I walked until I couldn’t see anymore, and then, I took out my glasses and walked some more. I found a dense patch of trees and sheltered myself while I slept for a while, it wasn’t long, I was far too restless.

This had better work. Of course it will, we tried and tested it all. They didn’t pick it up. What was that? My mind was racing and my blood was pumping. In all honesty, I was terrified. I had never been alone like this. Anything could be coming for me, coming to kill me, be it human or otherwise. I felt my anger boil up within me as I thought of the terrified children who spent their last nights someplace like here, alone, cold; waiting to die.

I had to keep moving. The glasses were amazing; I could see everything as if the sun were right above me in the sky, illuminating every tree, every pathway.

Earlier in the night the seal had appeared in the sky and I saw the names and faces of the tributes that had died. The first face was the woman from 3, which means that all four tributes from 1 and 2 were still alive. Then it was Lilia. The man from district 5 had also been killed. The man from 6 that Cress killed outside the cornucopia was next, followed by the woman from 8. There were no tributes left from districts 9 and 10, all four faces gleamed on the star-studded seal in the sky.

After the man from district 10, everything went black. So Blaze and Cress were still out there, probably hunting together. It made me nervous. On the other hand, it meant that Haymitch was still alive, and his friend from 8, Michel, and Caius.

I thought about the dead and the living for the rest of the night as I wandered through the forest, not really knowing what direction I was heading in. I just couldn’t stay still.

When morning came I started heading back in the direction I had come in the night. I had made quite obvious tracks and felt a little ashamed of myself for being so careless. At least they led me right back to the water. I filled up my bottle again and looked over to where Lilia had last been. Right now she was probably being put into a coffin and shipped home.

I looked up through the trees to see that it was well past midday. I didn’t think I had been walking for so long. I headed back into the forest and started looking for more food; I knew I would get bombarded with something soon so I had to keep my strength up.

I found some more of my plant root and started eating it, not only did it fill my stomach but it also fuelled my lie.

I was walking again and I heard a faint buzzing sound, it made me stop to listen. In hindsight that was probably a mistake. A swarm of tiny insects began to attack any piece of skin they could find, leaving little red stings that felt like being stabbed all over with a needle hundreds of times. I swatted at them and ran but they hung around regardless. I finally managed to outrun them but my face and hands were stinging with painful bites.

I kept walking, looking for a plant that I knew of to help soothe the pain. I realised that I was whimpering but I couldn’t help it. I finally found something that would ease my discomfort, a giant leaf from an old rainforest based plant. I scored the surface with my nails and pressed the cool damp frond to my face and sighed with the instant relief. I did this a few more times, until I couldn’t feel the pain anymore. My face must have been a little red but nothing too serious.

I heard a twig snap and a rustling from somewhere in the trees and I ducked down. I heard the footsteps approaching and I knew that I was no longer the only human in this neck of the woods. I tried to steady my breathing but I was so afraid. When the footsteps stopped I held my breath but I could hear nothing but the wind in the trees and the birds chattering away.

I started to stand slowly; I pulled the dagger out of its sheath and held it so tightly that I thought it would melt into my hand.

I wasn’t even aware that it had happened until it did. A hand clasped over my mouth and pulled me in, a knife was flashing in my face as if it were taunting me. I managed to throw my elbow back and into my assailant’s ribcage which caused him to groan and keel over, and he let me go. I turned to shove him to the floor and I held my dagger out over his chest.

I looked down into his stunning green eyes, it was Caius.

“Hey, hey! Take it easy!” He said as he regained his breath.

“That’s rich, coming from the man who just attacked me!” I didn’t move.

He looked up at me, directly into my eyes and I almost got lost trying to perceive what I could see in them.

That was a mistake. In one swift move he had my wrist in his hand and twisted it so that I was flung to the ground. He rolled me onto my stomach and held my arm to my back. He pulled away my dagger and sat on me so I couldn’t get up. He flashed the dagger in my face again.

This was it.

It was over and it had barely even begun.

I kicked my feet into his back frantically as I struggled and it felt like my shoulder was going to pull out of its socket.

“It’s no use; I’m far too strong for you.” He laughed.

“Doesn’t mean I’m giving up!” I spat the words into the dirt.

The next part caught me off guard; he let go of my arm and stepped away from me.

I got to my feet and spun around. I managed to plant a substantial slap on his cheek before kicking him square in the chest. He stumbled back and tripped.

