In a crooked little town, they were lost and never found
Fallen leaves, fallen leaves, fallen leaves on the ground
Run away before you drown, or the streets will beat you down
Fallen leaves, fallen leaves, fallen leaves on the ground
Athena Roddrick, 17, District Two
Nobody had wanted to sleep last night. Not after that boy attacked us and killed Zircon.
Everyone is on edge, some not as obviously, such as Channing and Gem, but some are even noticeably shaking like Marina.
I needed them to be weak so that they would never feel like they don't need me. But I never wanted them to be scared of anything except me. The Hunger Games entails going through hell to get out, but I think this is only starting to sink in for most of these tributes. The only thing I can do is keep us going and hopefully keep as much of our Pack together as I can without any more surprise deaths or attacks. I think if we get another than I might have to leave the Careers early this year. I can't have anyone dragging me down.
"Wake up," I say shortly and everyone whips their head around to face my direction. I note the slightly alarmed expressions that take up most of their faces and it's enough to make me want to scream. We volunteered for this! They had to have known it was going to be hard, that's why it is such an honor to win. Because only one can.
We gather our supplies in silence, and for once I miss Zircon's flirting phrases. At least they would fill the silence that seems to be hulking over our entire group like a storm cloud. A few minutes later we set of across another rope bridge that seems to stretch for miles. The bridge sways under our weight and I tell everyone to spread out so that we are each about ten feet away from each other. Even though the Careers tend to be the Capitol's favourites, I don't trust the Gamemakers to not decide on cutting the bridge for us. Dying is not a risk I am willing to take.
"Hey!" Fin yells excitedly from his place about thirty feet behind me. "Look over there!"
I follow his bouncing hand that is pointing out to my left side. On a platform at least a hundred feet away I can just make out a trio of girls sitting to the side of the brown shape. One of the girl's is easier to spot than the others, it's impossible to miss the bright red hair of the District Three girl, even from this distance. The other two I do not notice but they both look faintly similar because of the dark shade of their hair.
Fin lifts one of his spears up from his side and takes aim at the girls who have yet to notice us watching them. Marina shoots him a glare but he waves her off and releases the spear from his hands with a smooth motion. The spear glides through the air but I can already tell it does not have enough power to make it to the girls. Sure enough it drops when it gets about three-quarters of the way to them and then disappears into the bubbling red liquid on the forest floor.
The girls notice us now and they hurry to gather their meager amount of supplies into the two backpacks they appear to have gotten from the Cornucopia. Marina releases one of her many throwing knives towards the platform but it too falls short and disappears into the red liquid. Marina curses under her breath and stomps her foot, causing the bridge to sway further and earning an intense glare from Gem and I.
The three girls run off into the surrounding foliage and the last thing I see is the District Three redhead holding up her hand to us as her bright hair disappears from view. I think she just gave us the finger.
Lacey Thim, 16, District Eight
My ponytail catches on a branch and I am flung backwards into Buttercup who hits the ground with a loud thud. Sparks runs into her and just barely catches herself in time to not trip over her and land face-first on the wooden platform. I stand there staring down at Buttercup, my chest rising and falling in quick bursts.
That had been close, far too close for any of us to handle. We had thought ourselves lucky, none of us had seen even a small glimpse of a tribute since the Bloodbath. We'd even started to relax a bit; assuming that everyone else must be on the other side of the arena and that we were safe as can be.
You're never safe in the Hunger Games, we should have realized this.
I close my eyes and think of the last time I had ever felt safe. It hadn't been on Reaping Day, that is for certain. I think it was a few nights before that actually, when my boyfriend Riley came to my shack after work to stay with me. I never liked being by myself, and though I never told him that, I think he sensed it. He would sit there for hours and hold me in his willowy arms, like he wanted to be nowhere else than here with me. Whenever he was around I didn't have to be worried about someone breaking into my house, all I would think about was his warm breath on my neck.
I have never had to take tesserae because I have a fairly well-paying job as a seamstress. I never had enough to eat but it was better, so much better than when I lived at home. It was only this year that I had managed to get up the courage to leave my wealthy parents, the same wealthy parents that never let me out from under their perfect thumbs. I may not be as well off without them to support me but I am much happier now. Or I was at least, before all this happened.
