Façade: The 157th Annual Hunger Games

by TheRaichuinRavenclaw

A flowery valley, a fairytale forest, a castle made of pure marble, and more. But it is all a façade. Façade: An outward appearance maintained to conceal unpleasantness. And the reality is far worse than unpleasant. Horrible creatures of the night prowl, in and out of the arena. The Capitol is in turmoil after the last year's catastrophe, but no one knows it. A façade. Closed SYOT!

32. The Bloodbath

It is finally here! Can you believe it? After two years together, I am going to have to part with a good number of these tributes, and it breaks my heart. Stick around to see who…

X

Arlo Maddox, 17, District Two Male

60, 59, 58…

This is it. What I have been training for—no, what Father has been training me for—for my entire life, all about to commence with the ringing of a gong. Killing. Maybe, probably, hopefully dying. Because all of that determination that I used to feel at finally proving my father wrong, and making him proud, and making my district proud, is pointed straight ahead towards a grave. It is a rather short arrow. It would be so easy to jump off of my pedestal now, just to give one big "fuck you" to him and to the world.

But no. I do not do it. And I tell myself that it is because Scylla would be furious, maybe even depressed, if I died. But that is not what Father would say. He would call me a coward for even entertaining the thought, the fantasy of jumping off of my pedestal and being blown to bits.

50, 49, 48…

I force myself to take a look at my surroundings. Green grass surrounded by a line of oddly curved trees and some fog that is sure to dissipate once the carnage is over, only there for some suspense for the Capitol at home. I am conscious of what I must look like to them. Hulking and scowling, poised to take up a sword and begin cutting everyone to bits. I do not want to give them their show anymore. They do not deserve that, or any of what I have to give them. But I am kidding myself there, because there is nothing else that I have for me to show them other than the newest thoughtless churn-out of the career academy, nothing new. If I die, it would not be such a shock to them, even here. Only to Father, who would call me a coward and be nothing more than pissed off that I let myself die.

40, 39, 38…

I look down the line of tributes for Scylla, and I see her only four tributes down. I try to make eye contact with her, but she has her eyelids shut tightly. Her lips form soundless, harried words. It all makes sense now, the monologue that she gave me that afternoon hiding out in my bedroom during the score reveal. She thinks the cowardly thing would be to let myself die. I believed her at the time, and I still do, but I can see the end so near to me that it is hard not to jump into the abyss, or, more accurately, the landmines, just to get a little premature taste. It does make me feel like a piece of shit to see someone who so desperately craves a better life, or just life in general, in this shit beside me. My conscience tells me that to let some outlier jump me or throw myself to the mercy of the Gamemakers would be plainly insulting to her, but to not would be stooping to their expectations, to the level that has been so ingrained in me from such a young age.

30, 29, 28…

Turquesa, is far away. I am certain that were garnered a sizable amount last night during our double team, but that is not what is haunting me. The very idea that I am still preoccupied with sponsors is what is haunting me, that I am not focused on the present, on fighting for my life or dying to end it. I have always been a decisive, quick on my feet kind of person, so why can I not come up with the answer now? Turquesa is decisive, maybe too decisive. And she knows what she wants: to stick it to the Gamemakers not by letting herself die but by fighting to make it out. But she has people back home praying for her demise, and I do not, just some nearly indifferent compatriots and an asshole father and sister. She actually has something to make it out of this hell for. However much I try to make myself feel something else about my choice, all that is there is apprehension, and fear, and hate, and, worst of all, resignation. Or maybe best of all.

20, 19, 18…

Spite is not what really drives me anyway, just misgivings, something that is universally cowardly. I can see it from the Capitol's eyes, just the newest hulking brute from Two bashing some poor child's head in or gutting them like a fish—I shudder as I look to my right and imagine the boy from Ten or girl from Twelve on my sword—but it all is so fucking sadistic, outright inhumane. They lounge around on their chairs and cackle as they watch their little lapdogs and monkeys running around slaughtering each other for nothing more than their entertainment. I cannot be the heartless and cement my plane as the murderous beast of the year. That better future that the little ones, the underdogs, my supposed nemeses, kept on promising at the Interviews seems so appealing, and I could never destroy that by killing a child. It is so naïve of me to believe that there is something better out there, or up there, waiting for me, and I cannot desecrate my chances, and my conscience, with murder. There is something innocent and moral left inside me still, and I cannot throw it away. Mother would not want me to compete in this evil game. She never wanted me to train, but she got sick and died, and Father's sickness never died, so here I am. The thought of her waiting for me somewhere brings tears to my eyes. I cannot kill in front of her. I need to see her.

But she is here with me now. I fiddle with the faded purple chiffon scarf tied taut around my left wrist. It was hers, and she gave it to me. Sometimes I would wrap myself in it in my bed at night and weep, for her loss and for all the good inside me that left with her. I have done it every night in the Capitol, and now it is my little part of her still with me. This hand cannot commit wrongful deeds. This hand cannot become stained with blood. This is my one last piece of righteousness, and I will keep it close until the end.

10, 9, 8…

But I cannot cry like a baby in front of the audience at home. The audience, I think, because the stupid audience will not leave my mind. They only want to see me dismember or disembowel some poor, defenseless children. All that they see from me is a scowling, muscular, bland, heartless career capable and eager to commit all sorts of murder. I am not what they think that I am. But if I am not that, then what am I, some whiny, wimpy career reject who does not have the guts to kill someone? That is what Father would say. But I am not that!

I am good. Scylla says that I am good now, but I am not. Turquesa says that I am bad now, but I can become good. I do not which I believe, but I know that I cannot turn into the monster that they have been molding me into since I was born. There is something respectable, maybe even heroic, inside of me, more than just a savage or a resentful, noncommittal waste of space. Every feeling, every strong emotion, that left me is coming back now, with that idea that everything could have a happy ending somehow—that I could redeem myself, or spite Father, or see Mother again, or save Scylla or anyone else, or every one of them—however dumb it may seem. I would have called it idiotic and false hope a week ago, but for the first time in so long I feel something happy, and I cannot let it go.

5, 4, 3…

I look at Scylla one more time, just to check on her. Even if she is right, and I am a decent person, she is better than me. She deserves to win. But some mysterious force of guilt or affection compels me not to want to die here, just for her, to spare her feelings and her hope and her faith in me, because she sure needs something to have faith in right now. It is stupid of me to want to spare her innocence and her joy, because she volunteered for this just like me, and Marvel, Talisa, and Imperia to slaughter innocent children for her own victory. But I will not admit to myself that she is just as rotten as the rest of us, because she is not, and if she was, then I would have no reason left to die, and I would fade out of this world miserably. That would be even worse than being proven wrong, or barbaric, or dying in any sort of way. Part of me, that scrappy, self-serving part of me that Father calls satisfactory and Scylla calls admirable does not want to just lay over and die.

Scylla.

Suddenly, everything unhelpful philosophical notion is thrown to the wind, because she is in danger. I can hear her rambling and her uneven, labored breathing sixty feet from her.

0.

The gong rings. Her eyes are still shut. I can even here a little whimper that I pray to all that is upright in this world was from the boy from Ten or girl from Twelve.

The gong rings. Everything become a blur as I plunge down from my podium and start running, just like everyone around me except for the little ones back at the start. Only the horn is solid, only the horn and the glint of a sword right in the mouth. Everything else has blown away with the faint, innocent, heavenly breeze, the evil, artificial, wicked breeze sent up from hell by the Gamemakers.

The gong rings. Everyone sees me, the formidable, mean-looking, brutish boy from Two run to the Cornucopia looking for a weapon. I feel almost detached from myself, just one of the viewers, watching the menacing image of myself racing to the horn.

