Juniper Triton- District Four male (18)

It wasn't a great day for the Careers. We'd only killed five people in the Bloodbath and one of those was an accident. Everyone was looking forward to the first night hunting but it wasn't a very conducive Arena for it. There were so many places to hide and there was no need to start a fire to stay warm and plenty of water sources- almost all the buildings had a water tank behind them for horses. This was shaping up to be a long Games.

It wasn't a great day for me either. While no one was actively bragging about their kills there was an atmosphere around camp that I couldn't imitate. All my allies were planning how to kill more people and how to find hiding Tributes and I... wasn't. It was my shot that killed Stevie, or at least I thought it was- it was hard to tell in the chaos. It was hardly a kill- more of an accident. But even that didn't sit right with me. Not only had I not enjoyed killing Stevie, I actually regretted it. I didn't have the time to go over it all but I could already tell it wasn't for me. I wasn't a Career and it was getting harder to pretend I was.

I didn't tell anyone when I slipped away. They would have wanted me to take someone with. Even a Career can get jumped. If I went with someone else I'd have to pretend I wanted to hunt. I wasn't sure what I wanted but it wasn't that. I snuck out the back door of our camp in the general store and started slinking down the row of buildings. The moon and stars were beautiful in the clear unlit air. It was a wild, desolate environment, the opposite of everything about Four's lush beaches, but I could see how people would enjoy living in such a place. It seemed untamed, like it had been here for millennia and didn't care at all about a passing empire like Panem.

So what am I doing? I wasn't a Career. I'd left that behind. I wasn't a merman. The ocean was far away from here. All I was was a boy with a gun. I wasn't even sure I wanted that anymore. Looking at it just made me think of what else I could do with it.

When I saw the boy he was quietly prying a window open on one of the houses most of the Tributes were probably hiding in. I raised the gun and aimed it at him without thinking. Wasn't that what I was supposed to do? Stay alive?

No. I don't want to do that. No more pretending. It was Christobal, I saw when I squinted. He'd just lost his ally. I'd just lost my allies. Not really the same circumstance but maybe he'd look past that. All I could think of was how wonderfully he'd sung in his interview. I didn't want to be the one who killed someone who could sing like that.

"Hey," I said. Christobal jerked at the noise. He turned and froze at the sight of my gun.

I put it down. "You like singing," I said.

"..Yeah?" he said.

"Me, too."

Tyler Alvarez- District Ten male (18)

The house we were in was better than anywhere I'd ever lived. It was mostly one big room with a stove, a table and chairs, and some cabinets. On the other side of the room there was a couch and a bookshelf. The bathroom was out in the yard. For boys that wasn't really a problem but a felt a little bad for the ladies. Overall it was a cozy place. It was a little painful to think about. Here in the Arena there was an empty house that no one had ever lived in and that would have been paradise for someone like me. I'd have been happy with just the one room.

"What's 'salt pork'?" Deciduous asked, coming out of the little nook in the wall that held some dry food and odds and ends. He called it a 'pantry' which sounded pretty fancy to me.

"I dunno. I'll eat it though," I said. I was rummaging through the cabinets looking for anything dangerous. We'd already found a few knives so at least we weren't helpless.

"How do you open it?" Deciduous turned the can all over, looking for the tab.

"It's an old can. Guess you need a can opener," I said.

"Right. People really used those. That's so dumb. It's so obvious to put a tab on," Deciduous said. "You got a can opener in there?"

I pushed my hand through the various cooking things in the drawer. "I don't really know," I said. "I don't know what they look like."

"Let me see," Deciduous said. He shooed me aside and peered into the drawer. After a moment a sheepish expression spread on his face. "I don't know either."

"Let's try this one," I said, taking out a sort of sharp scoop-shaped thing.

"Not that one," Deciduous said. "My grandmother had one of those. It's to scoop melons."

"Why would you need to scoop melons?" I asked.

"I don't know, I'm not a grandmother," Deciduous said with a hapless shrug.

