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"Can you stay focused for more than three seconds?" Azalea hissed through gritted teeth as Daphne paused to pick up a pebble she'd found on the ground.

Daphne tossed the pebble up and down. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm bored."

"Shut up, the Gamemakers may take that as a cue."

"Well, great, now you've just given them the idea if they hadn't thought of it before. Nice job, Azalea."

Night had fallen, and they'd spent the entire day exploring the arena, keeping an eye out for any tributes. They hadn't encountered any signs of life, miraculously, save for a half-crushed bush in between two houses that looked as if someone had decided to take a sudden nap on it.

Nobody had died on Day Three. It made Daphne somewhat uneasy, since if there was a lack of bloodshed, that meant the Gamemasters would throw in a twist to keep things interesting.

They'd searched for a bridge or some alternative method of crossing the canal to explore the other side of the arena, but to no avail. The only way Daphne could think of was to lasso Azalea's rope across the chasm and test out their balancing skills, which earned a hard pass from Azalea.

Daphne had secretly kept an eye out for Caelum the entire day. She used to think he would shoot her on sight if they ever were to encounter each other in the arena, but somehow, she wasn't quite sure anymore. Not after he'd killed Mellie, for her.

They didn't find Caelum, but instead had stumbled across something nearly as rewarding: a fruit tree bursting with plump apples. They'd feasted like pigs, Daphne stuffing her hunger cramps away. They'd taken ten in Azalea's backpack for the road, Daphne making sure to memorize the route back to the tree if needed.

Daphne's throat was beginning to feel less raw whenever she spoke. Her arm wound had alas stopped bleeding, and if she looked close enough, it was finally beginning to knit back together. It still hurt whenever she used her arm, but she refused to flinch or give Azalea any sign that she was in pain.

"Should we turn in for the night?" Azalea suggested. They now found themselves close to where they'd sheltered last night, in the suburban beach town near the canal.

"Sure, but this time, I'm taking the damn watch." Daphne insisted, prompting an eye roll from Azalea.

A gleam of silver flashed from the depths of a hedge by the front steps of a nearby wooden house. If Daphne's eye wasn't trained to look for miniscule details in her surroundings, as was crucial for a shepherd looking out for her sheep, she may not have noticed it.

Her spine stiffened. Azalea was a couple steps ahead, and Daphne reached out and yanked her backwards. Azalea gave a hiss, but she didn't fight back as Daphne expected her to. Instead, Azalea settled for a venomous glare.

"Look," Daphne pointed to the bush. "Tell me that doesn't look like a hidden weapon of some sort."

Azalea turned to peer towards the bush. Daphne crept a couple cautious steps forward. The moonlight illuminated three thin lines, practically invisible crisscrossed across the front steps of the house. Tripwires, all connected to the silver thing in the hedge.

Daphne nodded towards the steps. "We touch these tripwires, we'll probably die." Despite this, something like excitement flickered to life in her gut. She began to examine the wires, attempting to map out a safe path up to the front door. The wires were so thin and transparent that it was hard to keep track of them.

Azalea's tanned face seemed to leech of color. She jerked backwards, taking hasty steps away from the porch. "Then let's get out of here, what are you doing?"

"Are you dull?" Daphne hissed. "Do you not remember who just happens to build traps like these?"

Azalea blinked, but she kept her distance. Daphne could've sworn she was trembling, just the slightest. "Rye won't help us."

"How do you know that?" Daphne fought a sudden surge of irritation. "We need all the allies we can get, Azalea, and he does too. Rye's not stupid."

"What if he kills us on the spot??"

"What if he has supplies, or more bandages? What if his traps kill someone who would've killed us the next day?"

"Who cares if his traps kill someone who'll kill us in the future if he kills us now!"

"Azalea-"

"Snap out of it, Daphne!" Azalea suddenly blazed. "Rye reminds you of Aedon. It's obvious. I've seen the way you look at him, with that wistful look in your eyes. It's true, he does share a lot in common with your brother.  But he's not Aedon!"

