TW: Suicidal ideation

Katrina Moonshadow, District Seven female

Even Titian could only take so much bombastic cruelty in one day. After three rounds of hell we were informed that the next round wouldn't take place until tomorrow. For the night we could have the relative safety of dreading what the daytime would bring.

Each of us had our own room but a lot of us had paired up. Fable and Jessie were together, of course. Peach and Elara were from the same District so they had naturally found some common ground. And I was with Ferrari. We'd hung out together a lot since this whole thing began. I liked how outspoken and bold Ferrari was and she told me she thought it was really cool how I'd survived so long in the swamp. Now we were both huddled on the bed under the covers like two little kids who thought monsters couldn't get through blankets.

"That was messed up," Ferrari said. Even she had been quieter than normal. I kept seeing her face shift as she ran her tongue over her teeth looking for phantom rat fur.

"Kind of cool how you bit the head off," I said. I so badly wanted to find something to smile about. In a few months maybe I would be able to actually think it was really cool. Not that I would be here in a few months.

"Pretty cool how you got bit by a snake and didn't die," Ferrari said. Her face went long under the light of the flashlight lying between us. "I should have said something."

"Someone should have said something in the Capitol sixty-one years ago," I whispered. I hardly even cared if the cameras heard me anymore.

"I'm gonna say something now," Ferrari said. She was still looking up at the blankets like she wanted to be somewhere else. "Next time I'm going to help. I should help everyone but I'm at least going to help you. Next time you need help I'm going to help even if it gets me killed."

"I'll help you too," I said. At first I'd said it just out of reciprocity but as soon as I said it I felt like I had something Titian couldn't take away from me and that if I died I'd have done something worthwhile. "I promise."

"I promise," Ferrari said back. I reached out and we clasped hands there under the blankets waiting for what tomorrow might bring.

Fable Anders- District One female

My mouth and throat burned as I lay curled on the bed with Jessie. We'd left the shower running to wash away what we'd left in the tub. I remembered reading somewhere that vomit clogged water pipes and that was how a lot of parents found out their kids were purging. It would serve Titian right to have to deal with that mess but of course it would really just be some poor Avox.

I felt dirty. The saliva in my mouth had a weird thickness and it still had a tinge of something unnatural in its flavor. No matter how much I'd thrown up into the tub I was still haunted by what bits of rat might be left lingering inside me. My body had something unwanted inside it. Titian had violated me and it hurt.

"I'm not sure I want to win anymore," Jessie said softly, looking down at the blankets wadded up around us.

"Maybe that's the worst thing and now it's done," I said. I didn't say "that has to be the worst thing" or even "that's probably the worst thing" because either of those seemed like tempting fate. I definitely didn't say "what could be worse?" because that was a thought I didn't want in our heads.

"I don't want to die so I'll keep trying, but I just don't really want to win," Jessie said.

"I know what you mean," I said.

"Why do you think Titian's like this?" Jessie asked.

I thought about it. I'd always wondered about the horrible serial killers and people like that in the world. Every time I heard about one I imagined them as a tiny little baby. Had they been bad even then? They were just tiny and innocent. I always thought something must have happened. But so often it turned out they had good parents and a good life and still did those things.

"It's all nature and nurture, I guess. Titian was probably bad when he was born and then being born in the Capitol made him the worst version of himself that could have happened."

"Kind of like a Career," Jessie said.

We're not like Titian, I wanted to say. But from an outlier's point of view, weren't we? We sought out a chance to kill children and hunted them down while they did everything they could just to stay away from us. I'd always liked stories about plucky heroes overcoming much stronger enemies. When an outlier told a story like that, we were the much stronger enemies. We were their boogeyman.

It doesn't matter this time, at least. This time we hadn't volunteered and we weren't really killing each other. Titian was doing all the killing. Even to the Careers Titian was a boogeyman.

Jay Dallas- District Eleven male

When Austin was born I told my mother he was the best baby in the whole world. I held him on my little four-year-old lap and whenever someone came in to get her water or something I held him up and announced that he was my little brother. In second grade I punched a kid for picking on him. Also one time I put a frog down his shirt. That's the duality of brotherhood.

All of that is gone now. Over and over we would do this and Austin would still die. Me too, probably. All my life I'd thought good could win and that you should never stop fighting no matter how hopeless things seem. But I was starting to think things didn't seem hopeless. I didn't know if there was any way out of this one. I didn't know if there was anything in my future but a theoretically endless loop of being brought back to watch Austin die and then die myself over and over and over. I kind of felt like... maybe it was time to let that happen.

My eyes fell on my shoes tossed by my bed, one face-up and one face-down. On the face-up one the laces stood out white and tangled against the grayish bulk of the shoe. I wondered how long they were. They didn't need to be very long. Just as long as two hands held together in a circle.

I'd never dreamed I would have a thought like that. It was like a ghost had fallen over me and was coloring my thoughts and my soul. I saw then that people who did was I was thinking of doing had a clarity incomprehensible to most people. It was like a math equation that was just arcane symbols until you looked at it and suddenly it clicked in your head. This was something you couldn't get until... you got it. Until the moment you suddenly saw how it could make sense, because it made sense to you.

I knelt on the floor and slid my hand up under the laces. I ran my fingers along them and thought of what it would mean. The braided strands of string pushed back against my skin as I squeezed them between finger and thumb. A tear hit the tongue of the shoe and burst to leave tiny dark spots on the fabric.

No one could take hope away from you. No one could make you give up. No matter how hard it got, it was always your choice. I wouldn't judge anyone else for circumstances that weren't mine but in that moment I knew for myself I would not allow it. I always talked about how I would never give stop trying. I'd never known that I hadn't been even close to the edge of what that meant but now I was seeing it firsthand. I was facing that test and I had decided to pass. Somehow I needed to find the strength to keep fighting, even if I couldn't imagine how. I climbed on the bed and sat for a long time working very hard to do nothing at all. Only now, after seeing what could become thinkable to a person, could I say I would never give up.

I just thought I'd add some longer POVs so it isn't all just death and carnage. Now we get to see a little more about how the Tributes are taking all this.