Maeve Landstone, District 2
Maeve leans against the metal structure as the sun begins to rise. She wasn't able to sleep much last night, leaving her to stay on guard. Her anxiety keeps her awake.
She hears faint rustling coming from inside the cornucopia. Evan comes out from the cornucopia, stretching out his back. Only half of her alliance was able to sleep in a sleeping bag, and Evan was not part of that half.
"Morning." Evan says. Maeve looks over at him.
"Hi." She says flatly. Most of her emotions are suppressed by her feelings of inadequacy.
"So boss, what's the plan for today?" Evan asks. Maeve stares down the beach. What are the plans for today?, she wonders.
"Hunting. We have enough supplies, we shouldn't waste it." She says. "I'll take Crane and Hayley out for the first hunt." Evan nods.
"Sounds good. Let me know if you need anything from me." Evan pats Maeve on the back before joining Alexandrine at the fire pit.
More rustling from inside the cornucopia tells her that the rest of her group is waking. She goes over towards the food stash, quickly rations out breakfast, and begins dispersing it through her group.
"That's it?" Hayley says when Maeve hands her two apples.
"Yes." Maeve says firmly. "We can't risk running out of food." She turns and leaves before Hayley can complain more.
Maeve walks out to the beach and stares out into the water. Not too far out, she can see Mako and Minnow in the boat, fishing with the net. She finds herself clenching with anger, realizing the lack of respect within the Career pack. Maybe they should have never split up, it seems to have caused more harm than help.
"I didn't send them." The voice of Alexandrine makes Maeve turn around.
"What?" Maeve responds, unsure what she's talking about.
"Mako and Minnow. I didn't ask them to fish, they went off without telling me." Alexandrine explains. Maeve slowly nods, but doesn't respond. She turns back out to watch the waves hit the beach. Behind her, she can hear Alexandrine walking away, leaving Maeve alone with her thoughts.
Though, those tend to be more dangerous than she'd like.
Marshal Woods, District 7
"We should go back towards the cornucopia." Elise says for the fifth time.
"It's only going to get us killed." Marshal explains, for the fifth time. Hunger is taking atoll on him and his two allies. They were able to find a small pool of water last night, but by morning it had evaporated. Weaponless and malnourished, Elise believes stealing from the Careers will be their best bet.
"We don't even know if they have anything. The cornucopia was empty." Ash has tried reasoning.
"There's no way the Gamemakers would allow their precious Careers to go hungry so soon. They have supplies." She's always countered. Unlike Marshal, Ash doesn't have the will to continue with his logic.
The trio comes across the edge of the forest and find themselves staring at a mountain. It's Ash who points out the opening.
"Is it safe to enter?" He asks Marshal. Marshal shrugs. It's not like he would know any more than his allies.
"We might as well go in. Better than walking around the woods, waiting for somebody to attack." Marshal says. Elise crosses her arms, but to Marshal's surprise, she doesn't say anything.
Marshal leads the way through the caves, wary of an attack. He hugs the right wall, even as the path split. After nearly twenty minutes of exploration, he finds the path has ended. A small crate sits at the edge of the wall.
Marshal approaches the crate, surprised to see it filled to the brim with items. Two knives, two full water bottles, two loaves of bread, and a medkit. A bag sits to the left of the crate. Marshal takes the bag and begins putting the supplies in the bag. He opens one of the water bottles, takes a sip, and passes it to Ash. He passes one of the loaves of bread around and before long, it's gone. Elise wants to eat the second loaf as well, but Marshal stops her.
"We need to save it until we have another food source." He tells her.
"We have two knives. We can hunt, isn't that our food source?" She snaps back.
"No. Until the food is in our possession, we don't have another source." He watches Elise roll her eyes.
"Let me have the second knife." Elise says, reaching her hand out. Marshal doesn't move.
"Why?" He snaps back.
"You can't protect us all." She says with a hint of malice in her voice. Marshal shakes his head no.
"She's right." He hears Ash say quietly. Marshal glares at Ash. Is he seriously sticking up for her right now?
"Fine. Whatever." Marshal passes Elise the smaller of the two knives. He offers to take first watch as Elise and Ash get rest. As he sits alone, he can't help himself when the dark thoughts come to the forefront of his mind. He can't help but wonder how he got himself into this situation, with an ally he can't trust. All he can wonder is how long will it be before he ends up with a knife lodged between his shoulder blades.