I do not feel anything now but the adrenaline rushing to my brain pushing me forward ahead of the rest of the competition, even Imperia and Talisa, forged in me out of some bestial urge to survive, and to kill if I have to. I have to get that sword, I tell myself. I have to, for self-defense. Father and the nation are seeing me racing towards the sword and misreading me, guessing that I am eager to kill. But I am not eager to kill. I cannot be eager to kill, because I am good, and decent, and I have to stay that way and salvage what I have left.

That makes me think of Scylla, but when I look around for her, I see nothing. I take another glimpse behind me, not daring to stop, and see ten different fights erupting. Cries, some of battle and some in pain, are already starting to erupt. And Scylla is nowhere to be seen. This cannot be happening. Good cannot be leaving me now! I bring the scarf up to my face and kiss it, but I feel nothing, just mildly cool chiffon flying in the wind.

I let out a peculiar noise, somewhere in between a grunt of exertion and a sob. I am almost to the sword. Twenty feet. Ten feet. Five feet…

And then I scoop it up out of the patch of vibrant red poppies placed right in front of the entrance. The hilt is a twisted silver, etched with illustrations of bones and decay, all topped off with a blood red ruby opposite the grip. I twist around to defend my back and not leave myself vulnerable, but I cannot face it, all of the carnage and blood already starting to spatter the flowers. It is all too horrible to confront.

I wonder what they all must think of me now, a trained career too afraid and disgusted to even watch as his competition gets cut down. One second a smoldering rock, the next blinking tears out of his eyes as he leaves his back open to anyone who dares attack him. I am too afraid even too look back for Scylla or Turquesa. Father was right. I am a coward. But this is not the way that I wanted to defy the box that they all put me in.

Suddenly, through the wall of agonizing background screams comes the rushing off feet and an angry battle cry.

And now I have to turn around. I have to turn around, or else I will die. So those are my options. Turn around or face my attacker or let him kill me. And if I face him, I will kill him. I will permanently bury everything respectable or redeemable about myself with one swing of my sword. But it is that or die. I can feel Scylla cheering me on. I can feel the audience cheering me on. I cannot hear Mother anymore. I am running out of time, as my hidden assailant's footsteps grow louder and louder and his voice begins to give out as he reaches the final stretch.

Turn around.

My feet will not budge.

Turn around.

Is this fate? Is this my body telling me that it is time to give in and leave this cruel world?

"Turn around!"

I spin in a flash, swinging my sword until it stops and I feel the bone-chilling sensation of cutting through flesh, of brittle bones snapping effortlessly under my control. A spray of red flies up and catches my face.

"Aaagh! You bastard! You… you…"

The boy from Twelve writhes in pain at my feet. The sight of him is nauseating, bits of bone slowly sliding out of the gash in his right side, bodily juices mixing together into one terrifying mosh pit. The boy sees it, too.

"Look at what you did to me!" he screeches. "Look at what you did!" His voice breaks, and he starts to cry, to bawl.

He is an unsightly abomination of my own creation. I did this to him, just like he said. And I am doing nothing to stop him as he goes on.

"You piece of shit! You're a horrible person! First, you spend your whole life training for this, then you volunteer, then you go around in your little pack bullying us one by one, then you kill us all. You kill us. You monster! You're an evil, psychotic, fucking monster! You're a small, weak, pussy, and you're a fucking monster! You bastard!"

He tries to say something else, but he starts to choke on his blood, spilling out of his mouth in choppy, crimson waves. So, he settles for unintelligible screaming, angry and hurt and haunting. And I cannot stand it anymore. Why am I not doing anything?

I heft the sword and thrust it down into where his gut was intact a moment ago. The screaming stops and he gasps, and for one, merciful moment, I think he is dead and I can be done, but it starts back strong than before.

"You monster! You monster!"

Tears and snot are starting to trickle down and intermingle with his blood. Some stomach-churning organ is starting to slide out of the gash in the boy's side. It is too much for me, and before I can reign it back, I vomit all over his feet.

"Raagh!" He lets out another guttural, tortured yell and musters enough energy for a hard kick to the shin.

I deserve that, if not for killing him, then for making it this unbearable for the both of us. There is no going back now. I want it all to be over so badly, but, at the same time, I want that less than anything in the world, want to live so badly that I would kill a thirteen-year-old boy.

"Mother?"

I look up at the sky, then down at my scarf. Ugly red stains pepper the soft, soothing lavender color now. There is no escaping this hell anymore. And of-course, she does not answer now either.

"You're right," I say to the boy now only shaking on the ground. "I am a monster."

I plunge my sword into him another time. And then another. And then another. But all that it does is conjure up more blood, and more shouting and screaming, and worst of all, more pain. Here in the sternum. Here in the shoulder. Here in the pelvis. Nothing is working, and I start slashing and stabbing randomly, not even paying attention to where it lands it his mangled body as long as it makes it all stop. I release a scream of my own, deep, vicious, and bestial. It sounds like a triumphant battle cry. And I keep on blindly thrusting and swatting my sword for what seems like hours until the boy from Twelve's corpse is finally dead and limp and all of the fight has gone out of his eyes.

But he is still shouting. I can still hear him!

"You monster!"

I am a monster.

"You piece of shit! You're a horrible person!"

I am a horrible person. There is nothing left in me to redeem now. I have plunged the knife down into that boy and into myself, as well. I should have just let him kill me. No matter what Scylla says, I am just as bad as Imperia.

"You're an evil, psychotic, fucking monster! You're a small, weak, pussy, and you're a fucking monster!"

I need an escape. I need to run from the carnage around me, and from the vengeful chorus throwing insults—throwing the truth—at me, because I am too weak to confront it, or admit it. I clutch the scarf again, futilely.

The hilt of the sword begins to glow iron hot, metal turning orange in an instant as blood spills onto my feet. I drop it onto his carcass and retreat back into the depths of the horn as I see other tributes coming, Imperia and two outlier boys I cannot make out. I find a hollow crate and throw myself under it. If anyone finds me, I will gladly let them kill me. But they do not, so I am left to stew in my thoughts. I hear girls yelling unintelligible words, and the sound of a whip slamming into the walls of the horn. Imperia. But whether she is committing mass murder or being overwhelmed, I am not going to help her. Miraculously, the whip misses my crate, and the sounds eventually stop.

There is no path to redemption for me now. I have become one of the people I always secretly despised. I do not care that the boy attacked me, I should have let him drive his dagger into my back. But a voice shouted at me to turn around. And it could not have been Mother, because she would never guide me wrong, but it sounded so much like her, soft and sweet, not meant for yelling.

I feel another presence right above me, and I am praying for whoever it is to find me and kill me, kill me slowly, stab by stab just like I did with the boy from Twelve. But some selfish force inside me zips my mouth shut from shouting out my location.

Until I feel the crate turn over, and roll around on my back against the wall to face my attacker. It is Scylla. And all of a sudden, I realize that she was the voice that pushed me to twist and run the boy through. I see her slender lower half and know it is her, but as I am about to pull her down with me, she drops into my arms. She is crying, and I discover that I am, too.

We are both wailing, me for my innocence and for whatever ticket there was to some better place that I just threw into the icy black rivers of hell. I do not know what Scylla is weeping for, and I do not care for now. We are stuck in a fetal embrace, both gripping each other like there is no tomorrow, our shoulders muffling out tears. And we stay that way until the end, like there is some sort of finish line to freedom we are on the brink of.

This is never going to end. I just condemned myself to this place, and to a life in hell. But that is in the future. I can let all of my sorrows out right now. I think of the country, probably watching tiny snippets of me in my moment of weakness right after my moment of savagery. It is pointless to care anymore when I have squandered everything else.

