Sixty. Fifty-nine. Fifty-eight. Fifty-seven. The numbers, yellow and restlessly humming, hover on a hologram timer above the horn, black as obsidian and vibrating with the heat. Each time the number on the timer changes, an adrenaline-inducing pound follows. Whether intentional or not, each pound is unnervingly similar to the sound of a heartbeat. I feel the heat as it beats through me, a composition of white air and last goodbyes. Then, through a blinding, dusty haze, the arena.

The tops of few redwoods come into view, confirming the scent. I allow myself a look around the arena. Just enough so I see what's there. And this will be my home for two weeks- if I live- so why not become acquainted with it?

Redwoods to the front and right-hand side of me. . . boulders to the north. . . a field of some kind to the south. At least, if anything, I know where I'll most likely be headed when I get through this.

Finally, I can see enough to detect a circle around me. Only I'm part of it. Around the obsidian Cornucopia is a circle of tributes on identical metal plates. Each waiting for the timer to tick down. Each making a plan. Patiently waiting for the chance to fight their way to the horn, taking their chances with the other tributes to gather supplies. Or, to run for the forest or wilderness, taking their chances with the Gamemakers.

Forty-nine. Forty-eight. Forty-seven. I look to either sides of me. It does take me a second to confirm what district is wearing what color jacket. But eventually I do. I have the luck of being placed between a Career and The Boy Who Wrestles Death. The boys from Four and Five. The smaller of the two, unfortunately, has at least forty pounds on me, and both certainly may be considering the possibility of killing me. Before my frazzled brain can freak out over this alone, I remind myself that my training score has kept away most of the tributes, and that with any luck, they'll be more concerned about keeping their own skins safe than trying to take me on. Nonetheless, I take it that they wouldn't hesitate to try if they had to. I may have my intimidation, but what good will that do when a bigger tribute decides to take me down? Nothing.

Forty-two. Forty-one. My eyes turn to the selection spilling from the horn. In the Cornucopia, there's always a large range of supplies, but I notice that there are some unusual items among the piles this year. There are the usual backpacks and sleeping bags, loaves of bread and sacks of apples. Spears. Packs of knives. Netting. But also, I spot some others- a whip, a bag of darts. Some throwing stars. Even the silver glint of what looks to be poison grenades.

Wait. I spot a rectangular bag with an arm strap, silver feathers sticking out. The familiar curved shape of wood, fine but strong string . . . Yes. I grin when I see it, because it's exactly what I need.

If I have a bow, I have a chance. And the best part is that a route to it only requires a straight line. Almost too good to be true. . .

Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. I look at the bow, the beautiful, tempting shape of it. How much I would love to get my hands on it, to test its strength, my strength, to show off my ability with it. But the redwoods beckon and I feel a tug in my gut. Something's pointing me towards the redwoods, and I feel the need to escape. To leave behind the lush grass in front of my pedestal before it stains itself red.

I shake my head. It's too good to be true, I tell myself firmly. Too risky. No. But suddenly a movement catches my eye. I glance in its general direction, and find familiar green eyes staring back at me. Eli is giving me a look that is like a flashlight in complete darkness. It's so obvious what he's communicating. But the message is so unlike him, I'm not sure whether or not one of our plans is just going to get us killed.

Eli's nodding at me. I still feel the pull towards the redwoods, but it's getting weaker each second. And I know it's a suicidal plan, but Eli always comes up with the better. And if I don't follow him through with this, I will somehow have to come up with a plan of my own within the next fifteen seconds that I won't get absolutely killed standing on my pedestal. Not many options to choose from.

All right. I stand firm, fixing the horn with a hard glare. I'm ready.

Ten. Nine. I position my feet in a runner's start, the way I used to do right before a race. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eli do the same.

Seven. I remember races in the past. I internally thank my father for our long limbs. If not for that, there would be no chance for either of us.

Six. I somehow, miraculously, remember how we are at races. Eli's good at them, for sure- I have seen no one outrun him. He's that fast. I'm good, too- definitely not the fastest, but I have endurance- which is more than I can say for a lot of kids I know in my year. And when I need it, I have a lot. That has to account for something.

Three.

Get ready, Eli says with his eyes.

Two.

I will, I reply.

Time not to die, Ivy whispers in my ear. She pumps a tiny fist past me. Kick. Their. Butts.

Zero.

Like a spring, my legs unfold, and I catapult over my pedestal.

My feet pound the ground like there's no tomorrow. In a way, there's not. I would have dwelled on this, had I not seen Taurus come at me from my right. I tuck and roll, springing back to my feet just as he crashes to the ground.

Run run run run run run RUN.

Eli's at the horn seconds before me. I meet up with him, and then there's suddenly electricity in the air. The kind seconds before an arena full of desperate kids start killing one another.

