Beth Crissinio, District Four female (17)

Time seemed to hang suspended in the air. We were all milling around, too stunned to know what to do. We'd taken the cornucopia. We'd routed the Careers, killing half of them. Romeo and his ilk had helped themselves to some supplies, heavy on the weapons, and scuttled off into the arena rather than risk a second battle. So here we were, numb with the disbelief of victory and the sadness of half a dozen bodies drifting in the shallow water.

Isabella was the first to speak. "We need to move a little away eventually. So, you know..."

So they can take the bodies. I looked over at Sky. Mike and Zebulon were still sitting by her, Mike wiping his eyes while Zebulon awkwardly tried to figure out what to do.

Mike looked up, suddenly determined. "We should have a funeral."

"What, like bury her?" Zebulon asked. He looked down in shame. "They'll get mad at us."

"We don't need to bury them. We can just, you know, clean them up a little and say something. They're people."

'They?" Isabella asked.

"All of them." Mike's voice was hard.

"Now, hold on. Sky deserved better but I'm not giving the Careers anything," Zebulon almost spat. "I don't owe them anything."

"What do you think Sky would say if you asked her?" Mike objected.

"She wouldn't have heard me. She was deaf," Zebulon said dryly. We all looked at each other, unsure of whether to be horrified. Then Mike burst out laughing, crying all over again, and we all cracked up.

"Let's say something for everyone. It doesn't have to be nice, just something," I said. It seemed like a good compromise. I didn't want anyone to die, even if they asked for this. Just because they were bad people didn't mean I was going to be.

Zebulon took some clean water and started washing the blood off Sky's face and arranging her hair neatly while Mike started fishing the dead Careers out of the mud and water. Isabella joined him quickly out of loyalty, and I followed suit out of compassion.

I waded out to where Theta was floating by a platform, redness still staining the stagnant water around her head. I'd never touched a dead body before. I expected it to be cold, but not like that. The air around me was muggy with heat and even the water was lukewarm, but Theta was cold as ice. She was stiff, too, and that was also worse than I'd thought. It really was true what they said about corpses being like statues. I never thought my training would help me in the way it did. Theta was so heavy. If I hadn't been so physically fit I wouldn't have been able to carry her on my own.

By the time I got Theta to the cornucopia, Isabella and Mike had gotten most of the others. They'd arranged Timber and Rainbow next to each other, with all the Careers off in another row and Sky to the side all by herself. I hesitated, then put Theta next to Timber and Rainbow. My throat clenched when I saw Timber's gaunt, pale face. It was like I could already see the white of his skull.

"Anyone who wants to can say some words," Mike said. "But you don't have to if you don't want."

Isabella Disney-Busattil, District Eleven female (18)

"I'll go first," I said. No one knew what to do and someone had to be the one to start things. My eyes flickered over the bodies, a chill going down my back at the idea, and I walked over to Timber

"Timber deserved better," I said. "We're really sorry he died and we're sorry things didn't end up differently. We could have invited him to our alliance but instead Dahlia got him and he didn't deserve that. He seemed like a sweet, innocent boy. I wish..." I didn't know what to say. I'd barely known him, and I'd never spoken at a funeral before. "I wish it hadn't happened."

I noticed Rainbow by my left foot and impulsively went on. "Rainbow, too. We're glad she got away from Anjou before she died. I hardly knew her but she seemed quiet and lively. It's a cliché, but she really was full of life."

"I have something to say about Sky," Zebulon's said, his voice cracking. He stood over her body, looking not at her but out into the distance.

"Sky was from my District. For sixteen years we were in the same place. In all that time I never made the effort to meet her." He paused, struggling to speak. "I know it's not my fault, but it's just... we could have done so much. Instead I knew her for a week and then she was gone forever. There's so much I didn't know and it's lost now. What was her family like? Did she have a family? I never even asked if she had a family. Well if she doesn't, she's not forgotten. I'll remember her as long as I'm alive. She was hilarious and sneaky and she never let anything get her down. Not even when she got sent here." Zebulon took a few steps away and Mike met him with a hug.

"I have something to say." Beth spoke so softly we all looked over, unsure if we'd heard right. She walked confidently over to Majesty's body.

"I'm sorry about what happened to Majesty," she said. "He was sick and this shouldn't have happened. Someone should have helped him. It doesn't make what he did right, but it makes what happened to him wrong."

When Beth started I'd been ready to call her out, furious she would say anything good about the monster who murdered Sky. All the while she lay there, her face still and devoid of the smile I couldn't remember ever not seeing. But as Beth went on, my anger was replaced by something like guilt. She was right. Majesty chose, in part, to be the worse person, but he couldn't stop us from choosing to be better.

"I'll take Marley and Joseph," Mike said, and stood between them. "In the Capitol I saw Marley paint a night sky over some dark woods. It was really beautiful. She died so soon I guess that's the only thing I know about her- that she could make beautiful things. That's how I'll choose to remember her."

"I knew even less about Joseph. I know he didn't kill anyone in the bloodbath, whether or not he would have if he could have. He always seemed sad in the Capitol. Whatever he was sad about, I hope he found peace wherever he is."

We stood uncertainly again, unsure of what to do next. Beth knelt and wiped the mud off Majesty's face, closing his eyes. The rest of us followed her lead, cleaning and respecting the bodies of the dead children who surrounded us. Zebulon brushed what mud he could off of Sky's clothes, arranging them nicely. He stood and took a shaky breath.

"Let's take a few minutes," I said, my throat sore with grief. We gathered into a clump and waded out a few hundred feet behind the Cornucopia. We stood there, not saying anything at all, until the wind from the hovercraft rustled through our hair.

Pray Jager, District Two mentor

I could not have imagined a greater disaster. Not once, not once since the inception of the Academy, had Two been the first District to be eliminated. And in the bloodbath...I wanted to kill the mentors of everyone in the ridiculous moth alliance. And worst of all, I couldn't enjoy what was one of the ballsiest, spiciest moves in the history of the Games. God, that was brilliant. But it had to be my Tributes that were the butt of the joke.

District Two

In hindsight, perhaps a dreamer and a sad sack were not the best choices for the Games. It was clear that as much as we hated Isabella and her allies, we really had no one to blame but ourselves. She wouldn't have dared this if the Career pack had been stronger. While avoiding each others' eyes and awkwardly trying to avoid discussion, we settled on the only thing we could do. We didn't need to speak of this year. We didn't need to speak of these Tributes.

The strange aftermath of the Bloodbath, devoid of the usual panicked fleeing from hunting Careers, allowed this more contemplative send-off. It seemed a more sensitive reaction than the normal cannon POVs.