Mystic Archeron, 16, District Eight Female

Tonight has been fun. Not an incredible, extravagant, exhausting kind of fun, but fun. Aquatico is a treasure, an absolute blast to be in the presence of at any given time, and Turquesa is cool, too, but more reserved. I get the sense that I am the third wheel. I know that I am the third wheel, but it does not bother me that much. Tonight has been fun. So, I do not know why I feel this heart-pounding sense of regret.

My dress is stunning. I have been eating foods that look and taste like creations of some mad scientist. Aquatico and I talked for what must have been an hour all to ourselves, undisturbed by the constant flow of onlookers, just in our own, private, hilarious conversation. And then he went off to go find Turquesa, or at least try and get some sponsors.

Scratch that, I do know why I feel this unbearable guilt, this regret that seems to be making a tunnel through me, a vacuous vortex of melancholy that chills me. I have no idea why I did not just swallow my pride like Turquesa did in the moment and get up to speak with potential sponsors. It could never have been as bad as I was making it out to be internally. I should have helped my group, helped myself. But that seems to be where I am running into a brick wall and crashing to a halt on repeat.

Dying is not something that I want. I do not know what I was thinking when I volunteered! Yes, I do: This will be a heroic way to go out, if you volunteer for this little girl. And then all of your sufferings will be over. I want to be heroic, and I like feeling heroic. But I doubt that my sufferings would be any less formidable and agonizing if I died at the hands of Imperia. That is why I crave standing up to her one more time, besting her at something concrete instead of just in a war of words. But, deep down, if I admit it to myself… I am afraid of her, just like I was afraid of Father for my whole life until that one day when I snapped and ran, Weave and Weft both dead. But I came back, and I braved his whip, and I drove my knife deep into that inflated gut of his until he died looking me in the eye. But I am still afraid of Imperia Crimson's fucking whip.

I feel the scars on my back, three jagged lines of soft, pallid, and translucent flesh where everything is numb, and wince for the first time in ages, or maybe I have been doing it all this time and never admitting it to myself. I am torn between two sensations of revenge. Spiting him by killing Imperia would be nice, spiting him by surviving and besting his wretched reincarnation. But would I spite them all more by just dying, by showing no urgency to get out of this barbarian cesspool and letting them kill me? The answer is no.

"You all right, Mystic?" Aquatico asks from his spot lounging playfully on the horseshoe bend in the back of our limosine.

Turquesa takes a look at him and snorts.

"Fine," I lie. "Just back cramps."

Back cramps from spending the entire night sitting on my ass while Aquatico and Turquesa and every other tribute—possible excepting the little shit from Twelve—made an effort to actually do something more than skulk around and pretend like they do not need the money and support. I am split between trying out of spite or not trying out of spite, and now I am beginning to wonder who I am even spiting.

"You're the one who will end up with back cramps, Señor," Turquesa jests.

She seems in a positive state of mind, proud of the night's accomplishments. I should have gone with her instead of goofing off and making a fool of myself and trying to get myself hungover on expensive wines for no other reason than spite. And I am sick of being so unabashedly content with death, because I am not, like I said on the train rides before I muddied up that trail with arguing with Imperia in Training and acting foolishly at the Tribute Banquet.

As much as I despise admitting it to myself, I need comfort. I never really grieved Morgana enough, just two days of complete inactivity and bawling before making the choice on a whim to volunteer for a deathmatch. She would not be happy with me. She would ask me why I would so easily throw my life away when I fought for sixteen miserable years to keep it, and how I could do something like that after she tried for months to fight of her illness, and how I could something like that after she was reduced to a malnourished, yellow-skinned, perpetually nauseous body of pain, all in the effort to stay alive. Maybe we both fought because we had someone to live for. I have nobody to live for anymore. That is a lie. I have Turquesa and Aquatico. And I have myself. I will always have myself to live for.

I decide to voice my remorse to Aquatico and Turquesa. They know what I am thinking, and what I am feeling, anyway, but there is a feeling of partial closure that comes from expressing your wishes and regrets.

"I should have gotten up and tried to help. Help get sponsors for us, I mean. I did nothing for the entire Banquet. I'm sorry."

Aquatico look at me compassionately. He sits up and straightens his suitcoat.

"You don't need to feel sorry. We had it covered."

But that does not satisfy me, and Turquesa seems to understand me more, at least in this moment:

"You can't change the past, just fight for the future. Something my friend Valor used to say."

The future. Where am I going to be in the future? Rotting away in a coffin six feet under, most likely. It was something that I used to crave, used to desire, because that was the only thing that I could see clearly through all of my grief and my loathing and devastation, a shining staircase up to whatever is above this hell on earth that was the only thing visible through a black fog. It seems less tantalizing now, when faced with it up close. I can say that confidently now. It hits me: I may be dead in less than twelve hours.

"Now that is very heartwarming and all, but I say we talk strategy for the… um, tomorrow morning," Aquatico suggests, sensing my discomfort and thought process but not exactly having the softness to make a transition that is not jarring.

"Good idea," Turquesa says, probably eager to move away from all of this talk.

That was what Morgana was good for. There has not been an outlet for me to free my emotions for so long, since she first got sick. Now there is nobody, and I have to let it all burn up inside me, an inferno that I can only let out in rage. I like Turquesa and Aquatico, but not enough to confide in them my deepest, darkest thoughts and secrets. Like how everything seems to be my fault. Weave, Weft, Morgana… and now me.

"We need weapons," Turquesa states. "Spears. We should go for the first ones sight and book once we all have something to defend ourselves with."

"That's where my ninja skills will come in handy. You know, parkour and nunchakus and stuff. If they had a pair of nunchakus…" Aquatico lusts.

"Stay on topic," Turquesa says. "You are right, though. You are the fastest, so you should probably go closest to the center, but not too close.

"We'll be the prime targets tomorrow, so no mouthing off, either off you."

"Mouthing off?" Turquesa guffaws incredulous. "You're one to talk, muchacho."

"It sounds so wrong coming out of your mouth."

"Not as wrong as 'ninja skills'!"

"I'll show you some ninja skills, señori—"

"Focus!"

Aquatico and Turquesa's heads swivel to face me.

"Sorry that I killed the mood, but…"

"We get it," Turquesa says.

I am the third wheel here, I know. It is not like me to be the mood-killer, or the voice of reason, or the serious one. And yet, here I am, all three of those things, possibly because death looms over my head like the blade on a guillotine, and I do not want to die. This game is changing me. I am supposed to be the carefree one, the spirited one, the fun one, not the solemn one. But here I am, squashing the final wisp of morality because of that foreboding blade above waiting to come down.

"So… I run in for the big stuff while you two find each other and hang out around the podiums?" Aquatico asks, holding an inquisitive thumbs up to each of us.

Turquesa nods. I do, too, but something feels off.

There is something about being in the center of the fight that is so enthralling to me, something about running into the fray and wreaking havoc and revenge on others indiscriminately that tantalizes me. I may be less than a hundred pounds and five foot four, but I am not weak. I am not the girl that hides by the tree line in the Bloodbath while others do the heavy lifting. I only come alive then, in the fight, in the moment, when my actions actually mean something, and I can seize the day much more than I ever could in some stuffy Banquet. But that dreaded, quiet but smug voice in the back of my mind keeps on repeating to me the same sentence:

You still have so much left to lose.

What do I have left to lose?

My family? No.

My true love? No.

Myself? Yes. I have not lost myself.

