Boden Clarie

Morning

Boden fucking hated having to be patient.

He hated it probably the worst out of the long, long list of things he hated. But he knew if he tried to attack two people at once — even two wimpy kids like these — he wasn't likely to get out of the scuffle alive. He wasn't done in this Arena yet; he'd only killed one person. He wanted to be able to keep going for as long as he could. If he won, hey, that would be great. If he didn't, at least he would go out doing something he enjoyed.

He had been tracking these kids for two days. Soren and Ranine, if he remembered correctly. Originally, he had seen Soren about halfway through the first day and had decided to follow him. He was about to get him when he ran into Ranine, which had pretty much ruined his ability to get another kill. Assuming he could find a way to pick them both off, though, it would be doubly as sweet.

He was glad for the darkness; it concealed him, for the most part. He had to follow at a decent distance though, and keep himself mostly hidden. He knew if they saw him they would run, and he'd likely lose track of them. Or it would turn into a fight, which wasn't the ideal.

And of course now, while he was on his preys' heels, did he run into a complication: he needed food. The backpack he had gotten from the Bloodbath only had a few protein bars in it, as far as nourishment went. He also needed water, but he knew that that was what Soren and Ranine were looking for. Eventually, if they found it, he'd find it. Food, however, was a more pressing issue.

There were mushrooms all over the place, and he had worked at the edible plants station enough to know, basically, which were safe to eat. He had also seen lizards crawling around. It seemed the further they got from the cornucopia, the more abundant the little creatures were. They probably didn't have much meat on them, but it beat testing his luck with the mushrooms.

So now he had a choice to make: he could either go look for food and risk losing the trail, or continue following and hope the protein bar he had left would be enough until he could do the deed and move on.

Of course, the two of them didn't have much between them, if he had seen correctly. Maybe when they stopped for the night he could go off to look.

Eventually, they did stop to rest, and the gnawing ache in his stomach finally convinced him to take the chance. Surely he had an hour, at least. They tended to take long breaks, probably because Ranine couldn't go far on that prosthetic of his.

He stood there, watching as they took out their stuff and sat down, before withdrawing away and scrounging around for any sign of life besides weird roaches. He soon found a small ravine and slid down into it. There were holes all along the floor. He took out his flashlight and shined it down into the hole and nearly shouted in triumph. He reached down and snatched as many of the little things as he possibly could and held them there, wriggling in his hand as they tried to get free.

They were tiny, only about ten inches across at the biggest. But they were fat little things who must have gorged themselves on the mushrooms around here.

"Now, how to kill you," he whispered to himself. He took out his knife, struggling a little bit to make sure he didn't drop the lizards and one by one cut their little heads off. He chuckled silently to himself as their bodies continued twitching for a minute, blood coming from their stumped necks. He'd never had lizard before, but he figured the skin was probably pretty tough. He'd have to skin them before eating them. There was no way to build a fire, so he supposed he'd have to eat the things raw.

He didn't want to stay here for long though, and risk missing Ranine and Soren's exit. So, he skinned one, figuring it would be something to chew on while he followed the other two, and set the others in his backpack. He zipped it back up, picked up his club, and jogged back towards the campsite. As he neared it he dropped into a crouch, looking around for any sign of them.

This was the place, right? Then why weren't they there? Where had they gone? They hadn't left already, had they?

He swore. They couldn't be far, though, and there was nothing that would lead him to believe that they wouldn't continue in the same direction they had been going in. So he took off at a brisk pace in the direction Ranie and Soren had been going all day. Hopefully he would be able to catch up to them before they got too far.

The lizard wasn't particularly great, and even less pleasant because it was raw, but it was better than nothing, he supposed.

Denver Teikell

Morning

Denver wished, more than anything, that there were more places that he could just sit down and rest without having to worry about someone coming across him. He wanted to be able to sit down and shut his eyes. He hadn't actually slept the past two nights, not really. He hadn't found anywhere that would conceal him enough that he felt safe to pass out. Everything was all pretty much flat. He didn't know how far around this Arena was, nor where all the other Tributes had gone off to. So, he didn't know how safe his immediate area was at any given time.

But he had been walking for a while, probably longer than anyone else. The Arena couldn't be that big, right?

He tried to think back to his days in school where they would run and walk a mile, and how long it would take him to walk it. He figured it was probably like... fifteen minutes to a half an hour, depending on how fast he was walking. And he had been walking for almost three days straight. He was too tired to do such complicated math.

That's right. He really was tired. As if his body was suddenly reminded, he stumbled and fell forward, scraping his hands on the ground. He groaned and curled up. It was all he could do not to just fall asleep.

