Vasily Nikulin- District Eleven male (14)
The silent toilet taunted me as I stood before it indecisively. Which was worse, using the toilet and risking the Careers hearing it or going somewhere else and risking them smelling it? It used to cross my mind when I watched the Games. I used to wonder how many Tributes had died because the Careers tracked them via their poop.
The answer came to me in a flash and I felt stupid for not having thought of it earlier. The toilet didn't drain unless you flushed it. The sink drained just by gravity. So I went to the sink and did something I hoped the cameras weren't broadcasting, praying all the while that a Career wouldn't burst through the door at that moment and leave my body flashing the world. I thought of what would happen when I needed to make a more solid deposit and peered down at the narrow drain. Maybe it will fit... I thought optimistically. And if it didn't... at least there was soap for after I did what I had to do.
For the next few days- weeks, I insisted, trying to convince myself I'd last that long, my home was a small room consisting of three stalls, three sinks, a blue tile backsplash, and white fake tile floors. It wasn't elegant but a bathroom was the perfect place for someone like me. It had water and a drain. Food would be better but people can live a long time without food, especially if they weren't doing anything. I intended to spend nearly all my time lying down and not making any noise.
I climbed up onto the back of the toilet and pushed up on the ceiling tile above my head. I nudged it to the side and clambered up into the roof, looking down to make sure my shoes hadn't left any marks on the toilet. The space above the tiles was about two feet high and contained nothing but the blank backs of the tiles and the grid that held them in place, which was frail enough that only a small Tribute like me could go up in the space without breaking it. Once I pushed the tile beneath me back into place I was left in darkness.
At first I was afraid but somewhere along the line fear bled into boredom. I'd never thought about how very much of the Games was spent doing nothing. If I theoretically won the Games it would be because I had spent probably more than a week just lying down in a dark hidey-hole staring at a ceiling I couldn't even see. I couldn't even move around for fear a Career might have snuck into the bathroom and was waiting for me to give myself away. All I could do was wait for the Anthem. If it wasn't for that I would have no way to discern between hours or days.
Edward Matthews- District Five male (18)
My ally was dead. I wasn't shedding any tears over Erida but it remained that I was alone and that was dangerous. I wanted an ally. It was going to be difficult to find someone after the Bloodbath was over and people had seen that everyone was willing to kill, but that didn't matter. I needed an ally or I would almost certainly die. I had to find one and there was no way around it.
Who's left? I went through the names in my head. Quarla, Arroyo and Alysanne were presumably still a pack, though it wouldn't surprise me if Alysanne took her chance to grab some stuff and escape in the chaos of three Careers dying. If she was alone and wanted an alliance that would be perfect. Otherwise... I only wanted one ally. That eliminated Fleur and Walcott, Lacey and Jacquard, and Clair and Oaken. Which left me with Vasily, Gaius and Flint. Vasily was too small, so that left Gaius and Flint.
Gaius and Flint. I thought them over. Gaius was certainly strong enough. He might even be too strong- he might not be interested in an alliance he didn't think he needed. But he also came from a sort of Peacekeeper-y thing and was used to fighting in a unit. He might want a partner as much as I did. Flint was obviously open to allies. And he'd lost all of his at once and might be scared and looking for someone to watch his back. Flint wasn't as professionally trained as Gaius but he had cold and realistic skills learned on the streets. I knew Gaius was strong because he made it through his training. I knew Flint was strong because he'd survived to eighteen.
Either one seemed like a viable option. The next problem was finding them. And not only find them but do so in a way where they didn't find me first and kill me to eliminate competition. Flint struck me as the type to find somewhere to hole up and then attack anyone who got near. Gaius was a soldier and he might actively be seeking out other Tributes using fancy guerrilla warfare tactics he probably knew. I felt like I had a better chance of getting in close proximity to Flint without getting detected. But then, he was probably used to rival gangs trying to whack him and was honestly probably more paranoid and hyper-vigilant than Gaius, who was used to being a respected authority.
In the end a lot of that was just idealistic planning. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. Tributes could make plans for the Arena but no one could know what would happen or how the other Tributes would act. In the end it would probably come down to which one I stumbled across first and whether they were open to discussion or just went in for the kill.
Jacquard Crock- District Eight male (17)
"It's pretty much just a roll of the dice, isn't it?" I said quietly to Lacey as we peeked out of our washing machine.
"Kind of," Lacey admitted, her face lined with concern as she looked out at the doorway to our empty room. Eventually we were going to have to go out and look for food. We just had no idea at all when we should go. It was the difference between life or death whether we went out at the same time the Careers were nearby and there was no way at all to tell when that would be.
"Let's just do it then, I guess," I said. It didn't seem to matter whether we died in one day or two. And the odds were the same any day. Maybe we'd wait three days and get killed and it would turn out the Careers never even came down this hallway on the first two days.
Lacey didn't disagree but she also didn't move. I took the plunge and pushed the washing machine door open all the way. I climbed up out of the machine and stood exposed in the empty laundry room, surrounded by shelves of detergent and a pile of rumpled janitorial uniforms. I heard thumping as Lacey climbed out after me. She stood right next to me like if we huddled together we'd somehow be impervious to attack.
"Here goes nothing," I said, and walked toward the door. Once the first step was taken the next ones came easier. Lacey and I crept down an eerily empty hallway, peeking in doors and looking for a lunch room or something of the sort.
We ended up finding a vending machine nook instead. I wasn't sure what else to call the tiny open room set into the wall. It had a garbage can set into a cabinet and more importantly, two vending machines. One had rows of packaged cookies and bags of chips and candy bars and the other had pictures representing its selection of bottled drinks.
"So... got any money on you?" Lacey asked.
I turned my pockets inside out. "Looks like I'm broke."
"Me, too," she said. "I've never stolen something before. This is exciting."
"How do we break in?" I wondered aloud as I crouched and poked an arm into the slot where the food would come out.
"I'm gonna try something really stupid," Lacey said from where she'd squeezed herself in between the back of the machine and the wall. She braced herself against the wall and pushed her knee out, nudging the machine out farther into the hall. She found the door for refilling it and pulled. It popped open. "Hey, it worked," Lacey said as she started scooping out cookie bags.
"They just... didn't lock it?" I asked.
"I thought they wouldn't want Tributes to starve to death so might as well try just opening it," Lacey said. "Guess I think like a Gamemaker. Not something I'm proud of but I got cookies so I got that going for me at least."
No deaths this time! After all those deaths in just two days it was time for things to slow down.
