F11: EBONY ECHO

I feel torn, like a piece of cloth that's been worn for many years. Linley's gone and I never stopped to help her or even looked back to see if she was all right. She died at the hands of her district partner and I wasn't there to help her. I made it to the top eight- the first from Eleven to do so in twenty years- but nobody still has their district partner. Shaka and I were the last. But now Linley, my friend, is gone and I'm alone. I've got food and water and weapons, thanks to Stavren's prodding, but everything seems fuzzy now, like I can't quite fathom the enormity of what's going on. I barely understand the Games now.

In school, they talk about the Games as 'a way to keep the rebellious people of the Districts in line' and 'a glorious future with a perfect solution', but you don't see their horror until you experience them. They're bloody television shows- that's all they are anymore. At one point they may have been the best solution- although the monarchs' minds a century ago must have been pretty far gone to think so- but now they're just tradition, like the mockingjays' song at the end of the workday. They're murder that's been glitzed up into a fashion show. If is started as a show I can just imagine the titles. Prom and Poison Knives. Dancing with the Killers. Survival and Shoes. Maces and Drama Queens. The Late Night Murder Not-Mysteries. Caught on Camera. The list goes on and on- Nessa and I made it during school one day.

I've killed. Delilah tried to kill Linley so she died before the other Careers. Reetan died by my crossbow. I guess it's karma that Linley died. What's karma, though? Who says there's such a thing as luck? Who says somebody has to make something happen? It could be a rigged show from the beginning. It could be a fake- everything could. I could be dreaming, the Careers who train for this could be being duped.

I laugh and swing around the trunk of a tree, only barely caring about the seven other tributes. They can't catch me now. I think I'll catch them instead. We'll dance, Marius and I, and then he'll die. A waltz would work, I think. A noble dance is more than he deserves, but the gory death would add to the effect. Nobody really cares about the effect as long as there's blood. Only I'm left to care. I shout louder up to the sky mountains, calling for Marius. A flock of birds bursts from the leaves above me, but Marius doesn't fly. I do a little cartwheel and shimmy up the tree.

"Are you coming? Are you coming?" my words echo joyfully from the rock face. "Marius... arius… rius… rius…rius!" I giggle. Rocks don't talk.

He doesn't come, so he isn't listening. I leap from the low magnolia branches and lay for a moment on the scraggly grass, smelling the sweet scent of mountain air and crushed grass beneath my feet. I reach up to get my crossbow, but the arena has other plans. A dark figure bursts from the trees and smashes my face into the dirt. "What's the idea?" the person pressing their bony knee painfully into my back hisses.

"I want to dance," I snigger. I don't try to fight back- there's something a little sharper than a knee pressed to my back. Somebody's armed and dangerous. Pulling my arm out from under the other person, I scratch my nose nonchalantly. "Will you dance with me?" The weight lifts off of me and the other tribute hauls me to my feet.

"What's wrong with you, Ebony?" Stavren grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me slightly. I'm taller than her, though, and easily slip out of her grasp.

"He killed Linley, Stavren! He deserves to die!" Stavren bites her lip.

"You were there, though, Ebony. Even I heard his freaking keening wails- he didn't mean it." Stavren just doesn't get it.

"He killed her, Stavren! He killed her and he's still alive!"

"And so you want to… dance? Ebony, I think you're going unstable!"

"I want him to die." Stavren takes a step back.

"Ebony, there are still eight of us. Odds are, he'll die. Focus on survival." Focus on survival? I can do that. I dash over to my crossbow and fire a bolt at Stavren. She dodges out of the way and I notice she's limping. It doesn't seem like that when she runs at me with her machete. I spin out of the stroke's path, but Stavren's been trained and she changes the simple slash into a backstroke and slices open my back. The scars from the Peacekeeper's whipping are torn open. I scream and drop to the ground, supporting my weight on my hands. Arms trembling, I propel myself backwards and face Stavren as best as I can. She's dangerous and I can feel the dirt sticking to my wounds. They sting even more than they did the first time the lines were opened on my back. However, Stavren is wiping the blood off her blade with the edge of her tunic and sheathing the sword.

"You're not a threat now, Ebony," she says, almost sadly, "I have no cause to kill you, no cause to kill somebody unfit to fight. I don't kill in a rigged fight. That's bad form and I wasn't trained for that. Focus on survival, District Eleven. We're all our districts have now."

