Nailah Nebit, District Two female (18)
Hunting with Allure felt like a date with a celebrity. It was unfathomable to me how she could always be "on". I always got tired at parties eventually and would usually be one of the first to go home, but Allure would be the one planning the party and trying to get that last person to stay a little longer. Even when we were hunting she looked put-together. Her hair was a little tousled and her clothes were a little dirty, but somehow she made the tousles look like "beachy waves" and the stains look like "distressed pants". She must have been staying up late at night and grooming. Now that's commitment, I thought, reflecting on how tired I'd been since the Games began and how little sleep we got on the ground.
"After I win I'd like to visit this Arena," Allure said after we'd cleared out a section of rainforest and knew no one was there. "I wouldn't want to live here but it's really pretty to visit."
"It really is," I agreed. The sun was shining through the emerald trees and leaving golden beams of light. Dew beaded on the vibrant leaves. Earlier we'd spooked a scarlet macaw and sent it flying away.
"Ooh, what's that?" Allure bent toward a branch at about waist height. I saw a flash of color before she pushed a twig aside and exposed a little frog barely bigger than her finger. It was a saturated bright shade of blue with cute speckles and bands of dandelion yellow on its legs.
"Oh cute, a frog!" Allure said, bending closer and smiling. "I suppose you thought I wouldn't like frogs. Well, they're super cute."
I checked myself from saying something as Allure leaned closer. Uh, that's a poison dart frog, I was thinking. Probably shouldn't get close to that. But I didn't say anything. I waited a minute to see how close she would get. She had to know, right?
"It's so friendly," Allure marveled. She put out a finger. "Oh, I wanna touch it. I love how smooth frogs are."
Does she really not know? It wasn't like it was something to be ashamed of. Different people know different things and there were plenty of things Allure knew that I didn't. It wasn't like poison dart frogs were relevant to most people's lives. And some people did keep them as pets, since they were only poisonous if they had access to certain foods.
Should I tell her? It was the more important question. If Allure touched that frog she would probably die. But... that was the name of the game. We were both in this hoping to be the last one alive. Just because Allure cared about her appearance didn't mean she wasn't a real opponent. Allure could kill me just as much as I could kill her. And if she died this way I wouldn't get in trouble for killing an ally. Allure would be fine for a while and then... She'd get something in her eye and wipe at it. She'd touch her lips when eating. She'd wipe her nose. A few minutes later, depending on which species this frog was, she would seem to have a heart attack or a stroke. Anthony would probably suspect it was me but that was going to happen eventually anyway. No one ever trusts a poisoner. But regardless of what Anthony thought, Allure wouldn't have time to come for me once it started.
I said nothing. Allure carefully stretched out a finger and the frog calmly let her stroke it.
Mazie Rye, District Nine female (16)
Things were looking up. I'd survived a crocodile and my bruises were already mostly healed. I now knew to smack the water a few times before I filled my bottle. So far that had always worked, though it did bring to mind the joke about carrying a tiger-proof rock. There was all sorts of food around- honestly I was eating better than I did at home. We'd never had so much fresh fruit, especially tropical stuff. I was just disappointed I couldn't eat the funniest of foods- bananas- since I was too chicken to climb up a tree that far.
No, my tasted were more grounded, to make a pun. I'd only ever heard about passion fruits in books before this. They sounded impossibly exotic and romantic and I never dreamed I'd get to eat one in real life. They were a bit of a letdown- for all their pretty purple outsides they were kinda watery- but they were pretty good. And protein wasn't a problem. Not with all the grubs.
I flipped over a fallen branch and looked at the wiggly white grubs. "Slurpy slurpy," I said as I washed one off. You would think a grub would taste super gross but they really didn't taste like much at all. They were a little bit nutty, like the water after someone boiled peanuts. Other than that they kind of just tasted like nothing.
"Wonder if those are edible," I said idly as I passed some red pear-shaped fruits with brown curlicues hanging underneath. It wasn't worth it to try. There were plenty of plants I did know, like the coconuts and mangoes, plus my tasty grubs, part of a well-balanced diet. I wondered if anyone had died from eating something poisonous yet. They say the Careers just train with weapons and tend to die of Arena-related causes.
And if they don't? After the crocodile attack I felt like a different person. Being in a fight and coming out alive taught me both about the realities of mortal struggle and my own strength in it. Every day in the Arena people were going through what I went through. Some came out on top and some died. I'd been near death too and I saw now how much I was willing to fight to stay. I guess what I was saying was that when the moment came, I was willing to kill. I didn't know if I would have that chance but I knew I was a different person for making that choice.
Well, that's all in the future. Those kind of things were depressing to think about. I couldn't deny reality but I didn't have to wallow in fearmongering. For the time being I had food and a steady source of water. I could be happy for that.
Speaking of water... My bottle was less than half-full. In a hot, humid Arena like this I was drinking a lot and needed to keep doing it. I closed the bottle and got up to head for the river. Just remember to hit the water a few times and scare the crocodiles away...
Gigi Sampson, District Five female (16)
"There's so many feathers," I said as I tried to pluck some random bird Dionysus had shot. "If we get many more we can make a-"
Dionysus' hand shot out and hit my chest so abruptly I jumped. I looked over and saw a different person. Dionysus' eyes were pointed off into the distance with a sharp and dead-serious stare that scared me. His face was right and his body was rigid. All of a sudden there was death in him and I remembered that he this was what he had trained for.
Someone's coming for us, I thought. I ducked down, not even taking a second to look around before I was hiding myself. I scuttled on my stomach into some taller grass and then behind a tree. As I did so Dionysus half-rose with catlike precision and posted himself behind another tree. I still didn't hear a thing but he seemed to know exactly where the intruder was. I cowered behind my tree, knowing Dionysus was the only thing between me and certain death. I just had to pray he'd come out on top.
When the greenery by him rustled Dionysus burst into action. He shot up and around, striking like a snake with his staff. I saw Mazie just as it punched through her like a needle through fabric. Her face went scared and she her hands fluttered to the staff like butterflies. She fell over and gasped twice before she died, a bubble of blood bursting in her mouth.
I bent by her body. "It was Mazie," I said softly. I looked up at Dionysus and my disapproval must have been evident.
"I'm a Career," he said. There was a little annoyance in his voice when he went on, "You want to be the last one, too."
It was true. I wanted to tell Dionysus it was wrong but I couldn't. Good doesn't equal nice and nice doesn't equal good. Dionysus came here to kill, even if he was friendly with me. And I didn't want to die either. I couldn't tell him he was doing something wrong, not when I was enjoying the benefits.
13th place: Mazie Rye- stabbed by Dionysus
Mazie was such a happy bright person that I suspected a lot of people would kill her early as a non-contender. But survival situations bring out different things in people and I decided to see what would happen if she turned out to be stronger than people would think. She refused to let a caiman take her without a fight and she was gearing up to be a potential killer, as much as she would have hated having to do it. Dionysus got her, but only with the help of years of situational awareness training and honed hearing. The Arena's a less colorful place without her, phantomlady.
TIMELINE: seventh day
LOCATIONS:
Careers: Various
Japanese Gardens: Oberon and RJ
Rainforest Gardens: City Slickers
Pavilion: Pell, Culter
Sunken Gardens: Soleil
North Gardens (edible plants garden): Rejects, Cheyanne