And now I am left pondering whether losing myself is death or something much more complex. If I leave the arena alive, would I still have my life anyway? I have already killed my own father. What is some dastardly, tyrannical, ass-kissing bitch? But that is not the real holdup. Turquesa understands the pain of swallowing your pride, but she bites the bullet and kneels to the Capitol. I wonder if there really is a God. Is he who I am kneeling to, or am I kneeling to myself in some sort of twisted manner? Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing?

Maybe it is the executioner himself that I am kneeling to, because my stay on this earth is not over, and yet it seems chillingly close to being so. I have whatever happens to me now upon myself, and I am going to keep that control, wherever it takes me. I will not kneel to death and consign my fate into his skeletal, wicked hands. Whether I live or die, I am not letting go of my fate, my strength, and whatever fight I still have left in the tank.

"I want to run in, too," I say. "I can do it. I'm fast, and I'm sneaky. They won't notice me."

No wisecrack follows. Only Aquatico's, "If you say so."

None of us are in much of a mood to do any more talking, and I spend the rest of the car ride, which is not long, thinking of how unjust and wrong it is, and above all else pitiful, that even the three of us are spending our final days sulking. I smothered the only life that was left in the car. I am the murky grey fog that sweeps the ground after the thunder and lighting and rain have all passed, a melancholy nuisance upon everyone. That is not me. I am not the downer, the realist, the own who drives a wedge into group dynamics and into any chance of laughter or grinning. It was worth it for our chances of survival in the morning. I decide in that moment not to let bullshit like this suffocate me and poison the mood for any longer.

"Let's not think about it any longer," I declare to the silent car. "I don't care if it isn't pragmatic, let's just pretend tomorrow will never come. No thinking about it."

We all will be thinking about it. It will be the only thing on our minds. But none of us will admit that it has that much reign over our thoughts and our worries and our fears, and there is a sort of pride in that.

"Here, here," Aquatico concurs dramatically, raising an imaginary shot glass.

"Easy for you to say, you never think about anything," Turquesa pokes at him.

"You never do anything!" he retorts.

"What does that even mean? Did you actually process that or just blurt it out without thinking?" Turquesa snorts, incredulous.

"What do you think?" Aquatico answers snappishly.

"I think that you've just proven Turquesa's point," I butt in.

The rest of the ride is a breeze, and the Training Center is only walking distance away. Soon, we are ushered out of our ride.

"I'm heading up to Casa del Cuatro, if anybody wants to tag along," Aquatico says, already starting towards the elevators.

Turquesa and I make eye contact, and we both shake our heads, laughing inwardly at our ally and also declining his offer. Firmly. Tonight, I need to check out early. I already botched the Parade and got more than a sip of wine, so I cannot afford to take any more chances. In this moment, I do not give a damn how that makes me sound to myself. I am not going down without a fight, and sleep deprivation would not strengthen that claim. Here I am, thinking about tomorrow, but there is no way to avoid it. However much I would like to say that I am reckless, that I love nothing more than throwing caution to the wind, I am a planner and a perfectionist, and I have already bombed most of my chances. There is still hope, though. I push any thoughts of giving up or throwing myself onto the sword out of my mind.

"Yo voy a el bedroom," I say, mocking Aquatico. He sticks his tongue out at me.

"Igualmente," Turquesa says in what I assume is assent.

We board the elevator, and Turquesa gets off moments later with a nervous wave. Aquatico does the same, grinning ear to ear through the ominous, foreboding pain that tomorrow is sure to bring. And then I am along with my own thoughts, no Aquatico to distract me or Turquesa to empathize with me.

For a brief fifteen seconds as I am left alone, I wonder why my intentions never seem to stay firm and concrete. I can feel that my end is coming, and so much of me cannot stand that, would do anything to fight against it and defy it one more time, and keep on surviving, and keep of burning. But, that cold, dejected substance still is bubbling up inside of me, that lightning solution that seized me at the Reaping and then drained down to the depths of my chest immediately after. And it feels so tempting to give it my all but still relinquish myself to death's hands in the end, just to spite them, despite knowing that if I really wanted to spite them, I would live, or I would jump off of my fucking pedestal.

The doors open, and Cassius, biting his daintily manicured nails, leaps up from the couch with more grace than I have ever seen and rushes over to me.

"Mystic! Mystic, what am I going to do?"

He practically falls over me, gripping my shoulders, normally rosy cherub cheeks now flushed a bright red. There is a look of panic and desperation.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Mystic, I'm so scared," he says, voice squeaking down to a mouse's volume. "I am actually trying, and nothing is working, and—and I'm going to give up!"

He turns away from me, hand flicking me away subconsciously, and take a few steps before stopping, hands on his hips and back facing me in what he must think is an ultimatum.

I feel pity for Cassius, because even if I do die, I will have put up a decent fight. He is just little boy pampered into rottenness who is grappling with coming to terms with his own weakness. But there is something in his eyes when he looks at me, and when he looks around at all of his luxuries, that seems so… betrayed. Helping thing would be a kind thing to do, even if he is a complete asshole. He is trying to change, just like I did. I should not hold grudges any longer… except for some other tributes here, that is.

"Cassius, what are you trying to threaten me with. I don't have to help you, you know. I could just walk past you and go to my room."

He turns around slowly, mouth slightly agape, trying to formulate a proper retort, but none comes. And suddenly, he falls to his knees and begins to bawl, not an indignant temper tantrum but in the manner of a baby who has just been dropped, his mother's comforting hands vaporized in place of a swift fall to hard and rocky earth. I walk over to him, bending down and patting him on the back.

"I tried, Mystic, I tried with so many people, and none of them wanted to be my ally! I'm hopeless, Mystic, so… so I'm not trying anymore," Cassius finishes with newfound resolve, but he does not rise.

I feel pity for him. A disgusted, empathetic, jealous pity. He is trying his best to change, just like I am, but it is not working. In this moment I question whether or not I am really changing from anything, or even trying to. I am still the unrepressed, temperamental girl that was ready to die that I was when I got here. Who am I kidding? No, I am not! That girl would scoff at Cassius, and go in solo, and ready to run into the Cornucopia with a grenade in each hand. That girl would not feel regret about not putting in effort at the Banquet, or work, if not for her own sake, for her allies'. And I know in this moment that I have succeeded, and that I have done enough, wherever I go in the coming hours.

"You tried, and that is what is important," I comfort.

"No! It doesn't even matter!" Cassius shouts and finally stands, throwing my gentle hand off of him. "I'm still going to die, and then I'll be nothing, and nobody will even remember me…"

In one finally moment of sympathy, I extend a reluctant saving grace to him: "You can come with us, Cassius."

He looks at me. For a second his lips are poised to thank me, but then he grimaces.

"You? Why would I ever want to ally with you? You're just a tramp, and you're even weaker than me! I'm not ever going to change, and I don't want to!"

Cassius runs away, shoving Chiffon in the hallway, who has apparently given up trying with him and walks on to me unphased. Maybe if she has tried to be more helpful Cassius could have changed for the better. I doubt there is much chance of that now, and I feel a pang of sadness and guilt. But maybe he was hopeless, anyway. The only one that I can control is myself, and I will control myself. My intentions are still murky, even inside my own mind, but I do not care. I will do what is right. I will fight to win. I will help my allies. I will stand up to the bitch from Nine. All in no particular order.

"What was that all about?" Chiffon inquires, greeting me.

"Cassius has given up."

But I will not give up. Whether it leads me to victory or six feet under, I will not give up. And in this moment, I feel at peace with myself, but I know there is so much more found me to do, and I know, for certain, that I want to do it. I am a raging fire, and I will never stop burning. You cannot cut an inferno or smother it with a finger or a shoe. It will never stop burning until it has ravaged everything in its path. And that is what I will do. Where that path ends, whether it be in a few decades, a few days, or a few hours, I do not know.

