Trigger Warning: Suicidal ideation, mentions of self-harm.

Eidolon Wrack, 19, District 2 Tribute POV

Mako and Drachma's faces in the sky were a warning. I don't know how many tributes are left but I'm confident I'm in the top eight at least. With powerful tributes like Mako and Drachma dead, I could be in danger of accidentally winning.

I don't want that. I don't want to be a victor. I don't want to be forced through endless interviews where the try to get me to speak. I don't want to move into Victor's Village, where Enobaria will torment me every day. I don't want to live with the pain of everything, of how I died and how my sister died twice.

I need to move. I need to find someone strong enough to kill me.

It's so dark but I see the girl picking her way through the jungle. She's small and she has red hair. She looks a lot like Honey when she was younger.

I can't remember her name but I can remember her allies' names. Régine. Ageis. Fawkes. They're all dangerous. At least one of them has to be alive. If anything was powerful enough to kill all three of them, this girl would be dead as well. They must be nearby.

If I kill this girl, her allies will want revenge. They'll kill me. I'll be dead.

I throw myself at the girl. She screams. My hands close around her neck. Her screams stop with a single snap.

A cannon fires.

I stand over her body and close my eyes, waiting for Régine's arrow or Ageis' spear.

But nothing comes.

I let out a sob and look at the girl I'd killed. She was so young, so innocent. And I'd killed her for no reason.

Enobaria was right. I really am a monster.

At least, until I see the thin, coppery wire in her hand. It leads off into the trees, potentially into danger. To death.

I follow it.

Régine Maurin, 18, District 3 Tribute POV

I feel bad about letting Sankie go into the jungle alone but someone has to make our electric fence to keep the Capitol fooled. I can't do it because I need to be here to shoot my arrow into the force field. Fawkes can't go because he can't walk. Silver can't go because he's still limping from the frog attack and he'd just slow Sankie down. Even though Sankie's the youngest and smallest of us, she's fast and she's got a good sense of direction.

I feel even worse when I hear a scream and a cannon. Silver, who's just finished bandaging the cut on his arm where he removed the tracker, looks at me with eyes full of worry.

The wire that Sankie's supposed to be carrying goes slack.

"Silver," I say. "Take Fawkes, get away and cut out his tracker. I'll stay here."

Silver nods, picks Fawkes up and rushes away as fast as he can. He's still limping slightly but adrenaline seems to be carrying him away.

We both know that someone dangerous waits in the jungle. Not something. Someone. If I had to make a bet, I'd say Eidolon.

Once Silver's vanished into the trees, I draw my knife and look at my arm. I see the bulge where my tracker is, the invisible lines where I need to cut. I touch my blade to the skin.

A wave of bad memories hits me. Lines on someone else's skin. Blood in the snow. My hand curled around the handle of a knife.

I can't.

I stand, frozen, telling myself I can.

I'm almost relieved when a massive figure bursts out of the undergrowth and I throw my knife at him on instinct. It hits Eidolon in the shoulder. He stops, suddenly.

I raise an arrow to my bow and shoot at Eidolon's leg. He sinks to his knees with a thin, animal whine. Wordlessly, he raises a finger and points to his head.

I know what he's trying to say. Kill me.

But I can't. I look at my watch and it's eleven fifty-nine.

It's almost time.

I fumble to tie the wire around one of my arrows. Then I aim at the shimmer in the air.

The moment my arrow leaves my bow, I dive to the ground.

Seconds later, electricity floods the air.

It's only when I hear the hovercraft above me that I wonder what'll happen to me. I succeeded in everything.

Except cutting my tracker out.

Fawkes Chau, 19, District 3 Tribute POV

Silver stops and sits me down on the forest floor.

"Give me your arm," he says. "It's time."

I let Silver take my arm and roll up the sleeve. He peels the bandages away with careful fingers. I hang my head when I see the cuts on my arm, only just beginning to heal.

Silver doesn't comment on them. He just cuts the tracker out with his usual efficiency. I'm glad he's here. I don't think I would've been able to cut out my own tracker, not when it's so familiar to how I cut myself the night before the games. The pain is familiar. I don't want it to be.

The last three days have been surreal. I've had moments of absolutely hating myself and moments of incredible pain where I just wanted to get through and live. Now the games are almost over and I'm still alive. I'm amazed I had the strength to make it this far.

