Royce Saturn- District Six male (15)
This must be what it's like to live in Twelve.
I'd heard that in Twelve people actually starved to death. They didn't have enough to eat and they actually died from it. It seemed crazy that a country with as much riches as the Capitol had could also have people so poor they couldn't eat. Money had always been tight in Six but we never just didn't eat. But now I'd gone a day without food. I'd never been hungry like this before. It was scary how empty my stomach was and how I was in pain, not just discomfort. And it was only one day. To die from hunger it takes... I didn't even know how long it took. More than a week, I guessed. I couldn't imagine going more than a week feeling like this but worse.
It was an unavoidable risk to walk around the building looking for food. I couldn't do anything about how it was just a roll of the dice whether the Careers would be in whatever area I was. I scuttled down the hall as fast as I could, always ready to jump through the nearest doorway if I saw any movement from the elevator at the end of the hall.
One doorless opening led into a small rectangular room with no exit other than the doorway. It clearly wasn't the main cafeteria but that was all the better for me since the main cafeteria had probably been taken over and colonized by the Careers. Assuming it had any food, anyway. I just hoped it wasn't the only room with any food. The smaller lunch room I'd found had two wooden tables with chairs arranged around them. Set into the walls there were three cabinets that would have carried things like paper plates and salt shakers. There was a sink in one for washing dishes- and getting drinking water. All of it lay over a linoleum floor pitted and scratched from the acid rain.
Most important of all, there was a refrigerator by the cabinets. The Gamemakers liked their little jokes and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the fridge was full of "lunchboxes" left behind by imagined office workers. I half-expected to find a passive-aggressive note about lunch thieves on the door. I almost smiled at the thought before I felt a twinge of nerves at whether there might be some horrible mutt that would chase Tributes down if they "stole a coworker's lunch". But the Gamemakers didn't want us to starve to death. That would be boring.
I walked up to the fridge and felt the slight coldness in the air from its proximity. I pulled the sleek stainless steel handle and opened it. As soon as I opened it halfway I caught a glimpse of Quarla hunkered down inside the gutted fridge at the instant she sprang out at me. Her throwing knife glittered by the light of the refrigerator bulb as her arm snaked toward me. The blade hit my chest and the rest of her followed. The impact knocked me onto my back and I lay stunned as Quarla stabbed me another half-dozen times.
Like a jack-in-the-box, I thought as I lay dying. I hoped my sisters could see the humor in it. I had to admit that I did.
Clair Mushroom- District Seven female (17)
Oaken and I didn't grab anything at the Bloodbath. We got out of there, headed up two floors, and then went for the elevators We stopped on the way to grab just two things: a sheet of thick fabric covering a table in a meeting room the Gamemakers were pretending was getting set up for a fancy meeting and all the electrical cables we could carry.
Most of the Tributes were terrified to use the elevators because it felt like being a sitting duck. Oaken and I felt the same way, which was why we weren't using the elevators. I climbed up onto the handrail inside the elevator and pushed on the emergency exit on the elevator's roof. Oaken stood next to me and I climbed onto his shoulders for the height I needed to shove the exit open. I started to climb up onto the elevator's roof while Oaken shoved my backside up with a bent arm, muttering an apology as he did so. He handed our supplies up to me and then I helped haul him up as he followed me up into the shaft. I shut the door behind us and we were alone in the empty shaft.
Oaken and I stood on the elevator roof and looked at what we had to work with. We were in a narrow shaft just as large as the elevator. The walls were naked and white and the shaft was dimly lit by a faraway overhead bulb. There were two cables attached to the elevator and that was it.
We sat down and got to work, each picking up a cord. People from Seven knew a little bit about knots. There were all sorts of different knots. Knots for splicing cord together, knots for keeping things in place, knots that would slide around a little but not too much, knots that got stronger the more weight they carried, knots that could carry a lot of weight and still be easily untied. Even knots that could slide up a rope but not down a rope. I pulled the cord through the familiar motions and felt the zen of repetitive manual labor. For a moment I felt like I was home in the forests of Seven instead of inside a building of metal and glass.
