Maverick Geo, 16 - District 1 male

Salt the Snail

Day Six

I don't understand your reasons

Please just stay over the weekend

You can't take all those things

That define you and me

Everything we've become

You're all that I need

Please don't make me face my generation alone.

We were the ones to beat.

Maverick Geo, District 1. The biggest guy in the room.

Ariella Dawson, District 1. The knife-throwing expert.

Supernova Amaranth, District 2. The mother that would do anything to return to her son.

Hero Da'Rogue, District 2. Funny and deadly.

Gemini Dock, District 4. The shoe-in for victor.

Kai Brooke, District 4. The leader and deadliest of us all.

And yet, six days in, only three of us remain. Our knife-throwing expert has fallen for the leader and I am nothing more than the third wheel, brooding and jealous. When they cuddle against a tree or steal a kiss as we search the changed arena for signs of tribute activity, it's a blow to my heart that I can't recover from. Part of me longs for Amber to be here, for my lips to meet hers once more. The arena would be ours for the taking and in the end, I would sacrifice myself for her, knowing that she would take care of my family in ways I can't even imagine. Plus, Amber's victory means that Ariella would not be here, her skin wouldn't be blushing under the glow of someone like Kai Brooke. Most of all, I want Amber here because that would mean that Ariella would be home and safe.

The other side of me longs to be Kai Brooke.

Everything has been handed to him,that much is certain. I've dealt with his kind nearly every day of my life and yet, in my own way, I've wanted to be just like him. He has never wanted for anything in life; food, shelter, medicine for his family, the clothing on his back. Trained by the best and a shoe-in for victory. And now, he gets the girl, despite having one back in his district, waiting for him. Granted, I can't say a word, as I am sitting here, silently wishing to be with Ariella, to be more than her friend, and I have Amber at home.

I think I'm just longing for my old life.

It's been less than two weeks since I've been in the jewel mines, less than two weeks since I've seen my nephew smile. It's the little things you miss when you leave them behind for the chance at glory, like being slapped upside the head by your big sister or teased by your best friend. The perfect circle your girlfriend's mouth makeswhen I run my fingers up the small of her back and the looks shared between my parents when they think no one is watching them. Ariella had it right when she stated that she didn't want to be here anymore. I'd give anything to be poor and looked down upon, jeered but alive. Volunteering saved my best friend, but my life is over. Even if I win, it will never be the same. The death and destruction of human life outweighs the lifetime of fame, riches, and glory. Hell, just look at Dazzle's pathetic life, he's the poster child for all things wrong with the Hunger Games.

Even know, under Kai's helm, we are hunting. Not for food or drink, but for tributes. Innocent children that didn't choose this, with the exception of the little boy from 5. That kid had his whole life ahead of him and yet, threw it all away to make a statement. Not very much unlike myself, I guess. Only he probably had something to back it up, especially if his training score was only two less than my own. The tike has staying power, that much is certain.

My mind wanders as we make our way far from the docks of Kai's homeland, heading through the sparse trees that open up to a crumbling town. With yesterday's death, confirmed to be the one-armed kid from 6, we are halfway through the games. Besides the three of us, nine other tributes remain and only two full districts remain. Ariella and I are among the lucky ones; a little piece of home still remains in the arena with us.

"We can poke around in those abandoned houses," Kai states, pointing ahead to the homes that linger in the distance. "If I was a scared, lonely tribute, these houses would provide the comforts of home."

If I was a scared, lonely ?

"Whatever you say, leader." I don't even try to cover my disdain any longer. "Ariella and I can take two on the left, while you go for the one on the right."

"Why don't you go right?" Ariella asks, her voice soft and fragile. I can sense the pain she is feeling from asking this question. "Kai and I can-"

No. I don't want to hear it any longer. The lovers want the larger houses on the left, the ones that could take time to search and if its that so much of a big deal, they can have it. If Ariella can't see what Kai is doing to her, the way he is using her, then that's her loss. Why should I even give a rats ass?

