And then, to everyone's surprise, they see a figure on the hill below.
.oOo.
Triton Clifford, 17
District Four Male
3 Kills
Triton skis quickly up the hill, noticing how still everything is today. It's been getting colder steadily in the arena, and the snow is only getting crisper and crisper.
He wonders if they'll find someone on the hill today.
They used the ski lift at first, but Thetis and Triton had leapt off at once when they saw one of the tributes leap off at the top of the hill and run into the forest. Unfortunately, skiing uphill proved to be slower than running downhill in snow, and they had lost her quickly. They still had her footprints, of course, but there were more and more footprints every day.
And it was starting to snow - soon enough, the footprints would disappear and everything would blur into white. For now, they had to check the hill one last time before they tried to get themselves lost in the woods.
"Are you sure this is the right idea?" Lumara groans as they trudge through the snow, looking for others in the arena. "We should go back at this point - the snow's going to be too deep to properly move through and we'll be stuck. If we wait out the storm, we'll have a better chance at finding fresh prints and -"
"No, we're searching." There's something in Thetis' tone that finishes the brewing argument before it has a chance to start, and they keep moving through the snow. The storm gets lighter and lighter, and soon they're only moving through a few stray snowflakes that blow away on the wind. It's quite strong today, but Triton likes it that way. When the wind is at his back, it's easier to move through the drifts.
The sky is a bright blue now, the sun beating down on them all. But they don't get warm - the wind blows away any heat that had a chance to reach the three. But they don't mind. Their parkas are warm, and they're finally making progress - they're almost to the other side of the mountain. Soon, they'll finally get the chance to ski down the hill and properly search.
And then, to everyone's surprise, they see a figure on the hill below.
Triton freezes in place, gesturing to the others with a warning hand. They don't want to scare whoever's down there away, and the girls understand perfectly. Lumara stays in place while Triton and Thetis shuffle over to the side of the hill - if it works, they'll trap whoever's below them in the centre of the hill.
When they're all in position, Thetis nods sharply over to her twin. Lumara's already cruising down the hill, her skis barely making any noise on the slopes. The snow still sinks under Triton's feet, but it's still reasonably easy to move down the hill. It hasn't affected it too badly.
Thetis catches up to Lumara quickly, flanking her on the right. Triton, on the left, passes them both, and the tribute - it's the boy from Six, Triton notices - finally glances up to see them. He screams and begins to run, tripping through the snow as he tries to get to the side of the slope. But Triton throws a ski pole at him - he's been carrying an extra one so he doesn't have to waste his trident on a moment like this - and the boy darts back to the centre. Where Lumara is.
He's trapped.
.oOo.
They wouldn't want only three of them left to be left to deal with the rest of the outliers, right?
Right?
.oOo.
Lumara Barrett, 15
District Four Female
1 Kill
He's trapped.
Lumara grins as her skis soar down these slopes that never seem to end, hurtling down towards the boy from District Six. Oh, he won't get away from them here. He won't have a chance, not when there's three of them to catch him.
Yes, that'll be easy. Soon enough, there'll only be seven tributes left in the arena.
She's excited.
The boy keeps running, and Lumara decides to crash into him instead of trying to stop - trying to do so would be a waste of effort. The boy hurtles into the air from the impact, landing on his back and into a patch of particularly deep snow as Lumara tumbles down as well. She feels bruised all over now, but she has her bow still. She has her weapons.
And when she grabs the arrows that have spilled into the snow, rather looking like silver blades of grass that were too tall to be covered by the snow, she's ready to begin.
"So, who's killing him?" she asks her district partner, who's standing to her left with his trident and an indiscernible look on his face. "You want to do it this time?"
"Actually," begins Triton, his face clouding over. Thetis shoots him a look - Lumara doesn't like how easily they communicate for knowing each other for only a few days - and Triton brightens up. "You can take this one, Luma. I'm sure you'll be fine."
"Me?" Lumara frowns, looking down at the boy. He's frozen in fear, eyes darting back and forth between her face and the two figures that must be in the corners of his vision. Thetis and Triton haven't made a move to get any closer, but their weapons are drawn.
Oh well, she can only hope that they'll help out if he tries to get away. They wouldn't want only three of them left to be left to deal with the rest of the outliers, right?
Right?
But there's no time to think about that now. She draws her bow, aims - and the boy finally moves, sprinting away from Lumara. Without thinking, she shoots. The arrow flies south of his back, but lodges itself into his leg.
