Three down... more to go. The bloodbath is still going strong. R&R!

Don't forget to vote on the new poll! :)

DISTRICT ONE MALE: ADRIAN RAIN

There are bodies on the ground now. I see Gray out there, but I also saw Alec hit him and I don't think he bashed his skull in or anything. I lean casually against the Cornucopia with my bow and watch for any tributes. The girls are all engaged in combat and I'm just here waiting for someone to blunder into my path. Looking for a fight can mean death. I want to get a kill, and an easy one. I want to prove those girls wrong.

I can see someone edging towards me from the back of the Cornucopia. The girl from Five, Delany Lavis, I think. She has a long dagger, which is serrated and crooked. It looks painful.

Wait. How did she get to our supplies? There's Alex, shoving the girl from Twelve onto the ground. Ah, yes- Gray's unconscious and possibly dead on the ground there. I'm the only one who has noticed her up here, and I swing around into her path.

"Where do you think you're going?" She skids to a halt, a silvery pack falling from her shoulders in the process. The stripes on her white arena outfit are a greenish-yellow. Chartreuse, maybe? I grin as she scrabbles for a handhold on the Cornucopia and tries to haul herself up on top to evade me. It doesn't work- I simply pull her off of the golden horn and throw her onto the ground. She narrows her eyes at me and grits her teeth like she's waiting for something. My arrow through her heart.

"Give me the weapon and the pack and I'll make your death a fast one." Delany shakes her head, but remains silent. "All right, I have time to spare." I was sort of expecting her to take the bait on that so I could decapitate her and look for others. I aim my bow. At close range like this, wherever I shoot, the arrow will go all the way through. Delany tenses up her shoulders like she's bracing herself and I roll my eyes. This is boring and I want to get back to the battle; I'll finish her quickly. My arrow settles in the groove, pointing right at her exposed throat.

It flies towards her but she's gone. She rolled to the side, using her tensed-up muscles to propel herself. She's smarter than I thought! The arrow clatters across the floor uselessly.

"Fine. I WILL do this the hard way," I say to myself through clenched teeth. I take aim again, but once more the girl has disappeared. She's running off into the crowd and I fire the arrow after her. She's only fifteen feet away, though, and I can hear the crack as it goes through her leg and breaks a bone. I smile grimly. She won't last long with an injury like that, but who knows? I might kill her again in a few days.

I turn back to the battle to find Tyman Gruiter, idiot-at-large, standing where I was a few minutes ago. Our eyes meet and he grins, a gesture full of cruelty. He's still totally serious and I can't look at him without being horrified. He's covered in blood. I'll have to remember that he tied my training score.

With one swift motion he holds up another tribute, a girl who's sputtering blood from the wound on her cheek that's oozing into her mouth. She's almost unconscious from blood loss. Tyman was crazy enough to capture her.

He holds up a spear in one hand and does a funny little bow in my direction. He wants me to see this.

And he stabs the girl through the throat. Her eyes, before half-closed, are now dead. She's gone.

What a sick animal! He killed the girl in front of me! And now… he has the nerve to toss her dead body at my feet like a pet cat showing a dead mouse to its owner. It's the girl from Three.

"Have you gotten a kill yet, District One?" he growls. I stare at him, not dignifying his question with a response. "No? Well, I have. How 'bout you Careers let me in? Have I proved my worth yet? I'm worth more than YOU!" I clench my teeth to keep from swearing my head off at him.

"No. You'll never be one of us. We kill, but we don't kill only to show off. We kill to win."

"No! I'm worth it! I'm stronger than any of you! Any!" He charges me with his spear, but I knock aside his blow with the side of my bow- there are plenty of others if this one gets broken- and trip him so he lands on top of the girl he killed.

"No. You're not. Get lost or get dead. Preferably both."

"If I kill you they'll let me it!" I sigh and watch as the fury rages behind his eyes. I take two arrows from my quiver without him noticing and nock one of them. He struggles to his feet and roars in anger. He swings at me with his spear, knocking into my ankle with his spear and sweeping me off my feet. Shooting as I fall, I hit the ground hard and a sharp pain spreads in my ribs. My arrow lodges itself in Tyman's spear arm- he howls and drops his spear. He rips out the arrow, but I've already sent another straight for his heart. It punches through his flesh and he collapses, gurgling blood in the back of his throat.

