The Huntress

Throughout the night I kept tossing and turning. I knew I needed the sleep because tomorrow was going to be long and tiring but my mind didn’t want me to fall asleep. My mind kept forming plans to stay alive in the arena as long as possible. I don’t know when but I must have fallen asleep because my father visited me. We were sitting in the living room at home. I was in a white and my father was wearing a white button up shirt and a nice clean pair of khaki pants with no shoes. I rushed up to hug him and the tears started falling.

“Hey why are you crying?” my dad asked, “You shouldn’t be crying.”

“I miss you a lot Dad,” I said looking up at him and taking every detail of him.

“Hey I miss you too squirt but I’m here to help you for tomorrow,” he said making me look at him, “I’m here to help you make the Everdeen known.”

“And how do I do that?” I asked.

“Exactly what you’re going to do,” he said, “You have to outsmart everyone in that arena Adyrn. You have to do that for Prim, Katniss, and my mother.”

“Haymitch says I shouldn’t go into the Cornucopia,” I said, “What would you tell me?”

“Get the first thing you see,” he said, “Don’t go for the weapons just yet. You can get them off the dead bodies before the Capitol comes and picks them up. Remember what I taught you about hunting. Find a water source and set up camp on higher ground if you can. Keep what you know and what I taught you when you were growing up Adyrn. I know you’re going to do great baby doll.”

“What about Gale Daddy?” I asked looking up at him, “I can’t just kill him.”

“You’ll guys find a way to save both of you,” he said.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Make an alliance with someone you trust,” he said, “but I can’t stay much longer. I have to get back.”

I then hugged my dad tightly. He was taken aback but hugged me back.

“I miss you Dad,” I said, “I love you.”

“They love you Adyrn,” he said, "I raised fighters and I knows you’re going to fight until your last breath.”

“Be safe,” I said and kissed my dad’s cheek.

“Be safe and keep your eyes open,” he said and kissed my forehead and the dream ended.

My eyes then immediately opened and I looked out the window to see it was dawn. I crawled out of bed to see that Cinna had an outfit for me to wear to the dressing room under the arena. I had bright red pants and a bright red leather jacket and plain black shirt and black boots. I quickly showered and braided my hair into my side braid. I then changed into my clothes and headed out to eat breakfast. When I walked into the dining room for the last time, I saw Gale dressed the exact opposite of me. He had on a red shirt, black jacket, black pants, and a pair of red shoes I’ve never seen. I grabbed myself a plate and we ate in silence. After we had finished eating, I looked up to see Gale looking at me.

“Ready for this?” he asked as we saw Cinna and Portia coming to get us.

“No,” I breathed out and the knots in my stomach started tightening.

“You’ll do great,” he said, “I know it.”

“So will you,” I said, “I just need to keep telling myself we’re just hunting remember.”

“It’ll be no different,” he said.

Then Portia and Cinna got to us and we headed down to get ready. We were going our separate ways when I yelled something to him.

“Gale!” I yelled and he turned around as I ran up to him and hugged him tightly and kissed his cheek, “May the odds be ever in your favor.”

“Right back at you sweetheart,” he replied and we went to get ready.

I then spun around and followed Cinna into a dressing room and sat down on the couch as we waited for my outfit. While we were waiting I felt Cinna staring at me.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Like I’m going to throw up my breakfast,” I said looking up at him and he gave me a sympathetic smile.

“You’ll have Gale though,” Cinna said and I shook my head.

“I don’t know if he’s telling the truth or not,” I said, “After five years of knowing Gale he’s really good at lying and sometimes I can’t catch him and I’m starting to doubt if he was being honest or not.”

“You love him though don’t you,” Cinna said.

“With all my heart,” I said smiling sadly, “Too bad he’ll think that I was acting.”

Then there was a knock at the door and Cinna went to go answer it. He was handed a bag of clothes for me and we both looked at each other. He hung up the hanger on the rack in the room and unzipped the bag as I undressed.

“Whatever happens in that arena just know that if you don’t come out it was an honor to be your stylist Adyrn,” Cinna said as I changed.

“It was an honor working with you,” I said looking up at him, “My brother was right when he said you were the best of the best.”

Cinna then smiled and pulled out the necklace I wore last night.

“I thought you might want this necklace since you gave your pin to Gale,” Cinna smiled at me, “It took both me and Portia to let President Snow allow you to have the necklace and the pin. They thought the pin could be used as a weapon like the ring Glimmer had. You twisted the ring and spike shot up.”

I just shook my head and hugged Cinna tightly.

“Thank you for everything,” I said, “I really appreciate it. No one has been this nice to me since I met Gale and Katniss.”

“No problem sweetheart,” he replied and hugged me back as we heard a voice saying we had about ten minutes before we had to be in position to be launched into the games.

I then sat on back on the couch and Cinna knew I was starting to get antsy.

“You sure you don’t want to eat anymore?” he asked.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, “I’ve gone four days without eating a whole lot so I should be fine for a few days. I just have to find a water source so I can start getting a place to sleep ready.”

“Do you think you’ll make an alliance with Gale?” he asked.

“No,” I replied looking up at him, “If it comes down to the two of us I won’t be able to kill him and vice versa.”

“Don’t cross that off your list just yet Adyrn,” he said as we heard the voice tell us that the tributes needed to get into position, “You never know what to expect from the Hunger Games.”

We then walked into the giant room that had twenty-four platforms with our names written across them. Before I stepped on mine, I hugged Cinna one last time.

“May the odds be ever in your favor girl on fire,” Cinna whispered.

