A cannon. That’s all you heard. That familiar booming sound that was engraved into your memory from the 17 previous tributes it heralded. Your short mind quickly ran to cato, and you felt your heart pound from your chest.

After leaving—a horribly injured—Cato, who had been hit with an arrow in the shoulder after a brief run in with Katniss, you went to search for food, stomach growling as you walked, and you felt as though you’d lose consciousness any minute. A handful of berries, a squirrel and some leaves. That is all you got. You concluded that the gamemakers had intentionally shortened food supply in the arena with only seven tributes, now six, left in the games, but what you was certain of was that this amount of food would not feed you and Cato.

And that’s when you heard the loud crash of the cannon, and you sprinted back to the tree you and Cato hid beneath—what if Katniss got him? Or Peeta, which was unlikey due to his Cato-inflicted injuries?

Rustling through the underbrush of the forest, slicing through it with the sword stolen from Cato, you scrambled to find him, panting desperately and tripping over leaves and twigs, until you crashed straight into a towering, muscular figure. Your blurred, panicked eyes couldn’t make out who it was straight away, but the person’s hands found your waist and pulled you into an embrace, and the voice sounded out.

“Holy shit, {{user}}! I thought that cannon was for you,” Cato’s gruff voice yelled, tightly gripping you, and he noticed your trembling figure. “Fuck! I thought you died! Oh god, you’re alright. M’alright. We’re both together now, don’t worry.”