Scylla and I stay locked in our wordless huddle until the cannons fire. And now, we must face the world that we just made so much worse.

X

Coleus Yarrow, 16, District Nine Male

60, 59, 58…

There are no words to describe the fear coursing through my veins. It is like an inferno and a blizzard at the same time. It pressure cooks my blood and sears my heart, but, at the same time, it is a block of ice surrounding me, cutting off all feeling and all thought but misery and hysteria. I could be about to die. I am probably about to die, considering that the boy from One, Marvel, is immediately to my left. The boy scored a nine, and his knives never missed the target during training. He has this unassuming, devilish grin that slips under the radar until the final moment of horror, like a shark rising suddenly out of clear waters, rows of teeth set in a massive, deadly greeting. He is trying to kill me, I know he is, just like all of the rest of them! Somehow, they must know what I did. Amber might have leaked it to them, or worse, to the authorities. But I have to have faith in her right now, because if not, everything will fall apart. Or maybe they have no inkling of the tragedies that were my doing and want to kill me anyways.

50, 49, 48…

No! There has to be a reason for everything, a reason for why everyone hates me and for why I despise them even more, because if there is not, then our entire existence is just beaten down to chance occurrences and unnecessary grudges. That is the turmoil of my own mind. At least I am self-aware enough to admit that. Just like I am self-aware enough to admit that I deserve to die. And I have done for more than just admit it. It has been haunting me, that reality, looming over my head vengefully and undeniably. Because for a short period of time I tried to deny it, but the truth was always indisputable. And so, I know I should die, but I will not, if things go my way. I know myself, and I know that I am a bad person. There would have been something even if the water hemlock had only given Pansy a bad stomach, a payoff for some other grudge or conspiracy or unfounded loathing. I hate myself for all of those vices, but I hate myself even more for not giving in and letting myself die, even if it would be karma for being a barely redeemable asshole for sixteen years. Redeemable? What have I done that would chip away at the ball and chain soon to drag me down into hell?

40, 39, 38…

I love my sister, Carica. She brings out the best in me. So do Laurel and Hedera. Or, maybe they did at one point in time before all that I could think of were the nightmares tormenting me of Pansy's ghost casting her unholy wrath down upon me on Earth. But worse than those were the nightmares of being found out or exposed. The Herculean weight of keeping up the mask of relative ease and complete lack of guilt crushed to death any sort of joy I could drain out of life. I am a deplorable person, because I killed Pansy Silkspoon, and because the fear of being found out equals—no, overpowers—the guilt. And, worst, of all, I will not die, because I have already sold my soul this much, so why not risk my nonexistent integrity for a chance to keep on living?

Because I do not want to keep living this chaotic torment. But I know, if and when push comes to shove, that I will throw anyone in front of me just so long as it is not myself, from Marvel Silver to Tessa Oakhart. They are all out to get me, but I cannot kid myself into believing that this has just been mere self-defense. Maybe it is now, but not from the beginning.

20, 19, 18…

"Fuck!" I curse under my breath.

I have no idea what I am doing, only the broad and unhelpful mantra "kill or be killed". I have no idea what I am doing. I have no idea what I am doing, and if I don't make up my mind fast, I am going to be just as dead as Pansy and every other tribute who ever got slaughtered!

There are bags galore, all over the clearing. But there are also trained murderers, and one is right beside me. Every one of these tributes is out to get me, and every one of them will kill me if they get the chance, so really, I am not that bad. I am not a bad person. I deserve to live just as much as anyone else here! Just as much as Tessa, because I am certain that her whole innocent and helpful little girl charade will fall to the wayside in seconds if it has not already. I find her a few pedestals to my left. She is crying. I feel pity, but nothing more. I should not, since she is not worth me dying for. I was delusional last night. Finding a way to save someone and right my wrong is not going to fix anything. I have to make it out of here alive. I have to, even if my only reward is living with my secret forever weighing me down and leeching the life out of me, because I have people waiting on me back home, people who love me.

But, so do others here. Even Imperia has someone who loves her, though how that is possible I do not know. The boy from Ten went on and on about his little sister and widowed father in his interview. The Three boy is an orphan with an autistic sister. The boy from Four volunteered for his best friend. They have people waiting on them back home who need them. And as much as I hope that my family back home loves me—they could never love me if I told them what I did, no matter how many times Carica says she will not tell or Hedera tells me that she knows something is wrong—they do not need me. They will move on, stay middle class. Hedera will find a new best friend. Laurel will find a new boyfriend. Carica will tell my nieces and nephews someday about their uncle who died in the Hunger Games. And if that is the case, what kind of a person am I to prevent someone else from leaving in my place? I am a detestable human being, even if killing Pansy was an accident. I am greedy, and selfish, and cynical, and bitter, and sinful. Tessa Oakhart tried to be a friend to me when nobody else dared or cared to approach me, and my way of repaying her is pretending like it never happened and letting her die without lifting a finger?

10, 9, 8…

I am getting off track. I squeeze my eyes shut as tears fall through and rub them, surveying my surroundings for anything useful. A pack. A lumpy pack that must be filled with goods is only eighty feet or so from my pedestal. But I do not trust any tribute to leave the bag alone because they see me running for it. In fact, they could all run at me and try to kill me while my back is turned, and I would not be surprised. I do have a reason to win, I reassure myself, because none of these tributes reached out to me but Tessa from Seven, so they are all jerks who deserve to die. I am just grasping at straws now, hoping to fall upon some random, passable justification for murdering people in self-defense.

5, 4, 3…

There is no time for crying, planning, or scheming anyone more. The gong is about to ring, and I am going to be left stranded. For a moment, I question if I should even try. I picture Carica, Mom, and Dad, all huddled around the television praying for me. I have to fight for them. I dispel any sympathy for anyone else from my head. My family, and my friends, need me. I want to fight, even if that is the last thing I want to do, which does not even make sense, but that is what I must tell myself. Whether or not I would actually be at ease, or safe, or happy out of here is an entirely different question, and one for a later day.

0.

The gong rings, startling me out of whatever my last coherent thoughts were. Because now, nothing is coherent, and I am running like the crazy person that I am for the bag. I got a late start, and I am chubby and unathletic, but I still have to run for my life.

Everything blends together around me into a blurry, green world of chaos. All around me, tributes are overtaking me, grabbing weapons and packs. There is no blood on the ground yet, but there sure will be soon. And it will not be mine.

A tall, gangly figure with curly black hair surpasses me. It is the boy from Six, and I see he is going for the exact same bag that I am. My bag.

I tell myself to speed up, but I cannot sprint much faster. All those miserable memories of the bullies from home jeering as I walked by, throwing molded tesserae bread at me or stealing my lunch money because they reasoned that I had enough, and of Laurel's friends giving me unimpressed looks of disgust and muttering insults and lies into her ears. It incenses me. The District Six Male is just another one of those assholes from school, just another blurry face to give retribution to. That gives me a boost.

But the boy still makes it to the bag a few seconds before me, and I lose my balance. My momentum pushes me into the bag, and I take down the boy with me. We are both in the grass, but I am the first up. I have the bag. But as I scan my surroundings, I see Marvel dashing out of the metal horn at lightning speed towards me.

"Fuck!" I shout.

I take a swing at the boy with the pack, which is lumpy, and filled with hard, prodding contents. I miss. It is my first impulse, and for one second I feel remorseful, but this is the Hunger Games. Only one of us can survive, and none of the dicks from my school are worthy. And I know, deep down in my scarred, marred, and blackened conscience, that I am not worthy either, and that this poor boy is just like me, but I keep on slinging the backpack.

