CALLUM ROSENCRANS- Malcolm Royden
Weird to think Callum had his own life before the Games. I knew he had his girlfriend and the whole thing where they murdered her mother. What a story that must have been. There must have been years of choices and incidents that led to that moment. What a twisting, intricate story to be cut short because of a slip of paper from a bowl.
Hlenn Rambutan- District Eleven mentor
Actions always come back around. Stevie and Callum killed someone and then someone killed them. That was a surface interpretation, anyway. Really it started earlier and wasn't nearly so clean. Stevie's mother abused her child and ended up slain by her. Then her own children ended up killed because of their reaction to her mother. Abuse goes farther than one generation. It poisons an entire family, both perpetrator and victim.
District Eleven
We all said Callum was no good. At last he'd proven it. Stevie always seemed like such a good girl. It was unimaginable how Callum twisted her until she did something like that. At least the Capitol was able to restore her health for a few days before she died.
BROCK CARVER- Alice Mason
I had to hand it to Brock. For a twelve-year-old thrown into the Games because of Two's ignorant biases he proved himself to be gold. Joke was on Two, really. If they'd waited six more years they might have had a Victor.
DECIDUOUS STOWERCRAFT- Tyler Alvarez
It's an intangible sadness to mourn something that never had a chance to be. I'd never know if Deciduous and I would have grown to love each other. There had never been any chance for that in the Games. All we had were a few moments together that we shared before those could be taken, too. My only comfort was that life had already left me too jaded to believe it might happen.
Clair Mushroom- District Seven mentor
It wasn't enough for the Capitol to take our childhoods. They took our adulthoods as well by giving us children each year and putting the blame on us when they murdered them. Each year it seemed kinder that I'd let Oaken die. As hard as this was for me, it would have been worse for him.
District Seven
Thanks to the intervention of the Stowercraft family Jude was given the best care and recovered from his coma. When he learned of Deciduous' death he incited a riot. It was quickly quelled and Jude was executed. If Petra had become mayor Seven would have been blessed by her leadership. She would have successfully negotiated for safer working conditions and increased medical care for the people of Seven. Hundreds of children who would otherwise have been forced into labor would have graduated high school. But that never happened. When Petra Ridley was fifteen years old she was murdered.
Tabitha Sparks- District Three female (15)
We stumbled through the dark streets, Richard trying not to jostle Skada as he carried her half bride-style and half thrown over his shoulder. I walked beside her, urgently shushing her when she seemed about to launch into another drunken and very loud tangent.
"Shh, gotta be quiet," I whispered.
Skada's face twisted into an attempted imitation of my concerned expression. "Shhhhh, gotta be quiet," she whispered back with amusement.
"So where are we even going?" Irina asked.
"Far away," Lester said. "Just... let's just get as far away from the Careers as possible."
Nene pointed out into the night. We were already at the end of the row of houses and I couldn't see anything but open land where she was pointed. "How about that camp over there?"
"What camp?" I asked.
"See, way out there? There's a teepee or something," Nene said.
"Do you have bat eyes or something?" Irina asked, squinting.
"Guess so," Nene shrugged.
"Let's try it," Lester said.
Finally, when were were about fifty feet away, I saw what Nene had been pointing at. There was a teepee out there, mostly hidden by a dip in the ground and by its distance from the main town. Actually there were a dozen teepees. In hindsight I shouldn't have been surprised to be reminded that the Wild West was not exclusively inhabited by white people.
"Wow, this is so cool," Irina said as Richard carefully set Skada down. "I used to read about Native Americans when I was little but I never actually met one. At least that I know of."
Skada had barely hit the ground when sponsor gifts started raining from the sky.
"Awesome, this place is lucky!" Irina said as she ducked out of the way of a gift that almost hit her on the head since she couldn't see it in the dark. "It's for you," she said, handing it to me.
"Hope it's a flashlight," I said.
"I kinda hope it's antiseptic," Lester commented.
I opened the box and was pleased to see it glowed slightly on the inside, letting me see the contents. I took them out one at a time.
"It's... a shoelace, a rubber chicken, and a wooden snake," I announced. "And some plants. Maybe it's medicine."
"It's weed," Nene said. We all turned to look at her. "I have cool friends," she said. I noticed then that she had her own package, which she opened.
"It's a shotgun!" she said.
"Is not," Irina said, shoving past me to look at the soup can-sized box Nene held.
