The seal of the Capitol shines above me and the anthem blares out. It's now or never, I think, and begin to saw. Blisters burst on my right hand as I awkwardly drag the knife back and forth. Once I've got a groove, the work requires less effort but is almost more than I can handle. I grit my teeth and saw away occasionally glancing at the sky to register that there were no deaths today. That's all right. The audience will be sated seeing me injured and treed and the pack below me. But the anthem's running out and I'm only three quarters of the way through the wood when the music ends, the sky goes dark, and I'm forced to stop.

Now what? I could probably finish off the job by sense of feel but that may not be the smartest plan. If the wasps are too groggy, if the nest catches on its way down, if I try to escape, this could all be a deadly waste of time. Better, I think, to sneak up here at dawn and send the nest into my enemies.

In the faint light of the Careers' torches, I inch back down to my fork to find the best surprise I've ever had. Sitting on my sleeping bag is a small plastic pot attached to a silver parachute. My first gift from a sponsor! Soonkyu must have had it sent in during the anthem. The pot easily fits in the palm of my hand. What can it be? Not food surely. I unscrew the lid and I know by the scent that it's medicine. Cautiously, I probe the surface of the ointment. The throbbing in my fingertip vanishes.

"Oh, Soonkyu," I whisper. "Thank you." He has not abandoned me. Not left me to fend entirely for myself. The cost of this medicine must be astronomical. Probably not one but many sponsors have contributed to buy this one tiny pot. To me, it is priceless.

I dip two fingers in the jar and gently spread the balm over my calf. The effect is almost magical, erasing the pain on contact, leaving a pleasant cooling sensation behind. This is no herbal concoction that my mother grinds up out of woodland plants, it's high-tech medicine brewed up in the Capitol's labs. When my calf is treated, I rub a thin layer into my hands. After wrapping the pot in the parachute, I nestle it safely away in my pack. Now that the pain has eased, it's all I can do to reposition myself in my bag before I plunge into sleep.

A bird perched just a few feet from me alerts me that a new day is dawning. In the gray morning light, I examine my hands. The medicine has transformed all the angry red patches to a soft baby-skin pink. My leg still feels inflamed, but that burn was far deeper. I apply another coat of medicine and quietly pack up my gear. Whatever happens, I'm going to have to move and move fast. I also make myself eat a cracker and a strip of beef and drink a few cups of water.

Almost nothing stayed in my stomach yesterday, and I'm already starting to feel the effects of hunger.

Below me, I can see the Career pack and Taeyeon asleep on the ground. By her position, leaning up against the trunk of the tree, I'd guess Soyu was supposed to be on guard, but fatigue overcame her.

My eyes squint as they try to penetrate the tree next to me, but I can't make out Joy. Since she tipped me off, it only seems fair to warn her. Besides, if I'm going to die today, it's Joy I want to win. Even if it means a little extra food for my family, the idea of Taeyeon being crowned victor is unbearable.

I call Joy's name in a hushed whisper and the eyes appear, wide and alert, at once. She points up to the nest again. I hold up my knife and make a sawing motion. She nods and disappears. There's a rustling in a nearby tree. Then the same noise again a bit farther off. I realize she's leaping from tree to tree. It's all I can do not to laugh out loud. Is this what she showed the Gamemakers? I imagine her flying around the training equipment never touching the floor. She should have gotten at least a ten.

Rosy streaks are breaking through in the east. I can't afford to wait any longer. Compared to the agony of last night's climb, this one is a cinch. At the tree limb that holds the nest, I position the knife in the groove and I'm about to draw the teeth across the wood when I see something moving. There, on the nest. The bright gold gleam of a tracker jacker lazily making its way across the papery gray surface. No question, it's acting a little subdued, but the wasp is up and moving and that means the others will be out soon as well. Sweat breaks out on the palms of my hands, beading up through the ointment, and I do my best to pat them dry on my shirt. If I don't get through this branch in a matter of seconds, the entire swarm could emerge and attack me.

There's no sense in putting it off. I take a deep breath, grip the knife handle and bear down as hard as I can. Back, forth, back, forth! The tracker jackers begin to buzz and I hear them coming out. Back, forth, back, forth! A stabbing pain shoots through my knee and I know one has found me and the others will be honing in. Back, forth, back, forth. And just as the knife cuts through, I shove the end of the branch as far away from me as I can. It crashes down through the lower branches, snagging temporarily on a few but then twisting free until it smashes with a thud on the ground. The nest bursts open like an egg, and a furious swarm of tracker jackers takes to the air.