Coleus Yarrow, 16, District Nine Male

The ride back from the party is lonely. I regret now only trying to find an ally once in the out of touch Ten girl, and declining the Eight boy's offer, and especially not just being friendly with the girl from Seven. She sticks in my head, with her brightness and unprompted, almost random effort of friendship, and that maddening smile that she gave me like I was missing out on something. The entire Banquet was one affair of loneliness, even in a room so jam-packed with people. I hate people. For the most part. Like the pair from Five in the elevator across from me, eyeing me furtively amidst the complete lack of conversation. They are out for me, and I know it. All of them are, I have decided, since none of them have allied with me, so they all seem to hate me.

Then why do I feel so jealous of them? Especially this couple, clinging to each other awkwardly but protectively. I miss Laurel, and her sweet smile and her soft, sienna hair, and the way that she never seemed to question anything and only ever saw the good in me. I miss Hedera, my best friend, and Carica, my sister, who both knew me so well and yet were always still some forgiving of all of my horrible qualities, and who tried to make me happy and push me out of my comfort zone because they knew that I would never crawl out of it myself. But even they never knew, however much I suspected that everyone, but them in particular, knew about what I did to Pansy. I am about to do much worse to my competitors, and I hope that they will forgive me for that, because I know that I will never forgive myself. But I will still kill them, and kill all of them if I have to, because I distrust and dislike every single one of them, and I know that if presented with the chance, they would all kill me in a heartbeat, too. I have to tell myself that. To hate all of them. I hate all of them. They hate me. They know what I did. I have to kill them. Nero knows what I did. And… good lord… Nero! He has no idea what I did, does he?

I let out a deranged laugh, and rush to justify it:

"Sorry, just thinking of an old memory," I blurt out. "I sometimes laugh when it's out of turn, but doesn't everybody? So, don't judge me for it, because I am judging you and I know that you're judging me so stop!"

It all comes out in a daze, a daze that I rise from feeling much calmer. Call me narcissistic, but I like hearing my own voice, because I know that I am the only one who I can ever fully, wholeheartedly trust.

"Sorry, we weren't judging you!" the girl says hastily. "We just like to keep to ourselves."

"Nothing against you," her lover adds.

They eye me shakily for a moment, nervous under my skeptical stare, and shrink into the doors, which promptly open behind them onto their floor. They stumble out. I saw them, waiting before the Private Sessions, only a few feet from me, socializing with the pair from Four, and again at the Interviews. They were wary of me, and they should be! Or maybe they just did not like me.

I give zero fucks whether anybody likes me. Or at least, I gave zero back home, because I had Mom and Dad, and Carica, and Laurel, and Hedera. But I do here. I feel lonely, I have to admit to myself, for the first time in years, because I have no one now, no one waiting for me or at my side. And as much as I hate to admit it to myself, I need someone. I miss having someone. I do not deserve to, because who would ever be wicked enough to deserve to have me? I am going crazy by myself, like I have for the past nine months and counting, because even if someone is standing by my side, it will never be enough, since they will never truly have me. I can never let them see my core. I realize now that I have always given a fuck whether somebody likes me, because without them I go insane, and I collapse in on myself like I am doing now. I know that I am spiraling, and I resent it, but there is nothing that I can do to stop it, not now.

The shuttle clicks into place and the doors swivel open to reveal Amber, a glass of pomegranate wine in hand, in a lounge chair, waiting for me.

"Up for some last-minute strategy talk? It can never be a bad thing… unless it's past your bedtime, that is." She laughs, crows' feet beginning to make their home on her face crinkling, square jaw jutting out humorously as she sips her drink.

"No."

I have no idea what is wrong with me, why I crave someone near me and then shove them away with all of my might, but I do, and as I slam the door of my bedroom without even giving Amber the time to conjecture or argue, I feel a swell of guilt and shame as sense that I will never be venturing out there again until it is time to board the hovercraft to the arena.

"Coleus, I don't understand you," I say to myself as I drop onto the bed feeling anything but tired.

I start untying my shoes, just to have something to occupy my hands, but my fingers are trembling so badly that I can barely maneuver the string. I am a total, utter, mess of a failure. Nobody should try and reach out to me, not Amber, and certainly not Tessa from District Seven. As much as I would like to pretend like it, I am not a good person, not after what I did to Pansy Sikspoon, and certainly not after fessing up to it after her corpse was six feet in the ground, even if it was an accident. And good people should stay away from me, no matter how much I need them, no matter how desperately I want some sort of calming presence close to me.

I think of Tessa Oakhart once again, as the thought of her has never truly left my mind since she approached me out of the blue on the second day of training. I still have no idea why. I refuse to believe that she was just being friendly, even if only seconds ago—possibly even less than a second, my mind is running so fast—I reassured myself that she was the one who should avoid me because of her own innocence and goodness. I cannot understand how some people can bring themselves to put their trust in others that way, off of a blind intuition or a compelling urge of sympathy, and I wonder how she has even survived to be twelve years old. Twelve years old. Like a whirlwind, it all overwhelms me now, how demented and dastardly this whole scheme is, and for a brief moment of clarity I realize that the tributes are not the ones who I should be directing my distrust at, the Capitol is (though I should save some distrust for a rainy day and this is the Hunger Games after all and I am certain that ever tribute here would stab me in the back) before it all dissipates into anger and confusion and paranoia needing a direction once again.

Paranoid. That is what I am, and that is what I have been for all of my life.

Paranoid. And for once, with all of my heart and soul and might, I want to do away with it!

But that is impossible, forever unachievable, because I know myself, and I know that my mind would never stop racing, and ticking, and surviving, and suffering, and thriving off of the constant fear that any social interaction brings me. And that is why I know, in my heart of hearts, that I will never be a good person.

I can hear all of those angelic, feminine voices singing my praises in harmony, trying to convince me to "come to the good side" or "stay on the good side", all perched on my shoulder: Carica, Hedera, Laurel, and Tessa fucking Oakhart. Why is she there?! I do not know, but she takes her spot on my bony collar with an annoyingly effervescent sense of purpose. Tessa Oakhart is a decent person. More than decent, perfectly altruistic, tender, and pure. Better than I could ever be.

"Coleus, are you alright in there?" Amber calls as she bangs not-so-subtlely on the door, her uncouth yet somehow motherly presence still berating me. "I want to do my best to help ya, Coleus, and I'll listen to whatever you have to say."

She is trying to be comforting and supportive, probably already having decided that I am going to be dead by tomorrow evening.

"Liar," I spit out in a whisper that only I can hear.

That is what I assure myself that she is, even though I know at my core that she is only doing her best, and mostly failing, to help me.

I hear the gloomy clacking of her boots as she traipses of, presumably to get another drink or go to bed, and I vow to myself never to leave my door until it is time to go off and die.

Am I that certain that I will die and merely conditioning myself for the inevitable worst, or is there a part of me that wants to finally relinquish my burden of dishonestly and guilt forever and be done with this savage, manipulative world? I flash back to the first day on the train, when Amber tried to talk strategy with me as I hyperventilates and pictured myself in a myriad of different gory and gruesome demises, and when I nearly considered dying, because I am a killer. An eye for an eye. That is the philosophy that I have always used to get through life and enact my revenge on others who deserve it. And so why should I live when Pansy rots in her coffin, even if it was a goddamn accident and she and the rest of her friends unquestionably deserved diarrhea?

