Ryx Marker- District Three male

Camille and I knotted together strips of bandage from one of the rolls in our first aid kit. One was set aside for actual first aid and one was for rope-making. So far we had a net that reached across both our laps.

"That might be enough," Camille said. "Let's try it."

We waded into knee-deep water and held the net vertically underwater. We dragged it along the bottom, pushing against the mud that got clogged in it. We waded back into ankle-deep water and raised it.

"Look!" Camille pointed at the one wriggling spot in the pile of mud. "A crawfish!"

"A crayfish, actually," I said. A member of the crustacean family.

"Excuuuuse me, I didn't know this was grammar class," Camille said as she dug her fingers into the mud and carefully picked out the crayfish.

Taxonomy class, really, I thought, but this time at least I didn't say it. We gave the crayfish to Cerise, who deposited it into an empty cubby in our first aid kit and went back to fashioning fishing kits out of some of our medical thread and one of our needles.

A few more passes and we'll be able to eat! It was amazing how much life dwindled in a survival situation. There was no thinking about self-esteem or future plans or all the things that made us human. It was just the physical needs of our animal bodies. And I was helping fulfill those needs. I was an important part of our alliance and my allies would like me.

Camille and I bent our heads over the net and squinted into the water, even though it was too murky to see the crayfish. There was a sudden, audible blast of air like a pressure valve had been released. The atavistic part of my brain screamed at me to get out, but the curiosity ingrained in the human condition caused me, along with Camille, to turn my head. And so I saw the eyes, a foot apart, halfway visible above the water's surface, before the water roiled and spray shot all over me.


Camille Igawa- District Nine female

I saw it all clearly. I saw it when the alligator shot past Ryx, ignoring him entirely, and came for me. I lurched backwards and fell on my butt in the knee-deep water. The alligator's momentum carried him on top of me so his stomach pinned me as his jaws closed on my arm and shoulder. It was like the time I'd gotten my finger slammed in a car door, except ten times the pressure and damage all across my arm.

I saw then what it all meant and what I really was. I'd come in convinced I was going to tell them what our lives were like and show them what had to be changed. I'd thought I was a revolutionary. I had never been anything to them, nothing but a buzzing in their ears. They didn't listen during my speech. None of them would make a single change in their lives. And the alligator came not because Ryx and I were Tributes, but to make me shut up.

The alligator's top and bottom teeth met in my flesh. I felt them clack together, squeezing my muscles and bones apart to make room. I heard Ryx screaming and the pressure on my back as what felt like two sets of hands tried to pull me away from the alligator. Ryx reached further down my body to get a better grip. The alligator rolled.

So much of me was missing. I was a torn fraction of a human body. There was an understated, elegaic pain, my body telling my brain it was too late, we were lost. I was, fittingly, exactly what the Capitol saw me as: not fully a person. I wasn't going to lead a revolution. There were people out there who could. Maybe Cerise. Maybe someone none of us had even heard of yet. It would come. But not from me.


Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Ryx and I braced our feet in the shifting mud and tried to haul Camille free of the alligator with our arms around her waist. All three of us easily slid deeper into the water as the alligator hauled us effortlessly. Blood welled and spurted and ran like a river from Camille's shoulder. She wasn't screaming. She stared glassy-eyed at the sky, gasping like a fish. Ryx reached farther in to get better leverage. The alligator adjusted its grip, hiking its jaws and closing them again, trapping Ryx's arm along with Camille.

It rolled, corkscrewing in the water like a writhing snake. I was looking at Camille when it happened. Her body peeled off in a strip. Tatters of viscera clung to her denuded arm. I thought of a chicken wing slid from someone's mouth after they'd picked it clean of meat.

The alligator slid under the water until nothing was visible but Camille's fanning hair. I hadn't even realized I'd let go of her. Ryx's screaming brought me back to the present triage. I grabbed the back of his shirt and hauled him to solid ground.

His hand was nearly gone. The bones were still intact, but the skin was ripped so deeply the hand hung on the arm like a crookedly perched glove. We left a muddy stream of blood as I threw him ashore.

I frantically threw open the first aid kit. I found the strip of fabric that looked like a watch strap with a plastic stick attached. I turned back to Ryx. He was already bone-white and trembling. I knelt on his arm, all my weight on my leg, ignoring his renewed screams. I slid the tourniquet overthe bloody ruin of his hand and started to twist.

I couldn't tell if the blood was slowing. There was too much of it already out. I kept turning and turning the stick, tightening the strap until his skin puckered and turned an ugly shade of purple. Ryx whimpered and tried to claw it off with his free hand. I pinned his arms with my legs and knelt on top of him. He kept whimpering, little mewling sounds, but it was the best thing I could have heard. They weren't growing weaker. He wasn't bleeding out. As long as he kept crying, he kept living.


16th place: Camille Igawa- Eaten by alligator

Camille and Cerise were the two rebels. It came time to kill one and I had to pick. I liked them both, but I ended up picking Camille because her rebellion was more overt and also because she's very skinny and Cerise is better equipped to survive this Arena. Camille's form noted the Gamemakers would probably send something, so here it is: a big giant alligator (Ryx would be the first to note that it IS an alligator, not a crocodile, since it has a round snout). Camille was a self-aware poor little rich girl. She had bigger dreams for herself that didn't come true, but she still dared to dream them. We the audience know change WILL come to Panem eventually. Not from Camille, but from others who made the same attempt successfully. Thanks LordShiro for a Tribute who learned a bitter lesson to pave the way for those who came after.

For those worried that Cerise's first aid kit is like Mary Poppins' bag and just always has what they need, it's a military IFAK and has the items an IFAK contains. Fun fact I got to practice doing a tourniquet with an IFAK. It motherfreakin HURTS when your partner kneels on you to stop the blood.