Talise Cicero- District Four female- 16
There weren't many building Alice and I hadn't explored. When we finally just couldn't stand to sit in the general store for one more minute we lit out for one of the last untouched buildings at the far end of the row across the street from us. It had big double-wide doors that swung open like barn doors and an especially high ceiling. I assumed it was probably used for storing wagons.
Alice reached the doors first. She pulled one open. As she looked inside her hands flew to her mouth.
"What is it?" I asked, running up behind her.
Alice bounced on her toes.
"Horsies!"
I looked over her shoulder and saw that the building was a stable. Two rows of stalls lined the long building, most of them empty. Six of them, however, were not. The stable contained six horses, some of them looking up at us and others placidly nibbling at scattered piles of hay. One dark brown horse flicked its ears as it walked toward us with what seemed like a curious expression. Another shiny black horse pawed at some hay, its hoof making a sharp clack against the stable floor.
"Oh my gosh, we could have burned them," I whispered. I was sad about the other Tributes and all, a little bit, but I'd never felt so guilty as when I saw I could have burned six innocent horses alive without even meaning to. I could hardly bear to think about the six horses screaming and whinnying as they slowly burned to death trapped inside their stalls.
Alice rushed ahead of me to the closest horse, a pale gray one. "So pretty!" she said as she petted its nose.
"I guess they were hoping we'd find them right away," I said, noting that there were six horses and career packs usually had six numbers.
"Horsie horsie horsie," Alice said as she clambered over the wooden stall and stroked the gray horse down its side.
This is... big. I never paid that much attention in history class but I knew horses could win or lose a war. What was it that guy said? "My kingdom for a horse"? It was some king or something. Probably I'd know his name if he hadn't lost the war because he didn't have a horse.
I looked up and down the stalls and saw some saddles hanging from the wall in the far corner. I walked over and tried to pick one up, almost tipping myself forward into the wall when I realized how heavy it was. I adjusted my grip and hauled it over to Alice.
"Here, I found saddles," I said. "You know how to put these things on?" The saddle, a big heavy leather seat with straps and buckles everywhere, wasn't exactly self-explanatory.
"Not really," Alice said.
"Careful, it's heavy," I said as I handed it over the stall.
"Well I know this part goes here," Alice said. She hefted the saddle onto the horse's back. It flicked its ears but didn't protest. "Then you just... attach all these things," she said. She ducked under the horse and started fiddling around.
"If that thing stomps you you'll probably die," I said.
"The Gamemakers obviously put these here for us. They're not going to be mean."
Alice's faith in the Gamemakers proved true and before long she had the saddle clicked into place as far as I could tell.
"You sure that's how it goes?" I asked.
"Let's find out," she said. She put a foot in the stirrup and awkwardly belly-flopped onto the horse's back. She sat up with a huge grin.
"I can't believe I'm riding a horse," she said.
After a few more minutes I'd saddled up a black horse and was sitting astride its back. I'd never realized how tall horses were. I felt unstable and a little nervous and a little queasy. The horse wasn't walking but just its little movements swayed me back and forth and made me feel like I was on a boat. But it was fun.
"Let's get out of here and go raise some hell," I said.
Tyler Alvarez- District Ten male (18)
One Career was down and I had two more to take care of. Alice and Talise were still together and that actually worked out perfectly for me. The shotgun had two shells in it when I found it. I'd used one on Juniper but the thing about shotguns is you can shoot more than one thing at the same time. Chances were I'd just wound one or both of them but a wound like that wouldn't be easy to treat in the Arena. I was hoping for a clean kill but if Alice or Talise ended up dying days later of a thousand tiny suppurating wounds, that was what they volunteered for.
I looked up suddenly, spurred by some sense of being watched. Not a second had gone by before I knew I was thinking of something more distant than the Careers. Everywhere around me there were cameras, though some had surely been destroyed by the Careers, which gave me wicked pleasure. On the other side of those cameras the entire nation was watching me and all the other Tributes. I had a sudden urge to make some obscene gesture. People so often said that if the Capitol only knew about us and how we lived that they'd help us. The Capitol knows all of that. They see visibly malnourished and sickly children come to the Arena every year and all they do is take bets on who will die first. The Capitolites aren't passively ignorant or out-of-touch. They are actively cruel. I would never forget that and I would never lose sight of the fact that the world was run by people like that.
At the sight of movement in the distance I ducked behind the barber shop I was outside of. Far by the horizon I saw two large shapes come out of one of the buildings on the other side of the town. It looked at first like two giant mutts. As my eyes started picking out the details I saw the Gamemakers had changed the status quo on all of us. It was two horses I saw walking out of a building, two riders on their backs. It could only be the Careers.
I hiked my shotgun up on my chest and clutched it close to me as I watched the Careers move and started to make plans. I would never know what would have happened had they come closer, because instead they went around the other side of the stable and disappeared behind the buildings. But I knew where they were at least and I could start circling around to meet up with them and see how much damage one shotgun shell could do.