On the train rides I said that I needed to live for my family, but they have always undoubtably prepared themselves to see me brutally murdered tomorrow. None of them believe in me, not even Carica. She always said that I was too pessimistic and distrustful, and that if I did not change my ways I would not do well in life. I guess she was more correct than she ever hoped that she would be. I told myself then that I could not let them see me die on screen, but now I wonder if they even truly care. YES! Of-course they care! What am I saying? I get another glimpse of lucidity into my own psyche and smack myself on the forehead.

"Why are you so paranoid? Get over it! This is ridiculous. Keep it together… keep it together…"

I feel tears of anguish running down my cheeks and bury my face under layers of pillows. All of this pressure, and stress, and worrying, and paranoia is finally getting to me, and can almost physically feel the bonds that hold my body together cracking and crumbling under the weight. The skin on my flabby chest rattles against my heart, and the cracks surely spreading through my ribs and my sternum are concrete in my own mind. I cannot breathe!

I catapult myself up from the asphyxiating mass of pillows and allow the tears to drop down my face for another second. I am so afraid of death, and yet it seems nearly tempting to just be eternally done with this mess of a life that I have created for myself. I contemplate life as a Victor: having to watch at least one of my children die every year, always two, dodging cameras perpetually thrust into my face, being subjected to constant surveillance so deep the may even have one in my bedroom, and having to return to this horrible place at least once a year. Would all of that be worth it?

My thoughts return to Tessa Oakhart. Why am I so afraid of her, when only she had the good grace to even talk to me, aside from that repugnant Eight boy? Because I can tell that she is sneaky and would slit my throat whenever presented the chance. I wish with all of my heart that I could trust her, that I could trust anyone. Not with my secret. That is what is really going to kill me. It is a leech, a parasite poisoning me from the inside, rooting in my chest and latching its tendrils onto me tighter and tighter.

"Coleus, did I hear you say something from in there?"

Amber is at the door again.

"Are you alright, Coleus? It sounded like something fell."

I survey the room and find a fallen vase in the corner. Surely the Gamemakers will murder me just for that.

"I'm alright. Go…"

But I cannot bring myself to tell her to leave one more time. I need someone to hold me close and support me now. I realize now that I never did lock the door, that Amber could have barged in at any moment if she had desperately wanted, or needed, to. I cross sheepishly to the door and twist the handle letting her in.

"Coleus, you aren't hurt, are you?" Amber asks, a careful hand one my forehead, where I assume there is a bruising handprint.

I cannot help it anymore, and I crash into her, crying once again, but this time on her shoulder. There is something about her sturdy, muscular frame that is somehow comforting, matronly. She seems startled but steers me gently to the small couch in front of the television in my room.

I have to tell her. I have to get this unbearable weight off of my chest before it makes a hole in me!

"What is it, Coleus? You look like you have something to say."

I lean in close, and I whisper to her, "I did something really bad, Amber. It was an accident, but I still did it, and I think that it is coming back to get me. I'm so scared, and I can't trust anyone, and I haven't been able to since it happened. Just—please let me get it off my chest, and don't tell anyone, at least until I'm dead."

Amber's face is impassive, but her eyes widen just barely, and her forehead knots with stress.

"Alright. But be quiet."

She lifts a finger towards a corner in the room, but when I look, all that are there are pastel yellow walls converging together.

"They are always watching. Listening."

My stomach plummets to my feet as the realization crashes into me that anyone could be observing me right now, viewing my every move and hearing my ever breath, now short and rapid gasps for air. What all do they know about me? What gives them the right to do this? Do they have these cameras set up at home? In the bedroom? In the bathroom? Out by the old riverbank where I picked that fateful water hemlock, and in the kitchen where they could have seen me pouring it into the muffin mixture and laughing?

I cannot trust anyone, like I have been saying for the past sixteen years of my life! But as much as I want this to be the final straw, the turning point that thrusts me away from the deceit and the lies and the schemes and the inhumanities of society, I do not have the strength in me to run off into my own little nowhere and be impervious to any other person. That is, figuratively speaking, because I will never be able to escape this mess. I have to confess to someone, and at this point, as I weigh out my options, I finally decide that I must best my paranoia, or at least quell it, for my own benefit for the time being.

"Thank you for warning me," I whisper as hushed as possible, so quiet that Amber is poised to request a repeat before I shake me head. "And thank you for listening to me."

Amber stays rigidly in her seat as I finish my repentance and pulls me in for one last embrace that seems less necessary but cozier than the last one. She expresses no emotion in her visage, and my respect for her only grows.

"Don't ever tell a soul," I instruct her.

It still brings me agony to put all of my proverbial eggs in her basket, but it was a cathartic necessity. As much as I hate to say it, but love to say it at the same time, I trust her, at least as much as a guy like me can. That is something.

"My lips are sealed."

Amber's back slackens in her couch for the first time since we have met, and I suddenly become aware again of my wasted, shaken composure and correct it. She does not head for the exit, like I thought that she would. Instead she stays resting on the sofa, letting us have a reprieve in silence.

I am proud of myself for confessing, even if I am stricken with horror at what I did. Amber does not waver in support nor calmness. And now, I wonder what is next. Maybe now that the burden has been lifted off of my back, I can finally live properly. There is a glimmer of hope for me, one tiny spark amidst all of my doubts and concerns that I can sense is starting to alight the ashes once again, if that was ever possible. Now, I will not just fight out of my urge to distrust others, even if all of them are still varying degrees of bad, and my desire to give my family some sort of inspiration. I will fight out of a genuine desire to win, or at least a fledgling want not to die and to see my family again.

Not all of the tributes are downright evil. But all of them are untrustworthy, still, including that Tessa Oakhart. She may still be a good person. Most of them may be, in their regular lives, but this is the Hunger Games, and I am prepping for war and bloodshed.

What do I do now? How do I prepare? What will be my strategy? Now the notion of simply killing everyone who approaches me on sight and hiding seem fairly one-dimensional and flawed. For a brief moment, I feel the energy and life drain out of me once more. I have nothing left to torment me now other than my own guilt, and that will never leave, even if the pain of secrecy has been transferred off of me. What is left to achieve now besides winning?

Now I see that even though I have cleared the air, I have not, and will never, clear my conscience. That will never be clear. But I will never be able to right that wrong, never in any way but my own death. I know deep down that I am not strong enough to kill myself, or let myself die, and if I die, I will die running or fighting, not of my own will. I am flustered for a moment, and Amber must sense a change in me because she shifts, but it drains out of me instantaneously. I have no energy left for that. I have no energy left for anything. Anything but fighting. I will still fight. Fight for myself. Always for myself. And kill them all if I have to, because what is life in pain to death? I would choose life any day, even accounting for my own hypocrisy, because I would never follow through with letting myself die, for my own sake or someone else's.

I am weak and spineless and dastardly, but I will still fight for my life. I have buried myself this deep already, so what are a few more dead bodies? I feel a gaping hole still left in my heart that I thought would be plugged with my confession, but it still leeches off of me like a cancer. Nothing will ever dispel it, so why try? Even if I win, a new hole will replace it. But I have buried myself this far, so why not throw the rest of my lot in with evil and try to make it out with my own hide still intact.

Sierra Hay-Fields, 17, District Eleven Female

It does not feel like tonight should have arrived yet, but it has. Raihan, Bolt, and Nerissa have all been dropped off onto their own floors, and so has Tabitha, who I was almost afraid to leave on the elevator all alone, even for such a brief moment. Aleyn has sequestered himself in his room once again. I admire him now for, if anything, keeping his temper with me for such a noble, at least in his eyes, reason. But it still feels like there is a hole in our alliance, like there is a whole me that I question will ever be filled.

