Meh. So I was gone all week, and I managed to write exactly one chapter. And now I'm going to have a ton of makeup work to do. :P

Tied Edison, District 4, 18 years old

We blink in the sudden light, staring warily out the doors as Jasper wrestles them open. Verres visibly relaxes next to me as pale, cloud-filtered sunlight floods the massive chamber, revealing the deserted lawn outside. I can see the torn-up grass outside the door, though, where the creatures were last night. And that's not the only sign that they left. I wince as I look down at my right arm. One of the creatures, the first one to drop out of the trees, bit me, and now there's a long line of dried blood from my upper arm to my fingertips. I can move it, but it hurts.

I rub my eyes tiredly. I'm absolutely exhausted, physically and mentally. We all sat perfectly still through the night, scared to move. Every time one of us shifted, it had thrown the creatures outside into a frenzy.

"Do we hunt today?" Eliza asks, leaning against the side of the Cornucopia with her eyes closed. Her hair is bloody and tangled, and her arms are covered in long scratches.

"I say no," Verres puts in. He looks pretty bad, too. "We go to the lake, then the garden, then we sleep all day."

All three of us turn to Jasper, expecting him to object. Surprisingly, he doesn't. I realize that he must be as tired as we are, even if he doesn't show it, and the mutts gave him a few wounds to think about, too. "Fine," he says flatly. "We should wash off before we all die of infection. If the things come back out tonight, we'll hunt the kids in the castle. If not, we hunt outside."

Oh, right. The two tributes in the castle. I forgot about them. My first instinct is to feel bad for them, but then I realize that there's no way we'll actually find them, as long as they don't jump out right in front of us. The castle is huge, with plenty of places to hide. And, of course, the Gamemakers are almost definitely going to make things interesting for us no matter where we go.

Thankfully, they leave us alone as we limp to the lake. We're all wary, glancing over our shoulders constantly, although I think we're actually a little more afraid of the mutts than the other tributes. We drink from the lake, taking turns standing guard, then wade in, scrubbing blood from our skin and clothes. The wound on my arm isn't as bad as I was afraid of, and it's the worst injury between the four of us, as far as I can see.

We take our time walking to the garden, dripping as we go. I like the garden, actually. If you face exactly the right direction, the lake glimmers like it could be the ocean. And it's peaceful, too. Although I notice with surprise that it seems a little different, somehow, from yesterday. Yesterday was sunny and today is cloudy, but that's not it. It's almost like all of the flowers are… wilting? The whole place just seems drearier, although I can't quite put my fingers on how. I glance up at the castle, and notice the same effect. It stands as tall as ever, but it has a derelict, abandoned look to it. Yesterday, it looked like its occupants could have moved out yesterday. Now it looks like nobody's set foot in it for years.

Eliza's shrieked curse brings me back to earth. I turn, and my jaw drops. Eliza swings her mace like a baseball bat, and the furry shape that had been leaping for her throat goes sailing away over the tops of the orchard trees. "A freaking bunny!" she spits, breathing hard.

I laugh, Verres smiles, and Jasper only blinks.

We split up, strolling around the gardens. Periodically a rustle and a mutter cuts the air as more of the rabbits attack us, but they're pretty easy to kill, apparently. None of them have come after me yet. I hope they don't. They're cute. Of course, as soon as I think that, two of them jump out at me at once. I duck, and one of them goes flying over my head. The other is met with my war hammer. I don't know where the first one goes; when I turn to meet it, it doesn't reappear. I make a point of not looking at the one that I smashed.

I come across a grove of fruit trees. I reach up to pick one, and discover, to my annoyance, that they're just a tiny bit too high for me to grab. I would go try to find something else to eat, but the berry bushes are covered in bees- not tracker jackers, I don't think, just regular bees, but I'd still prefer not to argue with them- and the only other fruit trees I can see are peaches. I hate peaches. It's like biting into a mouse.

The rest seem to agree, because we all wind up under the same tree. Eliza seems to be the only one who's light enough to climb it, so she scrambles up the trunk, throwing fruit to us. Well, she throws it to Verres and I, anyway. "At" would be a more accurate term for how she treats Jasper. I can't tell whether she's trying to be playful or spiteful, although the second seems more likely. Whichever it is, Jasper doesn't react. He snatches most of them out of the air, although I can't quite muffle a snort when one bounces off his head, which earns me a glare. I glare right back, although I'm not really sure why, or whether it's a good idea. Probably not.

