Disclaimer: Still not Suzanne Collins.

The 125th Hunger Games
Day One Part Two, In Which We Learn Not To Run With Scissors

Roland Albrecht POV (10)

With Dahlia gone so early in the Game, the alliance is crumbling. Toris and I have shared less then three words total since we met; Dahlia was always the one to provide conversation.

"We should have helped her," Toris mutters, bitter as we trudge through the island forest. It's not dense, but we're tense anyways.

"I know," I say.

I was behind Dahlia when she was knifed, close enough to pull them out, or get hit by mistake. Instead, I took off into the trees and didn't look back until the gore of the bloodbath was far behind me and Toris was struggling to keep up. Blinded by adrenaline, I hadn't thought about what I was doing until her cannon had already gone off, until she was dead.

Not even ten minutes into the Game, and already I've changed, not for the better.

The worst part? If I had to go back and do it again, I would probably do the same thing. Except this time I'd pick up the backpack.

"We should probably find water," Toris says after a while of walking—two more cannons have gone off.

"Yeah," I agree. "But where? The Careers will be by the beach."

Toris scratches his elbow. "We'll just g-go to the opposite shore, away from the Cornucopia."

"Alright," I say dubiously. "Lead the way."

—

The sun is high in the sky by the time the trees begin to thin out, and the both of us just stand there, neither wanting to leave the shelter of trees but loathing to admit it.

"G-guess we s-should go," Toris says.

"Probably."

We stand there. A bird chirps. A false breeze tickles the back of my neck.

"Screw this," I mutter. "I'm going." I push past the trees, stick my head out, look around, take a step forward—and see the Career from Two.

Oh shit. I backtrack so quickly I fall into the forest, landing on a bush. I don't wait to see if he's noticed me, I just take off running, checking behind me once to see if Toris is following—he is—and I run until I'm certain Two isn't following.

"W-what was that?" Toris pants when we stop. "What happened?"

"I saw a Career," I say. "No Cornucopia. No one else. Just one Career."

Toris's expression is uncharacteristically grim. "You don't think they're g-guarding the e-entire beach, do you?"

"Why would they do that?"

"They know we're in h-here," he reasons. "They're — they m-must be — it's a-a-a —"

"Yes?"

Toris whispers, "A siege."

Ava Jensan POV (7)

We ditched Triston.

"I told him where to find us," I lied to the Three's. "He's going to stay behind and get some weapons."

I don't think Weston believed me. Oh well. Who cares. Not me, that's who.

"Keep up, guys," Weston calls as we slog through the swamp, at least ten feet ahead of Seraphina and I. "At this rate we'll never get out of here."

"Don't tell me what to do," I snap.

Seraphina puts a hand on my arm. "He's just playing around."

I shake her hand off, scoff. "Playing around? I know the name is deceiving, but this isn't a freaking game."

"Isn't it, though?"

To be honest, Seraphina creeps me out. She's always so cryptic. I don't know if everyone is home, if you know what I mean.

It comes out of no where—one minute I'm pulling my foot out of the mud, the next, I'm stepping on a sleeping crocodiles head. It blinks one sleepy eye at me.

I clutch the flashlight I found in the Cornucopia before we left and swing it wildly. "I'm going to try and kill it!"

"Aya, no!" Seraphina shrieks as she and Weston take off in the opposite direction. "Leave it alone!"

"Wussies!" I clonk the crocodile on the head with the flashlight, expecting it to, I don't know, maybe pass out, but instead it opens its jaw and bites the hell out of my foot.

I gasp in pain and surprise, shake my leg, try to get the crocodile to release its grip. Instead, its teeth sink past my flesh, into the bone, and I scream, high-pitched and most unlike me. I'm past the point of dignity. It hurts, oh my God, it hurts—

In desperation, fueled by adrenaline, I jab my fingers into the crocodile's eye sockets. It lets go of my foot, and I can barely stomach looking at it—it's soaked in blood, and I think I'm missing a toe—before I scramble backwards, leaving the flashlight on the floor. Each step is pure agony but the crocodile is following close behind so I have to run, have to—

I push my way past another tribute—where'd she come from?—and feel selfishly glad when I hear her scream of pain and terror, her foot being mangled, maybe worse. It means I'm no longer lunch.