I smirk. Now I've got a kill. "What do you think of that, Tyman? Weak enough for you or do you still want to fight me?" I yank my arrow from his chest, still wearing a grim smile. We may have tied in training- although Gray did worse- but in the end I wasn't as hotheaded as normal and it saved my life.

"What do you think of that, Tyman?"

DISTRICT TWELVE FEMALE: SARA ROSS

I feel like I can't do anything back here, hiding inside the Cornucopia amidst heaps of food and weapons. I was on the very end of the tribute line and nobody saw me come up and around this golden horn. They never looked behind the supplies, although the Careers were just grabbing weapons. The boy from Six might have seen me, though, while he was trying to stay out of Alex Isis's line of vision. Even if this place is relatively safe, my heart beats like a pickaxe in the mines. Someone could find me at any second, but my slingshot is primed and ready to fire. They won't exactly last long if they find me, and nobody can sneak up behind me. No, I'm worried for Luis. I can see him down there, fighting his way towards me in the crowd. I got an axe to him right off the bat; nobody seemed to care that it came right out of thin air.

I wonder if my father ever felt like this when he was in battle with his squad. I'm certainly in battle, and I have a quasi-squad in my alliance.

"Hey, Athena!" A voice sounds almost right next to my head and for a second I think I'm dead. I freeze where I am and only move my eyes to see the speaker. The boy from One waves a sword in the air; the tall, dark-skinned girl shouts and sticks her hand up. "You need backup?" Adrian shouts towards her. Can he hear me? Does he see me? Will he murder me like the Capitol murdered my father and Archer?

"No, but toss me that sword!" The younger boy obliges and the weapon goes flying hilt over tip to the Career girl. I bite my lip with worry as he stands in front of me. I can't see Luis when Adrian's right there and people will notice if I kill him! I step back into the golden horn a little further.

"Where do you think you're going?" he hisses; I freeze. How did he see me, he isn't even facing me! Then he runs off to the side and I catch a glimpse of the girl from Five. That only offers me a tiny bit of relief- my district partner is out there in the fray, possibly dead or dying!

"C'mon, Luis, where are you?" I whisper to myself. We need to get out of here soon and he's still fighting his way to me. We agreed that we'd both get supplies before we left the Cornucopia. Wait, there he is, near the prone body of the boy from Eleven. As I grab two packs and sling them over my shoulders I keep an eye on my district partner. If he dies… I don't even want to think about it.

Out of nowhere, a tiny, mousy-haired figure leaps onto Luis's back with a wicked knife. "YOU ARE NOT CUTE!" Lucia Greene cries out, her shrill voice carrying across the arena floor to me. My breath catches in my throat, but then I wince at my slight idiocy. Luis is eighteen and Lucia is twelve. He can escape her without even hurting her! What was I thinking?

But Luis is at a slight disadvantage. The girl is on his back where it's hard for him to reach, and the shock of being jumped on forced him to drop his axe. And Lucia is flailing around with her knife. Lines of blood appear on my district partner's white shirt and trail into the black stripes on his sleeves. I can barely breath, let alone go to help him. My slingshot hangs limp in my hand, still armed with its stone.

"Sara! HELP M- AAUUGHH!" Luis hollers in pain as Lucia drives the knife between his shoulder blades. He collapses to the ground still moving. Lucia crawls off his back and drops her knife as he rolls over, instead attacking his face with her nails.

"YOU ARE NOT CUTE!" Wait- my slingshot! I scramble out from the Cornucopia and swing the sling around my head three times. The small stone takes flight and pings into the ground half a foot from Luis and Lucia.

Calm down, Sara, just calm down. How am I supposed to calm down when I'm at the freaking Cornucopia bloodbath with tributes surrounding me and my district partner dead or seriously injured? Just calm down. My sub-conscience has sounded like Archer for years now, which is really ironic since he can be more reckless than I am. I drop another stone into the slingshot, aim carefully, and swing.

