RYX MARKER- Andrea D'Amour

We were from the same place. I might have passed him on the street and never known it. We could have been friends. We could have gotten married. But he was just one name in a million, one of the names that never brushed mine except in that bowl.


CERISE DUPIN- Katrina Moonshadow

People stronger than me were dying. I didn't think I'd make it this far. I thought it would just be Careers. How that would work when there were only six Careers and eight of us left I wasn't sure. I didn't think that far ahead.


Tillo Peters- District Eight mentor

We got robbed. The first time in years we had someone who could have won and some Career whacked her to make the Capitol happy. I wasn't upset about Fryderyk. He was terminal anyway and at this point I took any excuse to not feel it. But Cerise reminded me of me all those years ago. It was a miracle I ever won.


District Eight

Francis and Mari sought comfort in each other after their friends' deaths. The relationship amicably dissolved months later, but plenty of people have gotten back together after an initial breakup. Cerise's dear writer friend Victor was able to conceal some of her writings. He continued to circulate them in underground publications.


Percy Mordecai- District Four male

When I started the Games, I thought if I won, Tyson would love me forever. Now I wasn't the person I was before. I'd killed people. That changed you, and it wasn't something Tyson would ever be able to understand. I felt older, and more mature, and distant in more than just physical distance. It seemed like a long time ago that I knew Tyson- like Odysseus coming back years later and worrying that Penelope won't recognize him.

It was funny how thinking about Alsace made me happier than thinking about Tyson. Probably because a crush burns super bright and fizzles out quick. Nothing could come out of it. We were in the Arena, and Alsace wasn't looking for that anyway. He was just a cool guy. It was one of those things you thought about until it passed in its own time.

Daybreak came. We were getting ready to go hunting, except for Medusa and Andromeda, who were watching the supplies. As I was finishing a breakfast of rehydrated powdered eggs and honestly not-terrible bacon, Alsace slid off the platform into the water.

"Going after Rigel?" I asked.

"I'm going to find him today. I can feel it," Alsace said.

"Why do you care so much? It's not going to change anything," I said.

"You wouldn't understand," he said.

"No, there's just nothing to understand," I said. "You're wasting your time." I couldn't say what I wanted to. A Career couldn't tell another Career he was worried about him. It wasn't even just for his safety. I wanted Alsace to have a real life, not spend his time chasing dead cousins and worthless revenge. He was worth so much more than that. I couldn't tell him that I wished he'd let me go with him. Vengeance killing didn't allow for assistance.

"I've waited six years for this," Alsace said.

"Isn't there anything else you want? Let it go. Be your own person," I said.

"Isn't it funny you're talking about that," Alsace said. "Look, once he's dead, then I can start living, all right?" He started wading away.

"Fine!" I yelled. The temper that always got the better of me in the end kicked in. I jumped up and kicked the camping stove over. The flame sputtered and died out. I picked up the pot hanging over it and threw it into the Cornucopia, where it crashed into a stack of boxes and fell with a clatter. "Throw your life away. Waste everything. Stupid!"

I sound like such an idiot when I get mad, I thought as I was picking up my mess. It used to be Tyson could always calm me down. Tyson wasn't here now, and neither was Alsace.


Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

It took nine days for Alsace to catch up with me. I'd known it would happen. Every day in the Arena I'd wondered how long the stay of execution would be. It was nine days.

When I saw him in the distance, I ran. I was big. I had an axe. But I'd been living off frogs and cattails for a week and I'd only had clean water since the feast. The antibiotics had cleared up the vomiting and other unpleasantness, but I wasn't quite in tip-top shape yet. I preferred to beat Alsace by never coming within arm's reach of him.

I splashed my way to a mostly dry stretch of ground and ran for it. Alsace was coming after me full-speed. It hardly made a difference, since we were the same height, but I just felt like I was going faster when I wasn't wading through water.

