Ryx Marker- District Three male
Cerise didn't have to do all of this for me.
We are about to complete the amputation of my hand. Mostly, I was scared beyond imagining. In all my books and everything I'd learned, there was nothing in my head I could match up to how bad this was going to be. A part of my body would just be gone. An entire hand. Five fingers. An opposable thumb I could use to grasp and manipulate things far past what any animal could do. A miracle I took for granted and whose disappearance would reassert itself with everything I tried to do past this day. Almost all my thoughts were occupied with that, but still, in the very back, there was a sliver of gratefulness.
Cerise didn't have to do this. I wasn't a particularly useful ally. I was smart and well-read, but those were societal skills. This was the jungle. She wasn't helping me out of anything I could do or any value my skills had. She was helping me because I had value. Just as a person.
"Ready?" Cerise asked. I couldn't speak.
"I'mjustgonnadoitokay-" Cerise said, as she ripped. Terror and panic overwhelmed me, but when the instant had passed, I realized it hadn't hurt at all. I'd known it shouldn't- the flesh was dead and the hand really wasn't connected other than a strip of skin- but knowing didn't overcome the instinct. All I felt was a lifting of weight. I looked at my arm and my hand was gone. My arm ended at the wrist in a whitish incompleteness. Flaccid ridges of flesh and a tiny flash of white bone stared back at me.
Cyrene Longuemare- District Four female
The spotty platforms of semi-dry land and the aquatic plants in varying heights made spotting my quarries difficult. However, it also made it difficult for them to spot me. In the end it was noise that gave them away. I was silent as I searched. They were silent too, for a long time, but eventually they undid themselves.
"It's definitely dead. It's ready to come off."
The male voice was hesitant and distant enough that I barely heard it. I waded to the edge of the cluster of cattails that hid my head poking out of the shoulder-deep water and looked out. The figure was almost impossible to see in all the mud. It was only when the figure beside him sat up that I saw them. Two Tributes were lying half on their sides in ankle-deep mud. One of them was rooting around in some sort of container.
I ducked under the water and swam in a long arc around them. When my head broke the surface I was behind them. I glided closer in the water, only the top of my head visible when I broke the surface to breathe.
When I heard the other figure speak, my eyes flashed. I'd hoped, knowing that Cerise was allied with a boy, but hearing her confirmed it. I reached the edge of the tiny platform they were lying on and lay crouched in the knee-deep water, hidden by the short grass. I'd seen the nature shows talking about how only one in three hunts were successful. I would wait for the perfect moment before I moved.
"I'mjustgonnadoitokay-" Cerise said. She yanked Ryx's necrotic hand off his arm, which was pretty impressive. Naturally they were both completely absorbed by the effort and had no idea I was five feet behind them. Ryx rocked back and gaped at his truncated arm. Cerise wiped her hand with a packaged wipe out of what I now saw was a small first aid kit. She picked up the parachute from a sponsor gift and drenched it with a bottle of antibiotics.
"Sorry," she blurted as she slapped the cloth over Ryx's exposed stump. He seized, started to scream, and fainted. It was the perfect moment.
As Cerise bent over Ryx and pushed him so he wouldn't land in the water, I crept up on hands and knees onto the dirt. I was a foot behind her, starting to stand, when some shadow or instinct spurred her to look behind her.
I snapped out one leg, aiming for her face. The kick hit her in the mouth and nose. It snapped her head back and she fell limp into the water. I could have left her then and it would have been done. But I wasn't doing this to remove competition. I was doing this to say something to the Capitol. I was telling them there was nothing, not anything, I wouldn't do for them.
I knelt by Cerise and pushed her head farther under the water. I kept my fingers entwined in her hair as bubbles rose and her lungs filled with water. There was a difference between killing and murder. In this I would publicly declare that my loyalty ran not only deeper than my self-preservation but deeper than any moral code.
I held Cerise's head underwater for fifteen minutes. I held it as the bubbles broke the surface and her chest stopped moving. I held it when she suddenly started to convulse after minutes of motionlessness. I noticed eventually as her skin slowly took on a bluish cast. I knew what I was doing. There were no excuses for it and no way to romanticise it. We trained to be capable for it and when the moment came I found that I was. I learned something about life and about evil as I watched Cerise die, and I learned something about myself. She slid closer and closer to death and I felt the reality that with every passing second I could pull her out and there would come the final second where that chance was irrevocably gone.
When the cannon sounded, I let go. I looked down at Ryx. Most people recovered in minutes after fainting. The blood loss and exhaustion had taken their toll on him. I bent over and slit his throat. As I left them behind, his blood was seeping into the water, drawing a reddish curtain over Cerise.
12th place: Cerise Dupin- drowned by Cyrene
Cerise was strong enough to theoretically win, but she wasn't just fighting the other Tributes- she was fighting the entire Capitol. She got rigged into the Arena (it just wasn't explicit in her Reaping) and if Cyrene hadn't done the Capitol's work they would have sent another mutt like they used on Camille. She lasted this long on her merits and her number finally came up. Cyrene's form called for her to target the most rebellious Tribute so I matched up the two fates. Cerise was more complicated than an SYOT can give credit to. In an independent story she likely would have been one of the founders of the Mockingjay rebellion. It's still possible some of her writings that weren't lost will play a part. Thank Pi for two multifaced Tributes who felt like real individuals.
11th place: Ryx Marker- Throat slit by Cyrene
She just killed him because he was there. Sux. I was going to kill Ryx in the Bloodbath but his form asked that he not be a Bloodbath if possible. I'm pretty easy to convince and will do my best to accommodate. So he died here instead and nothing really changed since he's dead either way. Ryx was pretty much the annoying middle-school know-it-all, but we all had that phase to judge not lest someone pull up your facebook statuses when you were 12. He was a good kid. He was just 14 and acted like it. Thanks guesttwelve for kid who was just trying to be liked.
Due to the nature of the scene it would have interrupted the flow to provide Cerise a final POV so her obituary will be extra detailed to compensate.