"Wait!" the boy shouts, holding his hands up to protect himself as he scrambles away. "You don't have to do this! We can all be fri—"

But then, he sees the career running straight for us and falters. I take the opportunity and let fly. The pack slams into his face and I hear a sickening snap of breaking glass and a thud. He falls to the ground, body limp and blood starting to drain out of his mouth and down his chin. A small gash has opened on his forehead. I did that. I just tried to kill him.

"Stop! Please stop! Please!"

Tears of fright, and mania, and pain all pour down his face. He scoots away frantically, afraid for his life. But something in me has snapped, and now I am crying too. I tried to kill this boy. And for all of my talk about no sympathy, and no regrets, and making it back home no matter what the reason or the consequences, I feel regret again, that evil little pest that will never truly leave me, much more soul destroying that guilt or grief or paranoia.

I am frozen in place, even as the boy from One, the personification of my death, gets closer and closer. But the Six boy is not, and he gets up and runs off, still in tears, while I stand in a daze.

I hear the array of voices in my head, all egging me on, all telling me to run and save myself. But no matter how hard I try, I cannot move. I am paralyzed, not in trepidation, but in something indescribably heart-wrenching, unbearable… appropriate. A mix of resignation; and of self-hatred more powerful than I have ever felt before for all of those years of unprovoked bitterness, and volatility, and aggression, and now this; and most of all… want.

I want this, if I am being truthful to myself. I want Marvel Silver to tackle me, and bash me in, and stab and slash me to bits with his cutlass. My family does not want this for me, but that is not enough motivation to keep on going anymore. I thought that confessing to Amber would help, but it only took away the stress of keeping the secret, not what I did. Nothing is enough to go on anymore. I am giving up and falling straight down into hell, where I belong. I turn to face my killer. I have accepted my fate. I just want to get it over with.

I close my eyes, and I see joyful little snippets of nostalgia, brief little instances of happiness from before everything went to shit and I stopped letting myself enjoy anything. Days spent lounging on Carica's bed and playing outside with Hedera. Quiet nights out by the river with Laurel and only Laurel, kissing but nothing more, just enough of a taste to keep me coming back. Gardening with Mom and Dad, and pretending with Carica that there were no districts, that we were an isolated, undisturbed little farmer family. It was so… peaceful. But goods things can never last, and they ended too long ago for life to be worth fighting for anymore. My eyes are shut, but tears still slip through the cracks. I can hear Marvel's boots padding the ground louder and louder as he gets closer. Dying here is my villainous fate. But I have also suffered through enough, and I deserve to have it ended, no matter how anyone else feels.

I deserve this.

I better not chicken out now and move. I deserve this.

I should just let it all overcome me, sweep me away to a place where I do not have to worry about anything. I deserve this.

I deserve this… So, why is it not coming?

I open my eyes, but Marvel is not there. He is getting quieter and quieter, noise drowning out under the sounds of anguished screams, and bloody battle cries, and the ominous clinking of a whip. When I turn around, he is not ten feet from me yet. He passed me?! I do not understand.

But then I see who he is truly chasing. Tessa Oakhart.

And suddenly, without thinking at all—for once—I lift the blood-smeared pack from the ground and sling it as far as I can. It careens into the backs of Marvels' knees, sending him sprawling.

I remember now, last night, my restless fantasies of repaying as much of my debt to the world as I could, of finally accomplishing something positive and helping someone else instead of hurting them, of dying as some sort of sacrificial martyr rather than cravenly running from my fate. Everyone else be damned, I have to do this, because if I do not, then I will be nothing but a killer, a villain, a horrible person who unfairly evades death until the lazy hand of justice comes down with his gavel. I am sick of always viewing the world through a lens of distrust, through which everyone looks like they are poised to fight me. For once, I want to do something for the world, instead of pondering what the world will throw at me next.

Suddenly, it is as if everything is so much clearer, and so much brighter, almost blindingly so, around me. I see all the trees, trees that looked so fearsome ago, but gorgeous in the perseverant light of the sun through the fog now. And in the distance, I can make out tall, snowcapped mountains barely poking through the disappearing fog as the new day comes. If I forget where I am, the scene is almost majestic.

But I know where I am. I charge the boy on the ground as he tries to kick off the pack. The straps are tangled in his legs. This is my chance, and for one moment, I think that I might live past this, for better or worse. With a belligerent war cry I throw my entire weight onto the boy From One and feel his body buckle underneath mine.

"You son of a bitch!" he shouts from below me.

"At least my mother never sent me off to an Academy so I could train to die like my older brother!"

That sets him off. He pushes up from the ground with surprising strength for someone so slender, but I grip him in a bear hug. Something cold and sharp gashes my left hand. His belt of knives. My hands flail for them, and it gives him the opportunity he needed to buck me off. In an instant, all of the air is knocked out of my lungs as I feel a heavy boot in my gut.

I cannot breathe anymore. The world is spinning. Everything is a tornado of blurry shapes, blurry green and browns and blacks, until my head is yanked into the grass and everything overlaps into one.

I see Marvel's legs, and slowly look up to find him standing over me, looked incensed, riled up with hatred, almost crazy. He slowly kicks the bloody knife that fell from his belt away and pulls out a fresh, harshly curved one. I almost wet myself. All of my despair and discomposure has returned, and alarms bells are blaring in my head.

"Oh, God," I hear myself utter as he takes another step towards me and flips the knife in his hand, some subconscious prayer, probably to just the sky and nothing more.

"I'll skin you like a pig for that," he says cockily, blood still boiling. "I wanted to get your friend, the little bitch from Seven. At least she had some substance. But you, you're just a pathetic little shit. You don't know what it is like to lose someone. I guess you'll never get to know."

He is right. I never will know what loss is to a person, even though I caused it myself. And this is it, my unceremonious, anticlimactic, agonizing, long overdue end. Why can't he just get it over with?

I look over Marvel's shoulder and see Tessa colliding with her district partner. They wrap each other up in an embrace of relief, and both turn to watch me with confusion. Tessa's partner covers her eyes.

Not so fast.

As Marvel zeroes in for the kill, I thrust my foot out and into his kneecap. He grunts in pain and trips backwards. Payback for his kick to the gut. Seeing Tessa running away has given me newfound energy. Maybe I wanted to die like a sacrifice as some form of payback, but that does not mean I will go down without a fight. This is not over, not so long as I have people, a whole district, cheering me on, rooting for me against this murderer, bordering on lunatic. I am the hero, here. It feels so new, but so uplifting.

"Karma is a bitch!" I shout.

We both deserve this, but he deserves it more. My karma will just have to wait.

I scream again, lunging for the bloody knife in the grass. By some miracle, I make it there in time, only to be tackled back down to the ground. Everything spins for one moment, but I lash out with my knife, waving it around like a madman trying to hit something before my vision returns. I feel my motion stop for just a second as I make contact with something wet and chunky. Blood is running down my sleeve. I laugh.

But my vision is not coming back, only distorted pictures of Marvel laughing wickedly once again, tinged with red at the bottom. But I am triumphant, so why am I not getting up? Something wet is sticking to my back. Marvel is laughing too. Instantly, I understand. It is over now. It is over now, and I am crying, and Marvel Silver is jeering in my face, shoving his shoe into my mouth.

With all of my effort, I slash wildly one last time and feel a spray of something hot fall onto my chest.

"You motherfucker!"

Everything is turning white and fuzzy on the edges, and I can only see Marvel's fuming silhouette as he goes in for the killing blow.

I do not feel too sad. I tried in the end. I was not just some sacrificial lamb, or the self-seeking coward who sacrificed others. For the first time in forever, I have faith that everything will turn out alright.

