Chapter Forty-Six: We Are Who We Are

Still Night One

Spark Emmersen, District Five Male

I wake as the anthem begins to play.

Maybe it was stress or maybe it was just pure exhaustion, but after Catarina pushed us for Panem knows how long there was nothing to do but pass out in some of the most uncomfortable poses I've ever been in or seen in my life. I'm not quite sure how the heck we ended up like that but hell if I care. That's not important now, we need to see who died.

The boy from One being the first face they show comes as a shock. An early Career death. Nice. Hopefully, a few more of them got knocked off as well so we have a bit more of a chance. No such luck, though, as the next face shown is the boy from Six. That means the rest of the Careers are alive, as is everyone from Three, and obviously we're still here. Girl from Seven comes next; what a shame, she seemed nice. Then the boy from Nine and the boy from Ten. Lastly, the girl from Twelve snarls down at us one final time before the anthem ends and I'm left in silence once more.

For a few seconds I debate about waking Catarina up so I have someone to talk to, but my screaming brain has a moment of clarity and shoots it down. Probably best to let her sleep. We'll need rest if we want to have a chance in a fight.

With nothing else to do, I try to start a conversation with myself, but that goes about as horribly as you'd expect. Every time I try, it either devolves into a nasty argument about the horrible scenario I've found myself in or leaves me wanting to scream "Why?" at the top of my lungs. And that's a bad idea. The last thing I want to do right now is attract attention.

Then I see movement. Oh, look! She stirs!

Once Catarina seems awake enough to comprehend my speech I rattle off the six tributes who died today. She asks me to slow down three times, and I'm trying my best but no matter what I do the words keep spilling out at lightning speed. Eventually Catarina gives up in frustration and just tells me to use fingers to represent the District and say whether it was a boy or a girl. Then and only then does she seem to understand, which is a good thing because now she's caught up on what we need to fear.

"Well, all of the major alliances lost exactly one member," Catarina says, "so that changes very little, if anything, in terms of the dynamics we all have. The duo from Nine everyone was comparing us to lost a member, so that means more people might focus on us, morbid as the idea sounds, which is a good thing. The last two were loners who scored really low, so they don't affect us in the slightest."

All of that sounds good, but I'm still lost on what the heck our plan is for the rest of the Games or if there even is a plan to begin with. Back at work, whenever we didn't have a plan, it usually ended with something breaking down or missing our quotas or someone getting electrocuted. I've been electrocuted before, it's not a pleasant sensation. And I'm pretty confident if we just wander aimlessly here for as long as it takes her to come up with a plan our fate will be far worse than that.

Catarina seems to have us covered there. "Well, we're far enough away we shouldn't have to worry about the Careers for a while, or at least that's the hope. Since we don't have supplies, I presume our first goal should be to find some. Do you agree, Spark?"

Of course I agree. Having some plan is better than no plan. Good for her for keeping things on track, all I can do right now is keep the ship steady if it starts rocking, which thankfully hasn't happened yet.

So now we're wandering around in what I think is a straight line that slopes downhill. Or maybe she's just letting gravity do the work for her on deciding where to walk, I'm not sure about that. From that point, I just see and hear nature mixed in with the occasional broken branch we have to be really careful not to step on until we stumble out of a thicket to what appears to be the edge of a river.

Catarina's not wasting any time and gets down on her hands and knees in an instant to dunk her whole head in the water. At this point I just do the same, because the odds of the river being poisoned are pretty low, right? I mean, the rivers back home are poisonous to drink from too, but that's because of all the chemicals they absorb from power plants to the point that if you tried to drink some you'd basically be drinking metal smeared with battery acid. I don't see a power plant anywhere nearby and the water's so clear I can see just how banged up I look in it, so it's probably fine.

Once my stomach fills with water, Catarina says, "Well, that's one step down. Now, we need to get food. That's a little less urgent than water, but we should get on that. I don't want to starve here."

I agree one hundred percent. Starving is bad. Food is good. Universal truths I just need to remember.

Alright then, let's go get dinner, or is it breakfast at this point? Don't know, don't care, and it's the Hunger Games, there's no such thing as a scheduled meal time.

Either way, the time has come to go, go, go.

Rhaemyr North, District Three Male

Like I've always done since I started stealing things, I stick to the shadows.

I've probably got some time left until sunrise, but I don't want to take chances. The absolute last thing I need is someone waking up while I'm working my magic.

I move as quietly as possible, sliding from tree to bush to patch of tall grass, inching along while looking for a camp that no one will notice a few things missing from. Then, I see what could either be the jackpot or my worst nightmare multiplied by a million: the dull glow of the Cornucopia in the fading moonlight.

I pause before I get any closer. It's the Careers, they have to have a guard or something. They're not the brightest bunch, but they have to have common sense if they want to be in the Games. And last I checked, leaving a bunch of food out where fourteen other starving children could potentially get at it does not follow common sense. There's someone watching it, or at least there's some kind of trap.

Waiting. The guard can't be standing still, they'd like to stay awake if not patrol from all angles. They'll pass in front of me eventually, and then I can figure out when I can dash in and get as much as I can.

