Ashlar Granodum, District Three

Boom.

Ashlar jolted awake. Usually he was a deep sleeper. On one occasion, earlier in the Games, Titania had actually struck him with the butt of a spear to wake him up for his shift. But the cannon was loud, loud enough for him to believe they might be close to where the actual sound originated. More than that, something in his gut woke him, a feeling of danger and unease.

Beside him, above him, a figure was already getting to her feet. "Where's Rust?" Elixane's voice rang out. She sounded authoritative, but Ashlar knew her well enough to hear the hint of panic.

"Maybe it's still his watch?" he offered.

"In that case, where is Cordelia."

It was a statement phrased like a question and it struck him harder than most of the weapons in the Games had so far. Ashlar looked around at their small camp site. He and Elixane were the only ones there when there should have been at least one other person. Even more disturbing, some of their supplies were gone. Not much was missing, but they had so few provisions to begin with, Ashlar was able to pick up on the noticeable change in volume. He hastily looked through the pile with a knot in his stomach that only got worse when his fears were confirmed.

"He took the map." he said, trying to sound impassive about it. Ashlar had to hide the full extent of his fury for now. Allowing Rust to join them for the night was his idea, and now it appeared that the boy had betrayed that trust, stealing from them and possibly killing a member of their alliance, before running off into the night.

The Oasis was on the edge of the arena, limiting the number of directions someone could escape from. If Rust was on the run, Cordelia would have spotted him at the very least. Assuming the cannon signalled the death of Rust or Cordelia, there wasn't a question of who was at fault: it would be on Ashlar.

He was so sick of betrayal.

"Look." Elixane said, pointing, her tone jarringly even and plain. Through the palm trees Ashlar could see a figure in the distance. He grabbed his spear and ran, instinct telling him Elixane would be close behind.

Rust didn't move to run as they approached him. At first he didn't seem to notice the two of them at all. He stood, eerily still, staring down at Cordelia's corpse. Ashlar figured she must have been freshly dead since she had yet to sink into the ground.

"Rust." Ashlar said. The boy dropped the knife he was holding and turned his head to look at him. Tense silence filled the air.

Then Rust threw his head back and laughed.

It was loud and harsh, almost like the cannon that had sounded mere moments earlier, surprisingly low for such a young boy. Ashlar shuddered without even meaning to. Before now, analyzing the boy, he believed he had a good idea of what made him tick. He knew enough to know how to shamefully manipulate him and Nettie Sue into running towards the Oasis, running into certain doom. None of his observations could have predicted him not only killing Cordelia, but seeming joyful about it, though.

He took a step forward, and Ashlar instinctively took one back. "Don't move." Elixane said from behind him. Rust just laughed again.

"Right. Of course. We can't run the risk of me killing you now can we?" Rust said, raising his hands in mock surrender.

But a shudder of the boy's shoulders made Ashlar realize his mistake. Rust wasn't happy, he was hysterical. The Tribute from Nine was in shock. Whatever happened here had not been some cold blooded murder, but something sudden and traumatizing.

"What happened?" Ashlar asked gently.

More laughter, higher pitched now, growing increasingly unhinged. "I woke up. I trained myself to walk around at night so I'm a light sleeper. I caught Cordelia packing some supplies. She walked farther out to the perimeter so... I followed her. That's when she…"

Rust trailed off and stared into space with an empty eyed expression. Shaking his head, he continued the story. "She took out a knife. Started cutting into her own shoulder. When I gasped, she heard me, caught me watching her and… and… she said she was going to do this while I slept but… then she attacked me."

There was a sinister grin on his face, then, as the boy stepped towards the pair from Three. His footsteps were more confident than Ashlar had ever seen him; even Elixane took a step back.

"It's such a ridiculous story isn't it? Completely unbelievable. Obviously a lie." He continued forward until they were mere inches away from each other, and though Rust was the shorter of the two of them, he carried an aura of menace, "After all, I'm the son of Flint Corna! Why would anyone believe me?"

Ashlar couldn't help himself, he laughed. Rust flinched, clearly surprised, and for a moment he seemed shaken back to being the boy from before. It only lasted an instant before Rust had collected himself.

"Do you mock me?" Rust said, his eyes drifting over to the knife on the sand, then to a dagger Ashlar kept on a scabbard around his waist. His hands twitched slightly, a clear sign of intention to steal the weapon. Ashlar fought against his instincts to draw the dagger in defense. It would only be seen as aggression.