Lucia rolls backward off Luis's body, leaving his face scratched and a pool of blood forming underneath him. I hike the packs up on my back and run to him. The twelve-year-old attacker doesn't appear to have any injuries at first sight, but then I see that her eye is gone- I hit her right in the eye. She's dead. Dead on contact. The world dips for a moment, but Luis's groans bring me back to my senses.

"Sara… thanks…"

"Shouldn't you be dead right now? There's a very scary pool of blood underneath you." He struggles to a sitting position and tries to brush off the wounds, but his grimace tells the real story.

"She's not that strong. It didn't hit anything important."

"Well then get up!" I pull him to his feet and he takes off towards the Cornucopia, grabbing two more packs and two axes. Blood still trickles from his back- if we don't have bandages I don't know what we're gonna do for Luis. If we do, Laken can patch him up.

He charges back towards me and grabs my arm, pulling me towards the door. "I saw Laken and Octavian go this way, they should be nearby," he says gruffly. We reach the staircase just as a screech rings out. I turn my head and see Tyman fall to the ground.

"Let's get out of here," I agree breathlessly.

DISTRICT TEN FEMALE: RUBY ELIS

Karlie lies on the ground, dead as anything. She died for me. For trying to help me escape. I mean, I think it should be obligatory for poor people, but my heart breaks as she lies in front of me, dead. Flavia argues with Athena for a few minutes and then goes off into the mess.

Everything hurts. I can feel the cuts, etched into my skin like lines on paper or memories into a mind. I slump on the doorframe to the stairs, no longer able to drag myself any further from death.

The boy from Eleven, who was one of Karlie's allies, runs to her side and begins to mourn her, but then the girl from Four attacks and the allies lie dead together, leaving the boy's district partner to fend for herself. I don't see her anywhere. I close my eyes; I don't know whether or not I want Camilla Thyra to notice me. I don't want to hurt anymore, but I don't want to die yet. I bit my lip as she leaps back into combat. I'm doomed to live for another few minutes at least.

Maybe I still have a chance! I'm beautiful, so sponsors would want to give me things. These wounds aren't that bad, really! I brush my fingers against my ruined cheek, exploring the bloody gash. It's long, but not too deep. It hurts to touch and I can't comfortably move my mouth, but it's not fatal. It's a good thing I paid attention at the first-aid station. Next I probe my wrist, which is worse. It's deep and still oozing blood; it'll disable that hand for a day or so while it starts to heal. I can make it for a day, especially with all my sponsors.

I peel my arms away from my torso, the last cut Flavia made. It doesn't hurt too badly, so it should be fine with just a bandage.

The pain comes as I move my arms from its length. The open wound stretches from one side of my stomach to the other, and it's at least twice as deep as the already-deep wrist wound. I use my tunic to dab at it, trying to see exactly how bad it is.

Why is it not showing the area underneath? I just keep soaking up more and more blood!

When I realize the truth, I almost retch- but that would hurt the wound more to move my torso that quickly. Flavia sliced all the way through to my guts, and I've been trying to clean them off. Wounds like that need stitches and Capitol attention- in Ten, it's hard to recover even if you just get gored by one of the cattle. The discovery forces the pain to worsen and I lean my head back against the wall. I don't need to worry about my wrist healing now. I'll bleed to death before the day is out.

I'm not… freaking out. Whenever I tried to think about death in the Capitol or at home I would shy away from the subject in fright. Now I'm faced with it and I'm not sad. I'm so numbed to emotion that I'm being ruled by my pain- just my pain. I read once that the only way a person can kill or enslave another person is because they dehumanized their victim in their mind. I'm so detached I've dehumanized myself. Am I starting to die already? The world is starting to look fuzzy. Is that my imagination or the fatal wound?

