It was our father's day celebration today but at last I can update!
Allure Beldam, District One female (18)
The worst thing about the Games was the Arena. I could live with the killing and stuff (ha ha, live with, killing, there was a pun in there somewhere) but a finely bred lady like me wasn't used to... roughing it. Try as I might to wash my face off with the probably less-than-sparkling river water, I still had specks of dirt on me, as I could see in the little survival mirror that was meant for starting fires but was far better used to examine my face. I barely wanted to sit up in my sleeping bag. I looked... tired, as someone might say either politely or backhandedly. But as undignified as it was, I did have to get up eventually. There were Tributes to hunt so I could get out of here faster. I stretched and sat up, wiggling around a little pebble that stuck into my back.
Nailah was by our fire, reconstituting some of the ready-meal packets we'd been living off of. They weren't home cooking but it wasn't the worst thing I'd eaten in the world. Pretty close, but not the worst. At the moment I wasn't thinking about that at all. There was something far more distracting above the fire.
"Oh my gosh, Nailah! Your hair!"
Nailah's hair stuck out wildly in every different ways, frizzed up like a cat's tail in the humidity of the rainforest air. The sweat glistening on her face added to the succinct image of how very gross and steamy this whole place was.
Nailah looked up at me with a resigned expression. "Yeah," she said. "This is what happens when it's humid out. You can go ahead and laugh, it is kind of funny."
"You look like you stuck your finger in a light socket," I teased. Luckily my own hair, pin-straight and sleek as a raven's wing, kept its shape in any weather. It might snarl or tear out but it never frizzed.
"Hey you, I'm trying to sleep," Anthony grumbled from his sleeping bag.
"Well stop trying. It's morning, lazy," I said.
"It will still be morning in ten minutes. Call me then," Anthony said, and rolled over.
"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bag," I said, smirking at Nailah. It was nice seeing her all frizzed up. That knocked her down a bit in my eyes and meant I didn't have to worry about her so much. With that out of the way I could talk to her like a normal person.
"So, what's on the menu today? What beautiful people are out there about to meet the wrath of Allure?" Nailah asked.
"Hmmm," I said, my hand on my chin. "Cheyanne's still out there. Soileil. Porsche can live a while."
"Wow, savage," Nailah said.
"I notice I'm not on the hit list," Anthony said. He sat up in his bag and exposed his greasy unwashed hair and dirty neck. "I'm insulted."
"Go take a bath and get back to me," I said.
"So if I take a bath I'm on the hit list? Got it- don't take a bath for the rest of the Games," Anthony said.
Nailah made an exaggerated cry of disgust. "Oh no. You take a bath or I'll give you one," she said, hefting the pot of rehydrated soup.
Anthony called her bluff. "Do you have any idea how bad I would smell if you dumped soup on me and I still didn't take a bath and let it marinate for a few days?"
"Okay," I surrendered. "Everyone gets clemency from the hit list for the next few days. Everyone take a bath. Just not together. That would be weird."
Porsche Romeo, District Six female (17)
How the tables had turned. For the last few days Martin had been helping me out- getting food from trees I couldn't climb, kicking down any thick clumps of greenery it was hard for me to get through with my cane. After Preji's death I'd been the one taking care of him. It seemed that, unlike emotionally stunted people like me, some people cared when someone died right in front of them.
"We should have fought Nailah or something," Martin fretted.
"Then we'd just all be dead. Except Nailah," I said. Oh, Martin. We all know that one kid who insists he could fight off three people at once or that his uncle taught him a super secret technique that could kill someone with one strike. Most of us grew out of that but Martin was pretty clearly a little on the slow side when it came to maturing. Not that I was judging- I had my own things that annoyed other people.
"Maybe we could have run away. At least some of us," Martin said, totally innocent of what that would obviously mean.
"Yeah, some of us," I said, making it very obvious I was teasing and not offended.
"You could have hid and Preji and I could have run away," he said.
"What, jump down from the tree? I guess maybe you could have landed on her," I said. But that wouldn't have worked anyway, since she'd been twenty feet away from Martin's tree.
"You think he was mad at us for not helping him?" Martin said, his voice all small and scared.
"I think he died before he knew anything hit him," I said.
Martin seemed to accept that. His gaze went faraway as he imagined Preji's last few minutes and what it must be like to die. At least I thought he did- I couldn't read his mind.
"I've never lost someone that close before. I mean, we didn't know each other long, but he was just a few feet away from me. Have you?" he asked.
"Yeah, a couple of times," I said.
Martin looked at me with shock. "Really?" he asked.
"I was part of, you know, the underground," I said. "I wasn't a criminal myself but no one who hangs around underground poker games and loan sharks gets by without seeing some things," I said.
"You saw people die?" Martin pressed.
"Not like my close friends or anything, but once in a while there would be a drive-by shooting or maybe I'd park someone's car and when I gave it back I just kind of knew from the guy who picked it up that it was a good thing I didn't look in the trunk," I shrugged. "Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas, you know?"
