HG Predator and Prey pt7

Time and again I wake up, hoping it’s over. But repeatedly it’s just waking from one nightmare to horrors even worse. Everything I fear. Everything I dread. All that matters to me most, everyone I care about, are twisted into perverse phantasms in such vivid detail  I can’t help believing they’re real. Every time I awake, I think, Finally, it’s over. But it’s just a momentary relief before another chapter of terror begins, even more torturous than the last.
How many times must I watch my mother die? Witness my uncle’s death and relive the funeral? See my father and brother executed by the Peacekeepers? My sister and aunt violated by faceless shadows of men from the Capitol? Rabid beasts tear Colten apart? A dying Filly vanish the moment before I can reach her? How many times do I run from snarling fangs and blood-drenched claws that rip into me and devour me alive?

This is how the venom of the Porcufyre was designed. To target the part of the brain where our darkest nightmares lurk, ever present, buried.



I awake to a calm moment, the forest around me, and I don’t move, certain that any moment some fearful element will whirl me into another nightmare. Only after my body begs to move from what seems like hours of anticipating stillness do I begin to accept that the poison must finally have worked through my system, leaving my body feeling as fragile as dandelion puff. Remembering the arm that got pierced by the quill that subjected me to those waking nightmares, I check it. I see my coat sleeve is off, my coat itself covering me like a blanket. I’m lying on my sleeping bag, my backpack propped under my head. My arm is wrapped with bandages but I smell the unmistakable scents of herbs seeping through them.

I slowly sit up, feeling muscle aches and stiff joints. I take in my surroundings. I’m at the base of a tree, within a large bush, completely concealing me and there’s enough room for three adults to stand. I’m not in a boiling pit of pus, like I saw at the beginning of my hallucinations, but rather I’m on a bed of leaves. I check my things and sure enough everything’s still here, including, to my relief, the bow and arrows I grabbed.

I take my thermos, which is still half-full, and take a few swigs, as I wonder how long I’ve been out. Feels like at least a day, and I wonder what’s happened since my porcufyre stunt on the Careers and the District 5 boy.  Forj is definitely gone, I remember that. However, if the rest of them survived, they are undoubtedly in pain. They took a lot quills. I only took one and that alone had been enough to subject me to several circles of hell that I pray I never repeat.

Stream pops into my mind but I’m not worried about her. She got away just in time to avoid any quills though I do hope she didn’t run into the Careers afterwards.

As I’d been checking my things, I’d noticed something. Beside me, on the tree’s upturned root, was a leaf-full of blueberries. Seeing them, I wondered if Filly is nearby. Blueberries are our special treat, because when we’d officially become friends, she’d gifted me with a baggy of them after I’d bought Dreamer from her father.  As our friendship had deepened, we’d share talks and blueberries whenever either of us had some to share or whenever either of us just had some trouble we didn’t want to discuss with our own families.

I decide to get going. If Filly’s nearby, I wanna see her. I grab everything, and grasp the bow and sheath of arrows, taking up a new kind of confidence. I was glad to have my knives but these give me a whole new advantage here in the Games.

I get a feel for the weapons I had only used before in training, and find myself competent and a keen shooter. I know I still have dangerous opponents to face but with the arsenal I’m packing I am no longer just timid prey that only lashes out when cornered. If Sevva or even Rowan appeared right now, I would stand my ground and face them. They would find themselves pierced by arrow or knife.

Any living creature’s natural instincts, when faced with danger, is fight or flight. Until now, my response to danger has been flight. Now, I eagerly await the chance to fight.

But right now, my condition isn’t good. I’m dehydrated and whatever pounds I’d put on in the Capitol are gone. After giving my body a better look, I realize I’m quite thin. Thinner than I’ve ever been. Even back in 10, my parents and Bronc had worked hard to keep food on the table for the whole family. We might have gone some periods without sufficient food but we’d never been in real danger of starving for long. On top of this, are the wounds I’ve sustained since entering the arena. The cuts and bruises, particularly the bruise I still have from that nasty tumble over that steep hill that had led me to that pond. Then of course the scratches on my hands and face from that mad dash evading the Bloodogs, and the bite wound on my leg. The medicine the Highlands sent me healed it but apparently not all the way. If I keep my weight on it for too long, my leg starts to ache. The porcufyre poison may have worked through my system, but it’s left me considerably weak.

In fact, I have to move slower than I’d like lest my body starts get exhausted too quickly. I empty half of my container and pop a few blueberries into my mouth.

