Now that school's started, expect chapter updates to slow down accordingly.
New banners of Luka & Emerald, the District Four tributes, Che, Veras, Bri, the Jace-Bri-Caprice alliance, and Parker, Yon, & Eadem have been posted, meaning all twenty-four of the tributes have been depicted. Check it out at s1150 -dot- photobucket -dot- com/albums/o602/amatalefay.
Also, a special announcement: Whoever gives this story its 191st review will get one super-secret spoiler (that is, if they want it; if not, I'll make other arrangements). I will give more details to the lucky reviewer when it comes.
Fun Fact of the Chapter: How the Mentors Won Their Games, Part VIII. The D4 mentor, Quill Isotes, won the 184th Games at fourteen years old. She made a strong impression at the interviews, using her likeable personality and stories of her struggling family to reel in sponsors. In the arena, she ran with the Careers until the pair from Five attacked them, after which she fled to the western moors, lived off of sponsor gifts, and picked off the rest of the tributes. Her entire Games lasted seven days.
…..
Emerald Honeycomb, District Two
We're not hunting today. That was the unspoken yet unanimous decision we made when we woke to the sounds of tortured screams coming from the forest, screams that didn't stop until hours later. Secretly, I'm relieved. Those shrieks and howls were enough to freak out anybody, Career or no. At least I'm not alone in letting it get to my head. Even Luka seems quieter today. You've got to admit, that's a miracle in and of itself.
I'm sitting close to our campfire, with the aforementioned boy from One sharpening his knives across from me. Marius leans back against the Cornucopia with closed eyes, while the two Fours sit inside the golden horn, talking quietly to each other. I've been listening in on their conversation—what reasonably intelligent tribute wouldn't be?—but they aren't talking about anything of note. Neither of them seem to have overheard any of our plotting—a supreme stroke of luck indeed, given how stupid Luka was to start discussing the plan so soon after the shift in watch. Loudly. Tributes learn to sleep light, Careers even more so. He should have figured that out by now.
I roll my eyes. I always knew I was going to be the smarter of the pair of us, but I must have underestimated by how much.
Gabriel and Carreen have apparently reached a lull in their conversation, so there's a long moment where all you can hear is knife-sharpening. I flinch a little as my head immediately fills the silence with the earlier sounds of screaming.
One side of me, the tough, Career-trained side tells me to buck up. Come on, Emerald. You can do better than this. The other side reminds me that there's a reason my strategy isn't to slaughter everyone left and right. I'm being clever about it, and clever people tend to be smart enough to know to stay away from screams.
There's a third part of my mind that tells me to change the topic, and, surprisingly, the one my thoughts gravitate towards is my family. How's Dad doing? What about Mom? And Mint—is he training by now? What about Montgomery? Are any of them watching me right now, desperate to know what I'm thinking?
I glance back at Marius, Gabriel, Carreen, Luka, tempted to ask if they have siblings or not, people waiting for them to come home. Immediately, I decide against it. That's not something you do in the Hunger Games. Especially not the victors.
You can't let yourself think kindly of those you're going to kill.
…..
Link Anderson, District Three
Screams echo in my sleep. Thalia's screams, the girl from earlier's screams—even the boy from Six is screaming in this dream, along with his twelve-year-old district partner who was slaughtered in the bloodbath. I can see my dad somewhere in the hazy distance and try to run to him, but I just trip over my prosthetic and the screams grow louder as I hit the ground, pleas for help becoming all too painfully clear—
I shudder as my eyes fly open. "Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream," I immediately tell myself, but even the fact that I have to say it shows that I'm slipping. I let out a sigh and stretch my arms out wide, looking up at the sky. Apparently, I'm not going to be getting any quality sleep in the next few days.
There was a cannon boom a few hours ago—presumably the screaming girl. That means there are only twelve tributes left, besides me. The final thirteen. I can't help but chuckle a little—at my reaping, did anyone in the Capitol audience think a crippled boy with one deaf ear would make it this far? Not a chance. And now...
Now I can barely bring myself to do anything but eat and sleep, where all my dreams are terrible nightmares about my district partner's death.
No. Thalia. She has a name, and it's Thalia. And she was brave and sweet and brilliant and deserved to be treated a hell of a lot nicer than I did. I didn't really spend any time getting to know her—I was too eager to see her as a number, a statistic for me to overcome. Who were her family, her friends? Where are they now, and do they all hate me for failing to save the girl they loved?
It doesn't even matter if they do. I will. I always will, and that's what's going to matter in the long run. Even if I somehow manage to escape this horror of an arena, how am I going to live with myself knowing that Thalia—twenty-three Thalias—died because of me?
A whisper escapes my lips—"Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry." I must seem so weak to them, those bastards in the Capitol who know exactly what they're doing to us and celebrating it, making a mockery of every real emotion I've ever felt?
There isn't any time for those thoughts, I tell myself. You have to move on.
I take up my swords and backpack and head deeper into the forest, not knowing where I'm going but ready to be gone.
…..
Yon Trizzle, District Eight
As soon as I finish my bread loaf, another one drops from the sky in a parachute marked D8B. I smile. Parachutes—those are good. Especially lots of them. It means you have sponsors, and sponsors make sure you have food and supplies, and food and supplies mean you have a better chance of surviving the Hunger Games, or so my mentor said. It makes sense to me—like a math problem. Simple. Easy to process, easy to understand. Unlike all the other rules of this arena.
