Another very short chapter, but I wanted to end it on this specific note. Hopefully, that is okay with you. The title comes from the novel Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, which I just finished reading for school. It's about a Nigerian village in the early 20th century that is overrun by Christian missionaries. As the great-great-grandson of missionaries, it really does make me think. Highly recommended.

It is now time to resolve this cliffhanger that I created. I hope that you will not kill me for that, because it really is my best attempt to make the story exciting and to keep you guys reading.

I put two Mario Party 5 boards on my YouTube channel, and I have recorded a third. I am also hoping that you guys will check those out, because it takes a while to make them. And Labyrinth is close to 5,000 views now, so I hope that we can reach that number. I don't know how hard it will be, but we shall see.

Time seemed to freeze in the clothing store as Glory lay on her back, completely vulnerable to get killed by Dax. It wasn't as though she had no recourse at all; she could crawl, kicking and screaming, back to her spatha. It might have been a full twenty feet away, but Glory was determined to get to it, even if it did turn out to be impossible.

She'd been serving the Capitol faithfully for eight years, ever since they had removed her from her home to place her in the community one. She was going to do one last thing for them, going down fighting against Dax. She still, desperately, wanted to let the Capitol enjoy seeing her even if they had not proven to be as trustworthy as she had initially thought.

"I would kill a girl, if I really needed to" Dax said sternly. He raised his scythe once again, ready to plunge it into Glory's heart.

However, the older girl was ready. When Dax came out swinging, Glory slid backwards on the floor until her head touched a long metal object.

Thankfully, she wasn't hurt. It was the spatha that she had managed to reach once again. Holding it up to defend herself against Dax's blows with the scythe, she quickly stood up before making a jab at him with her sword. Dax had to jump out of the way to avoid it.

Glory cackled with glee and relief. Now, she had the upper hand. All she needed to do was to dispatch Dax, and then she'd be in the final six among only one or two other Careers.

But Dax wasn't going to give up so easily. Even as Glory had these fantasies, Dax managed to hit Glory in her left arm. Thankfully, she was right-handed, and she wasn't losing too much blood out of it. As for infection, they'd give her something back in the Capitol if she won. When she won, she reminded herself. There was no way that the Games could last much longer than this.

The wound on her arm made Glory give a small yelp in pain, but she didn't let that faze her. She was still on the winning side of this battle. Dax was foolish not to run away right now. Everyone knew that Glory Asphodel was the best swordswoman in Panem, at least this year. She was going to win!

Dax was still not giving up, but Glory was just at too much of an advantage to allow him to win this fight. With one swift sweep of her sword, she managed to cut Dax in half, just like the wheat that he was so accustomed to cutting down. He thought no more as he hit the ground, blood splattering everywhere.

The cannon fired to signal the death of Dax Baylor. Glory then stood up straight, gave a yell of triumph, and ran out of the clothing store, intent on finding more targets.

The final six.

Less than a week ago, all twenty-four tributes were still alive. Now, only a quarter of them remained.

Preston was glad to be a part of that group. As long as he was still in the Hunger Games, he still had a chance to come out alive and keep his promise to Ethan Veneables. He knew that he would need this determination to get him all the way to the end, and it wouldn't help him to worry too much.

Despite this, however, he did worry. He did have his ten knives from the restaurant, but he had to carry them in his pants pocket, while having one or two in his hands the whole time just in case he ended up having to defend himself against an enemy tribute. He didn't like this, because it meant that he made a lot of noise while he was running, the silver jingling in his pocket.

Noise was one thing that you didn't need in the Hunger Games.

Preston was going to wait out the Games in an apartment, he decided. After all, they had to be getting close to the climax of it all. And the Gamemakers would not want things to become too boring, so he'd have to leave eventually.

But right now, Preston was good with his plan. He found a building that suited his purposes and climbed twelve flights of stairs before he could find a door that could be opened. Perhaps the Gamemakers were reducing the number of available apartments as the number of tributes dwindled. Preston wouldn't be surprised; it wouldn't be the first time that the Gamemakers did something like that.

It was almost dinnertime, Preston realized. The day sure had gone by fast. Soon, the anthem would play. Then, he would find out who the two tributes who had died today were. He was really hoping that one of them was Garnet or Noelle, because they were the main threats. Preston didn't think for a second that Noelle had actually earned such a high score, but instead was a rebel or something.

He had no way of knowing this, so he decided to get it out of his head.

Paolina had been sitting on the roof of the building all day. She was mainly trying not to cry, but at the same time she knew that she wasn't going to give up on the Games.

She'd fallen asleep once, but been woken up by the cannon for the tribute who came in seventh place. It wasn't hard for her to fall asleep, since she hadn't been drinking too much water. It felt much like it had when she was sick, back at home in District 9. Unfortunately, her parents weren't here right now to give her chicken noodle soup, not that she even had a fever as far as she knew.