My feet started to sink into the mud as the land sloped down until it was soft mud. There wasn't any water on the surface, just runny mud the texture of really thick water. It was up to my mid-calves when Alsace started to catch up. Packaged food and a full night's rest will do that.

"You can't run forever," he called after me, which was precisely what I intended to do.

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I saw him. Far ahead of me, wading through waist-deep water, I saw Rigel. In the flesh. Before me at last. He ran, but he wasn't going to get away this time.

I'd hoped I'd feel some sort of purification on finally facing my demon, but all I felt was anger. Anger that Lyon was dead. Anger that his life ended before it began. Anger that killing Rigel wouldn't bring him back and that I didn't care, I just wanted to hurt something else like I'd been hurt. I knew how selfish and senseless it was and I didn't stop. It hurts to know you're not the good guy.

Rigel slowed as the mud he was running through got deeper. I started to catch up and then was slowed myself by the same mud. But I was better-fed and better-rested and running off years of unexpressed resentment.

"You can't run forever!" I yelled as I waded into the mud after him.

"We'll see about that!" he yelled back.


Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

Alsace was right. I couldn't run forever. The mud under my feet was amorphous and shifted whenever I put weight on it. There was nothing solid for me to push off. Every time I stepped my feet pushed deep into it, leaving me stuck up to my knees. Each step it was harder to extract my legs from the gluey mud. I yanked my foot free with a sucking noise. Bubbles rose from the mud as I awkwardly turned around to face Alsace.

He didn't waste time. Drawing it out apparently wasn't required for vengeance, since he came right at me with a killing slash at my neck. I blocked it with the handle of my axe. Both of us winced and pulled back at the vibrations in our hands. I took a big step back to gain distance and slid back into the mud, which was now up to my waist.

Alsace twisted his sword arm so the blade sliced down my forearm as we broke the lock. I shoved the pointed head of the axe at his face and backed away more when he dodged. It took him a minute to get back into range as he too fought with the oozing mud. It was disconcerting and knocked us both off-balance to have no solid ground under our feet, just shifting softness. If he won this one, I hoped he enjoyed watching the replay, since it was the most awkward, stupid-looking fight in history.

Alsace Cartier- District One male

I wasn't thinking of Rigel at all. It was never about him. All of this had only ever been about Lyon. It was Lyon's image in my head as I tried to kill Rigel. All the loss and grief a child couldn't properly express and he translated into anger because that was easier to understand than death. Rigel was my symbol and I thrashed and clawed at him so I could destroy the pain, but that wasn't how it worked. I wasn't going to feel any better afterwards. That made me even sadder, and that perversely made me more violent.

I half-fell as I swung my sword and put out an arm for support. It sank into the mud and I had to clumsily push myself upright. The swing had no heft, since my legs weren't able to pivot and generate power. It was slow, and Rigel was easily able to parry it.

Rigel was two feet away and I could barely touch him. He kept scooting back away from me and with all the mud it took an agonizingly long time to reach him again. Mud hugged at my hips and imprisoned me like one of those horrible dreams where you're trying to run and can only move in a lazy torpor.

Rigel looked down at the mud around his waist. His eyes flickered and his face changed. He looked up with something like panic and opened his mouth like he was going to say something to me.

I didn't want to hear it. I held my sword in front of me and stuck it through his chest.


Rigel Aspen- District Seven male

The sword skewered me like a butcher bird's prey. I felt my face go slack with the knowledge that I was going to die, with what I'd been about to tell Alsace, and with the fittingness of it all.

"Quagmire," I whispered, as my body started to slump against the pillowy mud. The sword slid out of me.

"What?" Alsace's shocked expression, about to break into triumph, knitted in confusion.

"We're in a quagmire," I said. It took so much effort to talk, but it needed to be said. I smiled. Blood dribbled out of my mouth.

Alsace took it in slowly. His shoulders relaxed as his priority shifted from the fight. He looked down at the mud, now sucking at his waist and my armpits.

