District 7: Erik Nordskov (18) Pov-

There are so many things I feel I can't fully describe with words.

The burning pain from my leg, of course. Where the kraken mutt tore away whole strips of flesh with its ugly tentacles.

The damp forest floor under my back.

Blackness. Punctuated by small visions of the world outside.

Cerise. The way her eyes look just like Rhiannon's.

My heart pulsing slowly but dutifully, barely keeping me alive.

The ring on my finger. Put there a week ago though it feels like an eternity.

The sour-smelling wind and the rustling noise it brings.

The crowing ravens from above. Scavengers. They must know that a tasty dinner is near. A boy whose heart is about to stop. Whose lungs are about to stop working.

Me.

At one point Cerise presses a few leaves onto my leg.

The agony comes out of my mouth as a weird blubber.

Then a sponsor parachute beeps from nearby. Cerise rushes to see what's inside and she returns with a piece of armor that could easily cover my chest.

Would have been helpful about a day ago. But there's no saving me now.

The next minute she tears off a little of my shirt to bind over the wound.

Her tears fall heavy on my flesh.

The world fades further and further each second. My life force is cold as it drains itself out of my body.

The last ray of sun I will ever see is brilliant gold.

Cerise leans down and kisses me on the lips. The last thing I will ever feel. Her lips taste like chocolate and raspberries. Just like how I imagined.

District 1: Declan Benitoit (17) Pov-

For the first time in these games I wake up before Jaehaera. It's a weird skill I've always had, being able to wake up at any time I want. Pretty much eliminates the need for an alarm clock, though it's not like I could ever get one in these games if I wanted one.

A glance of contempt is all I give to her sleeping form before rolling up my sleeping bag. At the start of these games I respected her as the pack leader even though I might not have liked her tactics. Now she's just being a jerk to me on a regular basis. I'd honestly consider abandoning if it weren't this early in the games.

But if current trends continue we're on course for the earliest split in a long time.

Once I've rolled up my sleeping bag I collapse the tent, careful not to make any noise. I eventually manage to get everything packed up without waking Jaehaera, who still sleeps about ten feet away. Getting on that girl's bad side is the last thing I want for the time being.

A few minutes-long journey takes me to a small stream where I take a few sips of water before filling our thermoses.

I turn around to leave, but before I can take a step back toward Jaehaera my eyes catch onto something brilliant silver. I make out a head of white hair as smooth as silk, and an elegant, horse-like body…

I've never heard of unicorns hurting humans before, but I figure just to be safe I should leave quickly.

That's when I notice there isn't just one. There's a whole family. Three of the unicorns lean down and sip water greedily from the stream, their silly pink tongues splashing back and forth under the water.

One of them notices my footprints on the riverside and neighs with rage, and one thing becomes clear.

I've trespassed on their stream and they're going to make me pay.

Adrenaline powers me forward to reach the camp in an impossibly short amount of time.

"Jaehaera, Jaehaera, Jaehaera!" I shout, dropping down beside my bag of weapons.

"What, what, what?" she demands, sitting up in her sleeping bag.

But I don't have to explain. Before I can open my mouth the three unicorn mutts have appeared out of nowhere. Jaehaera gives me a poisonous look that says, "what did you do that was stupid enough to get on the bad side of these things," and, sighing, grabs her sword, ready for battle.

It soon becomes apparent that we're hopeless against the trio of magic creatures. Whenever we hurt them their horns just glow and in seconds their wounds are healed.

"Run?" I ask, peering over at Jaehaera, who nods.

We run.

District 10: Mavvi Levist (17) Pov-

The smell of the pancakes rhymes with warm summer mornings spent in my small slum house back in 10. My father made pancakes for us whenever he had a little extra money for flour. They were always my favorite. Some of my fondest memories are from his kitchen, standing on a pile of old books to see what my father was doing on the countertop that was too high for me.

"You're a good cook," I sign, swallowing down a mouthful of Pixel's pancakes. "Who taught you?"

It takes me a while to get her to understand everything I'm signing. For pretty much all of last night I was teaching her sign language and she was teaching me more speech, but even so we're a little clunky.

Pixel shrugs, replying, "Found out by myself."

She dumps out the pan of old grain that I helped her scavenge about an hour ago and covers it with a bit of dirt to keep the smell from drifting away and letting others know that we're here.

Suddenly Pixel stops dead in her tracks, and at that moment the sour-smelling wind blows. A nervous smell that rhymes with danger.

"Run," Pixel says, both in sign language and in speech. This must be important…

From my left, coming through a thick brush, comes a peculiar group of tributes and the mutts. The boy from 1 and the girl from 2 swing their weapons left and right, desperately attempting to slay the mutts that chase them. Unicorn mutts with pristine white hair and silvery horns.

It's only when they draw dangerously near that I realized I haven't moved an inch. When I try to move I can't. My feet are glued to the ground, and I'm helpless as the largest of the three unicorns smashes me in the chest with its hoof.

Pain like fire erupts through my body. It's broken one of my ribs. A sensation of both boiling hot and freezing cold fills my chest. Something's broken and my blood is now flooding into places it shouldn't.