Eventually, we straggle back toward the castle. We cross the lawn, taking our time, and I glance toward the woods. I almost freeze on the spot when I see a face. It's only there for a split second, but it's definitely there. Caramel skin, dark brown hair and eyes, a little skinny- the District Eight boy, for sure. And I know he saw me look at him.

And if we caught him, I know that the others could make him tell us where his alliance is, one way or the other. We could easily find them and kill them all. Five down, one to go, before I would have survived this arena, at least. Halfway to returning home, to sending my siblings to school...

But I hesitate, staring in the direction that the face vanished. Because it doesn't seem right. Nothing in these Games is right, I know. But I still can't bring myself to directly cause five deaths. I can't.

So I follow the rest silently, not sure whether I'm proud or ashamed. What am I going to do when I finally have to kill to win, or to defend myself? Because I'm not a murderer, I know that for sure now. And I'm sort of happy to know it, I guess. I decide that I won't kill unless I absolutely can't avoid it. If we find any tributes, I'll just let the rest reach them first. It's not a perfect solution. It puts me in danger, and when I really think about it, I'm not really doing the other tributes any favors. But it's all I can do.

Emerianne Rivkin, District 6, 13 years old

I wake up the next morning amazed that I ever fell asleep. I know, of course, that there was some kind of mutt out there last night, but Jendra and Sascha are the only ones who saw it. Jendra doesn't want to describe it to me, and he told me not to ask Sascha. I guess he doesn't want to scare me, and I get why he doesn't want to make Sascha talk about it, whatever it is. But that means that it's left to my imagination, and I think I'm probably coming up with far worse creatures than the Gamemakers ever could.

Whatever it was, it had sharp teeth. Sascha is still asleep, but the torn-up collar of his shirt has slipped to the side, and I can see the marks that the mutt left along the side of his neck and down onto his shoulder. Some kind of vampire? What if it's something contagious, and now Sascha's going to turn into a... something? I don't think I could treat that with a few leaves Merryn and I found throughout the arena. Actually, we haven't even tried to use them yet. He practically passed out as soon as Jendra let go of him last night, and Diana was afraid to let us touch him until he woke up. But that was hours ago, and he's still sprawled on his back on the ground. I don't know whether he's asleep or unconscious. I know he was exhausted when Jendra dragged him in last night, and half his skin is covered in scrapes and bruises. There's even a purple bruise across his neck, and another set of teeth marks in his leg.

I look at the sad little pile of leaves lying between Merryn and I in the early morning light. Some for snake venom... but snakes don't have that many teeth. Some that are antibacterial, which I guess could help. And a frustratingly large number that, no matter how hard I try, I simply can't remember.

Jendra slouches into the clearing, carrying all five canteens. I can see how tired he is. He definitely didn't sleep, which scares me, because he saw the mutts, and if he's that scared of them...

We sit in silence for a while, all of us occasionally glancing at Sascha, but he still doesn't move. I wonder for the first time if he might be hurt worse than I had though. How much blood did he lose when the whatever-it-was bit him? What if it was poisonous?

"Do you think the Careers will be out today?" Merryn asks quietly, staring at his sneakers, his legs stretched out in front of him.

Diana sighs. "Maybe. Maybe not. If they were fighting the mutts all night, they might have decided to sleep today."

"Are the mutts going to come back out tonight?" I ask. Diana and Jendra exchange glances.

"No way to know," Jendra shrugs. "They might've been a one-time Gamemaker trick, or they might be a part of the arena."

"What do we do if they do?" Merryn asks, sounding a little frustrated. "We can't get into the castle, but only two of us can use distance weapons and one of them is ripped to shreds!"

Neither of the older kids seems to know how to answer him. "We could climb trees," Diana suggests. She turns to Jendra. "Did they look like they could climb?"

I realize that he must have described the mutts to her in detail. He looks a little uncomfortable. "I don't know," he says. "Maybe. I don't know if they'd be able to find us in the leaves. But it would be harder to move without making noise..."

"Worth a shot," Diana replies.

So I know they hunt by sound, after what Jendra just said and what he said last night. I know they have sharp teeth. And nails, too, I realize, looking at the scratches on Sascha's face. They might be able to climb. Whatever they are, I do not want to run into one.

