Edward Matthews- District Five male (18)
Flint was a pretty cool guy. I thought he'd be intimidating since he looked... really intimidating, but he was actually really nice. He was like a pit bull- really really mean-looking, really really nice-acting. I wished we'd met before the Games and could have just been normal friends.
"You have a whole kid," Flint mused, looking off with a wondering expression at the idea of being a father at such a young age. "I've run a gang and stuff but nothing that complicated."
"It was pretty easy, actually. I didn't even realize I'd done it at the time," I joked.
"Neither did she," Flint said. "Heh heh heh."
"Uh, excuse you, she definitely noticed," I defended myself.
"Ew," Flint said.
"What about you? You ever having kids?" I asked.
Flint graciously excused me from that line of conversation and played along. "I don't think so. Everyone thinks I want to get with my best friend but he's just my best friend. You can like someone but not want to kiss them, you know? People who don't understand that are losers."
I made a small noise of agreement. In my case I'd all too often done the opposite. I'd be a little better adjusted if I'd focused less on getting laid and more on just having normal friends.
The chiming of a sponsor gift spared me from further roasting.
"Sounds like a job for a super tall guy," Flint said, snagging the package when it drifted through the hole left behind by a ceiling tile that helpfully moved itself to the side. I was tall but Flint was really tall. He looked it over and made a sour face.
"It's for you," he said. He handed it to me and I opened the package as he leaned curiously over my shoulder.
Flint let out an appreciative breath when he saw the pirate sword. Sure it didn't really fit in with the Arena, but pirate sword. It had a wide curved blade and a neat-looking bronze-colored hilt. I lifted it out and felt the satisfying weight of it in my hand.
"Badass," Flint said with an approving nod.
I swung the sword around like any kid would who just got a sword. Just let the Careers come by now! I thought. If they do, I'll... probably still run. They have swords too.
Quarla Hydrargyrum- District One female (16)
The acid rain changed everything. I'd suspected that the Careers would turn on me soon after the Bloodbath. Now, with half the Careers gone in a minute and multiple alliances still intact, the Arena made strange bedfellows. I might be undesirable to look at but Arroyo and Alysanne didn't want to take the risk of going it on their own. They weren't even that weird about me anymore. Arroyo was so friendly he hardly seemed to care about my appearance. Alysanne probably felt just as insecure in her position as I was in mine, seeing as she wasn't a real Career. So the three of us held together in a motley crew that would probably not be fondly remembered by future Careers.
Both Academy training and my own childhood made me hyper-aware of environmental changes. That was why one room in a hallway stuck out like a sore thumb despite nothing being starkly different about it. There was only one tiny difference, but it was enough for me to zero in. Each door in the hallway had a little crack of light from the windows inside them. It was just one single door that stood out. One door had nothing but darkness in that crack. That could mean a few things, but the most likely explanation was clear. Something had been pushed in front of it.
I held up a flat hand in the hand-and-arm signal for a halt. Arroyo stopped immediately and Alysanne followed suit when she saw his reaction. I pointed at the bottoms of the surrounding doors and then the blocked ones. Arroyo's face flashed as he caught my meaning. We retreated quietly down the hall to form our plan.
Gaius McClellan- District Twelve male (18)
A door opened down the hall outside my room. I wouldn't have heard it except for a faint squeak. By itself it didn't mean anything but when I heard another door open at almost the same moment my mind clicked into gear. One door meant a Tribute trying to find a place to hide. Two doors at the same time meant the Careers going door-to-door looking for someone. My only break was that they were splitting up to do it. They were no doubt close to each other to help in case anyone found anything, but if I did things right I could keep one of them between me and the others.
I stood behind the door to wait and got into place just as the doorknob jiggled. I'd shoved a chair under the doorknob but it wouldn't hold forever. Someone who was trained in breaking down doors would make short work of a non-reinforced office door.
As I'd suspected, the first kick from whoever was on the other side rattled the door on its hinges. The cheap wood shuddered and started to bow out around the doorknob. I knelt down and waited for the second blow.
Arroyo Cardoso- District Four male (17)
I was the tallest. Ergo, I had the longest legs. Ergo, I had the most leverage and thus should kick down the door. I drew back my leg for another donkey-kick, relishing the opportunity to at last smash something. I wasn't a particularly destructive person. It was just that anyone who got a chance to destroy something for a good reason had fun doing it.
I was expecting whoever was inside the room to attack as soon as the door opened. Not expecting, maybe, since it might have been one of the outliers and they might try to hide, but prepared for it, anyway. But I wasn't expecting them to stab me in the foot. Gaius' shank went deep into my foot and I grabbed the door frame to keep from tripping when I yanked my foot up and it didn't go because there was a shank through it.
Gaius launched himself at the door, pushing it and me back. Behind me Alysanne and Quarla slammed back into the door from the other side, pushing it and Gaius further into the room. He took one look at them, realized there were three and not just one of us, and fled. One wouldn't think someone could flee in a closed room but Gaius managed it. He turned around and took a flying leap over the desk like a hurdle. He dropped catlike to all fours when he landed and shot straight into the vent set into the wall.
