Late update since my sister is home from the Air Force but she took a bath so I had time to write this!


Cultur Spring, District Eleven male (17)

I didn't get to go back. I'd been thinking about it as I lay awake, night birds calling and the branches above me rustling with wildlife. After attacking Martin and Porsche I'd regretted it, but I didn't get to regret it. I'd volunteered for this. I chose to try to outlive twenty-three other people knowing I would have to kill them or at the very least profit from their deaths. I didn't get to be innocent anymore. I had to accept what I'd done and live with the consequences. Of course I felt guilty. I should feel guilty. I chose to take on the possibility of murder and I'd chosen to try to kill someone. I didn't think I was a terrible person but I did think that was something I had to acknowledge.

When I next see someone, I'm going to try again. I wanted to win. I was going to accept what that meant. Life wasn't as simple as good guys and bad guys. People were complicated. I thought of myself as a good person but I signed up for the Hunger Games. Back home, Summer was praying and hoping that I would come back to her. In Six and Seven, people hated me as someone who attacked their innocent children. Everyone in the Games had people who thought they were heroes and people who thought they were villains. It's not black and white, it's all perspective.

Suddenly I felt very old. Thinking about Summer, she seemed impossibly far away and lost to me. I couldn't see how we could have anything in common if I returned. I would remember what I'd done and what it was the be in the Arena and she'd be the same old Summer. My grandfather talked sometimes about the Dark Days. He didn't talk about them often, though. More often he just drank or started arguments or punched walls and yelled. I understood why now. I wished I'd understood before he died alone.

I pictured Summer's face in my mind. I remembered every detail. Her lips, so full and heart-shaped. The dimple she had on one cheek but not the other. Her tightly coiled hair that tickled me when she laid her head on my chest. This must be what soldiers thought about when they lay out at night. It wasn't the same, I had to admit. The men and women in the Dark Days were forced to fight for freedom. I'd signed up for my own profit. I'd chosen to live by the sword and the rest of my life would be touched by the consequences of that.

I wondered if Summer would know any of this if I came home. Would I seem the same to her or would she know? She'd see everything I did, of course. She was watching me right now if the cameras were on me. Would she even know what to do, or would she be like me to my grandfather, wondering why I was so messed-up and violent? Maybe she'd wait for me to die like I did to him. Even after all I'd seen, I couldn't make myself believe that. I'd changed, but Summer hadn't. If nothing else, she would run to greet me when I first arrived. It was that moment I thought of as I slowly fell asleep.


Martin Jackman, District Seven male (15)

Porsche was so cool to talk to. I'd had people tell me I tended to hog the spotlight in conversations (and I was starting to admit that maybe sometimes it was true) but I didn't have that problem with Porsche. She just had a way cooler life than I did. I didn't want to tell my boring stories when I could hear her nonchalantly talk about running (usually unsuccessfully) away from loan sharks or winning a car in a blackjack game. I got the feeling Porsche always seemed so unafraid in the Arena because she'd seen far more exciting things a dozen times.

"It must be cool being so... cool," I said. "No wonder you don't care what other people think."

"Everyone cares what other people think. I'm just usually busy thinking about something else," Porsche said.

"I wish I had something special like that," I said. You know, since the Tourette's thing is... yeah. No, I'm just a boring normal kid and that's why people forget about me.

"Everyone's special," Porsche said. "And don't give me that "then no one is" crap. Sure most things about most people are average, but no one's average in all the same things in all the same ways. There are a million billion elements to every person and there aren't a million billion people on the planet so everyone is unique. You don't have to have a missing leg or a world record to be cool." It made me feel a lot better about myself, but I still wished I stuck out a little more in my family. I guess everyone wants to be cool so that was another average thing about me.

"Hey," Porsche whispered. She pointed ahead to an irregular form in the grass. I squinted and slowly made out a sleeping Tribute. I couldn't be sure in the dark but I thought it was Culter. I followed Porsche as she snuck closer and soon we knew it was him.

What are the odds? We were moving around, so late at night, precisely to sneak away from him since he knew where we were. It seemed he'd been moving too and somehow we'd run right across each other. He was mostly hidden under some ferns and it was only the distinct animal shape against the leaves that got Porsche's attention.

"We should kill him," Porsche whispered, her eyes still on him.

My heart skipped. "While he's asleep?" I whispered back.

"Because he's asleep," Porsche said. "Otherwise he'd get us."

"You're gonna kill him?" I repeated stupidly. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised it would be Porsche's suggestion. Really I was being a little kid. We were in the Games. People died. Culter had tried to kill us and he would again if he could. If we didn't kill people we would die.

"But..." I whispered after Porsche said something I didn't hear. I didn't know how to finish the sentence.

"We should kill him," Porsche repeated. Her eyes glittered in the dark as she turned to face me. I didn't answer.