I feel a stinging cut on my throat, growing wider and wider.

Everything is starting to fade…

I always thought that the last thing I would see was a hellish black. But it is welcoming, soft, pleasant white. Happy, carefree, carefree white. And then, nothing.

X

Rhiannon Castor, 15, District Ten Female

The gong rings, and I step off of my pedestal and begin traipsing towards the forest. No one bothers me, so I take my time.

It should be inviting. Much more inviting than the carnage about to unfold to my back, but that is not saying anything. The trees are ugly. They are all crudely curved and twisted, bent up in reach towards the sky as if extending their arms as a plea for help as their bodies are mangled. It is because of that that I cannot forget where I am and walk into the forest, carefree and vindictively indifferent to whatever struggles the other humans are facing in their vain and short-sighted attempts to hoard the supplies all for themselves. They all only have their own self-interest at heart, just rats greedily grabbing at the biggest slices of cheese.

I fed the rats back home when I was little. I would smuggle cheese from the pantry and carry it all out for the cute little rodents desperate for something to assuage their pangs of starvation. It brought me a rush to give it to them, to watch them carry it off in reference and slowly nibble away at it. It made me feel like I was doing something to contribute to the circle of life, nurturing the fauna on this green earth instead of harnessing it for food and not offering up anything else in turn. But more than that, the rush came from the sabotage of man's selfish, psychotic little ecosystem of unjust domination. It came also from the sabotage of Uncle Troilus's precious little dominion, from stealing his precious food and giving it back to those who I thought were worthy of it, those who needed it for life rather than stuffing their faces with it and using it as just another luxury of excess, from releasing the rats back into the house as tiny little instruments of torture, from watching in glee as he rampaged around the house with a hammer and a stake, angry at the loss of his delicacy and eager to slaughter the vermin I unleashed on him.

But eventually, he discovered it was me, somehow, and started devising his own sadistic methods of retaliation. He would kill animals, innocents, my friends, in front of me. They were the only ones who gave me solace after pneumonia got the rest of my family. And he had that sadistic pleasure that only man could have as he drove down the axe and blood misted his face.

I have seen worse bloodshed than whatever is going on behind me. They can go ahead and kill each other. I do not care, because we will all die, someday, hopefully soon. At least if I make it out, I can take the place of some greedy, ungrateful monster. That should give me the drive to run for the trees. It does not.

For some reason, everything seems to meandering more than usual. In the beginning, it was all routine, and then suffering through days of suffocating ignorance and lack of compassion with only brief escapes in the barn and the forest. But as time passed, the escapes became the realities, stretches of bliss where everything seemed to be frozen in time, away from the unbearable confines and travesties of civilization, and the moments spent inside the fence where brief moments of torture. Most nights I slept out there, sometimes spent days wandering through what was left unspoiled by society. But I always got hungry and came running back to the house for food.

And that is why I am not above the rest of them. I could have lived off of berries and roots and the likes, but I still came running back out of some detestable sense of safety that I despise but could never rid myself of. And when I fed the rats the cheese, I would also scratch off little chunks and cram them into my mouth as I watched the rats get their meals, sometimes even devouring have of the block. There is no such thing as a bad person, because that would imply that there are good people out there. There are not, only takers and killers.

And then I see it. It is a gorgeous dark curtain past the insignificant horn, and running bodies, and everything else that had been obscuring it before. It is so much prettier than the cruelly altered curvy trees that are behind me, or the unrealistically flowered monstrosities in the East that lack any sort of wonder the Gamemakers were going for in their twisted, ruthless minds. Towering brown cylinders poking out of sight and into the fog, holding the entire clearing as their court, diminishing everything around them. They look so real, not like the tall but skinny trees for District Ten, but the glorious redwoods we passed through on our way to the Capitol. It is so easy to pretend like there is nothing here but me and the trees to my North. This is my escape for everything, from humanity and all of its evils and sins.

Finally, I break out into a run. The wind flying through my hair feels exquisite. I make a note to myself to untie my shoes immediately once I am far enough away so that my feet can feel the gentle touch of the grass. I keep on running, running not for my life but for the feeling that I have missed so much ever since they ripped me away from my friends back in Ten. But I cannot think of them right now, so I can lose myself in this stupid, pretend fantasy. I know that this, too, is just a fake construction whipped up by the Gamemakers. But it is so easy to pretend, yet so easy at the same time to let those bestial voices of rage and injustice consume me. Not animalistic and pure, but bestial. No. I am not qualified to draw that line. Maybe there is no line.

I brush those thoughts away and keep going, practically skipping now, west around the circle. I lose myself in my surroundings again. Not even the pained screams and sounds of skin tearing, metal meeting flesh, or bones crushing can bring me out. In fact, it is almost like a perfect little symphony to accompany the whole scene. This is a perfect little world where the killers and now the killed. That is one delightfully artificial part of this new world. And now that I am here, I am not confined any more by the constraints of civilization. I am free to do whatever I please…

"Wait!"

A squealing voice interrupts my escape, but I keep on going. I see the boy from Eight, and I sigh in disappointment.

"Stop! Let me come with you, or—or I'll kill you!" He hoists up a small pack with a glass bottle of what must be iodine and a spear that looks clunky in his hands proudly. "I already killed one tribute with this, so I'm not afraid to kill you, too!"

"If you already killed someone with it, then why does it not have any blood on it?" I ask.

That stumps him.

I hold my ground against him, and stare into his desperate, needy blue eyes. Pathetic and despicable. He is all of the evils of man condensed into one ugly, gluttonous eyesore. I know this boy. He disturbed my peace in the conservatory during Free Day and groveled at my feet to save his own hide. He is disgusting. A snobbish, self-serving, needy, whiny, self-centered, egotistical, imperious wart upon the puss-filled blemish on the skin of the earth that is man. I despise him more than any other tribute.

"Don't you remember me?!" he asks helplessly over the chaos, giving up on his lie.

"Yes," I answer.

He backs away from me, adding another five feet or so to our distance. All of a sudden, he is skittish.

"Let me pass," I order.

"No!" he screams impetuously. "Not until you say you will come with me and protect me! I'll—I'll kill you if you don't!"

Tears and snot clog up his already ugly boyish features. I would like to see him try to murder me. I do not doubt that he would be selfish enough to try. The thought of offing him, serving up an over-due wake-up and slice of stinging karma is so tantalizing. But that is why I am as duplicitous as the rest of my species. I thirst at the blood of others instead of killing them out of necessity, and I cannot help it. I am worse than an animal, I am a monster, just like the rest of them, eager to go on my own little warpath, and wreak havoc, and make them pay. But that does not stop me.

"Try me."

"No! No, you have to come with me, please!" he falls to his knees.

He is a deformed, overgrown, baby, an unsightly tumor on the world that needs to be severed.

Without thinking any longer, I break out into a run again. I am daring him to run at me as I fly past him, and he does, but he will never get up the resolve to actually do more than loaf around, now that he has been snatched away from whatever richness was his back home. He is helpless now, a cockroach flipped over onto his back. But this time, I will have no sympathy when I bring my foot down and smash him to a pulp.

But then I catch sight of the tree line again, and wonder if Mother Nature, or whatever being truly is the center of life, is sending me a message. Would Dew really want me to kill this boy now, when he is defenseless and surely will not make it past the first day? Would Min, or Jasmine, or Daisy, or any of the others? Would Mama or Daddy? But they should be irrelevant, I should not care about whatever they would think. No, they would not. Even after all of the slaughter that our race has facilitated, the animals will always forgive. Just one of many reasons that they are better than us.

