Elara Angelo, District Twelve
You can't see a poltergeist. But let me tell you, you can hear them.
"I knew that kid," the poltergeist said, throwing some twigs at a grave. I knew he was full of it, since he was a mutt and not really a dead kid, but I didn't give him the attention he wanted.
"Cool," I said blandly.
"What's Twelve like?" It was starting to feel pretty normal talking to a disembodied voice.
"Poor. Kind of pretty. Really poor," I said.
"What's the sun look like?"
Somehow I felt a ghost of pity for a poor newborn mutt. "It's very bright," I said. "However bright you think it is it's brighter. So bright it hurts your eyes to look at it. Unless you look at it right before it sets. Then it's a pretty dark orange."
"If you win I think I'll follow you out of here," the poltergeist said.
"Lucky me," I said, but I was smiling.
I jumped at the sound of a cannon. The poltergeist might have jumped, too. I wasn't really sure.
"There's only two people left," I said.
"Three," it corrected.
Four days went by without me or the other Tribute- there were so many of us I didn't remember who it was- seeing each other. I was poking around in a crypt when I barely evaded a sudden attack from the other side of the waist-high slab containing the coffin. It was Logan who was my last competitor and he was almost on me before I could get my knife out.
Even with a knife Logan wasn't afraid of me. He ran inside my strike before I could attack and bowled me over backwards. He twisted my wrist until I had to let go of the knife and immediately tried to pick it up. I slammed the heel of my palm into his nose. He grunted but didn't get off of me so I hit him again with an elbow and wriggled out from under him. He grabbed my hair as I tried to crawl away. As I was grabbing it lower to relieve the pressure he hauled sideways, smacking me into the base of the stone pedestal. Blood trickled from my lip as I fought to stay alert. I swept an arm behind me blindly and whacked Logan in the face. I followed it with a donkey-kick to hopefully knock him back away from the knife.
I flipped over onto my stomach and started scooting toward where the knife lay abandoned on the ground. As I was about to reach it Logan grabbed my leg and simply yanked me backward. He grabbed my hair again and pulled so sharply all I could concentrate on was trying to keep my neck from breaking. Logan flipped me over and brought his fist down into my face. My ears rang as I dazedly watched him draw back for another strike. He was going to simply punch me to death if I couldn't get to the knife.
I reached out my arm and strained. The knife was more than a foot out of reach. Even arching my back I wasn't going to be able to reach it. I tried to inch sideways under Logan but his weight pinned me to the ground. Then I watched as the knife arced through the air and landed in my hand.
I whipped around and caught Logan in the throat as he was coming down to punch me. Our combined momentum tore his throat open side to side and he fell off me clutching his neck. It was clearly a fatal wound but I still kept stabbing until the cannon sounded.
I won, I thought as I knelt over Logan's body. Well, sort of. It didn't seem fair to say I'd won on my own. Is this cheating?