I manage to catch up to Seraphina and Weston, who stopped about a mile away to wait for me, before collapsing to the floor in exhaustion. I don't even want to think about what I just did to my foot.

"I'm sorry, Aya, I'm sorry," Seraphina hovers over me. "I don't have anything to bandage the foot with." She turns to Weston. "What do I do, what do I do?"

"Well, foot surgery is out of the question," Weston jokes, and Seraphina breathes through her nose. I would snap at him, but I'm dizzy, tired. I hope it's not from blood loss.

"Not now, please," Seraphina says, voice calm but looking stressed. "Just—can you rip some of your shirt?"

Weston winks. "I didn't know you liked me like that, baby."

"Weston, please, for the love of God, shut up and help me."

Wordlessly, Weston rips about three inches from the bottom of his shirt and hands it to Seraphina, looking sufficiently cowed. I wish he would look like that when I tell him to shut up.

"Thank you."

Seraphina wraps the cloth around my foot, whispers soothing words I take no comfort in. "It's not deadly, you haven't lost too much blood, we can—we can go back and find your toe, if you want." Her voice catches on the word toe. "Triston is probably bringing medicine from the Cornucopia as we speak."

If only.

Triston Enki POV (7)

They ditched me.

One minute, I'm gathering supplies for us to use later in the Game, the next, I look up and they're gone. No doubt Aya put them up to it, that bitch.

But the jokes on her, because I saw them running across the bridge into the swamp.

—

Armed with a spear and a thirst for justice, I set off at a brisk jog across the rickety bridge before anyone else can. Hopefully, I can catch up to my ex-alliance during the night and kill Aya in her sleep, so she doesn't even know what's going on. I can play dirty too, Aya.

When I enter the swamp, it's eerily quiet. No birds. No animals. No other people. Hmm. Suspicious.

Checking over my shoulder every few seconds, I almost don't see the flash of clothing from in front of me. The scream, however, is harder to miss. I come to a screeching halt, try to decipher where the scream came from. On both sides of me are gnarled trees, thick stalks of grass shooting in to the sky like the buildings in the Capitol. I can only see ahead, and behind. I take a gamble and turn right, shove my way past prickly bushes, peek through.

Yes! I do a silent cheer, feel the weight of the spear in my hand. It's Aya. And she's asleep. It's almost too easy.

Sitting in the mud next to her, I see Seraphina and Weston, both silent. I wonder, should I kill them to?

I don't have a lot of time to think about, because Seraphina looks up from drawing in the mud and sees my head, poking out from between blades of grass. "Triston, thank God you're here."

So Aya lied to them then. I knew it.

"Yeah," I push past the grass, the trees, act like I'm not about to commit murder. "What happened to Aya?"

"A freaking crocodile, that's what," Weston interjects. He peers curiously at the bag slung over my shoulder, at the spear in my hand. "What'd you get?"

I take a step closer to the conked out Aya. "Oh, you know. A weapon. Some food. A thirst for revenge." Before either of them can react, I stab the sleeping Aya in the chest with my spear, right through the heart.

A cannon booms almost instantly. Seraphina covers her mouth with both hands and screams. Weston swears.

I'm not planning on killing them, but they both start running in the opposite direction. "Seraphina, wait up!" I holler, holding the bloodied spear by it's bladed tip. "I don't want to hurt you guys!"

I take off running after them, but I forgot about the dead girl by my feet and trip, the spear impaling itself in my forehead—

Karma is a bitch.

Kimberly Kerner POV (12)

By the time we catch up to Katalina, she's panting with exhaustion. "Had to outrun a crocodile," she explains through breaths. "Do you know how bloody fast those things move?"

I shake my head no.

"You're bleeding." Jameson points to her ankle, which is bleeding, steady, drip drip drip.

"No shit," Katalina says. "What am I supposed to do about that? Magically fix it?"

Jameson shrugs, because she's right.

"Anyways, let's just get out of here," Katalina pushes hair out of her face, looks at all of us. "This swamp sucks."

