Yeah, I done goofed. It was Niko, not Nassor.

Chrome Cabello, D2

There was a primal satisfaction in my work as I assembled my weapons. To make a bow was much easier than to make an arrow. A bow only had to propel an arrow. The arrow had to fly true and not waver in the air. I had a dozen shafts I'd painstakinly stripped with our multitool, but it remained to be seen which were usable and which would go askew because of some minute irregularity I'd missed. I still had to finish both ends of the arrows- the feathers and the points.

The outliers could celebrate today. Eren and Jayden were laid up in the Cornucopia trying not to reopen their wounds. They were sore about it in more ways than one, and they helped me make arrows in their boredom. While I carefully cut notches into the ends of my shafts, Jayden was flattening tin cans and beating them into arrowhead shapes. Eren had nearly been stymied in her quest to find feathers, but she came through in the end by ripping open a sleeping bag. They crowded around me as I put everything together.

As primal as the weapon looked, there was a great amount of advanced mathematics involved in shooting an arrow. There was calculus both in aim and design. I couldn't just jam feathers in every which way. They had to guide the air and dissipate it so the resistance didn't push the point aside. We spend hours shooting arrows at the deflated sleeping bag, which I hung from a tree as a target. Eren and Jayden cheered as my arrows got closer and closer to my target. I felt like I was learning all over again, but it was gratifyingly fast.

My arrows thudded into the target like rain, and I smiled. The outliers could rest easy tonight. Tomorrow they would rest in peace.

Nassor Doyle, D9

Someone thought I could do this. It wasn't often Tributes from Nine got sponsors. We were a poor District, and we hadn't had a single winner in fourty-four years. No one wanted to waste money on us. But all the same, someone had sent me a package.

Attila peeked over my shoulder as I neatly folded the parachute in case I could use it later. I opened the package and found a blowgun and six darts.

"Better be careful," Attila said when I picked one up.

"They're probably fine. It would be stupid to send a Tribute darts that might kill him if he picked them up," I said. I tapped the end of one impulsively and did not immediately die.

"Pretty cool. I wish it was throwing knives, though," Attila said. He went back to fiddling with his spear, leaving me to treasure my gift. It meant a lot to know someone believed in me enough to spend the exorbitant amount needed to send anything at all, let alone a formidable weapon. I wondered if Rhoda was proud when she saw the donations come in. Before I went to the Games, I thought I knew everything and could do it all by myself. I saw now that I needed help, whether it was Attila or someone I'd never know but was watching me from behind a screen. It was good to know I had people with me. With them, I might be able to win.

Niko Lafont, D8

I tore through the trees, branches scratching me and leaves whipping at my face. Any second, it could come. I didn't know when it would happen. I couldn't possibly run fast enough. There wasn't any time. It could-

A cannon.

I didn't need to run anymore. I jerked to a stop and almost fell forward. Just as quickly, I started running again. Drowning was the only possible death where a cannon might be mistaken. There was a little boy once in my village who fell into a bathtub with just an inch of water. He was blue when they found him, and his heart wasn't beating. The Peacekeepers did some weird massage and the boy came back to life. That could happen with Yara if I found her.

I ran along the river, splashing occasionally when I got too close. I almost didn't find her. There was a pale spot in the water that swayed in the water. Her arm was pale as death, and so was the rest of her when I pulled her out. I laid her on her back by the river and tried to remember how it went last time.

The boy's brother told us the Peacekeepers pushed all the water out of his lungs and he threw it up. I put my hands on either side of Yara's ribs and pushed. She jerked, but she didn't breathe. The boy said something about the Peacekeepers kissing the boy and breathing for him. I put my mouth on Yara's, and it was cold and hard. I pushed in a breath and pushed on her lungs again. It didn't have to be over.

Over and over I tried, until she was stiff under me. I didn't know when to stop, since the cannon had already come. I tried over and over.

Acer Packard, D5

I had food. I would have thought I would starve before I did what I did, but real starvation wasn't the heroic endeavor people imagined when they had enough to eat. It was a desperate, dehumanizing state, and morals and repugnance were tossed aside when the mind couldn't hold the body back anymore.

It wasn't as bad as it sounded, but it still disgusted me when I remembered the first bug I ate. I'd been in my hole for three days. I'd gotten used to the squiggling across my body and in my hair. Something tickled its way across my hand, and a foreign thought possessed me. I swiveled my hand and stuffed the maggot into my mouth. It burst, oozing juice everywhere. It tasted almost buttery, and it was warm enough to feel almost like normal cooked food. I hunted around in my hair and found another maggot. I didn't know about the others, but the maggots were almost appealing.

Even with my new food source, I had to leave my shelter a few times every day to drink. The water from the river wasn't clean, but it hadn't killed me yet. I drank rainwater as much as I could, and the symptoms from the germs in the water had so far been minimal.

I checked both ways before I went to the river. The forest was quiet, and the ground underfoot grew muddy as I got closer. I knelt to scoop out some water. The surface of the river exploded in my face, and something long and scaly and massive seized my shoulders and head. Since I left my home, I'd watched a massacre, eaten the bugs that crawled in my hair, and been attacked by a crocodile. I should have stayed home.

14th place: Acer Packard- Eaten by crocodile mutt

Acer had a strange reason to volunteer, which basically guaranteed he wouldn't be favored by most readers. All the same, I kept him around awhile, first because the Careers ignored him in favor of larger Tributes and then because I killed a bunch of boys in a row. His requested death was young Tribute or mutt, so I broke out the Nile Crocodile. Fun fact: Gator was right next to Acer when this went down, minding his own gatery business. Acer was impulsive and not always the best at judgement, but he didn't deserve this. Thanks Reader for Acer, who had real and significant flaws and none of that "he doesn't trust people" stuff.

I do plan to do eulogies and all that. I've just been waiting to gather a few deaths so I could put a decent number in one chapter.