Before long, my strength returns a little and I make my first kill with an arrow, taking out a pheasant.


Seeing as it’s getting dark, I suppose it’ll be safe to cook the bird, but I’ll snuff the fire as soon as I’m done and clear out, to be safe. So I gather some dry leaves and twigs, then pull out my lighter. I reach down to start my fire when I feel the edge of cold metal against my chin.

“What’s this? The Alpha Wolf caught off guard?” I remember hearing that playful voice at the interviews, and can’t help grinning.

“You really are sneaky,” I comment as I look to see Stream, holding a spear with its head at my throat, and looking pretty proud of herself. She should; I didn’t even hear her creep up. Her hair, black like obsidian, is in a French-braid, starting from the upper-back of her head and extending down to her mid-back, the end bound with a hair-tie with a spiral-shaped seashell tied securely. She’s just a little taller than Filly’s sister, Kerry. She’s dressed in a black tanktop, jeans, a coat similar to mine but colored a seaweed green, and light brown hiking boots. A backpack hangs from her shoulders. Now that I have a more personal look of her, I see Stream’s tan has deepened a bit, giving her complexion a more caramel-like color. Her eyes are still that cloud-gray I remember, with a glint of mischievousness.

We stay like that for a minute or so, sizing each other up. For a moment, my fingers get itchy for my knives just in case the situation goes south when she asks, “Care for a dining partner?”


Before long, we’re both sitting on a log surrounded by thick foliage eating the pheasant I caught. Stream has a small flashlight to provide light as nighttime slowly arrives. At first we concentrate on eating when I decide to break the ice.
“So… You’re from District 4. Sounds fishy.”

Stream giggles at that but says, “Like I haven’t heard that one before. This is good, quite a change from seafood.”

“Normally I’m more into chickens or groosling,” I admitted. “Sounds like seafood gets real old, if you catch so much of it.”

“Nuh-uh, we’re not allowed to eat the catches,” Stream answered as she nibbled on her leg. “We only get to keep the excess fish. Otherwise, we have to do our own fishing in certain places.”

“Sounds strict,” I comment.

“It is,” Stream said, starting to sound serious. “If you’re caught trying to smuggle anything, they strip you naked and tie you to a post without any protection from the sun. Sometimes for a whole day. They don’t get any food or water, nothing.”

The look on her face and her tone of voice suggests this sort of punishment is a lot more cruel than it sounds at first. When I think about it, District 4 is on the coast, and the sun there is sure to be hot and humid, not to mention the salty sea air. Being exposed all day to that kind of weather and unable to protect yourself from it sounds torturous.

In District 10, punishments often involve the whip, others are a bullet to the head or a public hanging. Technically, me and Filly could be subject to the whip on a daily basis for poaching in the woods. However, lots of the officials buy our catches and foraged herbs. It helps that our mayor has no tastes for such events and tries to lower punishments to public whippings and even then she tries to limit the number of lashes. However, the Head Peacekeeper of District 10, Lucretia, is frightening. Whenever she picks up the whip, her face is as emotionless as a machine and she simply counts each lash she inflicts upon the offender until she’s done, and then gives the offender a warning that next time the lashes will increase. And they do, when someone becomes, what Lucretia views as, a repeat offender. I recall a guy, a friend of my brother’s, who was given thirty lashes for accidentally bumping into a peacekeeper. He had the misfortune to cross the path of the same peacekeeper, who accused him of disrespecting him, and the poor guy was given forty lashes, and came very close to death.

Between increasing lashes for repeat offenses and an spending entire days under the hot sun like a bug beneath a magnifying glass, I can’t tell which district is worse off. The lashes are limited and you know when they’re over, an entire day under sun without any protection sounds as torturous to the mind as well as the body.

“What about you?” Stream asks me, sounding very curious. “District 10 is in charge of livestock, right? You get to raise animals.”

“Yeah, we raise `em,” I nodded. “Then we slaughter them and eat them. Or rather, the Capitol eats them, and we get the yucky stuff. Any cuts we eat we have to buy or you get some from working the slaughterhouses.”

“Sounds like a cheerful place,” Stream cracked but she could tell from the way I’d said it, it was far from cheerful.
“My dad and brothers work as fishermen, I fish too but on the coast. I hate it when they have to go out in rough weather. In the worst kind, not all the fishermen come back.”

I am genuinely curious to hear about her life in District 4. Only certain officials in the Districts are allowed to visit other districts and even then they don’t linger, as the Capitol goes to such lengths to keep us all apart. In fact, I have a feeling our conversation is being muted or simply not shown, to prevent any secrets, however seemingly insignificant, from being heard in the districts.