It seemed for such a momentary lapse in time months ago like everything was slipping out of my fingers: Dad was getting meaner, drunker, and angrier by the night, my older brothers were leaving, and only Cane was left, and he was shrinking away from me, too, a hardened shell of the brother that used to play tag and hide-and-seek, go on adventures with me through busy streets or unexplored brooks, and hole up in my bedroom to tell me heated anecdotes of whatever interactions with girls he had that day at school, all after his girlfriend was killed here. For a second it crosses my mind that she slept in the very same bed that I am now, sat in the very same chair I am at this very moment for breakfast and dinner, walked through the same exact path that I did, a lamb corralled by the farmers to the shooting rack, the slaughterhouse. But then everything became so wonderful again, when I found out I was becoming an aunt, and Thorn got married, and I met the Allegiance, and I met Lilo!

All of that, all of those happy memories, are tiny bits of sand running through my fingers as I try to save them, falling down, down, down into the abyss that is the earth, maybe where I will be by the end of the week. Maybe by the end of tomorrow. I cannot let myself think like that! If I do not try to quench the undying thirst of the void, then it will just go away. I am happy right now, and I have on a brave face, and I still have a family, just a smaller one, a family of friends that I only met a week ago. And if I am so happy, then why am I still grasping for something more, for some sense of satisfaction or closure, or for breath? None of that matters, because I am brave, so I will show the world a brave face, and my head will follow suit. Only, Thorn, and Syrco, and Cane, and even Lilo always scolded me for doing the opposite of leading with my head, for doing so with my heart. And my heart is pumping so fast I swear that I can feel bruises on my chest.

I am not a lamb who is content to be guided to my grave, I am a fucking lion.

"Sierra?"

I glance up, breaking what must have been an intense and imposing smolder, judging from the apprehensive look that Auger is giving me.

"Yes?"

I survey the tastelessly lush, opulent room around me and facepalm internally at my own inner monologuings when I should have been engaging in conversation with Auger, now that he has finally sobered up.

"Didn't you say that you wanted to talk some strategy?"

Auger looks at me weakly, watery black eyes crinkled, forehead with uncountable lines, cheeks ruddy under light brown skin.

"Yes, sorry, sorry, just got lost in my own head for a minute there!"

I laugh, a booming laugh that resounds around the table that even Nerios and Aleyn must hear from their bedrooms, one that comes not from my stomach but from my mouth, for a change. I should be taking advantage of this final opportunity for planning and preparation, because this is the end all of face-to-faces with my mentor, and also technically our first. Yet, it feels like I have been overloading my own head with sometimes paranoid, sometimes idealistic scenarios of my own death, and of my own Victory, and maybe, though I know that it would never happen, a five-way Victory. Auger feels guilty, and by all means he should, for wasting away the days of my tenure here up until the final night, and for waiting until now to load me up with some useful information, but I am willing to forgive, and maybe even empathize with him. At the bottom line, I just want to escape here with my life. Because, even if it feels so wrong, I have to put my own life first. Right?

"Give it to me," I say, elbows now frigid against the ornate marble table.

I need this to survive, because, as much as I do not want to admit it, and however fun tonight was, or however courageous I act in front of Raihan and Tabitha, I am shaking in my boots. I flash back to Syrco, hands holding my head in place as his eyes were boring into my soul, as he told me not to do anything risky for anyone but myself. But is that not what rebelling, against the Capitol and against Imperia Crimson and against the stupid fucking Hunger Games, all about?! Either way, this is my lifeblood.

"Well… what do you want to know?" Auger asks in discomfort.

"Everything," I answer in an instant.

"Um…"

We are in a stalemate forged by our own tension and guilt now. Auger looks away from me, and I chuckle to myself in what must be a perturbing way to him.

"Look," I address him, "don't be tentative or feel remorseful for not helping me sooner. I just want your advice, so give it to me. I have no room to be angry at you right now."

And yet I have room to fear immense, overpowering fear, and some sort of twisted happiness that I finally have the chance to prove a point, and fight against the power, and rise up for a change, and all of it is muddled with murky confusion, and regret, all sucked into a vacuum of mostly, hopefully not mostly, false bravery.

"Alright. I'll just start from the beginning. At the bloodbath, you locate your allies first, then you snag some food. And the first thing you want to do, even if you're in the ocean, is grab some water and supplies. I can sponsor you a weapon on the first day. Just obey those rules and make it out alive, and I can get you through the first few days. No drinking."

I feel compelled to agree to that, and I know that that is the best strategy, but something inside of me wants to do something better, something more meaningful, for my group. Nerissa and Bolt are also running in, but I have to be the main provider, because I do not know what I am if I am not that: helpful, kind, resilient, cunning, caring, intrepid… The very facets of my own identity that I have built my life on and around are all going to have to fall away now, because if not, I am almost definitely going to die. I am afraid for myself, but equally afraid, maybe even more afraid, for my allies. I love them all so much! They are all so wonderful, and innocent, and wholesome, and I am dreading death and seeing them die hand-in-hand, equally. That may be what kills me in the end, or it may be what condemns me to a future like Auger's, but I do not know if doing away with my true self is worth it to win. That is what everyone told me back home, but I still question it.

I nod, anyway. I still have so many secrets to lap up.

"With your allies, try to keep a low profile," Auger advises. "Stick to the foliage, and preferable places you wouldn't leave any kind of trail. And if you find any outsider, even if they want to be in the alliance, do not be afraid to kill them. I doubt any of your other allies would have the nerve."

I nod again, but it is obvious to me that I, myself, do not have it in me to kill, for instance, the pair from Five if they wander into our camp or us into theirs. Not to mention, I have no idea how to keep a low profile! But now is not the time for moral dilemmas and emotional crises, now is the time to listen.

"And, I know this may be hard for you, in particular, Sierra, but it is very important."

"I am all ears." I swallow a gulp of cold, artificial air.

"Don't trust your allies for too long. Some of them may get some ideas about taking out their strongest member when it gets late into the Games."

"That's ridiculous! None of them would do that to me!"

I resist the urge to kick my chair away and come down upon Auger like a wrathful bull. None of them would consider doing that to me, right? We will always be a family. But now, a dreaded, horrible picture poisons my brain, of one of them slitting my throat, of slitting all of our throats one by one. That would never happen, and yet I suspect that the faith, love, and trust in our quintet is inequal in its distribution. With that image behind my eyelids, I am humbled to graveness.

"They are not my allies, they are my friends," I tell him.

"That may be what you say, or think, or what you all say and think, right now, but give it a week in the jungle and see if none of them get any devious little ideas. It is very rare that you find a real friend in the arena, Sierra. My ally, the Nine boy, ran away the second the gong rang and a career tackled me, but I beat the careers ass, and I beat Farrow's ass eight days later in the finale. My point is, only trust yourself, and only put faith in yourself."

"I will."

I could never.

"Are you sure."

"Yes."

I have to.

"And Sierra, if one of your allies does that, or if they fall, do not be afraid to leave them behind. You may even have to kill them yourse—"

The elevator door swings open and an old lady, the District Twelve mentor, emerges.

"Sierra Hay-Fields, will you please accompany me to Floor Twelve?"

I want to remain with Auger and discuss what my plan will be, but I feel compelled to see what is wrong. I am judging that there is something wrong, judging from the mentor's harried, exhausted look.

"I'm sorry, Auger," I apologize, standing up and pushing out my chair, albeit reluctantly.

"This conversation is more important for your life than any you could ever have with your little ally."

I turn again, seething, bubbling rage rising up to the surface in distress, because how dare he have the gall to try and forbid me from disregarding him now when he has ignored me since the fucking Reaping. Because, I cannot possibly kill Tabitha, or Raihan, or Bolt, or Nerissa!