When the knot was tied to the cable I took the other end of the cord and slid it through the belt loops on my pants. I tied another, simpler knot and fixed the rope around my waist. Oaken finished a second later and we looked at each other at the bottom of the cables. Then we started to climb. It was another wave of familiarity as I went up arm over arm and felt the same burn that hurt a little but was welcome because it meant I was strong and I was going to make it to the top. Up and up and up we went, closed elevator doors drifting past us, until we were at the top of the shaft, dangling from nothing but cords around our waist. Then Oaken held out a corner of the fabric to me and we started rigging up our hammock. Anyone else would have been paralyzed at the feeling of nothing beneath you but empty space, at the feeling of being suspended above death by nothing but a slender thread around your waist and a knot you tied with your own hands. But to a Seven that was home.
Gaius McClellan- District Twelve male (18)
Months of training was flooding back to me. I was the only one on the Arena uniquely trained for this. Soldiers were used to the idea of being stranded behind enemy lines alone and with enemies searching for you. I knew about hiding and fighting and most of all, improvisation. I hadn't been able to take anything at the Bloodbath because I'd known the Careers were targeting me but it was all right. I didn't need anything from the Bloodbath. One of the most important things any soldier knew was that everything is a weapon.
When I reached the stairs I headed down. Most people would head up and the Careers knew that. I went down four floors and then I ran out into the hall. It was just as much instinctive to want to put as much distance between yourself and the Careers as possible. The Careers would be more complacent when they searched the closer floors.
As I was coming out of the stairwell I noticed a sign on the wall outlining all the rooms on the floor. It was nothing interesting- just a bunch of office rooms designated by numbers- but it gave me an idea. I went back into the stairwell and went down one floor. The same sign greeted me, this one noting the same sort of office buildings but also something called "telecom office". I wasn't looking for that but there was something else I was looking for. I went down another floor, then another, then another, until I finally found what I was looking for: a sign that included "cafeteria".
The Careers would definitely be interested in the cafeteria. But they didn't know where it was. For one very short window of time I had a chance I had to take. While they were still mopping up the Bloodbath I could beat them to the cafeteria and get food. Once they found it that chance was gone forever. I read the sign's map and sprinted in the direction of the cafeteria.
The cafeteria was everything I wished it wasn't. It was built by some yuppie modernist standards with a big open white floor and giant windows that accentuated even more how very exposed I was. I pushed all that from my mind and ran into the kitchen. Industrial stoves and equipment filled the stainless steel space. I rummaged around the cabinets and shelves until I found something compact enough and filling enough to take: a package of whole-wheat tortillas meant for fancy Capitolite "wraps". I took loaves of white bread out of their bags and filled the bags with heartier things like cans of soup and a shelf-stable salami. I opened and closed drawers until I found a carving knife and took it along with a smaller and more easy to conceal fruit knife. When I had all I could carry I took the gamble and ran back out of the cafeteria. Either the Careers would be running down the hall or I'd outrun them.
There were no Careers in the hall. I ran down two more flights of stairs and started looking for a place to dig in and start guerrilla warfare.
14th place: Royce Saturn- stabbed by Quarla
I thought about killing Royce in the Bloodbath because I wanted a really big Bloodbath but decided against it because I didn't want to kill too many boys and not enough girls like I've done in the past. Royce was a simple Tribute without frills or gimmicks. I don't need frills, though I absolutely will go with them if they're there, so I liked Royce. There didn't seem to be much chance he'd ever be the people's first pick and I didn't have a clear Victor story in my head so I went ahead and killed him. I knew I wanted Quarla to do this to someone and he was the lucky guy. Thanks Evan for Royce (and Dionysus oops I didn't really mean to kill them in a row like that), a normal guy just trying to find a way to survive in Panem.
I'm not trying to be sneaky, I will straight up tell everyone I stole Quarla's plan from Watchmen. PSA, absolutely DO NOT do that. Back in the day a few kids used to die every year from hiding in fridges during games. They're airtight and used to be locked on the inside. Nowadays they have safety measures but still don't hide in them. Quarla was smart enough to wedge a pencil into the lining to let some air in without Royce being able to see it, hence why he noted the air was cold in front of the fridge.
