Disclaimer: I don't own the Hunger Games or these characters.
A/N: Before we get into things, I want to thank a few people for helping out with the arena, the mutts, and all of the gory details. A big thanks to Realityshowfan, ForeverAdrian and Claratrix LeChatham for helping out with the arena! Whether you submitted ideas or mutts, it really helped me out, so thank you. :)
And, just so you all know, I felt horrible killing off characters so early. If I killed your character (or one that you l-o-v-e-d) off in the bloodbath, I'm sorry. I picked these people before I wrote the reapings at random, and changing them would've been… difficult. Choosing them alone was difficult. So, I'm sorry. D:
Luna Night's POV (FD11)
Sixty seconds.
Sixty seconds to find my allies, grasp my surroundings and pick a direction to run in.
My metal plate rises from the bright room holding my stylist to a dim, cave-like setting. To my right is Angel (joy), to my left is Senn, and in front of me gleams the large Cornucopia, full of weapons.
I catch Senn's eye in less than a moment, and he jerks his head abruptly behind me, where a dark tunnel branches out from this circular room. I can't see beyond the entranceway, but I nod anyways and take a better look around. There are five other tunnels, all shooting out in different directions, and I'm sure each has a creative sort of death behind them. Whatever that is, it has to be better than what Angel has cooked up for me, so I swivel cautiously on the metal plate and position myself in a sprinting stance towards the tunnel.
I count down the remaining seconds in my mind, my heart thudding three times for each number.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three…
Two—
One.
The gong sounds.
And I run.
Senn Birch's POV (MD9)
Before running after Luna I dash ten feet in front of me, scoop up a packet of matches, a plastic poncho and what looks like a stick of dynamite, and am about to turn around when I find myself face-to-face with Angel. She's a little taller than me, and as much as I try to bring myself up to her level, to face her, I can't.
But she doesn't have a weapon in her hand, I realize. And my allies—Luna was right there, right beside me. If she sees that I'm in trouble maybe she could attack Angel from behind or—
The District Eight swings her arm at my head, which breaks me out of my thoughts, her hand balled up in a tight fist, and she lands a blow on my right temple. I fall to my left on my hands and knees, black dots taking over my vision for a couple seconds, and, all at once, Angel's interview comes back to me. She said she was going to kill me by stabbing me in the heart, ten times, and that I'd somehow feel each stab. But she doesn't have a blade, right? There's no way—
I kick my legs out to try and fault her, but she jumps in the knick of time to avoid it, and her feet stomp and crush into my legs so hard I hear a sickening crunch and feel harsh throbs of pain coursing through my leg. She isn't even that heavy, how could she have—
Her fist finds my head again, and I try to keep myself upright on the palms of my hands. For my mother, who's watching this back at home, in our small little house. For Hatch, who was here before me, battling to his own death. For everyone I know, back in District Nine, who must be flinching every time Angel gets a good injury on me.
Physically, I have to be stronger than her. I have to be. She may be taller, but I know that being from the hunting district gives me a tiny portion of an edge against someone that mends clothing, it has to.
Her punches and kicks knock all the air from my lungs, and I can't breathe properly. My hands fumble around for the items I picked up earlier, the poncho and the matches and the dynamite, but all I scrape across is hard, cold, rocky ground. Nothing that could help me in the least with fending off Angel.
"SENN!" I hear someone shout. I can't see anything that's going on around me. Just that gravelly floor, blurring from my vision. "SENN!"
The weight of Angel is swiftly lifted off of me, and I see her tumble out of sight to my left, lifting up dirt in a whirl as she goes. Who's the other person, the one trying to take her on, though? Long hair—
It's Bambi.
Shakily, I push myself off of the ground. Blood trickles from some cut on my face into my mouth, and I spit it out fervently. My right leg is still pulsating in pain, my bone must be broken, so I pull myself along with my left, while my right drags uselessly behind me. The scuffle with Angel and Bambi has resulting with Angel having the upper hand—which isn't much of a surprise—and out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of red. The stick of dynamite.
I hear footsteps approaching me from behind, so I lunge for the dynamite and narrowly avoid a haze of white-blonde hair and wild blue eyes. It registers, somewhere, that this must be the District One girl. But I disregard that and wrap my hand around the dynamite and the small packet of matches, my only available weapons, still unsure of what I'm really going to do—I may wipe-out Angel, but Bambi'll be gone too—and graze a match against the ground. A small spark lights up in the dim cavern, and I'm just processing how I'm going to go about this without killing off my district partner when District One pounces on me, releasing the match from my grip with a grunt.
The tip of the dynamite touches the small ignition of flame, and I can't react—
Everything fades away in a world of red, orange, and, finally, black.
Victory Lux's POV (FD1)
I'm in between Evan and Dillon on my silver disk. Beyond Evan is Summer, and after Dillon is Peyton. This situation is entirely useless. This is supposed to be a bloodbath, and killing off my allies isn't going to be helpful in any way at all.