"No. Actually, I believe you."

Once again, Rust looked at him in confusion. Elixane took the opportunity to step around and crouch down to look at Cordelia's body.

"This wound on her shoulder is self inflicted all right," Elixane said, "What we get for teaming up with a known murderer, I guess."

"You're a murderer. And so am I." Rust said, clearly torn between relief and confusion.

"What she means is that she's done this before. Betrayed an ally. Tried to frame someone else. We figured that since she was caught the first time, she wouldn't try it again. But I suppose the temptation of framing the child of a murderer was too good to pass up."

Now Rust was undeniably shaking. "Perhaps. Or maybe…. Maybe I knew that. Maybe I'm framing her."

"You definitely didn't know any of that," Elixane replied sardonically. Ashlar shook his head.

"Rust, is it so hard for you to believe that we believe you?"

The boy from Nine crumpled the way snow falls down the side of a mountain during an avalanche, all at once and with tremendous force, his face twisting into a mask of pain while soft sobbing noises burbled up from his lungs. Ashlar ran to him to provide him with comfort as though he hadn't spent his entire life training to do the exact opposite.

"I thought you'd kill me for it." Rust said, between jagged, crying gasps. "I thought once I killed someone, you'd know I was just like him."

"Are you?" Elixane asked from behind them. It was curious rather than accusatory.

"I'm not." he answered, then repeated himself. "I'm not. I'm not, not, I'm not, no I'm not. I never want to do it again. I'm not like him. I'm not!" Rust was laughing and crying simultaneously, years of buried anguish billowing down the mountain in the night, as much a cry of sorrow as it was a clear relief.

"Of course you're not." Ashlar reassured him, "You never were."

Carlotta Pierce, District Ten

Boom.

Carlotta turned to look at her two allies where they lay. Tesla was curled up in the crook of Anthracite's arm, snoring softly, while the girl from Twelve's chest slowly rose and fell. Not them, then. Although unlikely, there was always a chance of a snake bite, or a spontaneous heart attack, or any number of potential little disasters capable of killing any one of them. It bothered Carlotta how much she was afraid of such things.

Anthracite never ceased to piss her off. She wasn't even awake and Carlotta could hear her voice, chastising her any time she tried lying to herself. Realizing just how often she did so disturbed her. So many of her thoughts were such obvious justifications for her own unaddressed pain.

She wondered when she had started doing that. Probably the group home, where any sign of weakness was written, catalogued, categorized and weaponized with cold precision.

Except then she thought about her Aunt Marge, about life after she was taken out of the group home.

Things weren't bad at all, at first. Marge was kind, affectionate. There was plenty of food to eat, she had a room of her own, and the woman even taught her butchering basics so that Carlotta would always have a profession. She loved the woman, at first. Thought of her as her savior.

At first.

She found out about Dyson over dinner one night, learning it in a somber confession, between portions of mashed potatoes. Learning how Marge had adopted her only after her own son had died. She was a replacement child, nothing more. If he had lived, Carlotta would have still been in the group home, cared for by nobody. Loved by nobody. The more time went on, the more Carlotta was sure the woman's love for her was all an act, and the only difference between this home and the last one was that her physical needs were met.

She started to hate Aunt Marge then. No, that wasn't right. Yet again Carlotta could hear Anthracite's gently chiding voice as though it were really there. She didn't hate Aunt Marge, not really. She was afraid of her. Of loving someone who didn't love her back. Very little would have stopped the old hag from dropping her back at the group home the moment she got bored or annoyed of her.

So Carlotta lashed out. She released Marge's horses, called her names, and destroyed property. If she could convince herself that she hated the woman, that she didn't care what she thought, perhaps it wouldn't hurt as much when it came time for the inevitable.

The longer she spent around Tesla and Anthracite, the more she realized that most of her actions were based around that fundamental principle. She mitigated hurt, prepared for the worst case scenario, and struck at people before they could strike at her.

She killed Arachne on that view of the world, and left Lucien to die. She could defend Lucien as being in self defense, but in many ways, Arachne was too. Carlotta knew that it would have torn her to pieces if she had to see that sweet girl's face in pain. So she killed her from behind, so no one could ever hurt her again.

