"She is gone but she used to be mine."
-Sara Bareilles, "Waitress"
Dustin Zigmund (18) POV
District 4 male
"To Dixie!" Dad says, raising his glass. "The next Victor of the Hunger Games!"
"To Dixie!" Mom echoes, clinking her glass against Dad's.
"Guys," Dixie protests, feigning bashfulness. "Come on, I haven't won yet. I haven't even volunteered! Let's save the celebration for after we move into Victors' Village, okay?"
"We just can't help it!" Dad says, messing up Dixie's hair. She rolls her eyes playfully, grinning from ear to ear. "Our daughter, a Hunger Games volunteer!"
"I want to volunteer, too!" I say, beaming. Only 14 and wanting to be just like my sister; my role model, and my best friend. "Then we'll have two Victors in the family."
"Yeah!" Mom says, kissing my forehead. "Maybe if you work as hard as Dixie in training, they'll pick you to volunteer, too."
A week later, Dixie was shipped off to the Games after volunteering. We were all so proud of her. We gathered in the square to watch every second of her Games on the big screen, surrounded by our District cheering her on. She made a huge splash- literally- when she appeared on her chariot wearing a teal blue top, a skirt that looked like it was made of octopus tentacles, and a crown made of shells. Everyone screamed in approval when she scored a ten in training, and being her younger brother, I knew that she wowed the Gamemakers with her skills with a bow and arrow. And then came her interview, her trademark blonde hair curled in ringlets, and her emerald green ball gown seeming to shimmer when she walked. Everything was going right for her. Until it wasn't.
It was the final eight tributes. The camera crew from the Capitol had just left our house where Mom and Dad and I, along with some of Dixie's friends, were gushing about how much we love her and how we know she has what it takes to win. When we turned our attention towards the TV, Dixie and the boy from District 2 ran into the ragtag pair from District 6. Without any hesitation, the boy from District 2 ran his sword through the girl's chest, killing her immediately. We watched as the boy from 6 immediately killed Dixie's ally in response, leaving just Dixie and the outer District boy. They sized each other up before the boy spoke.
"I don't want to see any more blood," he said, lowering his weapon. "Let's just go our separate ways, and-"
"I don't think so," Dixie said, pulling a knife from her belt. "There's only six tribtues left. Now's not the time for making friends."
She charged him with her knife, and he immediately sprung into action, pulling his own and blocking her blow. I saw the confusion on her face. She didn't know what we knew. She didn't know that the pair from District 6 were running around the arena frantically matching every kill that the Career alliance made. The boy took this opportunity of her being confused to stab her in the gut and pull the knife up her torso to her chest. She took one last gasping breath before her eyes glazed over and her cannon sounded.
I looked at my parents in disbelief, and I could sense the entire District staring at us, waiting to see what we would do next. I clenched my jaw so hard it hurt, and I saw my dad do the same. My mom, however, burst into howling tears immediately. Dad put his arm around her, and we all went home.
Mom didn't leave her room for the next three days, until Dixie's body, patched up and made pretty with makeup, appeared on our doorstep. We all put on our most formal black clothing and went with the driver to bury her in the graveyard where all of the fallen tributes go.
The day after Dixie was buried, Maverick Jett, the boy from District 6, was announced Victor of the 223rd Hunger Games.
My last memories of Dixie visit me frequently in my dreams, and the arena has been no exception. If anything, I see her more and more every day. I wonder how she would feel about me following in her footsteps after promising my parents when she died that I never would. I wonder if I'll ever find out. Will I ever see her again?
Dixie did everything right, and she still didn't win. She scored high in her private session with the Gamemakers. She looked beautiful for her interview, and the audience loved her. She chose good allies, made several kills, and didn't eat anything she wasn't supposed to. She did everything right, but it wasn't enough to keep her from winning.
I've made a lot of mistakes. My interview was forgettable compared to others. I haven't killed anyone since the bloodbath. And I caught feelings for a girl in the final six. If Dixie could do everything exactly as she should have and didn't win, how can I expect to win when I keep messing up?
