Aemilia Marsay, 32, Head Gamemaker
Not many would imagine themselves spending their thirty-second birthday in the Hunger Games Control Centre, but I've managed to do exactly that. The marking of the fourth day in the arena came with many well-wishes and gifts, and although I tried to savor the moments for what they were worth, I still felt as if there were more important matters at hand.
"Millie, take a little rest, you'll go insane without any sleep!" The Gamemaker's voice sounds like it is from behind me. I don't recognize it until I turn to see Rainbow, an appropriately-named woman seeing as every part of her, save for her skin, is somehow multi-coloured. I flash a somewhat impatient look in her direction, because the moment I step out of here, things have the potential to get mucked up. Not that I distrust my Gamemakers, but if I was preparing a dish and left someone to tend to it on the stove while I went off and did who-knows-what, there's no telling what they could do to it. Maybe they think I didn't add enough salt, or chili flakes, or turmeric. They think they're improving upon it but in the end they just ruin your cooking by doing what they perceive to be helping, but it is really just an unwanted intrusion on your work.
Look at me, comparing the Games to food. Maybe I am going a little crazy.
Before, when Aemma was only a toddler, she was attended to by various caretakers who would inform me when she ate, or slept, or played while I hunkered down in this oh-so familiar Control Centre. Now, she's seldom unwrapped her arms from around my leg during the almost four days we have been cooped up in here. She refuses to take her meals back in the flat, she simply has to eat them here so she does not miss a moment of action.
"Aemma," I try to tell her for the millionth time, "there is no action. Look, see? Everyone is just sitting around doing nothing because it is so early in the morning."
And it was true. The meagre Career pack of Vinna, Coilee, Aslan, and Azure sat lazing around in the Cornucopia, Coilee treating Azure's injured ribs by rubbing some sort of amber lotion on her chest. I ask someone to zoom in, and I have to hold back laughter when I see that it is honey.
Honey? I think to myself. That seems random…
Then it comes back to me, the enormous, cartoonish bee that took up several pages of her journal.
"It was coming at me, Mama! Not a bunch of them but just one."
"Was it a tracker-jacker?" I ask her in a nervous voice.
"No! It wasn't golden. This one was pink, and had shiny purple wings. The only thing golden about it was its crown. It was going to sting me until I gave the hive's honey back."
Why would Aemma be having dreams about bees?
"It was nice after it got its honey back. It took me on a ride through a field with big, humongous flowers." Her tone is wistful, playful, but also slightly jittery, as if even recalling the dream made her on-edge.
I keep staring at the screen, looking closely at how Coilee keeps rubbing the stuff into the pretty bad broken nose Azure sustained. She had received it from Nerezza in the bloodbath but falling almost directly onto her face into the pit did not help it much either. The bridge of her nose is opened and bloody, and she can't seem to breathe properly either.
"Microphones up, please," I say, leaning in closer to hear their conversation.
"The roles are reversed now, aren't they?" Coilee says jokingly as she keeps massaging Azure's nasal passage. Azure chuckles, a somewhat throaty sound.
"I did you dirty though. I went off to find whoever killed you and I didn't even succeed," Azure laments. "Don't worry, though, we'll find them."
"Uh, why?" Coilee asks, raising an eyebrow. "As you can see, I'm not dead."
"They still hurt you."
"Shame on a girl in the Games for defending herself! Really, Azure, if we find them, we find them, but I don't want you to worry about it."
Azure blinks twice then looks up at Coilee, bewildered. "You don't want to hunt down the person who injured and nearly killed you in the bloodbath?"
Coilee'a blue-grey eyes flash with uncertainty before her expression turns aloof again. "I would have done the same thing," she mumbles, shrugging.
Azure almost looks besides herself. Here she was, thinking she was honoring her friend by eliminating the person who hurt her, and said friend didn't even think it was that big of a deal.
"Early bird drama," Rainbow muses.
The conversation between Coilee and Azure winds down a bit after this, with Azure rising to her feet to stretch and Coilee preparing a rudimentary breakfast for when the other Careers rose.
It's almost 6:00. I decide to bring up the first twist.
"So, we already let Aston's into the arena, but should we let everyone else's go as well?" I suggest to the top Gamemakers formed around me in a semicircle.
