LISETTE CROWLEY- Blake Armani

I saw her outfit before the parade. It was so pretty. It was sad someone who made things like that got picked for the Games.


TULLIA HAVANA- Ember Steiner

Cut off my finger, will you? Jerk. Just cutting off people's fingers. That crap hurts! I killed people, but I didn't cut off their fingers. I was glad I had my middle ones left to flip her off.


MAPLE WILDA- Volvo Courvaile

Her name was Maple? Everyone called her May. I hadn't seen her die, exactly, but I knew it was her. I'd snuck up behind the Cornucopia during the feast and saw two blurs kill two more blurs through the crystal. While Blake and Ember were under the table again, I ran back into the candy village. It seemed like I'd been at the feast long enough, and I wasn't dead, so I must have been right. Too bad about May, though. Now it was just me and the Careers. They better watch out, though. I had a jawbreaker sock.


KEISON WALKER- Blake Armani

It used to be I was afraid of him. There was no time to be afraid here. Sometimes the best way to change was by trauma. Trauma made me into the scared girl I used to be, and it was turning me back into a warrior. If it was me and Ember at the end, that would be the most traumatic of all.


Acee Hal

I wouldn't have thought Lisette would last longer than Randy. She had everything necessary to be a good person, which meant she had nothing necessary to win the Games. Randy had a better chance, but sometimes the Games played tricks. Sometimes luck was necessary, and no one who got Reaped had any of that.


District Three

They say if you fold a thousand paper cranes, you get a wish. We passed a thousand by and kept folding, but it still wasn't enough for Lisette. We put them on her grave so the rain could wash them away. There were so many they covered Randy's grave as well. We knew so little about him. We wished we could have learned more.


Sequoia Wilson

Splinter was a shock. Someone like him should have lasted at least halfway through. Not that it mattered how far you got before you died. Maple was a wild card. I wouldn't have been surprised no matter where she placed. I only would have been happy if it had been first.


District Seven

Morale took a big hit when Splinter died. It always did after an unsuccessful Games, but Splinter was more than that. No one wanted to do the dangerous jobs without Splinter there to keep us safe. May had been a quiet, easy to overlook, but ever-present part of Seven. Someone had to do all those odd jobs she somehow knew how to do. Someone else would have to take her place, but no one would ever be like Maple.


Chimera Ilium

I just couldn't get it through to them. I kept telling them they were supposed to win, but they still died. I wanted them to be here with me, not dead somewhere. This was the most awful job in Panem. I'd quit if it wasn't so frowned upon.


District Nine

We thought Hosanna was going to do it. We thought we'd finally join all the others and have at least a single Victor. Even Twelve had one. It was only us that stayed at the bottom. After Hosanna went, we started to think Keison might be the one. We didn't usually last this long. And we never made it to the end.


Volvo Courvaile

Things didn't look good. I was the only one left with two Careers. Blake and Ember came from Districts obsessed with honor and glory. They'd want to fight each other last for a glorious finale. I was the one loose end they both wanted to tie up. They were coming for me.

No one thinks I'm going to win. No one thought I would make it this far. Everyone thought I would die in the Bloodbath. I was the weak addict who ruined his own life and didn't deserve a second chance. No one saw all the things I was doing to pull myself back up. They only saw the moment I slipped and fell.

There were a lot of us in Six. People thought of Six as the weakest District- the one that dragged the country down and made us look bad. We were an embarrassment. Nobody thought about what it took to get to where we were. We lived in a country so terrible we would rather stab needles into ourselves and die than go on living. We weren't the problem. We were a symptom. We were hurting and desperate and hopeless. It didn't make up for the mistakes we chose to make, but there was more to it than simple black and white.

Everyone was watching me. I represented every one of the addicts in Six. If I died, they'd say it was just another junkie. If I got out of here, they would see we weren't useless. If I got home, I could make a difference. I could help people like me and speak for them. The people at the rehab center gave up so much to help us. Hemi gave up everything for me. I could show them it wasn't only other people who could sacrifice. People like me could make a difference, too.

Someone had sent me a blowgun and some darts. I hadn't wanted to use them at first. I knew all about poison-tipped needles. But it was the only thing that would get me out of here. I'd already done so much wrong and caused so much pain. I could bear one more death on my conscience if it meant making a difference for people like me.


Blake Armani

It took us two more days to find Volvo. We found him by the soda stream, getting more water. He saw us coming while we were still too far away for Ember to throw her spear. The chase was on.

He was admirbly strong for an untrained Tribute. We'd been running for years in the Academy, and we could barely close the distance between us. Ember pulled out ahead of me and got ready to throw. Volvo looked over his shoulder and saw how close we were. Instead of running faster, he put some sort of skinny cup to his mouth to drink. He whipped his head back and kept running, but Ember stumbled.

"Ow!" she said. She held up her arm and my heart stopped. There was a feathered dart in it. She gasped and tore it out before she fell to her knees.

"Ember!" I cried. She was looking at Volvo, urging me to keep going after him as he got smaller in the distance. Her face was lax and she leaned against me as I fell to catch her.

"It's okay. You'll be okay," I said. I tried to push her back to her feet, but she slid to the ground.

"Ember. Ember, you have to keep moving," I said. Whatever was on Volvo's dart must have paralyzed her. Her feeble movements grew even fainter and I watched her chest in panic to make sure it kept rising and falling. She started to cry, and I cried with her.

"Daddy," she said. The word trailed off as she stopped breathing. I straddled her chest and started pushing on her ribs to keep her breathing. I'd stay as long as I needed until the poison wore off. I laid my head on her chest as I pushed and listened to her heart.


Ember Steiner

It wasn't fair. I was going to win. I was about to throw my pole and run Volvo through. I couldn't have known he had a weapon. Poison was what every Career dreaded. It brought down the strongest fighter and could be used by the weakest. It was a coward's weapon.

My parents were watching me die. I was fading away, and I couldn't tell them it would be all right. They were going to lose both their children. It would have been all right if it was just me, but they already lost Shui.

They were all watching. All of Two's proud generations of Victors. They watched when another joined their ranks and they watched when one fell. I couldn't feel anything outside my dying body, only a faint pressure as Blake crouched over me. I felt the air enter and leave my lungs as she pressed. That was the only part of me that could move anymore.

Anything else I could have pushed past. I would have fought with one arm and a spear through my chest. I would have fought ten people at once to get back to my father. Anything in the world would be better than letting him watch me die. I was glad Blake was on top of me so he couldn't see my face. I was about to see Shui again. He wouldn't be mad at me for dying. He might tease me, though. As long as I got to see him again.

Blake put her head on my chest and I felt my heartbeat reverberating through her ear. It was getting fainter. Each beat was lighter, and then there were none.


3rd place: Ember Steiner- poisoned by Volvo

Ember and Shui were a unique Career pair. There have been sibling pairs before, but never like this. Ember had the world on her shoulders from the moment her brother got Reaped. She had everything to live for, but that's not what determines who lives and who dies. Sometimes something no one could have stopped happens, and sometimes the strongest Career dies. Ember did everything possible to win. She couldn't have done anything more. Thanks CarlpoppaLOL for Ember, who was a classical Career but had her own story in which she was the hero.

Ember and Blake jockeyed for first in votes from chapter one. I thought Ember might win, but she dropped off dramatically in votes around the top ten. I don't know why. She still had a lot of votes, though. She had six Victor votes when she died.

Nothing left but the finale now. I'll wait until I get all the votes and then dive in.