Day Four

Athos Flint, District Five Chosen (37)

Athos was tense.

Here they were, four careers, professional assassins, and they hadn't been able to kill anyone since the bloodbath.

And that angered Athos. Sure he wasn´t exactly a trained killer as the others, but he was trained. It was the previous training he had as a peacekeepers that kept in this alliance and alive. It was his training that made him strong, his training what made him a career in shape, but not in the heart.

Because he was still worried about that damn boy.

How could he let it go on his own, with those other children? Sure, he had killed one of his allies and he wasn´t sorry about that, the boy was going to die one way or another, but that son of his mother could survive if he wanted to. He had the potential to do so. He was strong, firm, and in shape to do what he had to do to survive.

Athos just wasn´t sure if the fourteen year old wanted to do so.

Maybe the kid wasn´t ready to survive and everything was in his head. Maybe the child wasn´t who Athos thought he was.

Maybe Tucker was going to die.

But he doesn´t have to, he thinks as the sun starts to set. He can keep him alive but leading his allies the opposite way of Tucker´s tracks.

That´s the only thing he could do for now, but he had to do so. If not, how can his heritage survive?

He knew that it was a matter of time before they found each other, but he could keep him alive the longest possible.

It had to be him, or Tucker to get out of this arena. It was the only way.

"Hey" a face appeared in front of him. Apparently, Logan had a fascination with sticking his nose, and face, where it didn´t.

"What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing I want. Just wanted to make sure you are not going to rat me out to the others. You know, I might still have chances to, you know, bang-bang Aisha"

Athos face was a face of disgust. How someone could be thinking of banging someone when they were in the middle of a death match.

Though, if he was honest, he was being inconsiderate, since he was thinking of keeping Tucker alive the longest possible while he should be thinking about murdering everyone in the arena the fastest possible.

"I am not going to rat you out to the others, Logan. Calm down a bit. If I rat you out I would rat myself out as well, don´t you think?"

"Oh, you are right. I am being dumb."

"Hey guys, I think I found something here!" said Atticus from afar.

Athos just had one hope.

"It´s a pair of glasses" Aisha said when they all arrived at the scene. "They are broken, but only one tribute I remember entered with glasses to the games"

"The District Three boy, remember?" Logan exclaimed.

Oh boy, action was going to start.

Athos just hopes that Tucker wasn´t near.

Xaran Lilth, District Three Reaped (17)

Dad was actually in a good mood. We were all clustered around our cozy little fire, eating bananas and fruit we'd found on the many trees scattered around. Micah tried roasting one like a marshmellow. It smelled good. And Dad was telling a story.

"So I went to Flicker, or, as we called him… well, there are kids present. He's a nice guy. It's just, he's named Flicker. He's also crazy smart. In five minutes he had a program written, and we uploaded it onto Cathode's computer while he was in the bathroom. Then the fun began."

"See, it was a real stinker of a program. At random intervals, it would start displaying pop-up pictures of cows. When Cathode tried to close them, they would moo and another one would pop up. He tried to get rid of it, and then he got up to get the rest of us. But the program was linked to the computer's camera. As soon as it recognized more than one face, all the pictures vanished."

Dad laughed. It was something I hadn't seen in a while. It was so genuine it warmed me all up inside. I smiled along with him. For the first time in a long time, we were having a normal, funny-dad-story moment.

He leaned back and put a hand to his mouth. His head bobbed forward, like there was music playing and he was nodding along. Then he teetered forward and fell headlong onto the grass. I didn't understand until I saw the brains sticking to the axe in the back of his head. I still didn't understand then.

As though through water, I heard screams and rustling around me. They were above the water's surface, far away from me. My father was the only thing near me. I looked at him. He was still there. He was in one piece. That was my father, dead in front of me. My father's hands, that used to shoo me back to bed when I said I was scared, but never before he gave me a hug and told me I was a big boy. My father's hair that was getting thinner and made me think that a bald spot was just a style some men liked. My father's arms that swung me as I dangled from him on one side and my mother on the other.

My arm lifted into the air. The watery yelling was louder, right by my ear. Someone was grabbing me. Because it was a grab and not a blade, it must be one of my allies. Whoever it was pulled me away. I ran after them into the trees, looking over my shoulder the entire way, back at my father.

Maurie Stafford, District Ten Chosen (22)

I'd never seen Parter so light. He was telling a normal story like a cool uncle. Usually he was so formal and stiff and just sort of acted like a rich person out of a stuffy novel. Turned out he was a person just like anyone else.