Living on my own I learned to take care of myself, but now I have two other people to look out for. Sparks who seems to have changed a lot from the shy, quirky girl I met in training. It seems as if the Games have already made her harder and more motivated, even though it has been less than two days since they started. I'm not sure what is going on with her, it's as if in coming to the arena she has undergone a complete personality transition that was certainly not gradual. It's as if she is an entirely different person.
Buttercup is the one whom I must actually look out for, she doesn't appear to be taking the entire atmosphere of this place in very easily, not that I can blame her in the least. She isn't prepared for this, none of us are. But it seems to have hit home with her more so than with me or Sparks, especially for the fact that Aras is not longer part of our group. I hadn't really had time to dwell on the fact of her death, it seemed surreal to me that she is really dead. I have to keep reminding myself that she really does exist, or did.
I help Buttercup up and Sparks rolls her eyes as Buttercup stops to dust off her dark grey pants that cut off just below the knee for some reason. I assume that this arena won't get very cold, the Capitol wouldn't enjoy watching us all freeze to death. I think they appreciate the deaths to be a bit more... red.
Sparks starts to move ahead of us and I let her, it's not as if I had any idea where we were supposed to be going. Buttercup lines up after her and I take up the rear. Within a few minutes Sparks stops and Buttercup runs into her back, earning herself another narrow-eyed glare. Buttercup grins sheepishly and takes a few steps back, slamming her back into my chest. She turns around with a terrified look in her eyes and I shake my head, a warm smile on my face. Her expression calms and I turn her around by her shoulders to face Sparks who is already a quarter of the way across a thin brown rope that extends over the red pool that is at least a hundred metres below us.
Buttercup stares back at me with a new look of fright taking over her lightly tanned face. I nod in what I hope to be an encouraging way and she turns her head back to face Sparks who is moving quickly along the rope, arms extended above her to grasp another piece of brown. Buttercup takes a few steps forward and takes hold of the higher rope in one of her hands. She looks back at me once more before inching out onto the thin, unsteady line. Her feet shuffle forward, inch by inch, Buttercup's entire body as stiff as a board. She trips a bit but regains her balance quickly.
When she has gotten about ten feet out, I grab hold of the rope, careful not to swing it in anyway so to make my allies uncomfortable. My feet shuffle along just as Buttercup's are and I hold my breath as I begin to move further and further away from the side of the platform. I maintain my eyes' focus on the rope above me until a sharp pull on the upper rope nearly sends me falling into the red pool below. I look ahead and see Buttercup holding on stiffly to the upper rope, her knuckles white as she tries to keep a grip. Both her feet dangle beneath her, unable to catch on the rope that hangs just a foot or two above her ankles.
Her screeches hurt my ears but I am unable to remove my hands so to cover my ears. I move forward at a far faster pace, hurrying to reach my ally before her grip gives out. Sobs shake her body and she keeps her eyes closed tightly, oblivious to my presence even when I am standing directly beside her. I lean down carefully but I cannot reach the lower rope. Shivers rock my knees but I allow myself to let go, holding myself up now only by the lower rope. I whisper to Buttercup to stay still and her sobs turn to whimpers, torturing my ears and reminding me that I may not be able to save either of us now.
"Lift one of your feet up," I instruct her in a soothing voice and she does. I remove one of my hands from the rope to guide her foot up onto it and the other slowly follows. Her body still shakes but she begins to shuffle forward once again.
I use her shoulder as a grip, letting my knees straighten until I can once again reach the line above my head. We move ahead in silence, meeting an impatient Sparks on the other side.
Echo Osuushi, 16, District Seven
"We have to keep moving," I insist and steady myself onto the wooden boards of the platform that feel so solid and comforting beneath my shaking legs. I don't understand this arena, I don't think any of us do. It's a forest but it's also so much more than that, this is nothing like the usual terrain. It is located solely within the trees instead of beneath it, with intricate and complicated pathways to bring us from platform to platform. I could never tell where we were or even if we had been in a spot before, everything looked nearly identical. The shape and coloring of the platforms remained uniform, the leaves of each tree looked no different than the leaves of another. This was so much different than the arenas I remember watching on the screens in District Seven.
The only good thing is that I would wager the Career tributes are just as confused as the rest of us, this arena gives them no secure location with which to keep the upper hand over the rest of us. If we can just keep going through this never-ending maze, there is a miniscule probability that we will be found by anything which is something I hope to avoid for as long as possible.
