Frankie Disney- District Eleven mentor

None of the Districts went out in the Bloodbath this time. It didn't stop us from elimination on the first day, though. It didn't hit me very hard, since I'd known it was coming. I knew it was sad Apollo and Wisteria were dead, but I worked through that before they even went into the tubes.

District Eleven

So many books teach children about death by telling about a character's first experience with it, usually by suddenly losing a friend. Apollo's friends experienced that in real life. Wicker did, of course, accept the sudden need for his presence in Marie's life. Family members and mourning friends pitched in to care for her, and a village raised a child.

Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor

I told him he was valuable. Maybe he wouldn't have believed it, but I still thought so after he was dead and I always would. Sundew, too. They were two more children I could never forget.

District Twelve

In some ways it's easier for us. We know it's not going to be one of us. We quietly start carving the coffins and digging the holes, and we fill them, and we're safe until next year.

COLBALT KEYES- Yttria Noxus

My District partner. He wasn't like most people from Three. That was kind of funny, since I was like Threes but didn't want that life. I wished I had more time to know him.

KLAUS RIVIERA- Meenah Turbine

He never seemed very happy. I always thought he must have had a hard life. I would have asked him about it, but he always seemed focused, like I would be interrupting him.

GASOLY WAYFARER- Enzo Ranger

It hit me in the gut. Gasoly, the girl with the big smile and the sparkling eyes. Every time I saw her I found myself smiling too. What purpose did it serve, killing someone like her? Why would anyone look at Gasoly and think it was better for her to be dead? It broke my heart.

ADAIR OUTRIDGE- Jezzebell Fern

They got both of them. Both the squirrel boys who ran around doing boy things together and never hurting anyone. They were just two friends having fun and someone killed them. I bet it made them feel really good about themselves.

PORTER CRANE- Visenya Lloyd

I could have been with him. I picked Linden for my own mostly shallow reasons. I could have as easily picked Porter and stayed loyal to my District. Maybe that would have gotten me more sponsors, or maybe fewer, since it would be splitting the District between us instead of gaining sponsors from Eight. But that was a different path than I took, and now Porter was gone.

APOLLO COURFEYRAC- Othella Fline

That made me the youngest one. Only one Tribute my age had ever won. If I did win it would probably be the same way Hades did it, but I didn't think hiding would work against people who could see in the dark.

WISTERIA ROSE- Donnatella Brassas-Palassaqua

A lot of people were probably surprised I did it. They didn't understand anything. To a Career, it was a show of respect. I showed Wisteria to her fate with my own hand, a mother to a mother. I didn't prolong it and I didn't give her false hope. Her child was an orphan now, like mine was likely to be. We were a lot alike, more than an outlier would know.

ARGENT ORE- Grande St. Leger

It was fitting he was the one I killed. Argent was one of us. People like me had a radar for people who faced the same battle against their own brains. We didn't have the same condition, but we had the same struggles. I wished him peace.

SUNDEW KEOPE- Paloma Bennett

I hadn't even known her name. Sundew. What a beautiful name. What a beautiful person, shining against the side of the cave and casting blue light on us. Like the sun, the sun I wouldn't be seeing for a long time.

Jezzebell Fern- District Seven female

Hours passed, or I hoped they did. It might have been minutes, cramped in a lightless, claustrophobic scar in a cave wall. My only certainty that time had passed was the blue light that flashed out of nowhere. I only had an instant to savor it, since it blinded me. I thought at first I'd been killed and it was a dying flash. Only the Anthem gave me the real answer.

If we weren't allies before, we were allies now. I'd spent what might have been a lifetime pressed against three other bodies. All I'd heard in the maddening, soul-draining absence was their breathing. The cave seemed alive as their rising and falling chests shifted around me. Now and then one of them would adjust position and I would feel warm, soft flesh against me instead of cold stone. None of us said a word. None of us could until however long it took for the Careers to pass.

A single footstep echoed off the walls. There was a clatter of loose pebbles. One of them must have stumbled. It wasn't until the echoes settled that I could determine the direction of the noise. Tears spilled over my trembling face as I looked out into the darkness. It had come from past us. We'd been terrified of the moment they would either walk past us or snuff us like candles. It had come and gone without us knowing it.

"I think it might be morning," Othella said. After a moment, she added, "or whatever that is here."

It might have been morning. It might have been an hour later. None of us had slept that I knew of, but I couldn't really know. I put one arm out into the body of the cave. Crazy as I was, I still gave me pause. I could put my hand down and find the the kind of insects that thrived in darkness had moved in and carpeted the floor. They would be a wriggling mass of biology that would swarm over my hand and crawl down my body when I pulled my hand back and clutched it to my chest.

There was nothing, nothing but floor. I crawled out on hands and knees and sat huddled on the ground.

Okay, I know I hear bells. I know there are no bells here, but I know I hear them.

"Are those bells?" Paloma asked. She scooted out next to me and crawled toward the noise. "It's a sponsor gift!"

"It's from Seven," she said as I reached her.

"How do you know?" I asked.

She pressed the gift into my arm and slid it down until she felt my hand. She guided my fingers to a spot. "There's a raised seven here," she said. I felt the figure protruding from the canister.

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"No way," Yttria said. This was just the Gamemakers being dramatic. The other canister was from Ten. The mentors must have raised the funds at different times, but the Gamemakers waited to send them together for maximum drama.

I opened mine and felt around inside. My fingers closed on folded plastic and something smooth and my heart leapt. I ripped the glasses out of the package and slammed them onto my face. I could see. I sobbed with relief and delight and looked around in random directions, soaking in the glorious, amazing information entering my eyes. For some moments, I didn't register the others clamoring around me. My entire being was wrapped up in the miracle of light.

"I see you!" I half-yelled, then hastily lowered my voice. "It's night vision glasses." My blind allies' faces lit up.

"Let me see," Othella said. She pawed at me and I indulgently passed them over. I couldn't see her then, but I heard her high-pitched giggle.

"No way," Paloma said. "Mine too."

"I have an idea," I said. "Give mine back." I gestured at where I thought Othella was. "Just for a minute. I'll give them back." She handed me the glasses and I snapped them in half at the nose. I held one up like a monocle as I tore a strip from my shirt and made a sort of strap to hold them to my face. I tore another strap and tied the other half to Othella.

"Not perfect, but it will do," I said. We giggled at the sight of each other squinting out of half a pair of glasses. It wasn't my entire field of vision, but it was most of it, enough that it felt like both eyes were seeing, which made all the difference. Yttria saw what we'd done and did the same with Paloma.

"We're like a bunch of pirates," Othella said, and she laughed.

I felt the tears coming back and bottled them up so I didn't look like even more of a baby. Paloma and Othella didn't bother, and Yttria was noticeably sniffling as well. It wasn't something any of us could express and we all understood. We'd spent a night blind in a cave. The psychic damage from that was already permanently etched into us. At the time, I'd taken each second as it came. Now that I could see again, I couldn't believe what I'd gotten through. It was something I didn't think I'd ever want to think about again, but if I lived, I knew I would never escape it.