"Isn't that just poetic," I said. "That's what revenge does, doesn't it? It sucks you down and swallows you up."


Alsace Cartier- District One male

I wriggled in the mud, trying to back up toward the edge. It hadn't looked so distant until now. My mind shied from what Rigel was saying. It was a nightmare from a children's adventure story. Black mud that sucked you farther and farther until your head went under and you were just gone. It couldn't be real. I couldn't bear it to be real.

"You had so many chances," Rigel chided as he lay dying. "But you kept coming. And now you're too deep. You threw your life away. You wasted it. And you didn't just waste yours. You dragged me down with you. I'm gonna bleed to death soon. You're going to sink until you die in clinging blackness, not even knowing how far away the surface is. And I'm not sorry."He laid his head down. His cheek sank into the mud. It was like a blanket slowly enfolding him as he fell asleep.

Whimpering breaths rose in my throat as I kept trying to pull out and realized with mounting panic that none of my attempts were working. What had seemed like merely bothersome mud metamorphosized into a living thing gripping my legs and drawing me down into its underworld.

The mud crept up until it touched the undersides of my arms. I shoved at it, digging and scooping and trying desperately to push it down and myself up. It flowed like water into any depression I made. Still there was nothing under my feet. I sank ever farther and the bottom was nowhere to be found.

Rigel's cannon came as only the right side of his face was visible. He looked peaceful, like he was lying down in bed to rest. I grabbed at his body, trying to use it as a float. It pressed down into the mud. I felt an arm brush my leg as he sank.

I pawed at the surface as my arms and shoulders slid under the water. It was harder to lift them. Claustrophobia slammed through me and wiped every thought from my mind at the thought of not being able to move them at all and being completely helpless. I bucked and arched as the mud reached my neck. My movements made swells and breaks in the mud that pulled me down with them as they settled.

I started to cry when the mud reached my chin. My thrashing efforts only barely brought my arms to the surface. I craned my neck as the mud slid up to my mouth. I was screaming then, but not for long.

My head was so bent that my nose was almost the highest point. That meant that before I suffocated the mud closed completely over my head. On the surface, I was gone. But I wasn't dead. I was awake for two minutes after that, trying to breathe in the mud and get it over with but stopped by my body's failsafes. I regretted it then, in those two minutes. I regretted the choices that brought me here with no one to blame but myself. I regretted it too late.


10th place: Rigel Aspen- Stabbed by Alsace

Rigel was a formidable Tribute. He was a possible Victor from the start and was popular enough to win it all. He was strong but also smart, smart enough to know that war is a fickle, fatal proposition and that the best battle is one never fought. Even with a Career vendetta against him he got this far. Had he not been distracted for an instant by the revelation that they were in a quagmire, the fight would have gone differently. I don't know who would have won, but he would have at least gotten in some hits. Rigel had some cynicism from his hard upbringing, but he never let it overcome him. He had a sense of humor even in death and was cultured enough to remark on the poetic irony of it all. Thanks Sparky for two Tributes whose stories intertwined but were their own people.

9th place: Alsace Cartier- Drowned in quagmire

People have seen the obsessed Tributes before. I've even had them once or twice. It was because of that I went down this route. My first inclination is to subvery expectations and have the obsesser get over it, but I already did that with Priscilla. As I cast around for a novel way to do this, I came across the idea of NOT having character development for once. Some people don't learn their lesson and don't improve. The Arena fit perfectly for a symbolic ending like a middle-grade English class book. Revenge is a venom, like Aunt May said. Alsace didn't let go and instead of lifting the pain for his family, he doubled it and shared it with Rigel's. He wasn't a bad guy, as seen when he interacted with literally anyone but Rigel, but he didn't address his faults and it did him in. Thanks Sparky for the other half of the pair. (I think they were both Sparky. I lost my notes changing to a new computer)