The sun shines in my closed eyes, alerting my body that it's time to wake up for real. My eyes flutter open just in time to see Terry poised above me with a knife, tears streaming down her face. My breath catches in my chest, but before I have time to react, she stabs me in the heart.
Tessa Ray (15) POV
District 12 female
The night before last, I realized that there wasn't enough room in this arena for both of us, so I decided last night to kill Rowan before he had a chance to kill me. After roasting the squirrel and finding the greens, I used the side of a knife to crush the cherry pits that I found the night before and sprinkled the poisonous insides over the food on Rowan's plate. The cyanide from three pits would have been enough to kill him, but to play it on the safe side, I used twelve.
He kissed me after I gave him the food. He'd initiated kisses before, but this time felt different. It felt like for the first time, he might have meant it. But I was wrong. After a few seconds, his knife found a home in my side. I learned from working for my parents' business that when you've been stabbed, you're supposed to leave the weapon inside you to stop the blood flow, so that's what I did until Rowan eventually died and his body was taken away.
I was still in a mild state of shock after the betrayal, and I almost didn't notice the small silver package marked with a number 12 headed towards me. Luckily it landed directly in front of me so I didn't have to strain too far to get it. I almost cried when I opened it to find a pot of medicine and a box of gauze with medical tape. I removed the knife carefully, doing everything I could to not scream in pain, before cleaning the wound with my water bottle, spreading a thick layer of medicine over it, and wrapping it tightly with gauze.
Which brings me to this morning.
My wound is still bleeding and painful, but definitely not as bad as it was yesterday. I take off the gauze, rinse it again, spread more medicine on it, and wrap it again. The biggest improvement from yesterday is that I'm able to walk a lot easier, but I still don't trust myself completely, especially all alone, so I move my camp downstream a bit to a cave that I can hide in.
I'm in the cave organizing my supplies, including the bag that Rowan left behind, when I hear soft chatter in the distance. I hold my breath, and as quietly as I can, move as far back into the darkness as possible. I strain my eyes to see as two figures walk in front of my hideout. I recognize the girl as from District 2, and the boy is from District 1.
"Did you hear something?" the boy asks. The girl nods, and they start scanning the area.
I see him reaching for his flashlight and make the split second decision to wrap my dark gray blanket around myself before he shines it in the cave. I hear my heart pounding in my ears and pray they can't hear it as well.
"It must have been an animal or something," he says, switching the light off.
The two take one last look around before moving on, walking right past me. Once I'm certain the coast is clear, I come out from under my blanket and finish packing up. Once my supplies are put back together, I realize something.
I wanted to live.
It seems like just yesterday that I was telling Rowan that I had nothing to come home to. Nothing has changed in that regard, but it didn't change the fact that when my life was on the line, I defended it. Twice in the past 24 hours, I've been in a situation where I could have died, and what did I do?
I fought for myself.
And why shouldn't I? What does it matter if I don't have anyone that really cares about me as a person? I'm not simply worth keeping around just because I might make other people's lives better. My life has value, period. I don't need to be useful to others to justify taking up space in the world.
Honestly, it's sort of liberating thinking that I no longer exist to please others, or to let them see some twisted version of myself. These next couple of days could be my last, and I want to live them as freely and honestly as possible. This is the Hunger Games. I can do anything- literally anything I want- and there are no consequences.
So why have I still been trying to fit into the same cookie cutter mold that I have been all my life?
No. Not anymore. Being what other people have expected of me hasn't done me any favors, so I'm trying something new. I'm being myself, no matter what that looks like.
I'm the only tribute left not in the Career alliance. When the boy from 1 and the girl from 2 walked by earlier, they were hunting me, no doubt about it. A cannon went off earlier, meaning that one of them is dead. So if one of the five is dead and two are out hunting, that means that two are probably back at the Cornucopia.
It's time to take matters into my own hands.
I reach into my bag for the handfuls of poisonous berries and greens that I've collected during my stay in the arena, kept inside the empty bag that used to hold our popcorn. Carefully, I put pressure on the bag until all of the berries are smashed. I take the three daggers, put the blades in the bag, and seal it back up with the handles sticking out.
