We'll never get free
Lamb to the slaughter
What you gon' do
When there's blood in the water
Eric Ridley
District 4, 'Female', 18
(Day 5)
...
I'm shaken awake and immediately feel like dropping back to sleep, my eyes are blurry from tiredness but they soon adjust to the beaming sun that already causes us to sweat despite it being so early on in the day. "We need to get moving. There's no way they could've got far." Daniel grunts and I look away as I roll my eyes, splashing water on my face. I try my best to refrain myself from spitting out that I had let the two cowering, young girls go yesterday. We've walked with hardly any break for hours on end, even during the night, we'd stop for a 2 hour rest where I'd sleep and then we'd be back up and moving.
Unfortunately, Daniel wouldn't be too happy with my little rescue so I know I'll never be able to tell him that he's wasting our time and our energy. "Look, maybe they went in a different direction. We just need to rest and regain our strength." I sigh, climbing into the river and splashing the water over my body, attempting a make-shift shower.
"No, you look, Eric." He snaps. I look back at his face and he seems furious, he had always kept his emotions to himself before now but the arena does strange things to everyone. "My father is back at home starving to death right now, every minute I waste without killing someone is another minute I waste knowing he could be dead. Do you know how that feels?" I freeze and narrow my eyes at him, as much as I wanna argue with him about who has the worst life, I can't bring myself to stoop so low. It's obvious the outlying districts have it worse off, our poverty is their rich.
I shake my head in reply and he simply nods. "So, please, let's keep moving." I take a deep breath to calm myself down and climb out of the river, not even trying to dry myself off as I try to savour the cool water on my skin that defends me from the pounding rays of the sun. My whole time spent in The Games has been spent trying to keep myself in check, not just physically, but mentally too. Most people in here are so badly affected by the arena, in it or not, if I'm going to win then I will do so staying sane because that's the only way I can get out of here and stay happy.
We move through the woods, I'm a little behind Daniel but he keeps a slow pace to allow me to keep up. "Is it really that bad?" I ask, with a tone of sympathy. I genuinely am curious, we never did learn very much about the other districts at school - only their general functions. I had never really wondered how much more well-off I was to have food in my stomach, everyday for them is like a day in this arena.
"Some days are worse than others but, yes, it's bad." He states, I glance to look at his facial expression but it's simply neutral. It's strange, he almost doesn't seem like the same person who snapped at me a few minutes ago, it's like he has a switch that simply turns on and off his humanity. "I'd do anything I can for him. To help him survive."
"What about your mother?"
"Dead." He sighs. "Dad took it hard and turned to alcohol. I had to start working harder to keep us afloat, 18 hours shifts. It's how I can manage on such little sleep" Guilt fills my head, I've lived my whole life with money and nice living conditions. Even the basic necessities of food and water have come easy to me and yet I still volunteered for this because I felt like I needed more. I feel almost like I took my life for granted, sure, my parents had died when I was young but I had always been taken care of by Kaia and she had always supported me. At least I know at this very moment that she is okay, that she has food on the table and a comfortable bed to sleep in. Daniel doesn't know that, his dad could be dying as we speak.
Tenzin Mainali
District 9, Male, 12
(Day 5)
...
I yawn as I close my eyes to sleep, I had little to none last night due to Gena's constant moans and groans from the pain that her eye is causing her. We had received a small meal from a sponsor and had fed her most of it but the pain didn't seem to subside, however, my main concern is Gena being deadweight. It's a Game and nobody wins games with deadweight. I keep my kukri at my side, my hand laying on top of it, just in case the groans get too loud.
I slowly begin to drift off when another loud groan awakens me, I furrow my eyebrows and my face turns red with anger. Cyra sits beside Gena, trying her best to figure out what to do, however, neither Cyra nor I are doctors and you can only wait so long for the patient to go out on their own terms. Cyra wouldn't let me put her out of her misery, though, she isn't playing the game like I'm playing it.
Back home, I always lost. Always. Getting my hands dirty was never an option, I always had to worry about keeping my friends and being invited back to play again but, still, I had thought about it many, many times. In the arena, though, you can break any normal games' rules with a snap of your fingers, you can even break the rules of the law by taking another's life. A game I can finally win because it's a game where I can get messy and do what I'm best at.
Gena lays on the floor, bandage still over her eye and I watch her like a hawk. Cyra doesn't move, she simply sits and watches Gena from the side. I wait and I wait but she doesn't move a muscle and I soon get impatient. "Cyra, why don't you go get some extra sleep? You were up all last night, I'll watch over us." She turns and smiles warmly at me.
"Thank you, Tenzin. I really need it." She crawls over a few metres away from Gena and drops to the floor, falling to sleep over immediately. I don't take my chance until I know for sure that it'll work and Cyra must be asleep for it to be complete. Gena groans more but Cyra seems to somehow sleep through them, she must be extremely tired. About twenty minutes has passed before I finally begin to move, I walk silently over to where Gena lay with my kukri in hand and watch her. The girl from my own District who had annoyed me for almost two weeks was about to die, I would never have to hear another frustratingly irritating sound out of her loud mouth ever again. She seems to be sleeping, either that or she just has her eyes closed.
"All your pain is about to go, Gena." I whisper into her ear and her eyes shoot open, she looks at me franticly and opens her mouth but, before any loud annoying noise can come from it, I slit her throat with the kukri in my hand. Pools of blood splash out from her neck and stain my knife and hand, a cannon booms in my distance. That's objective number one, now for objective number two. I crawl toward Cyra, she still seems to be in a deep sleep. It's sad, really, she had always wanted to be a fashion designer and had dreamed of moving to The Capitol someday. She had protected myself and Gena like we were her siblings but, she had forgotten this was a game, and games were made to be played.