Staring at Tesla and Anthracite, the feeling rose in her again. If she didn't take care of this issue soon, it would be too late. The two girls would worm their way into her heart, and they would hurt her. Tesla was living on borrowed time. Anthracite was a Twelve. There was no way on earth the Capitol was going to let a Twelve win the games. It had been almost twenty years since the last time, and Panem was still recovering.

Carlotta had no doubt they would be dead soon. Even if multiple victors were somehow possible, these two had no chance of making it. Which meant Carlotta would have to watch them die. She couldn't do that. She knew that she made a big show of being tough, to herself and others, but she knew that seeing the two of them in pain would absolutely break her once and for all.

Carlotta stood and walked to the corner of the cave where the three of them kept their supplies.

More than anything, this self awareness was a curse, Carlotta thought. She understood herself now, could wipe away her rationalizations like cobwebs off an old dusty shelf. But she couldn't change things. People would hurt her, or they would leave her. Carlotta would never feel love, never be safe, and the only way to protect herself was to strike first. It made her the bad guy, she knew this, but it also made her safe. It was a price she had to pay, because the alternative was too unbearable to think about.

Carlotta sorted through the supplies, trying to avoid getting any of the gold paint dust from the inner lining of parachutes onto her hands. Grabbing a backpack, some food, a couple of bottles of water, and a small cleaver, she held the weapon in her hands and smiled. Holding it felt like being home, helping Marge with work around her butcher shop. The weight was a constant, familiar thing and it helped calm her slightly.

She looked at her former allies and could practically hear the excuses and justifications in her head. They were too weak to truly survive these games, they were only holding her back, they needed her. But the whispers rang hollow. What she was about to do was an act of pure weakness, self-interest, cowardice.

A good person wouldn't do this to Tesla and Anthracite. A good person would respect their alliance, help them to survive as long as possible, and accept the inevitability of death with grace. But of all the lies she had told, Carlotta had never gone far enough to pretend that she was a good person.

She stuffed the backpack full of supplies, and with her cleaver in hand, headed out into the early morning.

Violet Beckingridge, District Eleven

Boom

Although it was muffled by her place deep within the cave system, Violet could still tell the sound of a cannon when she heard one. Someone was dead, which was just as well, she supposed. She decided that counting just how many people were left was a lost cause, but she still had a sense of the current state of the Games. They were half way through, by now, perhaps more than that.

The competition would only get harder from now on, so the cannons in many ways were a blessing. Outlasting was a perfectly valid strategy, so Violet felt content to wait while the rest of the tributes died. Preferably far away from her.

Violet finally arrived at the underground lake after some time. There was already a small makeshift camp on one side of the bank when she first made her way there, but after watching for a couple of hours, she had decided that no one was coming back. That was where she slept, although she awoke several times at the unfamiliar sounds of life underground. Eventually Violet gave up trying to rest altogether and began to prepare for the next day.

Being underground made it hard to tell just what time it was. A perpetual, dull glow emanated from the lake. Violet hadn't looked at it that much when she had first arrived, too tired to properly investigate much of anything. Now that she had more time, and had at least attempted to sleep, she took a moment to soak in the beauty around her.

Violet had always thought it was a little cruel, how pretty the arenas could be. Watching the Games at home, she assumed it to be for the Capitol's benefit, who wanted their death sanitized and made into a show. That was probably the main reason, but being inside the arena herself, she appreciated that not everything was bleak here. These could very well be her last days after all. She held a hand out and a glowing blue dragonfly landed on her palm.

A sharp clang from one of the nearby tunnels startled the dragonfly and it zipped off into the darkness in alarm. Violet went tense as well and her hand drifted towards the bow slung over shoulder on instinct. Whatever made a noise like that couldn't be anything good as far as she was concerned.

Another clang drew Violet closer to the noise despite her better judgement. There was no reason to just wait for danger to come to her, she reasoned. If it truly was a threat, she might be able to take it by surprise.

The thought reminded her of the boy she killed, his eyes glazing over mid apology as her arrow pierced his heart. Did he think the same thing before he encountered her?. Maybe caution was necessary to avoid any more unneeded bloodshed. But what did that actually mean in the Hunger Games?

