ʗɧɑǷƮɛƦ 17 - Ʀʊɛ A͜ωɑĸɛɳʂ It was a day and a half until Rue awoke from her miniature coma from the tracker jacker. During the one and a half days she was out, I practised shooting with the bow and arrow, trying to aim for rabbits and squirrels, while Peeta would pick loads of berries and wait for me to say which ones are edible and which aren't. I also picked some medicinal herbs whenever I saw them, but they weren't commonly found here. My skills I'd found with the bow and arrow in the private training session sucked at first. I couldn't hit anything, and I lost about five arrows after I shot them into the distance trying to get squirrels, and missing epically. It took me half an afternoon with no breaks to actually hit a rabbit. This hit had made me feel fantastic, and I didn't stop practising until it was pitch black. My skills had considerably increased, and I was getting used to this bow and arrow. Peeta and I made a tiny fire to cook the rabbit I had caught today, and as soon as it was cooked, we put the fire out. We made a large attempt to push away smoke from our fire, because if the Careers saw the smoke rising, they'd be after us quicker than we could run. Throughout the whole day, we had also changed Rue's leaves once and fed her some more water. There were no deaths that first day Rue was out. The afternoon she awoke was very stifling and warm. I knew the Gamemakers were trying to get a tribute out there by making them thirsty. The Capitol were probably getting bored with the lack of deaths or interesting scenarios and were trying to make something happen. I knew that something good must happen in order for the Gamemakers to not interfere with the Games. Whenever the Gamemakers interfered with the Games, it was always awful. There was always a death – most probable a horrible painful bloody death. I was still practising using the bow and arrow, hoping to master it for when Rue woke up, while Peeta was picking berries again. Peeta and I had rolled our trousers up to our knees and I had tucked my shirt up higher because it was so warm. We were working hard when we both noticed the rustle from the bush where Rue was laying. She was awakening. I pulled my arrow down from my bow and jogged over to the bush. Peeta sat with me as we picked off the leaves we'd put on Rue. Her awakening was slow, but it was happening. After half an hour of her stirring gently, her eyes snapped open. I greeted her with a huge smile. "Hey, lazy head." I joked. Once her eyes had opened, her whole body was awake. She sat up and pulled herself up from the bushes. Her legs were a little shaky at first, but she managed to get a hold of herself pretty quickly. "What happened?" she asked. "Don't you remember?" I said. "You dropped a tracker jacker nest onto the Careers, but you got a few stings yourself. You've been out a day and a half. We put leaves on you to camouflage you, and fed you water." I told her. She smiled lightly. "My head still feels a bit funny." She admitted. She sat down on the floor and I passed her an almost empty water bottle. "Drink it all." I said. "You probably need it." She was hesitant at first, but her thirst took over and she swallowed it all down in one go. "Thanks." She smiled. "Who died while I was out?" "Glimmer from District 1 and the girl from District 4 in the tracker jacker attack. Nobody else." I told her. Her eyes then diverted to the bow I was holding in my tightly in my hand and the set of arrows that were poking out of backpack. Her small smile that had been plastered on her face since she was conscious turned into a full beam. "Peeta told me about how you got your 11." She said. "That's why when I saw Glimmer had dropped them in her attempt to run away from the trackers, I got them. Even though I barely knew what I was doing, thanks to the hallucinations…" she said, getting quieter as she spoke. I pulled her into my arms, giving her a tight hug as my thank you and gratitude for getting the bow and arrow so bravely for me. When I pulled away, she wasted no time with going into full Rue mode. She had quickly come to same realisation that I had earlier this morning about the Gamemakers getting bored with the lack of deaths and she told us that we needed a plan to spice things up a little bit to get the Gamemakers to leave us alone until more people died. It suddenly came to me that at the very minimum, two of us were going to die in a few more days. We had to. There was no possible way there could be three winners. We were going to have to spilt up as a group somehow. Although I knew Peeta would never leave my side. He was planning on protecting me until he died, but that was so unfair to Rue. I had no idea how, when the time came, I could spilt away from her, knowing that either one of