And so, I do not touch him. I feel like a caged animal in here still, trapped by the iron mesh hypocritical guidelines of humans. It is fitting, given that this is all one massive ruse. Under my feet, in the core of every tree, and in the heart of what makes this place and Panem tick is glass and steel. But this should be my ticket away from society and into the wild, into where I belong, and where I can be free and undisturbed and pretend like life really is as simple as just me, in the woods, the only one of my kind. Now, I identity more with the animals that ever before. This is their prison, only now I am thrust into it instead of them. But there are still others like me out there who would understand, because even mutts cannot be solely robotic. Others like me…

"Fine, then! I don't need you anyway! Freak! Ugh!" the boy from Eight huffs behind me and throws his foot down.

I ignore him, and final wave of power washes over me. It feels so unbelievable to finally be out of range of any control District Ten could have over me. And just like those precious days spent wasting the time away far gone from the fences of District Ten with all of my animal companions, I can pretend that I never have to return. I am running with Dew in a meadow, laughing, airy, and relaxed, and serene, with nothing to bother me, skipping circles around him as his stubby pink hooves struggle to keep up. I should not pretend. As much as I want it to be, I am not that wild, fairy utopia that I always lose myself in—it was so refreshing to be able to disengage from the atrocities of my world before. I am in the Hunger Games.

The sparkling haze before my eyes is abruptly gone. I stop.

Behind me, I hear the boy scream. He is pathetic, feet still rooted in place. I am smarter than him, and I run the other way when I see the career charging towards me. This is simply the nature of the wild. I am a doe running from a wolf, and at my disposal is this fattened up, lazy vermin. The slower of us is going to get devoured. It will not be me.

The girl—I think she is from District Two, I never paid any attention—is small, my height, and willowy, but she moves fast. She is the predator, but I am not the prey. That is the repulsive skunk beside me. This is still my private breaking, only I am the animal now, not the enlightened victimizer.

I turn my tail and flee, galloping through the short grass gracefully. But the boy from Eight is frozen in place, white with horror. This is what he deserves. The Two girl stalks towards swiftly. She holds something mysterious in her palm. I do not care, I tell myself. This is my one bid for freedom, for a fantastical, permanent reprieve from my tortured existence. But I sense something slipping away from me, all of the doubts and pushbacks of humanity, all of the selfish human logic evaporating from my brain in place of natural fight or flight instinct, how it should be. I do not think, I just run, run in a straight line. But that mystical shiny object is so intriguing, it is almost irresistible. The ebb and flow of my self-control is becoming a waterfall, but I do not care. There is no need for it anymore. I do not fight the urge to take a glimpse back at the enrapturing little crystal in the palm of her hand. I do not even register how fast she is running now, from across the field towards us.

And then everything goes wrong in one disastrous flash.

I cannot see. I am blind, and there is only searing white everywhere. I let out a screech of pain and amble forward senselessly, only to feel the crushing weight of the boy from Eight.

I cannot breathe anymore. The inhuman shrieks are turning to moans. Everything is a translucent shade of purple. It is so dizzying, and my eyes are throbbing, and I begin to worry if I will ever be able to see again. My hands are groping for help, for a way out, for anything, but they cannot reach anything past the overwhelming figure of the Eight boy. Until they do.

The larger boy's breath and sweat drip down on me in a disgusting mixture, but my right hand grasps the tip of the spear. This will all be done with soon enough.

"No!" the boy shouts, trying to pull the spear away from me. "You bitch! You're going to die!"

His weight is too much when he leans back, and my hands are slick with sweat. The spear falls out of my grip and the boy cackles, but then he throws it fifteen feet behind him.

"What did you just do?!" I shout.

That is not like me. I never shout. I am better than that weak, short-tempered vice that every man abuses. I am above all of that. I should not be afraid, only vengeful, only free, but that will not be as easy as I thought. My heart is racing now, but I am not afraid. I cannot let myself panic, and become one of those poor, innocent, thoughtless victims of the hunters.

The boy from Eight screams in shock and smacks himself. That is all the time I need to spring up and lunge for his bag, anything to get me out of here. I should not need the bag, but I go for it anyways. It is weakness, but I have no time to protest it.

A clammy hand pulls on my leg, and I fall back to the grass, this time clamping down on my tongue. I feel the taste of blood in my mouth. And suddenly, everything goes from white, to purple, now to red.

Eight boy drags me towards him again, no matter how hard I kick and flail like a fish, helpless and random and not at all thought out. Everything is a frenzy now, and I barely notice that sharp jab into my left calf. But I do, and it hurts like nothing I have ever experienced before, and I am howling now, screeching and scratching like I never have up until this moment. My nails connect with soft skin, and I feel bits off flesh and juice clotting up underneath the nail beds. I tear away curly blonde strands of hair and the painted purple caps of his own fingernails, but nothing is working against his raw weight.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"

"Shut up!" shouts the boy. "Stop it!"

Was it me who was making that noise? Now, my throat is as raw and battered as the rest of my body.

He grabs my wrists and stomps on them, pinning them to the ground as he faces me towards the Two girl's direction. But she is not running anymore, only standing, a look of something like indecision on her face as she watches two boys off in the distance grappling for a knife.

I do not have time for indecision. Animals do not have indecision, they choose with their hearts and their instincts, and that is life.

Only now do I understand that this boy is trying to sacrifice me to this girl. But he falters, unlike me, when he sees her stationary. The boy from Eight is callous, and cruel, self-centered and narcissistic, willing to throw me to the wolves without a second thought. He is the worst of all of them. It is like a fire is lit beneath me, for how a burning hot passion scorches me, blazes around me until I can see nothing, fear nothing, be nothing but the white-hot wrath of the fire, and of every innocent creature whose life was ended by the wretched humans.

I roar bestially and pounce upon him clawing and scraping at his soft and tender flesh until I feel something slimy and grotesque and pull until it snaps.

The boy lets out an agonized scream:

"My eye! What did you do, you bitch?"

I can only laugh and keep on grasping for vulnerable bits to tear apart. I feel something leather beneath him. The pack. I do not need anything material like that, but I swing it anyway out of some primal, primordial drive to cause more and more pain.

There is a crash and a thud. Splintered glass flies everywhere. It cuts my hands, but I do not care. I care about nothing anymore but living and killing, for everything else is unnecessary, fickle human constructs destined only to justify enslaving every other race.

I am the predator now, and I look down on my prey in satisfaction. He writhes on the ground in agony, blood spurting everywhere from his empty eye socket and from a sea of red in which his neck is indistinguishable. He shouts more insults, but cannot get them out through the blood cascading into his throat, and the shards of glass still stuck in his face and neck. I would not care if I could hear them.

I do not care about anything more but this, this moment and not the next, of finally being left untamed to become one with the beasts and take our revenge on the humans. This is my revenge. This is my escape. I laugh.

The boy chokes out an inaudible sound, and his lips form an "o" shape:

"Mommy… Mommy…"

"Mommy isn't here to save you now," I tell him. "This is what you deserve."

And then I dig my hands into his throat and pull. Civilization would scorn me now. That, and take shelter in their houses and lock their doors. But I do not give a damn. I pull and I pull, until I am covered in red, and I feel dead little strings and lifeless, limp bones, and I have lost any sense of the Rhiannon Castor humanity tried to make me into. But that is for the best. That is my escape.

I run for the line of trees, knowing that the Rhiannon Castor who enters them will never be the same as the one who entered the arena minutes ago.

X

Mystic Archeron, 16, District Eight Female

The bastards decided to sandwich Imperia between Turquesa and I. There are other tributes filling tiny gaps, the girl from Seven, the boy from Eleven, the boy from Three but none of them are the kind of tributes she would go for. And of-course, Aquatico is miles away.

