I do not own the Hunger Games. The tributes belong to their respective submitters.

Charne Valle, District Zero

Charne leaned against the pile of furniture, despite knowing that her added weight would make no difference. The barricade would hold, hopefully, but she and Dabria were prepared to attack anything that came through the door. They'd found more than enough stuff in the cafeteria's kitchen to block the doorways, but if all of the other tributes had managed to lock themselves inside of the jail cells, she and Dabria were probably the easiest pickings. Hopefully someone else had worse luck than they did.

The barking was getting closer.

They'd been holed up in the kitchen for a little longer than Charne had wanted, but it had fresh water and enough canned food to last a few days. She'd been worried that other tributes would come looking for supplies, and maybe fight them for it, but no one had found them. For now, fear overruled hunger. But how much longer would that last?

Assuming they lived long enough to find out.

Something thumped against the other side of the door, and the barricade shifted slightly, all of the different pieces settling into place. Nothing teetered, nothing tipped. It would hold for now.

"Charne, get out of the way."

Dabria pointed her crossbow at the doorway, ready to shoot anything that dared to enter. Pressing her lips together, Charne backed off, footfalls robotic and graceless. She hated when Dabria pointed weapons at her, even if it was really at something behind her. The danger was there regardless.

"Think they'll get through?"

"They would eventually." Dabria tightened her grip around the bow. "But some other idiot will die before that happens."

Of course. It wasn't nearly so fun to watch muttations kill tributes as it was to watch tributes kill each other. Corruption of innocence and all that. Kids killing kids. Once they got a single kill, the mutts would probably back off.

Charne wondered if her parents had even bothered to watch the game. Her father probably had, since he actually cared. Maybe he even cried a bit. But her mother? Charne couldn't know. They'd never been very close. It was one of those things that Charne had ignored, pretending it didn't bother her, and it probably hadn't until she'd been reaped. She'd always assumed that there would be time to build a relationship in some far off and distant future.

Lo and behold, there was no time at all.

Did her friends miss her? Probably. But they wouldn't miss Charne the human being. They would miss Charne the gossip, Charne the fashionista, Charne the beautiful rich bitch who dominated every room she entered. And even if she won, would any of those Charnes make it back to District Zero? Or would her friends keep missing her, even long after she returned? She probably wouldn't win, anyways. Just a waste of energy.

More thumping against the door, harder this time. Louder, too.

"How can you be so sure?" Charne asked.

"Because I'm right."

Charne frowned, pulling a throwing knife from her pack. There was such a thing as being dead right. Still, she remained quiet. No point in arguing, because Dabria would never change her mind.

Darian Kesslar, District Seven

All around them, just around the next corner, dogs howled and boots clacked against the frozen concrete. Darian clamped his hands tighter around the backpack's straps and pushed his legs to carry him a little further, a little faster. Couldn't die here.

Adara skidded to a stop and waved him into a branching hallway. He followed, though he knew they wouldn't find safety. All of the prison cells were locked tight, and would remain as such until the gamemakers got their body.

They needed to find Emery. Since Ace's death, they hadn't heard any other cannon shots, which meant that Emery was still alive somewhere, but he might not stay that way for much longer. Time was of the essence. They just needed to survive long enough to help him.

Darian knew that he was responsible for what had happened. Sure, Emery had designed the door trap, but Darian had pushed the button without knowing Ace's true intentions, and he was the one who had killed Adara's district partner. She hadn't brought it up with him yet, but he suspected that she resented him for what he'd done, and would have resented him even if he'd been completely justified. Which he hadn't been.

Yeah, he'd fucked up. Maybe fatally.

He was so involved in his own thoughts that he almost ran into Adara where she'd stopped at the end of the hall. Before he could bitch at her, she whipped around and clamped her hand over his mouth.

Running boots sounded in the next hallway, alongside busy snuffling and a low, terrible growl that set his hair on end. Behind them, another pair of muttations - a canine monster and a decidedly inhuman guard - surged down the hallway, apparently having spotted them or followed their scent. Either way, Darian and Adara were stuck. Only one way out, and it involved violence.

Darian pulled out his knife, ignoring the tremor in his hand, and slashed at the closest muttation. His lungs weren't cooperating and his heart was beating so fast that it hurt, but he maintained the razor-thin focus of adrenaline fear and landed a deep cut along one of the guard's forearms. It didn't acknowledge the injury, but retaliated by smashing its baton against the side of Darian's head.

The world went gray and quiet as he stumbled against the wall. Adara screamed at him, but as soon as her words reached his ears, they jumbled together into a nonsensical mess. Blood ran into his eyes, obscuring his vision.

As he blinked away the blood and the black stars swarming at the edges of his vision, one of the mutt hounds clamped onto his leg and started shaking him like a new toy. The fresh onslaught of pain snapped the world back into oversaturated color and overwhelming sound.

Adara was screaming again, but this time it was different, desperate and full of life-ending pain. He spared her a glance, and watched as one of the batons swung down and cracked against her skull, though she kept screaming.