Eli hands me an axe. "Go get your bow. Now."

"Right you are."

Right before I turn, a pale hand grabs the same dagger Eli grabs himself. The girl from Ten and him stare for a moment, and then suddenly she is fighting him for the blade. When Eli dodges her punch, the girl jabs her end of the dagger at him. Unfortunately, the hilt connects with his nose, and blood sprays everywhere.

Bow forgotten, I run at the girl and aim a fist at her chest. I know this is foul play, but when did rules apply to a fight to the death? I can't help but feel a ripple of satisfaction as my fist connects hard, and she stumbles back, her hand flying from the hilt to balance herself on the ground. Suddenly deciding this is not her fight, she wheels around the wall of the horn to wherever she plans to go.

"You all right?" I say, pulling Eli to his feet. He nods, either ignoring or unaware altogether of the blood gushing from his nose. I grip the handle of the axe, its existence more important to me now that we've actually been attacked, and then turn to face any next opponent.

We gather a backpack full of supplies and a canteen full of water uninterrupted. Around us, tributes are frantically running around, shoving past each other. I even see a couple of tributes slugging it out over a spear. I'm actually surprised that no one is dead yet, but it won't stay that way for long.

A flash of yellow fabric brushes past me, small and quick. I turn to see Lydia, black hair tied loosely, whirl behind a crate like a sparrow. As I dig out a throwing star to stuff into my backpack, she dashes into the back of the horn. When she comes out, I see a silver thermos in her hands, a triumphant smile on her face. But behind the wall of the horn, I see her smile fade as she backs away from the inside, her face pale. Then I see Cornelius's hulking shape rise up from behind a giant pile of sleeping bags.

Lydia turns and takes flight in the opposite direction, but as soon as I catch the flash of silver in Cornelius's hand, I know that it's already too late. With perfect aim, the knife there flies from his hand. I flinch as I watch it speed through the air and go straight into the side of Lydia's head, her legs going from desperately fast to limp in an instant. Her body hits the ground with a sickening thud, and the thermos rolls into the grass, forgotten by all.

I almost fall to my knees then, tempted to fall over sick. I had just seen the first death unfold merely fifteen feet from me. I had seen an public execution in my district, and the deaths of tributes on television, but somehow, this is much different. This is on a whole new level of insane.

I shake my head, trying to rid my mind of the memory. I force myself to swallow the bile in my throat, to turn and scramble away from the horn to find Eli. If I can't get used to death now, I know I won't live through the first day.

It takes me at least a minute of dodging fighting tributes and weaving through the chaos to find Eli. By now, the fighting has gotten incredibly bloody and some of the Careers have begun to take over. Eli appears from behind the tail of the horn with some new bruises and a gash on his arm, in addition to cutting his nose. I can't help but feel slightly guilty that I am not bleeding with him. But then again, the arena has probably changed us all. Now Eli apparently fights, and I hide and do nothing.

"You really need to lay off on the fighting," I joke lightly when I pat Eli on the back, taking care to touch him more gently, in case of the worst.

"The girl from Four's dead," Eli states in a flat tone that almost surprises me. But because I'm thinking the same thing, I can't be. A Career is dead- good for us, if the fact weren't so grim. If 'Career' didn't actually have the word 'child' in the definition.

"So is . . . the girl from Three," I say, almost saying Lydia's name. I'm too afraid to risk a panic attack from what I had seen, and I know that saying her name will make me remember.

I grip the handle of my axe, sling the strap of my backpack firmly over a shoulder. I watch Eli do the same thing with his pack, his fingers curling around the hilt of his dagger. As I watch his knuckles turn white on his hand's choke hold on his weapon, I can't help but think numbly, We are at war. Just like the one that started the Games.

Suddenly, something draws my eyes away from Eli's hand twisting over the dagger. Past him, there's a figure. Another tribute, my mind waves the movement off. Let them fend for themselves.

But there's something about this one tribute. I watch them dig among the supplies, frantically digging for something that they can carry off. The tribute is smaller than the rest, clad in a black jacket. The hood of the jacket slips from the head of the tribute, revealing a head of wispy blond hair. Two blond braids.

My heart stops in my chest, a steady rise of dread.

Maggie.

My eyes close on something beside her. Behind a crate, a figure with hungry amber eyes peers over. Ahab.

Ahab, who never misses with a bow. Who is currently aiming an arrow from my bow at her heart.

Before I know what I'm doing, I find myself charging, axe raised, at the two.

"Maggie! Get out of here!" I hear myself shout, my feet pounding closer and closer. Maggie whirls around, and Ahab falters, just enough to turn. Too late.

