AURELIA JACKSON- Ryx Marker
Aurelia was dead. People our age didn't last long. That didn't bode well for me.
SIOBHAN HEARSE- Tony Gear
They were right there. I almost had them. I could have gotten both my allies if I'd just stayed a little longer. They weren't even coming after me and Arthur. We weren't even on their minds. I could have saved Siobhan.
Fryderyk Zielinski- Cerise Dupin
Goodbye, my first love.
ANGUS PASTOR- Pik Reynolds
I would have thought I'd be the one to die in the Bloodbath. I was the one with the horrible luck. All things considered, Angus had had a good life until he got Reaped. Maybe my fortune would go up as much as his went down.
QUEENIE HESPERALOE- Andromeda Dior
There's a plant projected on the sky. This is life in Panem.
JOY WINCENTY- Camille Igawa
They didn't have to put his face up there. It never left my mind.
HARPER NEWMAN- Raina Ray
Good riddance and I didn't miss her. Harper had been this year's boogeyman and no one was sad she wasn't around to terrorize us. I did feel for her a little, though. I knew what it was like to fight your own brain.
Calvary Warsaw- District Ten mentor
Another year, another Bloodbath. Nothing I wasn't used to. I would never tell anyone, but after the first few years, you start to not think of them as people until a few days in. Like in those countries forever ago where they didn't name their kids until their first birthday, in case they died. And of course Queenie actually wasn't a person so that was nice.
District Ten
Dirty Dan never gave Sheriff Six-Shooter any trouble ever again. He hung up his pistol and retired. Natalie Salisbury spent a few weeks dodging angry relatives in the streets and after the first half-dozen rocks and bricks she nailed a blanket over her window and waited it out. But life went on and in the end they remembered who the real enemy was.
Nubu Sanders- District Twelve mentor
It was perverse how I valued the anxiety. Once I wasn't scared for my Tributes anymore, that meant they were dead. I wasn't scared for them anymore and I wished I still was.
District Twelve
The actual Joy Wincenty was never the same after Jay's death. He grew quieter, and more withdrawn, and older in mind as well as body. He was left with the ever-present compulsion to live up to the gift his brother gave along with an unavoidable feeling that he never could. Harper's uncle Kenner counseled her mother through her grief and continued to work toward understanding and a cure for those living in fractured realities.
Rachel Larson- District Six female
The sun was setting and I was still walking. The one time I actually wanted the weird switch thing and it didn't happen. When the Games started, I didn't charge in coolly and fearlessly, grabbing the things I needed and fighting anyone who got in my way. I jumped into the water in a graceless half-bellyflop and thrash-swam to the cover of the cattails. I'd been walking ever since.
I was shivering. I didn't notice it until it was pretty, well, noticeable. I looked up and saw the sliver of reddish light left as the sun rapidly disappeared. Immediately the air changed. It was like I could feel the heat seeping away. If felt like if I squinted at the air I could see it. Before I knew it my arms were crossed tight to my chest and I was vibrating.
Oh no.
All day long the water and air had been tolerably warm. I hadn't thought anything of it. I hadn't thought about what happens to the temperature after the sun sets. I hadn't thought of what happens to humans when we get wet. We get cold.
Back forever ago, I read this random book for some reason, I didn't even remember why. It was about this stupid idiot prospector who hiked out to the middle of nowhere way up north to find gold. This old guy said 'hey don't go out there it's cold you'll die' and he said 'shut up old man I'm young and smart'. And what happened? He got too cold and died! That was the whole book, just him getting colder and colder and then he died, the end. And he might have lived at first. He was doing okay, but then he fell into a river and got wet, and then everything went downhill.
In the book the guy said there were two ways to live: keep moving or build a fire. Well, it was going to be kind of hard to build a fire out of water and wet grass. That left walking. No matter how cold I got, I could not stop walking. And I was already wet, but it was probably better to not be submerged to my armpits in water. Even though it meant exposing myself to the Careers, I had to get to higher ground. I looked around in the dimming light and found an area with what looked like solid ground and some non-aquatic plants growing. It turned out to be calf-deep water, which was a big improvement. I slogged my way up, tucked my hands under my shirt against my stomach, snuggled my lower face into my collar, and walked.
