How It All Goes Down
- Katniss finds herself on a metal circle in the arena. She wonders if she should stay at the Cornucopia (the central statue in the arena) to fight for supplies (a tent, food, weapons, medicine), or head for water, as Haymitch commanded her to do.
- Katniss sees a bow and arrow. Maybe if she sprints she can grab some of the loot? She sees Peeta and he shakes his head no. Then the gong sounds, and she's missed her chance for the bow and arrow.
- Grabbing a nearby sheet of plastic and loaf of bread, Katniss sprints for an orange backpack. She sees another tribute get a knife in the back and then runs for it – getting a knife thrown at her backpack in the process.
- Walking and jogging, Katniss heads for the forested area and begins to descend into a valley.
- By late afternoon, Katniss hears the cannons, which are shot every time a tribute is killed. The fighting at the Cornucopia must have stopped. The cannon fires eleven times; that means eleven are dead. Thirteen candidates are left.
- Katniss thinks of Peeta and wonders if he is dead. Maybe it's better if he's out of the game.
- Exhausted, Katniss breaks to examine her backpack. It's orange, which means camouflage is a must. Inside? A sleeping bag, crackers, beef strips, iodine, matches, wire, sunglasses, and an empty water bottle. EMPTY? Dang.
- Water becomes Katniss's top priority. She saw a lake back at the Cornucopia, but headed in the opposite direction. She's a day's journey away by now. No point in going back.
- Katniss chews pine to quell her hunger and then looks for a place to camp. She sets two snares and then climbs up into a willow tree where she settles in with her sleeping bag and loops herself in with a belt.
- Night falls and with it the death recap. The faces of the dead are projected into the sky: no Peeta. Katniss is filled with relief, but her emotions remained mixed.
- Who else is left? Five of the Career Tributes, Foxface, Thresh, and Rue, as well as three others Katniss can't remember.
- In the morning, Katniss hears a snap and realizes that someone only a few hundred yards to her right is BUILDING A FIRE. Idiot! Sure it's cold, but don't they know it will attract the stronger Career Tributes?
- Katniss watches concealed in the tree as, sure enough, a pack of tributes come along and kill the girl who lit the fire. The hotshot tributes must have teamed up and are now hunting in a pack.
- She eavesdrops on their conversation when all of a sudden she realizes that one of the voices belongs to none other than Peeta.