Before he knows to react, I have landed onto his shoulders, hard enough to shake him. He yelps and gropes for me, trying to shake me off. I wrap my legs around his neck, tilting to the side hard enough to make him fall. Unfortunately, Ahab turns so that when he hits the ground, I'm underneath him. The fall is enough to knock the air out of my lungs, and I'm stunned momentarily.

His eyes now focused on me, he raises his giant fist and brings it down. I shift, and he misses me, hitting the ground hard instead. His knuckles connect with a sickening crack. Ahab lets out a growl of frustration, and grabs me by the neck. Before I can think, he slams my head into the nearest crate.

I let out a cry of pain as my head explodes into stars, my vision taken over by flashes of black and white splotches. Pain floods my brain soon after, and I bite back a scream. There's another wave of dread as Ahab tries to break my fingers away from my axe. I know I can't hold for long, that it's over for me. So I am going to die, after all.

But then, I taste something familiarly salty and sickening in my mouth. Blood. And suddenly, it's as if an animal part of me awakens.

Finally letting out the scream in my throat, I shove Ahab away with as much fight as I can. He had been clearly been conveniently unprepared, because he loses his balance. Sensing the increasing room I now have, I let my fists fly, wild and desperate yet somehow controlled, and savor the feel of the connection and bloodlust that comes with each hit. He begins to pound me as well; and while more bruises form, there's also the throbbing of my head. But somehow, I'm definitely driving him back. Trying not to be surprised at my strength, I keep at it, until we are both standing as equals.

I find his eyes, seeing a sudden flicker of fear and uncertainty. He hesitates for just one moment, and my body kicks into overdrive. Yelling, I slug him in the jaw, hoping to rattle his brains, and he hits a crate on his way down. To keep him down, I aim the ball of my foot to hit where the sun never shines. He lets out a strange sound between a grunt and a squeal, and just as I'd predicted, instinctively curls his knees toward his chest.

I take that one moment of hesitation to cannonball onto him. I had settled for beating the living daylight out of Ahab once I'd knocked the air out of him, but before I can even respond to my plan, my arm swings down towards his head with a vengeance. Only when my axe splits his throat do I realize what I've done.

I scramble off of Ahab, my axe thumping to the grass as I stare in horror. I feel more dread settle in my gut when I realize that he isn't trying to kill me anymore. Instead, he's clawing at his throat, his eyes bugging out at the blood drenching his hands. Ahab chokes on the air like a dying fish, and after a moment, begins to twitch exactly like one. His eyes had moved from his hands to me sometime in that time frame, and even as I am painfully aware of the blankness in them now, I still know that his eyes now stare at me in accusation from inside his dead skull.

I crawl away, trembling, until I see Maggie staring at me. Shale is beside her, an identical gape on his own face.

I don't know if Ahab's death had gotten to me or if it was my frustration, but suddenly, I want to scream at them. Unbelievable. They're just standing there?!

"What the hell are you doing?" I scream at them, springing to my feet and stomping towards them. Shale and Maggie stagger back- whether it's my yelling at them or the fact that I'm waving a bloody axe around like a madwoman, I've certainly gotten their attention. "Get out of here before they kill you! GO!"

They both turn tail and run, beelining towards the boulders. At first I think it's because of me, but then I turn and see another madwoman coming in our direction. My direction.

Amethyst is charging towards me like an angry buck, her dagger waving around in a similar way that I suspect I was doing with my axe. She is practically frothing at the mouth, her blue eyes lit with fire. She screams at me, spitting virtual foam and some choice words my way.

Just by instinct, I snatch up Ahab's bow from the ground and notch an arrow. A few seconds after, Amethyst is hitting the ground, that arrow buried in her stomach. I have no recollection of firing, but I would have had no time to recall it anyway.

I feel a tug on my arm and look to find Eli dragging me towards the forest. He's shouting something at me, but I can't hear a word he's saying. He picks up speed, and I'm forced to start running beside him, running and stumbling towards the forest.

Then we're climbing a tree. Springing onto the branches. Running along them, because they are strong enough to hold us. I don't know where I find the balance, but I can't even focus on that mystery.

There's nothing but static in my brain as we run. I can't hear a thing still but the churning of my mind trying to focus on balancing on the branches. I think I recall that I was once a gymnast, but how can I know that's true anymore? My stumbling, flopping feet belong to no gymnast.

Silence. The kind that consumes the mind with the possibility that I am deaf. Which I begin to believe until I hear the thundering roar of anger coming from the wreckage we're leaving behind.

. . .

Sprinting. Trotting. Hopping. Leaping. Gliding. All manner of movement that Eli and I manage is purposeful. Anything that will help us escape the tributes out for our blood.