That’s when I heard more footsteps, lots of them. There aren’t that many career tributes. I heard snarling and I picked up my pack and slung it over my shoulder.

Caius was back on his feet, “run!” He yelled and turned away from me to sprint in the opposite direction.

I wasn’t about to stand around and find out what it was so I followed him. It’s lucky that I’m fast because I could keep up with Caius within a few feet. He knew more about this then I did and I wasn’t about to lose sight of him.

My eyes darted around the forest, what was chasing us? My feet landed on all sorts of objects and my ankles threatened to give out but I had to keep going.

We came to an advance of rocks and boulders on an upwards slope. We had to climb it. Caius was a faster climber than me but I wasn’t too far behind him when they emerged from the trees.

A pack of giant, snapping, snarling wolves. I tried to scramble faster but the sight of the monstrous creatures had caused me to panic. My feet caused the smaller rocks to crumble away and I found it hard to get a good grip as I crawled up the rock face.

When I made it to a flat platform I saw Caius take a running leap across a large gap in the rocks. I ran to the edge and looked over; it had to be a hundred feet drop and a two metre leap. I didn’t have time to think about it. I ran back the way I came and hurled myself towards the chasm and sprang from the edge.

Unlike Caius, I fell short of the distance and reached out my arms as a last ditch attempt before my chest slammed into the rock. I screamed as my fingers clawed the dusty rock surface as I tried to pull myself up.

In a few moments the creatures would reach me, it was a jump they could make easily, and I would have no chance. Maybe I could let go now, I would rather die from the fall than be eaten alive by those wolves.

I looked up and saw Caius stop and look back at me after I screamed. He looked forwards again and yelled as he ran back towards me. He offered me a hand like he did that day in the training centre.

“Come on!” I reached up and he caught my arm before I slipped off the cliff.

He pulled me up without even straining and we ran forward, scaling a few more rocks as we did. I could hear the wolves closing in as they made the jump over the small gorge. I tried to run faster but I had no more air left in me.

We came to a steep downward slope of rocks and I took deep breaths as I tried to think of a way to get down without the beasts catching us and tearing the flesh from our bodies. Caius must have come to the same conclusion because he took a few steps back and ran towards me, locking me in his arms as he threw us both off the edge of the rocks and, hopefully, onto the grass.

We crashed down onto the grass, Caius curled his shoulder around and took the first impact but I landed flat on my back and lost all of the air from my lungs. I may have broken something had my pack not slightly absorbed some of the impact. As I gasped for air I looked back expecting the wolves to be looming over us like death. Instead I saw that they had stopped up at the edge of the cliff where we had been moments earlier.

“Why aren’t they following?” I wheezed with the little breath I had managed to gain.

“It must be the boundary of their territory.” Caius stood up shakily and with a slight limp.

He grabbed my hands and helped me up, this time he winced but tried to hide it from me. “Hurry, you don’t want to wait around to see if I’m wrong.”

I wasn’t going to argue with him on that one.

We walked through the forest in silence until we found a dense mesh of trees in which to rest.

“This is as good a place as any to set up camp, it’ll be dark soon.” He dropped his pack and stretched out gingerly.

“Wait a minute… what’s going on here?” I haven’t moved since he started talking.

“I’m about to settle in for the night, do you plan on taking a seat? You have to be sore, especially after that tumble we just took. Sorry if I crushed you a little bit.”

I looked at him with disbelief. “You just tried to kill me!”

“Oh that? I wasn’t being serious, when I saw that it was you I figured I could make a little game out of it.” He smiled and went back to rummaging through his pack.

“You had a knife in my face and pinned me to the floor!”

“Okay, I apologise for the knife but some people like being pinned to the floor.” He winked.

I scoffed and folded my arms over my bruising chest and winced.

“You sore from your jump?” He started walking towards me.

“Don’t touch me.” I flinched away from him.

“You’re not little miss innocent you know.” He rolled his eyes and walked back to his pack.

“What?”

“You slapped me, you kicked me; you held a knife up to me too you know.”

“You attacked me!” He stepped back to me swiftly and cupped his hand over my mouth.

I shoved him in the side and he grimaced.

“Do you want everyone to know we’re here?” He was probably right, not that I would admit it to him. “Yeah I attacked you but I let you up and then saved your life, twice.”

“Slamming me into the ground is not saving my life.” I folded my arms again but regretted it when I pressed against my tender skin again.

