Chapter 7

Indigo Resham, District 6

Day five.

It's been a whole day since anything deadly happened, so I'm beginning to expect the "Gamemakers" will be up to something any day now. Whatever it is they plan on doing to us. But I'm on alert.

I'm the kind who's always smiling. It's not because I'm hiding some sort of inner pain or something like that, I just honestly see the world as a good place. Well, not good exactly. More like it's better than not existing at all. The world is what it is and no amount of being angry about it is going to change it. I'm all for making the world a better place, but I'm not the sort to wallow in misery while I do it. As cliché as it is, my favorite saying is, "It's not the years in your life, it's the life in your years."

If I die today, I'll have had a better life than Wrianin Abro, no matter how many years he lives in agony. If I get out, I will find a way to be happy in my victor's life. The Hunger Games are meant to cause death and sadness. If I can beat them at their own cruel little Game by surviving it with a smile, then I'm going to do it. It's the only way I can think to rebel.

I wander aimlessly. I hope I find water or something, but I'm mostly just moving because it's boring to stand still. Safer, but intolerable. And I'm mostly focusing on enjoying my sentence as best I can, so dangerous and stupid it is.

I hope my family's doing the same. My mom was crying when I left, and she said dad couldn't even bear to come. I hated it. They know how hard I try to keep smiling. They should have at least tried to be strong enough to do the same for me. But I let her break down. I can understand why she acted the way she did. Heck, I wanted to do the exact same thing. But I didn't, and I had to sit there with me my smile frozen on my face while she sobbed.

My sisters too. There's one older than me and one younger. Neither of them tries to keep smiling the way I do. Kalba, my older sister, always said that one person could only take so much optimism, and I was already giving her a little too much. Jeezee, a year younger than me at fourteen, was just introduced to trouble at a young age, when a peacekeeper beat her friend's brother to death in front of her and her friend. They were four.

But the only difference between an optimist and a pessimist is how much they let things bother them. And I just don't, because it helps me and other people around me to see someone smiling and moving on. Besides, what will dwelling on something really accomplish? Misery, that's what.

Evita Cormichael, District 4

I don't understand Eewyn. A fifteen-year-old kid, she orders me around like she's my mother. And she somehow always makes me see her point, no matter how much I may be set against following her plan. If I didn't like the girl for some reason, I would have stabbed her and moved on. But as much as I'll never admit it to her, Eewyn Carre has become my friend. But that doesn't mean I have to be nice to her.

"Look, will you just come on?" I snap. She's been sitting there, legs crossed thoughtfully, staring at the grass waving in front of her face, for at least a half an hour now. She's thinking. Eewyn does that quite a bit, and normally I'm all for it. But I am sick and tired of her sitting there and not telling me why.

"I have a feeling," she murmurs.

"A feeling about what?" I sigh, plopping down next to her.

"I…don't know, exactly. That's what I'm trying to figure out. I just need to pin it down, then we can go," Eewyn says dreamily.

"So we're sitting her so you can oblige a feeling that you don't even know-"

"Yes," she interrupts. "I don't like making decisions, Evita. Especially snap decisions. Being hasty is more trouble than it's worth and I don't like it. I'd prefer not to do anything, for as long as possible."

"Jeeze!" I grumble, "Why?"

"Because…I just don't." She says, eyes closed. "Don't you ever suffer from indecision?"

"No. I'd rather get things done. Sitting around won't do that."

Eewyn smiles. "We're so different. We're a good pair."

"Dunno about that."

"Let's go." Eewyn says abruptly.

I blink. "Um, what?"

"Yeah. We need to move," Eewyn says, no longer with an absent, thoughtful look. Now she's slammed down her mental walls and her brow is furrowed. She seems anxious. Apparently her "feeling" is not a good one.

"How do you know exactly?" I say skeptically.

"I just think we need to get moving."

"Accomplishing…?" I trail off the word, telling her to fill in the blanks.

"Something. That's my feeling. We need to go accomplish something. Now move your butt."

Good old sarcastic Eewyn is back with a vengeance. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. As obnoxious as it gets, sarcastic is what she is.

"Get down!" She hisses, dropping to her knees below the line of the tall grass.

"Wha-" I begin, and she wraps a hand across my mouth and yanks me down next to her. I bite her finger and she pulls her hand back.

"Jeeze, Evita!" She hisses. "Weren't you ever house trained?"

I glare at her. "What's up, Eewyn? Why are you freaking out this time?"

"I finally got a good look at your face," she drawls. "No, actually, I heard something." Before I need to ask her what she means, I hear it too. It's a soft rumbling sound. Rumbles are bad. Rumbles mean a lot of power. Probably more power than I have to fight back with. I hate rumbles.

"What is that?" I hiss, drawing my knife.

"I don't know. Yet," she answers, brown eyes flicking across the horizon. We sit in suspense as the noise quickly grows louder. We zero in on it; it's coming from behind us. We turn to face it. As it crests the hill, it's a huge group of some sort of big animal. And they're charging us.

Nobody shouts, "Run!". It's unnecessary. It would take an idiot bigger than that Roe girl not to run from them. Well, maybe not bigger. But at least as stupid as Roe.

We don't run for too long until we see another figure, running from another herd. Straight at us. Eewyn and I try to change direction, but the herd picks up speed at the edges, forcing us to run forward. They're herding us, I realize with horror. The animals are big, with four legs ending with hooves. Their tails are long, and overgrown crests of hair grow along their curved necks. Their faces are long, with big eyes set on either side of their heads. Their mouths hold shark-like teeth, which don't quite seem to fit in their mouths right, so I figure these must be mutts.

