Samuel Jenkins (MD6)
Rhys wakes me up for my watch and takes my sleeping spot. He instantly falls asleep, so I've officially taken watch. I pick up my shuriken and wait. But when I see what's coming, I realize that weapons won't help me now.
I shake Oriel and Rhys awake. "Pick up what we need!" I scream at them. They look stunned, but when they see the wave that crashes through the trees, they scramble around.
I pick up some food, water, sleeping gear and my weapons. The others do the same. We all know we can't outrun it, but we'll get washed away if we try to swim through it.
Rhys spots a flat rock that juts out of the ground. We run to it in hopes of shelter. Rhys and Oriel make it in time. I'm not so lucky.
I throw my supplies to them as the wave picks me up and washes me through the forest. Suddenly, I feel my spine snap as I hit a tree. The force of the wave pushes me further, and my spine continues to crack as my back bends around the tree.
The pain is excruciating, and I know that this is going to be the death of me. I let out a few tears that mingle with the water, before I'm swallowed by the darkness.
Raven Blade (FD10)
The cannon echoes through the dark night in the arena. Ash and I jolt awake. We raise our knives defensively, but we realize that nobody has come for us. Ash taps me on the shoulder.
"Raven, can you hear that?" he asks. I listen closely, and I do hear something. It sounds like an electronic hum. "Yes," I reply. "But what could it be?"
Ash is looking the other way. His mouth is wide open and his finger is pointing at something. "I think that would answer your question," he says. I turn around.
The robot is at least twice our size. Vines snake around its body. The steel plating has mostly rusted away, but there is a fearsome red glow in its eyes. Ash and I pick up our stuff and begin to run.
The robot thunders after us. His eyes glow even more and a laser is fired. It narrowly misses Ash and sizzles into a tree. The tree falls over just behind it. Then it hits me. If I can get the robot to hit a certain tree, it could fall on it and crush it.
I run a few metres ahead of my previous position and I wave my arms around. The robot's eyes glow brightly and a laser is fired. It singes a bit of my hair and burns through the base of the tree.
The tree begins to fall. Before the robot even has time to react, it crashes into its head, shutting it down. It sways in the air for a second, before hitting the ground with a thud.
Now I know what its purpose is. It could kill us potentially, but that noise has given us away to all the remaining tributes. I don't know how long it will take before a fight goes down. I have a feeling it'll be pretty soon, though.
Jayde Nightrose (FD3)
Juliet and I hear the thump. It echoes through the jungle, shaking the trees around. It can't be more than two hundred meters away. I pick up the knife and nod and Juliet. We set off.
After a short walk, we hear a rustling. I peer through the bushes to see Ash and Raven packing up their stuff. A dead, rusting robot lies nearby. I recognize it as the decommissioned Defender Mark IV. On its first trial run, it killed forty-seven citizens of District 3.
I notice a tree that hangs over their campsite. It seems to be shrouded in shadow. "Juliet," I say. "I'm going to climb that tree and kill one of the Tens with our knife. Then we run. Got it?" She nods and stays low.
I crawl over to the tree, careful not to make any noise. I feel the trunk, and it seems relatively easy to climb. I slowly ascend the tree, keeping my body hidden in the shadow. I get to a vantage point and take aim.
"We can see you, Jayde," Raven says. "And I'm assuming Juliet is here as well." I see Ash whip out a knife. In one swift motion, he tosses it through the air towards me. I dodge it slightly, but it digs into my leg. The pain makes me lose my balance, and I fall out of the tree.
The wind is knocked out of me as I hit the jungle floor. Raven hands Ash another knife. He walks over to me and grins evilly. The moonlight reflects off the blade. He sits on top of me, pinning me down. I close my eyes as the cool metal rips through my throat.
The blood spurts everywhere, especially onto Ash. He doesn't seem to mind. I look around to see Juliet, with a horrified look on her face, sprinting away before anything happens to her.
The world begins to spin around. I see Clariza in my mind. She's telling me to hold on. I know that I can't, though. And then I see two mysterious faces. A man and a woman. I know who they are. They're my parents. Suddenly, their mouths open and I fall into darkness.
Lolita Verona (FD2)
We don't know how it happened, but it did. I've heard two cannons while I've been on watch. I've also heard a giant thump from the jungle. I really want to find out what happened. But it's too risky.
Suddenly, I hear something move through the sand behind me. I slowly turn around and see a snake. It hisses loudly, and bunches more rise from the sand. They've had two deaths in a few hours. Why do they need more death right now?
I shake the others awake, careful not to provoke the snakes. Xander looks particularly horrified. Theo seems to be quiet and patient. Max and Auricula are still too drowsy to care.
That's when Xander moves. He runs across the sand. "Get way now! Run!" he cries. We pick up our weapons and begin to run. The sand of the desert slows us down quite a bit.
But when I look behind, Xander seems to be unaffected. But the snakes are more adapted to the environment than he is. All it takes is one bite in his ankle and he collapses. I watch on in shock as they form a cocoon around his body, continuously biting him. We hear a few yells of pain, but the cannon fires pretty quickly.
By this time, we've managed to make a huge amount of distance between the snakes and us. But we've got a problem. As all the creatures are, the snakes are confined to the desert. They'll catch us if we don't go into the jungle. But the weasel mutts are there. Theo seems to want to go for the jungle.
We all crash through the growth back into the jungle. We keep running, because we hear the growling of the weasel mutts behind us. None of us slow down, and before long, we find ourselves in the grassland.
I can tell that we're all exhausted, because we collapse onto the grass. I sit there and think about Xander. My district partner, smart, brave and good-looking. If I were his age, I'd want to date him. But the snakes cruelly ended his life. At least he's with Sacred now.
Maliara Rocht (FD9)
I sit in the cave, cold and alone. If everything went to plan, Alden would be here with me. But Terrilyn killed him. I hold the knife that was thrown into his back in my hands. Alden's blood is still there. It just makes the pain worse.
I know Terrilyn's dead, but anybody associated with her must die. Jayde and Juliet. I'm not sure if they're dead or not, but my rage for them burns inside me. I go over to the smooth rock and begin to etch.
KILL JAYDE KILL JULIET LET THEIR BLOOD FLOW LET MY KNIFE END THEIR LIVES LET THEM FEEL ALDENS PAIN…
A/N: Sam got his spine snapped, a robot attacked the Tens, Ash killed Jayde and snakes took down Xander! But most of all, Maliara has gone mad and murderous! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Twelve tributes are dead, twelve remain.
Deaths so far:
Sacred Franco (FD1) – Killed by weasel mutts
Xander Quinn (MD2) – Killed by snakes
Alden Bart (MD3) – Knife in the back from Terrilyn Frazier (FD8)
Jayde Nightrose (FD3) – Stabbed in the leg and throat slit by Ash Castello (MD10)
Samuel Jenkins (MD6) – Snapped spine on a tree due to a wave
Kat Powers (FD6) – Axe in the back from Lolita Verona (FD2)
Jak Brentlee (MD7) – Skull broken by Bennett Rochard (MD8)
Bennett Rochard (MD8) – Sword through the stomach and thrown off the Cornucopia building by Theo Harpond (MD1)
Terrilyn Frazier (FD8) – Committed suicide from guilt of killing Alden Bart (MD3)
Demetri Norfolk (MD11) – Spear to the head from Vex Haynes (MD9)
Inyx Watch (FD11) – Throwing knife in the throat from Maxine Hunter (FD12)
Timmy Rodriguez-Jennielyd (MD12) – Eaten alive by lions