us could die. She had become a close friend to me in the arena. I hadn't really many friends back home apart from my sister and pets (Lady the goat and Buttercup the cat), but I knew that Rue and I were friends. I shook the thoughts away from me. I didn't have to worry about that right now, I just had to think of a plan to get the Games moving a little so that the Gamemakers would leave us alone. What tributes are left? I asked myself. Well there was me, Peeta and Rue. There were three more Careers left. The girl I'd nicknamed Foxface from District 5. Rue's district partner, Tresh. And one more… the boy from District 3. That made nine of us. I shuddered at the thought of 15 people dead in a matter of just a week now, I think. 15 people dead for no real cause other than peoples entertainment. "I think we have to do something with the Careers." Peeta said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I looked at him bewildered, and so did Rue. The Careers were ten times more powerful than all three of us put together and we knew it. We couldn't do anything with them. There was no chance. "Come on. Think about it. Why are the Careers so good in these Games? Why do they always last so long?" he asked us, his blue eyes wide, full of plans and thoughts. "Because they're so much stronger than us." I said. "Why?" he asked again. "Because they've been trained." I said again, not understanding his point. Rue began to snap her fingers together, making a clicking noise. "Oh!" she said. "I know. What Prim said, and because they've always, like, had enough to eat and were given everything they wanted and had better lives than most of the other districts." I nodded my head in agreement. God, for a 12 year old, Rue could certainly figure out stuff quickly. As I've said a million times, she's clever. It wouldn't surprise me if she could win this somehow. I knew if I couldn't win, and Peeta couldn't win, I would want her to. Actually, I wouldn't mind whether Peeta or her won. I considered them both as friends. It's strange how the arena, the most unsafe place known to man, has caused me to make friends with people. But at home, the safest place I have ever known, I had no friends at all. "So, how do they get there food in the arena?" Peeta asked, now focusing on Rue, knowing she could answer his questions better than I could – but even I knew the answers to that. Sponsors. "Sponsors." Rue said, echoing my thoughts. She was quiet for a minute, full in thought, before she spoke again. "We need to find there camp. We need to see where their supplies are, and see if we can get rid of some. Without their supplies, they're nothing." "Well they're still big and strong." I said, my head looking at the floor. I didn't know how this was going to work. I wasn't keen on their plan at all. It would just get us all killed. "Yeah, Prim. But without water or food, they won't be big and strong for much longer." Peeta said. "But won't sponsors just send them more food?" I said, feeling exasperated. "I'm pretty sure they've got enough sponsors to get them more food." "That's not the point." Rue said. "The point is, if we can destroy their food, it will scare them. And sponsors may be also scared to send more stuff too because they may think it's just going to get destroyed again." I nodded along to what they were saying, barely paying much attention now. I felt a little useless to the group. There were Peeta and Rue being so clever and making plans and practically could be winning the Games, but I was here just sitting with my bow and arrow not helping in any way. After a couple more minutes of them talking and my mind wandering away onto more thoughts of Katniss, wondering whether she would like me using her bow and arrow or not or whether it would just shock her, Rue stood up and began to climb a tree. "Where are you going?" I asked. "The Career camp." She said, not stopping climbing. "What? Why?" I asked, but she was too high to hear me now. "Weren't you listening?" asked Peeta. "She's going to find their camp. It's almost always at the Cornucopia, so that's where she's going. She's going to observe them for a little bit and see if she can form a plan and then come back to us when it starts getting dark." "She's only just bloody woken up from a mini coma, Peeta!" I said, my voice raising a little. "She can't do that." "She has to. She's our only hope. She could hide herself in the trees well and we all know the Careers can't even climb trees." Peeta said. He put his rough, muscly hands onto my weak thin shoulders. "She'll be fine. Now go practise some more." He said, pointing at my bow and arrow. And so Peeta and I continued how we had before Rue had woken. Me, practising to hunt. Him, picking berries. My thoughts didn't leave the subject of Rue until she arrived back at what seemed to become our camp now. And boy, did she have some stuff to tell us that night.