Close enough.
She charges at the boy, throwing caution to the wind as she takes an arrow in her hand and slashes at his back. It misses at first, but soon she crashes into him and they tumble into the snow. Rolling back so that he doesn't grab her arrow, Lumara pulls her arm out from under his legs and scratches at his neck with her arrow. Now he's bleeding, a trail of blood from under his chin seeping into his parka. Finally, she -
The boy's fist smashes into her windpipe and she wheezes in pain, clutching at her throat. She can't breathe, she can't breathe - she can't breathe - she can't breathe - she can't breathe until she pushes herself up and screams for help. "Triton! Thetis!"
They don't move, and she hisses before tackling the boy again. This time, she stabs the arrow through his cheek and pulls. It rips through his cheek all too easily, and the force of pulling it out sends her tumbling into the snow. Now, the boy is on top of her and trying to rain his fists onto her face as she tries to push herself away.
But when she finally gets him off of her, both hissing in pain, the mountain falls over them both.
.oOo.
Well, he'll find out.
.oOo.
Gilbert Dongalls, 15
District Six Male
0 Kills
He hears a loud, sharp bang that rattles his eardrums before the mountain's snow gives way and comes rolling down to him and the girl from Four. They both scream, more out of shock than fear at this point.
Neither of them expected the fight to end this way.
He can see the boy from Four and the girl from Two dart out of the way, disappearing into the trees as the snow comes crashing down towards himself and the girl. The boy from Four is yelling something, but Gil can't hear it - the avalanche is too loud for him to hear anything at all.
And then the snow carries him away, pushing away the girl from Four somewhere into the deep. It's like he's underwater, being dragged to the bottom of an ocean that never seems to end. It occurs to him that he should try to hold his breath instead of breathing in the snow, so he holds it while the snow envelopes him in a sea of black.
It's like he's drowning, but when the snow finally stops he discovers that he can still scream.
After screaming for as long as he can, Gil decides that doing so was the stupidest thing that he could have done. Screaming did nothing but waste air in the small bubble that he's in, being who knows how deep under the surface of the mountain. No, he only has a bit of air left before he'll begin to suffocate. First, he'll feel a horrible burning feeling, as if he's held his breath for too long, and then - he doesn't know what comes after that. He's never suffocated before.
Well, he'll find out.
As the air begins to grow hotter, Gil tries to push his arms up. But they're stuck in place as surely as they would be in dried cement, refusing to budge from their position in the snow. He's trapped here - there's no escaping this unless some kind game maker decides to let him go free.
Considering that Isa won last year and the Capitol wouldn't look kindly towards two victors from Six in a row, there won't be a kind game maker to help Gil.
Well, this is it. For ages, he had wondered what Tony had gone through. The dread, the pain, the fear, the acknowledgement that he was going to die, Tony had gone through all of that in the Capitol. But instead of surviving, he fell off his pedestal and towards death in a thousand pieces.
And Gil had made it all the way to the final eight, just to die like he had thought.
He deserves it. He shouldn't have been allowed to live for so long, not when Tony had died so quickly. Tony had deserved to go further. He had been cruel, he had been foolish, but he was Gil's brother. Gil had to forgive him - had to know that he didn't deserve what happened to him. When Tony died, Gil knew that he should have been the one to go. He didn't deserve to stay standing when his older brother was gone.
It wasn't fair.
As the last bit of air escapes his lungs and he starts to close his eyes, ignoring the pain that was everywhere and nowhere at once, stubborn tears start to trickle down his cheek and into the cold snow. They're hot, wet, and salty. There's something shameful in them, but there's relief as well. He knows that there is.
As Gil takes one last breath of tainted air before sleeping into the sleep of the dead, he can hear a small voice telling him that he'll find peace in just a moment.
He thinks that he might.
.oOo.
He snaps out of his haze when the first cannon sounds.
.oOo.
Dimitri Muller, 16
District Two Male
2 Kills
Dimitri's decided to spend his time in the cornucopia to sleep - something that he's decided he's missed out on. So what if someone manages to get into the chalet and steals something? He's always been a light sleeper, and he's faster than most of the people who are left. He can always stop them if they get too close.
After all, no one would dare to get too close to the chalet. They're too frightened by the careers to do so.
