We need to find water. That, according to Haymitch, is the key to survival. And I know it is.

When the sky brightens the next morning, I arise to find Foxface keeping watch. We agreed a schedule last night, and I was happy to see she's sticking to it.

"I've realised," I say quietly, looking at her. "I've never caught your real name. I'm Willow Hawthorne, and you're...?"

Foxface smiled slightly. "Nina," she said. "Nina Williams. It's a... common District Five name, but I like it."

"It's... nice," I decide to say, feeling it would be rude to say nothing. "I just didn't want to continue calling you 'Foxface' because-"

"You called me what?" Nina asks. "Foxface?"

"It was just the red hair," I shrug, trying not to laugh as I change the subject. "We need to find water. We won't survive for long without it and the stupid flask I got in the bag isn't full."

Nina nodded, slightly amused.

I try to ignore how much I'm starting to like her.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

We instantly look for mud, because if the ground is wet and muddy, I know there must be a stream or a little lake nereby. We hike for about a mile, following the mud, before I find it. There, we wash ourselves, fill up my flask and just drink. Water is, after all, my new best friend.

I then try to make a bow to hunt with. Using the knife that Clove tried to kill me with, I shave the ends of two sticks down to a point, then use a flexible one to make the wooden bit of a bow. I don't manage to make one very successfully, but I do catch a little lizard with my knife. Using my so called arrows as skewers, I build a fire and roast it on it.

Nina and I share it, both of us very happy for some food.

"It's better than I thought it would be," commented my ally. "The lizard, I mean."

Again, I try not to laugh. That was something that I could imagine Rory saying, and I don't want to imagine Rory or my family at the moment.

By the time we're finished it's nearing night, and the sky is gradually beginning to darken. I've seen on previous games that the careers hunt at night, scouring the arena for idiots who leave themselves too exposed. So, to avoid this happening to Nina and I, we climb a tree and use my rope to bind ourselves to it, so we won't fall out of it and be dead meat.

It's when we're starting to settle down, not talking much, that the Capitol anthem starts to play, and a projection is shown in the sky. Again, this, along with the cannon, is the way that we know who is dead. The cannon happens as soon as the death has, whereas at night, the anthem plays and pictures of the dead tributes, if there are any, are projected in the sky.

I look at Nina warily before turning my head to the sky.

The girl from Three comes first, which means all of the career pack have survived today. I'm not surprised. It's only towards the end of the games that they start picking off each other. The boy from Four comes next, meaning the male tribute from Three is still alive. Next is the girl from Four, then the boy from Five.

I look over at Nina, who gasps slightly, mainly just because she knew the boy, I presume, and bites her lip. Not wanting to intrude upon whatever moment she's having, I look back at the sky.

Both from Six and seven, then the boy from Eight. Both from Nine and the girl from Ten.

Somehow, Austin and Rue are both alive. They're the ones I really don't want dead. I relax a little and decide to get some rest, but then I hear a little crack.

Nina and I lock eyes immediately and then my eyes shoot over to my left. Nothing. But to my right, I see a little fire, with an unknown tribute huddled over it.

"What the fuck-" I utter, before Nina covers my mouth.

I want to scream out in anger. A fire just after darkness has fallen? Seriously? I mean, I know it's cold and that not everyone has a sleeping bag and an extra jacket, and another person's body heat, but what in the name of Panem? You may as well be holding a bright neon flag and yelling, "come and get me!"

And here I am with Nina, both of us strapped up in a tree, only a little bit away from the stupidest person in the games. So if the careers find them, and no doubt they will, then they'll probably find us, too.

Suddenly, as if I had planned it, the scream echoed throughout the air. I know it's a girl at this point, and Nina and I freeze at the sound of her being tortured and killed. We press ourselves into the tree further, squishing into each other so we can't be another two deaths that the careers have orchestrated today. I hear their laughs as they come along the path our tree is standing beside.

"Did you see her face?"

"A fire? How stupid can you get!"

" 'Oh no! Please don't kill me! Oh no'!"

"That's actually a good impression!" I finally recognise Cato's voice. "Hey, lover boy, are you sure she went this way?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

I almost fall out the tree. Given that we're supposed to be in love, and that I've known the guy for years, there's no doubt who that voice belongs to.

Austin.

