. There was nothing in sight. Cristoff walked forward a couple steps, and made a beckoning motion with his hands, trying to get whoever was there to come out and fight us. Our response was the sound of a gentle breeze blowing through the arena. Turning around, Cristoff made to walk back over to us. That's when we saw it.

Running out from shadows that we didn't initially see, came a creature that I had never seen before. It was a huge creature covered in thick, black hair. It had one eye in the center of its forehead, and it was an evil red. It had two, muscular arms with huge hands. A mutt. It bounded off towards Cristoff, and before we could warn him about it or he could try and run, the mutt tackled him to the ground. It picked him up and bit Cristoff's head off, and threw his body to the side. I screamed, mouth open in horror. Cristoff was the person who protected me from the Cornucopia and from Augustus. I owed him my life. This was beyond horrible. It was evil, what the Capitol was doing to us.

My paralyzed body was being pulled along by Bates, who was running away from the mutt as fast as he could while holding me. I looked over my shoulder and saw the mutt still devouring Cristoff's mangled body. Lyla, if it was at all possible, seemed even more horror-struck than I was. We seemed to be escaping from the mutt when it came at us again, done with Cristoff. We ran faster than we had before, and then Rosetta tripped. She fell. We stopped. The mutt sliced her stomach before Bates had a chance to spear its heart and killed it.

"Rosetta!" I screamed and ran over to her, finding her in a horrible situation. Her stomach was bleeding profusely, and her face was pale. Her entire body was shaking; she had lost too much blood. "Oh Rosetta..." Tears were silently pouring down my face as I gripped her small hand.

"V-Violet?" Subconsciously I realized the others gathered behind us. We all knew she wasn't going to make it, but I refused to believe it.

"I'm here, Rosetta." My voice sounded hoarse, probably from all of the events that had just happened.

"I-I see my mom. But I'm so cold. Why am I so cold?" Her mom. She must have died.

"I don't know. But I'm sure," My voice broke. "I'm sure you'll be warm soon. With your mom. You'll be happy. Happier than you've ever been."

She struggled to smile. "That's good. Can you tell me a story?" I forgot that she was also my age. She sounded years younger than she actually is.

"Of... of course I can. Once upon a time, in a land far away, lived a little girl named Rosetta. Rosetta was so small that she lived inside a patch of beautiful roses, just like her namesake. Then Rosetta discovered one day that she had to leave her patch of roses to go to another place because the Flower people instructed her to go on an adventure. So she left, and on the way she met many flower friends. She met Violet, who lived in a patch of Violets, Lyla, who lived in lily pads, and two other friends; Bates and Cristoff, who lived in the forest. They went on lots of adventures together, like riding a bunny, going to visit the Flower people city, and to a cave full of diamonds. When she returned from her adventure, everyone loved hearing her stories. She was happy. One day, her friend Violet visited. They played the whole day, and fell asleep looking at the stars from inside Rosetta's rose, the prettiest of all."

"That sounds..."

A cannon boomed.

I was numb after what happened to Rosetta. No one could get a word out of me. I was too shocked to speak. Silently, we moved on away from the scene. Once I heard the hovercrafts come, I stopped and turned around. I watched them grab Cristoff and Rosetta's bodies. Silent tears rushed down my face. I fell to the ground and curled up. It wasn't just that I had lost one of my allies; I had lost another part of me. I decided then that if I made it out of the arena somehow, I would plant a rosebush in front of my house in remembrance of Rosetta. A primrose bush for Cristoff. I would never forget them.

Sometime later we ended up moving on again. No one spoke. We were all saddened by what happened. I highly doubted that the Gamemakers would send something after us for the rest of the day. Tomorrow as well if we're lucky. All that I can think about at this point is how close to death I was, how other people that I had grown closer to had died, and how the amount of people left was slowly decreasing. I couldn't allow a small sliver of hope of me winning come into my mind, because if it did then I would be faced with the cruel truth that twelve year olds just don't win the Games.

We walked until we were all too tired to move on. Once we had found a good place to camp out in the shadows, I moved as far away from the group as I dared to go. Not even eating, I lay on my back and thought about everything. I thought about my family, my dead sister, Rosetta, Cristoff, and anything good that happened to me in my life. I tried not to think about how I was going to die soon.

I guess I didn't realize how long I had lain there, because I heard the Capitol Anthem start to play. I forced myself to look up at the stars. First was Terrence from District One. He must have been one of the cannons I heard earlier. Next was Cristoff's face. Then Rosetta's. I knew what happened to them. I started crying again, but quickly brushed them away. I had to be strong; no more crying. The last face that was shown was Annaleise from District Eight. The siblings must have had an encounter with the Careers and one of them must have killed Terrence. I'm surprised. I thought he would've lasted longer than this. I never would have thought I would outlast him. I turned over again, and attempted to fall asleep. I somehow did, but was met with a horrible nightmare.

I was in a pitch black room, all alone. Suddenly, Rosetta was next to me, skin hanging off her bones. She looked like the living dead.

"Violettt..." Blood flowed out of her mouth and onto me as she spoke. "It's your entire fault Violet that I had to die. Your entire fault."

"Violet." I jumped, and found that Rosetta and disappeared. Cristoff appeared to the other side of me instead. "You did this to me. YOU DID THIS TO ME." He was screaming at me, which didn't seem possible because he was headless. The rest of his body was all cut up in long, jagged cuts. With some you could see his bones. "If I hadn't had to save YOUR PATHETIC LIFE then I would still be alive. IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT VIOLET. ALL YOUR FAULT!"