Instead, he stood up and looked around. He was trying to think about how likely it was, mathematically, for another Tribute to be anywhere nearby. There wasn't much of a chance, was there? So, he decided to find the best hiding place he could, and fall asleep under it. He found a clump of large mushrooms which had enough room in between their bases that a person could probably curl up inside and be relatively concealed. He took the jacket he had grabbed on the first day from around his waist and put it on, hoping it would make him blend into the dark rock, before curling up in a ball and shutting his eyes.

Denver woke up later. He didn't know how long, exactly. It was hard to know what time it was in an underground arena. About the only thing that gave them any kind of time signature from the outside world was the anthem every night. As far as he knew, it hadn't come up yet, so it had to be some time before nightfall. He stood up carefully and peeked out of his hiding place. His eyes strained to see anything in the darkness, looking for any movement out there, listening for any sound of people in the vicinity.

Deciding that it was clear, he emerged, ready to take off running if he turned out to be wrong. After a moment of silence though, he relaxed and started in the direction he had been going before.

His stomach was rumbling incessantly. There had to be food around here somewhere. He had already eaten half of his bread, despite his better judgement, and he had been in a lot of pain earlier because he hadn't eaten anything but carbs in three days.

It seemed like the most abundant choice was mushrooms. Obviously that was what the Gamemakers wanted them to eat. He tried to bring up images from the edible plants station. He discarded everything that wasn't mushrooms. He remembered that the best, most friendly mushroom was what the instructor had called a "puff ball." She had said they were huge, white, and round. He didn't know if there were any of those in this Arena, but he figured he should pick those if he found any.

He didn't know how long he looked around for a patch of mushrooms he recognized, but eventually he found a group growing underneath a boulder. They were yellow, and faded into a white along the rim of the cap. He bent down to look at them, cocking his head.

He tried to remember if he had seen these while he had been working at the edible plants station. He didn't think he had seen them, but they also didn't resemble any of the poisonous ones he had seen.

Of course, the station didn't necessarily include all types of mushrooms, including the ones the Gamemakers created especially for the Games. But hey, how bad could it be? The worst that would happen was that he would die — which, while shitty, wasn't necessarily any better or worse of an outcome than getting killed by one of the others, and was certainly better than dying of starvation.

He reached out and grabbed a few. He looked around for others and grabbed as many as he could carry.

Then, he stuffed a few into his mouth. The texture was all wrong, he didn't really like it. The only mushrooms he had ever had in his life had always been in soups and stews, and they always seemed to be slimy; eating a raw mushroom felt like biting into a down pillow mixed with rubber.

He stood, heart beating wildly in his chest for a moment, waiting for a shoot of pain to tell him that he had made the wrong choice, waiting to drop dead.

But it didn't happen. At least, he didn't feel any pain.

Instead, he felt kind of... weightless. Like if he stopped focusing on staying on the ground, he would just start floating until he hit the ceiling of this cavern. The colors started getting brighter and more saturated; with a sinking feeling, Denver realized that he might have just eaten a hallucinogenic mushroom.

"Fuck," he said. His voice had come out all warbled, and he wasn't even sure that he had said it himself at all.

He was still lucid enough to know that he couldn't be tripping like this while he was out in the open; he needed to find some place where he could sit down and ride out this high.

He dropped the mushrooms to the ground as if they might bite him. He would rather die than eat another one.

Then, he looked around in the cavern which was now far too bright, trying to find a place that would conceal him so he wasn't just stumbling around like an idiot.

The mushrooms started growing and warping; Denver felt as if his feet had grown three sizes bigger. He stumbled around, squinting in the sudden brightness of the glowing mushrooms. "I need… somewhere to lay down," he whispered. His voice sounded like it was going through sap. His muscles felt like they were melting.

He saw — or he thought he saw — an overhang not far away and he went toward it.

He suddenly found himself on all fours, and he crawled towards the outcropping.

He looked down and shouted in fear as he saw the earth crumbling before him, bits of rock and dirt crawling up his arms, slowly incasing his body. He tried to struggle, fought to stand, but it felt as though his limbs wouldn't respond. He heard screaming, and he figured it was probably from his own mouth.

Then, everything went dark.

Imperial Baines

Afternoon

"Peri, what are you doing?"

They cracked their eyes open and saw Keiynan standing above them.

"I'm relaxing, what does it look like?"

"It looks like you're trying to disappear into the ground. Or trying to metamorphose into a starfish."

They laughed and sat up. "I probably wouldn't mind being a starfish," they said thoughtfully.

"I'm sure you wouldn't."

"What are you doing, Keiynan?"

He shrugged and glanced around the clearing. It had been relatively quiet that day, and everyone was exhausted from hunting for the first forty-eight hours of the Games. Keiynan had allowed them all a day of rest, figuring the Tributes who were left were probably long gone from the cornucopia by now. At some point, maybe they would go further off, leaving their supplies behind for a day or two at a time with a few people behind to watch them. He had said something about going out that night, when everyone would likely be turning in for the night, but as it was, they were recuperating, trying to keep their energy up.

