Veda Keate- District Nine female (16)
My accommodations had incurred quite a change since I left the cathouse. The Arena was a burned-over wasteland and all that was still standing was the buildings directly around the Careers' camp. I obviously wasn't going there so that left the various piles of ashy rubble. Fire is rarely as complete as people think and there were still sizable chunks of wood and building material in most of the ruins. There was plenty of room for the Tributes who were surely hiding like rats.
I knelt by an unstable-looking pile of charred boards and roofing tiles and tried to scrape out a little tunnel I could wriggle into. A few nails stuck out haphazardly, reminding me of the danger of tetanus or whatever other horrible germs lurked on rusty old nails. On the bright side it might slow down the Careers. Alice or Talise wouldn't want to risk a later injury to get a quick kill whereas I would be running for my life and would be willing to take that chance. I found an area with a lot of nails and started to painstakingly pick my way deeper into the rubble, wiggling in between heavy slabs of wood and scraping my back and stomach through ash and across rough planks. The light behind me started to filter through a cloud of gray dust and then to dim entirely as I got farther in. If I ever got out of the Arena I was sure I'd need my lungs cleaned out. I'd probably end up with cancer or something.
About two body lengths into the rubble my head broke into an open space. I squirmed a few feet further and found myself in a little room with enough clearance to lift my head and enough room to awkwardly turn around in a circle. Once I wasn't blocking the light anymore I could dimly see, as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, that a support beam had become wedged in a section of roof as it fell and made a little cave in the bowels of the ruined house. I hadn't been able to see the room from the outside, though, and that meant the Careers couldn't either. They would have to crawl inside to see me and I didn't think they'd want to. If they did I honestly might be able to kill one of them, I thought without much confidence. It seemed arrogant but it was just that they wouldn't be able to see me and they'd be cramped in the small tunnel. It was a very narrow bottleneck and I might be able to smash their head on something while they were still trying to squeeze in. Well, hopefully that doesn't happen and I never find out.
Once I was safely wedged into my hole I went over my supplies. I had my water and then the carpetbag full of peanuts and other little snacks I'd found in the bar. It wasn't much- I estimated it would last about two days. I could live for a week or two after that, theoretically, but actually it would be more like "slowly dying" than "living". And that was just the food. After the water ran out
I'd only have three days.
I jerked my head up when the light from the tunnel suddenly cut off. I burst out in nervous laughter when I saw it was a sponsor parachute. It drifted sideways down the tunnel, dodging nails and sharp bits, and came to rest right in front of me.
I opened the package, which glowed faintly to let me see it in the darkness. Inside I found a lidded bowl full of chicken soup and two pieces of bread. Just looking at it I almost cried. It looked so normal- just the kind of food you might eat on a lazy day with whoever else is home. The kind of food you'd eat in a house, not a pile of rubble.
Nene Palmer- District Six female (18)
They say in a survival situation your real self comes out. I still didn't know what my real self was like. It was hard to sort out what was actually "me". Was it my heart or was it my mind? My mind couldn't understand how to relate to other people or all the rules everyone else seemed to know so easily but my heart wanted to. So which one was me? The nature or the nurture? I'd never known and all I could do was hope that if I faked it long enough it would eventually become true. Like Pinocchio- if I just tried long enough to be a real girl then one day I would.
My allies seemed to think I was one of them. It was nice how they were so open with me even though they'd only known me for a week. I could tell they were a little closer with each other but that wasn't out of meanness. They just had all sorts of inside jokes and old stories and things I hadn't been there for. It was like I was a new hire to the circus and I was one of the family already but I was still a little baby and they didn't know me that well.
It was too bad Irina was upset but in a horrible way it was kind of helpful for me since it was very clear what she was feeling and that made it easier for me to interact with her.
"Maybe I can learn to fight and I can help you," I said. Lots of times when people are really good at something they like to show it off and teach other people. Maybe Irina would feel better if she had someone she was clearly a lot better than.
"You have any experience with a whip?" Irina asked. I wasn't sure but she didn't sound mad at me, just kind of... distant, somehow. Maybe she didn't think I could fight.
"I was in a few fights in the gang," I said. I left out the part where it never went past a few people flashing switchblades and yelling insults at each other until everyone drifted away because we didn't want to actually get hurt.
"Maybe we could learn a different weapon just until you get really good at whips again," I said. "You probably trained in more than one, right?"
Irina's face picked up a bit. "I guess I did learn knives and shields, too," she said.
"I bet we could make a shield out of this stuff. It's really thick," I said, laying a hand on the rawhide that walled our teepee.
"So eager to kill people?" Irina asked with a funny smile.
"It's just... it's easier for me than most people. I guess if any of us should do it, it should be me," I said. I looked at Irina nervously, hoping she wouldn't think I meant I liked to kill people. It was just that I didn't get the bad feelings most people got when they hurt someone. I didn't want to hurt people but when I did I often didn't even realize it.
"That must be nice sometimes," Irina said softly. And I guessed that sometimes it was.
Lester Browning- District Three male (16)
Our little camp was almost entirely packed up. While the wolves had respected the fire and hadn't attacked our teepee, they had spent the entire night prowling around looking for a way to get to us. Somehow I thought that sooner or later they'd think of a way and once they did our little fire wouldn't stop them. So we were heading back into town, Careers or no Careers. But at this point there were five of us and only two of them. What with Irina being a Career in her own right I didn't think the Careers would come for us for a while.
"It's so hot," Tabitha said as she wiped her forehead. Poor Tabitha, the palest of us, was getting redder every hour no matter how much she tried to hide in the tent or find shade. She would have been glad to know that if I didn't know how sore she must be I would think she looked pretty funny.
"We're going to need more water soon anyway," Nene commented as she hefted our last bottle.
By the time we walked across the hot plain back to town the bottle was only half-full. We'd left just before dawn, as soon as the wolves slunk off to avoid the sunlight like canine vampires. When we reached town it was still dark enough to hopefully hide our movements from the Careers.
"Let's head into there and regroup," Irina said, pointing to the last building in the row to the right of the Cornucopia.
"The Careers are down there," Nene said, pointing to the general store.
"Yeah but I don't even think they'll come for us," Skada said. "We're such a big alliance."
"There might be stuff we can use," Tabitha offered.
We crept into the building and found that it was a blacksmith shop. Wagon wheels hung on the walls and everywhere there were weird wooden tools that had some purpose an old-timey Western person would sure know.
"What's this?" Tabitha asked. She stood above a rusty stain on the ground.
"I think maybe you shouldn't ask," I said. Someone else had found this place and it hadn't ended well for them. Hopefully that wouldn't be the case for us.
"If we see the Careers out and about we'll know it's safe to sneak to the other buildings and look for food," Skada said as she dumped out our supplies.
"This place should be pretty easy to secure," Irina said as she poked around the walls and doorways. There were plenty of heavy things we could use to bar the door and tons of weapons lying around.
"I'll go get some more water before it's light out," Nene said. She took an empty bottle and walked outside. A minute later she came back in with a full bottle. She set it down next to our half-full one.
Two no-death chapters in a row because the votes are pretty close so I decided to hold off and make sure things are steady before I kill someone who's only down by one vote. But lots of potential deaths lined up here so I have my bases covered no matter who you pick...