Aspasia Sommer- District Ten female
DId someone call me?
I opened my eyes and turned my head, not all the way awake but not asleep anymore.
"Laurel! Randy!"
That's Quinoa! I sat up, as Randy sat up beside me and Laurel blearily rubbed her eyes. My eyes swept our camp, and Quinoa was nowhere to be seen.
"It's Quinoa!" I yelled as I jumped up. I ran toward the unicorns. They were thrashing their tails and pawing at the ground, their ears folded and the whites of their eyes flashing. All the same, the closest one let me jump on. As soon as I was in place, it took off after the sound, with Laurel and Randy not far behind.
"Quinoa!" Laurel called as we galloped across the grass. I could hear Quinoa's screams from somewhere far off, and far worse than the fear in her voice was the fear that they would stop.
The screams stopped.
A cannon sounded.
The unicorn kept running, but my body went slack on top of it. I looked back at Laurel behind me. It was chilling to see her face empty for once. Behind her, Randy had his face pressed into his unicorn's neck. Even in the dark I could see him shake.
My unicorn stopped sharply, tilting back and beating its front legs at the air. It hit the ground hard and shied back. I looked past its head and saw something deathly still on the ground.
I jumped off the unicorn and ran, kneeling by Quinoa's body. And I knew it was a body, both from the cannon and the eerie way it lay. Her head was bent sideways slightly, like she was craning her neck to look at something. Her eyes were open, furthering the image.
What happened? Why was she here, so far from camp and in the middle of the night? She knew it was coming. What was it that scared her? Partly from curiosity and partly to touch my friend one last time, I took her hand. It was still warm. A warm hand on a dead body, I thought, and it made me feel cold.
"What happened?" Laurel asked, crouching beside me.
I looked around at the quiet, empty plain. There was no sign of anything that could have done this, not even any marks on the ground. It was like the Arena came to life and took her.
Lulu Chilcott- District Three female
You just had to open your big mouth.
When it came time for the recon party to go scope out the Cornucopia, of course Penelope couldn't go. She was doing pretty well for just having been shot, but it would be plain stupid to have her go running around tearing open her wound so it could get all nice and infected. So we had her stay behind to guard the camp, as much as a arrow-shot outlier could guard against Careers. For that exact reason, she needed a buddy.
"Who wants to stay back with Penelope?" Faust had asked.
Crickets answered him.
"Don't everybody jump up at once," Penelope said.
"Hey, Lulu, didn't you take care of your sister back home?" Cedar asked.
"Yeah, I love her so much!" I started, immediately perking up at the reminder of Leslie. Everyone looked at me with glittering eyes. "Oh no."
You have experience, they said. You know how to take care of people, they said. Leslie's autistic, not shot! I said. But too late. After somehow ensnaring Brocade to be the third homebody, since three people would actually give the Careers pause, Faust and Cedar lit out like their backsides were on fire.
Not ten minutes later, I heard the sound of someone crashing through the woods. For once, I didn't have to be afraid. If it was the Careers, I'd be dead before I heard them. It was Faust and Cedar coming back.
"That didn't take long," I said as I walked toward the noise to greet them. "What's the news?"
Oh my gosh oh my gosh.
I'd heard of Tributes living past things no one should live through. I'd heard of mostly-dead Tributes reaching out a nearly fleshless arm for one last try at victory. I'd even heard of what I was seeing, but only in childish legends told around a campfire. I stumbled back and fell on my butt, scuttling backwards away from the figure. I didn't know how the Careers got Faust, but what was far worse than that was the sight of him stumbling toward me holding his head in one hand.
"What's wroOOH SHIT!" Brocade said, coming out after me.
"What? What is it?" Penelope asked from behind us.
"It's a mutt!" I yelled, because after that first moment, I saw it wasn't Faust at all. He wasn't nearly that tall, and he wasn't wearing deerskin pants and a tattered shirt.
The mutt took a few steps toward me, then drew his arm back and launched his head straight at my face. I jerked my head aside. The rush of air ony my cheek told me I'd narrowly avoided having my face caved in. As the mutt ran toward me to retrieve his head, I had a wild idea.
No you don't! The head was looking up at me, its eyes rolling around. I picked up the bloody thing and shoved it against my shirt. As I'd hoped, the mutt stopped, flailing its arms in confusion.
The head squirmed in my hands, gnashing its teeth and gnawing at my shirt. I peeled off my shirt and wrapped it around the head, tucking it under my arm like a football. As Brocade looked at my in horrified confusion, I held a finger to my lips. Stepping lightly and avoiding dry sticks, I crept to our supplies and took out the fishing knife. I can't believe I'm doing this just don't think about it, I thought as I stabbed one eye and then the other. To my relief, the head didn't make a sound past a low growl.