She disappears into the magnolias within seconds of turning away from me. I can't even hear her footsteps in the leaf mold. I try to relax, but my back hurts something terrible. I thought I'd gone through the worst pain when I lost my eye, but when I'm in the arena all my senses are heightened. Including touch. A wracking wave of throbbing pain ripples through me and I clench my teeth to keep from screaming. They can't come now, I'm not ready to dance.

Marius still needs to die. But I have to focus on survival.

M4: MARIUS DYLAN

The outer mountains are no place for a boy from District Four. I ran the night of the breaking alliances, ran until my legs shook so much that I couldn't even sit down and not still feel like I was walking. My stomach shook eve more than my legs and my head ached more than my stomach. My heart, though, hurt the most. I woke up to two dead allies and three disappeared. Within five minutes, I had killed my district partner- an unspoken rule of the Games. The only place for District Four is by the sea. Not in the mountains and certainly not in this arena! I'm never going to be accepted at home again, not after what I did. Shoalle will probably dump me, I'll be shunned, Crazy Annie will manage to keep the other victors away from me, and I'll probably go equally insane. And that's just if I survive through seven more deaths- one of which will be the grand finale, at least two of which will be Career deaths, and one of which could be mine. Who's left, anyway? Me, Ebony, and Stavren. Gabriel, the kind boy from Six. Mikhail Frey. One of the twins from One- the boy. Rose Trinity, the quiet girl. Who else? Oh yeah, the boy from Seven. I have not ever really taken serious notice of him. I don't even know his name. All I know is his muttation. The nymph.

The mountains are no place for a boy from District Four. Our entire district is flat plains of sand and wide oceans. It stretches a long ways down the coast of Panem, but all the way it stretches flat. There's only been one genuine source of water I've seen, and that is the black lake. I guess I know where I'm going.

I got free range of the Career supplies when Linley died, so I have plenty of food and water and weapons, but I'll feel more at ease when I'm near my home scenery. Hopefully. I slide down the mountain a bit and catch myself against a tree. Soon, I'm almost wading through mud and the lake is twenty paces away. It's black- the same color as the oil spills that happen sometimes on the coast of District Four. I cringe, but the Gamemakers aren't going to just stick a random oil spill in the arena. There's no sense to it. And, my muttation is in there; it's alive, so the lake must be safe. I slog to its edge and kneel by the still- not stagnant, I notice- edge of the water. It doesn't smell salty. Dipping my fingertips to the water, I taste the black liquid. It doesn't taste any different than real water and I don't collapse keening in pain, so it's not poisonous. I glance at the glassy surface- it really is black water. My mutt lies under the surface somewhere.

The ripples on the water's surface are what give the creature away. I snap my head up and see a ferret there, lapping at the water. This is like a muttation's watering hole, I suppose. The tributes are too put off by the black color to taste the water, but the mutts don't care. They know the truth. And now, so do I. Placing my hand totally underwater, I feel in the silt for anything. I don't hit anything or notice any strange textures, but less than five feet away from me something curls out of the water a tiny bit. A ridged, scaly back rises from the black lake. The crocodile mutt. My mind itches.

The ferret glances up when I stir the water. Squeaking in fright, it whirls away from the water, the crocodile, and me. I hurl my spear, but I didn't have any time to prepare myself to aim and the point snaps off on the rock two inches from the ferret's tail. I curse and slap the surface of the lake. Once again, the crocodile breaks the black surface, but it never attacks. Why would it? It's my mutt- I'm totally certain of it.

I bring my hand from the water and wipe it off on my tunic. The water, though, doesn't stop swirling and I look around to see if any other creature is watching me. I'm alone, and I know for a fact that crocodiles make different currents in the water.

A small pebble hits me in the head. Could that be what is causing the ripples? Could another tribute be nearby? Nobody is in sight, and the area within pebble throwing range is totally visible to me. I pull out one of my knives and yell at the rocks, but nobody makes a break for the trees, nobody shoots an arrow at me, nobody attacks. Nobody is there. More pebbles rain down on me, and then a small rock hits me right on the head.

"Ow!" I can't stop the exclamation from escaping, but if I use the pack as a shield I can stop another projectile hitting me on the head. I only realize what's happening when I am almost smashed by a small boulder falling right in front of me. I run sideways out of the valley, back towards the bloodstained Cornucopia. Avalanche. The rocks stop falling when I get to the lush valley, but now there's huge rocks falling from the outer ring of mountains. Not even risking stopping and seeing if the rocks have truly stopped, I keep running until I slump inside the golden horn. There's too much danger.