After only a couple steps on the smooth, solid wood, I am faced with another rope-made obstacle. This one is a lengthy ladder created from a row of wooden planks, each separated by about half a foot of rope. The bridge sways in the wind and I consider leading my alliance in another direction, though when I look around I see that the only other way to get off this platform would be to go back the way we came.
When finally Dustin pulls himself onto the platform behind Chryssa and Barley, I motion to the unsteady bridge with one hand. I can tell by the tense expressions on their faces that they hate this idea as much as I do, but I have to show them that they were right to follow me. If I begin leading them backwards instead of forwards than maybe they will decide they don't need me anymore. I have never been particularly close to any of the three of them, I could be killed in my sleep and not even missed.
No one makes a move towards the bridge so I decide to go first once again, I step lightly onto the first rung to test its stability. Sure enough the bridge moves along with my weight, dancing in the air above the blood-like liquid that coats the bottom of the entire arena. I place my other foot on the bridge in front of the first and the bridge steadies slightly, I begin to move forward ever so slowly until a flinch in the rope slams my knees down onto the boards.
When I look behind me I see Barley following cautiously behind me, deciding that it would be better to do so I begin to clamber over the bridge on my hands and knees. I move noticeable quicker and feel much more stable. By the time I am halfway over the bridge, all my fellow allies are crawling across on their hands and knees, mimicking my movements exactly.
A shriek from behind me nearly sends me flying over the edge of a plank but I catch myself in enough time. I whip my head around to look behind me and see that Chryssa is shrieking hysterically and pointing behind me, all while trying to maintain her balance on the bridge. I finally focus my eyes away from Chryssa to see a single pair of hands reaching up from below the bridge. A lump forms in my throat when I realize who it is. Chryssa is trying desperately to reach out to them, but her own balance is failing and she looks as though she might be the next to go over.
"Chryssa!" I screech and she turns to stare straight at me with wide, panicked eyes. "Leave him! You'll get yourself killed too!"
She draws back immediately, steadying herself for long enough that Barley can reach over and pull her away from the edge of the planks. He reaches down to Dustin but their hands cannot touch, Dustin struggles to keep his grip but when he readjusts his hands he ends up losing one. His fair eyes travel between all of us, frozen in fear and paralyzed for our ally. He gives one last, warm smile and, his eyes kind and forgiving, before he releases the only thing keeping him alive. Chryssa screams out once again but I don't move my eyes away from Dustin's body as he falls closer and closer to the red pool.
An inaudible splash and then he is gone from view. All three of us stare down at the ground, secretly hoping to see him resurface, hoping to see his warm eyes peer up at us and invite us down for a swim. But he doesn't resurface and even after a cannon blast echoes through the arena we remain frozen in place, no one finding the strength to move away. The only noise present being the quick, raspy sobs as Chryssa buries her face in Barley's shirt.
Buttercup Rhodes, 17, District Nine
The sky goes dark unnaturally fast here, it's as if someone just throws a blanket over the entire arena and all light is taken from us. My nails dig into the thin fabric that surrounds Lacey's wrist and she flinches under my grip. I try to move my hand away but I can't help myself from reaching out to her, to something familiar that I know rests in the bleak darkness of the arena. She rests a warm hand on my shoulder and I feel almost instantly safe, well not safe exactly. But far more at peace.
My body tenses and my fingernails dig even deeper into Lacey's wrist when a scream from in front of me cuts through the silent darkness like a sharp knife. Lacey shoves me to the ground where I land with a soft thud, my right shoulder starts to ache with pain but I only register the feeling for roughly half a second until the light hits my eyes. I duck my head and try to get away from the pale blue light that seems to surround everything. I hear Sparks shrieking over and over, the noise bombarding my head with sharp pains. The light dulls slightly as Sparks turns away from us and I see an almost identical blue light some thirty feet away from where we are.
The pitch of her screams grow beyond what I thought to be humanly possible before they stop altogether. The pounding of her feet on the platform seems like a soft whisper to me as Sparks dashes after the other light source, her own lantern allowing us to see everything that lies ahead of her. Lacey helps me up and we take off after our ally, though she seems to get further and further away as we continue our chase.