I feel a second sting on the cheek, a third on my neck, and their venom almost immediately makes me woozy. I cling to the tree with one arm while I rip the barbed stingers out of my flesh. Fortunately, only these three tracker jackers had identified me before the nest went down. The rest of the insects have targeted their enemies on the ground.

It's mayhem. The Careers have woken to a full-scale tracker jacker attack. Taeyeon and a few others have the sense to drop everything and bolt. I can hear cries of "To the lake! To the lake!" and know they hope to evade the wasps by taking to the water. It must be close if they think they can outdistance the furious insects. Soyu and another girl, the one from District 4, are not so lucky. They receive multiple stings before they're even out of my view. Soyu appears to go completely mad, shrieking and trying to bat the wasps off with her bow, which is pointless. She calls to the others for help but, of course, no one returns. The girl from District 4 staggers out of sight, although I wouldn't bet on her making it to the lake. I watch Soyu fall, twitch hysterically around on the ground for a few minutes, and then go still.

The nest is nothing but an empty shell. The wasps have vanished in pursuit of the others. I don't think they'll return, but I don't want to risk it. I scamper down the tree and hit the ground running in the opposite direction of the lake. The poison from the stingers makes me wobbly, but I find my way back to my own little pool and submerge myself in the water, just in case any wasps are still on my trail. After about five minutes, I drag myself onto the rocks. People have not exaggerated the effects of the tracker jacker stings. Actually, the one on my knee is closer to an orange than a plum in size. A foul-smelling green liquid oozes from the places where I pulled out the stingers.

The swelling. The pain. The ooze. Watching Soyu twitching to death on the ground. It's a lot to handle before the sun has even cleared the horizon. I don't want to think about what Soyu must look like now. Her body disfigured. Her swollen fingers stiffening around the bow.

The bow! Somewhere in my befuddled mind one thought connects to another and I'm on my feet, teetering through the trees back to Soyu. The bow. The arrows. I must get them. I haven't heard the cannons fire yet, so perhaps Soyu is in some sort of coma, her heart still struggling against the wasp venom. But once it stops and the cannon signals her death, a hovercraft will move in and retrieve her body, taking the only bow and sheath of arrows I've seen out of the Games for good. And I refuse to let them slip through my fingers again!

I reach Soyu just as the cannon fires. The tracker jackers have vanished. This girl, so breathtakingly beautiful in her golden dress the night of the interviews, is unrecognizable. Her features eradicated, her limbs three times their normal size. The stinger lumps have begun to explode, spewing putrid green liquid around her. I have to break several of what used to be her fingers with a stone to free the bow. The sheath of arrows is pinned under her back. I try to roll over her body by pulling on one arm, but the flesh disintegrates in my hands and I fall back on the ground.

Is this real? Or have the hallucinations begun? I squeeze my eyes tight and try to breathe through my mouth, ordering myself not to become sick. Breakfast must stay down, it might be days before I can hunt again. A second cannon fires and I'm guessing the girl from District 4 has just died. I hear the birds fall silent and then one give the warning call, which means a hovercraft is about to appear. Confused, I think it's for Soyu, although this doesn't quite make sense because I'm still in the picture, still fighting for the arrows. I lurch back onto my knees and the trees around me begin to spin in circles. In the middle of the sky, I spot the hovercraft. I throw myself over Soyu's body as if to protect it but then I see the girl from District 4 being lifted into the air and vanishing.

"Do this!" I command myself. Clenching my jaw, I dig my hands under Soyu's body, get a hold on what must be her rib cage, and force her onto her stomach. I can't help it, I'm hyperventilating now, the whole thing is so nightmarish and I'm losing my grasp on what's real. I tug on the silver sheath of arrows, but it's caught on something, her shoulder blade, something, and finally yank it free. I've just encircled the sheath with my arms when I hear the footsteps, several pairs, coming through the underbrush, and I realize the Careers have come back. They've come back to kill me or get their weapons or both.

But it's too late to run. I pull a slimy arrow from the sheath and try to position it on the bowstring but instead of one string I see three and the stench from the stings is so repulsive I can't do it. I can't do it. I can't do it.

I'm helpless as the first hunter crashes through the trees, spear lifted, poised to throw. The shock on Taeyeon’s face makes no sense to me. I wait for the blow. Instead his arm drops to his side.