I unwrapped the head, picked it up, and carried it away from camp. When I was a few hundred feet away, I stopped. "Hey! It's this way!" I yelled, and threw the head as far as I could. I bolted in a curved line back to camp as the mutt rushed off following the sound. It wandered erratically in that direction, until eventually it was out of sight.
"I can't believe that just happened," Cedar said as we watched in the direction it had gone.
"I just don't want it to come back," I said, my stomach still churning from the memory of a head slobbering at my stomach.
"That was quick thinking," Cedar said.
"Just never again," I said firmly. "Never again.
Dagny Sigurdson- District Nine female
Until yesterday, I'd dreaded my excursions to the forest to gather plants. While I loved the trees and flowers and the respite from the soggy mud, I was painfully aware of how exposed I was making the short run across the grass. After what I saw in the compass, the only time I felt safe was when I was leaving the river behind me. Despite all its advantages, I was quickly convincing myself it was smarter to move.
The sun had just set when I made the run, giving me cover as well as making me even more eager to be far away from the thing in the river. I made it to the forest without incident and slipped into its shelter. It was harder to identify plants in the dark, but I would stick to the easy ones and be cautious.
A crow called as I walked between the trees, raising the hair on my neck even though I knew it was just a bird, and a harmless one at that. Everything was just scarier at night. The three-quarters moon cast more light than past days, leaving longer shadows to shift as branches swayed.
It was so silent and subtle that I hardly moved when I saw someone following me. It's Siobhan, I thought, and for an instant I froze like a frightened rabbit. In that instant the woman walked toward me, and everything about her made me quail even more. Her skin was colorless, and her red hair didn't stir in the wind. Her unblinking eyes were utterly still, reflecting the moonlight as they pointed at me with inhuman intent. As she walked, all of her joints slid freely, like they were floating in space.
The paralysis broke and I turned, fleeing into the forest. When I looked behind me, my stomach clenched at the sight of the woman sprinting full tilt behind me. Running as fast as I could, I barely maintained the distance between us.
It seemed like hours that I ran, and whenever I looked, the woman was the same distance behind me. Sometimes she was running, sometimes bounding on her hands and feet like a cat. Once I saw her in the trees, jumping from one to another across the branches as twigs snagged her green dress. I knew my pace was flagging, and still she was the same distance. She slowed along with me, her head still unmoving and her eyes catching mine every time I looked back.
I bent forward as I ran, panting and dry-heaving with the exertion. Foamy saliva flecked my mouth and my ribs and lungs stabbed at me with every step. I stumbled forward, sobbing at the invariable sight of her behind me, keeping pace and watching. Tripping and sometimes crawling, I sobbed as I slowly tried to escape.
I fell again, and when I tried to rise, my shaking arms couldn't push me off the ground. I tried to pull myself forward and fell still, exhausted. I rolled onto my back and watched the woman finally come closer at a serene walk. As she advanced, I saw the pale claws on her fingers. She was too still to be human, but the light in her eyes didn't give me the relief of calling her an animal. I whimpered when I saw the hoofprints trailing behind her.
What do you want? I wanted to ask, but even breathing was an effort. The woman crouched beside me, smelling of rust, and when she brushed the dirt from my neck I received a nightmarish affirmation of her humanity. She gripped my throat with one hand, digging in her claws. She twisted her hand slowly, raking five cuts into me until the blood oozed out. Her mouth opened and she bent closer. I felt the wet motions at my throat like a dog lapping up my blood. It smeared on her cheeks, leaving me as pale as she was and her ruddy with my life.
12th place: Dagny Sigurdson- Killed by a Baobhan Sith
I was gonna save the Baobhan Sith for the Careers, but Dagny's form requested a dark death for her and I aim to please. Astute readers saw the writing on the wall when she got two POVs in a row, but that's just how the votes turned out. She got more than I expected (-2) considering she was pretty clever. TBH I did the compass thing because initially it was just a useless Bloodbath thing but then I thought of that and was so taken with my cleverness that I added it. She had a good thing going with the camouflage and the water, but the Highlands got her in the end. Thanks CarlpoppaLOL for a Tribute that understood death but wasn't obsessed with it and who still understood life as well.
SCOTTISH MYTH WATCH: Lulu took no crap from a Coliunn Gun Cheann, a Scottish Headless Horseman character.
VOTING UPDATE We're down to THREE life votes and THREE death votes now! Also behind-the-scenes note: The Careers and Faust's alliance have been twiddling their thumbs so long because they all have roughly the same amount of votes so I can't kill any of them XD Hopefully the number change will shake things up.
ALSO I accept "donated" votes, as in if you can't decide, you give extra votes to me for whatever's best for the story. I use those extremely sparingly and generally to break ties. In those cases, I analyze the voting trends and reader reactions to try to predict who is the more likely Victor and kill the other tied Tribute.