As I crossed the street I passed a water trough. My bottle was pretty close to empty so I paused to fill it up. I took a drink of the lukewarm water. As I swallowed it I noticed an unpleasant aftertaste. Probably the trough was rusty but with my luck some mouse might have drowned in it. I crept between a clothing store and a hardware store and kept up my pursuit of the Careers.
A few minutes later I felt a cramp develop in my leg. It came on faster than they normally did and was almost knifelike in its intensity. I sat down to massage it out and was hit with another cramp in my chest, even worse than the first.
I am going to die.
The thought was sudden, out-of-place, and completely unshakable. I am dying. It was like God had come down from the sky and passed a truth onto me. I found myself on my side without remembering when I'd fallen over. All I knew was that I couldn't breathe and I was going to die. Somewhere in my scattered throughts I had the impression of poisoned water and then it was just trying to breath and failing to breathe and the thoughts fading away.
Nene Palmer- District Six female (18)
I'm thirsty.
I took a drink from our new full water bottle.
"So the lion says 'just because you don't know the right answer, you don't have to get sore'," Tabitha finished her joke. Lester groaned- he'd probably heard it before, I guess- while the rest of us started laughing. It took me an instant longer to understand but I started laughing right when everyone else did so I wouldn't stick out. It was funny, though.
Ouch, cramp. I rubbed at my arm with my other hand. I should probably drink more water. People get cramps when they're dehydrated. Beside me the conversation had turned and we'd spent the last few minutes planning what we'd eat first when we got home. My pick was pancakes with whipped cream. Tabitha had never had whipped cream on pancakes and immediately changed her answer.
It's kind of stuffy in here. I tried to get up and open a window and found that I couldn't stand. My legs were both so stiff I just toppled forward when I tried to rise.
"What was that?" Irina asked in confusion as I face-planted. I landed on my stomach and immediately felt a surge of panic at the sudden and crushing lack of oxygen.
I can't breathe, I tried to say but nothing came out. I weakly stirred as I tried to flip myself to my side.
"Is she having a seizure?" Skada asked as Lester rushed to my side.
I can't breathe I can't breathe
Lester had said something but I hadn't processed it. Every bit of my energy was desperately trying to get my lungs to inflate.
"She's not breathing," Lester said. He tilted my head back and gently moved my jaw forward. A trickle of air went into my lungs and my chest heaved as I sucked it in.
"The water," Tabitha's voice came from somewhere to my side. Tears leaked from my eyes as I felt the unspeakable sensation of having forgotten how to breathe. My body kept screaming at me to give it air but my brain didn't remember how.
Lester bent over me and put his lips to mine. He forcefully breathed into my mouth and I felt my chest rise. I wanted to thank him and beg him to continue but I could only lie almost motionless as he kept breathing for me over and over.
I tried to warn Lester when my stomach cramped more intensely than any cramp before it and I felt that vertigo-like certainty. Instead I helplessly stood by as I curled forward and vomited. Luckily Lester had come up for air just then. Water spew splashed over his chin and my chest. As I tried to suck in a breath another cramp wracked me and a smaller spray dribbled over my lips. I took a tiny breath, still remembering how to do it, and the breaths became larger and larger until I was sucking in air and trying to control my tears.
"I'm sorry," I whimpered as Lester wiped himself off.
"It's okay, just breathe," he said. The acidic sour smell of vomit tinged the air.
Half a minute later I was still crying. I didn't know how to explain it to any of the others. I didn't even know how to rationalize it to myself. It wasn't even about the poison anymore. It was that Lester saved me. I'd thought the others were the circus kids and I was just the tagalong but when I was about to die they pulled me back. If I lived that meant one of them had to die. They cared about me enough to take that chance. I wasn't the tagalong. I was one of them.
10th place: Tyler Alvarez- poisoned by Alice and Talise
Tyler was never intended to win. His form said he would definitely die and that it would likely be trying to take out the Careers. He DID get one but Talise and Alice are cunning and got him in a sneak attack. I tend to get happier Tributes than the average SYOT so Tyler was good for some of that gritty angst. He had plenty of reason to be cynical and it turns out he was entirely right. Thanks neonfunerals13 for the grumpy old man of the Games
Meta note: last chapter the votes called for a circus kid to die, hence me putting the poison there. Then just before I wrote the chapter the votes changed and I was stuck in a corner with the poisoned water sitting right there waiting for the inevitable. After mulling it over for a while I ended up doing this, which did at least make some nice development for Nene. Though it appears the circus kids are always lucky, rest assured it's coming soon. The votes evened out for the moment but they will definitely change with Tyler's death and they won't escape this time. Also, a little meta knowledge: Nene was not the one on the chopping block. I used her as the victim so the actual near-death Tributes wouldn't be alerted and perhaps solicit last-minute votes. Who actually was an inch from death? Wouldn't you like to know ;)