Author's Note: For anyone who'd like to read my nonsensical babbling, I've created a FictionPress account. Same username. Just one story so far.
We're dangerously close to 100 reviews, everyone~ The second we get there, reviewer rankings will be final.
Aaaaand it's chapter time. This one's a vague bit dirty, I'll warn you.
Recommended Listening: Lonely is the Night by Billy Squier
Thew Canda, District 3
Night falls quickly here. I've only just finished my donated supper of an orange and some bread before the sunset comes. It's a bleary sunset, with the sky's colour closer to that of ashes than the orange peel in my hand. I guess the last thing the Gamemakers would want to do is boost your morale with something beautiful.
But I think I'm doing all right morale-wise. While I didn't get to the person I was aiming for, I still eliminated a Career. The sponsors like that. And if the sponsors are happy, I'm happy.
Well, relatively speaking. They're all still horrendous murderers for no reason but entertainment, and I will never be fond of them.
But, if they want to send me food and painkiller, who am I to turn them down?
I actually haven't had any painkiller since the syringe in the meadow, so my head's throbbing again. It's still not bad, though, so… I'm all right for now. I should have enough sponsors to get more in the morning, I'm sure.
My pointless shredding of the orange peel is suddenly interrupted by a burst of music. It takes me a second to register it as the national anthem, and once I do, I look up to the sky. Being on the mountainside for the time being, my view is unobstructed.
The first face is Vivi. Even in a placid photograph, her eyes and smile are just twisted enough to make me shudder.
But she's gone now. Nothing to fear.
She flickers out of the sky, and, in a heartbeat, her image is replaced.
By that of Alf.
I stare blankly at the face so similar to my own, unable to register this for the whole time it appears. Yet another Career, Japan, is shown across the sky before I start to realise what's happened.
Alf is dead.
And I didn't kill him.
I can't quite explain why I'm so angered at this. I always thought I just wanted him to die, no matter how, but… I guess I wanted to take him down myself. After all, he did try to kill me—not to mention, he left me with this continuously relapsing headache—and I'm sure he's gone after others, too.
It disgusts me so much how Careers would go out of their way to destroy lives like that. Really, I—I would have liked to take them all down myself. But seeing as only one is left, I guess that's not going to happen.
—And Japan's picture is suddenly replaced with Ciano's.
Ciano… is dead, too? I mean… I knew he wouldn't last—I guess—and he was really a nuisance to the alliance… But… He was… He was a good guy.
I watch his perpetually cheery face before it flickers away, overshadowed by the Capitol seal.
Ha. Of course that's how they wrap up the death toll. Reminding us why these faces are gone forever, why the Careers have reason to kill, why all but one of us are condemned to death.
Because of the Capitol. Because of their ignorance of the people, of humanity, of the complete waste of lives year after year after year…
I can't stop it.
But I can stop my face from lighting the sky.
And that's what I plan to do.
Veta Edel, District 8
The flint clacks pitifully against itself as I try to get a spark of some kind. I'm not going to start a big fire—that'd be suicide enough in the Hunger Games without being surrounded by trees and moss—but the night brings a certain chill to the mountainside. My husband and I would rather stay a little warm.
I finally get a spark, but it flies too far away from the meager pile of tinder to start anything. With a sigh, I get back to hitting the flint.
"I could try for a while, if you like," Austria offers.
"Nah. I think I've almost got it." I grate the rocks together again, still producing nothing noticeable. "Maybe."
He can't quite stifle his laugh. "If you say so."
After a minute or two more of inanely striking the flint, I finally guide a spark to the musty-smelling pile of wood shavings. I start to gather the second level of firewood and arrange it carefully to avoid too much smoke.
"Well, there we are," I sigh finally, leaning back against a tree.
"Good job. It's nice and warm." My husband leans in to hold his hands over the little flame. His ring glints weakly, and suddenly I notice just how beaten up his hands are. They've always been in perfect condition—well, as perfect as they could get, considering how much he had to work in the textile factories—so he could drum them over the piano keys without fault.
But they're far from perfect now. Dried out to the point of cracking, sliced up by the savagely sharp mountainside, covered with a vague film of dirt from climbing around every day.
Just shows how much this arena's taken out of him. He hasn't really been injured, even as much as, say, my ankles, but three days of scaling a mountain and running for his life... It's not going to have a positive impact, that's for sure.
I look back at his face to see him staring blankly into the little fire.
What's made him gloomy all of a sudden, I wonder? Has he been thinking about the same thing as me? Or maybe what I won't let myself think about?
I lean over next to him, resting my head on his shoulder. He doesn't seem to relax.
And then something pops into my head.
"Austria?"
"Hmm?" I think he turns to look at me, but I can't see his face at this angle. I sit up and look him in the eye.
"You know... We're married now. If you'd like to... have me."
He looks at me uncomprehendingly for a moment, then suddenly turns overwhemingly red.
"Wha-you-you-wh-b-the-we—" he splutters, unable to put a coherent sentence together. "We-it-we're in the-the Games! You can't-you can't seriously..." He closes his mouth and opens it again, but apparently didn't come up with anything else to say in the time it took him.
"Okay, okay," I reply, unable to stop myself from giggling. "Just offering."
I slouch back over onto his shoulder.
Russia Bragins, District 9
I made it back to my crater for the night. It's still really, really cold—but that's good. I ended up getting pretty badly sliced up in my fight with Gil, especially in my stomach. And then there's that arrow wound that sent me tumbling down the side of the mountain for a little while. That wasn't fun.
But it's all right now. Since this mini-environment is so cold, it's a lot harder to feel my wounds. Or much of anything, for that matter. I can't say if it's gotten colder since I was here last, but it's definitely really, really, really, cold.
Oh, well. At least it's numbing.
I curl up in the grass and watch the faces flit across the sky. A lot of Careers, and a boy I didn't know. No Gil. No Switz.
Well, good. I'd rather kill them myself. It'll be a lot of fun to kill Gil, if I actually get to.
And then there's Switz. It might not be as fun to eliminate him. Because I need to kill him. Not just do it for fun.
Because his arrow tore a hole through my scarf.
My sister made me this scarf. And, aside from my life in the Games, it's all I have left of her. And Switz went and ripped a hole in it, a big, gaping hole almost wide enough to slice the cloth all the way through.
And I definitely can't let him live with that.
But! That's a job for another day. Now it's time to go to sleep.