Salalai Asshaise, 14, District 10 Female
"Galilahi, you're being unfair!"
My accusatory, inflamed tone of voice is something my ears have never heard before. The buzzing, vibrating sounds I can feel when a pained groan escapes my lips are usually the only sounds my body itself makes externally. My inner voice is soft, silky, sometimes wavering. My outer voice, forced from my belly in situations like the interviews, is a broken and husky sound that often sits dormant.
Now, for once in my life, I'm standing up for myself, and I'm shouting so loud it almost hurts my senses to conjure up such an intense volume.
"You're being ridiculous," Galilahi rebukes, folding her arms.
That's another thing that's unfamiliar, she has a form now. Not a very complex one, just a pale pink woman with flowing hair and a lean body. I'm not sure I ever gave her a human form in my mind, she was always just a voice. Ironically, it's probably similar to how her and Adahy never thought of me as a voice, just a body. A hunk of meat that they found themselves trapped in through some horrible stroke of luck.
"I'm being ridiculous?" I argue back. "I couldn't even live my life and enjoy my freedom after I escaped because of you and that bastard!"
"That bastard has a name," a deep voice tells me from beyond the shadows. This time, a tall man with a blue aura steps into view and takes a dutiful stance next to Galilahi.
"I don't care what your name is," I hiss at him. "I never cared. You aren't even a person. You're just aspects of my personality. That I would even give you a name in the first place is nothing but a formality."
Adahy folds his arms, his head dropping to the side. Then he looks back up at me with eyes that are missing irises.
"Now you finally see it, Sal. We aren't your enemies. We exist solely to benefit you. You wouldn't have made it without our help." Adahy's tone is patronizing, belittling.
"Nobody spoke to me because of you two!" My enraged shouting is so loud that I'm worried I'll attract attention.
"Who cares about them? They're just people. Salalai, as soon as you learn to accept that not everyone is going to like you for who you are, the sooner you can move on with your life."
Galilahi saunters over to where we are standing, in the pink and purple void of nothingness I now found myself in with these two lunatics.
"Sally… I know we haven't been great to you. I am guilty of quite a few awkward encounters. But we don't exist for no reason." In that regard, she's right.
"We aren't against you," Galilahi assures. Adahy continues to fold his arms and look irritated.
"Get that look off your face, Sal," Adahy barks at me. "You look ten years older."
Most would say these strange tangents of my own existence that my subconsciousness has created hinder me in ways that will never truly allow me to thrive. There are plenty of situations I wish I could have handled myself rather than Galilahi forcing my hand upon some poor stranger's lap or Adahy threatening to make them eat their own tongue.
So, this argument about who is a bigger burden on who is starting to become a bit strange. When Galilahi said I'm the reason I have no friends, not them, it set me off.
"Like I said, that is so unfair. I couldn't do anything about what was happening to me."
Adahy scoffs. "Get used to it, Sal. Life isn't fair."
That doesn't seem like a cure-all excuse for the things that have happened to me. Don't I deserve justice? Don't I deserve some sense of purpose? This surely cannot be how I die, so at war with myself.
Suddenly I begin to sink underneath waves of thick clouds, and Galilahi and Adahy are no longer in my sights. The dropping feeling in my stomach is frightening, and I soon land on a hard surface with so much force that my breath is knocked out of me. I'm no longer in that bright, featureless place. I'm back in the damp and dark cave I fell asleep in.
That was a dream? It couldn't have been. It seemed so… real.
Before long, however, I'm struggling to even salvage snippets of it, and after a few minutes pass the only thing I'm able to recollect is the pale, smooth faces of a man and woman that are both as blameless as I am.
Aslan Dreadstorm, 18, District 4 Male
According to the sun, it's just after noon. The position of it at least seems normal, even if everything else about it is very abnormal. Like me. I seem a bit off, but there's one or two qualities that make me into a decent guy. Redeemable qualities, like how the sun is telling me what time it is at the very least even though it has a face.
Even if most would not agree, I think this arena kind of suits my personality. It doesn't sleep and is more dangerous than it looks at the surface, and above all else, is as peculiar is I am. I'm eighteen but sometimes I feel eighteen going on thirty. Although being in the Games is not light work, it's at least way more fun than grueling fourteen hour shifts followed by academy sessions that guaranteed I got around an hour of sleep at night at most. Being here has meant that my interactions are at least a bit more like that of a normal teenager's. Vinna is the only person I've engaged in regular conversations with as of late, and on the few occasions she is not discussing the Games or how exactly she is going to kill the next person she sees, I like to pretend we're just hanging out. Obviously, our surroundings are not normal in the slightest, but if I squint hard enough I could be in a teenage girl's pink and purple bedroom.
Even as Vinna sits next to me as we eat, I've been in a very bitter mood as of late, the kind of mood that seems to stick to you like a leech. Seeing Azure and Coilee talk like lifelong companions reunited after a lengthy separation makes me wonder how one of them would react if the other died.
Well, Coilee did, technically, but that firefighter couldn't finish the job. In response Azure went on a ridiculous rampage by herself to try and find her killer. Seeing her come back wounded and empty-handed almost alleviated my anger at the fact that even after this whole ordeal, they're both alive.
Coilee's unexpected visit to my tent last night made it flare right back up.
"Azure talks to me, but I feel like she's mad," she complained as I faced away from her, trying to make it clear I had no interest in talking. "Maybe she saw us… you know."
"Probably."
Coilee gave me a look that suggested I had just murdered her grandmother in front of her. "What do you mean, probably?!"
I shrugged. "She lived in the same flat as me. I wouldn't count it out."