The blues and greens of the lake illuminating the dark faded into the uniform black cave walls of the underground, before giving way to the dull yellow glow of a candle, as Violet made her way towards the sound. Another tribute, then. Why would anyone be so loud? Her suspicion only made the ache of her muscles tensing worse, and although Violet loosened her grip on her bow, she did not put it away altogether.

Turning a corner deeper into the tunnel, she squinted in the candle light, just barely able to make out the silhouette of another girl facing away from her. Her clothes were blacker than the walls of the cave itself as opposed to the dark green of every other tribute. Her head was shaved, also black, with patterns of stars etched into her scalp.

Violet remembered her: the girl she had tangled with at the bloodbath, who she had stolen her brown messenger bag from. It was hard to tell what the girl from Six was doing, or how she would respond to a stranger in the shadows. Violet didn't want to risk it, but she wasn't sure she could murder someone in cold blood.

Astra stopped, turning towards her, and she lost the chance to make that decision. "You." she said simply.

"Me."

Violet tried to count the seconds they stood facing each other in silence, but like most of her attempts lately, the numbers slipped out of her head. Time was unreliable in the dark, slippery and subjective. Maybe they were there for seconds, or hours. Violet would have even believed it was days. The silence was tense and sharp, like a snake coiled before a strike. She wondered if she was going to die here, at the hands of this girl. Wouldn't that be fitting, to accidentally kill someone by being too hasty, only to die for hesitating?

"You know what?" Astra growled, her voice raw as if she had been crying, "I'm sick of this shit."

"What do you mean?" Violet asked.

"Killing each other. Hurting people. Acting like puppets for the Capitol. Smile for the camera as blood spills on you. Make sure everyone gets a good show. What's the point of this anyway?"

"The rebellion." Violet reminded her warily. Astra's words were a different kind of dangerous. They were the kind that could get them killed had they been back in District Eleven.

Violet wondered why that mattered to her now, since she would probably be killed, anyway.

"Right, right, the rebellion." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, "The end of the war was ninety-three years ago. Last time the Districts even tried anything was nearly twenty. You and I weren't even alive when Katniss Everdeen stood in the same position as you and me. But we're the ones who have to pay for some wrong? This arena is a graveyard of children."

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Violet hissed.

"Honestly? I'm not sure I care any more." Astra answered.

Silence came over them again. Violet no longer thought that the girl would kill her, but somehow she was even more terrifying now. Astra had something that was more powerful than any arrow: truth.

Truth and rage.

"I care." Violet said eventually, "I still want to survive this. But… if you don't hurt me, I see no point in hurting you." She thought about saying other things to Astra. Like how she was sick of the killing, too. How she had murdered a boy and she still didn't know if it was worth it. How, despite how poisonous her words were, she was right.

But Violet was a practical sort. Speaking those thoughts would only attract more trouble, and she was in enough of it as it was. Instead she just nodded. Astra nodded back, then turned towards the wall, continuing whatever she had been doing before Violet's interruption.

Violet didn't bother to investigate. Instead she turned and headed back towards her camp.

AN: I'm not dead! It's sort of amazing, honestly. But I am going to make sure I finish this. As a matter of fact, I started Desolation in November, and I always wanted to take less than a year to write it. So I've set myself a goal, and that should help the chapters come easier. We're at top eleven now, so it can't be much longer right? Anyway, Eulogies.

12th, Cordelia Korver by WhateverIsOpen- Cordelia was such a gift of a tribute. Usually schemers are very in your face and clearly malicious. But Cordelia was so very chill. Her fear of confrontation mixed with her ambitions made her such a fun tribute to write, and gave me the opportunity to write a murder mystery. I knew pretty early that she was going to betray the other Exiles, but it took me a while to decide how exactly that would turn out. You will be missed, Cordellia.

And of course, the kill count

Dash Grester- Two kills, Raleigh and Lucien

Elixane Marcus- One kill, Demetri
Demetri Donovan- One kill, Zella

Titania Topaz- One kill, Issa

Carlotta Pierce- One and a half kills, Arachne

Seaward Waters- One kill, Mattock

Cordelia Korver- One kill, Seaward

Violet Beckingridge- One kill, Ruben

Ashlar Granodum- One kill, Nettie Sue

Astra Porter- One Kill, Dash

Diamond Stark- One Kill, Tanner

Rust Waxy- One Kill, Cordelia

Thank you so much for reading, everybody. I hope you like it!