“Let’s do an inventory,” Stream suddenly suggests, and I see no harm in it.

We lay out all the stuff we have, our tools, food, supplies, our weapons. Stream has a canteen that’s half-full, her small flashlight, a flint, a blanket, a couple fish wrapped in leaves, some blueberries (which make me realize she was indeed the one who helped me) and a couple herbs which I assume are edible or medical, a fishing line and hook, something that looks to be a long but thin tube that looks like a reed, and then her spear. It’s about a meter long, the spearhead adding an extra five inches, just perfect for Stream’s size. I remember seeing this sort of spear during training; it’s a throwing spear.
“Where’d you get that?”

“The Cornucopia,” she says proudly while giving her spear an expert twirl. “It’s exactly what I needed to fish.”

I suddenly recall the pile of fish the Bloodog had been eating after I woke up from that tumble off the cliff.
“So you did save me after I fell. You caught all those fish.”

Stream nodded and said, “I was at the bottom spear-fishing when I heard those dog things. I looked up and saw you up there, it took me a bit to figure out that you were trapped. I wasn’t sure what to do. Then you fell, I got you out of the water, but that dog wouldn’t go away. I tried scaring it off but it wouldn’t leave. I didn’t want to yell in case someone heard me. Then it tore into the fish I caught. I caught some more to keep it busy and then I looked at you. I saw the bite on your leg and wrapped it up, but then I thought I should get something in case you got infected.”

I nodded in understanding as the pieces came together.
“Then when you heard the shouts and the running, you climbed into the tree and saw the whole thing between me and the Careers.”

She nodded as we both knew the rest was history. She then shivered a bit and wrapped her blanket around herself.
“Come on,” I got up, “let’s pack and find a place to rest tonight.”


We found a good place to sleep that completely concealed us. I shared my sleeping bag with Stream, not wanting her to get cold, and she used her blanket to shield our faces from the night air. As I felt her snuggle beside me, I felt a little happy to finally have someone to talk to. So I did, feeling glad the blanket would hide our conversation somewhat as I whispered, “Stream, what happened while I was out?”

“You were out for the night and most of today,” Stream whispered back. “The Career boy from 2 is gone, and the boy from 8 as well. I don’t know what happened to him.”

“Stream, what happened to you and your partner at the Bloodbath?” I felt like I had to ask.

“…I was supposed to just get a bag and run,” she said a little hesitantly. “He was gonna get the weapons. I got the bag and I ran for the pond and kept to the waterweeds to hide in. Seaspray was chased off and that was the last I saw him… until the next night when his face was up in the sky.”

“Seaspray?” I echoed.

“Fin Seaspray,” she clarified. “He didn’t trust me much, treated me like a baby. But… he cared.”

“I’m sorry.” I decide against telling her that I was there when her partner died, when I heard Seaspray beg for mercy that he didn’t get. She didn’t need that in her head.
“So… you hid at the pond by the Cornucopia.”

“The water there’s fresh, that’s where I filled my canteen,” Stream explains, “then I waited till the Careers left, and ran in to get something. That’s how I got my spear, hook, and line.”

“Heh, you got one over them,” I commended her, she giggled. But she went on.

“I would’ve gotten more stuff, but I heard someone coming. So I ran back to the pond and watched. It was a girl with blonde hair. She showed up and waited to see if anyone was around. Then she did something weird.”

“What was it?” I urged her.

“She dug up around the circles we all came out of,” she answers. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see what she was up to. But when she left, her arms were full with these metal discs. She stopped only to get some stuff from the Cornucopia, then she hurried off.”

Somehow, I know Stream is talking about Canary. I haven’t given her a thought since we met up in that alley and I told her to get lost. I rack my brain to figure out what she was doing. Deciding to sleep on it, I say good night to Stream, and soon we’re both asleep.


A loud boom jolts us awake, and we see it’s morning. Stream gets up with a look on her face as she says, “That didn’t sound right.”

“Whattya mean?” I ask.

“That didn’t sound like the cannon,” she says. “That sounded more like an explosion.”

That one word helps me fit the pieces together to answer the question, what was Canary up to? She’s from District 3, their industry is the development of Technology. Last year, the boy from 3 was recruited by the Careers… to use the land mines to booby-trap the Cornucopia supplies. In those games, the girl from 5 figured out how to circumvent the trap to steal some food before Katniss set the whole thing off to destroy the supplies, dealing a crippling blow to the Careers.