"Maybe you should have had it with me earlier, then, you stinky, fat, pathetic little boozer."

It flies out of my mouth like an uncontrollable split second of wildfire, and I can see where it hits Auger, turning his cheeks red as he grumbles and looks away from me contemptuously. Up until this point, the decision of whether or not I should go see what Tabitha needs was a burdensome one, but the proper choice is clear to me now. I do not need this repugnant alcoholic's advice, when I can create my own. Yes, that is it! I have no need to follow the prophesies of someone so out of touch as him.

"Thank you, thank you," the old woman says, rushing me into the elevator.

"No trouble, what's wrong?"

"Nothing too serious… Tabitha is just a bit inconsolable, and when I asked her if there was anything that I could do to assist her, she said to, um, get you."

The beaten-down woman beside me shifts guiltily, embarrassed and dejected because she herself could not calm her own tribute. I do not blame her for it, but the elevator stops, cutting me off before I could offer any solace or uplifting commiseration.

The District Twelve Floor is identical in structure to my own, but painted varyingly eerie shades of black, obsidian-colored rocks jutting out form the floor in place of rigid ferns. I can see why somebody would be intimidated by this. The boy from Twelve, Rooker, lounges despondently on the couch, wordless and not acknowledging me. Silent tears roll down his sallow cheeks and pool in the hunger-pronounced crook of his sternum. It is odd to see him like this, instead of on a childish, seething, tantrum of a warpath, and, in a way, it is depressing. He has already given up. I am not giving up, and yet I am, because I do not pause to comfort him, focused on getting to Tabitha's room. I doubt I would even if it was not urgent. As I pass the couch and the woman guides me to Tabitha's room, he looks up at me blankly, only managing the weakest of snarls.

I will not give up what really matters, for all of my friends, especially Tabitha, and for myself. But now, as I approach the door and the old maid turns around and totters back to some unknown destination, Auger's words return to me, impermeable and immovable and insidious. I will have to kill them at some point, that or watch them die, or die before them. Now, I am left pondering which one of those is the best, let alone the worst.

Tabitha looks up at me as the doorknob twists and I enter tentatively, instant gratitude on her face. She leaps up and rushes to hug me more powerfully than she has ever gripped me before.

"Sierra, you're here!"

"Where else would I be?"

She laughs, wiping away a lingering tear from her puffy cheek.

"I look so glamorous, don't I?" she asks.

Tabitha gestures to her Banquet dress, a poufy collage of fluorescent silks whose reflections are not fully captured under the dim lighting of the bedroom. She is still wearing it. She has not let go of tonight, yet, just like I have not let go if the glimmering promise that maybe more than one of us could make it out alive this time. That is never going to happen, and I know in my core that all five of us will probably be dead in a few weeks' time. That does not make Auger's words any more justifiable.

"Better than ever," I agree.

Tabitha does a half-hearted twirl, her excitement draining away as she faces me now, meek and edging into my chest again. She only comes up to my shoulder, but she seems taller now than she ever did before, puffing out her chest with perfect, proud posture, even if I can still see such immeasurable worry in the cracks of her false visage. Bravery. Something I always believed that she could conjure out of herself. And here she is now, unrecognizable from the slouching, quivering child who hid behind me during the Chariot Parade.

I feel a tear running down my cheeks and huff in a way that almost feels matronly in its affection, wiping it away quickly. Tabitha loops her arms around me again, this time bizarrely solacing me.

"Argh! You're supposed to be the one who needs me!" I say, laughing.

"You said that we all needed each other," Tabitha quips.

She does not falter despite the blurry images of weapon-laden figures chasing me, chasing us, that I cannot seem to rid from my head. Now visions of the future accompany them, of the culmination of the chase, of me watching all of my friends die before I do or throwing myself onto a sword to bid them escape or being corralled into a dead end and all going in one fell swoop or, in a moment of selfishness, pushing one of them down to feel the wrath of the murderous mystery tribute. It is impossible yet simultaneously miraculous, this twist of events, that now Tabitha, standing taller than ever, is the one supporting me as I cry.

"But you're the one who called me up here!" I laugh incredulously.

"I just wanted you to be here with me. I am scared, Sierra," Tabitha whispers. "Scared of dying, and of it hurting. But if I do die tomorrow, I want to spend my last night with you."

In that moment I feel one overwhelming flash of warmth and gleaming pride, but then the bottom drops open and I fall into a chasm, a chasm of fear and… grief, over things that I have not even lost yet, that the small and increasingly naïvely optimistic-sounding voice in my head squeals to me that I can still save. Suddenly, I am more fear-stricken than I have ever been in my life; more so than when Mama died, or when Daddy nearly kicked Syrco, or when Cane ran away for three days, or when my name was pulled out of the bowl, or even a few minutes ago when Auger told me that I would have to kill or be killed. Tabitha can feel it in the air and removes herself from me, looking up at me, but somehow higher than me now. Tabitha would never kill me. I would never kill Tabitha…

"What's wrong, Sierra?" she asks innocently.

"You know what is wrong," I say jokingly. "Now, come here…"

But I have said the wrong thing for far from the first time, but the first time with Tabitha, and her shoulders tremble for a moment and then break as she falls to the floor. She sits up, hair now matted in her face once again, but as she stares sterner at me than I ever thought she could, her tears, I realize, are ones of acceptance not of her death but of her fight.

"Tabitha… Tabitha, I'm so sorry!"

I am on the brink of sobbing now, sobbing like a little baby and sobbing like a mother who is about to lose her child at the same time.

"You were right to say it," Tabitha says, mustering up enough grit to stand. "I don't wanna die tomorrow, Sierra."

It is a statement, not a plea, not a warning, and not a lamentation. I take one more moment to let this new portrait of Tabitha soak in, of someone so wispy turned so concrete and fiery. And yes, I still see so many jagged lines, and scars, and gaping holes in her façade, but she is putting in the effort to keep it held up, and that is beautiful and inspiring. I tell her that.

"You're the beautiful and inspiring one," she responds.

I am not on the brink of sobbing or crying anymore. I have to be strong for Tabitha, still, and for all the rest of them, even if I know that at least four of us are dying sometime soon, for support and so I can match her, and so maybe, by some miraculous chance occurrence, we can both make it out alive.

"Now, speaking of beauty, I think it's time to get ready for bed. We've got to still be looking gorgeous for tomorrow," I say.

"It won't be a problem."

And now we are back to what we had only a few minutes ago, only a few hours or days ago, but now with so much more substance and value, because this is the last that we will ever get of it.

"Sierra, are you staying with me tonight?" Tabitha asks, letting a hint of desperation pass through.

"Well, can I?"

"Of-course!"

I am so proud of her, and I barely conceal one more bittersweet tear. I am going to have to kill her or let her die or die before her. And now I have to conceal many more tears. But there is still a light up above that graveyard they are sending us to, still something intangible, some escape rope made of light that is there for the five of us and anyone else who wants to come.

An hour later, Tabitha and I are both in bed, her unconscious, lightweight frame pressed against mine, and I finally go to sleep, delighted with Tabitha's progress and insisting to myself that we will find a way, guarding thoughts of tomorrow from both of our minds.