Keep waiting. No guard reveals themselves. The Cornucopia is open to the opposite side, so I can't tell if they're waiting in there, but I doubt it; that'd make it much more difficult for everyone else to sleep. Despite my nerves, I've got to figure this out soon. If I'm still here when the Careers start waking up, I'm good as dead.

Trying to keep the noise level down, I shuffle around the Cornucopia in a circular motion, staying behind the treeline in an effort to keep out of their sightline. After what feels like far too long, I finally manage to scope out the inside of the Cornucopia, and am met with a surprising sight. Two surprising sights, actually.

One, there's no one awake in the Cornucopia. Both the Careers in there are asleep, although one of them seems to be jerking around a lot, so I'll have to be careful not to wake them up. And two, half the Careers seem to be gone. Only two forms make themselves clear as opposed to the four I'd expected.

And neither of them are guarding.

This has to be some kind of trap. There's no way the Careers could be this bottomlessly stupid. That advice and more drip-feeds through my brain, but my growling stomach overrides it all. Before I know it, I'm tiptoeing towards the Cornucopia, making sure to approach from the back so I'll be out of their direct sightline if one of them wakes up.

The first thing I come across also happens to be the most useful: a pitch-black drawstring bag. I take it, ears perked to listen for any kind of alarm or the sounds of someone waking up. Nothing.

So this isn't a trap. It would have gone off by now if there was one, since the Careers have the same mentality as the owners of a lot of the houses we hit back in District Three. Either this bunch is far less competent than any Career pack I've ever met or I just got absurdly lucky. Those two aren't mutually exclusive, though, so why should I even care or be deliberating over this. Just take the money and run, damn it!

There's far fewer supplies than I ever would have expected. Maybe two of the Careers went hunting and whoever was guarding fell asleep on duty? I didn't hear any other cannons past the ones from the Bloodbath, so they can't be dead. All the more reason to make this quick.

With rock-steady hands, I take anything that I see and know I can use. Two knives that look like they're meant for cutting meat but will probably cut through other tributes just fine, should the need arise. A handful of just-add-water packages of food alongside a few bottles of the precious liquid. A can opener. A small pot.

At that point, my bag's full, and whoever's closest to the Cornucopia is starting to make rather unsettling noises. I don't think I woke him up, considering I barely made any noise the entire time I was there, but you don't get second chances in the Arena.

By the time I get to the woods, I haven't heard any shouting or swearing, nor the sounds of several Careers breaking into a run, so I think it's safe to say I got away with this one, although the spoils of this raid were a lot lower than I would have expected, given how damn much I saw on the field at the start of the Bloodbath.

Whatever. Sure, there wasn't much, but I had to leave things behind too. They'll survive. And considering they signed up for this nightmare and I didn't (and they'd have killed me as quickly as they saw me, no doubt about it), it's hard for me to sympathize with them.

Either way, though, the deed is done. Ghost just executed his first solo mission, and it's propelled him right back into the game.

Alice, wherever you are, I hope I did you proud tonight.

Toren Laris, District Nine Female

Well, I'm not sure if this is some kind of payback for all the suffering I dodged back home, but I've gotten just about every bad break possible so far.

My only ally died within the first three minutes of the Games. I didn't have much time to grab supplies because I was too busy trying not to die after that, and just about everything I did get fell under varying degrees of uselessness. I couldn't keep my morning meal down after that, so now my head's pounding, my mouth tastes sour, and my stomach's growling. And just when I thought I'd found a good place to hunker down, it'd already been claimed and whoever was there didn't seem keen on giving it up.

So, that leads me to my current situation. I'm perched halfway up a tree, tied down as best as I'm able with the elastic cable that's really the only thing of value I have left. It's too hot outside to wear the sweater in my bag or even use it as a blanket. And while I initially thought the flashlight might be helpful, the Gamemakers neglected to put any batteries in it, either out of laziness or sheer spite. Either could be a factor, I'm not sure, but regardless the thing doesn't work.

I know I need sleep, but that's probably not happening anytime soon. The knot around my waist is pressing down too hard, and the tree branch being bent in a curve doesn't help. Plus, while "limber" is not the word I'd really use to describe any of the Careers, if they had to climb a tree to get me while I was sleeping, I wouldn't put it past them.

I'm not starving yet, or even close, but the first thing I need to do when I wake up is go hunting for water. There's plenty of plants, so it'll probably rain soon, but I don't want to count on that. Given that this is a summer camp, it probably has a lake, although whether or not it contains drinkable water (or even exists, for that matter) is a mystery for now.

My ears remain pricked even as I try to settle down, listening for footsteps or breaking branches or anything that could signal that either another tribute or a mutt is nearby. Nothing comes of it, thankfully. I can only hear the chirping of crickets and the whistling of a light breeze keeping the heat from becoming unbearable.

With nowhere else to turn to, I look at the stars. It's one of the few things I can say remains unchanged from home. On a good night back home, you can see more than enough of them to sate your desires. Here, however, there's so many it's sometimes hard to tell one apart from the next.

