NENE PALMER- Irina Sokolova

I couldn't take it. Every day that went by I failed more of my allies. Nene was the only one I hadn't been worrying about protecting, at least not as much as the others. She could take care of herself and I always thought if any of us was to outlive me it would be her. Now one more person was lost forever. I'd barely even gotten to know Nene and now I would never have a chance.

Lancia Audren- District Six mentor

You can't ever plan for the future in the Games. Even if one day you have everything you need you can just drop dead in an instant. Either Max or Nene could have won. Neither of them did. That's just the way the Games play out.

District Six

Cults rise and fall. Eventually the one that imprisoned Max would die off as people got tired or found something else to believe in. Eventually another would replace it. So few of us had ever understood Nene. It always seemed like she ran on different programming than the rest of us. She was always trying to learn from us and if we'd had a chance we might have learned from her.

Tabitha Sparks, District Three female (15)

I shouldn't have been so loud. Irina already felt bad enough. But I just couldn't stop. It wasn't just a dead body underneath me. It was Lester. My best friend. My big brother. So much part of my life that I didn't see how the world could keep turning without him in it. It wasn't fair the sun was still shining like nothing had happened. I didn't want it to shine if Lester couldn't see it.

I didn't know what to do. There was a dead body on my lap. It was cold and stiff. Its face wore a slack expression. No trace of Lester shone through. It was just a dead piece of wood. But still I clung to it because it was the only piece of Lester I had left.

"It's gonna be okay," Irina said, half-shouting and half-sobbing. She lurked a few feet away from me, her hands drawn up to her chest as she wavered between trying to comfort me and worrying that anything she did would make things worse. "It's gonna be okay," she said over and over, saying something meaningless because she had nothing meaningful to odder. She looked strangely like Nene, all caught up in herself and trying to find order in a rigid ritual.

I buried my face in my hands and wound my fingers in my hair. Hardly knowing what I was doing, I sprang to my feet and threw a towel over Lester- over Lester's body. I wadded a bit of shirt into my fist and squeezed as hard as I could. Like some horrible parody of my clown face, I forced a neutral expression for Irina's sake.

"Let's just get out of here," I said, surprising myself with how level my voice came out. "Let's just kill Alice and get out of here."

"But you-" Irina started, stepping forward to embrace me.

"Let's just get out of here!" I screamed. Irina jumped back. I barely saw her. My vision seemed blurred at the edges. Everything seemed red somehow.

"Yes, let's!"

Alice's voice came from the other side of the door. It rattled as she banged on it.

"Little pigs, little pigs..." she called. My face broke into a smile and I started laughing out of nowhere. I just couldn't. My best friend just died and a madwoman was yelling nursery rhymes and honestly it was kind of funny.

"Let me come in!"

Irina Sokolova, District One female (18)

Alice beat on the door tauntingly. If she'd wanted to break it down she would have kicked it the way we were trained in the Academy. That would come soon. She was just taking a few minutes to have some fun.

She's going to get in. It was a run-down old western town. The wood was worn and the hinges were rusty and most of all, the Gamemakers wanted to be able to watch people break down doors. That alone was enough for me to know she was going to get in. But as soon as she started kicking at the door I knew that was just what we needed her to do. I leaned into my plan with all my mind. It felt like a miracle having something I could think about other than Lester.

"Quick, get behind the chair," I told Tabitha, who was laughing and crying in a way that deeply disturbed me. I shooed her behind the heavy barber chair and crouched next to her as I hurriedly packed nails and gunpowder into a glass jar.

The door shuddered as Alice started kicking it. I could see the hinges started to wiggle as I screwed the top into place. I lit the fuse as one hinge popped out, leaving the door hanging by a thread.

"Take cover," I said to Tabitha.

The door fell with a terrific crash, revealing Alice wearing a ridiculous fox mask. Where does she even get these things? I wondered as I threw the bomb. She drew up her gun as I threw the bomb. She squinted to take aim and saw the bomb just before it exploded.

Alice "Marionette" Mason, District Two female (17)

Where do they keep getting these bombs?

I hid my face behind the butt stock of the rifle as the bomb exploded. It smacked me in the nose and forehead as the shockwave hit me, splitting the stock of the rifle open and breaking the weapon almost in half. My ears started ringing all over again as I fell back on my butt. There were sharp pains all over my body. As the smoke cleared I saw nails embedded at the site of each pain. I could taste metal from the nail that had pierced a bit of exposed cheek. Wow, wouldn't it have been super metal if one of them had nailed my mask to my face? The incongruous thought was cut short as the smoke cleared and I saw Irina casting a whip right at my face.

I threw up an arm and painfully took the whip across my forearm. Of course once it wound around me I yanked it. Equally of course, Irina anticipated that and leaned back. I hissed as the whip tightened around my arm. I reached into my pocket with my other hand and slashed out with my knife. The thick fibers of the whip didn't snap but I did score a slash in it. Irina kicked me in the side and I fought through the pain to swipe my knife at her ankle, slashing it. As she stumbled I reared back and donkey-kicked her in the hip. She yelped as her leg folded and she fell almost on top of me. I swung my arm sideways to stab her in the temple.

Another arm snaked out and grabbed mine, pulling me away from Irina's head. Tabitha wasn't trained and wasn't a fighter at all but she was still a distraction. I pulled her forward by her grip on my arm and headbutted her. She lost her grip and tumbled backwards. I stabbed at her in a backhanded motion and felt my knife stick in somewhere.

"Oh, God!"

I looked back at Irina as she went feral.

Irina Sokolova. District One female (18)

It really does happen in slow motion. I saw the knife glitter as Alice's arm arced backwards. It hit Tabitha's chest and sunk in far enough that I knew it went between the ribs. She lost her grip on Alice's arm and I saw her pupils dilate as she fell backwards. Her hands went to her chest as blood started to seep out between her fingers. She looked out at nothing with empty panic.

She's not dead yet I still have time. I turned back to Alice as the humanity left my body. But not much time. No plans. No time. Just a handful of minutes to save my only friend or die trying.

CLIFFHANGER! lol. Next chapter will finish this epic battle.

Also just for fun here's a non-SYOT story looking for some readers

s/13947181/1/Zombie-Apocalypse-The-131st-Annual-Hunger-Games