Coilee started grinding her teeth in a really annoying way that made me want to knock them all out. "Oh, god, what if she did! That's so embarrassing! And yet, she still tried to find the girl from 7 for me… and she was the only one who ever believed in me…" Coilee started drifting off, talking more to herself than to me. Then she looked back up with teary eyes.
"Ash, please tell me I'm not a bad person!"
I rolled my eyes.
"Please, Ash, just…" She crawled over to my side of the tent and placed her hands on my lap almost desperately, as a baby looking for comfort would to their parents. When she attempted to plant a kiss onto my lips, I recoiled as if she was made of acid. I couldn't kick her out of my tent fast enough.
Maybe I was a bit mean to her, I think to myself. When I see Coilee and Azure giggling like schoolgirls, the feelings of resentment return. Nah. She deserved it.
That's why, when I spot Magnolia Salix approaching from the west, their dark crop of hair standing out against the bright background, I don't react. In fact, my curiosity is peaking by the time I spot them parked in the blood red trees just across the clearing surrounding the Cornucopia.
"I'm going to take a leak," I loudly announce, barely attracting the attention of Coilee and Azure, so when Vinna turns her head in reaction, my come here gesture to her isn't even noticed.
"I have to go too," she says, and soon we're both walking away from the Cornucopia, and once we're far away enough she gives me a confused look.
"What is it?" she asks. I motion for her to lean in.
"The girl from 7 is hiding just ahead. See them?" I point discreetly with my head in the area where I saw them, even though we're walking around twenty feet to the left of where Magnolia is. They must be either paralyzed with fear or they believed I simply needed to go, because they haven't moved an inch behind the thick bushes surrounding the trees.
"I see them," Vinna tells me. "They're mine."
"No, no," I whisper, decreasing my walking speed so I have more time to explain. "We're not going to kill them, yet. In fact, they might even be able to do us a little favor."
Magnolia Salix, 18, District 7 Female
Although my lungs have grown resilient to any kind of smoke or vapor that invades them, being out of breath is still a common occurrence for me, especially in such an intense place as this. I find myself stopping a lot more often than usual to just breathe, gulping down air with a certain urgency. Was my body breathing on its own before? It feels like I'm making a conscious effort to do it now. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.
Maybe the Gamemakers are stripping the air of its oxygen to make us go crazy. If that's what they're doing, it's working.
After running back into the red tree forest, my heart stops as I see the metallic flash of the Cornucopia. I feel like I've been walking forever, and yet here I am back where I started. It's a bit unnerving to see a place that had seen so much death look as peaceful as ever. It looks almost nostalgic to me although I have never seen such a brightly-colored and cushiony place in my life. Here I am romanticizing the place where a bunch of kids died. I probably am going a bit crazy.
The Careers are here, crap. It looks like they're having a meal of sorts. The girls from 2 and 4 are eating together while the girl from 1 and the boy from 4 look more sullen and isolated. I find a well-hidden place behind a bush because I feel as if my movement has already been somewhat liberal considering there are four people who want to kill me in the area.
Speaking of, Coilee looks fine. The wound I gave her is absent, which is mind-boggling to me. Even if her face never appeared in the sky, I was certain she'd at least be languishing by now. But here she is, looking fresh as a fir tree.
See, Azure? It was just a flesh wound.
It's the presence of Azure that sends chills down my spine and keeps my body stiff and fearful to get up from my spot. She looked like she very much wanted to kill me that day, and even though Coilee is not dead, I'm sure her motivation has not waned in the slightest.
Suddenly, the boy from 4 says he has to use the bathroom, and the girl from 1 joins him.
Uh oh. Do not come over here. I repeat, do not come over here. Unfortunately for me, these trees provide the only real privacy in a few miles.
They don't come in my exact direction, though they aren't far off. But as they approach the woods, they change paths suddenly and are a mere few feet from the bush I'm nestled in.
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.
"Look away, Ash," Vinna says in a somewhat sarcastic tone. "Don't be a creep."
Maybe they really don't see me?
I feel a rough grip on my shoulder yank me upwards and I can't even let out a scream as a hand clamps itself across my mouth. Tears leak in the corner of my eyes as I see the boy from 4 gazing at me with an amused expression. I struggle to look behind me and see the girl from 1 chuckling as I continue to struggle.
"Shhh, shhh, shhh…" The boy is putting his finger to his mouth as if he were trying to coerce a colicky toddler into silence. "You have to be quiet, or they'll hear us."
Who? I ask in my head, since the only sound I can conjure up is a suppressed whimper from behind the girl's hand.
"So, I'm sure you know who we are," he says. "I'll just say anyway, I'm Aslan from Four and the girl who's got you is Vinna from One. We're here to work something out with you, in exchange for us not cutting open your throat."
As if on cue, Vinna pulls out a small knife and presses it to my neck, hard, while releasing her other hand off my mouth, ensuring I'm still silenced.
"So, Magnolia, see those two girls over there?" he asks, and I nod in response. He then asks me if I know who they are.
"Yes," I croak out, fear already consuming me. Where is he going with this?
"Great, no need for introductions," Aslan muses, pulling me away from Vinna by the neck of my jacket. "Let's go have a talk with them." I feel my posture almost collapse in on itself and before I know it I'm being held like a rag doll, my lower half scraping across the ground.
He's dragging me to the Cornucopia. This cannot be happening. He's going to let Azure and Coilee torture me to death. I should have done Coilee in that day. Same with Azure. I should have just let him cut my throat. Anything would be better than this.
The screams are escaping now, each one louder than the last. By the time he's tossed me onto the ground in a heap and Azure and Coilee have scampered over to see, my throat is raw and hot tears are streaming down my face.
"You!" Azure hisses at me.
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), Altair (9M), Salalai (10F), Ryker (10M),Andrew (11M), Lilac (12F)