I can see everyone in our normal career alliance within near feet of me, besides Angel, before the gong goes off. I race past everyone in a flurry to find her, help her with killing off tributes, as much as the thought of that makes me shudder. But after my interview I feel like I've got a lot to prove.
My fellow allies and a couple others that I don't care about race to the Cornucopia, but I still can't see Angel. I want to get into the real action, show everyone who's doubted me that I can do this, none of that fooling around at the Cornucopia stuff.
My feet pound against the hard ground. There are tunnels everywhere—I count six in total as I run round the small, spherical cave—and I'm just wondering what lies behind them all when I catch the sight of Angel. She's getting tackled by the girl from Nine, and I increase my speed, because the Eleven girl looks like she's about to step in at any second and the Nine's district partner is standing up as if to help her, too. The Nine won't even see me coming, I think as I use my heels to propel myself, up into the air, arms outstretched for the boy—
He moves before I make contact, and I sprawl onto the ground with my nails digging into rocks. I look up through wisps of blonde hair that've come undone from the braid my stylist put it in—efficient and attractive—and puff them from my eyes so I can see better. Angel and Bambi are still in a scuffle, but… Senn is his name, right? Well whatever he's doing, or trying to do, I can't tell from here…
A flame flickers, and I can't stop myself from lunging instantaneously. I saw dynamite lying all over the floor earlier, and if that's fire—
I pin him to the ground and twist his wrist so the match he's holding flies out of his reach. Unluckily, that match catches onto the dynamite, and a noise so loud it's as if there is none explodes in my ears. I feel myself fly backwards, off of Senn and onto my back.
And then, silence. And pain. I can still see everybody around me; I can see Angel flying through the air herself and Luna pulling Bambi off her feet, dragging her down into a tunnel and away from Senn's lifeless body. Bambi seems to be putting up a fight, though I couldn't care less about what's going on with them. There's a splitting pain in my ears. A burning sensation tingling my face, my neck and my chest. What is this?
The girl from Six runs by me and assists Eleven in pulling Nine to safety, but I stay where I am, on my back, on the ground. It's odd, being able to see everything, but unable to hear, especially after a few days of being able to hear the littlest thing.
Everyone's panicking. Evan rushes up to me and touches my neck, which hurts, and it hurts more when I see that his fingers are coated in my blood. I try to speak, but it's difficult, since I can't hear myself, so I stop trying.
My eyelids are heavy. Droopy, even. I feel Evan shake me, he's screaming something, but I'm so tired and I just want some sleep. Plus, the ache across my upper body isn't letting up. The Fours are standing above me too, now, Dillon joining Evan and shaking me and shouting things in my face, which I consider quite rude, and I try to tell them so, but they give me a strange look and don't stop lifting my shoulders up and down roughly.
But now, the pain is too much, I can't stand it, so I close my eyes in a feeble try to block it out…
I just want some sleep…
Evan Palmer's POV (MD1)
Victory's eyes close. I shut my own for a second, paying a silent respect for my district partner, and then lay her gently on the ground, brush dirt off my pants, and stand up.
"THEY ESCAPED!"
Me, Summer, the Twos and the Fours all spin to see Angel stomping towards us, a huge gash stretching across her hairline that she doesn't seem to notice. The cave is void of any other tributes.
"THAT DAMNED EXPLOSION!" Her gaze fixes on Victory, who's dead on the ground, her face arranged in what would be a peaceful position if it weren't for the way her face, neck and chest are all smothered in blood, completely missing skin. She walks over and kicks the skinless shoulder. "SCARED THEM ALL AWAY! ONLY CASUALTIES WE'VE GOT ARE HER—" She kicks Victory again "—AND HIM!" She stalks over to the dead District Nine boy and gives him a good strike, too, that probably would hurt as much as hell if he were still alive.
Lia opens her mouth, but then shuts it, too afraid to speak.
"Look…" I say slowly, for all of my allies who won't, and Angel turns to glare at me. A double-sided staff is in one of her hands; spikes on the end glittering somehow even in the lack of light. The twelve she received in training is still embedded fresh in my brain, so I decide not to push it. "We'll find them. All of them. There's no need for—"
A scream so shrill I see both the Twos jump exits from Angel's throat, echoing off the cave walls. She raises the double-sided staff above her head and swings it, and Peyton yells from behind me and grabs hold of the back of my T-shirt, pulling me out of the way, but the spikes still get a good chunk of my skin off my abdomen as they pass by. Immediately, the wounds begin to burn. Badly. I fall to my knees and grasp at the cuts. They don't look very deep, and yet they seem to be almost sizzling—
"I'll save you the trouble of asking," Angel says. "Only because I'd like to be the one to make your death official, District One. There's poison on the spikes."