"What are you still doing here?" he hisses at me. I stare uncomprehendingly as a trickle of water drips off a sting under his ear. His whole body starts sparkling as if he's been dipped in dew. "Are you mad?" He's prodding me with the shaft of the spear now. "Get up! Get up!" I rise, but he's still pushing at me. What? What is going on? He shoves me away from him hard. "Run!" he screams. "Run!"

Behind him, Chanyeol slashes his way through the brush. He's sparkling wet, too, and badly stung under one eye. I catch the gleam of sunlight on his sword and do as Taeyeon says. Holding tightly to my bow and arrows, banging into trees that appear out of nowhere, tripping and falling as I try to keep my balance. Back past my pool and into unfamiliar woods. The world begins to bend in alarming ways. A butterfly balloons to the size of a house then shatters into a million stars. Trees transform to blood and splash down over my boots. Ants begin to crawl out of the blisters on my hands and I can't shake them free. They're climbing up my arms, my neck. Someone's screaming, a long high pitched scream that never breaks for breath. I have a vague idea it might be me. I trip and fall into a small pit lined with tiny orange bubbles that hum like the tracker jacker nest. Tucking my knees up to my chin, I wait for death.

Sick and disoriented, I'm able to form only one thought: Kim Taeyeon just saved my life.

Then the ants bore into my eyes and I black out.

I enter a nightmare from which I wake repeatedly only to find a greater terror awaiting me. All the things I dread most, all the things I dread for others manifest in such vivid detail I can't help but believe they're real. Each time I wake, I think, At last, this is over, but it isn't. It's only the beginning of a new chapter of torture. How many ways do I watch Seohyun die? Relive my father's last moments? Feel my own body ripped apart? This is the nature of the tracker jacker venom, so carefully created to target the place where fear lives in your brain.

When I finally do come to my senses, I lie still, waiting for the next onslaught of imagery. But eventually I accept that the poison must have finally worked its way out of my system, leaving my body wracked and feeble. I'm still lying on my side, locked in the fetal position. I lift a hand to my eyes to find them sound, untouched by ants that never existed. Simply stretching out my limbs requires an enormous effort. So many parts of me hurt, it doesn't seem worthwhile taking inventory of them. Very, very slowly I manage to sit up. I'm in a shallow hole, not filled with the humming orange bubbles of my hallucination but with old, dead leaves. My clothing's damp, but I don't know whether pond water, dew, rain, or sweat is the cause. For a long time, all I can do is take tiny sips from my bottle and watch a beetle crawl up the side of a honeysuckle bush.

How long have I been out? It was morning when I lost reason. Now it's afternoon. But the stiffness in my joints suggests more than a day has passed, even two possibly. If so, I'll have no way of knowing which tributes survived that tracker jacker attack. Not Soyu or the girl from District 4. But there was the boy from District 1, both tributes from District 2, and Taeyeon. Did they die from the stings? Certainly if they lived, their last days must have been as horrid as my own. And what about Joy? She's so small, it wouldn't take much venom to do her in. But then again. the tracker jackers would've had to catch her, and she had a good head start

A foul, rotten taste ades my mouth, and the water has little effect on it. I drag myself over to the honeysuckle bush and pluck a flower. I gently pull the stamen through the blossom and set the drop of nectar on my tongue. The sweetness spreads through my mouth, down my throat, warming my veins with memories of summer, and my home woods and Yuri's presence beside me. For some reason, our discussion from that last morning comes back to me.

"We could do it, you know."

"What?"

"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it."

And suddenly, I'm not thinking of Yuri but of Taeyeon and. Taeyeon! He saved my life! I think. Because by the time we met up, I couldn't tell what was real and what the tracker jacker venom had caused me to imagine. But if he did, and my instincts tell me he did, what for? Is he simply working the Lover Boy angle he initiated at the interview? Or was he actually trying to protect me? And if he was, what was he doing with those Careers in the first place? None of it makes sense.

I wonder what Yuri made of the incident for a moment and then I push the whole thing out of my mind because for some reason Yuri and Taeyeon do not coexist well together in my thoughts.

So I focus on the one really good thing that's happened since I landed in the arena. I have a bow and arrows! A full dozen arrows if you count the one I retrieved in the tree. They bear no trace of the noxious green slime that came from Soyu's body  -  which leads me to believe that might not have been wholly real  -  but they have a fair amount of dried blood on them. I can clean them later, but I do take a minute to shoot a few into a nearby tree. They are more like the weapons in the Training Center than my ones at home, but who cares? That I can work with.