Because you care about Ariella.

Fuck you, common sense!

I didn't bother to wait for a response from the pair before I stormed off, my pickax raised in case I found someone, or even something. Can't be too careful when it comes to these Gamemakers, especially after the fog that landed us here. With sweaty palms and my hair standing on the back of my neck, I enter the house and begin swinging my pickax like a maniac.

Nothing.

The home is not much bigger than Franco's home that he shares with his dementia-ridden grandmother. His father left the family when he was just a baby and his mother withered away due to some unknown disease long before the rebellion even marched its way through our streets. As a matter of fact, had I not known any better, I would half-expect Franco to come marching down the steps, his hands moving spastically as he over-explained some issue he was having with his love life. Funny, it is his love life that helped land me in this place to begin with.

The door I entered had been the back one and it opened up to a kitchen area. The house had an overall eerie feeling to it; an inch of untouched dust covered almost everything, including the dinner that was abandoned on the table, as though everyone got up and ran off before they had a chance to stuff themselves. The smell was rancid and it took everything in me not to gag up the little I had to eat since I entered this arena. As quickly as my feet would allow me, I left behind the stench and dust and found a sitting area, not unlike one the people slightly better off than myself would have. Two chairs,stationed by a bookshelf, a table sits in front of a couch. The fireplace that had once kept the family that lived here warm and safe, is now extinguished and the ashes sit in a permanent state of rest around the logs. The Capitol must have drug this family out in the mist of their lives, doing Panem-knows what with family-

No. No one lived here. This is a trick, a Gamemaker trick. I'm an idiot for believing it to be real, even for a second.

The second floor proved to be nothing as well. A two bedroom set up with a small bathroom separating the two rooms, I saw a golden opportunity and took it once I saw that the coast was clear. Taking a leak in a toilet is a luxury I never thought I'd be without! All I hope is that they blur this out, so I'm not the laughing stock of Panem if I make it out of here alive.

If. Strange thing to say, when thinking of your own life.

I barely had a chance to zip my pants up when a BOOM sounded, shaking the small home to its foundation. It was the same one we heard yesterday, just a mere hour after the arena switched to this and, just like yesterday, a cannon followed it. Another life has been taken in the arena.

Ariella...

Remembering the layout of the house and the fact that we aren't very far up, I grabbed my pickax and took a running start, barreling my large frame down the hallway, towards the rickety old window at the end and dove out, ignoring the sting that came from the shattered glass that covered my head and back and concentrated on the ground that came at me fast and hard. Gravity is a harsh mistress and it broke my fall, as well as my pride, as I tucked my big body into a ball when I hit. In front of me stood my allies, Ariella in shock and Kai in awe, both perfectly fine. No mutts surround them, no tributes have them tied up and bound, waiting for me to complete the set.

I just made an ass of myself and nearly killed myself.

"What the hell was that?" Ariella bellowed at me, poking me in the chest when I finally got myself together and stood up. "Are you a special kind of stupid?"

"I heard the bomb go off and then the cannon-" I could feel the crimson rising off of my cheeks, all the way to my ears. "Ow!"

My ankles wobbled for a moment, a side-effect of jumping out of a house without a care in the world. Blood tricked down from my forearms, which I used to block the window and glass from my face, and I knew right then and there, that glass was stuck in it.

I am a toolbox.

"These houses could provide us with shelter for the night," Kai chimed in, reminding us that he was there and the one in charge. "Why don't we patch up Geo here and spend the night? My house has a few beds upstairs and we can actually relax before heading back out into our new world."

Beds? Where they-

No. Ariella is an innocent, despite her kill record.

As evening turned into night, we settled into the largest house on the right side of our stone trail. Ever the modest prince, Kai insisted we share a room and take turns sleeping on the only bed, while the other stood guard. Despite my disgust with being left in the same room as him, it was better than having him shacking up with my District Partner. No, not on my watch.

