Ha ha u right Omar is from Ten. Counting is hard.


Nubu Sanders, District Twelve mentor

Sometimes you're just relieved it's over. On the years I knew we had no chance I still had to go to the bitter end trying everything I could. This year it was all over in the Bloodbath and I could stop hoping and start mourning.


District Twelve

There was no one left to mourn Morty. It might have been what he wanted, knowing that after he passed the Sonym family could be at peace. No one mourned Samantha either. Her mother, who had never wanted a child, went back to her alcohol and self-destruction. She was never punished for what she did to her daughter but her life was its own punishment.


CETO PRESTON- Anthony Morgan

Absolutely no one saw that one coming. Not that Ceto would die- we all thought her single-minded obsession might do her in. No, we didn't see Dionysus coming. And why on earth would he take Gigi with him? She must have gotten away, since her face wasn't in the sky. But why would he drag her away before he killed her? That boy didn't make any sense. But anyway, Ceto was gone and Four's hopes rested on me now. I didn't know if I'd live up to it but I'd try.


DESIREE REDWOOD- Martin Jackman

No one thought I would be the longer-lived Seven, least of all me. I mean, I was strong and all, but Des was a beast. I guess that was probably why I was left and she wasn't: the Careers just didn't care about me. They'd get to me eventually...


KJOLE SCHMIECEL- RJ Macready
It wasn't fair that they went for her just because she had a chance. Someone from the outlying Districts actually had a chance to earn a better life for their whole District and some rich prettygirl snatched it away so she could buy more jewels and mansions. And more likely than not she'd end up winning.


BESS CARVER- Omar Beatriz-Calvert

We lost girls like Bess every year. Nice, normal, sunny girls who just wanted to live their lives and maybe get married or have a job someday. Tiny, modest goals that were apparently too much to ask for.


MORTY SONYM- Soleil Kingston

He wanted to kill himself, didn't he? I wondered if that was what happened. I understood that. I'd never told anyone, but I understood that. Sometimes so many people want you to be so many things that you think it would be less disappointing to them if you just weren't at all.


SAMANTHA VON HINDENBURG- Porsche Romeo

I thought I was weird but that girl was really something. Now she was gone and there was no one to make my alliance look normal. Pity she didn't last longer. She'd have fit right in with the rejects.


Mai Rye, District Nine female (16)

People expected me to wander around telling myself jokes for their amusement. Maybe I would in a few days, but right now I didn't see anything funny in the world. It wasn't funny at all that I was going to die. People like me didn't win the Games. We made people laugh for a few days and then we died and people said 'what a pity, she was so bright and full of life'. I'd be a lot more full of life if someone hadn't forced me into a deathmatch. But I did see something funny about this. I just thought to myself that maybe in a few days I'd tell jokes. It was funny that I thought I would last a few days.

Not that I was going to lie down and die. No, I was going to live as long as I could, and if the Careers came for me I would do my best to leave them some souvenirs of me. No use sitting around and whining about my problems. No one wanted to hear about that, not even me. All I could do was focus on the next day, or the next hour, or even the next minute.

I should count my blessing, I thought, smirking at how it sounded like something out of a picture book. But I did have some blessings. I'd managed to grab an empty water bottle at the Bloodbath, along with an extra pair of socks. Since I'd chosen the rainforest room to hide out in, socks might make a big difference. I already had a less-than-orthodox idea about what to do with them.

It was unsettling that there hadn't been any cannons since the Bloodbath. In an Arena like this it made sense that people were able to hide, but it still gave me the feeling that a death was somehow overdue and would catch up with us eventually. I'd been hiding out in a little divot in the ground covered with greenery but I had to go out for water eventually. For food I could theoretically last an entire Games, at least for the shorter years, but water wasn't negotiable.

I crept along the lush jungle floor, pushing through grass and trees as night birds chattered overhead. I was grateful for their racket, since it would help cover me up. As the ground grew wetter underfoot I knew I was close to water. In the darkness I couldn't make out the thin river until I saw stars reflecting off its surface.

Yay, water, I thought as I squatted to fill my bottle. My plan was to put my new socks over the mouth of the bottle and hopefully they would filter out some of the worst of the germs. Would it work? I had no idea, but I had no better options. I screwed the lid onto the bottle and tried to think of how exactly to make the filter.

I knew, suddenly, how my ancestors felt in jungles just like this one. The hiss went straight to my heart and vibrated like a pinball. I knew at once what it was and what to do but it didn't matter because I so badly did not want to turn around.

It got me before I could. I shot backward like someone had yanked my collar and only a desperate grab for a nearby tree branch stopped me from disappearing into the water. That same hiss chilled my bones as the alligator tossed its head, its teeth crushing my leg but stopped by the material of my pants. I tried to heave myself out but the alligator was far too strong. We lay there for a minute, both pulling in opposite directions, as I incongruously thought that I was wetting my pants but it didn't matter because they were already wet.

I didn't think any lofty thoughts about avenging myself or not going down easily. I just didn't want to die. I drew my legs up, tugging the alligator perhaps an inch farther out of the water, and hooked my elbow around the tree to anchor myself so I could twist around. The alligator was much smaller than I expected, which explained why it didn't immediately drag me away. I started kicking at it with my free leg as I tried to pry its jaws open. I quicky realized that wasn't going to work and started to panic.

I don't want to die yet! I know I will but not yet just not yet! I jammed my fingers into the alligator's eye and shuddered at the gross wet squelching. I hooked my thumb like a claw and tried to scoop its eye out entirely. The gator hissed again and then just let me go. It spat me out and slid back into the water so quick it was like it was never there, leaving me crawling away from the water with a bruised leg and goop on my hand.

I'm not going to die yet. I'm actually not. I could hardly believe it.


Fun fact it was actually a caiman, not an alligator. Mai's biology is not the greatest. And caimans are a lot smaller, allowing a human to sometimes escape. This one in particular was about four feet long, being still a lil teenage caiman.