That's actually pretty impressive, I couldn't help but think. I stood there for a split second in surprise and caught a blur of movement as Quarla shot past me and went after him. He wiggled into the hole with wormlike ease and was almost entirely gone when Quarla almost smashed into the wall in her haste to catch him.
"Aha!" she cried triumphantly as she caught him by the foot. I thought for a second she was going to pull him out like some sort of unholy childbirth and was wondering how she could even be that strong. But instead she just took her throwing knife and started stabbing him in the foot and six inches of exposed leg. She braced herself with one arm against the wall to keep him from pulling himself in the rest of the way and leaned down into his leg to lend strength to her motion as she sawed at his leg like she was trying to amputate it.
All of it happened in less than ten seconds. I pulled the knife out of my foot and paused to make sure it hadn't hit any major vessels. Alysanne paused to make sure I was all right. We ran to join Quarla and as we reached her Gaius kicked violently and Quarla lost her grip on his slick-with-blood leg.
"He got away," I said, hands on my hips and foot sore.
"He got away," Quarla agreed, wiping blood from her arms. "But he didn't live."
Gaius McClellan- District Twelve male (18)
If I'd stayed in the room I'd have had no chance against three opponents. My only hope was to escape in the tunnel and I'd very nearly made it. Now I was crawling down a tunnel so narrow I couldn't turn around and tend to my heavily bleeding leg. If I could just make it to a room I could apply a tourniquet. But I knew what I'd do if I was a Career and it was exactly what they did. When I crawled to the next opening in the vent, already feeling the blood loss, I saw Arroyo sitting at the desk chair tying a strip of fabric around his foot. If I'd gone the other way surely I would have found Alysanne or Quarla.
I slid backwards through the tunnel, the cooling wetness of my own blood making the progress easier. Fatal exsanguination could occur in less than a minute under certain conditions. I wasn't that badly wounded but I was seriously bleeding and it had been longer than a minute just wriggling to the next room.
I could die. Somehow in all my time as a paramilitary I'd never thought of it. Death was what happened to people who made mistakes or weren't smart enough. I'd never said it out loud but it had always been there in the back of my mind. I couldn't die. I was important. I had things to do. Things couldn't keep going without me.
I was starting to see that wasn't true. A lot of things I thought before weren't true. I'd given my life to the Capitol. I'd done everything to keep it strong and make it better than it ever was before. And it got me nothing. They put me in an Arena to die and now that I was dying they wouldn't do anything to help me. It would be that easy for them. They could make all of this go away in a second. But instead they watched and took their bets on which child would die when. I saw now why everyone hated them. I'd thought they just didn't understand but sometimes when everyone said something, it wasn't because most people were stupid. It was because they were right.
The tunnel was colder than it had been before. I craned my neck to see over my shoulder and looked at the trail of blood behind me. Like someone was dragging a body. Soon I will be, I guess.
There had been rumblings of rebellion in Panem. Nothing had ever gone far but we'd been concerned about how pernicious it all was. They just wouldn't give up. Every few months I heard about a spat or a bust from our sister forces in other Districts. I'd always been the first to praise the ones that put them down. Now I was glad to see they kept coming. Things did have to change in Panem. I was even ready to admit that I didn't know what all of them were.
I stopped somewhere after a fork in the tunnel. I didn't want to stop. I just stopped. I was cold and tired and I felt almost like I was dying of hypothermia. My heart was racing with the shock that was trying to salvage my body but was only making things worse. I lay with my cheek pressed to the tunnel floor and thought about what would happen after I died. No one would know I'd changed my mind and come to see the truth. It rankled me to know that people would think I was a brainwashed soldier all the way to the end, but there was some good in it. The Capitol would also think I was a good soldier until the end. My family would receive honors and not the repercussions I now knew they'd face if I did anything against the Capitol agenda.
They'll have to do the revolution without me, I thought dreamily. They'd probably still be able to. It would just take a little longer than if I was there.
11th place: Gaius McClellan- Bled to death
Everyone has noticed this story is more unusual. There's always a chance a strong character will go early just by bad luck or happening to be nearer the Careers than someone else. I tend to go in loose order of strength but I do have noticeably more curveballs than many authors. Timing, luck and location are all factors in the Games and this time I finally decided to explore those avenues. Gaius had a unique backstory and many skills that let him set himself up for success. Had the Careers not still had a three-member alliance intact he certainly would have been able to defend himself against any one or even perhaps two of them. If Quarla had tried to pull him out instead of thinking quick and maiming him he would have lived as well. It was a perfect storm that got him. CarlpoppaLOL is always good for a good Tribute and Gaius was no different. I don't often see well-designed narcissists or Tributes that could be called villains but really were just indoctrinated. No one wants to admit we're all susceptible to that.
Timeline: Gaius died on day 7