Before we turned in, we got our first sponsorship gift in the form of a First-Aid kit slightly better than the one found at the Cornucopia all those days ago. It took at least an hour of wincing and swear-words, but Ariella used the tweezers in the kit to pull out the shards of glass the made my forearms their new home. A note inside addressed to me from Dazzle reminded me of what a toolbox I was for that one. Great.

The tanned-skinned girl from District 8 was the Cannon that we heard and another District is out of the race. Who blasted her is beyond me, but I'd hate to come into contact with that tribute.

Who am I kidding? If I can make it a day longer without killing myself in some embarrassing way, it would be a miracle.

Jake Noir,12 - District 5 male

Eternal Pages Invisible Ink

Day Six

"Hey Genie," I say, turning my eyes up to the red head, my leg now bandaged in my once whole, not nessecarily clean, shirt.

"Yeah?" She says, looking up at me, her eyes slightly puffy and her face slightly annoyed.

It wasn't like I could blame her whatsoever for not being the slightest angry at the world, the dogs took Metro yesterday, they bit him, and clawed, and chewed until the cannon fired and they disappeared.

Funny how death works really, it's really, really fucking cruel, but still, somehow it can manage to be less cruel then it's counterpart, life, the suffrage from beginning to end.

"Do you think there's a heaven?" I ask as I twiddle with a stick holding a piece of meat over a small little fire we made on the floor of the room with sticks and wheat, the remains of the dogs we killed actually tasted pretty good.

It was either that, or we had simply thought it to be good, being the savages we were.

"A heaven?" She asks.

"Yeah, heaven, god's kingdom, swirling clouds everywhere, weird bird men flying around..." I list and she nods.

"Yes, I know what heaven is. But...I don't know." She says.

"Me neither." I reply.

"Exactly, we can't know right now, and I'm guessing we won't know until we die." She says simply, roasting the mutt meat on her end.

I nod in reply to her statement, and I wonder if Metro would go to heaven, they say this beautiful, godly place is for the clean of souls, the beautiful of character and goodwill. And they chuck the rest in hell.

"It would really blow for us if there wasn't." I reply and she nods in return.

I really did think about it, we didn't deserve this B.S, we didn't deserve to plopped as victims and pay for the so called 'sins' of our fathers and mothers, we didn't deserve to work all day and get whipped for wanting basic human needs.

We didn't deserve to have people die, like Metro, Rex, Grace, Ariah, Mom, Dad, Rosalina, Todd, Derek, Sophia, Lucy, Nigel...

I choked back a sob, so many names an faces, so many people out there that I outlived, and it wasn't fair at all...

And it wasn't fair that I didn't feel anything anymore.

I didn't cry when Metro died, I didn't cry because I didn't care anymore, death has followed me all my life, and after A while, with the help of these games turning me into a monster, I don't care if life ended, and death somehow struck again, because it doesn't matter.

Because I am alive.

I am still alive, that's the thing that helps me make it through everything terrible.

I am alive.

An explosion resounds, close to us, deathly close, and I turn around, flinching as I stand and putting pressure on my leg that's bandaged.

Smoke billows from a spot in the fields not so far away and I relax my muscles when I see the outline of a human shape.

Another one down, counting Sebastian that makes my kill total two.

What a monster you are.

I look up at the sky when I hear that thought in my head and squint my eyes at the sun.

A terrible monster, one that kills people for sport. Tell me, how many until you feel something?

I kill not for sport, but for survival.

Remember when you used to think, how could I possibly kill someone like those careers on T.V?

Yes.

It's easier then you thought, if you're willing to become like them.

Shut up.

Shut up, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!

I hold my head in my hands as I turn around and slide down to the ground, out of sight from the possible other from below as Genie rushed over.

"Damn." She says, looking at the smoke before her.

"Who was it?" I ask, looking up from under my hands.

"Don't know, maybe a girl? I can't make out a good form, besides, her skin's pretty burnt beyond recognition, we'll find out tonight I suppose." She replies.

You really don't feel any remorse? How cold.

I thought I told you to shut it!