"You better be," Cato threatens.

"Yeah, that was her snare we found back there."

As Austin goes on, I hear a murmured conversation between Glimmer and Cato.

"Are you sure we shouldn't just kill him now?"

"No, he's our best chance of finding her."

I grit my teeth as I feel betrayed. I knew the careers were going after me, but Austin?

I close my eyes and try to figure out how Nine and I survive the night.

I also try to figure out why I'm so angry at the thought of Austin dying.

☘︎☘︎☘︎

The next day is taken up by hiking. Nina and I just walk and walk and walk in one direction, trying to escape the place that the careers found us in. There are no cannons today.

I try to think that Austin maybe isn't betraying me. That maybe he's leading the careers away from me, but he literally pointed out my snare. Which I found out this morning had caught nothing. Or the careers had stolen it.

Anyway, Austin. He just told the whole world he loved me, and now he's working with people to help kill me?

That night, Nina asks me about him.

"Why is he trying to help kill you?" She asks. "He literally proclaimed on nation wide television that he loved you."

"I don't know," I tell her in a hushed tone. "He's probably leading the career's away from me."

In actual fact, I think he's doing nothing of the sort, but I can picture Haymitch's face and I know he'd want me to continue the star-crossed lovers story, so I do. No doubt our conversation is being broadcast to everyone across Panem right now.

Nina and I take a small drink in silence that night, and try to settle down. I fall asleep halfway through a theory in which he was never in love with me and the person he 'came here with' was Clove or Glimmer. Not likely, I know, so I just rest my head and give up.

I wake up from a nightmare in which I was the one to execute my family, and I'm traumatised.

I'm glad I didn't scream, though.

Though I was compelled to do that when I saw the wall of fire about twenty metres to my right.

Wh-

"Nina," I say quietly, my voice coming out as a rasp. "Nina!"

When the girl doesn't wake up, I shake her shoulders slightly, yelling. "NINA!"

By now, I'm in a fit of pure panic as Nina comes to, immediately noticing the fire.

Not hesitating for a second, I undo the rope that bound us to the tree, stuffed it and the sleeping bag into my pack and jumped down, Nina following my suit. The impact of my feet on the ground hurt a bit, but I didn't care, I jumped to my feet, waited for my ally and ran.

The fire wasn't just there by chance, it was placed. You see, the Gamemakers do things at random points during the games that spice things up a little, and this must be one.

The fire burns closer and closer to me whilst we run away from it. It cuts past trees, bushes and the whole arena. I don't know when it will stop.

Suddenly I see a fireball rushing through the air at me. I duck just in time so that I don't get obliterated but I know this is the Gamemakers' way of saying "we want you dead".

Nina isn't so lucky.

"Argh!"

She dives out the way, but the ball scorches her shoulder and the side of her arm and she cries out, continuing to run but being considerably hindered.

Another fireball comes at us and this time, I'm the one that doesn't get so lucky. I duck and it rushes past me, but not quite enough.

I can tell that there's a burn on my leg that is stinging at the moment, and I cry out. I'm dimly aware of Nina yelling at me to continue running, but I can't.

And then it happens.

Because I'm running faster than Nina, I manage to skirt past a gap in the flames before it gets covered, a wall now building up.

Separating me and Nina.

"Willow, GO!" Nina yells at me. "I'll be fine- just go!"

"NO!" I surprise myself with how forcefully I yell. "I-I can't!"

I don't know why I can't, but it just will not happen.

I didn't want to care about Nina at the start of our alliance, but now... now I sort of do.

And it would hurt me to see her die.

"Thank you," she pulls me out of my reverie by talking further, tears in her eyes. "I haven't known you long, but thank you. Thank you for being the best friend I ever had."

This makes me slightly sad as well. She clearly didn't have friends or even allies in District Five. And I don't even know how I would survive in Twelve without my siblings and the Everdeens.

"What are you waiting for? GO!" Nina yells harshly, making me realise that this is do or die. Literally.

"Thank you, too," I say to her. "Just- thank you."

And then I run, because Nina told me to. And I don't want to disobey my ally.

I run as fast as I can until I get to where I find a small pond/lake or whatever it is, my brain can't quite function at the moment.

