My mouth gapes open. Cassia's dead, but here? How? Maybe she's a hologram. They've done that in previous games, and when President Snow was making a 'personal' appearance to our district. 

Yes, she's a hologram. Just an illusion of what the real Cassia would act like. 

She ignores the look of shock and confusion on my face and strides past me, plucking the knife out of Victor's head with no particular difficulty. 

Oh, I realize sadly. Victor. It is ironic. She's not the victor. She's dead. I told her that once. Only yesterday. Was it really yesterday? We haven't done much in the time in between, but it still feels like a year ago. 

"So, seven, would you like to join the careers?" Cassia asks. She's back in her previous spot and looks much too smug as she polishes off her knife, cleaning the fresh blood off it. 

I make a point not to look at Victor's body, which must be bloody by now. I don't want to see my friend like that. 

"Wait, first tell me how you're but also not dead. Then I'll- I'll consider." I want to know this, and I don't really want to be a career. 

"They made a mistake. The gamemakers. They shot my cannon, showed my picture in the sky when I wasn't dead." She says, and finishes polishing her knife. 

"Good enough explanation for you?" She looks at me expectantly, raising her eyebrows.

I look at Aegis. He's mouthing something, and the boy holding him- Gleam- still hasn't noticed. 

I watch him for a while longer. He's saying "No! Run!" repeatedly, over and over. 

I'm about to say yes, I'll join, but I hesitate. Maybe it'd be safer not to join... I'm a fast runner. 

I shake my head slightly. Oceania raises her eyebrows. 

"No, no, no, and furthermore no. I won't be a career. Bye." I smile and take off, running as fast as I can. 

There's a shriek of surprise from behind me, and I make it maybe 50 feet, from their hesitation and shock, before I hear whistling and two weapons pierce my skin. 

I fall on my face, collapsing to the ground. Sand gets in my mouth and I don't have the strength to spit it out. I can just imagine everyone laughing at me. 

Someone screams. Maybe Aegis. I don't get up to see, as even that simple movement feels like it would tear my body apart.

A trident and a knife were thrown. So we can guess who that was. 

The trident embedded itself in my shoulder, sending a throbbing pain through my body, and the knife's in the lower half of my leg. 

I doubt I can crawl, much less keep running. 

But I sit up, with effort, and pull the weapons from the flesh. Blood pours out, and the trident and the knife drop from my grasp. 

The knife leaves a thin line of blood on my hand, and I collapse again, taking deep breaths. They didn't hit any internal organs, thankfully. Or maybe not. I'd die faster that way than bleeding out slowly. 

There's the sound of running and displaced sand as the careers converge around me. 

"Is she dead?" Oceania pokes my shoulder, making me cry out in pain. She frowns. 

"Should I kill her? Finish her off?" She asks, and picks up her trident from the sands. Cassia shakes her head. 

"No, she'll die slower this way. More painful, too. A show for the audience and revenge for us." Oceania's nods and recedes out of my vision. 

Etta's head appears in view. She looks absolutely terrified, as if she just realized that this could happen to her, too. 

The insane girl from five says something, but it's blurry. Blood loss is doing its toll on me. But I think she says:

"War and killing should be man's greatest regrets," She says. Someone snarls, and then there's the sound of something hitting her over the head. A cannon sounds. Cassia snorts. 

"Glad she's gone. A hindrance, that's what she was." She says. 

They all lean in too take a good look at me. I don't like this. I growl at them and reach for my ax and try to seem fierce, but they laugh and laugh and make me look like a fool. 

Except for Aegis. Who's pale and starting to look green. He also looks very worried. About me? I'll be fine. 

If I die, I get to see my family. The part of it I like. And if I live, then- I don't know. I'll try to win. 

And then what? I'm not sure.

He mouths run again, and I give him a disbelieving look. As if I could run in this state. 

The edges of my vision begin to get blurry, and I close my eyes. 

I can barely make out Cassia saying one last thing, Just leave her. We'll come back later, before I black out.

Last chapter for a bit, srry!