The other light is soon joined by two more that become visible to me from between the tree branches. These two are much closer together and they nearly blend into each other to create a single, poignant blue light that is far darker than the one radiating off of Spark's chest. I can't tell for sure but I think they are heading in the same direction, towards the other pale blue light.
The second pale light continues to run further and further away until both the lights disappear, leaving only the two darker lights for Lacey and I to follow. We reach them soon enough and see that the whole of our surroundings are lit up as well. Every leaf on every tree is illuminated in a haunting dark blue and the dirt streaked faces come into better focus as I catch my breath. A girl with midnight black hair and ghostly pale skin stands to the side of the rest of the group, a sickly smile plastered into her delicate features.
That's when I notice who she is, the girl with black hair is the same one who I saw holding Aras at the Bloodbath. The same girl who took the life of my young ally, a girl with so much to live for and so much to lose. My body begins to shake with anger but I find myself unable to move. Lacey puts a hand on my shoulder but this time it feels as cold as ice. Everyone seems to just stand there, staring at one another for what feels like several minutes. My feet feel like they are frozen to the wooden planks, not allowing me to so much as wiggle my toes inside my thin sneakers.
Then I see it. A small flash of metal that glints in the blue light, flashing in the corner of my eye. With a flick of the black haired girl's thin wrist the silver is sent flying towards Sparks who has not yet even seen the small piece of metal.
The screams are gut-wrenching, enough to make me cover my ears and fall to my knees. The small blade, no longer than my index finger, is lodged up to the black handle in my ally's throat. Red paint drips down from her neck and her hands claw at the skin, trying desperately trying to dislodge the weapon that has already begun to draw the life out of her. She drops to her knees and her red hair gathers around her face, mixing with the crimson color that gushes freely from her throat. The shrieks stop all at once as she falls to one side, her hands dropping to the ground, her fingers tipped with dripping blood. A cannon sounds and sobs begin to make their way out of my throat, no longer paralyzed by the fear that overtook me. Another one of my allies is gone, and I didn't even try to help either of them.
Lacey screams suddenly and everyone turns to look at her. She charges forward at the raven haired girl whose expression remains calm, a short knife drawn in Lacey's tightly gripped fist. Lacey's face is a wild mask of rage as she runs forward to meet the girl who stands unmoving beside the trunk of a tree, her eyes holding Lacey's calmly. My ally positions her knife in front of her as she runs and as she gets within three feet of the girl, she moves. The small Career girl grabs hold of the shoulders of a much taller girl, pulling her in front of her and straight into the path of Lacey's knife.
The knife drives into the girl's stomach and rips messily through her right side, leaving a jagged line of skin and fabric in its wake. Blood begins to coat the girl's shirt and her face twists into a creature made ugly by pain, her body quakes but there is no sound coming from her lips. Drips of blood slide down from her mouth and splash silently on the wood like bloody, red tears.
Gem's hands drop the girl to the ground, pulling the knife out of the dying girl's body and wiping it carelessly on Lacey's shoulder. A cannon sounds but none of us take notice, all our eyes moving from between the corpse of the girl on the ground and the almost inevitable fight that lay in front of us. Lacey glares at the girl but the black haired tribute seems almost calm, throwing away the knife which lands with a metallic clink on the planks.
The arena begins to dim around us, as the dark blue light fades leaving us in complete darkness. I feel a hand on my shoulder and almost scream out before I am hauled to my feet and lead away by my arm. Lacey walks hurriedly away from the faded outline of the other tributes, making a point to be as quiet as possible.
Channing Keynes, 18, District Twelve
I notice two dim outlines making their way across the platform and I immediately know that it must be the allies of the redheaded girl that Gem had just killed. I remember the panicked look on the girl's pale face as the blood gushed from her neck and it makes me shiver. The worst kinds of deaths are the ones that take a while to claim a victim.
I squint my eyes but I cannot see even the fainted glimpse of Marina's corpse, Marina who had been unlucky enough to have been standing next to Gem when she had been attacked. Marina who was no more than a human shield. A dead, bloody shield.
"Why did my light die? I can't see anything!" Fin yells in frustration, his voice revealing the emotions he must be feeling at losing yet another seemingly easy kill.
"Because Marina's dead," Gem explains calmly, as if all of this must be common knowledge to everyone.