Burgundy Mulligan, District 8
Burgundy stumbles around the arena. His head is throbbing, his mouth parched. He can't form a thought without it being reduced to mumble in his mind.
After nearly two days of searching, Burgundy hasn't found any viable water source. And now, with the fuzziness taking over, he can't even distinguish where he's already been.
He somehow finds himself back on the beach. He allows himself to collapse to his knees in the sand. He closes his eyes and lets his mind take him out of the arena, back home to Eight. He remembers his friends, the ones that were taken away from him. He remembers Gray, the avox sent to frighten him before the Games. He wonders if Gray is watching now.
Burgundy hears the footsteps rushing up on him. He opens his eyes just in time to see the large figures of six Careers standing over him. One swings a sword at him, and he joins his friends in the afterlife.
Hodaka Granger, District 9
BOOM
The firing of a cannon shakes Hodaka awake. Her joints feel stiff. She does a quick scan of her area to see if there's anyone near her. Nothing.
She wonders who the cannon belonged to. With so many tributes remaining, there's really no way to know until the faces are shown with the anthem. If Hodoka were to guess, she'd say the cannon belonged to a victim of the Careers. The thought worries her, because it means that they are doing well enough to hunt. Were they sponsored supplies? Were there actually supplies in the Cornucopia that weren't obvious to her at first?
Hodaka puts her hands in the pond, bringing the water to her face. She didn't realize how hard it is to stay clean in the arena. Everyone's so focused on capturing the fight and the hunger, they don't emphasize how bad each tribute smells.
Luckily for Hodaka, she hasn't seen a tribute since the bloodbath. That doesn't mean she isn't struggling. Despite having found a water source pretty quickly, she has no weapons, no food, and no way to get any. Hunger is really taking a toll on her body, especially her energy. Frustration has definitely taken over. All she wants, really, is a chance.
She stands from her pond and does a small lap around the area she's staying in. She's found a bush filled with small berries, but they don't resemble anything she's seen before. She tries to remember the edible food training from the Capitol, but she can't remember. Despite her hunger, she ignores the berries and continues her search.
After some more searching, she still hasn't found anything edible. She worries about straying too far from her pond, as it could be the only water source in the area. Besides, finding her way back to this pond could prove to be problematic with how similar the forest looks.
Feeling a little hopeless, Hodaka returns back to her water source. She allows herself to drink more water to try and distract her from her hunger while coming up with a plan. Hopefully, one will come to mind, otherwise her chances of survival will continue to decrease.
I wasn't going to split days up into parts, but I decided it would be better for me to write four POVS for two chapters than eight POVS for one chapter. Hopefully, this will help me get chapters out quickly. I also won't update the death list until the next chapter to keep the deaths a surprise and to hopefully encourage people to read the chapter instead of scrolling to the bottom (so the death this chapter won't be listed until next chapter).
Please review! It keeps me motivated to continue this story.
ALLIANCES
Career Pack #1: Alexandrine Laurent, Blade Saito, Lancia Audren, Casper Chevallier, Minnow Swanson, Mako Swanson
Career Pack #2: Crystal Vine, Evander Floyd, Maeve Landstone, Crane Bavari, Hayley Onyx, Tristan McKnight
Alliance #1: Alexis Clafin, Romeo Ford
Alliance #2: Eros Herier, Adonis Herier
Alliance #3: Ashley "Ash" Oak, Marshal Woods, Elise Linderman
Alliance #4: Yeong-Ja Song, Thread Hawkins
Alone: Hodaka Granger, Ari West, Clemencia Leocadia, Warren Faulkner, Ashleigh Caine, Mathias Hayes, Pepper Lokma
DEATHS
48th: Nat Ali (D5F)
47th: James Holden (D3M)
46th: Max Wingfield (D3M)
45th: Pandora Vivenne-Sherman (D8F)
44th: Tatum Murray (D9F)
43rd: Travis Arbroath (D9M)
42nd: Aeryn Malvo (D6F)
41st: Quinn Effex (D5F)
40th: Aaran Surge (D6M)
39th: Casper Seabird (D5M)
38th: Magnolia Appleton (D11F)
37th: Filly Detroit (D11F)
36th: Fawn Hill (D12F)
35th: Clyde Fermini (D12M)
34th: Holly James (D7F)
33rd: Ivy David (D11F)
32nd: Ferris Marlowe (D3F)
31st: Zay Gaura (D11M)
30th: Eddie Francie (D5M)