I swear. We're only a few seconds away from the other kid, a boy, and his herd. There's no escaping this.

But it turns out we don't need to.

The animals abruptly fan out, forming a perfectly even circle around the three of us. I look around in confusion. They aren't attacking us. They're just watching.

"What- what are those things? What's going on?" I splutter.

"What are they?" Eewyn echoes incredulously, "You don't know what horses are?"

"Unless it swims, chances are I don't know what it is. District 4, remember?" I snap.

"Well…they're horses. People ride on them a lot, or at least they used to. And they're not supposed to have teeth like those." She gulps.

I turn to the boy. "Who are you?" I growl.

"I-Indigo Resham. District 6." He says, eyes wide. He looks shocked. Good. It makes him more vulnerable.

"Eewyn Carre, District 2. And Evita Cormichael, District 4." Eewyn supplies, jerking her head toward me when she gives Indigo my name. There's silence for a moment. The "horses" watch us, blinking and swishing their tails. They're waiting for something, I can tell. What they're waiting for is the real question. Whatever it is, I can guarantee it's not going to have a pretty end.

"I bet the Gamemakers are controlling them." Eewyn says slowly. "I'm pretty sure horses don't usually do this. And Cyril Debrown said the Gamemakers are here to keep things from slowing down when the violence stops. So…they must want some violence." Her eyes slide to Indigo, and mine follow. He freezes.

"Can you handle it, Evita?" She asks calmly.

"Yeah," I growl, pulling out my knife, "I can handle it."

He looks pretty scared. He should be. This is why we're here: to fight and to die. Last time Eewyn stopped me, and the boy died just the same. This time she's told me to do the honors. It's not pleasant; it's not fun. But I am willing to do this if it means the Gamemakers let me live. If they require a death, I'm going to make sure it's anyone's but mine.

I flip my knife into my left hand. I've always been irrationally proud of the fact that I'm left-handed. I tend to blend in, just another teenage girl with an attitude problem and mild anger-management issues, so anything special I've always been proud of. I guess it's really not such a huge deal, but I love feeling like I'm some sort of curiosity. Maybe coming from a family with five other children, me third, has conditioned me to appreciate any type of attention. My parents were overworked and our house was overpopulated. It was always a fight between wanting to be noticed, and wanting to just be alone for one second of your life. But this is all off topic. All that matters right now is me, Indigo, and the knife in my hand.

I step forward slowly, the sun glinting off my knife. Indigo takes a step back. And another. And another. He takes one too many back, and one of the horses bumps his head into his back, pushing him back towards me. So that's their job. They wanted us to fight.

I lunge at him and he dodges. He's quick, but unarmed. He can only dodge for so long.

For a short few moments we do our little dance. He would have had better luck if we hadn't been locked in such close quarters by the horses. As it was, he couldn't have evaded me for more than fifteen seconds. And then I land my first cut. I slice open his shoulder. Grotesquely, he smiles. It's kind of scary. I slash across his chest and into his stomach. Blood spatters onto me, and onto him, but his smile is frozen on his face. I stab into his forehead, and his blood dribbles into his smiling mouth, diluting watery pink and red over his teeth. I stare at his corpse for a moment, entranced by the disgusting mix of death and the happy look on his face. I hardly notice the horses turn and leave, silently.

"Let's go," Eewyn says calmly. So we do.

Roe Tamden, District 8

Caspian like the spear a lot. He caught some sorta animal and I cried cause it cute. But it was yummy. Yeah.

I miss mom. She was pretty mad when I left so I hope she's okay now. She might be mad at Caspian to, 'cause he's a meanie but I'm not mad so um…I really like butter. Butter's yummy. Butter more yummy than the little animal, I think. Ever since I was a kid, I eat butter just oo it's own. I don't know why. Yeah. But it's good.

The stream is big. I like to swim, ever since I was a kid. I'm just one of those people likes to swim. So I go down to the river where it's muddy and jump in. I think Caspian he's calling me to come back up but I don't wanna so I keep swimming 'cause I don't need to breathe yet and yeah. Maybe Caspian don't know how to swim. I want to show him how to swim. So I go back up and tell Caspian to come swim because it's fun. Umm…

He learns how to swim real good and he's a good swimmer and he learns quick. So I show him how he swims under the top of the water 'cause that's more fun. I like the summer. It's quiet under the water.

I got a lot speedier than Caspian and it's fun. But then something it gets my ankle and I can't swim away and I scream and all I get is water. Umm…yeah. This is bad. Uh…

Surviving Contestants:

District 1: Wesley Sawr (Wez-lee Sahr)

Baylyn Homer (Bay-lin Ho-mur)

District 2: Hary Lumer (Hawr-ee Loo-mur)

Eewyn Carre (Yew-in Cuh-ray)

District 3: Nolaf Killt (No-lof Kilt)

Eviu Navers (Ee-vee-you Na-vurs)

District 4: Mattrick Brint (Ma-trick Brihnt)

Evita Cormichael (Eh-vee-tuh Core-michael)

District 5: Adrian Martinez (Ay-dree-un Mar-tee-nez)

District 6: Winona Sweet (Wih-no-nuh Sweet)

District 7: Kiteriin Fromet (Kit-er-een Fro-met)

District 8: Caspian Toushone (Cas-pee-in Too-shown)

Roe Tamden (Row Tam-dan)

District 9: none

District 10: Reno Serman (Ree-no Ser-mahn)

District 11: Dewq Deffen (Duke Def-in)

Berra Timsing (Bare-uh Tim-zing)

District 12: none