"I'm just… keeping myself busy I guess."

There was something different about him, Peri could see it. Something behind his eyes, swimming behind that impenetrable mask he always seemed to be wearing. Maybe it was because they were getting to know him, or because that facade was crumbling, but Peri found it easier and easier to tell what he was thinking.

"You wanna talk?"

He looked down at them, taken aback, and watched as they stood up. "About?" he asked.

They shrugged. "You look like you need someone to talk to. Or like something's on your mind."

He chuckled dryly and looked away. "Don't we all have something on our minds?" he asked. "I mean, we are kind of in the Hunger Games."

"I guess so. But you've been training for this for ages, what do you have to worry about?"

Keiynan rolled his eyes and went towards the cornucopia. "Um, everything? Just because we were trained for this doesn't mean nothing's going to go wrong. I mean, look at Dazzle. She trained for ages, she was the chosen Tribute, and she died in the Bloodbath. Being Careers doesn't make us a shoe-in."

Peri elbowed him gently. "You worry too much. You need something to take your mind off everything."

"Yeah? What exactly can I do to take my mind off the fact that I could die any day?"

They shrugged. "Cuddling always makes me feel better."

Peri kicked themself. Was that weird? Did that make it seem like they were implying that they wanted to cuddle with him?

They did, but they weren't going to suggest it like that. Keiynan would think they were the weirdest person on the planet.

"Yeah?" he replied, looking over with raised eyebrows.
Peri felt heat rising in their cheeks. Great, they fucking ruined everything that had been building; the rapor, the ease, what might be considered friendship.

Keiynan sat down, getting comfortable in a pile of sleeping bags that more or less substituted for a chair before opening an arm and looking up at them expectantly.

They blinked.

"What? I wanna find out if it'll make me feel better, and you seem to be the only one around here who doesn't think I want to kill them."

Peri laughed nervously, trying to keep their soul from ejecting out of their body. They dropped into the cushy pile and let Keiynan wrap an arm around them, though they didn't lean close. No matter how much they wanted to, they weren't going to push it that far.

Keiynan leaned his head back and shut his eyes. Peri watched him. They felt awkward, but not in a way that made them want to stop. Just in that way where one didn't know exactly what was okay and what wasn't — so it was hard to feel at ease.

After a few minutes of silence, though, Keiynan tugged them gently towards him and they leaned against him. It was wild, how well they seemed to fit together. The warmth radiating off of him, reflected by their sleeping-bag pile, eventually made Peri want to fall asleep.

Without realizing, they did just that.

They didn't know how much time had passed before they woke up again, but they did know that it was movement from the mouth of the cornucopia. Peri's eyes fluttered open and they saw that it was Sammy. He looked surprised to find them curled up like this — Peri had only just noticed themself just how tangled up they were — and more than a little embarrassed.

"Oh, hey Sammy," they said, sitting up. They were a little too warm, but they had woken up at that point where all they wanted to do was curl right back up and go back to sleep. It felt nice to have someone to sleep with. They'd never had that before, and while it was weird and uncomfortable and bodies were too complicated to fit together perfectly, it was comforting as well, at a time when they needed it most.

"I'm just looking for the gas stove," he said, ducking his head and moving around in the dark. "Don't mind me."

It was at this point that Keiynan stirred. He opened his eyes and seemed to realize that his other arm had been wrapped around Peri and he quickly jerked it away. "Sorry," he said.

He heard Sammy moving in the background and craned his neck.

"Don't worry about it," Peri replied, leaning their head into the crook of his shoulder and shutting his eyes. "I kind of like it."

They glanced up and saw a smile on Keiynan's face. Those were so rare, but more and more he was smiling, and it always seemed to be directed at them. It was exciting.

He wrapped his other arm back around them, shutting his eyes. "In that case I'll keep it there," he said quietly. His voice vibrated deep in his throat, and Peri could hear it alongside his heartbeat from where they were laying.

Sammy found the stove soon and left again, and Peri fell back into a light, musty sleep.

Cedar Wayne

Night

Cedar sat across from Rose, bent over a sliver of jerky while Rose struggled with her woodless fire kit, trying to set it on fire. He watched her. Her brow was creased as she drew out a match and started trying to strike it. It was a small bowl of what Cedar assumed was alcohol, and it had come with a packet of matches. He had seen similar setups before back home.

The match lit and she dropped it into the bowl. Immediately it lit up and she let out a whoop of excitement. Cedar grinned.

"Good job," he said.

"Thanks," she replied, her signing awkward while she clutched the packet of matches between her fingers.