Stream sees the look on my eyes and asks, “Is something wrong?”

“The land mines,” I answer as I get up. I hand Stream her blanket and roll up my sleeping bag. “Canary – er, the blond girl you saw – was digging up the land mines, probably to use as weapons to fight the Careers.”

“Oh right! She’s from District 3,” Stream adds as a look of dawning appears in her eyes, “she knows how to tinker with stuff like those mines, and since they were turned off, she didn’t have to worry about them blowing her up. She must’ve gotten tools or something from the Cornucopia to fiddle with them.”

“And she’s probably reactivated them or rigged them to go off like grenades or something,” I agree grimly.

I can’t believe I let her go. I allowed her to become a threat the moment I let her go back in that alley. I sigh and say, “Well, just add that on our to-do list.”


We do some foraging, gathering berries, nuts, and others edible plants, talking in hushed voices, and I learn more and more about Stream and her life in District 4. Like me, she’s the youngest of three siblings, and the only girl among them, her older brothers work as fishermen alongside their father, and often spend days at sea looking for the biggest catches of fish, crabs, often even in dangerous weather. Stream does her own fishing on the piers or looks in tide pools, and often gets things for her mother to sell her stand, which is becoming harder as Stream’s mother was pregnant at the time her daughter was Reaped. I also tell her about myself and my life in District 10.

Then she asks me, “What’s that bandana you’re wearing?”

I take it off and show her the patterns.
“They’re Bloodogs, like the ones that almost got me.”

“Why would you have something like that?”

“Those Bloodogs were captured and starved by the Gamemakers; then they sicced `em on me,” and I end up telling her about Bloodogs, their Cibelupe ancestors, and how a Bloodog helped bring my parents together.  She listens to each detail with great interest.
“The Bloodogs I know are actually quite friendly.”

“Well, now that I know about them, I think your bandana is pretty,” Stream says with a smile. She reaches back and shows me the seashell on the end of her braid.
“This is what I brought – It’s a nautilus shell, it belonged to my grandmother.”

“Now that’s pretty,” I say as I give it a look. The spiral shape and the colors along with how smooth it is, a literal piece of natural beauty.

“It’s like a piece of her watching over me,” she agrees, putting her braid back behind her.

It’s almost noon when we agree we have to learn more about Canary and the land-mines she dug up, and much to my chagrin, I know what that means. We have to go back to the Cornucopia.


The ghost town is just as smelly and muggy as I remember it. We make sure we still have some water, though I pour what’s left in my thermos into Stream’s canteen, which I almost had to force until I showed her my plastic container still has plenty. Just to be sure, we each take some of that moisture-rich herb I’d been sucking before I’d found that pond.

This time, we’re extra careful – A ghost town, as I mentioned, has plenty of hiding places. I take point, keeping an arrow strung in my bow while Stream watches my back with her spear. In the back of my mind, I already know why Stream helped me – Her partner, Seaspray, is dead. This year there may be two victors but they have to be boy and girl. Alone, Stream’s odds are not in her favor. For reasons I can’t imagine, she’d been watching me even before we were launched into the arena. She chose me as a backup partner in case something happened to her own, and it did.

I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Just by forming an alliance with Stream I’m all but betraying Filly. She’s still out there somewhere, and I know that Streams knows it too. My head is telling me I should either just kill Stream here and now or ditch her. But my conscience is telling me to help her, with a much louder voice.

For now, I’m stuck with her, so I decide to focus on the now rather than the later. We keep to the alleyways, sticking to shaded areas. We’re careful not to make noises incase the Careers are nearby. Unfortunately, it’s slow going. I barely have any idea how to navigate through an urban environment. The Gamemakers made it harder by getting rid of any signs around the streets, and since most of the buildings look alike or are just falling apart, I wonder if we’ll even be able to retrace our steps.

We hide inside what looks to be an old clothing store, evident by clothes hangers and fabrics long worn away or eaten by moths.

“I hate it here,” Stream wipes the sweat from her brow while I do so with a rag I find adequately clean. “Is this even a good idea?”

I look out the window, making sure to be discreet, saying, “The more we know, the better chance we have. The Careers have lost one of their own but they still outnumber us, and Canary has explosives. Not to mention whoever else is left out there in the Arena.”

“It would be a good idea to get more stuff, maybe some water from that pond,” Stream agrees. “I didn’t dare refill my canteen anywhere else without iodine.”

“Exactly. I hate to say it, but we’re going in circles here.”