—

By the time we make it out of the swamp, we're covered in bug bites and the sun is low in the sky. "Finally," I say, relief evident. "I was beginning to think we'd never get out of there."

Sharing in my exuberance, Jameson gives me a high-five. "Now we just need to find food and water."

Almost without realizing it, the three of us turn to Katalina, who looks skyward and huffs. "What am I, your mom?"

I don't know if it's my imagination, but Katalina is certainly different then I thought she would be. Meaner, somehow.

We stand in silence. "Alright guys," I say eventually, trying on the role of decision-maker and hoping it's not too big. "Let's go see what we can find in the forest."

Even though anyone could have said that, I'm the one who has to, and I'm the first one to walk into the forest. Inside, despite the trees that shoot up into the stratosphere and should, logically, block out most of the sun, the forest is lit up, beautiful. Swollen fruit glistening with flavor hang from trees, bushes ripe with bursting red berries, the ground a soft, lush green, like candy. This isn't a forest. It's paradise.

Besides me, Kaaya squeals in delight. "Food!"

"Are you crazy?" Katalina demands. "That's probably all poisoned!"

Jameson nods in agreement. "Anything the Capitol makes this pretty has to be deadly."

"You two are so paranoid," Kaaya huffs, reaching for a fruit, plucking it from the branch. This is food, not arsenic."

Katalina shrugs, looks around. "Your funeral."

"Kaaya, wait, no— " Jameson blurts, but Kaaya bites into the fruit anyways. Juice dribbles down her chin as she chews.

"Wow, this is good stuff."

The three of us stare at her like we're waiting for her to drop dead, but Kaaya just takes another bite of the fruit.

"She's not dead?" Katalina mutters in surprise. "Huh. I could have sworn—"

Katalina stops talking, because, descending down from the tall trees, bark extra brown, leaves extra green, is a pack of monkeys. And every single one of them is looking directly at Kaaya.

Drampton Kramptus POV (2)

I am impatient to kill. At the bloodbath, everyone but the other "Careers" raced away from the Cornucopia without giving it a second look. Into the woods. Over the bridge. Gone gone gone.

"Let's go head hunting," I say once everyone settles down. Skippy is lounging against a tree, Maren stretching her back, Maya, looking oddly lost without someone to argue with. It's the most pathetic group of Careers I've ever seen.

The bodies of the dead have been beamed up, so I can't even practice my carving out on them.

"Head hunting?" Maya scoffs. "Who calls it head hunting?"

"I'm not going to fill in for your idiot boyfriend," I interrupt. It was so obvious she loved to fight with him. "So shut up."

"Ex-boyfriend, actually," Maya corrects, balling her hands into fists. "And don't tell me what to do."

Such a stupid girl. Not even worth it.

"I've been thinking," Maren interrupts. "I saw a lot of people run into these here woods. We should patrol."

"Patrol?"

Maren tosses an apple in the air, catches it, takes a bite. "Yeah. Like, each one of us should spread out around the beach so, when the losers inside come out, we can kill 'em."

I don't like it. It's too passive aggressive for me. But everyone else agrees, so I'm handed a sack full of food, a weapon, and sent off in another direction.

—

Unless you count a wiener poking his head out of the woods and practically pissing himself with fear when he saw me, nothing exciting has happened. No kills. My fingers twitch with anticipation. I think of what I can do. Maybe carve my name on their face? Pull out their eyeballs and make them eat it? No, cannibalism is illegal now. Darn.

If only it were tomorrow already. The Capitol said every morning, the people who died would be beamed back into the arena as zombies.

Every morning. It's the afternoon. Damn.

Dead tributes are taken from the list below. Sponsor points are still in play. And these people seem to need the help. ;D

Maya—angry
Katalina—independent
Drampton—ruthless
Seraphina—dreamer
Weston—energetic
Maren—upbeat
Skippy—lively (when he's not throwing up, that is)
Jenna—sweet
Ezra—mature
Toris—shy
Liesl—intelligent
Crayne—mysterious
Kaaya—scared
Steve—wall-flower
Ava—adorable
Roland—timid
Kimberly—withdrawn
James—kind (except to the Capitol)

Thanks!
- Alactricity