I hear a scream from the other side of the valley and somebody is visible as their tunic flashes in the sun. They collapse, barely breathing, and I look curiously at the tribute. What's happening? Then it comes to me- there are two ways to die.

M7: AXIT SENID

I shake as the clouds move in. The pain is too great for me move; even if I could change my position, I wouldn't. The fragile scabs are continually breaking open and the bleeding seems to go on forever. On my arms and side I can actually see the bones- the sphinx's claws tore me open until my harsh screams chased it away. I pass in and out of consciousness. My lack of food and water isn't exactly helping me survive either. After the mutt found me nothing came- no tributes, no other mutts, no sponsor gifts.

Something lands in my wounds and they feel like they're steaming. I scream again, my voice hoarse from so many screams after such a long period of disuse. My face is pressed into the dirt, but my eyes, at least, aren't injured and I can look around. That's it- it's started to rain. Drops of water splash painfully on my arms and slip into my flesh; it feels like I'm being clawed up again, tortured like the rebels were after the Dark Days. It hurts. It hurts so badly. It hurts worse than the actual wounding, since I don't have any adrenaline. I force one hand to stretch out and grab a shrub's root that sticks out from the dirt. I groan and pull my hand back to me when a new wave of pain is set off by the motion. However, my new movement causes some of the deepest claw marks to get filled with dirt and be ripped even more against the rough stones. I try to scream, but it hurts so much the sound gets caught in my throat and I choke. The coughs hurt like crud, and I can't even tense my stomach muscles without releasing a spray of fresh blood.

With one arm propping me up on the mountainside, I force myself to pull the other one into an identical position. I don't have anything else to lose, not anymore. I grit my teeth against the anguish and force down the bile that's rising in my throat. My arms shake and I can't feel my legs at all. From my new, throbbing position, I can see them, though. They're covered with claw marks and several of the injuries are oozing pus and blood profusely. Why can't I feel the wounds? I can't feel anything below my waist at all. I guess I should be thankful for the lack of more pain- otherwise I'd be passed out all the time instead of floating in and out of consciousness- but I can't think of anything except what happened? I twist around a little more and promptly faint again.

I wake up still bleeding and still unsure of the loss of all feeling in my legs. This time, I move more slowly, turning my body a tiny bit at a time. I can see what's wrong now. My entire back it twisted at a funny angle and there's no feeling beneath the awkward bend. My back is broken. It must have been when the sphinx jumped and sent me sprawling- just before it tried to snap my neck. When it landed on my back my spine must have snapped. I can't keep down the bile now and I throw up a thin green liquid. I tremble with every motion I try to make and I collapse back to my prone posture. It hurts too much.

The ground seems to shake beneath me. A few pebbles roll down the slope and I wince and groan as they knock against my lacerations. Bigger and bigger rocks start to fall. He ground really is shaking. It's an avalanche! Again, I force myself on my elbows and crawl a few feet before I have to stop. The ragged edges of the gashes are caked with dirt and I haven't had any sort of nourishment anytime recently. I can't even move without shaking all over.

A bear charges past me, one of the mutts. It doesn't stop to try and kill me, but now that's the least of my problems. I've reverted back to the feelings I was having during my short alliance with Rose- death seems like a sweet sleep compared with the torment of life. I can't walk, I can't eat, I can't drink- there's no way I'm gonna survive.

A boulder tumbles down the cliffs above me and I curl instinctively into the fetal position. It's headed right for me! Then, it bumps against a hidden ledge and sails into the air, crashing down right in front of me. The bear roars and I cringe. I can see it, stuck halfway under the stone. More stones fall around me and possibly on my legs as the bear's cries get weaker and weaker. Then the cannon fires. We're down to the top seven, and I'm not going to make it much further.

Something crushes down on my back. I feel like it's another tribute, maybe Stavren or Marius? No- a rock. It sits right above the point where my spine is broken, and the pain makes me pass out again. I scream and it's the last thing I remember before everything goes black.

Aloe sits on a stone right in front of me, holding out her hand. I reach for it and pull her towards me. My back isn't broken. We dance, the avalanche over and both of us alive. It's not the nymph, though. This Aloe recognizes me. The song, a waltzing happy tune, fades with its final chords and Aloe hugs me. It feels like I'm being crushed. Wasn't this already happening to me? I push her away and struggle through the trees. This isn't right. We're not even in the arena. This is at home in Seven. This is a dream.

I try to wake up, but the only thing I see is a bright whiteness and the only feeling I have is pain. Aloe is gone. The nymph screams in the distance. I am gone.

