Jack Schnapps, District Nine male (13)
I DON'T WANT TO DIE!
The blasting noise started the Games and all thoughts of my plan vanished. I dove off my platform and huddled next to it, hoping I was on the opposite side of it and the Bloodbath. All around me I heard splashing and struggling and screaming. Lukewarm mud seeped into my pants as I huddled against the unforgiving metal. Wild thoughts of staying hidden and somehow sneaking away without being seen humored themselves in my mind.
Is that Charm? I didn't know how I recognized her scream. It might have been the One accent- the drawn-out vowels noticeable even in a wordless scream. I was certain it was Charm, though. I couldn't tell how long the Bloodbath had gone on, but Charm screamed again, more distant this time.
"Don't let her get away!" Zebulon's voice I definitely recognized- that thick Appalachian accent. So Charm was on the run and Isabella's alliance was giving chase? The only possibility came to my head immediately. They'd routed the Careers. If Charm was panicked, most or all of her allies must be dead. The Careers were gone. My agreement was moot, but my killers were dead.
I stayed huddled by my platform, too scared and uncertain to check my theory. I heard a few final sounds of fleeing Tributes, then the less-frenzied sound of more Tributes slowly returning.
"We'll get her," I heard Romeo say. Good thing I hadn't come out, then- his alliance wouldn't hesitate to kill a blind kid.
"They'll get her," Dahlia said. "Let's just get some stuff and leave. I don't need this many allies."
"Rats, I was hoping we'd be best friends," Isabella sneered. Behind her I could hear Mike wailing. "Just take your sharp things and get out of here." There was the clanking of supplies, then retreating footsteps.
I flinched when noise approached me. I sat frozen, unable to guess if running would be better or if I was entirely exposed already. The noise hovered near my side, and then I heard something dragging.
What are they doing? Are they setting up a fence or something? Their faint murmuring was inaduble until Zebulon spoke loudly.
"Sky was from my District..." the speech went on and I felt a sick chill come over me. They were holding funerals. Funerals for dead kids... If I listened close enough I'd know who was dead.
"Theta never spoke to the other Tributes much," Mike said. "I get the feeling she had some demons. She's free of them now."
I waited, but that seemed to be the last one. No more time, then. I had to move eventually. I took a deep breath and stood up.
"GYAH!" Someone screamed.
"Hold on, it's just some kid!" Isabella's half-Capitolite answer came through.
"It's the blind kid," Zebulon said.
"I had a deal with the Careers," I called, unsure what else to do and desperate. "I was going to sit on the podiums for a while to mess up my father's bet."
I heard whispers, some loud enough that my sharpened hearing caught them.
"Obviously we can't leave him."
"He'll die anyway, so it's okay to let him in."
Footsteps heralded someone approaching me.
"You can stay on the platform if you want. Otherwise, we have lots of food and stuff. You can come hang out with us."
Charm Sterlingshire, District one female (18)
Nothing was right. Nothing that I was ever taught was true. I was huddled under a mud overhand on the far side of the river I'd somehow managed to scramble across. I was covered head-to-toe in mud- I felt it caking tightly on my cheeks and sucking the heat from my skin. Between the mud and the surface of the water, there was less than an inch of opening. I'd been looking out over the quiet river, quivering and waiting for my pursuers to come. Beth was with them. She could swim and she could fight. I'd thought I was the only winner, the sure Victor who would mow down her opponents like annoying bugs. Before I knew anything was happening, I found out I wasn't even a player.
I'm gonna die. They're going to find me and I'll die. What hope did I have? I was a very scared and exposed Career who'd lost her allies and her supplies. We all knew it in the Academy- our job was to take the cornucopia and kill. I'd never even tried to build a fire. They say you can freeze to death in hours- just, normal to dead in hours. The sun had already set and the water was cooling to just above the edge of cold. I didn't know if I'd live if I tried to stay there all night. I didn't know if I'd lived if I moved.
Tears formed in my eyes and I thanked the mud that allowed me wipe at it and pretend I wasn't crying. I'd embarrassed One badly enough. They didn't need that disgrace. And then, from the heavens, I heard the song of an angel.
For a moment I let the sponsor parachute lay on the river's surface, slowly waterlogging. I scooped it up and shakily opened the box. I was greeted with a thick plastic straw. SURVIVAL FILTER, one side read.
A little tug went off in my heart. I felt suddenly warm, and when I wiped the mud away again, it was happy tears I was hiding. I stood with my hands cupped, staring and smiling down at the filter.
They still believed in me.
Kade McNamara, District Eight female (13)
As I dug into the narrow tunnel, more and more revealed itself ahead of me, until I was entirely buried in the earth. I wiggled in further, blindly rooting for cover and somewhere to hide, and tumbled onto my face when the tunnel opened up into a large bowl. There was a pinprick of light coming from above, just enough that I could see how very large the tunnel actually was. Ahead of me there was a corridor wide enough for me to easily crawl. Another pinprick of light further down illuminated a fork in the tunnel.
There's... two arenas? It was like another world, entirely underground. But it wasn't big enough for any cool Hunger Games battles. It was just a tunnel, then? A small part of the main arena, which was above? But still, what a strange addition. An arena with a jungle and one random tunnel?
Common sense finally took over scattered thoughts when I remembered the Bloodbath happening above me. I could clearly hear the chaos through the light holes. Against my body's wishes, I crawled back up the tunnel toward the mouth. Halfway up, I started dislodging dirt as I backed into the tunnel. No one could follow me. Most likely, no one even knew where I went. In all the panic, no one would notice a little girl crawling into the mud. We were all covered in mud.
I lay curled on the floor of the tunnel, my hands over my ears, as the rest of the Bloodbath screams went on. When I hesitantly lifted my hands, there was spooky silence. I looked up into the skylight, the outside world obscured into just a beam of light. It was quickly fading.
It's going to be dark. I didn't know if I could do it. I'd seen the cave arena. I knew what kind of things there could be in the dark. Up on the surface, there could be monsters. Deep in the earth, there could be worse things.
You'll die if you go up there. I knew it was true. If I got too scared and fled through the tunnels until I found an opening, I would die. Nearly certainly I would die before the sun rose. Someone would find me.
Then what can I do? A coldness came over me. First I withdrew into myself and then I felt like I was somehow separate from my own body.
You're going to lie down. I recognized the voice as my own but couldn't believe it was myself. Stay here. Don't think about it. If don't, you will die.
With stiff certainty, I stretched myself on the ground, facedown so I was pressed into the dirt. I closed my eyes and didn't open them, not as the sun was setting until I could feel from the coldness that it was gone. I didn't move as I waited for noises that didn't come. If I did not move, they would ignore me. It had to be true. They would leave me alone if I just didn't look and didn't move.
When morning comes you can use the tunnels to look for Valencia. But right now, just don't freak out. If you do, you'll die.
I didn't move when I heard the noise. Faster than even my body could move, something in my mind recognized a sponsor chime. A flashlight, probably. I heard the gift clatter to the ground a foot away from me. I made no move to pick it up. It didn't matter if it was a flashlight, not when I knew if I reached for it, something else might reach me first. Something crouched inches from my face, just waiting for me to move.
Since this chapter was meant to be for sponsor gifts (plus explaining where tf Jack was in the Bloodbath), Charm got two POVs in a row. I made her POV shorter to balance it a little.
PS after that unnecessarily nightmarish final POV, Kade did NOT get a flashlight. She got a water purifier and mosquito repellent, which she opened after sunrise.