How dare you let this get to second page ʗɧɑǷƮɛƦ 18 - Ʈɧɛ ǷƖɑɳ Chapter 18 I was stood concealed by a large canopy of trees right outside of the Career's camp. I could see the golden Cornucopia gleaming in the scorching sun. The Careers had just left to search out the fire that Rue had just lit, not knowing it was a booby trap. Guarding the Career's camp was the District 3 boy tribute. He looked slim and slightly weak and was holding a spear. He was totally unaware of the girl, me, watching him from the bushes armed with a bow and arrow. It turned out that the Career's sponsors gifts were piled in a huge mountain. Rue had found this out the moment she had arrived at their camp as it was totally out in the open. It was guarded by the rewired mines from our platforms and so was completely booby trapped. To get through the booby traps, you had to tread carefully between the traps – but that wasn't what I was going to do. The huge mountain was guarded all the time by the District 3 boy. He must've offered himself to the Careers, in a hope to keep his life, by giving them something useful to do with him instead of killing him for now. According to Rue, who had told Peeta and I all this information last night after returning from their camp to ours, the District 3 boy was a very bad guard. Throughout the time that Rue had been keeping watch at their camp, he hadn't even noticed her rustling around the trees nearby, let alone the District 5 girl tribute who had made her way around the booby trap while he wasn't looking and the Careers were out hunting to kill. But now here I was, at their camp, ready to fire my bow and arrow and complete the plan. The plan was thought up by the clever minds of my allies. I would basically have to go to the Careers camp on my own (which is completely and utterly terrifying to me, but it was something I had to do) and shoot an arrow at one of the mines. This would set off the other mines, ending up in a complete blowing up the Career's supply of food, weapons and medicine and hopefully I would be fine and unhurt from the blow. While this was happening, to divert the Careers, Rue and Peeta would set off a series of fires together and hopefully the Careers would go running to try and find them considering they hadn't had a kill in almost three days now. They would move as soon as they set off the fire, and light another one, moving after that one too. After that, they would hide somewhere in a tree. Rue and I had a mockingjay whistle that we would use to signal if we were okay and safe and coming soon. My heart strings pulled when I heard Rue sing to the mockingjays and hearing them sing back. It reminded me of Katniss. Peeta had gave my hand a reassuring squeeze when the mockingjays were singing back. It made me remember that Peeta would be feeling the same hurt with the reminder of Katniss. I'd never felt so further away from her, but when I held the bow and arrow, I felt like she was right with me. After a minute or so of the fire burning, I decided I would have to try and hit the mine now. I was scared out of my skin. My whole body was shaking. I felt the same way I did when I was waiting to go in the arena. I knew I couldn't wait any longer when I saw a flicker of smoke from the second fire. The Careers would soon be growing suspicious. I drew back the arrow as far as I could and closed one eye, leaving the other to focus completely on the mine I was aiming for. I took a deep heavy slow breath and let the arrow go. It hit perfectly on the mine. Within seconds, the rest of the mines exploded. The full force of the millisecond after each other explosions of the mines hit me hard, pushing me off my feet and backwards into the trees and on the forest floor. My head and back hit the floor with such a hard impact, I felt woozy straightaway and I couldn't breathe properly. I couldn't move. There was a ringing in my ears from the huge noise the explosion made. I was lying on the floor, knowing I had to move, but my legs wouldn't move. No part of my body was moving. My lungs were barely working, either. I was wheezing and felt breathless, as if I had just ran miles and miles. My head's wooziness was getting stronger, and I couldn't refrain from closing my eyes. The headache I was getting from banging it on the floor took over and made me feel almost sick. Before I could even attempt to stop myself, I had fallen unconscious and my whole world had turned into blackness. And I was only about 100 metres away from the Careers camp. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ That was short 10 more chapters I think. You guys are going to hate me, though.