It's such a pretty sight, it's almost enough to make me forget that everything I'm seeing is a projection, nothing more than a farce.

I still remember, though. I have to. If I lose touch with reality, I might as well jump out of the tree and end myself, because there's no way I can win.

On that somewhat depressing thought, I fade into sleep under a starry sky, hoping that whatever dreams I have don't drag me down to hell.

Odysea Davos, District Eleven Female

Thankfully, after Thomiah's shift, our night has been fairly uneventful.

Once the girl ran off, Thomiah finished out his shift without issue, and Artesia saw nothing of note either (at least, that's what she told me), and I haven't seen anything either, even as the sky is starting to lighten again. Sunrise hasn't started yet, but it's right around the corner.

There's just enough light now that it's honestly harder to see than when it was fully dark out. It looks like this morning will be a beauty, just like many of the ones I experienced back home: only a handful of scattered clouds, and just a hint of pink off in the far distance signaling that dawn is approaching.

Following in Thomiah's footsteps both literally and figuratively, I trace circles around the cabin as the heat starts to kick in, making me begin to sweat a little. While this is nothing compared to some of the summers I had to endure back home, it's still nothing fun. I feel really bad for whoever comes from Districts that are just naturally colder, because they've probably never experienced anything like this before.

So, coming from one of the most impoverished and suffering Districts of all has some benefits here. Who knew?

Everything around me starts to wake up as the morning dawns. Birds start to sing. Rabbits and squirrels that look really tasty right about now start running around. The breeze smells fresher, feels warmer, and blows stronger. The green of all the plants around me glows the vibrant shades of before.

Then, just as the sun begins to peek out from the trees, I hear two sets of footsteps. I whirl around just in case, but as I expected, they belonged to Thomiah and Artesia.

"Morning," they say in unison.

"Same to you," I reply. "Nothing happened while you two were asleep. At the very least, nothing I noticed."

"Good," Thomiah says. "Now, we're going to have to make a bang if we want to impress the Gamemakers enough to keep all of us alive. Let's eat something, and then we'll pretend we're Careers for a while."

I'm not sure what to make of that statement, so I just ignore it for now. Instead, I pitch in with the other two to help set up breakfast, which is better than I would have expected. We each get one of the brightly-colored drinks from the fridge, as well as two cans of whatever we found in the cabinets, mostly canned vegetables. If I ignore the drink, for a second it almost feels like I'm eating breakfast at home before I head out to work in the fields.

The three of us eat in silence, not taking much time to savor our food. We've got a lot to do today and nowhere near enough time to do it, so the sooner we start, the better off we'll be.

"So," says Artesia, "Are we treating this as our Cornucopia?"

"I don't see why not," Thomiah says. "It's comfortable and it's reasonably out of the way. The only concern I have is that it's not concealed very well, but we can probably figure out some kind of workaround for that."

"Which brings me to point two," Artesia says. "If we're doing that, should we leave a guard behind to protect the supplies or should we just carry everything with us and go as a big group?"

Those are good ideas, but I think we're missing something. "If we're going to consider the second option, don't you think we should make sure that the weight of all our supplies is manageable? Something goes wrong and we can't run, we're screwed."

Everyone agrees with that, so we spend the next few minutes trying to fit everything we have into bags we then sling over our shoulders. After that, we walk and then run with the bags hanging behind us for a few minutes, realizing pretty quickly that if we're going to try this out, we'll have to leave things behind.

The handful of bizarre weapons we have no idea how to use get ditched first. The sleeping bags go next. Then some of the cans of food get taken out. I don't particularly agree with that one since that's the number one reason other tributes might raid the cabin, but as Thomiah puts it, "there's plenty to eat out there if we look, we'll never go hungry." We redistribute what's left so everyone's carrying an equal amount and try again. This time it's manageable. I'm not planning to try and break any records, but if I have to bolt from something, I'm sure I can handle it even with this extra weight.

Once that's done, we try to hide any evidence that the place was ever occupied. Everything we couldn't pack either gets stored in the cabinets or left in the bathroom so it can't be seen from windows. Any garbage we find, we take with us; we'll hide it somewhere discreet. I hate to litter in this beautiful place, but most of it's artificially made and the Gamemakers might clean it up for us anyway. Plus, even if we use the trash can as it's intended to be used, that could be taken as a sign of other tributes. Don't even get me started on what might happen if we left any garbage on the table or floor.

Then, as the sun finishes rising and a new day graces us with its presence, the three of us march out, bags slung over our shoulders and weapons in hand.

We wanted to pretend to be Careers. Now, we'll need to see if we can act like them.

Author's Notes:

-Night One is complete! Sure, it might have bled a little into Day Two in the process, but I sort of ran out of ideas on what I could do when a good portion of tributes are either asleep or resting. Either way, the first day/night cycle has passed.

-With two exceptions, now every tribute left alive has gotten at least one in-Games, non-Bloodbath POV scene. Those two characters (points to you for remembering which ones) will get their chances to shine next chapter, which will kick off Day Two.

-That's about it right now. See you guys next chapter!