I splash into the lake and feel some sense of relief, before reality sinks in. I'm wounded. And I've lost an ally. I need something to sort my wounds out because I won't be able to get through the games with burns. And because Nina's gone, I'm now lacking considerably on the brains side of things.

Suddenly, I hear a laugh. I look up and see Glimmer start to appear. Then Cato. Then Clove. Then Marvel. Then Austin.

The celebrate as they see me and I desperately try to find a way out of the lake. I get one quickly and climb out, running into the woods. Meanwhile, they're joking about who's going to kill me.

"She's mine!"

"No, mine!"

They've probably been fantasising about this from the moment I beat them in training.

I run into the woods and find a tree that I can climb. I'll need to fight them from above if I stand any chance of surviving this. And even then, my rates are low.

I wish for Nina so hard in that moment I half expect her to appear in front of me.

I soon find a good, sturdy tree and I begin to skinny up it. By the time the careers reach me, I'm about fifteen metres in the air. I know how to climb, but I just hope that the careers don't.

"Ooh, where are you going?"

"That's not gonna help you up there!"

"How's it going Girl on Fire?"

Suddenly, Cato begins to climb the tree, his sword in his hand. The careers all cheer for him (I notice Austin doesn't join in) but he has eyes for me only. Eyes that want to kill me.

"I'm coming for you!" He yells.

"Fuck- off!" I pant as I yell down at him.

When I climb trees, I know where to put my feet and hands because I've had years of practice. Cato clearly hasn't. He grabs a branch that was clearly precarious and it snaps under his weight, sending him flying back to the ground.

I climb up higher, trying not to distract myself by smirking, because if they're going to try and kill me, I need to be pretty high up to escape it. My burns sting and I scratch myself slightly, but I don't care. I need to escape them. I reach a sturdy branch and swing one leg over it, settling there.

I hear Glimmer sigh as if she could do better. This clearly is what she thinks as she says. "I'll do it myself."

She pulls out a pack of axes. My axes! And throws one at me. It misses (badly) and falls back to the ground.

This is almost laughable to me, as I have a skill with axes, but again, I hold in my cruel amusement.

"Gimme those," Cato steals an axe off Glimmer and chucks it up at me. His is closer, and I have to lean into the tree to avoid it, but again, it falls to the ground with none of my blood on it.

I look down with a smirk on my face. "Maybe you should throw the sword!" I raise my eyebrows. "It might disguise how crap your aim is!"

"I'm gonna get you, Girl on Fire!" Cato screams in rage.

"Let's just wait her out."

Everyone turns to Austin, who's behind the careers and has a miserable look on his face. "Well, she has to come down at some point, it's either that or starve to death," he shrugs.

The careers look at him for a minute before Cato speaks up. "Okay, somebody make a fire," he pushes the axe he failed to kill me with into Glimmer's hands and leaves.

I sit back in the tree. All the relief from the lake is gone and now a cold, numb but still fiery pain remains. I sit against the tree trunk and wince at the pain that I'm in.

I try to put some of my water on it but it stings even more and tears pool in my eyes. I try to touch it, but that makes tears actually slip down my face.

I decide to leave the sleeping bag out tonight, and only tie myself on with the rope.

About half an hour later, I hear a little whistling sound. This means that some sponsor has been generous enough to give the careers a gift. I see a parachute with a little box attached to it floating towards us. This is normally how they enter the arena.

I expect it to float right past me and go to the careers, but it floats right to my tree and lodges itself above me. My shock probably registers on my face because I never expected to get sponsors.

Anyways, given that where it's lodged probably isn't very secure, and that I don't want it to fall into the hands of the careers.

I undo the rope and stuff it in my pack before climbing up the tree a bit further, despite my wounds objecting. Outstretching my hand, I open the box and see a note inside it.

Apply generously and stay alive - H

From the box I took out a small metal pot of (I suspect) medicine. Burn medicine.

I climb back down the tree and strap myself in again before opening the little tub. Inside it, there's a sort of cream, but I know it's medicine.

I take some of it on my finger and, despite the pain, spread it all over my burns. The effect is amazing. I quickly put it all over all my burns, reveling in the relief I feel.

"Oh Haymitch, thank you," I whisper, but I know, somewhere, somehow, my mentor will hear this.

Finally at peace (well, kind of) I closed my eyes and fell asleep.