Emerson Gepler, 17
District 5 Female
"I just can't believe he's gone."
We ran for hours after the bloodbath. With each step, we left another piece of Spike behind, and I still can't process that he died. I knew at least one of us was bound to die, but Spike? The kid that everyone was scared of because of his muscles? The guy that made me laugh when we were on the train and made me feel better about all of this?
He's just...dead.
"We lost two people today," Hazel says as she curls up against Cullen. The sun is setting, and the weather is getting colder. We want to try and make a fire, but it is next to impossible to do that without getting caught by the careers.
Or worse a mutt.
"We lost two people, and we are going to continue to lose people," Hazel talks not with harshness but more preparing me for what is coming. The irony of me giving her the same talk only a day and a half prior has not left me.
"What a great consistency to count on," says Chrysanthemum as she lays on her back, looking up at the sky as it progressively gets darker.
The arena is beautiful. Peaceful trees everywhere. I've seen a few forest creatures walking around, and that only gives me a little bit of anxiety. Mess around, and the rabbit you were trying to catch will turn into a giant tiger.
"We should probably go try and hunt for rabbits tomorrow, yes?" asks Cullen. It's the first time he talked since the bloodbath. He's just had that same thoughtful look he always has. Even as we were winded, we could still see that he was deep in thought. He won't open up about what it is, though. We've given him multiple opportunities to do so.
"Maybe," says Hazel. "I would say grab some fruit from the trees, but that just seems to easy for me."
"Don't you feel guilty?" I ask Chrysanthemum, ignoring them both. "We lived only because we grabbed the white stone in a random draw."
"I do not feel guilty," Chrysanthemum says.
"Guys…" says Hazel nervously.
"How do you not feel guilty?!" I ask her. "We got to just escape while everyone else in our alliance, your District partner, died in a fight. That could have just as easily been you!"
"Guys?" says Hazel more forcefully.
Chrysanthemum ignores her as she sits up and gives me a scowl. "Are you telling me that you'd rather be Spike or D? Because I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'd give my life for someone I met less than two weeks ago. That isn't real life or how it works. You take yourself out of a situation, and you fight through it. That's how you handle the Hunger Games!"
"GUYS!" screams Cullen this time.
"What?!" Chrysanthemum and I respond together.
"Look at the trees."
We look at the trees that were once vibrant and full of fruit, and to my horror, they turn rotted and black as they begin to slouch. I stand up and run over to the tree, and a grave sprouts up from the ground. I let out a shriek and run to where Cullen and Hazel are sitting. Chrysanthemum is quick to join us as a stone grave appears in front of us.
"Is that it?" asks Cullen as the arena stops changing.
I walk over to the grave and dig in the backpack that we managed to take from the bloodbath in hopes of finding a match. "Damnit," I say. "We don't have a light."
The sound of beeping fills the arena, and I look up to see a white box with a red flashing light coming down toward us. It lands in front of me with a giant five on it. I look at the others shocked as I pick up the card that's attached to it.
I'm sorry about your District partner. I thought these would help.
Bring it home for us, Emerson!
Always,
Abby
I open up the box to reveal a pair of night-vision goggles and let out a yelp. This is some good news! The good news is exciting, right? It means that not a lot could go wrong. I put them on, and I can make out the wording on the stone.
Welcome to the Garden of Eden.
Just like you, this arena houses many secrets.
Some will stay buried; some might not.
So careful what you hold onto tributes.
You're in for a bumpy ride.
Patrick Aubrey, 15
District 9 Male
I ran until I physically thought I couldn't anymore. I haven't been able to get Jenava out of my mind. That arrow, the sound it made as it pierced her, everything about that will forever be apart of me. I should have done something to help her.
Instead, I ran away and let her die.
I got away with a single backpack during the bloodbath. In it was a knife, a few bottles of water, and a bag of beef jerky. Not a bad haul, but if I was going to last for a few days, I needed to grab some more.
The trees in this arena are lined with fruit, and when I felt I was a safe distance away from the careers and dying a painful death, I started to pick it. My food supply grew then.
BOOM
A cannon sounds, and my heart skips a beat. It's followed by another cannon, and another, and another. Ten cannons sound in total as the seal of Panem appears overhead. One by one, the fallen tributes from earlier today play across the screen.
"Please let Dwindela be in there," I pray out loud as I watch the kids flash before me, but sadly after the girl from 8, the girl from 10 flashes across the screen. I don't know why I thought maybe she'd die in the bloodbath. Perhaps I believe in karma or a cosmic good, but I guess that isn't how life works.
Instead, we have to sit back and watch as twelve years old gets killed. Whoever did that one is especially heartless.
