Lulu Chilcott- District Three female

It was hair-raising knowing that Siobhan and Cormac were stalking us at every given moment. When I was with Cedar, I'd had no idea Siobhan was fifteen feet away from us. If he hadn't noticed, we'd both be dead. She could be out there right now, lying silent in the grass and waiting for the right moment. She was like a panther, waiting to eat us up and there wouldn't even be time to make a sound.

"What if we go find the Careers?" I asked as we sat around in the morning eating berries and the last few protein gels from Faust's stuff. "There's only two of them. We outnumber them, but we won't if they keep picking at us."

"Yeah, I was thinking that too," Cedar said. "They already got Osiris."

Faust looked off into the woods. "If we fight them, we'll probably kill them both. But a lot of us will die. You know that, right?" he said.

"We'll die if we don't," Brocade said.

"All right," Faust shrugged. "But we need to make a plan first."

"Let's make a fire, then smear the ashes all over ourselves and attack at night so we blend in," I said.

"That sounds like a storybook," Penelope said.

"So does a bunch of kids getting forced to kill each other in an Arena," I said.

"People used to do that forever ago, but they got called racist," Brocade commented.

Penelope screamed and fell sideways. Faust jumped to his feet and scanned the area, but Siobhan was nowhere to be seen. The only trace of her was the arrow in Penelope's chest.

"She shot me!" Penelope screamed, looking at the arrow still stuck in her.

"Everyone get behind a tree!" Faust said. Most of us ran behind the same one, since it was especially fat. Faust grabbed Penelope by the collar and yanked her along with us.

"Don't move," he said, bending over her. It seemed like a lot of blood, but it also kind of seemed like less than an arrow wound would make, if that made sense.

"She's in a tree," Faust said. I looked closer and saw the arrow slanted downwards.

Faust poked at the area gently. "It's okay. It bounced off your rib. Do we have anything clean?"

Brocade pulled Lulu's hat from her pocket. Faust held it by the wound, yanking out the arrow at the same time he pressed the hat to the hole. The blood didn't even go all the way up the arrow head, showing the wound was pretty shallow. Brocade helped Faust cut one of the extra straps off his bag and tie the hat in place.

"I'm gonna be okay?" Penelope asked, looking nervously at the wound. "It stings."

"Let's just hope it doesn't get infected," Cedar said. "And we definitely have to get the Careers."

Dagny Sigurdson- District Nine female

I tied my bag to a heavy branch and let it dangle into the water. It had taken me an hour to tear all the tiny holes in it, but it was for a good cause. The bag was full of acorns I'd gathered. Acorns had a lot of tannin in them, which was bad for you. You couldn't eat them as they were, but if you ran water over them for a while, it leached out the tannins. So I put them in the bag, poked holes in it, and now I was going to let it sit overnight with the river water running through it. Then tomorrow I could pound the acorns and have them to go with the hawthorn berry fruit leather I'd been drying.

So far, the water didn't seem to be giving me any trouble. I'd noticed I was a little… looser, but it wasn't really bad. I was putting in more than came out, and that was what mattered. I felt bad going in the same river I drank from, but it went downstream, and I couldn't risk going somewhere else and being exposed to the Careers. It would be mortifying to get killed while I was trying to do that.

The water stirred upstream as something broke the surface. I'd seen a few fish, but I hadn't been able to catch any yet. Maybe I could make my bag into a net, but I was wary of putting more holes in. I couldn't take them back out, after all.

The water stirred again, closer to me. As the creature got nearer the surface, it started to take shape. It was big, big enough that I backed away in case it was a river shark or something else horrible. Soon, though, I saw that while it had a fish tail, it had a very human upper half.

A mermaid, I thought, and for a second I was delighted. Mermaids were beautiful and mysterious. This one turned out to be a merman. It had a very handsome face, I noted as it peeked up at me from under the surface. It had reddish hair and green eyes and freckles.

"Hey there," I said, scooting a little closer. I was still wary, because I didn't think the Capitol would make anything this pretty unless it was horrible, but it seemed so welcoming. It raised its eyes above the water to look at me better. It put its arms down and crawled along the riverbed closer to me. It bent an arm and waved for me to come in.

"I'm not sure," I said, smiling apologetically. The merman frowned and made puppy eyes at me. It smiled winningly and gestured at the water as though to say come on in, the water's fine.

Maybe it's actually a good mutt. There had been such things. There was the poltergeist, and the phoenix from forever ago. The fantastical mutts seemed to be friendlier than the animal ones.