Cerise Dupin- District Eight female
Camille's tarp saved all of our lives.
We were huddled together like a just-born litter of puppies, enveloped on all sides by the tarp we'd lain on and folded over ourselves. The Careers had night-vision glasses, but in their green tint it would still be impossible to see a mud-covered tarp half-buried in more mud. We just looked like a bump in the ground. Camille and I were tangled up in each other like a pair of lovers. Ryx had abandoned his individualistic pride and was draped across us like a blanket. It was almost sort of not cold.
Maybe I slept a little, but I didn't think so. All night long I had one thought in my head. We were hidden, maybe, but we were entirely in the open. If the Careers found us, none of had had a chance. They'd spear us where we lay. I couldn't hear them. That was the worst part. All night long, I never heard a sound. I wouldn't hear them, I realized, until they were on me, like a hunting panther. Any second of that entire night could be the second the sword sliced through the tarp and into me.
Where are they? I just want to know. Where are they?
Pik Reynolds- District Eleven male
I couldn't take it anymore. I crawled out onto a more-or-less solid piece of land. I was still freezing, but I wasn't submerged in cold water anymore. I tore out handfuls of tall grass and lay them on the mud so I had something dry to lie on. I nested down in it and tried to cover myself with more, but I wasn't fooling anyone. If the Careers came by they would kill me. I was too cold to do anything but let it happen.
All night long I lay there in the open, waiting to hear them come. But I never did. Where were they?
Raina Ray- District Five
I lay shivering halfway on my side in a forest of grass that just hid my head. I hadn't thought it would get this cold. I wished I wasn't wet, but I was too afraid to climb up onto higher ground. I curled my legs to my chest and huddled against the mud underneath the grass, clinging to it.
My body moved on its own. I was trembling all over so violently it almost hurt. My shoulders lurched with sobs, but nothing came out. I couldn't feel my fingers. I could barely see them in the dark, but from what I could see, they were bone-white claws.
My mind felt lighter. I felt the thoughts fading. I knew I was dying and I knew it was too late. I knew I should try to find somewhere dry, but I couldn't make myself want to. I felt the cold heaviness seeping into my legs and anchoring me. I tried to look for the Careers and couldn't raise my head. I let it rest. My cheek sank into the mud.
"My name was Raina," I whispered around the silty water that flowed into my mouth. "District Five female." I lay there until I fell asleep.
Andromeda Dior- District One female
Sagar dangled his legs over the edge of the platform and dipped his hand into the water.
"Yikes," he said, yanking it back out. "That's cold!"
"You can guard the supplies instead if you want," I offered. I wonder how cold it is. I dipped my hand in the water. Eww.
"Cold, right?" Sagar said.
Cyrene came over with an officious expression on her face. We all braced ourselves to be accused of being babies.
She withdrew her hand from the water. "Dang, that's cold."
"What if we inventoried supplies and talked strategy tonight and went out in the morning?" Sagar suggested.
"Yeah, let's do that," Percy said.
17th place: Raina Ray- hypothermia
I was going to kill Raina in the Bloodbath just because she wasn't particularly skilled, but from the form I could tell she was somewhat autobiographical and if people make themselves I try to at least let them see the Arena a little. Raina dealt with a lot of identity stuff and it's nice she got to be what she wanted, even though it probably wasn't worth dying at her age. She was a loner and not that large, so she was a logical pick for freezing to death. I forgot to write down her submitter, but thanks for a girl who finally found herself.
BTW I headcanon that gender identity is a non-issue in Panem. Why? Because gender norms are completely, absolutely, 100% made-up. Nothing is inherently "masculine" or "feminine". The only reason whatsoever they exist is because of fickle, quickly-changing societal brainwashing. We're already making moves toward seeing that and letting go of bizarre superstitions like "this wavelength of light is for BOYS and this wavelength is for GIRLS!" Panem is far in the future. I think by then we'll have let go of gender norms as the baseless garbage they are. There will be no need to categorize yourself as a gender because they will not be in any way different. We won't think "girls prefer dolls and boys prefer trucks" or "women value relationships, men value achievement". The concept of "cross"-dressing will be as quaintly backwards as phrenology.
