Author's Note: I have decided that I am going to do reviewer rewards again. Our goal is 250 reviews (oh, yes, I went there). The individual review count would cut off at the 250 mark. Then the three reviewers with the most reviews will win review requests! If we get that far, the winners will be notified of further rules via PM. And in the case of a tie concerning more than three reviewers, the placing will be determined by word count. (You know I love you, Axxi.)

Read on!

Recommended Listening: Turn Me Loose by Loverboy


Ilber Schmidt, District 7

I'm on watch when the sun finally rises. Everyone else is still snoozing away, especially Osso, who was apparently dumb enough to stay on watch until this morning when he woke me up. Magya doesn't look like she's waking up anytime soon, either...

I pad over to Ax and nudge at her to wake her up. She immediately rolls over, for some reason muttering that she doesn't like tea. I nudge her a few more times, and she finally pulls herself out of her dream and blinks at me confusedly.

"Don't say anything," I whisper, tiptoeing over to Journs. She halfheartedly swats at me but wakes up at the first nudge.

Once they're both awake enough to hear me whisper, I do so.

"So, I figured you two are about as tired of this sucky Career arrangement as I am."

Ax nods, while Journs blinks, perking up. "Are we going to kill everybody?"

"Eh, not just yet." I glance back at the dreamland group before turning back to the others.

"So, we know Osso's not going to to give up his authority for anything, but the Career group sucks when he's leading it. So, I say we run off and make our own Career group."

They ponder this for a second.

"Just the three of us?" Ax finally says. "Or are we bringing Sheen, too?"

I glance back at the Cornucopia. "We'll see what happens with Feli first. I don't want that scrap of a loser dragging us down like Osso does."

"So, we're not doing it right away, then?" Journs asks.

"No, I'm not sure they're asleep enough yet. And they're too close to the Cornucopia for us to make off with the supplies."

Journs nods before pausing. "But what if we just kill them all now?"

Knowing her, I reply, "Then we'd have to do it fast and quiet."

She immediately frowns.

"And, we should probably keep Osso alive so D1 can get more donations. And your mentor's hopefully not stupid enough to keep giving them to Osso."

Ax nods.

"So, we got a deal?" I say. Ax nods, and Journs shrugs approvingly.

"Sweet." I look back again to see Magya starting to stir. Finished up just in time, looks like.

"We'll talk more later." With that, I turn around and start towards the Cornucopia to find some breakfast.

Sui Holmes, District 11

My second attempt to pin down the rabbit isn't any better than the first. Of course, I'm trying to kill it by doing nothing but throwing an off-balance cleaver at it. Unsuprisingly, I don't have a tendency to even nick the fur.

Already sweaty and exhausted, I end up trying one more time. The rabbit escapes, this time hopping out of sight.

I mutter to myself hungrily as I walk back towards our bushes. We haven't been getting any less water since Den stopped being in the alliance—apparently his mentor must not have been too fond of him—but we don't have a source of food anymore.

I throw in a swear word amongst my grumbling. Maybe we shouldn't have left. He may have been suspicious, but he at least got us food.

Well. No turning back now. We just have to go with it.

I arrive at the closest thing we have to camp, the patch of bushes. Tina is still sitting there, staring off into space and rocking on and off her heels. She doesn't notice me when I sit down next to her.

"T'na."

She finally turns her face to me, but it still doesn't seem like she sees me.

"N' l'ck," I continue. "I'm j'st n't g'd at c'tch'ng r'bb'ts."

She blinks, her gaze finally focusing. "How?" she gets out unspecifically.

Assuming she meant to ask how I was hunting, I reply, "I w's j'st thr'w'ng th' h'tch't at 'm. It d'sn't w'rk v'ry w'll."

She blinks again before looking back in front of her. "No trap?"

"D'n't kn'w h'w t' b'ld one."

She falls silent again, and I start sweeping some soil and leaf bits off the blade. That's about as much as I expect out of her. It's unnerving, but at least she's doing some talking now. I think she'll recover all right. It'll take a while, though.

"I can build one."

Caught off-guard by both the sudden speech and the full sentence, I jerk just enough to nick my fingertip. Wiping the subsequent drop or two of blood off on my unused jacket, I look back over at Tina, who hasn't turned back towards me.

"L't's b'ld one, th'n."

Tina doesn't respond for a minute but suddenly jumps to her feet and starts looking at the tree branches near us.

"Oh, wait!" she exclaims, pushing out of the bushes and scampering a few metres away. "We can't have it too close to us, or they'll smell us, so we have to have it far away, so they can't smell us, but it still has to be the right kind of branch if we make that kind, and—" She suddenly bursts into jittery laughter and plops down on her rear.

Frowning, I hurry over, setting the cleaver down carefully before putting my hands on her shoulders.

"T'na. C'lm d'wn." She stops to take a gasping breath but goes back to laughing, a drop or two of water sliding down her cheek.

"T'na!"

She finally starts to slow down a little, the gasps for breath between sharp laughs growing longer and longer. She finally gets to a weak chuckle and trails off.

I stay silent for a while, not wanting to press my luck.

"...H'w d' we b'ld it?" I finally ask quietly, hoping I can get her to shift gears into something mildly sane and useful.

As always, she doesn't respond for a minute but eventually wobbles to her feet and looks around. She points at a young tree two metres away.

"That looks good."

I nod, picking up the cleaver discreetly and walking over to the sapling. Tina starts to follow me blankly but is interrupted by a falling parachute. She's still in her right mind enough to separate the parachute to reveal a length of nice-looking wire.

"Oh, good," she responds, not sounding excited at all. She scuttles the rest of the way to the tree and proceeds to look at the top of the tree she chose and back down at the wire.

"Okay, so..." She looks at the tree again. "We start by bending over a branch..." She reaches up but can't quite seem to reach the top of a branch, despite this sapling being the shortest tree in the area. I end up getting hold of it for her and bending it down. It apparently makes the right kind of arc, as she goes on with the instructions.

"So we have to tie one end of this to that, and..." She trails off, winding some of the wire around the tip as I hold it down. She attempts a knot, but it loosens immediately.

"Um..."

"W'nt me t' try?"

She nods, and she just ends up laying down the blueprint, which I follow. We set up a few of these before Tina's sanity goes out the window again. Then I lead her back to camp, and there we wait, stewing away in the insanity of the place as much as the heat.

Aurth Unikin, District 6

This is a bit of a problem.

I'm sort of choking at the moment, as a particularly strong winged mutt has decided to lift me away with its beak clamped on The Hood. While it really is nice to be aloft, as none of my levitation spells have ever needed to work, it's a bit troublesome when the one part of The Hood keeping it secured to me is cutting off my air supply. In theory, I could untie it, but where would I be then? The Hood is the source of my powers! I cannot abandon it!

I struggle, trying to dissuade the bird from taking me any further, but it isn't affected. As black starts to streak back and forth across my vision, I try to get out a curse, though I'm not sure it would work on an animal, but I can't get any more air out of my windpipe than I can get in.

I'm going to die if I don't take off The Hood. But where would I be without it? I can't...

With a last choke, everything goes darker than night.