"I didn't know you were a gangster," Martin said. He sounded more surprised than judgemental.
"I really wasn't. I was just kind of on the edge of the scene," I said.
"Isn't that scary? Being so close to death all the time?" Martin asked.
"It should be, but I was never really scared," I said. I saw Martin's awed expression and moved to shatter his bubble. "I'm not super brave or anything. I just thought of course it would never happen to me. I'm like most people. Nothing could ever happen to me, just the other guy. And honestly I'm too stupid to really understand death. Makes my life a lot easier."
"This must be easier for you, then," Martin said.
"So far," I said. Even after explaining it I suspected Martin still thought I was smarter than I really was. Martin my friend, it is so easy to be carefree when your brain can't comprehend it should care. "I guess it will change when I get killed. I feel like I'll learn pretty quick then."
Connor Merlyn, District Five male (18)
It was weird not having anyone to talk to. It wasn't that I needed constant conversation but I'd been in the Arena for five days and I hadn't spoken to anyone in all that time. Every morning I woke up from whatever fallen tree or mound of dirt I'd hidden behind and scrounged around for fruit and refilled my water bottle and then I either snuck around or more often stayed still until night came. The bag I'd grabbed in the Bloodbath had nothing in it but the water bottle and purifiers, so it wasn't like I could build much or make many plans. Seemed weird there was nothing in there but the water. I guessed the Gamemakers didn't want a really boring Games were everyone died of diarrhea.
Imagine being the guy who edits all this, I thought. We watched the Games live but the cameras weren't on everyone at once, obviously. There must have been a team of people constantly watching us, deciding who was doing something interesting and who to ignore. Probably each of us had a designated watcher, or more than one. Someone was watching me every moment of the day. Of course my first thought went to all the times I'd pooped. Well, served him right for being a Gamemaker.
"What are we going to do if they find us?"
I ducked behind a tree at the noise, my heart racing. After the first instant of panic I calmed down as I registered that it wasn't a Career's voice. I didn't recognize the voice specifically but it sounded like maybe the boy from Seven.
"Die, probably," another voice said. Oh, that's Porsche, I thought. I'd recognize that blaring, ebullient voice anywhere. So Porsche and Martin were allied? Seemed like a strange pair. But what now? Confront them? Ignore them? Attack them? Not that last one, of course. I wasn't just going to attack a crippled girl and a weird twitchy kid.
I ran through the scenario in my head. If I went to them, what then? I could join their alliance but to be really cold, I didn't see how it would benefit me. I had nothing against Porsche and Martin but they weren't... There was no sugarcoating it. They would drag me down. Allying with them would increase their chances but it was my life on the line and I wasn't a charity. This was one place more than anywhere else in the world that I needed to put myself first.
I turned around and snuck away. It hurt a little, leaving behind the only fellow humanity I'd seen for almost a week, but there was no other choice. They would have to live or die on their own. Almost certainly that meant they would die, and while I was sad about it, it meant I had more chance to live. I didn't ask for this and it wasn't my responsibility to help anyone else.
Back home everyone is living their lives. Right now, as I waded through the jungle, everyone I was missing was going on without me, some missing me and some not. My father was running the power plant and maybe pretending to care when one of his colleagues asked about me. My friends were whispering among themselves about what they would do if I died and probably scraping together sponsor money. Sabrina was imaging either a life without me or a life sharing me with the Capitol.
I could see the sky in a gap in the trees above me. Wait, when did I lie down? And why did it feel like I was weightless? Aside from the pain in my head, which I was just now realizing had been there for a while, I could hardly feel my body. Something crawled on my lip and when I reflexively scrunched my face I tasted blood.
There was a person in the sky. No, she was in a tree, I slowly put together when the three blurred trees focused into one. It was too far to see her face but she seemed to be looking at me. My hand, bent up beside my head, brushed against something furry. I wondered if an animal had attacked me but then why wasn't it moving? No, it was the girl. She did something. She attacked me? I wasn't sure, but I knew it wasn't good how much blood I could taste.
I tried to rise and couldn't even sit up. When I saw that wasn't possible I turned my thoughts to Sabrina.
16th place: Connor Merlyn- coconut dropped by Cheyanne
Cheyanne is a savage. But actually she mistook him for Anthony and thought he would eventually attack her. Connor did not die because he left Porsche and Martin, just a note. That was totally the right decision and I'm not penalizing him. I just wanted someone to die by coconut and picked Connor because I was going to kill him eventually anyway. Connor was cool and all but it felt like an easy pick making him Victor so instead I killed him LOL. He did outlive Ceto so had that going for him. This is a big boon for the Careers since he's about the only outlier that could fight them on his own. We shall see how they deal with the other threats... but anyway thanks Sparky for Connor, who royally pissed of Ceto by his existence even though he just minded his own business until Cheyanne unprovokedly dropped a coconut on his head.