Finally, Sascha wakes up. He sits up slowly, blinking and rubbing his head. Suddenly, he whirls, and finds himself face-to-face with me, since I was sitting behind him. His green eyes widen, and his hand shoots to his bow, before he wakes up fully.

"Sorry," he mutters. But he's still jumpy, glancing around the clearing when he doesn't think anyone is looking. But of course, we're all watching him, we're just trying to act like we're not. Nobody seems to know what to say.

"How's your shoulder?" Diana finally asks. Sascha looks down, yanking his collar to the side. His eyes widen, and he curses softly.

"You should wash it," I put in. Of everything the woman at the first aid booth told me during training, that's what I remember: Always clean the wound, or it will get infected.

He nods slowly. "Probably. Yeah." But he still looks sort of dazed.

"I'll go too. Come on," Jendra says, rising to his feet. Sascha nods again, following him from the clearing. I notice that he still clutches the bow, and he keeps an arrow notched to it, too. He's limping, although not as much as before.

Diana takes a deep breath as soon as they vanish into the trees, closing her eyes and shaking her head.

"What?" Merryn asks. I notice that he's been silent this entire time.

Diana seems to be talking more to herself than him when she replies. "He's not coming back from that. Not for a while, at least. What do we do if the mutts come after us tonight? He's going to panic."

I think about that. Sascha, panic? I could never have imagined that a few days ago. But now... I don't know. What if she's right? And I can see him sort of demoted in her mind. I know that Diana is deliberately protecting Merryn and I, and I'm thankful for it. She saw Jendra as her equal, her ally, and Sascha as sort of something in between. Not someone she could rely on- although to be honest, I wouldn't have, either- but not someone she had to protect, either. But that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. And I still don't know what happened to him.

Soon, the boys come back. Sascha looks a lot better now that he's not covered in blood, but now I can see what Diana sees. He's tense and wary, and can't seem to stop looking over his shoulder. He's got his bow in a death grip, and I don't think he's ever going to let go of it.

But I can see, too, that he's making an effort. "Any cannons so far?" he asks, wincing as he sinks to the ground.

"Nope," Jendra replies, sprawling next to him. "Although the Careers came pretty close."

"To causing the cannon shots or to being the cannon shots?"

"Being them."

"They ran into the mutts?" His voice almost cracks, but he gets the question out.

"Yeah."

"So they came out of the tunnel, then?"

Oops. I can see Jendra wince mentally as he realizes his mistake. Still, Sascha looks calm enough, although I can tell Jendra is regretting letting him figure that out. "Yeah. But I'm sure they-"

"It's fine," Sascha cuts him off. "They can come after me all they want, as long as it's not underground." I can't tell whether he's telling the truth or trying to make Jendra feel better. "Besides, I was alone last time." He smiles weakly.

Well, that wasn't as bad as it could have been, I guess.

We spend a while sitting in silence, but eventually start talking. The conversation gets a little more comfortable as it goes on, until it reaches the point where we're shushing each other constantly because we're getting so loud. Sascha's not quite as outspoken as usual, but he's talking, at least.

"Can you still shoot?" Diana asks eventually. I realize that it's a valid question. He still won't let go of his bow, but he hasn't actually fired it.

"Let's see," he says, standing up. He pulls an arrow from his back, notching it to the string. When he pulls his right arm back, though, the left one, the one the mutt bit, shakes, and he grits his teeth, letting the arrow go a little sooner than he usually would in training. It sticks in the tree he was aiming at, but he shakes his head. "I was aiming higher than that. And it didn't hit as hard, either."

"Don't worry about it," Jendra says. "It's been less than a day."

Maybe. But that still means that now I'm the only one who can really use a distance weapon right now, and I don't particularly like it. I'd really rather not be forced to kill anybody, but if the Careers were to show up right now, I don't think I'd have a choice. I tap the hilt of one of my knives thoughtfully. I guess it would be a little different if it were Careers trying to kill my friends and I. Maybe, just maybe, I would be able to kill.

I apologize for Tied's being short, too. There really just wasn't much going on with the Career pack at the moment. I'm going to try to come back to the people who got shorter POVs sooner to try to even it out a bit, although like I said, I don't really plan ahead all too well and there's no way it's going to turn out entirely fair.