"Just kidding. It's an orange. Good for vitamin C, though," Nene said.
"We have one more," Lester said. "It's for Skada. Let's hope someone sent us something that's not totally stupid." He opened the package and sighed happily.
"Finally. It's antiseptic."
Veda Keate- District Nine female (16)
When something jarred me awake I went from asleep to totally aware in a split second. I shot up in bed, my eyes racing to the door to see if someone was coming for me. I sat panting, my chest heaving with the adrenaline that just the thought had induced, and tried to collect my thoughts. It wasn't a sound that had awakened me. I sifted through my senses and realized it had been the heat and acrid smell in the air.
I ran to the window and looked out. Across the street the row of houses was on fire. Starting at the end of the row the first house was totally burned and the others were following one by one. The Arena looked like an eerie nightmarescape, half daytime and half pitch-black. For someone from my background I'd say it looked like Hell.
It didn't take long for me to figure out what was going on. The Careers were tired of looking through dozens of houses and had decided to cut the Gordian knot. They'd already torched one row and mine was the next up.
I have to get out of here. I ran to the door and toward the stairs. I had to get out and find somewhere to hide until they were done burning houses. If I snuck around them in the dark I could hide in the ashes of an already-burnt house.
At the bottom of the stairs I ran across the bar room. I ran through the door to the entry room and saw Malcolm just coming through the front door. He looked at me and charged forward.
He sees me oh my gosh he's gonna kill me get away from him.
I turned and fled back into the bar room. Don't let him see you! I threw myself behind the bar. As I hit the ground I realized I had just gotten myself killed. Instead of running up the stairs where I could have gone out a window I'd run behind the bar in a room with no rear exit. Malcolm could hear I hadn't gone up the stairs and he knew right where I had to be. I'd panicked and I was going to die.
I desperately looked around for anything I could use as a weapon, though I wasn't sure if I could even use it against someone. All I saw was rows and rows of bottles. Malcolm's head appeared over the bar and I gasped. He looked down at me impassively and his head disappeared. I heard his boots on the wood floor as he walked around the bar to kill me.
I grabbed a bottle and yanked out the cork with lunatic strength. I poured the liquid into my mouth and very nearly vomited at the bitter chemical acid that hit my tongue. I clapped my hands over my mouth and forced it to stay in. I whimpered and alcohol shot up my nose, bringing tears to my eyes.
Malcolm's legs came into view. He looked down at me as I quivered. He brought up his gun to shoot me right between the eyes. I raised myself up on my knees and spat a mouthful of alcohol into his face.
Malcolm reared back, bringing his gun hand to his chest and wiping at his eyes with the other one. My fingers closed around the neck of a bottle.
Thou shalt not kill, something inside me said.
There is a time to heal and a time to kill, something else said.
I brought the bottle sideways into Malcolm's head. I expected it to shatter like in the movies and was horrified when it was Malcolm's head that broke instead. I felt something in his skull dent and he went down like a puppet with cut strings. Whatever in me that had driven me on took over and I knelt over Malcolm's chest, hitting him again and again. His head jerked with each impact, flecks of blood chipping loose and sparkling in the air. There came a moment when I couldn't recognize the thing under me as a human face. At that moment I stopped.
Malcolm Royden- District One male (18)
The girl from Nine fought dirty. The cult girl with her long dresses and her submissive quietness fought to win and fought to kill. I never would have imagined it but I had to give her credit.
13th place: Malcolm Royden- head smashed by Veda
With voting Games my role is a little different. I'm not in charge of the death order. I consider myself to be in Caesar's place, trying to present each Tribute as best I can so people like them. I always feel bad when I mess up because my failure to write someone well gets them death votes. I tried to play to Malcolm's strengths these last few chapters by showing how he was willing to do anything to win. Unfortunately that backfired and people started disliking him because he got too many kills. His votes slipped down to -4 (though he did have multiple life votes) and I had to kill him. Sorry I did Mal ugly, Sparky. He did last a good chunk into the Games, though not as far as a Career generally does. Personally I liked him. He was the rare Career actually willing to do ugly work and he had a reason for his surliness.
The circus kids got a lot of sponsors throughout the Games and to save time I did them all at once. Someone wanted to send weed and I was like "well shoot I guess it probably wouldn't be illegal in Panem" so I sent it. It will not be important to the Games, don't worry. It's more of a gag gift that will be mentioned here and then never again.