They did this on purpose. They want us to fight. And I would do anything to sink my teeth into Imperia Crimson and flay her alive with her own horrific whip the same way that Father used to threaten to do to me. That would show them, turning their weapon of torture back on them and letting them watch as their little golden child is torn to pieces. But that would be giving them what they want, and stooping to their level and, if I am being honest with myself, there is no way that I, or maybe even Turquesa and I, could take on Imperia.

The gong has rung, and now everybody is bounding off of their pedestals. I need to decide quick before somebody else decides for me. All around me, tributes are sprinting for supplies, already rolling about in the grass to get whatever they can. And especially now, seeing it in person, it all seems so pointless and barbaric. For a second, I wonder if it was all worth it, if I should have just stayed home and lived out my miserable life, hoped my grief would finally go away and my luck would be good for a change, and stuck out the inevitable crushing of my loves and my dreams, of everything I had, for another time. But I have to let it go. I cannot change the paste, however much I dwell on it and cry in my pillow longing for old memories and people that I feel slipping away from me for good.

But this is no time to get sappy, not when it matters most. I feel myself slowing down, coming to a halt only twenty feet from my pedestal. If the train was when the first wave of reality hit me, and last night was when water got choppy, then this is the tsunami coming to wash me away. No. This is the feeble white froth washing up at my feet. I can make it through this. This is insignificant. I am not weak enough to cry like the babies at the Bloodbath. I am Mystic Archeron. I cannot afford to be weak here.

"What are you doing, Mystic?!" Turquesa bellows angrily.

She has already reached the cornucopia, along with a few other tributes—the boy from Two, the kid from Three, Turquesa's partner, and, of-course, Imperia.

What am I doing? I have come to a complete stop already!

Immediately, I kick off the ground and start running again. A cloud of pollen flies up behind me, so I start to sneeze, but I cannot let anything stupid like that cause me to fail my own mission, or cause Turquesa or Aquatico to die and Imperia fucking Crimson to get the victory, or cause me to die. Because even more than I do not want to give up my life for something so easily preventable, everything will be for naught, and it will all be a disaster, a tragedy if my life falls into their hands. And I am running as fast as I can through the grass, and the flowers, and the pollen, but it is as if I am in slow motion. Everything is falling apart only seconds after the gong, but what did I expect? All three of us knew last night during the ride home that me and Turquesa would not be simply staying at the forest boundary while Aquatico ran in and gathered food. Maybe we were just trying to quell that insatiable urge we all have to be in the center of the fight, some sort of contagion or magnet that drew the three of us together by forcing the opposite down our throats. But that was never going to work. Me and Turquesa never froze up on our pedestals after the gong, we ran straight for the goods. It shows that none of us ever really intended to take it to heart, either.

Aquatico was supposed to be the deep runner, but Turquesa is the one at the mouth of the Cornucopia fighting for something as stupid as a spear, and Aquatico is nowhere near us. I search for him as I run and see hopping around to tried and sneak past his partner, Talisa, still near the pedestal line. And when I turn around, things get even worse, because Imperia has found the whip obviously placed in the horn for her and is already zeroing in on Turquesa.

"Come on, bitch!" Turquesa shouts. "Bring it, and I'll still kill you."

She does not know when to stop running her mouth and back down to brace herself for the fight. I almost call out for her to run, but I do not. Something in me wants her to stay me right there, just to give me an excuse…

"You think you'll try to get me angry?" smirks Imperia. "You're just a small, insignificant, pathetic career reject. Nobody even cared enough about you to volunteer! They let you get Reaped because they knew that you were going to die, and they wanted to get a kick out of watching it."

"Trying to get me angry? You just revealed your own strategy, dumbass!"

That is the Turquesa that I like, but that is what is going to kill her soon, because I am not going to be able to make it. It is like I am running through molasses, for how everything seems to slow down and my heart is now chained to the ground. This is all already a train wreck, because Turquesa is going to die her. And not just that, but I will not being able to save her, and it will be my fault, just like Weave and Weft and Morgana, where I could have been there to save them, but I was not. But I am not going to be lucky enough to get revenge twice in a row. Everything is already deadened and withering away. This is all that I have left! This is the final burning ember from a now dead fire slowly drifting to the ground, and I have to catch it! This is my last chance for something special, something meaningful and impactful and more than just a capitulation to the Capitol, and to Father, and to fate, and everyone else who has ever opposed me.

But I am not going to be fast enough. Already, Imperia flies her whip through the air like a massive, bladed, flying snake, but even deadlier. She hurls it with superhuman force at Turquesa, and, somehow, she catches it all on her spear. But she is trapped now in Imperia's scheme, and it will soon be a checkmate, because I will not be able to make it in time. The towering career pulls the whip and slings Turquesa through the air for what feels like a full minute before she careens into the wall of the Cornucopia.

I am still fifty feet away. Aquatico is still a fuzzy spot in the distance. I will be too late. Mystic Archeron never give up, but I feel myself falling away from here now as that final tsunami comes to smother out the ashes of the fire for good. I will not die, Turquesa will die, and that is even worse, because I threw my life away for this and it was all for nothing. I have never saved anyone, and I never will, not even myself. All that I can feel now is jaded hate, past the surface exterior of fun and thrill and exhilaration that I keep on trying to convince myself is worth living for. Nothing is worth living for anymore, but there are some things worth not being killed by. I am not done yet.

And then I see it. A pristine, silver bow, with twelve arrows just itching to be shot calling to me from the quiver. And it is only feet away… from Imperia's foot.

But nonetheless, it still fills me with new life, and new energy. I have never given up before, and I will not now. None of us are going to die! I run for the bow like there is no tomorrow as Imperia diverts her attention to me from Turquesa's crumpled form huddled against the wall. She stalks closer and gives her one final lash to the hip as she turns to face me. That only pumps more madness into me, more of this ferocious adrenaline, and I do not let the hulking giant in my way scare me off.

The whip cracks down at my feet, slamming to the ground and curling in the air. It misses my feet by inches, but I hop up and barely avoid it.

"Come and get me, Nine!" I shout to her.

"Gladly!"

I race for the bow and arrow just past her. Along the way, I dodge a few more strikes, ducking and rolling. Somehow, my reflexes are like lightning. Everything is like lightning, like the old days running carefree through district streets or exploring the sparse bits of forest outside district fences with Morgana. I always thought that I never lost that spark the pushed me through the hard times, but it is back in full now, and it is burning me with hope and fight. Everything in me is blazing towards Imperia Crimson and blazing towards getting ahold of that bow, because everything in me is all that I have left.

It is like magic, the way that every strike seems to miss me by inches and the velocity with which I near my weapon. I am running five feet away from Imperia Crimson, and she does not approach me. Instead, she backs off, flinging her whip topsy turvy on her back foot. She is losing control. She even backs away from Turquesa, still flat in the dirt, but she is regaining consciousness. I laugh when I realize that Imperia is afraid of getting close to me. Now, everything is going our way, even though it did not go to plan, and that… that feels better than it ever has.

It all clicks to me now, the reason why someone as strong and dense as her would retreat from me. She is afraid to get close and jeopardize her advantage. Her whip must be twelve feet long, at least. It is a vicious, merciless looking, snaking monstrosity feet longer than any they had in training. But it is taking her some time to get used to, and if I can make it past her defenses or get her cornered, I could finally punish her with what she deserves. I could kill their little darling of the year just to spite them, just to take down the biggest bully and asshole the Hunger Games has ever seen.

