Rhoda Hamilton

"What the hell was that?! What just happened?!"

Onyx was still checking for a pulse, but Slater was dead. His eyes were frozen and he was staring up like a fish, his mouth still open.

"He just fell over and died! How does that happen?" I asked.

"He started to lose his balance before he fell," Jason said. Tuesday put her curled hands up to her face.

"I've been feeling off-balance for hours," she said. "Are we all dying?"

"That's bogus! We're Careers! We're not supposed to fall over and die! They must have sent from freaky illness into the Arena. That's not fair," Jason said.

"It's probably the altitude," Onyx said as he stood up. He was the only one of us who wasn't freaking out.

"What does the altitude do?" Tuesday asked.

"There's not as much air up here. It makes it harder to breathe. If you go high enough, you can't breathe at all," Onyx said.

"Let's not go up any higher then," Tuesday said.

"There are still more Tributes up there," I said.

"It doesn't matter if we die before we get there," Jason said. I shut my eyes for a moment and thought.

"Who feels the worst? Not a loaded question, I just really need to know," I said. Jason and Tuesday raised their hands.

"Okay, how about this? Onyx and I don't feel as sick, so we'll keep going up. You two go down and get the Tributes that are lower. It's not ideal to split up, so we have to stick in our pairs. Shane is still out there," I said.

"Sounds good," Jason said. He and Tuesday wasted no time starting downhill. Then I was stuck with Onyx. I didn't know what to make of him. He obviously knew his stuff, but he wasn't like the rest of us. Maybe I'd find out more now.

Lucius Petrol

We had to leave our nook after the mountain shifted and we almost got buried alive. We were hoping to find another shelter as quickly as possible. We weren't dangerously cold, since we had so many supplies, but we didn't like being exposed where the Careers could see us.

"Let's go up," I said.

"It's even colder up there," Kuma said.

"Yeah, but... it's prettier up there," I said. I wanted to go up higher and see what else was up there. "Besides, the Careers are probably starting at the bottom. They wouldn't like being cold."

"Sure, that's the reason," Kuma said, but we started going uphill. The ground was jagged and icy. We crept close to the ground and jammed knees and fingers into divots in the ice to stop ourselves from sliding backwards. I tried to tread lightly so the rocks wouldn't tear my pants.

"Oh, yuck," Kuma said. He held a hand to his nose and it came away bloody.

"What happened? Are you all right?" I asked. Even though we were going uphill, we weren't planning to go to the top. I knew enough about flying to know what happened when people tried to breathe at high altitudes. Once it got hard enough to go on, we were planning to stop. But I'd never heard of anyone getting a nosebleed from thin air.

"This happens every winter. It's no big deal. It's just gross," Kuma said. He sniffed and ran a finger under his nose. "I hope it doesn't freeze in there."

We struggled on a few feet further and the ice gave way to a smooth plain of snow that wasn't nearly as steep. Kuma was ahead of me, and he got to his feet and stepped out onto it.

"Nice! This is way easier to walk on," he said. Then the ground split open and swallowed him up.

Kuma Swain

I stepped out onto the smooth, gloriously un-icy snow and pumped my fist into the air. After all that horrible ice, it was going to be wonderfully easy to walk on plain snow. But then the snow dissolved from under me. It was like I was trying to stand on a cloud, and as soon as I put my weight on it, it evaporated. I fell through the snow and punched out the other side into a gaping hole in the ice.

"Kuma!" Lucius called from above the crack. His hand appeared and grabbed mine just before I fell out of reach. I lurched to a stop and Lucius slid forward on his stomach to the edge of the crack. He stopped himself with his other hand as I grabbed onto him with both of mine.

"I got you!" he said. He tried to pull me up, but I was too heavy. Bits of snow and ice flaked off at the movement and fell on my face. I let go of him with one of my hands and grabbed onto the edge of the crack. I searched for a grip along the jagged ice. Lucius shifted, and I almost lost my grip.

"Just hold on another minute! Let me get dug in," he said. He wiggled some more and dragged me an inch closer to the edge.

"Okay, I'm wedged in. Climb up over me," he said. He bent closer and I grabbed onto the collar of his jacket. The fabric bunched up as I hauled myself up over his body. As soon as I could grab onto the rest of him, he let go with his hand and used it to brace himself more sturdily on the ice at the edge of the precipice. I got my leg up on the side and pushed myself up over the edge, landing on my stomach on top of him. Lucius unstuck his legs from between the rocks where he'd lodged them and we both wiggled backward, back onto solid ice. We stared at the gaping, bottomless crack that had opened like a mouth in the snow. That was almost my grave, I thought.

"I think we should go down," I said.

"I don't think it's pretty up there after all," he said.

I was going to kill Kuma there, but I changed my mind as I was writing it. I liked him too much.

Reviews are broken but I've been able to read them on email so I can see what people think about living Tributes and make sure not to kill the favorites too soon.