I don't know how long this process continues, but it must have for quite a while. I don't remember most of it, but I know that I stumbled plenty, and every time, Eli always pulled me to my feet, telling me to keep going. When I next look up, it looks to be that the sun is hanging low in the sky like a ripe apple, and we're still running along the branches of the redwoods. We've run long distances before, but never like this. I can feel the throb of muscle as surely as I feel my heart, but both are trying to escape through my skin, straining at sinews like fire at rope.

The branches change from slender and just strong enough to hold the both of us without breaking; to thick, like the trunks of the younger redwoods. These are so wide and so lengthy that they form a basketweave of wood, continuing as far as the eye can see.

Eventually, Eli makes us stop. Only when I hear him actually tell me to stop do I realize I can hear again. He finds a hollow within the tangle of redwoods- a hole in one of the largest trunks. Inside, there is an abundance of pine needles and dead insects, but once we clear that out, there is about enough room for the both of us to sleep.

"This should be a good place to rest, for now," Eli mutters to himself as he sets his pack down in the hollow.

"No kidding," I reply, and almost recoil at the rasp of my voice. As if to remind me, my head starts to throb, and I reach back with my fingers to test the pain. As soon as my fingers shift the hair, I feel a stab of pain that almost sends me off the branch. Eli turns his focus on me, and I try to smile back at him. Maybe I believe that he'll think I'm fine, be able to assure me that I'm worrying over nothing.

Eli sits down beside his pack and unzips it, fingering the supplies. For a second, I think he'll leave the matter be.

"Cass, can I ask you something?" The unusually still tone of his voice whisks my reassurance away.

"Yes?"

"What were you thinking?"

Fear is replaced by confusion. What did he say? Does he mean anything in particular?

"What?" I say.

"What were you doing back there at the Cornucopia?" Eli's words are slow, not warm or cold. Quiet.

I force myself to kneel. I know now that he's mad. Eli and I have always been polar opposites that way. I always scream when I'm angry, but he becomes still and almost completely calm. Like now. If there was ever such a thing as talking so quietly that you weren't even whispering, that would be what Eli is doing.

"Maggie. . .Shale. . . They needed help. I had to help them." My muddled mind searches for words to explain my reasons, but all I receive is throbbing pain in return. Pain that is steadily getting worse.

Eli is silent for a few moments. Then a conflicted look of admiration, but mostly anger, comes over his face as he says in that quiet voice, "You could have been killed, Cass. You could have died."

"But I didn't, did I?" I snap. Now that the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could stuff them back into whatever hole they came from, but I press on. "We both know how to fight. We would have been fine, anyway."

"You don't understand, do you, Cass?" Eli no longer sounds angry, but sad and unbelieving. He grips his pack in his hand, and I see his fingernails dig deep into the fabric. "That Career you were fighting? He got too close to killing you."

"He didn't, all right? I. Didn't. Die. Be glad of that, at least!"

"Cass, look at me." Eli turns my face towards him, and waves a hand slowly back and forth in front of me. Dread setting in, I can't get my eyes to keep up. "You're staring like you're seeing things out of focus. He hurt you, okay? Don't act like you're fine, because you're not."

"Yes. I am." But of course, we both know I'm not. Now it feels like Ahab is hammering my axe into my brain, not just hitting it against a crate. The world is swimming in front of my very eyes, and I get the feeling that an earthquake is happening, only Eli and I are detached entirely from it. Well, not entirely. I'm the one with the head injury, after all.

The next thing I feel is my shoulder hitting wood hard, and open my eyes to see the world filling with black ink. Then the feeling of arms around me, keeping me from falling off the branch.

Pain hammering my brain. The night sky falling on me and pouring the black ink, now boiling, into the back of my head.

"Cass, what were you thinking?" A whisper. One I can't find the source of.

Eli, where the heck are you?

Then nothing.

-   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

Welcome back, guys!

I feel really bad right now for hurting Cassia. I'm sure some of you have probably wondered this, but-

Shouldn't the author be, like, best friends with the main character, as they are the MAIN CHARACTER?

Um. . .

No?

Sorry to admit this, but I enjoy torturing the characters whom I create. Special treatment, you could call it; because while they're human beings and living things and jazz, they're also the objects of my entertainment. 

Oh, did I just say that out loud XD?. . . Oops >:D

Anyway, being an author is the funnest job. Mwaha.

Aaaand now we're off track. So sorry XD.

For those who survived my ramblings:

If you have reactions/comments/feedback/fangirling/extra miscellaneous, please do indeed put them down in the comment section. They mean more than you know :).

Also, if you wish to pop random buttons on the screen that you're still looking at, click that one that says "vote". That one's fun ;).

Finally- have a fabulous day. If you dealt with me or Cassia today, you deserve one ;).