“I agree,” Stream joined me by the window. “We can’t just wander and hope to find the Cornucopia. We’re more likely to run into the Careers.”

“They’ll undoubtedly have left someone to stand guard over it,” I surmise while trying to figure what our enemies would do.
“Forj is dead; I killed him. He was their muscle but had the brains of a rabid dog, he deserved his miserable fate.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Stream sad with a tone that made me blink. “Forj was just as much a victim as the rest of us. He may have chosen to be a part of this, but no one should have to be.”

“I chose to be a part of this,” I reminded her, my brows furrowed. “I volunteered as Tribute to save a member of my family. Forj and his cohorts volunteered in the hopes of winning a legacy of fame built upon blood and bones. So don’t be so quick to dismiss the Careers’ part in the Hunger Games, Stream. They are slaves to the Capitol, same as us. But they choose to partake in this farce because it makes them feel like they have a choice.”

“They did have a choice! They volunteered!”

“There no volunteers, Stream,” I correct, much to her confusion. “There are no victors. There are sacrificial lambs, and then there are survivors… We’re wasted enough time with this. We need to discuss our strategy.”

“Should we try and keep searching for the Cornucopia?” she asked.

“No, at this rate, we’re more likely to run into our enemies. Not to mention the energy we’d have wasted… We wait for cover of darkness, I have a feeling the Careers will have a fire going on.”


Night fell, and my visors led straight and true to the Cornucopia. We made our way to the three-story building I first saw during the countdown at the Cornucopia. It’d been sketchy taking the stairs (Stream almost fell through a step) but we’d made it to the roof, and we had a perfect vantage point as we looked down and saw them.      

They were sitting around a fire, eating, and nearby was a couple tents. But then I counted heads and realized there were only three of them.
“Someone’s missing,” I muttered.
“Can you tell who?” Stream asked.

I fished out my binocs and was able to see because of the fire brightening up their faces.
“Sheen, Luster, and Sevva.”

The three of them look miffed and appear to be talking. But their faces and arms look inflamed, likely from the Porcufyre quills. They must’ve had some kind of med to deal with the venom but the external wounds had not healed quite as well.
“The guy from 5 isn’t with them.”

“Well he’s not dead,” Stream points. “No one died today.”

“But something happened,” I say with a raised finger. “Canary must’ve attacked them with her explosives, and something separated 5 from the Careers.”

“Or he ran away,” Stream makes a fair point.

The guy from 5 was timid and the Careers treated him like a servant when they had me treed. Of course the alliance they’d made with him was only temporary, but he must’ve been scared enough to decide it wasn’t worth waiting around to get killed once they’d decided he was of no further use to them.

“What should we do?” asked Stream, breaking me out of my pondering.

“Let’s spy on them,” I told her. “In the morning, they have to leave to find the other tributes but they’ll probably leave someone behind to guard their camp. But look at them and tell me what you see.”

I handed Stream the binocs and she scrutinized the situation.
“The girl from 2 is sitting away from the boy and girl from 1.”

“That’s because her partner is dead,” I tell her. “Sheen and Luster are the only team of Careers left, Sevva is by herself, and she knows it. The only reason they haven’t turned on her is because they still want numbers on their side for killing off the rest of the competition.”

“So… we have to get Sheen,” Stream figures it out and I’m glad. “With him gone, Luster and Sevva will automatically be enemies.”

“If I’m right, the girl Careers will go hunting for the others and leave Sheen to guard,” I reason. “They wouldn’t trust each other to be left alone with him, to turn him against the other.”

“Sheen’s more likely to stick with Luster, they’re from the same district,” Stream reminds me.

“But say he does choose to side with Sevva,” I reason, “they’ll kill Luster and we still have a Career pair to deal with. Yes, it’ll still be two with Sheen out of the way, but there is no chance Luster and Sevva will work together. They’ll try and kill the other or they’ll split up, which will make it easier to pick `em off.”

Stream hesitate but then nods.
“Let’s get some sleep, we have a big day tomorrow.”


We slept well enough and awoke to the glare of the sun. Served us right for sleeping on that roof. But we gathered ourselves and carefully peered on the Career camp. We didn’t see them but that didn’t mean someone was still there. The Cornucopia glimmered under the sun, and we saw the supplies had been stacked and store in the very back of it. Likely to draw in more victims, which implied someone was lying in wait. The question was, where? If someone was down there keeping watch, they had plenty of places to hide. In the foliage surrounding the area, maybe even in the pond like Stream did, they could even be hiding among the goodies in the Cornucopia.  
“Y’think the coast is clear?” Stream whispered.