He leans back, putting a pillow over his face to block the sunlight, and dreams. When he wakes, about an hour later, a light burst of snow is falling down - and judging by the clouds that are moving away from the chalet and into the distance, it's the end of a rampant snowstorm. Dimitri yawns and watches the snowfall, rubbing his eyes to keep awake. It's a pretty sight - the gods must be happy today.
As he gets up and stretches, he hears a loud bang in the distance and whirls around to look out of the window. He can't see a thing - there's nothing out of the ordinary but a cloud of snow on top of the mountain. Idly, Dimitri wonders what could have happened there. But it's none of his concern for now - no, he's here until the three get back.
He snaps out of his haze when the first cannon sounds.
What could that have been? Who could it have been? Dimitri looks outside to see if there's any sign, any clue for who's dead, but he sees nothing at all. At least it's only one cannon, he thinks to himself. There's still two careers left at the most, if not all three. Yes, what likely happened was that they had found some poor outlier and slaughtered them to bits. It was only a coincidence that there was a cloud of snow at the top of the mountain, looking like… looking like dust did at the top of mountains in District Two when there were avalanches.
When the second cannon goes off, Dimitri feels like it's been hours.
Of course, it's only been a quarter of an hour at most, but he can't help but be worried. Who in the arena, who or what could have put up a fight against the strongest people in the arena? He understands if it was someone like Lumara who was killed, but Triton and Thetis? They're the only people he can consider his equals right now. What would have happened to them to cause them to die?
He's not worried for himself. No, Dimitri's accepted years ago that if he happens to die in the Hunger Games, it'll be the will of the gods and that will be that. But when he thinks of the careers, those who are supposed to be cursed volunteers who've broken the rules of the gods and must suffer as a result yet turned out to be people he could call his friends, he breaks into a cold sweat.
He doesn't want them to die.
When Triton and Thetis arrive at the chalet, shoulders slumping as they walk in quietly and faces red from exertion, Dimitri slumps with them.
"What happened?" he asks, noticing that Triton's and Thetis' faces look like they've been dragged across a piece of pavement - raw, red, and sore. They must have been hit with rough pieces of snow in the avalanche - yet they got out.
And Lumara didn't.
"There was a fight… Lumara was against the boy from Six… we were waiting for her… and then the mountain fell apart with the avalanche. I clung to trees, Thetis was almost swept away… we dug and dug, but we only found the bodies..." Triton lapses into silence, unusually solemn for someone who's made friends easily with the four - the three now.
Thetis stares at the floor, a furious gaze forming rapidly on her face. "There's only six left. That's one for each of us - we're almost there. We have to hurry. We don't know how much time we have left until the game makers decide to throw something at us again, and we don't know how well-liked the others are. We have a couple of days at the most to find another, and we have to get rid of them right away. We have to."
They all nod, and when Dimitri straps on his skis they head back out, back into the arena.
There's no time to lie around at the cornucopia. It's time to play.
*big sip of denial juice*
8th: Gilbert Dongalls, District Six Male; Killed by Avalanche. Created by 66samvr.
Gil was a good, good guy who we all knew was going to die but hoped against hope that he wouldn't. He had it rough - being the brother of Tony after what had happened in the 16th Games had really shaken him up inside, and he found it hard to deal with that. But in the arena, he was starting to discover that he wasn't just a failure - he had purpose, he could do things in there that others might not be able to. He made it into the final eight, and came close to the final six - if it wasn't for the avalanche, he very well might have. Thank you to Vr for this poor smol boi - he will be missed.
7th: Lumara Barrett, District Four Female; Killed by Avalanche. Created by brooke2214.
Lumara was a breath of fresh air, someone who wasn't very angsty but just a bit of a brat who needed to be sorted out. She got that chance once she was accepted by the careers and survived the bloodbath - at that point, they had no choice but to. But she knew that she could do things, and was bossy while doing them, and had a lot of flaws - and that was one of the reasons I liked her so much. Lumara didn't collapse into herself because she had flaws, she worked past them and kept going due to sheer tenacity. It was her moment to prove herself, though, and time was running out for her to win a fight when she went against Gil - something that proved to be her downfall. Thank you, Brooke, for this great girl!
And we're into the final six! Are y'all surprised? We've only got a few more chapters before the finale, and I'm excited to see how everyone reacts. It's going to be chaotic!
Enjoy. Until next time, TheAmazingJAJ