"We're playing different Games. I'm sorry for this, I truly am." I murmur and move to slice her throat with my kukri but, before my kukri even reaches her throat, I feel a searing warmth in my stomach. I look down to see Cyra's knife stabbed right through me and my eyes widen with pain and shock. "No, please! No!" I cough out, blood spilling all around me. "Cyra...please." Her eyes burn with rage and revenge, I had been about to kill her. There's no way she'll save me, it's too late for me now anyway.
Raven Dragomir
District 6, Female, 18
(Day 5)
...
My mouth is parched with thirst, I haven't drunk anything in the past two days as I haven't even left the tree that I've tied myself to. Every evening, near the exact same time, the same pair come walking along the path and I watch them as they walk toward a water source in the distance, the girl constantly looking more and more trapped within her alliance with the boy. Every time I see them, I'm reminded of what they stole from me. Darius was a sweet and kind boy, he wasn't always the brightest but he was all I had in this arena to remind me of back home. We had grown a friendship of some sort, I could've even seen it grow into something more with the feelings I had been starting to get but The Hunger Games is no place for relationships.
I lay on the wide log, all I can think of is Luna and Darius. I can't imagine the pain she must be going through right now, having to watch me suffer as I try and outlast death and the obstacles that are the other tributes on the race to life. It hurts my heart to think that, only a couple of weeks ago, we were running through the woods and training in case this day ever came. I never really thought it would, the training had just been a coping mechanism for me when I was younger to comfort myself that, even if I was reaped, I'd be prepared. Of course, it had become more real when Mom and Dad died and we had to start taking out tesserae, before then it had just been Luna and I being kids.
I think back to when the two of us used to time each other as we scrambled to the top of trees and how we ran our daily lap, racing each other every single time. I can go back home to her soon, I will, I just need to wait a little longer. Today is the day, I can just feel it, something feels different today than it did before and I have more motivation than ever to win this for Darius and Luna and all my other siblings.
It isn't long before I hear the usual shouts of argument and protest, it's the same thing every time. Usual protests about not enough sleep, arguing about when the best time to leave the cornucopia is and so forth. This time, they seem to be arguing about how many bottles they were bringing to fill up. They begin to approach and I quickly untie myself from the log, slipping my backpack on to my back and hopping down. I hide behind a tree and peer round it to watch the two of them, the girl seems to be more ahead now and then, the strangest thing happens, she catches my eye and immediately looks away. I jump with fear but she doesn't come after me or even act like she saw me, I watch, intrigued.
Then, out of nowhere, the girl from Three sticks her leg out and trips over the boy from One, he slams onto his face and shouts franticly as the girl kicks him repeatedly, attempting to keep him on the ground. "Come on! What are you waiting for?" She cries and I realise she's talking to me, I rush over to her and she hands me her long sword as she presses her foot against the boy's neck. "Stab this motherfucker."
I don't need anymore signalling than that and, with as much force as possible, I stab the sword right through his back. A cannon sounds before I even take the sword out.
A/N: Another chapter and we're down to the Final 8! Getting closer and closer to the Victor and the finalists, next chapter we'll have our family/friends interviews where we'll look more closely at those close to the remaining tributes. Thank you for everyone still reading this, it's been almost a year and I can't believe it's almost over!
Alliances
Eric and Daniel
Emerald and Charity
Raven and Kathryn
THE FALLEN:
11th Place - Gena Cooper (D9F). Throat slit by Tenzin Mainali (Very New To This). Submitted by wiifan2002.
Gena was supposed to be a bloodbath from the very minute that I received her, I planned her out as one for a good while but I soon felt she had more to offer to the story then what met the eye. It seems like I almost used her to boost Tenzin and Cyra's storylines but really she was just an extremely fun character to right, extremely dramatic and over-privileged while also being a massive brat, I simply just enjoyed writing her and that is one of the big reasons she stuck around so long. RIP.
10th Place - Tenzin Mainali (D9M). Knife to the stomach by Cyra Sloane (Annabeth777). Submitted by Very New To This.
I really was debating doing this or not because there were simply so many things I could have done with Tenzin, he was such a flexible character with such a fun arc ahead of him. I thought about possibly making him go full on psycho and literally tearing apart half the arena but, then I thought, at the end of the day he's still a naive kid who got a bit too ahead of himself like all kids do and was carried away in the moment. He got the killing arc that I always knew he needed but he was also humbled in a way because we all know it's unrealistic for somebody so young to kill a bunch of people. RIP.
9th Place - Silver Rafferty (D1M). Sword in the back by Raven Dragomir (SakuraDragomir). Submitted by chcolate.
By far one of my favourite tributes in this SYOT, he was such a typical career but layered with anger issues and generally a bad personality. He was a bad person all around, most careers have some emotion or sympathy but Silver simply had none because he had never grown up being loved and therefore never felt okay about expressing his emotions. He had a sad backstory that made him the way he was but it doesn't excuse everything he did in and outside of the arena and I truly felt letting Raven get her revenge was the best thing to do here. RIP.
KILL COUNT:
Silver - 3
Andromeda - 2
Vinicio - 2
Daniel - 1
Eric - 1
Kathryn - 1
Lira - 1
Charity - 1
Cyra - 1
Tenzin - 1
Raven - 1
- Neb