Daphne flinched as if she'd been slapped. Azalea went on, unfazed.

"If it were Aedon, he wouldn't kill us. But this is Rye, and though he may seem eerily like Aedon, he's not. There's nothing stopping him from snapping your neck if you go knocking on that door. Let's go, Daphne."

With that, Azalea spun on her heels and began to stride away. Daphne took one last longing glance at the front door, an oddly hollow feeling having opened up in her chest. With a snarl, full of frustration and something else, she backed away from the porch and hurled the pebble still clutched in her hand as hard as she could. It slammed against the door, leaving a dent in the old wood with a loud crack.

Daphne then hurried to catch up with Azalea, suddenly fighting the urge to burst into tears.

Rye is not Aedon. Rye is not Aedon. Rye is not Aedon.

No, because Aedon is gone.

He's gone.

Daphne and Azalea walked in silence without a clear destination in mind, Daphne's hand resting over her pendant beneath her shirt. They needed to put as much distance as possible between them and the rigged house. And the boy who was not Aedon.

***

It was chasing him. It. That thing.

Caelum couldn't afford to stop running. He'd thought his stamina was pretty sufficient, due to his ranking on his school's track team, but he was dangerously out of breath. And he'd barely been running for a couple minutes.

What's wrong with me? He thought to himself, barely getting the words through. His mind seemed to be clogged with haze and mush. It was a struggle forming a coherent thought. He rounded another corner, finding the same repetitive scene over and over again: tall, beige, cracked adobe towers. Everywhere.

And that thing kept coming.

He didn't even know what it was, only that it was chasing him. And he didn't want to find out what would happen if he was caught. So he kept running.

His legs felt as if they were dragging through tar, each step taking more and more effort. His lungs might as well have metal clamps around them, crushing them slowly. He eventually discarded the bow and quiver strapped across his back, as they were growing unnaturally heavy.

He switched paths and took a detour down another alleyway, hoping to lose his pursuer. There was something at the end of this alleyway, a break in the endless labyrinth of beige. Something that froze Caelum in his tracks, nearly slipping on the cobblestones now slicked with red.

Bodies. Bodies, bodies everywhere. Dead people sprawled on the ground, bathed in blood. In each and every one of them, an arrow protruded from their chest. His arrows.

Horror laced through Caelum like a spear, his hands clasping over his mouth and his eyes widening as he realized he knew these bodies. These bodies with his arrows in them like some kind of sick adornment.

Daphne. Theron. Azalea. His parents; Alice and Kort. Ara. His friends from school.

All of them. Dead.

Dead with his arrows through their chests.

It was coming. Coming, coming.

He knew he should keep running, but he couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes off them. He was horrified beyond feelings, his body growing alarmingly numb. He collapsed to his knees, barely registering the pain as he struck the ground, blood splashing onto his pants.

It was coming.

Ara lay before him, her green eyes now glassy and staring blankly upwards. Her blood continued to stream down onto the cobblestones. Caelum reached out, hand shaking violently, his fingers brushing his sister's blood-stained cheek. She was cold as ice.

It was coming.

Tears began to fall from Caelum's eyes. Daphne was sprawled beside Ara, her body broken and drenched in her own blood. Daphne, who should've been buzzing with that contagious energy as she did what she pleased with no regard to others' opinions. Daphne, dead. And it was all his fault.

Caelum screamed, but no sound came out of his mouth.

And then it was upon him.

Caelum woke with a shout, scrambling to his feet and knocking his shoulder against the wall. His heart was racing, he was covered in a thin layer of sweat, looking down and expecting blood to drip from his fingers. Their blood. The blood of everyone he'd ever cared about.

It was just a dream. Just a dream, just a dream.

Caelum shut his eyes, pressing himself against the wall. The image of the bodies seemed to be imprinted on the insides of his eyelids. He dragged his hands down his face, letting out a strangled groan. He was trembling from head to toe.

Just a dream. Just a dream.

He was too busy fighting to calm himself down to hear the door downstairs swing open with a squeal, the footsteps creeping up the stairway.