“Unlikely,” I said as I looked through my binocs.

I looked long and hard for any hint of a Career’s presence. Their campfire had long burned out, surrounded by remains of food, like apple cores, crusts from bread. The tents were closed, and in the shade, so there was no chance of seeing anyone hiding in them. I saw only food, supplies, and weapons in the Cornucopia, but proper arrangement would hide anyone in there. I gave the foliage a good looking over, looking for any bright colors, broken branches, anything to give away the presence of a guard lying in wait.

“I don’t see anyone,” I admitted, “but that doesn’t mean no one’s there.”

“This would be a perfect chance to get more stuff,” Stream brings up. “I even have an idea.”


The plan was simple – Stream would set up fires in the streets surrounding the densely wooded park centered by the Cornucopia. If someone was standing guard, they might leave their post to investigate. Then I would run in and lie in wait for the poor sucker while Stream hides in pond after she was done.

We first looked around from the rooftop, discerning our surroundings. Once we had a pretty good idea of what was where, we got to work.

We found what looked to be old oil barrels which, thankfully, still had a bit of oil in them. Just in case, we threw in burnable debris to make sure the fires would persist. After setting the third barrel, I held out my lighter to Stream.
“Wait ten minutes, then start this fire and quickly move onto the next one. Once you reach the third, head for the pond. I’ll hide in the Cornucopia but-”

I was interrupted by the sound of a cannon, and we both looked up. A tribute had died just now, and my thoughts instantly went to Filly.
“Howl? Time to go!” Stream reminded me gently.

I sighed, knowing there was no point fearing the worst. I couldn’t be distracted right now; we had a job to do. I make sure Stream is prepared for what we’re about to do.
“I have an idea,” she then brings up, “once I arrive for the pond, I’ll signal you.”

“You can’t yell to me,” I remind her.

“I know, but we’ll do this,” she amends before she whistles a familiar four-note tune.

“The signal Katniss and Rue used last year,” I recognize. “But there aren’t any Mockingjays around here.”

“You didn’t notice them around the park?” she asks. “There were some nesting there, I saw them when I’d been spying on the careers.”

I take her word for it and nod.
“Ok, you whistle, and I’ll know the mockingjays heard you. Then we’ll wait for the guard to come back, hopefully it’ll be Sheen. We’ll attack him together, but I will go first. I’ll run in, he’ll be occupied with me, and then you come up, with your spear ready.”

Stream nods, getting worked up. Then she suddenly throws her arms around me, but I return the hug.
“Be careful,” she whispers.

I promise I ill but then I say to her, “If something goes wrong, you run, Stream.”

“But Howl-” she starts to protest but I insist.

“Stream! I mean it! If something goes wrong, you will run. Even if that means abandoning me. Unless you promise me you’ll run, we aren’t going through with this. Do I have your word?”

Stream gives me a look, and it almost breaks my heart. I have a feeling she’s been in situations like this before, where she separates from someone and is afraid it’s the last time she’d ever see them again.
“I learned long ago not to ask my dad or brothers to make promises they might not be able to keep.”

I look her in the eyes, take up her hand and firmly clasp it while giving her an encouraging smile.
“Promise me you’ll run,” I tell her, “and I promise you we’ll beat them.”

I guess she finds strength in my resolve and nods. Then we split in opposite directions.

But as I make my way towards the park, questions and worries buzz in my head like an angry swarm of tracker jackers.
What will happen if Stream dies? If she doesn’t, if I reunite with Filly, leaving Stream by herself, what threats we still face and may run into. I already made a promise to Filly, that I would find her. She has parents and a little sister, I have parents, siblings, an aunt, and a cousin. Stream has her parents, her brothers, and would become a big sister to the baby in her mother’s belly.

I don’t know what to do; I’m conflicted by my promise to Filly and the trust this little girl from District 4 has placed in me. It would be so easy right now, to just run. To ditch Stream and carry on as I had been doing thus far until I awoke in Stream’s care. No, I can’t abandon Stream. It would be despicable and it would haunt me for the rest of my life. I instead focus on the mission and slip into an alleyway, which leads directly into the wooded area of the park. As I get closer to the end of the alley, I keep my senses on high alert. If the Careers left a guard behind to watch over the camp and supplies, he or she could be anywhere around. I keep an arrow strung as I look to the foliage. I’m so engrossed in every detail of the foliage ahead of me, every branch, bush, twig, leaf, I don’t notice the pavement beneath open and I fall into a maw of darkness.