The weapons give me an entirely new perspective on the Games. I know I have tough opponents left to face. But I am no longer merely prey that runs and hides or takes desperate measures. If Chanyeol broke through the trees right now, I wouldn't flee, I'd shoot. I find I'm actually anticipating the moment with pleasure.

But first, I have to get some strength back in my body. I'm very dehydrated again and my water supply is dangerously low. The little padding I was able to put on by gorging myself during prep time in the Capitol is gone, plus several more pounds as well. My hip bones and ribs are more prominent than I remember them being since those awful months after my father's death. And then there are my wounds to contend with  -  burns, cuts, and bruises from smashing into the trees, and three tracker jacker stings, which are as sore and swollen as ever. I treat my burns with the ointment and try dabbing a bit on my stings as well, but it has no effect on them. My mother knew a treatment for them, some type of leaf that could draw out the poison, but she seldom had cause to use it, and I don't even remember its name let alone its appearance.

Water first, I think. You can hunt along the way now. It's easy to see the direction I came from by the path of destruction my crazed body made through the foliage. So I walk off in the other direction, hoping my enemies still lie locked in the surreal world of tracker jacker venom.

I can't move too quickly, my joints reject any abrupt motions. But I establish the slow hunter's tread I use when tracking game. Within a few minutes, I spot a rabbit and make my first kill with the bow and arrow. It's not my usual clean shot through the eye, but I'll take it. After about an hour, I find a stream, shallow but wide, and more than sufficient for my needs. The sun's hot and severe, so while I wait for my water to purify I strip down to my underclothes and wade into the mild current. I'm filthy from head to toe, I try splashing myself but eventually just lay down in the water for a few minutes, letting it wash off the soot and blood and skin that has started to peel off my burns. After rinsing out my clothes and hanging them on bushes to dry, I sit on the bank in the sun for a bit, untangling my hair with my fingers. My appetite returns and I eat a cracker and a strip of beef. With a handful of moss, I polish the blood from my silver weapons.

Refreshed, I treat my burns again, braid back my hair, and dress in the damp clothes, knowing the sun will dry them soon enough. Following the stream against its current seems the smartest course of action. I'm traveling uphill now, which I prefer, with a source of fresh water not only for myself but possible game. I easily take out a strange bird that must be some form of wild turkey. Anyway, it looks plenty edible to me. By late afternoon, I decide to build a small fire to cook the meat, betting that dusk will help conceal the smoke and I can quench the fire by nightfall. I clean the game, taking extra care with the bird, but there's nothing alarming about it. Once the feathers are plucked, it's no bigger than a chicken, but it's plump and firm. I've just placed the first lot over the coals when I hear the twig snap.

In one motion, I turn to the sound, bringing the bow and arrow to my shoulder. There's no one there. No one I can see anyway. Then I spot the tip of a child's boot just peeking out from behind the trunk of a tree. My shoulders relax and I grin. She can move through the woods like a shadow, you have to give her that. How else could she have followed me? The words come out of my mouth before I can stop them.

"You know, they're not the only ones who can form alliances," I say.

For a moment, no response. Then one of Joy's eyes edges around the trunk. "You want me for an ally?"

"Why not? You saved me with those tracker jackers. You're smart enough to still be alive. And I can't seem to shake you anyway," I say. She blinks at me, trying to decide. "You hungry?" I can see her swallow hard, her eye flickering to the meat. "Come on then, I've had two kills today."

Joy tentatively steps out into the open. "I can fix your stings."

"Can you?" I ask. "How?"

She digs in the pack she carries and pulls out a handful of leaves. I'm almost certain they're the ones my mother uses. "Where'd you find those?"

"Just around. We all carry them when we work in the orchards. They left a lot of nests there," says Joy. "There are a lot here, too."

"That's right. You're District Eleven. Agriculture," I say. "Orchards, huh? That must be how you can fly around the trees like you've got wings." Joy smiles. I've landed on one of the few things she'll admit pride in. "Well, come on, then. Fix me up."

I plunk down by the fire and roll up my pant leg to reveal the sting on my knee. To my surprise, Joy places the handful of leaves into and begins to chew them. My mother would use other methods, but it's not like we have a lot of options. After a minute or so, Joy presses a gloppy green wad of chewed leaves and spit on my knee.