You really can't escape me, because honestly what do you peg me as? Some alter ego that's really a shattered remnant of your former self? Please.

You have to be joking, I don't hold onto the past, especially trash.

You want to know what I am? Not your alter ego, or whatever you may say, I'm just a feeling forgotten.

Feelings can't talk.

No, we can, it's only just crazy people that can hear us, you have no guilt anymore, you've transformed so quickly into something you used to despise like the Careers.

Why won't you leave me alone?

Because you actually are hanging onto me, and you don't want to admit that you can't live without me, and plus you're pretty insane.

Who are you? And I'm not crazy.

I'm no one but you, I am a form of your innocence, a conscience you dreamed up in order to handle this, you shed me like skin but you still need me, so you created a voice in your head.

That's crazy.

You're crazy.

"I'm not crazy!" I shout and Genie turns to me and I look at her with shaking hands on my head, and I shake my head.

I'm not crazy, I can't be.

Help me Metro, Grace, Rex, Mommy, Daddy, anyone there...

Help Me.

Oliver Cerese, 17 - Distric 7 male

Faith-o-saurus

Day Six

"All right, so where are we going from here?"

I look back at Velvet and motion toward the pier. "Well, first of all, keep to our initial plan: water. Dying from dehydration seems pretty anti-climactic."

She rolls her eyes. "Obviously. Where from there?"

I raise an eyebrow and turn to her fully, arms crossed. I'm getting irritated with her behavior; she has so many moods I'm starting to hope we get a parachute full of pills. "Don't you have any ideas of your own? Or am I just the go-to?"

She shakes her head and brushes past me. "Can we just go? I'm parched."

I just shrug and follow, idly wondering what it would be like to just throw my knife straight into her spine. Then I'm thinking of my brother and the thought clears; I can still see him dying in my arms. I shake these thoughts away, not liking the odd feeling it gives me. "After we get water, we'll figure out what to do."

We walk the rest of the way in silence, until we come to a small shack next to one of the docks. It's completely made of wood with the occasional ajar board. I turn to Velvet, nodding toward it. "We should probably shack up-"

"What the-"

"Not like that." I shake my head in annoyance. "Anyway, we should find a place to set up camp, since we have no idea where any of the other tributes are." I start to side-step toward the door. I grab my ax, ready for someone to pop out and attack. "All right, I'm going to check and make sure that it's abandoned." I'm now right next to the door. It's best to fling the door open. If there is a tribute inside, they'll hopefully be caught by surprise.

I put my hand flat against it, since there's no door handle. "All right, let's do this," I whisper, my eyes forward. I take a breath and fling the door open, peering inside as quickly as possible. There's nothing, but my eyes do lie on some supplies. I turn to Velvet and give a thumbs up, holding the door open for her. And they say I'm not a gentleman.

"Whoa, there's a bunch of stuff in here!"

I move inside and watch as she takes it all in. "Weapons, I suppose?" She shrugs, so I go to stand next to her. I'm right, but the weapons aren't normal.

There's something that resembles a spear, but had multiple small prods at the end. It seems like it's more for puncturing something small than an actual weapon, and is definitely not something you want to be carrying around if you want to move swiftly. There are also some small knives, but seem more like the steak knives they had in the Capitol. Not the best for fighting, but still effective.

There's also a large net with small balls hanging from multiple points at the end. I squint my eyes, thinking about what exactly these could be for.

Wait.

I think of the water right outside and District Four flashes in my mind. Of course, fishing. I remember the netting on past tributes, probably signifying the nets they use. "I think these are for fishing." I reach out and take the spear, inspecting it up close. "This looks like something to catch fish with. Well, spear it."

She nods, but doesn't seem to be paying attention to much. "Can we get some water now, please?"

I nod and motion for her to get the canister out for us to fill up. I hope that the water is safe for drinking. "Let's go out, but make sure to check to see if anyone else is out there first."

She nods, hesitating, and I think of offering to go first. Then I think - she's not exactly necessary. The only reason I needed her before is because she had water, but now she's more of a nuisance than anything. I decide to forget the thought for now, because as much as I hate to admit it, company is nice.