I'm stronger than I thought I was. I'm better than I thought I was. I deserve to be safe and happy and, no matter what challenges I have to overcome in the future, I need to remember that.

"Watch," Silver says. He takes the bloodstained tracker in his hand and throws it straight at the force field. It becomes a sudden burst of light.

It becomes a star.

I imagine all my worries, all my dark feelings, all the hatred for myself. The monster. I imagine it was all trapped inside the tracker. Now it's frying on the force field.

I lie back on the ground and look up at the arena sky. It's full of stars. I know they're fake but it still feels like I've come full circle. Here I am, once again ending the games looking for the sky. Except, this time, I'm surrounded by life. I can tune it all out, Silver and the entire jungle. There's just me and the sky and my future. All the little things that I took for granted before my games, the little things that made me human.

I reach for the parachute on my belt. My fingers brush the petals of the magnolia flower, Binah's flower. I can imagine her beside me, like she was last time. If this all goes wrong and I die again, at least I'll have a tiny piece of her to hold onto.

Lightning strikes. I can feel the power of it in the air. The ground shudders under me.

I am Frankenstein's monster, the reanimated corpse. I know that the lightning will bring me back to life. Back to rom-coms and hot meals and comfortable beds and days where I don't have to fear for my life. Back to being that happy kid in District 3 who just wanted to make other people happy.

Back to Binah Katayanagi, my Bride of Frankenstein. My protector. The spark that powers my heart.

The sky opens for me. I close my eyes and let myself be carried to safety.

The Third Quarter Quell is officially over! I hope you enjoyed it and I hope I didn't kill off your favourite character. This story isn't quite over yet. I have a couple more chapters planned, which will bring the grand total to fifty.

6th: Sankie Earthash, neck snapped by Eidolon

I decided to be very, very evil and kill off Sankie. I knew the plan wouldn't go completely perfectly and one of the rebels had to get killed. I chose Sankie because she and Fawkes were the only ones weak enough for Eidolon to kill without a fight and I couldn't just kill Fawkes. At least she had a quick death. She managed to hold her own in an alliance with some of the most powerful tributes in the arena and still have a few MVP moments. The rebellion would've completely flopped without Sankie.

Survivors (in district order):

Eidolon Wrack (tracker still in)

I was originally going to kill Eidolon off because he's suffered so much and I didn't think he'd be able to handle being taken prisoner by the Capitol. Strangely, I changed my mind while I was writing his most upsetting scene. I even wrote "Hang on a sec…" down in my notebook to mark the exact page I decided to keep him alive. I have plans for Eidolon. Plans that I won't give away just yet.

Régine Maurin (tracker still in)

Régine was a survivor from the start. I always knew she'd be the one to shoot down the force field. At some point, I realised that she wouldn't be able to cut her tracker out. I have plans for Régine as well, plans that require her to be in the Capitol. On the more positive side, she saved both Fawkes and Silver, as well as unintentionally saving Eidolon and Houghton. She's definitely saved more lives than she's taken.

Fawkes Chau (tracker removed)

Fawkes was another character I knew would definitely survive. He's one of the main reasons why I wrote this games, because he was my favourite character in The Bride and The Widow and always felt bad for killing him. Fawkes overcame a lot. He was fighting for his life before he even entered the arena and, in the end, he won. His POV this chapter was emotional to write because it marks the moment he finally breaks free from the Hunger Games. He'll finally be able to return to some semblance of the life he loved so much.

Silver Oberst (tracker removed)

Silver was originally killed by the beast but I reorganised the alliances because I had no idea what to do with Ageis and she ended up dying instead. I loved writing Silver's interactions with his allies. It was so fun to put him in an alliance and make him slowly come to appreciate his allies. They helped him become a much nicer person, even if they never stopped him bringing up the swear count of my story. Some characters just like to swear and Silver was one of those characters.

Houghton Field (tracker still in)

Once I decided that Rusalka couldn't kill Houghton, I realised that nobody could. Houghton is the Enobaria of this story. He wasn't really relevant to the whole rebellion plot but he survived just by being awesome and not dying. Not bad for a fifteen-year-old amnesiac from District 9.