Imperia Crimson, 18, District Nine Female

This night is the calm before the storm. The proverbial calm, at least, because the city beneath me is anything but placid, bustling with cars and flashes of light and billboards of the most exciting tributes thrust upon the eye of the public on the tallest buildings. I issue my cold, stoic façade to the metropolis below, because I never know who may be watching. Inside of me, the storm has already come crashing down upon land, a swirling vortex ready to consume anything and everything. I am ready to consume anything and everything. That storm is me. However kitschy or moronic that may sound, is the truth. My muscles are tense, poised for battle, ready to snatch up and pummel the unlucky weakling that near me first. But tomorrow I will be able to chase them down. A bolt of lightning zooms through me, sending a tingle up to my fingertips and electrifying my senses in anticipation of what is to come.

I scan the ground for another time. They will all see what I can do tomorrow, but right now they bustle through the streets in ignorant glee, clopping home in their heeled shoes in a hurry so they do not sleep through the bloodbath. And in their sometimes bizarre-looking refinement, but most of the time gaggles of gossip and revelry, oversized and awkward birds flitting mindlessly between one another and cawing rather annoyingly. They look like idiots in person. I wonder what father was so insistent on them being superior to me in. It occurs to me the irony that I am the one standing above all of them. It gives me a foreign sense of might, more polished and smug.

I am smarter than them. I am stronger than them. What else is there to brag about beyond petty superficialities? And yet, they are superior to me, deities to be prayed to and bowed down to and worshipped. That is what Father says, and Father's word is the truth. I cannot hear him, anymore, though. His words are lost on me here.

There is something missing. Not Father, because I knew that I would have to abandon his guidance at some point for my own good and fall under the knowing leadership of the Capitol. Something expected. Something taken for granted and unquestioned as fact, as a given. I have looked for it down below in the bustling city streets from my balcony, and in the metal of the Training Center's weaponry, and in the very walls of this place, cold, unmoving, and impassive as they should be. And I can't find anything. In my head, there was always some pristine sparkle about this whole experience, rays of white lights that danced in my head as I dreamed at night. In person, it seems so much duller.

This is going great. It is going fucking phenomenally. I scored a ten, I am the leader of the careers, and everyone in this competition with me is afraid of me, whether they will admit it or not. They liked me in the Interviews, and I am going to bed with millions in sponsorship already. They like me, so why does the pesky little vacuum in my chest keep on growing and growing?

I forgot to say, "Capitol today, Capitol forever," when I woke up this morning. I never forget to do that. And yet, for some reason I question how truly frustrated at myself I am for my mistake. Everything is unraveling around me.

I am a perceptive woman, and things are going on here that I am not supposed to know about. But I trust my leaders, so I keep my mouth shut. I trust them, even though the murders have not stopped, and nobody is as excited about me as they should be. They should be quivering in their boots with glee and expectancy, or, if not that, quivering in fear. The truth is, I am sick of being the one bowed down to, and I know it. That thrill of being the one with the whip, the one standing over the bloody, utterly and oh so satisfyingly helpless body chained to the post, is so much more exhilarating than watching it on television, or than leading some oafish entourage around a training center bullying a bunch of children half my size when I know that I will be able to sink my teeth into them as soon as tomorrow. But now I am worrying that that will not deliver what was promised to me either.

And what if the Capitol has been lying all of this time to me, pledging me the chance of a lifetime when instead all I get is this? Why should I still serve them? Why should I not be one of them? Why should I not be better than them?

This is blasphemy! Father would latch me to the whipping post and lash me a hundred times over, just like he used to do before he made me believe. But maybe I was more enlightened than he was back then when I asked why we could not just move to the Capitol, so I would not even need to compete in the Hunger Games, so we could be with them instead of groveling at their feet. For one heavenly, crimson, lucid, satiating second, I imagine myself above him holding the whip, and I feel a sharp, blistering hot flash of power, and of indiscriminately directed rage.

A part of me, that part of me that prays to the shrine every evening and sat through hundreds of etiquette lessons and days spent wasting away under a history textbook, wants to chide myself, to admonish that urge inside me to explode and let anyone and everyone around me be burned by the true fire inside of me. But another half of my soul, my true conscience, is pint-up to the point of breaking, and it needs release. Oh, how it craves that intangible feeling of being the person with the most authority, the person holding the whip and standing over the pleading, mangled mess of a person forced by their own pain that you caused them to beg for mercy that they will never get, and I even want it here, among promised gods! That intangible feeling that somehow weighs a ton. Now, as this murky red wave of realization crashes upon me, I feel like Atlas, holding the weight of the world upon my shoulders. Has this not been a ball and chain keeping me in the dirt for my whole life, except instead of restraining my true potential from the world, I was restraining it from myself?

This is all happening too fast. I feel is rush of blood to my head and to my hands and clench the rail. What am I thinking? What am I even doing here, without Father, or Mother? Even if I had come to terms with not being able to have them by my side for this most trying, most honorable part of my life, I never did comprehend how hard it would be. I miss them. A Crimson, especially Imperia Crimson, is not supposed to be weak and clingy and need her parents, but I feel lost without them, a sheep in wolves' clothing being tantalized by sinful, treasonous urges. I reflect on my thoughts of only moments ago and take an involuntarily gasp of shock and disgust at that desire deep within me to conquer and ravage and destroy. How could I ever crave something as reprehensible that?

What would Father think of me if he was here and could bore those eyes of his, trained to be unnerving and pass through every mask any captive could ever hold up? He could always see right through me. Sometimes he would throw me into the basement for the night just for one revealing look or expression. For something like this, I would be locked down there for a week. I just want to make him happy and make him proud of me. I want to make them all proud of me, all of those loving Capitolites who cheered me on at the Interviews and were so enchanted by me at the Banquet. That is what I want, not any of those heretical lusts that took hold me for a moment. I am sick of always never getting all of that sense of fulfillment after a session with the whip or sparring or lifting, always having that sense of self-accomplishment corroded by his comments about improvement, or minor errors, or anything that is to him proof that I am not ready, that I am not worth his eighteen years of devotion. I know that I am better than that.

I have thought about taking him on, challenging him for real, to a duel where he did not hold back, one where I actually, finally could stand a chance against a sixty-odd-year-old man, but I could never garner up the strength of spirit to ask him, or maybe, as he would see it, the balls. I have always been afraid of him, if I am being honest with myself. As I first learned to stand, and then to walk, and then to run, he was always that fearsome, immobilizing presence casting his chilling black shadow down upon me with his eagle-eyed stare alone. For the first time in years, I uncover those hidden away nightmares, being one with the floor and feeling his studded boots digging into my skin, and those nights thereafter spent shaking in bed, too afraid of being caught in his headlights to risk venturing out in search of some form of comfort, if not from Mother than even from one of those miserable helps or hands. Now, my fear has shriveled into one tiny little tick festering on the inside of me, so minute I could miss it for eons, yet so acute it could drive me insane.

When did all of that terror morph into respect? When did it morph into a humiliating dependence for support that I will never get enough of? When did it morph into love, affection, or care, or more than just appreciation? Did it ever? Yes, it did. And it was mutual. I know that it was mutual, and I know that Father is restlessly pacing around in that way he only does when something important and urgent is afoot. Maybe he is even giddy, tucking himself into bed with night-before jitters for me, eager to see what all I will accomplish. I know that he is.

I think of the Capitol again, eyes becoming aware of the daunting expanse of glass, concrete, and light before me. Are they thinking of me tonight? Do I really even care? Yes, I care, because Father cares, and the only way to make him happy and proud of me is for them to be happy and proud of me, so I will accomplish that if it is the last thing that I will ever do!

This is what I should be feeling and thinking and wanting, not those insidious, festering, explosive thoughts of throwing away my good sense for some wicked sense of power. I can still crave the feeling of the whip between fragile, agonized flesh, just with a sense of commendable direction, not towards those above me, but towards those beneath me who I was sent here to make an example out of, and later to use their bloody corpses as a pedestal for myself. For one brief moment of clarity, everything seems right again. My dreams are just a few hours away, and they seem so easy, and so right.