F2: STAVREN MUXAS

There are eight of us left and at least two of them are pretty badly hurt. I slashed up Ebony something terrible when she attacked me and Marius has a crossbow bolt in his shoulder from the Career breakup. My knuckles are mostly healed, though. I stretch out my fingers and look at the remaining light brown bruise. It's not that bad, and I can't even feel it when I press down.

Some twigs snap on the forest floor beneath me, but I only glance down from my perch nonchalantly. It's not that bad, really. I knew Ebony was tracking me- I've known for the past hour or so. She's going wrong somehow and she's lost any stealth she had. She wants to dance; how much more insane can you get? Well, you could go cannibalistic, but I don't think Ebony's that bad yet. I was planning to ally with her again, she's definitely a worthy competitor- but I don't trust her at all anymore. She's too far gone.

Ebony crouches beneath my tree and I'm tempted to whistle or something. It would just taunt her anyway. Her back is still bleeding some and it is obvious that she's starting to stiffen up. I almost laugh when she loads a crossbow bolt. She's so gone she doesn't even think to look up. It would be so easy to take the pool down to seven, right now. But I stand by my earlier words. I don't kill in a rigged fight. It may be unfair, like when Marius and I killed the girl from Five- she had no chance- but it wasn't like this. Somehow, that was different. I was defending myself and Mallow fought to the end. Ebony was on the ground after I cut her open. It wouldn't be the right kill. She's no threat now, whereas Mallow bashed my knuckles in.

Ebony dashes across the clearing and disappears into the underbrush once again. There's no need to pursue. In fact, I think I'll go find someone who can give me a bit more fun. Marius may be injured, but he can fight still. No injury would stop Marius short of a killing blow. He's still at the Cornucopia, or at least nearby. He's been talking fierce since the beginning of training, but I still think that's all he is. His kills, while he's killed at least four, were all already down when he finished them off- except for Linley, his district partner. I smirk. The guy was really messed up over that one.

I slide down from my tree, the rough bark scratching up the palms of my hands a bit. Some stones clatter down the slope when I land on the ground, but I keep my balance and begin to stalk back to the Cornucopia. If some other tribute is around here besides Marius and me, they're either really stealthy, really strong- which is nobody else as far as I can remember, although that Gabriel guy from Six is pretty solid- or really stupid. The trees start to thin out and I see the golden horn glimmering. There's a pile of broken weapons beside the base of the Cornucopia; Marius must have been trying to prevent all the other tributes from getting at our abandoned stashes.

I don't see the boy from Four anywhere. I'm disappointed at first, but my bitterness soon turns to tension. If I don't see Marius, I've lost my only real opponent. That's the worst mistake someone can make in the Games. If you don't have food, you can get sponsors, but if you don't know where your enemies are, you're screwed. I set a stone in my slingshot and pull back the material. I'm not going out there unarmed.

Before I can take a single step into the open, the ground shakes and I drop to my knees quicker than an arrow flies. We have some avalanches in dear old District Two sometimes, so I know what's happening. I cover my head, but it doesn't seem like any rocks are falling near me. However, a huge cloud of dust is rising from the outer ring of mountains. I whimper a bit- a cloud of dust like that, if it moves further in, could choke anyone! It stays put, though. I relax some. Wait a second…

Marius charges into the Cornucopia valley from the direction of the black lake, his clothes caked with dust; the boy's running for his life in sheer terror. He must have been caught at the edge of the falling rocks to be that scared and still be alive. This is my time. By the time I reach Marius, he'll have seen me, but I'll still have the upper hand. I shoot a sling stone at him, but it misses. So I unsheathe my machete and charge. Marius doesn't have his harpoon readied yet. Idiot!

A searing pain tears through my body. What's happening? What? What? It feels like my legs are stuck in a machine that presses rocks into molten stone. I'm being crushed. With legs like jelly, I collapse. It hurts so much, but I can't see any changes on my body. It's just the pain!

I can hear Marius shout through the blood pumping in my ears. My heartbeat over powers all as my vision gets fuzzy. It seems so obvious now. My mutt got caught in the avalanche. Marius is shaking me now as I feel another weight land on my muttation's chest. It's being crushed to death in the mountains. I try to gasp for breath. I know my lungs are still whole, but my body only registers that the mutt's are not. I can't breathe- or maybe I can and I just can't tell anymore. I try to scream, but I don't know if it is audible. I can't see anything anymore. Marius didn't even have to fight me.