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?" Fin yells again, this time further away from me as he moves towards Gem's voice. Almost as if she was a beacon of knowledge ready to enlighten him on everything related to the Hunger Games. As if she wasn't just as clueless as the rest of us on how the minds of the Gamemakers work.
"They are connected to your district partners, that is why your pendants were different than mine and Zircon's, and ours were different from Athena's," she continues, her voice steady but with an undertone of worry beneath it. "None of our lights will shine again, because our partners are dead now."
"Well if they were connected than why didn't they always glow," Fin spits but his voice has lost the frustration, now sounding almost tired and aged. "Or do you have some kind of explanation for that too, Gem?"
"They only glow when the Gamemakers want then too, they aren't targeting us. They want us to target the others."
Everyone stops talking after that, no one having the slightest idea of how to respond to what Gem had just said. Athena lights one of the flashlights, only now realizing that we had been standing in total darkness. We all decide without a word that we should start moving away from the corpses, and when we have travelled across a rope bridge I hear the telltale sign of a hovercraft nearby. The bridge sways in the wind but none of us stumble as we continue to float across it, silence overtaking the group. All of lost in our own thoughts.
Two people I know died in the Games last year, both of them being the tributes for District Twelve. I remember seeing them in the Capitol, made up and morphed into these so called perfect images of themselves. I remember the days and nights I spent sitting on the floor of my family's small home, my eyes never leaving the screen. Hoping to see a glimpse of them, hoping for a single vision that would show me they were alright.
I remember the day the news crew came, cameras flooding my desolate yard as I was sat down and asked countless questions about the two tributes. I pleaded with the people of the Capitol to send them sponsor gifts, to keep them both alive for as long as they would. To make sure that at least one of them came home to me, as I knew that both of them could not.
That night I sat myself in front of the fuzzy television to watch the Games, my stomach grumbling but my legs refusing to bring me to the kitchen to find something for dinner. I saw everything that had happened in that goddamn arena, saw the two people I cared most about killed. My girlfriend Lili. killed in her sleep, her throat slit by her supposed allies. My best friend Leon woke up before they could get to him, his screams echoed in my ears for several seconds before they finally ended his life with a knife through his ear, pushing down into his brain and killing him. The people that they had trusted with their lives, who were supposed to stick with them until the very end. The tributes from ten who never even blinked an eye before ending their lives.
That was my goal since the moment I was Reaped, to get revenge on the traitors that come from District Ten. To make them pay for the lives their tributes took. To make them suffer for leaving me without the only two people I had ever cared about. There was no mercy for Lili or Leon, so why should they get any from me. The girl was already dead, I had been lucky enough to catch her as she was trying to escape the Bloodbath. The boy was still in here somewhere. But I would find him, I would find him.
We stop and make ourselves comfortable on a fairly large platform. I lean myself against a tree and prepare for first watch which had been designated to Marina and I that morning, but with the turn of events it seemed I would be staying up alone. The sky is filled with a glowing blue as the Capitol seal comes into view amongst the tree branches and the anthem is played through the night air. Three cannon sounds had been heard today, and the first two images match the visions of the corpses that stick in my head from earlier. The redhead girl from Three and Marina.
I begin to search through my pack for some sort of food when the last image catches in the corner of my eye. I bring my head right around until the fleeting image can be seen entirely. I was right, it's the boy from Ten, the same boy I had set my sights on since day one. He was dead and I was not the killer. I was not there to condemn him and see the pain on his face that I remember seeing on Leon's. A mixture of anger and frustration causes my body to shake but the feeling is cut short when I notice something standing off to the side of the tree line. A smooth, black figure looking upon our group.
Dustin Shores, District Ten
Sparks Jadestone, District Three
Marina Crest, District Four
The artist theme for this story will be Billy Talent
Song: Fallen Leaves
The blog for this story can be found on my profile, deaths will be notified here.
I am terribly sorry to the creators that have lost their tributes, I do hope that you will stick around to see the progression of the story. If not then that is okay too and I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Characters were killed based on points, personality, and of course whether or not their creator reviewed. Hopefully no hard feelings if your character is gone.
I cannot believe how quickly this story has progressed. If you can believe it we are already down to our final ten tributes! Please review and tell me how you like this story thus far and also who your ideal final five would be, and who or what you think the black figure watching the Careers could be!