He stabbed the dog that clung to his leg, but the blade glanced off of its skull and didn't seem to do much damage. It shook its head again and a wave of searing red ran up the left side of Darian's body. Sucking in a breath, Darian steeled himself against the fear, then pulled himself toward the creature's snarling mouth, close enough to bury the knife in the side of its neck. With an earsplitting screech, the dog-thing released him and leapt away, swinging its head and splashing blood everywhere.

Rolling away, Darian saw the other two guards and the remaining dog circled around Adara. She was still screaming. He could do nothing as the dog leapt forward and clamped its jaws around her neck, tearing everything out in one brutal snap of its head. She stopped screaming, and the cannon shot followed close behind.

He couldn't save her, but despite his ragged leg and likely concussion, Darian could still save himself. In a twisted way, Adara had probably saved him, because her death would hopefully distract the muttations long enough for him to escape. Better yet, maybe they were only meant to kill one tribute at a time and she'd fulfilled their quota. Either way, he had to take the chance.

Without looking back, he pushed himself to his feet and started running. It didn't matter where, it didn't matter how, so long as he ended up somewhere else. The adrenaline kept him from limping too much, though that would wear off soon, and he had to get as far away as possible before that happened. He'd lost both allies in the span of a day. One was dead, but the other had a chance of recovery, which meant that maybe Darian didn't have to be alone.

He had to find Emery.

Polly Brady, District Three

Tullus dragged the scalpel across exposed flesh, and the boy on the gurney screamed. Polly tried to cover her ears, but the noise got through anyways. There was no escaping it. Her ally was killing her district partner, and she had neither the courage nor the strength to stop it.

Some kind of human being she was.

Emery let out another ragged gasp, half-muffled by the cord of cloth forced between his teeth and knotted around the back of his head. Tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, and when he set his gaze upon her, she saw his plea for release. Begging. Dying. How could she just stand by and let it happen? A fellow kid from Three, with whom she'd spend three and a half days prior to the Game?

The blade dug into the crook of Emery's elbow, just deep enough to hit the nerves but not so deep as to sever any major blood vessels, and he let out a low, braying moan.

Why won't you do something?

Apparently, Niko was asking himself the same thing.

"Tullus," said the boy from Thirteen, "this has to stop."

The scalpel paused at Emery's wrist. Tullus looked up. "Oh? Are you in charge now?"

"No, but neither are you. We agreed to make decisions together. As a team."

"Maybe, as a team, we should respect each others' space," Tullus said, voice dangerously low, "and let each other do what they need to do."

The atmosphere was making Polly sick. She could feel their resentment and their hatred, maybe because she felt it herself. But the fear that she and Niko shared didn't seem apparent in Tullus at all. Underneath it all, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself.

"I mean, I respected you when we first met, because you seemed smart. Levelheaded. I thought you knew how to lead, and how to win, and that you could make the right choices. Smart choices. But this?" He pointed at the bleeding boy, and his voice climbed a few hysterical notes. "This is wrong. You're enjoying it. Killing him in the slowest way possible, and enjoying every second of it."

Tullus cocked his head to the side and the corners of his mouth twisted with an unsettling frown. "And?"

Niko's mouth hung open as he struggled to find words. "And it's sick! There's a difference between revenge and torture!"

Something hardened in Tullus's expression. He set the scalpel down and gripped the gurney with unnecessary force, then glared back up at Niko, like a wolf guarding downed prey. Without a word, he slipped around the stretcher and charged, eyes dark and fists clenched. Niko backed away and held his hands up in self-defense, but there wasn't much he could do to stop the charging wall of unhinged fury.

"Tullus, no!" Polly ran forward to stop him, but it was too late.

Niko landed a solid punch on Tullus's jaw, but it did little except piss him off. Slamming Niko against the wall, Tullus grappled against the struggling tribute and managed to wrap his hands around the boy's head. Yanking both of his arms in a counter-clockwise motion, he snapped Niko's neck and let the body fall to the floor. He twitched once, then fell still. Broken. Dead.

Polly tried to scream, but nothing came out. Niko's cannon seemed distant, almost as if she'd imagined it.

Tullus turned to Polly, and she noticed a thin splatter of blood running from the corner of his jaw to the top of his ear. Must've been Emery's. "Anything else?"

She ran. Even as Emery screamed for her to stay, she ran all the way to the end of the ward, where the latched doors protected them from whatever muttations lurked outside. In that moment, Polly Brady couldn't care less what was outside, because she knew that no matter what it was, it couldn't be worse than being trapped inside with Tullus Marl. She ran out into the hallway, failing to lock the door behind her, and she did not stop until Emery's screams faded to silence.

Ryder Corinthus, District Six

It took a long time for the howling to stop.

Ryder had draped one arm over her eyes in a fruitless attempt to get some shuteye. Even after the muttations quieted down, she couldn't force her mind to shut up. Three cannon shots had gone off between the bloodbath and the end of the mutt attack, and all evening she'd been wondering who the unlucky tributes were. Any one of them could have been Margery. She shuddered at the possibility. Strategically speaking, she hoped that all of the deaths belonged to people with high scores, like Medea or Enoch, but as a human being, she couldn't bring herself to wish death upon any of the tributes.