"Caelum?"

Caelum peeked between his fingers at the figure standing at the doorway. It was Theron, but something was wrong. He rank of blood, the red liquid coating his hands and splattering up and down his body. It was smeared across his face as if he'd tried to wipe it off unsuccessfully. The sharp stick strapped to his belt was soaked with dark crimson, dripping a trail into the house.

Caelum promptly screamed.

Theron's eyes flashed with concern and he rushed forward, causing Caelum to further flatten himself against the wall, hands still covering his face.

"Caelum, what's wrong?"

"Theron," Caelum's voice was a quivering whisper. "Theron, this is not the right time to show up covered in blood!"

Not when I just saw you dead on the ground by my arrow.

Theron looked down at himself as if just realizing. He didn't seem sure what to do, whether or not to reach for Caelum and comfort him. He was charismatic and chatty, yes, but he never really seemed to know what to do when someone was in distress. Caelum shifted away, the metallic stench of blood overflowing his senses.

"Why the hell are you covered in blood?" Caelum was almost afraid to ask.

"I was taking a piss outside when this stupid tribute found me." Theron said. There was something off about his voice. It was a lower octave than usual, as if he'd taken a punch to the throat. "One of the guys from District Seven, I believe. He was unarmed, looked like he was just passing through, but I chased him and killed him anyway."

Caelum's face drained of color. Nearby, maybe down the block, he heard the vague noises of a hovercraft retrieving a body. He must've slept through the cannon shot. "If he was unarmed, why did you kill him?"

"He might've attacked me first."

"You could've just scared him off. No need to end his life!"

Theron made a clicking sound with his tongue. He wiped at his face, only managing to rub more liquid from his hands onto his cheeks. Caelum cut him off before he could respond.

"You know what? Get out." Caelum pushed off from the wall and spun Theron around by the shoulders, ushering him out of the room and down the stairs. "I'm taking you to the canal, and you are going to wash yourself clean."

"Okay, mother." Theron scoffed. "I swear Caelum, you're going soft."

"I never asked to harden. Life is rather exhausting when you're hard."

Theron snickered. Caelum gave his friend a sock on the shoulder, knowing very well that he was about to make the joke. After all, they were still teenage boys.

***

Morning rolled around, and Daphne realized that she had dozed off on watch.

She hadn't woken Azalea to take over the shift, since Azalea hadn't rotated with her the previous night. Now that that debt was paid, Daphne expected to alternate the watch shift by the hour. She wasn't sure if she could attempt to pull another all-nighter.

Azalea was still sound asleep. She'd tossed and turned in the night, whimpering, her hands balling into fists so tight she broke the skin on her palms with her nails. Daphne had watched over her with concern. Nobody was immune to nightmares in the arena.

Daphne glanced out the window, finding that there was once again no sign of danger. There were still twenty-six tributes alive, and yet nobody had attacked them at night. Daphne debated whether or not falling asleep on watch was such a big deal after all.

Her throat was parched, layered with phlegm. She took a swig from the water bottle, frowning to find only half a mouthful left. It was still sore to swallow, but she could tell her throat was slowly healing. She'd had a crick in her neck for days as a result of Mellie's attack, and the pain was finally starting to ease.

She peeled back the gauze from her arm wound, finding that it was still in the slow process of knitting back together. The edges were beginning to scab up.

Daphne glanced at Azalea, then slunk out of the room. She was only headed down to the canal to refill her water bottle, but part of her wanted Azalea to know how it felt to wake up with your watch nowhere to be found.

The sunlight was uncannily bright, the position of the sun telling her that it was mid-morning. They'd picked another house close to the canal when settling down last night, which meant Daphne only had to walk a bit down the path to reach the dock.

She checked the knives around her belt, then glanced around her surroundings before scurrying out and kneeling on the wooden panels. She submerged her bottle into the rushing water, quickly scooping out enough and darting back to the safe cover of the path surrounded by houses.

At least, she thought it was safe.

"Well, well, well, look who we've got here."

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