He pointed at the alcohol stove and signed "Why?"

He handed her the charcoal pencil he had taken into the Arena with him and she wrote on the ground "Just seeing if it works."

Communicating with his allies was hard, since they didn't have a piece of paper to write on anymore, and he could only bring in one item, but they got along fine. He had taught Rose the manual alphabet and a little bit of the other signs, so together they had managed to talk alright. Cedar was just glad he had Rose with him, as well as the others in their alliance.

She watched the fire burn for a moment before leaning down and blowing it out. She smiled and covered the bowl with the top and gently placed it back into her backpack along with the matches.

He looked around their makeshift campsite. The others were off doing their own jobs. Ayana and Ida were making an inventory of their supplies, while Viola worked at developing a trap to get at some of the lizards they had seen crawling around.

He looked around, at the huge Arena and the endless darkness above them, before back down at Rose.

Their alliance wasn't as big as it had been before the Games started; they had lost Marley in the bloodbath, and had seen Clio's face up in the sky the night before. She had gotten separated from them during the chaos while they escaped the Cornucopia. The Careers must have found her, or something. Or one of the other Tributes, he supposed, but he tried his best not to think of them when it came to who was doing the murdering. The Career Pack was far enough away in his mind that they didn't even register as people anymore; instead they were predators. Rose had killed someone during the Bloodbath, but he hadn't seen it and he tried his best to ignore that fact. It wasn't necessarily that he thought none of them should kill anyone - quite the opposite, in fact. It was just difficult to imagine Rosewood, who he had begun to view as a friend, do something so vicious, even if it was for her own survival. He had known her for long enough to sense the deep anger and hatred in her, likely directed towards the Capitol for some crime which she wouldn't share with him. Still, it was hard, seeing that come out of her.

Rose's head perked up, and she was looking for something over Cedar's shoulder. He turned, craning his neck and peering into the darkness.

The others seemed to have heard something too, and immediately cold fear ran down his spine.

Then, out of the darkness and from behind hiding places sprung the Careers. The others' mouths opened in what could only be terrified cries, and Rose yanked him up. He took off after her, clinging desperately to her hand so they wouldn't get separated. He didn't dare glance back to see if their allies were following. All he could think of was to follow Rose and get away as fast as possible.

One of the Careers stepped out in front of them and Rose came to a stop. It looked like he was the boy from District Four. Rose pulled her knife out and lunged at him, her face contorted into one of animalistic anger. Mica held up his spear and she dodged around it, stabbing him deep into his side. Cedar's eyes went wide and he took off past him as he fell. Rose put her knife back into her belt and grabbed his hand. Cedar tried to ignore the stickiness from the blood on it. Now he risked a glance behind them. The others were following; one of the Careers was knelt next to District Four, but the others were coming after them fast.

Rose shouted something at the others, and started yanking him sharply to the right. He realized what the garbled syllables had meant: dodge.

Just in time, too, because a moment later a knife flew past his face, embedding itself into a mushroom in front of him. He remembered watching Imperial Baines in training; they could throw knives with deadly accuracy. If they were caught in their sights, they were almost certain to die.

Cedar didn't know how long they ran, but eventually Rose looked back and let out a relieved breath. She slowed down slightly and spoke to the others. He concentrated on her lips, trying to figure out what she was saying, but he didn't catch it. He had never been really good at reading lips.

They kept walking, not stopping save to catch their breath for a few minutes. Cedar looked all around them, and was relieved to find no sign of them. Rose's knife-work must have done wonders, distracting the other Careers so they could tend to their wounded ally.

Rose let go of his hand and said "You okay?"

He nodded. After all, he had gotten away unscathed; the only thing he could complain about was being sore and out of breath. He motioned to the others and asked if they were okay. She nodded. He looked at them; it didn't look like any of them had gotten seriously hurt, but Ayana had been nicked with an arrow from Vernazza, and Viola had fallen and scraped jeir knee up pretty bad. Cedar was just relieved they had all gotten out of there alive. He wanted nothing more than to collapse and fall asleep, but he knew they shouldn't stay anywhere near the area with the Careers. Maybe if they had all had weapons, they would have been able to take them on, but as it was, Rose was the only one.

He just hoped they weren't following them. He would imagine, with as many of them as there were, they would be pretty loud and easy to track. He prayed that they wouldn't be attacked again.

A/N: So… I know late, but I've been deeling with the lathargic kind of depression lately so it's been really hard to get any writing done. Dunno how reliable I'll be as far as updating will be, but I'm trying to get back into the habit. Thanks for sticking around and being patient. I don't intend on abandoning this SYOT, since I'm really excited for where I'm going with it.

Okay, so I'm not gonna do CQ for this chapter bc I'm lazey but!

Let me know what you thought! As always, I'll see y'all next time!