M6: GABRIEL GROW

Two cannons. I'm three fourths of the way home now, three fourths of the way back to Ella and my father. And I haven't killed anyone yet. I've only helped. I saved Scar when he almost plummeted to his death and I rescued Rose when she was starving and sick. I smile. She asked me to kiss her. That was funny; I'm proud of my response, too. I'm saving my kisses for Ella. It's not how I wanted it to be, not how I wanted to tell Ella, but the Capitol can't force me to love someone now, not when I get home and all of Panem knows who I love. Oh, they can force people into some twisted stuff, but the people won't like it if their heroes get conned. And the Capitol is all about its garish citizens.

I have a bit of a bigger problem, though. Pain lances through my right leg and I just lay back in the most comfortable position I can with my ankle beneath a boulder. The ground was slightly muddy from the drizzles in the outer mountains, and my foot's not injured- just stuck. I've felt worse when I twisted my ankle working in the gardens at home. It's just stuck tight.

I try to rotate my ankle in the mud- sure enough, it's not injured. Just stuck. I risk moving it even more. The stone digs into my leg and a sharp bit of stone cuts through my skin. I stop moving. The mud is squelched around enough to where I can sit up all the way. I do so and dig through the mud until the jagged edge of the rock isn't even touching my leg anymore. I wriggle away and stand up, this time a little shakily. The cut on my ankle is tiny, but it stings like a paper cut. Oh well. I ignore it and look over the avalanche area.

It's devastated. A giant cloud of dust is settling and a fine mist comes with it, turning the dust into a muddy rain. I need to get back out to the mountains, hide from the other tributes. Almost no one was out there. I came back to the trees to see what was going on with that parachute, but when Rose and I separated I started going back to the outer ring. The cloud of dust slowly settles and the sky above it clears. Soon there's something else out there. Something terrible.

The arena has been halved. There are no more mountains on the outer ring. A huge wall of stone sits where the valleys used to be and above that a force field shimmers blatantly. It's so obvious- they are trying to drive us together. The Capitol wants more of a show now, so they shrunk the playing field. I get a sense of paranoia and whirl around in a panic. It's bare. Nobody's behind me. Nobody's in the trees. I pull my pack out of the mud and sling it over one shoulder. I have to find a new spot to hide from the others. I can't stop to help anyone now like I stopped to help Rose. There are six of us left. Five have to die. And I'm determined that it won't be me.

The inner mountains are my only option. My mutt must be somewhere inside the force field too, otherwise I'd be dead. It doesn't work that way- they have to keep both ways to die for a good show. I start walking, more cautiously than ever before. Today is when my Games really start. Sure, I've been hungry- that reminds me of my remaining brother, which I take out of my pack and sip as I slip between trees and clamber over rocks- but never have I felt so unsafe. This is the time when the cameras roll all day, in every district, trailing the tributes in the districts that have remaining hope. For the first time I can remember, there are no district partners left alive. Eleven was the last district, but one of its tributes died on the same night that Two and Four lost their first. That means Districts 1-4 still have one tribute, and Six, Seven, Eight, and Eleven still have people left. Wait- two of those have no hope for a victor after the avalanche. Well, that means the only district I know that still has a kid in this terrible competition is mine. Rose is probably still here, since she went towards the middle valley when we parted. Personally I hope another of the Careers has died.

What's happening to me? I feel as vicious and bloodthirsty as those Careers. I never want someone to die. That's immoral. I shake the thoughts from my head and try to focus on simply getting home instead. People have gotten home without killing before. I'm sure I'll kill when I have to, but I'm not one of those awful people who will return home still full of bloodlust and happy with the kills under their names.

The sky begins to darken, but there are still clouds and the stars aren't visible at all anymore. In past Games, the cloudy nights are when tributes should be on their best watch. They're the dangerous nights when you can't see the hunters coming. The Capitol anthem scares away my dark thoughts and fills my mind with grief as Stavren Muxas and Axit Senid are projected into the sky. Stavren was a Career and I feel terrible for my thoughts earlier. No matter how bloodthirsty a tribute is- and Stavren was up there with the bloodiest- they're only kids and they don't deserve to die. Axit- I never really got to know him and he's never come into contact with me.

Something makes a noise in the trees and I freeze.

"Do you want to dance? Hello? I'm ready to dance, Marius!"

8th: D7M Axit Senid

7th: D2F Stavren Muxas

I gotta say, I really get a kick out of how different this story might be if I wrote it now.