I'm too weak to stand back up. Trying to force myself to my feet results in keeling myself over to the side. The edges of my vision throb with my heartbeat. A tiny girl falls away from Luis Thomsen, her body crumpling unnaturally in death. Lucia doesn't need me anymore. Nobody needs me anymore. My mother will get along fine with her friends, Chandler will marry Adeline, Clarisse will find new friends, and my father won't care. He never came to see me in Ten, so why would he care if I died in the Hunger Games? I guess being rich is a bad thing sometimes. When you disappear people have enough stuff to forget you. If you're poor people won't forget, because they have nothing else to bury themselves in.

I've tipped over onto a potted plant- real, by the feel of the leaves. In my home we have real plants, too. I manage to turn my eyes to the greenery as the blood from my wrist leaks out onto the soil. Drip, drip, drip. The dark earth turns black and wet under my nourishment. When my arm goes limp my fingertips brush the dirt over the lip of the pot and I swirl the bloody mud around with my fingers. It's cool soil, relaxing to play with.

I wonder if Father will even really notice my death. He'll know I'm dead, it's impossible not to know, but I can't help but consider the possibility that he would have come to see me if I lived. Would he come back? I wasn't ever good enough for him; that has to be the reason he left in the first place. I was never good enough, and now I never will be.

A figure emerges from the battle and strides towards me with a knife in hand. "Never try to run away from me, Miss Priss. I'll always find you." Flavia yanks me upright by my hair; I don't have the strength to protest. When she slits my throat, the only thing I'm aware of is the warm sticky liquid running down my neck. My vision blanks out. I can't think any new thoughts. I don't know where I am anymore.

I'm Ruby Elis. I am not good enough.

I am not good enough.

I am not good…

I am not…

I am…

I-

DISTRICT THREE MALE: NEWT HILLEN

Chandler flies past me on the staircase, eyes wild and breathing rapid. "Come on!" he gasps, grabbing my forearm and dragging me along behind him. He has a pack on his back, a dark red one that's bulging with stuff. "We have to get out of here!" We scramble up the flight of steps, but we don't turn onto floor 3. We keep going.

"Where were you? We had a deal to both leave the bloodbath! I know you saw me point towards the door, Chandler," I say, sort of breathless. He's racing up the steps at a breakneck pace. A horrible thought crosses my mind. "Chandler, is someone following us?" He shakes his head and lunges up the last few steps to floor 4, where he slams the door open and we duck into the white hallway. The flickering electrical lights add an eerie feeling to the setup. It's the arena, what do I expect? My neighborhood? Chandler's got his hands on his knees gasping for air beside me; I stand up and turn to him curiously.

"So where were you, and why did you make me run so fast getting up here?" He takes a deep breath and stands up straight again, albeit shakily.

"Let's find a hiding place. Then I'll explain. I was at the Cornucopia." I start to open my mouth, but I decide to let the younger boy breathe for a minute or two and just roll my eyes. We walk down the stark hallway quietly, slowly opening each door to see if we're sharing our floor with anyone else.

"There's nobody here," I proclaim after a few minutes. We slip into the room adjacent to the staircase, so it might be easier to hear footsteps coming. "So, now will you tell me why you broke plan and ran to the Cornucopia?"

"We needed supplies," he says simply. Okay, well, he's left the dreaded place now and he didn't die. I don't see any logical reason to keep bugging him about it. Not that I don't have any more questions.

"Why did you run so freaking fast up those stairs? It was like you'd seen a ghost!" Chandler's eyes immediately dilate a little bit and focus on something over my shoulder. He bites his lip and swallows a few times before he even opens his mouth to answer.

After hesitating a second or so, he speaks. "They… they died. Kids my age, kids younger than me, kids older than me… they all were dying. I couldn't believe it. I saw so many terrible things down there… I don't even know what I saw. Bodies, blood. They had their eyes open, Newt! They were staring at me! They were all dead!" I cringe. He's freaking out. I'm not sure what to do. I mean, this thirteen-year-old saw things nobody should ever be exposed to. I don't understand, either.

"But you're alive. And they're not here. You'll be all right, Chandler," I say weakly. Man, that sounds cheesy. I hate being clueless. My ally sits down on one of the gurneys in the room and covers his face with his hands; for a second I think he's crying. I would really freak if he was crying. I have no idea how to deal with a crying person. But he holds himself together and looks back up.