The smell of crisping flesh wafts into my nostrils, and I recoil, coughing and sputtering and wanting more than ever to escape this odor. Peyton and Dillon are kneeling beside me on the ground, but it feels like I've swallowed a stick of ignited dynamite and it's killing me from the inside out. I gasp for breath, longingly, but it doesn't subdue the pain.
"He's our ally!" Peyton stands up, but Dillon stays seated beside me. "How the hell could you?"
"Don't be a fool, Four," she says calmly. "Death is the only option for people like that."
My vision starts to become foggy with thick, dark clouds, and the searing in my abdomen worsens. I don't scream in pain though, I won't let Angel know that she's won.
"You're a MONSTER!" I hear Peyton yell, but I can't see anything anymore. Just those clouds, and discreet images of light, floating around behind my eyelids. Is this what death feels like? Is this how Victory felt, seconds ago?
More shouting and yelps of pain ring in my ears, and I wish I could say something, anything to stop it, the yelling and the pain and maybe resurrect the strength just to be able to stand up for a moment, half a second, to kill Angel. She doesn't deserve to win; she's just like them, the Capitol people, and the Gamemakers, and Glendlin Welps…
The blackness defeats me.
Dillon LeDron's POV (MD4)
"Don't be a fool, Four. Death is the only option for people like that."
Evan, I realize with a start, is good as dead right about now. Blood soaks through his shirt in a thin line by his stomach, and if it wasn't for the poison, he would still probably be alive.
"You're a MONSTER!" My district partner walks up to Angel, leaving me to pat Evan's shoulder awkwardly in his last breaths. But then his breathing stops and his eyes stare up at me, unmoving, a cold and blind penetrating look. I quickly move my fingers over the eyelids, and, with his eyes closed, it gives the impression that he's asleep and nothing more. Or nothing less, depending on how you look at it.
"It delights me that you think that," Angel says so placidly it's creepy.
Profanities come from Peyton while Angel dangles the double-sided staff in the palm of her hand gently, and someway maliciously. Her eyes are cemented on my district partner, and she's smiling a smile that anyone would deem evil considering where we are. I see a single drop of poison fall off one of the spikes and drip onto the ground.
"You killed him," Peyton hisses between her teeth. "Because you didn't get to kill anybody else."
Angel blinks. "If you have a point, then I suggest you make it quickly. Before you die."
"Um…" This comes from Kimberly, District Two. He sways uncertainly from foot to foot. "We should get moving. We can probably catch up to the other tributes now if we get a move on." His own district partner Lia nods vigorously in agreement. Peyton glares. And Angel smiles.
"Of course, Kimberly. But before we do, I have a death wish to deal with."
We all watch stunned as Angel whips around rapidly, twirls the staff twice between her fingers, and knocks Peyton off her feet by hitting her legs with a part of the staff that, thankfully, isn't implanted with the spikes. Everyone simply continues to watch as Angel approaches her, and I know that Evan and Victory, being two of the loudest aside from Peyton, would be the ones to step in. Except, they're not here. And my district partner is about to die.
I gave myself up to save my sister Star. Without me winning, she'll die from the disease.
But I can't stand here and watch my last link to District Four die. Peyton definitely doesn't deserve this.
"Stop!"
The yell escapes before I can think. Angel halts with her staff half-way ready to kill Peyton, who's shaking her head at me; Lia widens her fingers which are covering her face so she can get a better look at what's going on; Summer and Kimberly blink a couple times in my direction.
"Stop?" Angel spits.
"I believe," I say gradually, "that is what I said."
"Why?" she asks, and, fortunately, lowers the weapon. Unfortunately, she is now advancing on me. "You shouldn't care. It wasn't your life on the line. It is now, however, which easily could've been avoided. But that's what I get for aligning myself with a group of utter idiots."
The last thing I see, before the staff hits the back of my head and the spikes dig in deep to my skull, is Angel smiling wickedly. The last thing I hear is Peyton screaming at Angel, and then at me, saying how she'll save Star. The last thing I feel is the acid oozing down my neck, burning like I was just engulfed in a fire. And my last thoughts are of my sister, dying, just like me, while my father weeps for both of us.
Surviving Tributes:
District One:
None
District Two:
Lia Kingston
Kimberly Guerrant
District Three:
Anna-Marie Schleben
Farrow Alliyatt
District Four:
Peyton Bieda
District Five:
Nan Weatherall
Summer Whitesell
District Six:
Levve Morton
Mick Revelain
District Seven:
Natalia DeGuzman
Trey Lancaster
District Eight:
Angel Kramer
Naller Mahlon Versteeg
District Nine:
Bambi Zvoner
District Ten:
Sale Stride
Keed Ogle
District Eleven:
Luna Night
Birch Coleo Jernehy
District Twelve:
Calla Lilly Warbucks
Luke Cove