Elara Angelo- District Twelve female

I didn't know if I was surprised or not about Fable and Jessie. On the one hand Careers had physical training. They were fitter and stronger than the average Tribute. But on the other hand this was exactly what they didn't train for. Careers went into the Games aiming to make them as short as possible. Many of them were overspecialized to the point that the only thing they were good at was killing. They weren't really that good at living, as evidenced by Games past in which the Cornucopia supplies had run out for some reason and they'd quickly starved or died of dehydration.

Secondly, this last test was purely about endurance. It was about how far you could go with constant, nagging, soul-sucking pain. Careers were supposed to give pain. They didn't like taking it. Outside of training they had pampered lives without the institutional barriers outliers faced. They were used to sharp pain during training but we were hardened to the constant pain of our entire lives. I'd seen something like the Long Walk before. Sometimes in the winter in Twelve people in the Seam walked up and down the roads at night. They had no houses to go home to and if they stopped walking they would freeze to death.

Ferrari and Katrina were by Eleanor again. Ferrari had never been a nurturer but she was hellbent on getting a response from Eleanor. It scared her how far Eleanor had fallen. She didn't want to believe someone could be broken like that. Eleanor's walking death threatened Ferrari's independence and belief in a person's autonomy so she circled her like a blackbird pestering an eagle, prodding and cajoling in her determination to get a reaction- any reaction. I drifted forward diagonally to meet them. Ferrari was unscrewing her canteen to trickle some more water on Eleanor.

"Don't mess with her," I said.

Ferrari sent a disapproving look my way and finished removing the canteen cap. "I'm going to help her," she said.

"I know," I said. "And you shouldn't. Let her die."

Katrina gasped in shock. Ferrari's disapproving look darkened into a scowl.

"She's already gone," I pressed on before she could break in. I nodded my head at Eleanor walking catatonically between us. Somewhere along the line without anyone noticing it she had died. "There's nothing in there. What if you help? What if she wins? There's nothing anyone can do, even a Capitol doctor. She'll be like this forever. Keeping her alive isn't a favor. Let her be dead."

There wasn't much left of Katrina or Ferrari either. Ferrari's hair was matted to her sweat-covered face. Wrinkles lined her face like she was her own mother. She walked bent over and her fingers gripped the canteen like claws. She turned her scowling face away from me and I walked away as she lifted the canteen to pour. It didn't matter anyway. The water ran uselessly over Eleanor's unmoving face.

Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

It must have been two hours after we visited Eleanor when I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time. I didn't realize until that moment that I hadn't pooped since the walk began. I'd heard somewhere that stress and change in diet could stop you up but I'd never experienced it. But the moment was upon me and I had no idea what to do.

"I have to go to the bathroom," I whispered to Ferrari. We looked at each other with shared panicked expressions. Going the other way wasn't that bad once you bit the bullet and accepted there was no way out. Ferrari was the first, naturally. She didn't have the shame or reluctance most people had and had just given me a courtesy warning before the dark stain spread across her pants. One by one we'd followed suit and one thing any viewers wouldn't know about this nightmare horror show was how it all smelled and how the salty liquid chafed as our legs rubbed together.

"You just gonna... go?" Ferrari asked.

I only had one warning at the moment. If everything worked out I might be able to drop my pants and do it with only one additional warning. But I didn't know if I could afford that. I could wait until that warning dropped off and then do it but the demotivation of losing a warning just to get another seemed unbearable. The only other option was to do it without stopping. I just wanted to cry. It was one final straw. Eating a rat, waiting to die from a snakebite, screaming at a boy to kill himself, and now walking down a road with a gun at my head and feces smeared down my legs. It was the kind of thing that made you think life wasn't worth living.

"Here, I'll stand behind you," Ferrari said. She huddled up behind me like she was defending my modesty and though I wasn't going to take my pants down I did feel protected. It made it feel like Ferrari was watching but at this point we'd been through too much together for me to care.

I don't even know if I can, I thought. Wetting your pants was one thing. Accidents happen. But using a toilet was one of the deepest ingrained bits of social programming in the human mind. If someone had offered me fifty dollars I don't think I could have done it.

"How about I grab your pants and pull them out a bit?" Ferrari asked. "Maybe it'll fall down your leg and out." She tugged at my waistband. "Sorry I'm not trying to touch your butt."

I was too out of it to care. My head was tilted back and my eyes were closed. I was trying to be somewhere else. Tears pricked at my eyes at the familiarity of it. It was what people did when they were being abused. They left their bodies and it was like they were just watching. I distanced myself from myself and tried to relax. My body relaxed and I felt something horribly unnatural and humiliating. I started to cry again at how degraded I had become that I was grateful it was dry. Something warm was in my panties and then the movement of my walking legs jostled it down into my pant leg and it tumbled to the ground. Ferrari stepped over it and I was left with nothing but a dirty streak rubbing my butt cheek and my shame.

Eleanor Cotton- District Eight female

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Eleanor's POV is meant to be entirely blank but whenever I put line breaks in the formatting they vanished when I hit save. If anyone knows how to fix that you will be greatly appreciated.