She opens the door slowly and peeks her head out. I hear her sigh in relief and she looks back at me with a smile. "All clear."

I nod and move toward the door, then past her. "Let's get this water, then." I motion for the canister, and she hands it over reluctantly. I roll my eyes. "What do you think I'm going to do, chuck it into the water?"

She doesn't answer, instead deciding to pout.

I ignore it and make my way to one of the docks, testing it to make sure it's stable. Once I'm satisfied, I walk to the end and bend down, pulling the top off and lowering it to the water.

Something jumps up and latches onto my hand. "Fuck!" I drop the bottle, thanking God that it floats, and hit the thing against the dock. Luckily, it falls right off. I look down and see a bunch of fish swimming below me, sweeping up the self-filled water canteen. "I think I found our source of food."

Velvet comes to stand next to me and looks down. "Those swimming things? Are you sure?"

I nod. "I think I saw them in one of the stations in the training center. It's a mutt, but safe for eating."

She seems to be thinking, but eventually nods. "I'm trusting you with this, Olly."

I look at her and raise an eyebrow.

She rubs her arm uncomfortably. "…Oliver."

I give her a tight smile and hand over the water, and then turn back to the fish while pulling out the spear. "I'm going to try and get one of these things." They seem quick, so I have to be quicker. I watch them intensely and grip tight. I think I see the one that attacked me because it's moving slower than the rest. I decide to focus on that one, getting ready to strike. When it starts moving in circles, I throw down.

I actually manage to get it on my first try.

I turn back to Velvet and give a genuine smile. "Looks like we're eating tonight. We could take wood from the house, but it's going to be dark soon and I don't trust it inside. Raw fish is edible, though. It has some special name, but I don't remember what it is."

She makes a face, but seems to accept it. She trusts me more than I ever expected, and it actually pleases me. I stand up easily and lead her back to the house. "I think those knives are to get rid of the scales."

"Well, that's good. I wasn't particularly looking forward to all that slime." She visibly shudders, going to sit in the corner and curl up.

Guess I'm taking care of it, but I don't mind. We spend the next few hours in idle conversation while eating and drinking, filling up the bottle every twenty minutes or so, and catching a few extra fish.

At sundown, we both decide it's best to get moving. Better in the dark, out of sight of the other tributes. The arena is so open that it's practically a bloodbath to try doing something that stupid in the day.

"All right, remember all those buildings?" I glance toward the door.

She nods. "Yeah. The tower things. Do you want to head to one?"

"Yeah, it's probably our best bet. There could be more weapons or food, maybe even a survival kit or two." I stretch as I stand from my spot near the fishing tools, heading for the door. "Better sooner than later. We'll just head to the closest one for now."

She seems anxious to head out, so I let her lead the way. We walk just a few yards before we reach the road, and we're lucky to see a tower right in front of us. I'm reluctant to just burst in, but Velvet doesn't seem to feel the same.

She's saying something to me, but I can't hear since she's a good ten feet away, maybe a little more. She's closing in quickly, almost to the door, and I finally feel like we'll be safe.

That's when everything goes wrong.

She is barely just opening the door when I'm blown backward. I bounce on the ground, my head hitting the pavement hard. A few seconds later when I'm able to sit up, my vision is slightly blurred, but when I blink my eyes a few times, I'm able to see the horror in front of me and hear the sound of the cannon.

There's spouts of fire around the base of the tower and Velvet is nowhere in sight. I know the cannon was hers, and I feel a sudden pang of loneliness that quickly vanishes. I decide to not look at the ground, because I'm bound to see some piece of her lying around.

I realize that I'm almost hyperventilating, so I quickly try to slow my breath. Once I'm feeling more like myself, I get up and hurry back to the fish house and slam the door shut, sliding down it.

I'm feeling safe again, so I raise my knees to my chest and allow my head to drop and eyes to close.

I'm on my own.