But the floodgates of doubts have been opened, and now I doubt everything. I cannot help myself from searching through my memories of all of those times before Father warmed to me, or during the mini-Rebellion a decade ago, when I watched him pushed back onto our very street gunning down the waves of mindless savages racing at him, and how all those corpses rotted on our street for weeks until the skin began to fall off of the bones. And then the twister came and lifted them up, hurling them towards our impenetrable brick as if in revenge. Revenge for what?

And all of this murder is not stopping either, even in a place like this, where Father told me all was right, and the citizens were practically immortal! He told me that everything was splendid and sumptuous and utterly superior in every way. Supreme. How many have died now, three? Four? They are not doing anything about it, just cloaking it with the buzz about this year's Hunger Games as more and more innocent people die!

I have had faith in the Capitol, in Father, and in myself, since I can remember. Why is it all depleting now? I should know not to question any of this. I should know that Father is always right, and that by extension, the Capitol is always right, and that I need to stay under their wing or else risk that dishonorable longing for unrestrained havoc. Havoc is bad. It is what the Rebels lust for, not me, Imperia Crimson. Order is good, selective and appropriate punishment, government, and subordination. Is that not what I have been yearning for all along, feeling abandoned without the regulations that Father has set in stone in my life? And maybe, there can be power and retribution in that order.

Retribution. That very thing that I was sent here as bringer and harbinger of has gone forgotten into my own dark fog of confusion. Those district scum deserve to pay for their actions a million times over and a million times again! I am here to avenge all of those tragic Capitolites who lost their lives a century and a half ago, and I will do that by any means necessary. I will cut them all limb from limb, flay them alive with my whip, cave in their skulls and watch as the pretty red juices spray the ground around them. Those tributes will not know what hit them until their final moments, when they will squirm and twitch and writhe in agony, looking around like babies for some form of help, before making eye contact with me for one final time. And there are so many of my competitors who deserve such torturous deaths. Turquesa Miracelest, Sierra Hay-Fields, Mystic Archeron… I will kill all of them.

Killing. I can equal in blood the loss of the Capitol with my contribution, and with blood, I can finally make Father proud of me, make these privileged peacocks see me as one of their own, and make the blood flow freely across the air and the dirt, see the naked bones and organs spill across the ground at my own doing the way that I have only dreamed of. It would all be so worth it. Worth the arduous week or so in some arena risking my life, because the murder itself is one of the most exciting parts, second only to the results, the fame, the appreciation, the power. That last word in particular never leaves my mind.

And if I sustain a few scrapes along the way, what of it? I will be competing in the fucking Hunger Games, living my dream, and living Father's dream. And when I come home, Mother will hug me, and maybe he will too, and the rest will all stoop admiringly and subserviently under me the way that they deserve to, flat against the dirt and supplicant. The way that I deserve to be bowed down to. And Father will be proud of me, his ferocious, indomitable daughter, and give me more than just a clap on the back. Father will be proud of me, the Victor, the Victor when he could never even work up the nerve to volunteer, and give me more than just a beating with the whip, and I will never have to prove to him that I am strong, and that I am good, ever again.

He will love me. He has never told me that he loves me before, only a compliment or optimistic premonition of the future interspersed between rantings on the state of Panem or how the hollow walls are pervaded by the prisoners' moaning at night. I know that he does not love me now, only thinks of me like a puppy, now cast free on her own to see if she can survive without the lavish estate that is her birthright. Mother has told me that she loves me, but not for years, until that surreptitious goodbye in the dank sitting room in the Justice Building as Father was already out the door, as if it was our little secret. I want Father to love me so much. I want him to be proud of me. I love him too much, care about the whims of his fickle respect more than I should. More than he deserves. And yet, sometimes, I catch myself in my weakest, most shameful moments, still subconsciously imagining him as that imposing figure that made me as a toddler shrink away, that bullying, armored frame above me carrying the jagged metal weapon that brought me so much pain. I can never feel that pain again, not when so many other people deserve it more than me.

I run my fingers across my back and feel the soft, pasty stripes interspersed with crude, jagged scrapes, all hardened with years of bottled up emotion. It only makes me resentful, resentful towards Father, and at the world, and at that evil little snake that I wield, both of whose ends feel so familiar to me. No, I am resentful towards Mystic Archeron most of all, because… because she has those same scars, and those are mine, and how could she ever know what they feel like, and she deserves to die! They all deserve to die, for no other reason than I want to kill all of them. I give zero fucks who wants me to kill them, I will, because they all need to feel what I felt, and I need to feel what Father must have felt all of those times, since that could be nothing to some stranger.

Sometimes, when I am feeling especially daring, I picture myself standing above him. I picture that vibration up my whip, up my hand, and up my spine, that cold tingle amidst those earsplitting screams that I have never heard. I love my father so much, and yet there is some electrifying bestial instinct seated deep within me that does not care, in this moment stronger than that iron shell eighteen years thick. Fire can melt iron.

In the near-black confines of that heartless room, it could be anyone chained to the post, and I would not experience anything but elation. These tributes will due for now. Twenty-three skeletons to make my pedestal out of. Or, better yet, my whip. And it only starts tomorrow. I hope Father will be watching in the morning. I hope he will be proud of me. I hope he will finally understand. And I hope he will finally give in.

In my overzealous fantasy, I can sense the grip on myself slipping away again, just like my grip on the railing, slackening with more and more sweat as I am torn away from myself again and burning red clouds as fast as a blink dart across my vision, replacing the blaring city lights with something soothing in its gaudy nature. A metallic juice pierces the roof of my mouth, and I realize that I have bit my tongue. Blood mixes with saliva born from dehydration, and it itself tastes like water on my lungs, cold and cleansing. I push my hands away from the railing, and as my fingers slip of the sweaty pipe, something detaches from me, and a bit of sense is injected back into my mind.

I will excuse those thoughts for now. Whichever way that they manifest in the future, I am sure it will be to my gain. I need water for the big day tomorrow. I need water, and I need sleep. As I shuffle tensely back into my bedroom off of my private yet public balcony, I see that the clock reads two in the morning on the dot. I must get to sleep after my drink. What would Father say if he saw me kept awake tonight with jitters instead of asleep, desires for the day ahead dancing under my closed eyelids.

"Get your water. Go to bed," I mutter to myself under my breath, and I get reminded of the ease of someone else's command as I put the glass to my lips.

I do not know what to make of it. I have time.

How has it been two months? School is hard, and life is hard, and also being in plays (and writing them) is hard, but I am back again, and hopefully not going back to jail anytime soon (Discord jail for any of you not on the site). I wrote literally 3.25 of these POVs over Spring Break, but exams needed studying and life kinda did a number on me. My mental health and spirit for writing is also strong as ever, though, so never worry. Summer has arrived, so I am planning on/hoping for very frequent updates. Here's to hoping I can post this story's bloodbath on its second birthday!

What did you think of the chapter? Mystic pondered her life choices but eventually came up with a tentative resolve, Coleus found a confidant and spilled, Sierra was forced to confront the inevitability of the Hunger Games, and Imperia grappled with some urges more sadistic than anything she has felt before. Please leave your thoughts in the reviews and in the channel (sorry for it being so dead, those with the Façade role) and answer the questions!

Who was Auger's ally?

Do any of these POVs change your ideal placement for any of these characters?

Here is another reminder as well to answer the poll, since, reading over the results, I have made a few big changes, so make your voice heard! I love you all, and I hope to see you with another update soon in the future!

-Mills