Sometime around midnight, the anthem cut through the icy air and the three faces were revealed. Ace Wilder, Adara Tassin, and Niko Sundita. None of them were Margery, and none were people that she even knew or particularly cared about, though Adara had gotten a good score, which meant one less high-risk to worry about. In any case, Ryder wished them well, wherever they were now.

Tristan sighed through his nose. "Tough day for Twelve."

"How many districts are out now?"

"Just four, I think."

In the moonlight, she thought that Tristan looked a little bedraggled on his cot, and Ryder figured that she couldn't look much better. They'd been trapped in the same cell since the muttation attack hours earlier. Though they'd been nominally safe, they'd lost any opportunity to forage or explore, and their water supply was running dangerously low. Plus, they both had need of a toilet, but were either too embarrassed or too considerate to use the corner.

Stupid gamemakers and their stupid tricks.

Ryder wondered how Magery was doing, and hoped that the girl from Seven was managing well enough on her own. She hadn't reacted to Benjamin's death very well, and wouldn't take well to being trapped alone for an extended period of time. They needed to get to her as soon as the cell doors opened.

"Hey Tristan, are you tired?"

He shook his head, hair rustling against the pillow. "No."

"Well," Ryder said, unable to sit still now that she knew she wouldn't fall asleep, "might as well do something productive until then." She sat up straight in bed and yawned. "Probably should make a plan for tomorrow, huh?"

Tristan grumbled something rude, but agreed nonetheless.

"So, who's left? Zero, the girl from One, Districts Two, Three, Four, us, Darian, and… some other people."

"Evelyn and Brand," Tristan supplied. "Don't forget about them. And Sinora. She's out there, too."

"Right. A lot of them are really strong, and literally all of the career district kids are left, so I think we should just avoid them for as long as possible." Crossing her legs, Ryder leaned back on the bed and pulled her hands over her knee. "Anything you want to contribute?"

Tristan gave her a deadpan stare. "That's it? That's your plan?"

"Well, we'd obviously have to find some food and water in the meantime. And probably a bathroom."

He maintained his glare for another moment or two, before his mouth broke into a grin and his shoulders shuddered with light laughter. He rolled over and clamped his hand over his mouth to keep his volume low. That made Ryder happy, even if he was laughing at her.

It took a few seconds for Tristan to calm down, but when he did, he said, without a trace of sarcasm, "Seems pretty solid."

Ryder smiled and spread her hands wide. "Something to be said for simplicity, huh?"

Owen Blackwood, District Four

Sometime around two in the morning, all of the cells unlocked with a metallic clang.

Owen awoke with a start and his hand immediately went for his machete. At the other end of the cell Enoch sat on a chair, hands wrapped around a metal pipe that he'd found in one of the maintenance rooms. Enoch rose from his seat and re-locked the cell from the inside, glancing at Owen with trepidation all the while.

Though the weapon offered a small comfort, Owen released it, and as he'd expected, Enoch relaxed by a fraction.

His allies had been treating him differently since his outburst that morning. Although, perhaps it hadn't been an outburst, so much as a reality check. Before the Game began, Enoch and Brand had each possessed their own idea of who Owen Blackwood was, and they'd expected him to act and react to certain situations in a certain way. When he failed to meet those expectations, they got scared, because not only could he pose a danger to them, but they also had no idea what to anticipate. They lost control when they couldn't plan for his behavior.

And so, they were choosing nice words and watching him closely, treating him like a glass sculpture. They though he was weak. Maybe they were right, but Owen chafed at the treatment nonetheless.

"Enoch, don't look at me like that."

In the low light, Enoch's hasty smile gave his face the cast of a porcelain stage mask. "Like what?"

"Cut the crap. I honestly don't care what you think about me, so long as you don't look at me like I'm a trapped dog." He furrowed his brow and the cut on his face stung in protest, but he ignored it. "We're a team. You could at least pretend to trust me."

Enoch's smile faltered and he looked away. "Fair enough."

"It's not that we don't trust you," Brand said, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. "We're just worried about you, and we're worried about ourselves, and we all want to last as long as we can. It's nothing against you personally."

Owen stared at her, and some of his irritation dissipated. Brand oftentimes claimed to know nothing about how to deal with people, but she could offer some pretty good insight when she felt like it.

"Yeah," he said, pulling his arms closer around himself. "I know."

"But maybe we've been a little hard on you." Enoch conceded, albeit begrudgingly. More kindly, he added, "It's not like the arena is a normal environment. I think we're all entitled to a freak out, just so long as you get over it." He nodded. "Which is seems you have."

Owen said nothing, but he nodded, too. If felt like he was over it. The precipice of despair had receded to a safe distance, and he would keep it there for as long as he possibly could.

For his sake and for theirs.

So we're down to 16 people, and only four of the original nine alliances are still intact, and for all of these lovely tributes, it's only going to go downhill from here. The blog has been updated with the deaths.

Anyways, thanks for reading and let me know what you think!