“Thank you Cinna,” I whispered and then stood on the platform.

. Before we knew it, the glass encased us and our platforms started rising up to the arena. I took one last look at Cinna before I looked up to see that this year’s games were going to be put in a woodsy area like that of the one outside District 12. Gale was on my right and Rue was on my left. I spotted a bright orange backpack twenty feet in front of me and then another twenty feet was a bow and a pack of twelve arrows. Claudius Templesmith then was shown in the sky as he talked about what we had to do.

“Good luck tributes of the 74th Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor,” he said and then we had to wait a full minute before we could step off our platforms.

The Capitol has the Cornucopia rigged to mines that are set to go off if someone steps off their platforms before the minute is up. Once the minute is over, the mines are deactivated and we are free to move. I decided to head for the bow and arrow since it was my best bet of survival and I looked up to see Gale looking at me and shook his head as in disappointment because he knew exactly what I was going to do. Before I could recover to look at my goal, the gong was heard and everyone was running off their platform. I rushed for the closest thing to me which is the bright orange backpack and got my hands on it. As I pulled the backpack up I noticed the boy from District 10 as well. I looked down at the ground and saw a knife on the ground. I quickly grabbed one and stabbed the boy in the heart his eyes got big and he fell onto the ground and let go of the backpack. I then looked up to see Clove ready to throw a knife at me so I held the backpack in front of my face as I grabbed the knife out of the boy and rushed into the woods. Now the next thing I had to remember was to find water. That’s what Haymitch’s and my father’s advice to me was find water and then set up camp for the night. I started walking into the woods and started reminiscing about what Gale and I would do right about now. It seemed to be around noon so Gale and I would go check the snares we set up and then we would reset snares that had animals or would have gone off by the wind.

As I continued to walk, I kept my ears open to hearing sounds but I had a gut feeling that no one would come into the woods today. The first battle of the Cornucopia was one of a blood bath. That’s when the most tributes died. They got too greedy about having everything they need to survive that they forget that twenty-three other people are out for the same ending; to win the Hunger Games and walk out of this arena alive. I heard about three or four cannon shots and knew that tributes were already dead. That meant that the career tributes would start hunting during the night and I needed to find water and a tree to climb soon. The sun was at its highest point in the day and I felt that l had been walking for hours. The heat was starting to get to me, and I knew I should have had something else to drink this morning other than the orange juice that was offered. It felt as if I had been walking down hill for hours when I need to stop and rest because everything was starting spin and I was getting tired. As I sat against the tree, I decided to see what was in my backpack that I had gotten from the Cornucopia before I left. I unzipped it and saw that I had a sleeping bag, some type of sunglasses, a package of dried fruit, crackers, and dried beef, a canteen for water and the water purifier. I put them all back into the backpack and started at it. The bright orange of the backpack was going to give me away so I needed to camouflage it when I found mud, which meant I had to get up and find that source of water. I slowly stood up from the tree and started walking slower than before. I don’t know how much longer I made it but I soon was so over dehydrated and my mouth and lips felt like sandpaper I knew if I didn’t get water soon my throat would add to the list of sandpaper feeling. I must have collapsed because I opened my eyes to find myself lying on the ground and my throat was dry as well.

“I need water Haymitch,” I whispered in my hoarse voice.

When I didn’t hear or see a parachute falling from the sky, I started cursing Haymitch silently. I needed that water to survive but I knew he was telling me that I was close to a source of water. I just needed to get up and keep walking. I then slowly made myself stand up and continued to walk. I collapsed again a few feet away, and started to loose consciousness when I noticed I could feel mud squishing between my fingers and it felt nice. It took me a second to recognize what I was touching but once I knew it was mud, I was on my feet and right in front of me was a small pond full of water and had a lot of plants that I could eat.

“Now I understand Haymitch,” I muttered and I ran to the pond to fill my water containers and put a drop of water purifier in both.

The thirty-minute wait was killing me because I was so dehydrated. Once I thought it was thirty minutes, I quickly drank half of the bottle so I refilled and put another drop of water purifier and put the water back in my pack. I looked up at the sky to see that I had some time to set up some snares so I could have some food for the next day so I made some snares as I sat against the tree. I then went to go set them up like I would at home and made sure no one could see them. Hopefully Gale wouldn’t come around to find them and then that would give away my campground. By the time I got all of the snares up, it was time to get up in a tree to hide for the night. I quickly made it back to where I was earlier in the day and scaled the closest tree no problem. I grabbed my sleeping bag and then took off my belt to strap it around the tree so if I fell off the branch when I was sleep I wouldn’t fall the forty feet to the wood’s floor. I pulled my hood up over my head and pulled the strings tight and used my backpack for a makeshift pillow and waited for the Anthem to start so we could see who all died just today. Soon enough the Anthem started playing and they showed a total of five people died today. The boys from Districts 5, 8, and 10 and the girls from Districts 9 and 10 were the pictures flashed on the screen. Before I knew it, I feel asleep but I was awaken to the sound of a fire crackling. I opened my eyes just in time to see a fire and the girl from District 8 not a few branches next to me. I had just enough time to shove my backpack in my sleeping bag and duck and hide before I heard footsteps running towards the tree. I then heard a scream as I heard the girl being pulled from the tree, and a thud. Someone must have taken out a little ways and then there was talking below me.

“Is she dead?” I heard Clove’s voice ask.

“Pretty sure,” Cato said, “I usually don’t let people live.”

“I haven’t heard a cannon go off,” I heard Marvel.

“I’ll go check,” I heard Gale’s voice and my eyes got wide.