Andre D'Amour- District Three female

The feast was set to be at "the stand of trees". I just happened to be at the stand of trees. So I huddled down in the roots of one of the trees and waited until the hovercraft came to set up the feast. It was surreal to see six Capitolites descend from the hovercraft on a ladder and cut loose the supplies that had been dangling under the hovercraft. They didn't look, but they must have known I was there. After that, I'd never feel the same way about humanity. They were fifteen feet away from a starving child hiding and running for her life and they didn't even look at me. I used to think if people saw someone starving by the side of the road, they would feed them. I didn't think that anymore.

I waited nervously as the Capitolites unfolded a table's legs and set it up with a bizarrely out-of-place tablecloth. They set up various supplies and treats. It all looked amazing to my desperate eyes, but I knew what I needed as soon as I saw it. "You all have something you need," the voice had said. Yeah, and it was the same thing for every one of us: the rows of ill bottles left like an afterthought at the foot of the table. As soon as the ladder was drawn up and the hovercraft started to move, I grabbed two of them and a small sack of potatoes and got the heck out of there. This was no time for greed.


Switch Larson- District Eleven female

Somewhere along the line, I'd started talking to myself. The other myself. Some kind of loneliness thing, or trying to get in touch with my id or something. Ask a psychiatrist, I don't know.

You should go to the feast, the fearless me said.

Nu-uh no way, I said.

You need clean water. It's coming out faster than it goes in, the fearless me said.

Yeah and that's what'll happen if I go. Because you poop when you die... that didn't sound as cool as it did in my head. But this is also my head...

The melodic tinkling of a sponsor gift interrupted my argument with me. I opened the package and saw half a dozen heat packs and a roll of tape.

See, we have everything we need, I said.

Gonna drink a heat pack? the fearless me asked.

I'll just... drink even faster, I said. The other me didn't even have to tell me that was not how drinking impure water worked. I wasn't going to the feast, but eventually I was going to have to listen to her.


Katrina Moonshadow- District Seven female

LMAO heck naw shmuck bait I am not going.


Cerise Dupin- District Eight female

Not gonna happen. Me and Ryx were staying put. His hand would fall off naturally in another day or two. It was already black and cold. We had the first aid kit and someone had just sponsored him some antibiotic cream, so Captain Hook and I were not going on a fool's errand to get some fresh food or new socks. We had crayfish and frogs. Good enough.


Tony Gear- District Six male

There was no one at the feast when I got there. I saw the white box with the red cross and made a beeline for it. I bent over to pick it up and the throwing knife sliced through the top of my head instead of killing me.

I tucked the first aid kit under my arm and ran. A blow like a punch in my back knocked me forward to my hands and knees. While I was still wallowing in the mud that half-covered me, another knife hit my ribs. The breath left me and I knelt gasping in the mud.

I looked over my shoulder and saw the Careers coming one by one from their hiding places. Sagar was first, followed by Percy, with Cyrene bringing up the rear. She looked up and over my prone body as something in the distance caught her eye.

"Dude, you stupid or something?" Sagar asked as he and Percy reached me. "Why would you go to the feast? That's schmuck bait!"

"Yeah, I know," I whispered around my collapsed lung. I'd know this could happen. And yet I'd dared to try. Bluster and big talk aside, I'd known I was probably going to die in the Games. If I hadn't come I still probably would have eventually. But I'd dared to go out trying to do something for someone else. I made it worth something.


Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

The Careers were gathered over a dying boy when I approached. Cyrene was the first to see me coming. She detoured around Sagar and Percy and started toward me, purposefully but not in a rush. I kept approaching until she was in earshot, then stopped and raised a finger.

"Hold on a minute," I said.

Cyrene paused. Taken aback by how brazenly unexpected it all was, she let me talk.

"Any of you all kill me and Alsace will come after you," I said. "You can kill me now. You'll be down one enemy and have earned another worse enemy, plus you'll splinter the Career pack. Or, you can let me take my stuff and leave. Then you tell Alsace which way you saw me go. You'll have his goodwill. He'll come after me. Eventually he'll find me. More likely than not he'll kill me, and more likely than not I'll get a few hits in. You'll be down an enemy, and when the Career pack naturally dissolves near the endgame, Alsace will be softened up for you."

Politics makes strange bedfellows. I could see the numbers running behind Cyrene's impassive face as she calculated percentages and outcomes like a betting program. She walked a few steps to the side, out of range in case I had a concealed weapon, and started back toward the feast with me beside her. I discreetly didn't comment on her being nearly entirely coated in mud.

Sagar and Percy, who had in the meantime noticed us, looked quizzically at Cyrene as she approached.

"Let him get his stuff," she said when we reached the trees.

"Say what?" Sagar said.

"He's Alsace's problem," Cyrene said. Sagar caught her meaning and smiled wolfishly. Percy looked between them and figured it out.

I didn't press my luck. I took a bottle of antibiotics, a canteen, a pair of socks lying next to it, and the axe that was left there for me. It was unbelievably light for its size, with just enough mass to give it heft. I left with the disconcerting background of three Careers watching me from behind. I turned back to look. In the distance, Sagar waved.


14th place: Tony Gear- Killed by Sagar and Percy (technically Percy for those who like to keep track of their Tributes' kills)

Tony was a big character. He could have easily been disliked for his overconfidence, but he was kind of just confident in humanity- he extended the high regard he had for himself to everyone else he met as well. Had he been alone he probably would have lasted longer, but he was also a good enough guy to stick his neck out for his friend. He never had much chance of winning and instead went out like a good dude. Thanks CarlpoppaLOL for a normal guy with normal flaws in the often overblown world of SYOTs.

Just want to toot my own horn and say the title is not a generic title but in fact a reference to Blood Feast, one of the first "splatter" films and part of the genesis of what forty years later developed into the modern torture porn genre. Blood Feast is a LOT tamer though LOL.