To kill or to hide? To ally or stay alone? Everyone has a different answer, and no one knows which is the right one. There has to be a right answer, right? Maybe I can find it while I'm here. But I don't know where I'd look.
There's a note on this parachute. Keep trying. With what—the last instruction? Keep doing that, but with living things next time. I did try. The squirrels were all too fast and I didn't find any tributes. Besides, I couldn't get scared or angry or confused like last time, because I had instructions. Instructions, objectives—they calm me down, not rile me up.
I keep moving, because they want me to kill things and I can't do that while I'm hiding. Maybe they want both. But that's not possible, not for me. And they want me to kill more, because killing gets you out of the Hunger Games and that's what Thera and my mentor want. And the Gamemakers want me to kill. And I will.
Living things. I stop, looking at the stretch of trees ahead of me. There are eyes. Gold ones, like animals'. It's a mutt. Mutts are living things...
I throw and my axe buries itself in the mutt's head. Blood leaks out. It's dead. I killed it. I followed my orders.
As approving parachutes fall down all around me, a memory flashes in my mind—my parents and my sister, Ren. A family portrait of us. They're watching me now, on their TV screens. All of District Eight is.
I wonder if they're proud of me.
…..
Chantelle Jacobsen, District Ten
The girl from Seven has disappeared, packed up and left last night, and the dynamic of the alliance seems a lot more unstable now that she's gone. Nine and Eleven are barely talking to each other, aside from the initial "where's our ally?" conversation and a few exchanges while they're out foraging. Seven seems to have been the glue holding the group together—both of the girls left behind look incredibly uneasy now. And, to be honest, so am I.
Four straight days they've pelted us with earthquakes, thunderstorms, forest fires, and wolf mutts, and no doubt the Gamemakers have many more nasty surprises planned for our stay here in the arena. And then today comes—nothing's happened yet, and the sun's already beginning to set. There was that girl being tortured by something early this morning, true, but that was hours ago. The last few days have been absolutely jam-packed with threats, constant action so the masses will be entertained. Why would it be any different today?
They could be taking a break. The Gamemakers do that—purposely have a lull in the action. Even the most eager of Capitol audiences need a breather once in a while. There may some interesting bits of alliance tension they want to focus on—like this one here. And, of course, they'll need to follow up on wherever Seven is. Unless she was the dead one this morning. It's a possibility, but not a likely one, I decide. She may be only twelve years old, but she did score an 11 in training and seemed too fiery a character for the Gamemakers to waste on a day four death.
It used to scare me, how much I think like a Gamemaker. But when you're in the arena, it's possibly the most valuable skill you'll ever need to know.
Other reasons for the break... something could have happened, something political or even a natural disaster in one of the districts, that warrants even more attention than the Hunger Games—
As soon as I have the thought, there's no taking it back, and soon my mind is thinking about what happened at the reaping, back in Ten, that uprising that Gramps caused, the gunshots and the screaming and the Peacekeepers and whether or not I still have a family and that fact that I don't know if there's anyone watching me on TV thinking of me as anything more than just another tribute.
And the thing is, I'm not sure if I want them to see me this way or not.
…..
Jace Latone, District Nine
"Jace?"
"Mm," I sit up from my position on the ground, where I'd been staring up at the evening sky, waiting for the faces of the dead to appear. My interest in the broadcast has piqued for some reason—okay, maybe it's because I want to see how much competition I have left. No denying that. But it's also our only connection to the world outside the arena. And if somehow any of us is going to stay sane, we're going to need that.
When you put it that way, it sounds morbid. Well, you should check out the rest of my thoughts today. I've been thinking a lot about death. Specifically my own impending one.
Caprice turns to look at me. For a moment her face looks deathly afraid, then she reverts back to normal, pained yet grave. "Sorry." She takes in a deep breath. "Who do you have back at home? In Nine?"
The topic comes up rather abruptly, I think, especially since we've just spent the whole day talking to each other as little as possible. "Um. Well, there's Darian—my dad. And that's it." Short, sweet, and utterly uninteresting.
"Just you two?"
"Yeah." For a moment I wonder if she's trying to catch me off-guard talking about my family and stick her knife into my throat. Then I roll my eyes and tell myself to stop being paranoid. Though apparently it's not a bad thing if you're in the Hunger Games.
"And your mom is..."
"Gone." I cross my arms—I don't like talking about this subject. Back home, I'd usually let Darian handle it for me.
There's an awkward pause, and I'm about to lie back down for more sky-gazing when Caprice asks, almost in a whisper, "Is she in the Capitol? As an Avox?"
My eyes widen, and I don't even know what I'm doing until I've got my ally pinned to a tree, my hand resting on the hilt of my knife. "How do you know?" It comes out as an angry hiss, though I really don't know how many different emotions are wrestling in my head. "How did you know it was her?" My voice breaks. I let go of the girl and step back, turning away so she won't see my face. Usually I'm good at hiding my emotions, but there are some times that I just can't seem to get a grip, no matter how hard I try. "Sorry," I mutter. "I'm sorry."
I can hear Caprice sigh before she leans back against a tree, closes her eyes, and tells me everything.