“You would have hit the rocks or the mutts would have caught you before you had the chance to jump. Face it, I saved your life and it’s a fact. Don’t forget that I came back to pull you up onto the rocks.”

I tore my gaze from his and muttered a small ‘thanks’.

I needed to go and find somewhere else to rest. The lack of sleep last night has left me exhausted. As I started walking past him, Caius called out to me.

“Where are you going?”

“To find a place to sleep.”

“Stay here; we can be a team or something.” He said it almost jokingly but it was clear that he was serious.

“Oh yeah, I’ll just sleep while you keep watch and then kill me.” I said sceptically.

“If I was going to kill you I would have done it already.”

“Someone’s cocky.”

“Someone’s naïve. I could have cut your throat when I first grabbed you. I could have left you hanging on that cliff, or standing on it at the end. Plus allies can be hard to come by. It’s good to have someone on guard while you sleep.” He does have a point.

“What happens when it’s just the two of us left? Won’t it make it harder?”

“It usually never comes to that,” he sat down next to a tree and groaned. “Besides, if it does, I promise I’ll make it quick.” I actually smiled at that one. He smiled back at me, “there you go.”

I don’t really trust Caius but Peeta suddenly flashed into my mind, ‘anyone is better than being alone’. I sighed.

I sat down next to a tree opposite Caius. I stretched out my legs and our feet bumped together. I looked up at him and we seemed to study one another. I don’t think he trusts me much either, it was almost a serious moment, until Caius ruined it by raising his eyebrows and dropping them again. I broke eye contact but couldn’t contain my laughter.

“I see you managed to grab a pack. What did you get?” He gestured towards the bag which was sitting right beside me.

“Oh, a water bottle, a little bit of food, basic first aid, night vision glasses, wire, rope, and some matches.”

“Not bad, no sleeping bag?”

“No, why?”

“Weren’t you just freezing last night?”

“It was chilly but I kept moving for most of the night, I didn’t get much sleep.” I thought back to last night, about how the woman from 5 slipped away in my arms after I tricked her into putting on my lipstick.

I felt so sorry for her, crying like she was and hurting the way that she did. So I gave her the poison, ending her misery.

“Did you run into anyone?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Did you kill anyone?” He eyed me with caution.

“I watched someone die.” I made sure not to break eye contact.

He eventually did and didn’t say anything more on the subject. “Do you have any water in there? I was looking for some when I found you.”

“Yeah I do, and you were close, only about a ten minute walk.” I could see that he wanted to ask for water but he wouldn’t.

I rolled my eyes and rummaged through my bag. “Do you want some?”

He reached out at took a long drink. “Thank you.” He handed it back and sighed appreciatively.

“It needs to last until we find more, what did you get in your pack?”

“A lot of the same, no glasses or first aid though, you were lucky there. I did get a sleeping bag.”

“So you have food?”

“Yeah, why?”

“No reason, I just don’t want you scoffing all of mine.” He laughed lightly but put a hand to his chest in pain.

“You okay?”

“Just sore from that last bump.” He rubbed his side and I imagine that there would be a large purple splodge there come morning.

I took a few deep breaths and started to relax. It was only then that I really started to appreciate how sore I actually was. My legs ached from the non-stop moving and trying to out-run the wolves over the rocks. My body throbbed from all the impacts it has suffered today, even my shoulder was twinging from where Caius had wrenched it back.

I wished I could make a fire now that the sun was going down, but it was too risky. I suggested that if we were going to become allies we should put our food supplies together to ration out. Caius agreed and we shared a meal of crackers and some cheese.

I didn’t realise how hungry I was until I started eating. I definitely wanted to eat more but at this stage in the game it wasn’t really logical.

I volunteered to take the first watch, which means I would be as good as alone again. Maybe even worse now that I had to make sure Caius could escape if anything arose.

We watched the seal rise in the sky and the first face was a surprise, the male tribute from district 1. Next was the woman from district 11. The sky went dark again.

I exhaled heavily; Haymitch was still alive.

Caius didn’t seem too phased. Then again, he knew most of the tributes so he was probably trying to block it all out.

He was pulling out his sleeping bag and looking for a place to sleep comfortably. I pulled the glasses out of my pack and put them on. It was amazing how clear everything was, even after wearing them all night it still amazes me how sharp everything is.

Caius gave a little laugh, “nice shades.”

“Shut up and go to sleep.” I snapped.