"Yes!" Farsi squeals, pressing together her palms in excitement. She's one of the most enthusiastic people on the Mutt design team. "As of now I'm ready to release Albert's and Indy's."
A dark smile appears on my face, and for a moment I'm glad that Aemma is occupied with a pile of clementines.
"Okay, let's unleash them."
Albert Hade, 16, District 3 Male
I've never had so much trouble opening my eyes. It's like they're glued shut, and it takes legitimate effort to pry the lids apart from each other.
But I don't want to go back to sleep. Not after being forced to watch her die over and over again, her voice's desperate shrillness ringing in my ears long after I pulled myself out of such a horrific nightmare.
At first I'm questioning if I slept at all, because my body still feels sore. But I can see the fuzzy pink hue this arena takes on during daybreak, so it must be later, considering it was nearly pitch dark when I succumbed to the exhaustion from hours of walking without any food, and with my only water source being the slightly sweet concoction that knocks me out cold. Sleep always sends me back to the terrible images my subconscious conjures up. So, I've avoided taking too many drinks from the various fountains or ponds that spring up every once in a while, no matter how parched my throat feels.
Imagine being able to corrupt the body's way of replenishing.
I look back up at the sky, and nearly do a double-take when I see it. The stars seem… different. Not shockingly different, but something about the way they sit in the sky is unsettling me. Rather than them appearing as simple bright dots, light years away from my point of view, they're more pointed now, as if I were squinting at them to see the bars of light rather than a blinding orb. But even then, you can only do that with the sun, the brightest star of them all. They look almost like attempts at drawing stars, five-pointed and plastered almost amateurishly across the dark indigo sky.
The sky itself is changing, as it does every twelve hours on Earth. They haven't seemed to change how time passes, at least. Delicate strips of lavender, milky white and mauve are peeking across the bottom of the horizon, signaling that dawn is soon upon the arena. I haven't really been keeping count of the days well, seeing as each one has been the same since I lost her. Wandering around with no particular goal or destination, wondering how and why no one has found me yet. If I had to guess, it's Day 3 or 4.
The area I'm in now is interesting. Once I got past the pink sanded area, a gigantic meadow with oversized flowers in various shades of pink and purple appeared.
I take in the sight. Even the stems of the flowers are pink, and I can see a few oversized bees of the same colour going to pollinate them.
Oh, what I wouldn't give to see something green. It's my favourite colour, and yet this arena seems to be very scarce in terms of it. Almost everything is some shade of pale purple, blush pink, or dark blue. It's almost disorientating to see nothing natural-coloured, even if it's only been a few days. I'm starting to miss grass being the colour it's supposed to be, the sight of a real blue sky, air that isn't sweet-smelling, a sun that isn't giggling at me.
The biomes are split with a small cluster of huts, somewhat rustic-looking and sporting chimneys with pink smoke billowing from them. Hopping bunnies populate the area, their fur puffy-looking and yellow, along with some small dogs with golden coats. At first I cringe, because I'm positive these are Mutts I'm going to have to fight, and I don't have a sliver of metal to defend myself with. Thankfully, I walk past them passively and they do not bother me. One dog barks at me as my eye catches a house in the corner, because it looks like someone is inside. A figure is at the window, looking down, presumably seated.
Curious, I approach the hut further, wondering who is inside but also not wanting to encounter anyone yet. I squint my eyes as I try to make out who is behind the glass.
My heart stops when I see her icy blue eyes staring out the window, not yet noticing me.
"Is that… Sophia?!" I hiss under my breath. No, there's no way that's her. I literally saw her die in my arms. Then, later that night, I saw her again, this time in the sky. People don't come back to life, even I know that. There's no scientific explanation for it, despite some people believing that people truly can be undead. But Sophia doesn't look like a zombie to me. She looks how she normally does, only now she's in her lacy white Reaping dress, the one she weeped in to gain sympathy from the Capitol. That day seems like an eternity ago.
I want to believe it isn't really her but as I observe her little mannerisms, the way she rests her head in her hand and how she twirls her hair around her finger when she's bored, an amusing realization washes over me.
They can create clones of tributes for the Games, but not for the families of all the tributes they've killed… wouldn't they like to have their kids back?
I know Sophia's family, her dad in particular, have probably hardly noticed her absence since the time she got Reaped, since they're always tending to forget about her. The story of how her dad left her at the mall is one I could recite word-for-word. But I haven't forgotten her.