I should be at the Cornucopia within an hour.
Christopher Price (17) POV
District 2 male
Someone died this morning before Julius and Alecto went hunting. Whether Terry or Dustin killed the other, one of them found the girl from 12, or one of those three found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's one more kill in this arena that wasn't made by Julius, Alecto, or myself.
There have been a lot of deaths this year that weren't because of us. Are we a bad pack this year? Is everyone else just really good? Or is there something else going on?
After getting back from hunting unsuccessfully yesterday, we found some of our supplies missing. Though it didn't really make a dent, we didn't like the idea that our absence could help other tributes, so we decided today that one of us should stay at the Cornucopia while the other two hunted. As much as I wanted to be one of the ones to go, I recognized that Alecto and Julius have both made two kills, so if we wanted to make another, it would make sense for the two of them to be the ones to go.
So while the two of them left, I stayed at the Cornucopia with a spear at my feet, just in case Dustin, Terry, or the girl from District 12 decide to try to raid our camp. It gets really boring really quickly. The other times I've kept watch, I've been here with someone that I could talk to or play cards with, but this time, I'm all alone. There isn't even any way that I can keep track of what time it is and how long Julius and Alecto have been gone. I've never understood how people can know what time it is based on where the sun is in the sky. Yeah, if it's straight up it's about noon, but other than that? I don't have a protractor!
After what feels like hours, I decide to go into the Cornucopia and look for something to entertain myself with. I've already written all of my "just in case I die" notes to my friends and family, and it's hard to play cards by yourself, so it's going to take some digging. I could take a bath in the lake, but that would leave me a little further away from the supplies than I'd be comfortable with.
Out of nowhere, I feel a sharp, excruciating pain in the back of my right thigh. I whip around to see a girl with red hair sprinting away from me, so without any hesitation, I grab my spear from the ground and chase after me.
It hurts to put weight on my right leg, so I'm running with a slight limp, but other than that, it's not too bad. Why did she stab me in the leg? Why not the back of the neck? It would have killed me instantly. Maybe she couldn't reach, but she doesn't seem that small. She's fast. Really fast. No starving tribute from District 12 is this fast. She must have sponsors, and good ones, too. I'm having trouble catching up with her. She's running in a zigzag pattern, and she's faster and smaller than I am. Not to mention, she doesn't have a flesh wound in her leg.
After a minute of chasing her, I trip over my own feet like a fucking clutz. I try to stand up, but when I go to put the weight back on my right foot, my whole leg starts spasming. That's not supposed to happen. I get up, still trying to chase her, but more or less just dragging my right leg behind me and letting the left side do all the work. She slows down, watching me.
Suddenly, I fall again, but this time, I find myself completely unable to move from the waist down. I put all of my focus into trying to stand back up, but it just won't work. My body won't listen to my brain. I could maybe drag myself over to her on my arms, but if she was faster than I was running, there's no way I could catch up to her dragging myself across the ground like some demented worm.
I set my spear down beside me and use my arms to try to push myself off the ground, since those seem to be working perfectly fine. I squeeze my eyes shut, putting all of my muscle and energy into trying to get up off the ground, but it's no use. I can't get up. I open my eyes and reach for my spear, only to find that it's no longer there.
"Looking for this?"
The girl's voice is cold and sinister, and there's fire in her eyes as she twirls my spear between her fingers. I may be on the ground at her feet, but I am not going to let this tiny 15 year old girl from District 12 intimidate me. I may be going down, but I'm taking her down with me. I reach for her leg, but she takes a large step back and I miss entirely.
Without warning, she jumps on me, pinning me down by my shoulders. I should be able to lift her off of me easily, but my arms are starting to go numb. I can bench 250 pounds, and I can't push a small girl off of me?
"Numb yet?" she asks, staring into my eyes. "You've got poison in your blood, you know. It starts by making you tingle, then your whole body goes numb, and then you go into cardiac arrest. Oh, but the numbing has worn off at that point. You'll feel the whole thing."