Then he was dead on the grass. It was horrible, I would know later it was horrible, but I didn't give him a second thought. It didn't matter that Parter had been killed. It mattered that someone was near and someone was killing.

Everyone started to get up and run. As I rose, I saw Athos through the foliage. He was looking down below me and smiling. I knew then I was looking at Parter's murderer. More importantly, I was looking at a murderer, and one who wanted to kill again.

It must have taken three seconds for me to stand and take action. Just like the cliché went, it seemed longer. Time stretched like bread dough as I stood and looked in a circle. Xaran was still sitting, looking at his father's body. Just like I hadn't given Parter a second thought, I didn't give a second thought to what I did next. Xaran would die if I didn't help him. If I left him, the Careers would kill him, and that would buy me time. All that came later, though. In the moment, I didn't think at all. I grabbed Xaran's arm and pulled.

"Go!" I screamed. He didn't hear me, but he let himself be lifted, and when I started running, he followed.

We caught up to Micah and Paris quickly, since Paris was running at Micah's pace. That meant that the Careers also quickly caught up with us. They cornered us in an area where the foliage grew so thick we couldn't clamber through it without them being able to stab us in the back.

Like four heads of a hydra, the Careers glanced in unison at each other and executed a move they all landed upon. Aisha and Atticus ran at Paris and Micah, and Athos and Logan came at us. I put my back to Xaran and put my fists up. Xaran stood tranquil, not looking at anything. I pushed him behind me and prodded him to climb into the thick vines and roots that made escape so slow. Our only hope was that they'd block the Careers' attacks until we could get out of range.

We were smaller than Athos and Logan, and that was what saved us. Our long-underfed and skinny framed slipped into crevices in the vegetal mass. We slipped between the branches as Logan and Athos tried to force past them. They hacked and shoved at the stout branches, giving us time to wiggle further in past their reach. As if by instinct, Xaran followed me close behind.

As we broke out on the other side of the roots, I heard a cannon. Xaran kept running ahead of me, and probably would forever if I didn't catch up. I looked back. Through the gaps in the trees, I could barely see a tiny form crumpling at the end of Atticus' knife. Before he could pull it out of Micah, Paris, who was right behind Micah, swung a huge branch like a bat and hit him solidly in the head. Paris followed it up with three heavy stomps to Atticus' face. The third cannon sounded before Paris swung the branch and the second when his foot was descending for the third stomp.

I'd already stopped too long. I turned to run behind Xaran. I didn't know how Paris could get out of this one, but there was nothing I could do for him. I didn't even think I could save Xaran.

Paris Drapper, District Nine Chosen (16)

Paris was going through one of the worst days of his life.

Sure, after the bloodbath of course, but still. He just couldn´t get the blood out of his clothes.

Micah had been an easy defense towards the weapon of the careers, most appropriately towards the craziness of the man from Four. Paris had just to push him down the train of thought a little bit, and make him subtly fall in love with him, and there he had one meat shield at free charge.

So damn easy it had been, for him to die and Paris to be alive. The careers, two of focused on searching for Maurie and Xaran, one dead, and the last one falling down to cry for her ally at the moment of his death.

So sad, so damn sad.

But Paris wasn´t about to cry. He was going to keep going steady and keep on surviving to get out of here. Paris Drapper was now a survivor, not a coward who dies early. No. He had already killed two careers, two powerful, trained tributes that would have killed any other tribute.

At that moment, Paris felt unstoppable. He was a force to be reckoned in his mind, a dark knight only fighting for himself, a mercenary looking for the most precious thing on the world, a simple boy looking to survive with all of his strength to other´s people malefic actions.

As he put himself in a firm posture, hands next to his body, he could only do one thing.

Smile as the sun was along as the sun was bright. Because then, at night, the hunt would. The predator versus prey battle.

And no matter what side he was, he would always win. Always. He was a hero, only to himself, but a hero nonetheless.

Nobody could stop him now. Nobody. He was going to wreck this motherfucking arena and kill of these tributes.

They weren´t people anymore. Since they entered the arena, they stopped being people and became pawns to the Capitol´s wrath and frivolity.

Him? He knew that and he didn´t care about it. He was free as a bird in the morning, before a hunter shoot it.

But now, he was the one with a gun. And the bird was gonna shoot its hunter all day long, till there weren´t nothing any more.

And then he, he heard voices. And these ones weren´t in his head, oh no, they were real. Three of them, to be exact.

And they were going to down. They were going so down

Hey, happy to send a new chapter towards you! Hope you are happy!