Porsche saw the fear in my face and turned away. She hobbled forward, picking over the ground until she found a stick so heavy she could barely lift it. Her back was to me as she walked toward Culter. Butterflies rose in my stomach as she stood over him. I should say something. I should stop her. They always say to stand up and not give in to peer pressure. But Porsche was smart and strong. She'd lived through so much. And if I warned Culter he would attack her. So I rationalized. I justified. I watched her raise the branch and bring it down.

What an ugly, horrible, dry, nauseating thump. But where was the cannon? Don't tell me he's not dead. Culter had jerked when the branch hit his head but he wasn't moving afterward. Porsche didn't flinch before she picked the branch up, righting herself from where the force of the blow had knocked her off-balance, and hit him again. The cannon sounded quickly after that.

I should have felt sad. I should have felt angry. I should have felt guilty. I should have cried. I should have felt nothing. I felt something I didn't know the word for. I didn't even know what emotion was clawing inside me. I didn't know the word for it because no one my age should.


Gigi Sampson, District Five female (16)

Something was up with Dionysus. Maybe it was bad sleep from the rocky ground or just the stress of the Games or maybe he was coming down with something, but he'd been pissed all day. I'd noticed it in the morning and it had gotten worse with each passing hour. I didn't think he was going to kill me- not yet anyway, though I never lost sight of the fact that he was a Career. He still seemed to want to be allies but I was starting to get worried he'd seek out the Careers to start a fight or do something stupid just to vent his anger.

"I hate coconuts," he grumbled, throwing his coconut violently against a tree. He stood up and smacked the tree trunk openhanded. "You got a problem?" he asked when I glanced up.

"Nope, just thinking how stupid coconuts are," I half-joked and half-sympathized, unsure which would placate him.

"Maybe if we had more other fruits things wouldn't suck so much," Dionysus very lamely insulted me, since I had literally just two hours ago brought back more fruit.

Geez, you having a man-period? "Sorry, I'll go find more," I said, hastily rising and scuttling out of camp for some air.

Blah blah blah, looking for bananas and stuff, Dionysus is being a whiny baby, I thought as I aimlessly kicked at some ferns and wandered about. Then something shiny caught my eye. I looked up and saw a sponsor parachute drifting down between two trees. Don't they usually make noise? I thought as I walked under it and reached up to snag it.

Hope it's some tea and chocolate, I snarked to myself as I opened the package. I looked inside and felt a strange mixture of guilt, sadness and judgement. I was looking down at a flask- the kind people hide in their pants to sneak into places. Dionysus wasn't having a period. He was having cravings.

I knew right away what the gift was for. This wasn't to improve my chances. It was to decrease Dionysus'. I would give him the alcohol. He would get drunk. After this long sober he wouldn't be able to control himself and he'd get fall-down drunk at best and pass out at worst. I could take all our supplies and get away. I could walk right up to him and kill him as he was helpless.

What a thing to do. What a thing to send to someone. What a thing to do to someone. I knew alcoholics. I'd seen them selling anything they could to get another drink, whether it was their family's trust in them or their own bodies. I'd heard about little kids turning their parents on their sides so they wouldn't drown and then making lunch for their siblings and taking them to school. People who tried a hundred times to break free but their lives were controlled by their addiction. What a thing to do, to give this to Dionysus and hope he chokes on his own vomit.

If I don't he'll kill me. We were friends now but it was stupid to think it was true. Dionysus came here to kill people. How egotistical would I be to think all that would change just because I was nice to him a few times? This was my chance to survive. Someone in Five spent precious food money on giving me a chance to live. What right did I have to throw it and my life away for a naive idealistic fantasy?

Someone gave their food money for this. That was it. There was good in people. Someone faced starvation to give someone else a chance. Someone risked death to preserve life. Dionysus hadn't only used me. He'd protected me, staying up at night to guard us. He'd shared food he hunted. He saved me from Ceto, even if that benefited him. And maybe I didn't want life to mean killing someone else. Maybe life wasn't worth living if you had to claw it from someone else's body. Everyone dies someday. Maybe all we can choose is how we die and I wanted to die saying that life, even a Career's life, had value.

I looked down at the bottle and felt a pull in my heart. It was stupid to believe Dionysus wouldn't take advantage of me. It was stupid to think we were friends. Everything in my life told me the opposite.

I want there to be good in people.

I opened the flask and turned it over. Clear liquid poured onto the ground and a chemical smell filled the air. There was good in me, if nothing else. I'd chosen to believe there was good in Dionysus, too.


8th place: Culter Spring- bludgeoned by Porsche

Bit of an awkward format since Culter's form called for death from behind or while sleeping so that would mean he didn't know it was coming but I wanted to make sure he got a closing POV. Culter was a long shot for Victor since readers usually don't want non-Career volunteers to win but that didn't disqualify him, as evidenced by his high placement. He was crotchety but that's to be expected from someone with his background. Even a happy ending in an SYOT requires 23 sad endings and one of them is Culter and Summer's. Thanks Kkstar for Culter. He was a realistic counterbalance to the more lighthearted Tributes this year.