I walk up to one of the rotted trees and pull on a branch. It doesn't bend as I yank on it, and I think this is as good a tree as any to camp in for the night. I climb up to the top and take a seat in a spot where the trunk and branch make a little seat.
"Time for a snack," I whisper to myself as I open the backpack and pull out a berry. I pop it into my mouth and swallow, and then I eat another one and another one.
Suddenly my whole body feels as though it's on fire. My stomach feels as if it's shrinking, and my skin feels as though it's burning off. I fall out of the tree and hear a cracking sound as my body hits the floor, but I don't even know where I'm hurt because of how bad my body is aching from the berry I just ate.
I scratch at my skin and let out a yell as a piece of it comes off.
Here comes cannon number eleven…
BOOM.
Royce Covington, 18
District 1 Male
"A hex I call on thee, a hex on Vanity."
I shoot up drenched in sweat right as the sun is rising. I barely got a wink of sleep last night. My mind kept replaying the moment Vanity released an arrow into Hecate's throat. What was she thinking? I didn't get a single kill in the bloodbath.
Could Vanity turn on me next?
Not to mention, I kept seeing Hecate lying there on the earth every time I fell asleep. Each time in the dream I saw her, I kept getting closer to her. Each time I got closer to her, her smile grew bigger as she laid there dead. It was a freaky dream in general, but then she picks up her head and calls a hex on Vanity, and I kept waking up after that.
"Did you guys hear the cannon last night?" asks Kilee as she yawns and looks around at the group. "It gave me a heart attack," The tombstone that appeared next to our alliance last night starts to sink back into the ground, and Kilee jumps up and moves toward the exit of the cornucopia in fear.
Nobody answers her as they rub the sleep from their eyes. Alon jumps down from his post on the cornucopia and greets us. "Good morning!" he says cheerily.
"Good morning!" says the weird girl from District 9 as she fluffs her hair and smiles at him. "I'm sorry you had to stay up there all night by yourself,"
"No worries. It'll be someone else's turn tomorrow," says Alon as he sits down.
Vanity stands up and grabs her arrows. "Last night freaked me the hell out, and I'm not going to sit around and stay in this freaky ass arena for days on end. So I'm going to take my bows and arrows, and I'm going to hunt. You don't have to come with me."
She grabs her bow and quickly walks out of the cornucopia. She seems more on edge than average, but I know that if I want them to stay happy with me, I have to prove myself. And showing myself means going on a hunt with them and making a kill.
I grab a spear and run after her, and soon we are joined by the entire pack with their own weapons. As the sun gets higher in the sky, the arena starts to revert to what we saw in the bloodbath yesterday, with the rotting trees returning to their beautiful states.
"That doesn't sit right with me," whispers Kilee to Alon as we walk in a circle formation looking for tributes. "Why do the trees change at night? The tombstone mentioned that some secrets stayed buried while others don't. This doesn't make sense."
"Are you going to talk all day, or are you going to walk?" asks the girl from District 9 with a sneer toward her. "You're going to give away our location." Gerard lets out a chuckle as he leads the group, and Kilee turns red as the arena changes back to the beautiful garden it once was.
We walk in silence until we end up in a massive open field. In the center of the field is eleven graves, and in enormous lettering is the tribute's name that died yesterday with their District number under it.
"That's creepy as fuck," whispers Alon as he tries to take a closer look. Kilee reaches out and quickly grabs him pulling back from the field. "I have a bad feeling, guys. Look at the ground."
Tiny little holes have erupted all over the ground inside of the graveyard. The six stare silently at the field, each of us weighing the pros and cons of stepping into the area. "I don't think we should do it," Vanity says, looking at us and attempting to turn back. "Kilee is right. We can find another way around this."
"Don't be a wuss," I say before I have time to stop myself.
I want to cover my mouth and retreat, but I have to prove myself to these people. I need to prove that I'm not entirely worthless, and maybe if they see I'm not afraid of things, they'll take me more seriously. You can't kill someone you respect.
"Watch, I'm going to walk out there and across, and you're going to feel stupid for thinking we had to walk around," I say as I take the first few steps out there.
"Royce!" screams Vanity. "Get your ass back here!"
"Ooh, I'm so scared!" I say, mocking her as I walk to the graves and place my hand on them. I leave it there for a few seconds, and nothing happens. "See?" I call out to them. "There's nothing to worry-"
A sudden pain shoots into my right foot, and then another in my left. It travels up both of my legs, through my thighs, and into my stomach, and I let out a roar as the pain continues to travel up my body.
"ROYCE!" screams Vanity as she begins to run onto the field and then stops herself. Tears well up in her eyes as I continue to scream.