And then, she remembered her sponsor gift from the other day. And that was the lock on the canal.

Without warning, Paolina burst out into tears. She wept for herself, her few friends back in the Wheatlands, but most of all her family. She knew that if she didn't manage to get back to them, her parents would never get over it. They would always be looking for someone to blame, even though it was obvious who they would have to blame for her death. The Capitol.

Always the fucking Capitol.

The anthem came on about two hours later, and that caused different reactions in the tributes.

Glory was pleased to see her district partner, Garnet, shown in the sky. It was not just that he had disbanded the Career alliance far earlier than necessary. He had been her greatest threat. She had sure thought so, and Garnet Golds had thus had to go. She had not, of course, been surprised to see Dax in the sky, for it had been her to kill him.

Brett was also glad that Garnet was gone, but it was not as though it had not been obvious to him; after all, he had killed the District 1 boy. That only left Glory as the other Career left. That was, unless you counted Preston, which Brett didn't. Even so, he wondered why the District 5 boy had volunteered for the Games. That Ethan kid must have been one of his best friends or something. That was the only thing that would have made sense, at least in Brett's eyes. Or else, he really had wanted to be in the Hunger Games and bring glory to his district.

Preston was in the final six. He could hardly believe it, and yet he was only five spots away from getting back home to District 5, to his family, to the theater, and to Ethan. He figured that they would be proud of him for making it this far, and that without killing anybody. That would definitely be something that he could hang his head on come the end of the Games, assuming that he was still alive.

Paolina was still alive, despite everything. She sized up all of her threats. The Careers were all very deadly, so they were the tributes who posed the biggest threat, still, to Paolina. Luckily, she had kept her innocence intact as she coasted through the Hunger Games. The sponsor gift she had received before made that a little bit harder, though. She wished that that would not have happened, but what could she do now?

Taysom and Noelle had managed to rebuild a tentative trust as they settled in for their sixth night in the arena. It wasn't that deep, but they could still be aligned with each other once more.

Noelle had insisted that she would be able to stay up on watch and let Taysom sleep. After all, with only six left, it looked as though it was dangerous out there. And the District 7 boy could really use some rest after staying up for most of last night.

Despite this, Taysom refused to crawl into his sleeping bag. On the outside, he acted like this was purely altruistic in nature. However, there was a much darker reason for this, one that he would not dare tell Noelle.

He still didn't trust her enough. It was easy enough for her to trust Taysom, because he hadn't been the one to kill the District 7 girl, Karla Sawden. So Taysom, just like the previous night, was going to stay up once again.

For the most part, the night was uneventful. Not a single sound pierced the forest, and Taysom was beginning to feel a little complacent.

But then, it happened, what must have been a lit

The sound of a large gust of wind came through the arena, despite Taysom not feeling it, maybe simply because they were sheltered by the Cornucopia.

Noelle woke up. "What is that?" she asked.

Taysom didn't have an answer. All he could do was watch incredulously.

"Is it time to split up? Final six?" Noelle asked.

"No. Not yet. There are still two Careers left. Let's get rid of one of them first. I don't want to kill you, after all".

Noelle nodded, although she looked scared yet curious, like a little girl asking her mother if storms were just when God got angry.

And then, that was when the event occurred.

All of the trees in the forest fell down like a run of dominoes.

RIP Garnet and Dax

Garnet: Since he was submitted by the same person who won the last SYOT, I wasn't going to let him win. With that said, I think that he was almost like another Horatio, except his arrogance was largely a lot lower, mainly because of his prowess. Unlike Horatio, who really was more bark than bite except when he killed his two remaining allies, Garnet was a very formidable opponent, and I will miss him a lot. I also liked writing him as a horrible person in general, though. He might not be too arrogant, but the fact remains that Twilight, who practically saved his life just two and a half days earlier, was killed at his hand. It takes a special kind of asshole to betray the person who dragged your semiconscious, severely dehydrated ass to the hospital in the middle of the night! I really loved writing that battle in the Italian restaurant, as well as the next one, in which Garnet lost. He definitely did go down fighting for the Capitol, even if he died in such an awful way.

Dax: I give beauthg03 the main credit for this character in these Games, even though his being here was my idea. I got the idea from Carson and Bentley Rivera from the Hoprocker trilogy. Including references to the 63rd Games throughout the whole thing was also something that I am glad to have had the pleasure of doing. There is no doubt that I will miss writing for him, although to be honest there was never any chance that he was going to win, partly because I submitted him, and partly because he would be far too obvious of a winner. Now, he gets to be with Aurora again, in whatever comes after you die.

By the way, Lorax just reached 3,000 views this afternoon!

With that, we are approaching the end of the story! The next chapter is going to be SUPER long.