I tell myself that over and over as I venture past her perfect copy and into the flower field.
Indy Carmedas, 16, District 6 Male
Being shaken awake by someone you've only known for a few days is actually a pretty frightening experience. For a brief moment, you wonder why the surface underneath you is not your bed, and how strangely surreal your bedroom ceiling suddenly looks. All before seeing an ashen, exhausted face sneering, your shoulders in their grip.
"Wake up, Indy! It's past noon!" Esther's voice has managed to become increasingly unpleasant as time wears on in this timeless place, every word seeming like honey. Slow-moving, sickly sweet, and dreadfully thick.
Altaïr's voice hasn't had that effect on me yet, maybe due to the fact that I don't hear it nearly as much.
We've managed to reach the top of a mountain-like area that's filled with cavernous trenches that seem more gloomy than welcoming.
"They aren't that bad," Esther tries to convince me. But my fear of the unknown is being brought out, and at a time like this there's little I can do to suppress it.
"Altaïr, why don't you go in first?" Esther suggests. "Since you like adventure, and stuff."
Altaïr looks taken aback by Esther's strange logic. There was a difference between being adventurous and acting reckless. Yet Altaïr seems resigned as he gingerly wanders into the pitch-black cave, his head whipping back and forth as more of him becomes shrouded in the darkness.
"I can't see anything!" he complains, his voice echoing. Esther folds her arms.
"What, are you blind? Let me see."
She shuffles uneasily into the cave next, scoffing. I stay outside, not wanting to become some cave monster's next meal.
After a few minutes, I don't hear anything, no footsteps or signs of life. Maybe a monster, or a Mutt in this case, captured them, because I haven't heard any cannons.
"Uh, guys?" I call out, my voice shaky.
No answer.
I suck the air through my teeth and nervously step inside the cave, holding the strap of my bag tightly. After walking tentatively for a few moments the brightness in the cave seems to almost shut off completely. The light at the end of the tunnel is gone.
"Oh, no…" I whimper, waving my arms in all directions to establish some sort of direction. The last thing I want to do is collide face first into a wall.
Before long I feel something rocky and coarse, which must be the wall. I drag my palm across it whilst continuing to walk, secretly hoping I won't trip.
Suddenly, a light giggle. A familiar one. One I haven't heard since I was a child, a once comforting sound that I always found solace in.
A flicker of light ignites in the middle of the room, illuminating the area with a dull amber tint. The light flies around a bit before retreating further into the tunnel. I follow it, almost in a trance.
It keeps laughing. Why is it laughing at me?
It's even more insulting when they use my mother's voice to do it. I know that it's probably not her. I saw her die. But the Capitol, in all its cruelty, loves to take your deepest trauma and flaunt it for the sake of manufactured drama.
"Indy… don't be upset."
Now Mom's voice is talking to me.
"Shut up. Just shut up! You're not my mom!" I bark at the ball of light, which has floated so close to my face that I can see my vision becoming spotted and blue.
"You're getting worked up, dear."
"Just shut up!"
"My, my…" The voice has taken on a more chastising tone as opposed to the soothing voice it had been using before. Suddenly the ball expands until it fills the room completely, blinding me for a few moments.
Then, when the light subsides, I have to blink several times in an attempt to fully register the fact that my mom is standing right in front of me.
It looks like her. Her waist length chestnut brown hair hangs the same way across her small, somewhat stocky build. She's wearing the same red blouse, white windbreaker, and cargo pants. Her unknowing, blissful smile is the same as right before it happened. It's almost as if I'm stuck back in that horrible moment.
She steps forward and places her hand on my head, almost condescendingly, but I find it comforting me in a dismayingly familiar way.
"That's no way to talk to your mother, is it?"
Kills
Vinna (2): Sixtine (assist), Garrett
Coilee (1): Ethan
Azure (1): Nerezza
Aslan (2): Sixtine, Sophia, Pontiki
DW (1): Armahni
Tributes remaining:
Vinna (1F), Coilee (2F), Albert (3M), Azure (4F), Aslan (4M), Aston (6F), Indy (6M), Magnolia (7F), Esther (8F), Altaïr (9M), Salalai (10F), Ryker (10M), Andrew (11M), Lilac (12F)