"This'll work," I said, holding up a little knife. It was so small we'd passed it by when we took out useful stuff.

"You're just going to cut it open?" Deciduous asked.

"Like this," I said. I put the can on the table and rested the tip of the knife on the top. I smacked my hand down onto the handle. The knife popped through the metal just a little as my palm ached at the impact with the handle. I pulled the knife out and we surveyed the damage.

"It went through a little," Deciduous commented. "You just gonna do that all the way around?"

"Guess so," I said. I set the knife on the edge of the cut and smacked it down again. Little by little I worked my way around the can lid, my palm getting sorer as I went. After a few painful moments I carefully fished the detached top from the can and set it aside.

"There we are. One can of salt pork," I said. Chunks of brownish meat looked up at us from inside the can. They smelled overpoweringly of salt and brine and very little like pork.

"I'll try one," Deciduous said. He took out a chunk and popped it in his mouth. His expression was unsure but not disgusted.

"Tastes like Spam," he said.

Nene Palmer- District Six female (18)

Everything was wrong. Some of it was obvious, like Tabitha and Richard crying. Obviously everyone was sad but I couldn't tell which ones were hiding it and which ones were expressing it in other more subtle ways and might want to be asked if they wanted to talk about it. As for me, I felt that coiling confusing unease I got when something was wrong and I couldn't fix it. Elle and Zara were dead. None of us could fix it and everyone was sad and I didn't know what to do.

When Dad is upset he cleans things. That was something I could do. I could go through our supplies and organize things and make our house more cozy. We were all gathered in a little two-story house on the second floor so we could peek out the windows and see the Careers coming from a long way off. We'd picked one at the edge of town to hopefully get some distance.

"I'm going to go through our supplies if anyone else wants to," I said.

"I'll come help," Skada said. She stood up from where she'd been watching Tabitha and Richard with an expression even I could tell was uncertain. I didn't know my allies as well as they knew each other. From what I could tell it looked like Skada was a more private mourner. Everyone deals with death differently. I learned that pretty quickly.

"I don't know what to do so I'm just going to do chores," I said as Skada and I reached the pantry.

"Yeah," she said with a sad expression. "I guess I just want to get my mind off it."

There was plenty of food in the pantry, everything from canned fruit to a dried meat. No one was going to die of natural causes in this Games. That also meant it might be one of the longer ones. That was probably good for me. Most people got lonely and didn't like being dirty all the time. Neither of those things had ever bothered me.

"I am sorry about Elle and Zara," I said, since it had suddenly occurred to me that I might look callous. "I'm just not very expressive."

Skada waved her arm. "It's okay," she said. "I think we're all in shock. And we have to keep going even if we're sad."

It didn't take long to organize our supplies, since they were already organized in the pantry. Really it had just been an excuse to look busy.

"I guess that's all organized," Skada said. "You think we should make booby traps or something? In case the Careers come?"

"That's a great idea," I said. The Careers probably had some sort of system already in place to sweep the Arena and flush out hiding Tributes. They'd come to our house eventually. If we had some early warning systems in place we'd have time to clear out.

Five minutes later Skada and me were standing at the top of the stairs mapping out all the bottlenecks and entry points to booby-trap. Our house had a cellar with a ladder that could be folded up and tucked inside so that was the logical safe room. Every pathway leading to that point had to be sabotaged with everything we had. A few minutes later I was sprinkling shards of a broken vase onto a windowsill. Anyone who wanted to get into our house would have to pay in blood.

TIMELINE: First night in the Arena

Probably not many votes changing this time but you're welcome to change them if you want to!

Alliances because I want to remind myself:
Careers: Malcolm, Marionette, Talise, Brock

Circus alliance: Skada, Nene, Richard, Tabitha(ha), Lester
Tyler and Deciduous

Christobal and Juniper

I pondered so long about Spam and finally decided if the company didn't survive the Dark Days then someone else stole the name