I feel a sharp poke in my face, and I reach up to touch it and reveal a skinny string-like object is protruding from it. I hear shrieking, and at first, I think it's the girls over by the graveyard, but then I realize it's me as my body is overcome with pain.
I fall to my knees as a single worm falls out of my face and onto the floor. It's a long skinny brown worm covered with blood as it slowly inches toward me again and bites into my thigh. My vision starts to go black as the last thing I see is the worm disappearing inside of my leg.
Madison Parsons, 15
District 12 Female
BOOM!
I was hoping that yesterday was maybe a bad nightmare that I haven't woken up from, but waking up to that cannon reminds me of how authentic it all was. Blood was everywhere. I don't think I've ever seen that much blood anywhere. It was all over me in my dreams.
I sit up from the patch of grass we found that was behind a large set of boulders. We thought it was a safe place to sleep as we couldn't find a big enough tree for three people.
Othniel is up already tending to a fire. His eyes are puffy, and the dark circles underneath let me know that he didn't get much sleep last night. I walk over to him and take the leftover wood he had from whenever he decided to get up and find it before I woke up.
"Go to sleep, Othniel. I'll take care of this."
"She was safe," he says to me without looking up.
He continues to place wood into the fire, but he isn't building it like a canopy, so it isn't going to last long. I start to reach my fingers into the pieces of wood, not completely engulfed in flames to begin organizing it better.
"She was safe," he repeats. "She was safe, and then she ran back into the bloodbath for a kid she didn't even know."
I want to comfort him, but I know that it would all be for nothing. What do you say to someone grieving a death? As much as I didn't care for Darren and his outburst, I still am taken aback at how he died. He didn't even get a chance to run. He just jumped off.
He didn't even want to fight.
"How ironic is it that the place that invented death is the place that I'll most likely die?" asks Othniel.
"What are you talking about? People died before the Hunger Games?"
"In the bible," says Othniel as a chill shoots down my spine. I don't know much about religion, but I know that we probably just got the camera switched from us because he is openly discussing it. This is illegal. "The Garden of Eden," he says, shaking his head. "The Garden of Eden was the start of sin in the world, death in the eyes of a Christian. I'm sure this was a play on the Head Gamemaker's name, but to me, this is just one big slice of irony. Especially with how the trees die at night."
"This is an illegal conversation, Othniel," I remind him. "Tread lightly."
"Just a realization I had," he says, "I won't talk about it again if it makes you uncomfortable. I don't want to make your last few days miserable."
He's already subjected us to die.
Luster starts to stir, and I clear my throat to let Othniel know to change the subject. I sit down next to the fire as he Luster lets out a loud yawn that probably alerts half the arena as to where we are currently hiding.
"Would you like to be a little quieter?" I ask him, confused. "Some of us don't want to die today."
"Relax, it's the buttcrack of dawn," says Luster rolling his eyes. "No one is out about right now."
"Well, isn't this ironic then?"
A male voice comes from above us, and I look up to see the career pack standing on top of the boulders. I instantly get up and try to run, but the girl from 1 shoots an arrow into the ground that narrowly misses me. "Next one is in your heart, baby girl," she says with a wink. "Alon, Gerard, Kilee, what do you say we show these kids what the careers can do with a weapon?
Yes, I am indeed leaving you on a cliffhanger. Gotta leave you wanting to come back for more, right? What did you think of this chapter? The arena? Tell me all your thoughts because I do read every single review I get!
Eulogies:
14th Place: Patrick Aubrey, District 9 Male, Killed by Poison Fruit- I won't lie to you guys: Patrick was supposed to be a bloodbath, and because Bradi won the contest for the bloodbath pass, I had to rearrange a HELL of a lot in this story. You never realize how much one character affects another until you have to make two plotlines and pick between them. It wasn't that I didn't like Patrick per se; I just wasn't sure where to place him. I haven't written an SYOT in awhile, so I admit I got swept up in a few characters (being the last 14 that were here), and he just didn't fit in with any of my active plots.
13th Place: Royce Covington, District 1 Male, Killed by Worm Mutts- Royce was a good character. He was. I had an idea of where he was going, and I knew what I wanted to do with him, but I hosted a contest and had to hold to my word of that winning, and I did. You all know who won and feel free to message them to ask details if you'd like. Royce, I think, was misunderstood by a lot of readers, and that is honestly my fault. So to my friend, Mitchell, I'm sorry if I let you down this time, buddy.
Alliance Update:
Careers: Vanity/Gerard/Kilee/Alon/Dwindela
Loveable: Hazel/Cullen/Emerson/Chrysanthemum
Yikes, we in trouble: Luster/Madison/Othniel.
Hope to hear from you soon,
Caleb