"Why are you telling me this?" I croak, my throat tightening.
"I just thought you'd want to know what's going to happen to you," she says, cocking her head to the left. "And if you give me what I want, maybe I could kill you before the poison has a chance to. I'd just need something in return."
"Like what?" I ask, desperate for it to be over. My body is almost completely numb, and if she was telling the truth, which I suspect she was, extreme pain is coming soon. I don't want that.
"Where are 4 and 10?" she asks, getting off of me. I try to stand up, but even without her weight on me, I can't do it. I'm about to die. Why lie?
"They ditched us a few days ago," I gasp out. "One of them died this morning. I don't know which."
"Thank you," she says. "You've been so helpful in more ways than you know. I wish it didn't have to end like this. But it does! I'll be sure to tell your girlfriend you said hello when I see her. Shame she never got that ring."
Although I don't feel her stabbing the spear through my throat, I definitely see her do it. She walks away as soon as it's done, leaving me to take my final breaths completely alone.
Terry Kartcher (18) POV
District 10 female
Today has been one of the worst of my life. The whole reason I ran away with Dustin was to earn his trust enough to take out one more competitor, but in doing that, I grew to actually care about him. Not in a romantic way, not by a long shot. I kissed him because I knew that that was what the audience would want to see. But when he pushed me away and told me that I didn't have to do anything I wanted to do? I was overwhelmed by how nice he was. I didn't think that a Career who volunteered for the Games could be so nice.
And then I killed him. He was the closest thing to a friend I had here, and I killed him. Maybe the worst part was that I killed him in his sleep like a coward. Because of me and the cowardly way I killed him, Dustin didn't get to have any last words, or a last coherent thought. He didn't have time to prepare for the fact that he was about to die.
He deserved so much better. I'm such a terrible person. How could I do that to another person? Dustin had a reason to go home. He had parents that needed him to come home after his sister didn't. He had fans in the Capitol. He had trainees at the Academy in District 4 who looked up to him. He had friends; former Victors who should be welcoming him into their Hunger Games Victor club.
What do I have? Parents that probably resent me for making their reputation even worse. I would have Fenton if he hadn't won the Games, but ever since his victory, I feel like I don't even have him. We can't talk through the fences anymore because he lives in Victors' Village with his family now. And even though we were never willing to admit our feelings to each other at the same time, I always assumed we'd end up together someday. But now, even if he does still have feelings for me the way I do for him, he's been pledged publicly with Alicia Schripe. Even if he could leave her, I'd be pegged as some homewrecker.
No I wouldn't. Who am I kidding? I'm never going to see Fenton again. I don't need to worry about how I'm going to impact his reputation, or my parents' because I'll be dead. I just need to come to terms with the fact that everyone would be better off without me.
Just as I start to think I might be calming down, the sky goes completely dark and I hear the Panem national anthem. Topher looks down on me, and I wonder how that happened. Alecto definitely didn't do it, nor do I think she would have let Julius do it. Maybe he ate something poisonous or got attacked by a mutt or something. Then comes Dustin, with his charming white smile.
I burst into tears.
6th: Dustin Zigmund, District 4 male, killed by Terry's knife. Chayse, this shit hurted. I know 16 year old you said that you wanted me to make his death "gory," but I hope that wildly depressing and emotional works as well. I've been holding onto Dustin's backstory for a really long time, and to me, it just made the most sense for him to unleash everything right before he died.
5th: Christopher Price, District 2 male, killed by his spear. I'm gonna be honest! Topher's death was not supposed to be this emotionally devastating! But I was still depressed after I finished it! Topher was a lot of fun to have around because he was definitely the most laid back of the Careers. Unfortunately, he just didn't have much of a future compared to the other tributes in the final 8 or so.
1. We are in the final four! Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?
2. Thoughts on Dustin's death?
3. Thoughts on Topher's death?
There is a brand new poll on my profile for the final 4! This time, you can only pick ONE! Go, go, go!