He disappeared again, being replaced by my sister.

"Hello Violet."

Shaking, I turned to her. She looked perfectly fine, so I was confused. Where was the gore? Why was she normal?

"K-K-Kate? Why are you here?"

She smiled, and walked over to me. "I'm here to remind you of what you're fighting for. I don't blame you for what happened. It's not your fault you were born. I didn't mind taking the extra tesserae for you. You were so little and starving, I had to help."

I straightened up, tears running down my face. "But, Kate, you died horribly. Another tribute... he... he..." I couldn't finish. The memory was too painful, even in my dreams.

"I know." Kate touched my arm. "It's fine. I'm in a better place now. And trust me, you will make it out of the arena. Alive. Trust me." She smiled one last time, and then faded into the darkness.

I woke up. I saw that Lyla was taking watch for us. With fewer allies, we were all forced to take longer shifts. She looked as if she needed sleep. I poked her and she smiled, glad that someone else was awake. She went over to where I was sleeping, curled up into a ball, and fell asleep. I didn't even mind taking an extra-long shift. The night seemed to drag on, and soon it was morning. I walked over to Bates and Lyla, gently shaking them awake. We needed to continue walking if we wanted to make the most of the day.

After gathering all of our things together, I led the group through the maze, randomly choosing when to turn left and when to turn right. At one point, we somehow went in a circle. I wasn't sure where I was planning on having us go; I feel like the Cornucopia would be a good place for us to head back to. It would give us a chance to stock up on materials. After traveling for a good bit of the day, we stopped to take a break. We all hadn't spoken much during the day, still slightly in shock from yesterday. In my head, I was sort of sad about that. I needed to talk to someone.

Sitting down on a rock, I heard a quiet noise. Instantly jumping to my feet, I looked around for the source of the sound. Not seeing anything and receiving strange looks from Bates, I cautiously sat down again. A white parachute settled down next to me, without my notice, and I jumped up with a slight shriek. Lyla laughed, and then hastily covered her mouth, trying to suppress her giggles. Laughing was dangerous in the arena. I walked over to the parachute, and opened the capsule attached to it. Inside of it was a loaf of bread from District Eleven, and a small set of throwing knifes. I had a feeling I knew who the knives were for, and showed the bread to my allies. We cut it up, dividing it equally among us. Bates insisted that the knives were for me, so I attached them to my belt and started nibbling on my slice of bread. I had to make it last as long as I could. It reminded me of home, a reminder that I greatly needed. Picking the parachute up to put it in a backpack, an unnoticed piece of paper slipped out of it. Picking it up, I saw that it read, "LLRLSLR".

I showed it to the others. "What do you think it means?" My voice was hoarse from not talking and from crying too much.

Bates shrugged. "I don't know. It could be anything, really. Possibly even a misprint. Just throw it away."

"I think it could be a clue," Lyla said. "Something related to the arena. I say we keep it. What do you think Violet?"

I sat down, looking at the piece of paper. "I agree with Lyla. I think we should figure out what it means before we continue on."

We brainstormed for a little bit. We came up with a code, a misprint, a combination for a lock, someone in the Capitol's name, and a clue. I could feel a thought tugging at the back of my mind, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was.

All of a sudden, I knew what it was. Leaping up, I explained to them what I thought it was.

"That's amazing!" Lyla exclaimed. "That's really smart of you to think of it like that, Violet. "

Bates nodded. "I say we try it."

Quickly gathering all of our things, I led the group once more, this time with more energy flowing through me. If what that paper was what I thought it was, it could change everything about what was going on right now. It could be life or death for us, quite literally.

When we came across spots to either turn or continue going straight, I followed what the paper said. Left, left, right, left straight, left. Then we came to our final turn. I stopped, and turned around to look at my allies. I could either be leading them into a trap or to something great. Lyla smiled at me, and motioned for me to continue on. The day was almost done, and no cannons had gone off. I wanted to see what the paper was leading us to before it was too dark to see anything. Taking a deep breath, I turned right.

There was nothing there. Nothing that I could see, at least. It seemed like a walkway that went on forever. I wondered what I had gotten us into. We walked for what seemed like hours, until we finally reached the end. It was a dead end, with a solid wall blocking us from continuing on.

"This is it? This is what our paper led us to?" Bates seemed angry. "All of that walking, for nothing?" Angry, he kicked the dead end wall and found that his foot went through it. Shocked, he almost fell through. We were all confused. A wall that wasn't solid?

"So, who goes in first?" I didn't know who should go first. I was honestly a little scared of going in first, only because I didn't know what was beyond the fake wall.

"I think you should go in first Bates, only because you discovered it was a fake wall," I insisted. Lyla nodded enthusiastically next to me, and Bates put on a brave face and nodded.

He went through first, and Lyla and I watched him disappear. Next went Lyla, and finally me. Once I stepped through, I saw that we were back at the Cornucopia. We had somehow gotten back to the Cornucopia, where it seemed unguarded. No Careers around. Just what was left from the Bloodbath and us was all that was there.

I almost fainted with relief. Whoever was sponsoring us had somehow read my mind when I was trying to take us back here. If it weren't for them, we probably would still be wandering somewhere in the maze.