The merman held out his handand stayed very still, inviting me to come touch it at my own pace. I very much wanted to, and I could feel my resolve ebbing away. I scooted a little closer and started to reach out a hand.

As I did, my compass fell out of my pocket. The glint of light caught my eye and I looked down. As soon as I did, I sucked in a breath. Reflected in the compass' metal cover was a crooked thing. It was covered in yellow fur, with sunken black voids for eyes and gnashing teeth with no mouth.

I yanked back my hand, passing within inches of the creature's at it made a horrible noise and grabbed at my hand. I scuttled on my stomach back against the mud embankment as the creature threw itself at me, its arms clutching at the mud as it was stopped by the edge of the water. I lay panting, too scared to stand as my eyes went back and forth from the merman before me and the thing in the reflection.

The creature stilled, then slid back into the water. It beckoned at me again, seeming surreally unaware that I knew what it was. It stayed like that for some time, alternating between waving at me and abruptly throwing itself at the water's edge. Some minutes later, the merman's face went blank and empty, like a discarded shell. It slid under the surface and swam away, leaving only a shadow growing smaller in the distance.

That was there the whole time, I thought. For five days I'd been mere feet away from that thing. I thought of all the times I'd unthinkingly stuck a hand into the water or let my feet dangle when the sun was hot. It turned my stomach, but I made the decision to stay. I was feet away from death, but now I knew it and knew how to stay away. This was still the best place for me to be, in terms of supplies and camouflage. I'd just stay on my toes, and if the Careers came for me, they'd get a lot more than they imagined.

Quinoa Farmer- District Nine female

We learned quickly that unicorns were friendly but still independent. They would let us ride, and if we asked politely they often went where we were going, but they were no loyal steeds. They plainly preferred to stay near their pool, so we met in the middle and moved camps. Laurel went back to grab the dried critters (which tasted weirdly like spiced sausage), and the unicorns tossed their heads and snorted at the smell on her hands. We hung them from a tree a few steps away, so they wouldn't get buggy and the unicorns would be mad.

In the middle of the night, I was woken by a nuzzling in my face. I shook my head and sneezed at the hair by my nose. I sat up, pushing the unicorn head away.

"It's the middle of the night. We can play later," I said, rubbing my eyes. The unicorn's wide gold eyes shone in the night. It pushed its nose back at me, knickering. It nibbled at my shirt and tugged.

"What is it?" I asked, getting up. Obviously it wanted something. It looked off into the distance, then back at me. It tugged at my shirt, pulling me up against its back.

"Okay, fine," I said. It was probably something important. Maybe some mean fairies were nearby. Or maybe this one just liked playing in the middle of the night. It bent its legs as I climbed onto its back.

The second I got on, the unicorn bolted. It galloped full tilt into the open plain, its nostrils heaving with the effort. I lurched forward and grabbed its mane, scared I'd fall off.

"Hey! Not so fast!" I said. I looked back at our camp, which was already a good stretch behind us. When I looked back, nothing was right. The unicorn's horn was gone, and it was solid black with burning red eyes. Its mouth foamed as it ran faster.

"Laurel!" I screamed, and wondered if we were still close enough for her to hear. I called for my allies, knowing that even if they heard, they could never catch up. The ground bounced underneath me as I clung to the horse's neck, jarring and bumping. It was then that I remembered sitting up and seeing the unicorn… and the four unicorns behind it. Four unicorns…. And an extra one.

The night seemed to swallow us up as the creature raced on. It neighed, a high-pitched screaming wail. A dip in the grass jarred me sharply, and I clawed at the horse's back to stay on. If I fell underneath, I knew what those powerful legs would do.

Sky and grass and air blurred as the creature stopped in an instant and reared, its legs leaving the ground as it bucked and twisted. My hands scrabbled at air as I tumbled backwards. The ground rushed up at me as I fell headlong. My head twisted back as I landed heavily, and I actually heard the snap. The horse's faded as I thought of how far I'd come, and how no one could have prepared for this.

13th place: Quinoa Farmer- Thrown by a puca

Pucas are most associated with Ireland, but they also appear in Scottish stories. Usually they just run with you all night and dump you off sore and tired, but this one straight up kills you. Quinoa was young and cocky, but that's just how kids are. Goodness knows we had our cringey face we do our best to destroy all evidence of. She was also a good friend and did grow enough to admit her limitations. Thanks 4everlark for submitting a young Tribute with a small chance of winning but still a big spirit.

SCOTTISH MYTH COUNTER: Dagny survived an encounter with a Fuath, the general term for multiple shapeshifting water monsters.

TIMELINE: Quinoa died on the fifth night.