"Yeah. We'll have to be all right." He's visibly shaking, although the room is a comfortable temperature. He's in slight shock.

"Hey, Chandler?"

"Yeah?"

"I've got something that will take your mind off what you saw." He shifts towards me.

"Please share." His mock formality makes me grin.

"It's sort of a riddle."

"Is it a math riddle? We're both good at math." I can barely contain a smile.

"No, it's a language riddle." My ally seems a little crestfallen. "Don't worry, we're both intelligent."

"Okay then, go on."

"What's the opposite of heavy?"

"Light."

"And what's the opposite of dark?"

"Um… light… Are you sure this is a riddle, Newt?"

"Well, not really a riddle. More of an amusing thing." I'm grinning now. "So what's the opposite of light?"

"Dark!" Chandler calls it out quickly. "Wait... heavy… wait… dark and heavy…" He looks so confused it's hilarious. I smother a laugh. "IT'S NOT A ONE-TO-ONE RATIO!" my ally howls. He looks so frustrated that I legitimately burst out laughing. Never thought I'd do something like that in the arena. Chandler's utterly humiliated expression just makes me laugh harder.

"It's all right, I had the same reaction when my friends pulled it on me. English nerds have the weirdest jokes." He smiles weakly, but now he seems irritated, not disturbed so much. Success is indeed sweet.

It feels like the walls are rattling with the first cannon, but it's just my imagination. My teeth are set on edge and my head echoes with the boom. The bloodbath must be over. BOOM. A second cannon. Worriedly I glance at the younger boy sitting beside me. He doesn't seem to be going back into his weird shock. Good. Five more cannons boom. Seven deaths. There are seventeen of us remaining. And seventeen of us want to go home.

"Do you know who any of those were?" I ask hesitantly. Chandler nods, inhaling deeply.

"I saw Lucia die. Shot through the eye with a sling stone. The girl from Eight died and so did the boy from Eleven, when he went back to try and help her." He breaks off for a second.

"I'm sorry, man. Your district partner. That's three out of seven."

"She was the scariest one out there. I mean, I'm not glad she died, but I'm not exactly gonna cry over her. That sounds terrible, but I'm still at a loss for words."

"Oh. Okay. I get it. Anyone else?"

"I almost got caught escaping when Flavia slit Ruby's throat. Rowne died." I wait expectantly for his next words. "I thought Gray Tanner was dead, because he got a bad knock on the head. Because I can name all seven dead tributes- Tyman killed Neon. And then he died." The words strike me like a blow and I lose the ability to speak for a few seconds. Neon's gone. She's gone… forever.

I have an obituarial quote for each tribute. Here are the ones for the bloodbath tributes. I'll miss each and every one of you guys. :'( You were terrific characters to write for :)

NEON WATTS: It was a time when only the dead smiled, happy in their peace. -Anna Akhmatova

LUCIA GREENE: The insane, on occasion, are not without their charms. -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

ROWNE MERCER: Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be all right. -Alice Thomas Ellis

KARLIE MILLS: Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live. -Anonymous (or at least I don't know)

TYMAN GRUITER: It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not great effort without error and shortcomings... if he fails, at least he fails daring greatly... -Theodore Roosevelt

RUBY ELIS: There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something. You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after. -J.R.R. Tolkien

SKYFORD AL'RAND: And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. -William Shakespeare

CURRENT STANDINGS-

Careers: F1 Athena Monroe, M1 Adrian Rain, F2 Flavia Baxter, M2 Gray Tanner, F4 Camilla Thyra, M4 Alex Isis

A1: M3 Newt Hillen, M6 Chandler Mathews

A2: M5 Octavian Amorous, F7 Laken Marx, F12 Sara Ross, M12 Luis Thomsen

A5: F9 Cenia Trallon, M9 Alec Ryans

Loners: F5 Delany Lavis, M10 Blue Anston, F11 Bay Farris

Tell me what you thought (even if you no longer have a tribute!)! Also, any predictions or things you'd like to see happen :)