Castiel Wickham, District Eleven

An Arena like this was designed to drive people mad. Many of us already were. The Games wore at people's psyches even in the "best" of situations but I'd seen people genuinely lose their minds since this Games began. Zetan had just slowly emptied out. At first it was nightmares. Then he couldn't sleep at all. He started to see things, more than the horrible things that really were with us. And then he wandered off one day and never came back. We saw him in the sky the next night. The recap didn't show his death. I never knew what happened to him.

In a weird way I was perfect for an Arena like this. I'd always believed there was evil in the world. Just because I couldn't see the demons didn't mean they weren't out there doing their work. I was prepared for the idea of totally evil beings with nightmare faces. The fact that I knew they were just Gamemaker facsimiles helped even more. I knew there were real demons in the world and that made the mutts look laughable. They weren't any worse than the usual sharks and bears.

There was something the Gamemakers hadn't prepared for when they made this graveyard Arena. They didn't understand that death wasn't terrifying for everyone. I wasn't in any hurry to die but I didn't dread it. It had no sting for me. I'd be getting out of this broken world into something I'd waited for… all my life. As I walked between rows of headstones I felt serenity. I'd never in my life been free to display the most important thing in my life. The Gamemakers had decorated the cemetery in pre-Dark Days fashion, trying to play it up as an ancient haunted location. That meant many of the headstones were shaped like crosses. Their attempt to make the place scarier left me feeling closer to God than I'd ever felt in my life.

Speaking of religion, coming back to play a second time could have been quite the conundrum for me. Going to Heaven is a one-way trip. There's no way some Gamemaker could drag me back down. The only precedent I had was Saul and the witch of Endor and I'd always thought that was a special thing God allowed that one time. The only answer I could think of was that he'd known beforehand I was coming back and had held my soul in some sort of limbo until I did. I wasn't really sure, honestly. I'd have to ask him when I finally got there.

It was almost like a spiritual retreat, being among the graves and silently communing with God. Kerry had died in the Bloodbath and Vextrix had died after we were separated by a group of zombies. I suspected it wasn't entirely against her will. The Arena devastated most of us. It smashed the record- percentage, not just number of Tributes- for self-inflicted violence. It was horrible losing my allies but it only sent me running faster into God's embrace. He was the only thing in the tumultuous and cruel world I could rely on.

Logan came at me fast and hard. I was barely able to get an arm up and protect my head before he hit me. My arm was slick with blood as I wrestled with him, narrowly evading his downward stabs. But only seconds into our fight we were interrupted by a half-human howl. It was funny how I'd never seen a werewolf but knew exactly how one sounded.

I shoved Logan off and ran. It wasn't hard to shove him off since he was jumping off me at the same instant. We ran toward the nearest crypt, Logan falling behind on a slight limp. I reached the crypt a few seconds ahead of him and scrambled onto the roof. I looked out above Logan's head, knowing everything would be decided by whether the monster was bipedal or not. I saw a blurry wolflike form running close to the ground on all fours and knew I had a chance.

Logan reached the crypt a few seconds after me. He jumped at the side but failed to get the needed height between his weak leg and his shorter stature. I had an instant to decide as the wolf barreled up behind him. It was no decision. If Logan killed me afterward I wouldn't regret it. Someone died for me and I was willing to risk my life for someone else.

I reached down and grabbed Logan's arm. He started climbing up the wall with me supporting him. But he was only a few steps up when the mutt hit him. I tried to hold on but it tore him from my hands like I was nothing. I was left grasping air and watching it tear him apart.

I didn't know what was going on when the Anthem started playing. I'd long ago lost count of the Tributes left. I didn't know until that moment that Logan was the last one with me. It wouldn't have made a difference. There were things more important than life.