A stinky glob of unicorn saliva lands on my face. A stench that rhymes with rage.

It's several moments before the large unicorn realizes its two comrades are gone, and, deciding it had better join them, leaves me.

I struggle to get to my feet but fall back down. My vision is growing darker… my hearing is growing fainter…

A much lighter, gentler wind rustles through the trees. A smell that rhymes with home.

District 5: Adelaide Hampton (16) Pov-

I have to clap my uninjured hand over my mouth to keep from vomiting as I peel back the bandage. My severed left pinky finger is now a hideous stump. Revolting chunks of dried blood tumble here and there whenever I wiggle the finger, and some kind of deep white mold looks to have taken root. There's no shortage of yellow pus either, blending together with my blood to make a kind of violent orange color reminiscent of poison.

Out of curiosity I blow on the wound, and agony worse than I've ever felt erupts through my hand. It takes several minutes to die down.

This is a serious infection.

I find that my agonized wriggling made me knock into the wall of my wooden shelter, causing one of the walls to collapse. I'll have to fix that later, but for now all I can do is lie here, praying that either my body will fight off the infection or my death will be swift. I'd definitely favor the former over the latter, but if it means the pain will be gone forever the latter might suffice.

District 6: Lincoln Blitz (16) Pov-

Being an orphan there are a lot of things I'm good at. Judging temperature is not one of them. You'd think living on the streets for years with Ford would have taught me something about how to tell forty apart from fifty and fifty apart from sixty, but for some reason it's never caught on.

Even so, I can tell this is the warmest morning of these games. Memories of yesterday morning, with its cold sour-smelling wind, still chill me to the bone to even think of.

I roll out of my sleeping bag, hearing a small eeking sound.

Could it be...?

And it is. As clear as day, a small animal is caught in one of my wire snares. A small weasel. By the looks of things it'll be sufficient to keep me from starving for half a day.

Even though I'm not squeamish I always get uncomfortable when the time comes to kill the animal. The only things I have now are my napkin, wire, and bottle of antidote. I've already eaten the two bread rolls that came with the napkin. There's only one way to do this. Ignoring the screeching of the weasel mutt, I wrap the wire around its neck in several tight knots. Its scrambling slows to stillness and its screaming slows to silence and then its life is over.

I wrap my fresh kill in my napkin. That'll do at least something to keep it fresh.

I roll up my sleeping bag and suddenly feel very exposed, but not in the way you might think. I feel pretty safe in my little circular grove of trees. Something freaks me out about leaving my sleeping bag out in the open while I leave camp.

About half an hour of searching brings me to a tree with roots suspended over the ground like legs of a huge beast. I find my sleeping bag, antidote, and napkin fit comfortably underneath the roots, still leaving enough space for me to pack in some leaves to hide them from sight.

There's another thing orphan-hood has taught me. How to hide anything in a snap.

If I do say so myself I'm doing pretty well in these games. I hope Ford is watching me from back in 6 through a shop window or something. I'd rather him see that I'm doing well than not see me at all and worry about me.

But there's a time and a place for thoughts of home and this is not either. I try my best to shove memories from 6 out of my mind as I go about my business.

Deaths this Chapter:

13th: Erik Nordskov, District 7 Male – Bled out from wounds inflicted by kraken mutt

*sobs* I loved this guy. I think a lot of you readers did also. My original poll found that he was the most popular candidate for the win. Most of the deaths in this story are written completely on the fly. Someone's name ends up in the same sentence as "sword" or "severed head" and boom, a cannon is firing and their name is knocked off of the list. But ever since the games started I knew one of the 7s would have to die early, because I wanted to explore how it would affect the other. Then the kraken thing happened and it had to be Erik… I'm so sorry dude. I hereby do use my secret writer powers to send well-wishes to his grieving family and fiancée D:

12th: Mavvi Levist, District 10 Female – Ribcage blown in by unicorn mutt

Another sad death right here. Given her disability I don't think anyone expected her to last very long, but the death is still a blow nonetheless. I've gotten a few messages about an excess of mutt deaths in these games. Don't worry—as the games progress virtually all of the kills will be tribute-caused. The mutt deaths are mostly reserved for the earlier deaths, as you'll know if you've ever taken a peek at 23 Cannons. From the little we saw of this girl we know she had a cynical view on life, having worked in the field for her whole life as a slave to people born richer than her in a cruel world she couldn't escape. Mavvi was a real bawse though—spunk to rival the gods really stands out. With her death less than half of the tributes remain.

Alliances:

Careers: Declan, Nero, Jaehaera

Loners (For Now): Pixel, Dory, Adelaide, Lincoln, Cerise, Luc, Orford, Jaro

A/N: This was a quick update, wasn't it? I'm planning on significantly speeding up updates now. I really enjoyed this one. This was my first real exposure to writing "dreamy" scenes, notably Erik's Pov. Maybe I should try poetry if I like writing short sentences so much XD

Question: If you were freezing cold, would you ever risk starting a fire?