Meenah Turbine- District Five female

"Good morning, Tapey," I whispered. "Or maybe it's night. Or high noon. I have no idea. I do have light, though, so I got that going for me, which is nice." Some good ol' Meenah Turbine logic told me that while a flashlight would definitely tell the Careers where I was, it didn't make much difference, since they could already see me. There would be night vision goggles in the Bloodbath. The Careers would have them. Duh.

"It's really, really dark down here," I told Tapey in a singsongy voice. "I don't like it. Nope, do not like it. Really dark. Underground. Feels like a coffin. Yuck."

I liked even less what I was going to do next. I was like the Gamemakers in one way: we both lived for drama. They would want a longer Games and more suspense. That meant providing us outliers with a way out of danger. They would definitely have little tunnels and hidey-holes, some of which probably led to food or other useful things. I crouched down and shone my flashlight into another crack in the wall. The beam went far enough without getting stopped that it was swallowed up by darkness. I stuck my head in and started crawling.

I tried not to think of anything at all as I wormed entirely into the tunnel so that the open corridor was behind me. I pulled myself along on protruding stones and pushed myself with my feet. It pressed on me from every side, so tight I couldn't lift an arm to wipe the dirt from my face. It hurt something in part of me I could never reach to know I lived in a world where someone would do what I was doing to escape something my country birthed.

The tunnel got narrower. I stopped and laid my face on the floor for a moment. I breathed deeply to try to ward off a wave of panic at being stuck somewhere horrible so tightly that even if I wanted to turn and flee, it would take half an hour to wiggle back out of the stone that loomed over me and around me like a drainpipe. It didn't help at all to breathe. When I took a deep breath, my back pressed against the roof. I couldn't turn my head far enough to see my feet. In near darkness, nearly paralyzed, I wriggled like a corpse trying to dig free of a grave weighed down by six feet of dirt.

I shoved forward and almost smacked into a rock that blocked the tunnel. There was no going on that way. I cursed the rock and pounded a fist into it. As I twisted around to start wiggling back, my face turned up for a minute. Then I saw the tunnel was still open- upward. At a ninety degree turn, there was a tiny gap between the rock and the tunnel. It looked about the size of my head.

I wiggled onto my back. It was a fumbling, cramped process, and one arm was wedged awkwardly under me when I finished. If I couldn't do what I was planning, I didn't know if I could turn back over. I felt another pulse of panic at the thought of trying to get down what felt like at least thirty feet pulling myself inch by inch on my back.

I didn't want to think. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be living, honestly. I cranked my arm under my back and slid it sideways to raise it to my ear.

It stuck.

I couldn't move it. I was pinned under tons of rock, clamped in on every side by something I could never in a million years budge. It clutched me from toe to head so tightly I couldn't roll over onto my side to release it. I closed my eyes and lay still. My mind was trying to fray, and I would not let it. I had a flashlight. I'd gotten this far. I would not let my mind start down a path that ended in madness.

I shifted my weight from side to side, rolling as far as I could. My hips dug into the thin layer of sediment on the tunnel floor. I wiggled my arm at the same time. Slowly, a tiny trench was scooped out of the dirt. I started dragging my arm up my side. It was so tight a fit that it went numb and cold with the pressure. Then, all at once, it popped free. The back of my hand smacked the tunnel roof and I lay giggling like a maniac at the freedom of being able to move my hand in front of my face.

I painfully bent my arm and reached for the space in front of my head. My arm caught in the tiny gap. I pushed it helplessly, raging against stone totally indifferent to my efforts. With a sob, I shoved forward with all my strength. My hand shot through the gap, scraping my skin bloody against the stone roof. I waved my hand in the beautiful open air between the rock and the tunnel.

With one hand leaving room, the other was easy to reach up. I grabbed the protruding stones at the end of the tunnel and pulled. I slid backwards into the opening, bending at the waist with my head and neck pressed against the rock. I was in an almost relaxed sitting position, the flashlight tucked between my shoulder and neck illuminating the tunnel above me.

This was the moment, I knew. I would try to wiggle up through the bottleneck to the wider tunnel I could see just five feet above me. If I made it, I would be through to the other side. If I didn't, I would die pinned and clawing at cold stone.

If it was morning when I went in, it was evening before I was out. Every inch was a victory. Stone scraped and cut my face to my legs as I forced myself deeper into its grip. With each movement I was unsure the next would come, and if at any point I had dropped the flashlight- my mind refused to finish the thought. Relief poured over me when my head and shoulders breached the narrowest point and came out into a rapturous wider tunnel.

It was at that point that I stuck. At first I thought it was a matter of trying different moves. With each failure, terror gained more grip on me. I gathered the fracturing pieces of my sanity and held them tight. I took in a deep breath, then let it out entirely. At that moment, I surged up. My collapsed chest screamed against the compression. I screamed in joy when the stone gouged divots in my hips, because that meant they were that far. I slid free like a tattered eel, and for a long time I sat in the open tunnel, a million miles from anyone who could hurt me, and cried.

Donnatella Brassas-Palassaqua- District Two female

"So what brought you to the Academy?" Caio asked. He was up because he was on watch. I was up because I couldn't sleep. So we sat at the mouth of the Cornucopia, absently chewing on energy bars.

"Oh, you know. I was the golden child. My parents were convinced I was the bravest and strongest and would bring us all glory in combat. I do like being a volunteer, but I don't know what I would have been like without them," I said. That was all he was getting from me. If he wanted feelings, he could look elsewhere. I'd had my moment of openness with him. It was more than most people got from me.

"Same for you?" I asked.

Caio's face went dark and he looked away. "Same for me," he said. "I don't know who I'd be without them."

"You seemed like you liked this life," I said. For better or for worse, I couldn't imagine anyone forcing Caio to do anything.

"I do enjoy it. I enjoy fighting, and winning, and the faces of my enemies when they realize I'm better than they'll ever be," Caio said.

"We can't get distracted by other people," I said. "We have to win this for ourselves."

"Or what?" Caio said. "I have two endings. Either I win and I'll make him look me in the face and call me Victor, or I'll die. If I'm dead, I won't be here to be embarrassed about it."

Someone hurt him. I believed people were what they were and no one could blame their choices on others. But nothing has no effects. We grow and change by our nature in the context of our nurture. I knew beyond a doubt, though Caio would never admit it, that his father hadn't been what he should have been. And just as clearly, I knew I would never be that to Kallista.

If I got out of this, I would be a mother, not a coach. If Kallista wanted to train, I would teach her. If she wanted to paint butterflies, I would be her biggest salesman. We would live the lives we wanted and no one would ever control us again. No expectations. No plans for her life. No telling her that she had to do something for my approval instead of just be something: Kallista. My parents thought I volunteered because they wanted me to. I volunteered to get away from them. I would never, ever, drive Kallista to do the same.

"He's not worth your pain," I said to Caio. "Don't let him have this hold on you."

"He won't," Caio said. He looked back at me and his eyes burned. "I'll be free of him when I win this. When I haul him before me and force him to say what he refused me. That I am worthwhile. I am a Victor. And maybe, when he says it, I might spare him."

Meenah got a super long POV because it was a cool moment so I let it run its course. It has been noted in my file that she got a super long POV so I remember to highlight everyone else as well.

Meenah's POV was so long I just did two POVs for this chapter and didn't kill anyone lol.