I skid down to the grass and slide to a stop. When I finally close my hands around the bow and swing it around my chest, it feels just right on me, like it was designed just to be on my shoulder. A funny tingling sensation spreads up my fingers as I my right hand pulls the bow and my left notches the arrow in place. This is it. I will be the avenging angel that casts all of those who ever defied me into the flames.

"What's wrong, big, strong career, are you scared of me?" I ask mockingly as Imperia backtracks ever so slightly.

"No one will ever be scared of you. You are scrawny, wimpy jackass who only likes to mouth off. Nobody even likes you. Your allies are only trying to deceive you, they want to kill you because they do not view you as worthy." She finishes and tries to bring me down to the ground with her icy stare. Does she not know that fire melts ice?

"Don't listen to her, Mystic!" Turquesa calls.

She is not crumpled on the ground anymore. Instead, she is propped up twenty feet away against the horn, scrounging around for a new spear.

I laugh. "I don't give a damn what she says to me Turquesa. She clearly only is rebounding insults from her own insecurities. I don't care if you are scared of me, Imperia. I just want you to get what is coming to you."

With that, I fire an arrow at her, but it sails over her head. I do not let it deter me.

"You missed, Eight."

Imperia flicks her whip again, this time lunging closer out of nowhere. The tip nicks my left ankle, and I feel a slow trickle of warmth already starting to puddle up in my shoe. But I will not let that deter me either.

Instead of taking the initiative and going in for the kill, Imperia takes her time, starting to circle me like a panther with its prey cornered. But I am not cornered. Far from it. We are beside the cornucopia now, but if I could lure her around the side and into the horn… Oh, it would be so brilliant! She would be stuck, and all that I would have to do is fire the arrows one by one into her, and she would be too confined in the back to fight. I would not feel any guilt about it. I want to kill Imperia Crimson, more than I want to live or die, because my fickle conscience has settled on her as that ticket to revenge and it will not let up on that now.

I fire another arrow. It misses.

"You'll have to do better than that if you want to live," Imperia ridicules.

It infuriates me, the unearned smugness with which she speaks, the way that she imitates me with her hands of her hip and her nose flared. Without thinking, I notch another arrow and do not take the time to concentrate. It sails five feet over Imperia's head, and nearly hits the boy from Five as he runs for the entrance.

"Careful or you'll run out of arrows," the Nine girl simpers. She is starting to edge closer now. She thinks that she is just playing with her food before she eats it.

A spear comes sailing from out of nowhere and embeds itself in the dirt at Imperia's feet.

"Not so fast!"

Turquesa is on two feet now and toughing it out. And I see Aquatico not so far away, getting closer and closer by the second. We might just have a chance. We could kill the most ruthless, sadistic career in history right here.

The metal snake comes flying towards me again, but I leap back a step and shoot another arrow. This time, it hits flesh. It stops in Imperia's left shoulder, and she lets out an involuntary gasp of pain. I let fly another, and the cap disappears into her right shoe. This time she screams, a hellish sound of freakish, inhuman agony morphing into wrath. Dark red juice is already pooling through the fibers of her shoe. She falls back against the slanted surface of the cornucopia.

"What's wrong, Imperia, too chicken to take on me?" Turquesa calls.

"You're so strong, I know you could take on two competitors at once," Aquatico adds.

Finally, he is here, and it is the three of us against this one superhuman devil that, as it turns out, is mortal like the rest of us. But I want to be the one who deals the finishing blow, just to spite all of them and give them all one big "fuck you", and I am feverish with anticipation, and exception, and bloodlust! It feels untamable.

My next arrow sails past her torso. But I was not aiming to kill anyway. I want to draw this out.

Imperia spins around and slashes her whip at the ground. Aquatico barely pulls Turquesa out of the line of fire in time, and she stumbles back onto the ground. He pulls her left arm away from the sticky mass of blood in her abdomen and gags, tugging her further away.

"What happened?" His voice has lost all of its humor now.

"What do you think?!" Turquesa gestures to the whip.

"This is bad. This is really bad. We need to get you to safety immediately."

Aquatico sounds sick with worry, but I cannot just abandon this! This is my one chance, and I am living in the moment, not looking into the future, because I am afraid of what I might find. I am afraid that this will eb the end, that I will die some anticlimactic death by mutts sent my way by the Gamemakers above trying to kill me and succeeding. But I will succeed now, and show them, no matter who gets in my way.

Imperia turns to charge them, but she is limping with the arrow still wedged in her foot. I send another, and it lands in between her legs, missing by a hair. Just my luck.

"You hear that, Eight?" Imperia crows. "Your little friends are wanting to check out. You better not miss the train."

I grunt and launch another arrow at her. It misses again.

"Mystic, you're almost out of arrows already! Come on! Let's go!"

Aquatico is not himself anymore. What happened to the fun-loving, wisecracking, energetic life of the party that could never stay serious? He was so uncontrollably, unabashedly effervescent and rebellious, it was awe-inspiring. But now that person is gone. I am not going to be the one who changes who they are to win, I will make everything change for me, and burn with me, because I am not letting go of whatever I have left just to have a one-in-twenty-four chance of leaving this arena.

"I can handle this! If you guys want to let me take her, go right ahead!"

"She's right, Aquatico! But we need to help!" Turquesa protests.

But, almost on cue, she falls over again, and Aquatico scoops her up in his arms with surprising strength for someone so short and runs the other way, towards the massive redwoods. She kicks weakly for a second but relents soon.

"Are you sure you want to do this?!" he shouts back, one final ticket to run with him. I wonder if he will even stay around the ring and wait for me.

"I need to do this," I say, more to myself than him, but he gets the message.

But then, as I am distracted, the whip comes crashing into my left arm and knocks me to the floor. I feel blood gushing through my shirt, but I cannot let go now, not after I made it this far. It is just a scratch.

"Awwh, boo hoo, all her little friends left her, and—"

I will not let Imperia finish, because I know deep down that she is right, but I have to do this. This arrow flies into her left knee. It finds its niche, twisting the bone through her cargo pants, so that a flat plate that must be her kneecap juts outward at a gruesome angle.

I find an arrow on the ground and let it fly. This one gets her moving to the cornucopia. She is running for shelter, too dumb to even think ahead to my plan. I follow her in, leaping over the messy corpse of the unfortunate Twelve boy.

This is it. This is my one pivotal shot, the shot that means everything, the shot that could rewrite my life and make it all worth something. But I am getting a sense of foreboding now, a premonition that I have done something terribly wrong. I take another look at the bloody mass of the boy from Twelve, a look of hate on his face. Why am I killing this monster just for myself? Why is my own sense of revenge more important to me than protecting someone? Is that not the reason that I volunteered? But I did not fail at that, so now is the time to finish the job before the reward sours for good.

Imperia is lurking in the back of the horn, probably pouring over her wound. I charge her with all that I have left, throwing caution to the wind. This is my one shot, everyone's one chance for penance after so many years of oppression. This is when I show them all that nothing can bring me down.

I hold an arrow ready as I race at her, stopping just short behind a line of crates obscuring everything but her shoulders. Her back is turned. But just as I am lulled into the trap, she bursts through the crates in a flash, and the all come toppling down. I escape with the skin of my teeth but feel the whip's teeth biting into my back as I fall to the ground and lose the arrow.

She was just tricking me. I feel like an idiot for not realizing, but the urge to finally drive in the knife and twist the blade and finally feel the sweet release of victory was too much. But this is not over yet.

I scramble onto my back and scoot away from her. I remember being just like this, pushed up against a wall as I felt my blood running down my back as Father stood over me. It cannot end like this! But this is different, because Father never had three arrows in him. This is different!

I fire another arrow at Imperia, but she flicks it away with her whip masterfully.

"Look who is in a corner now," she taunts.

I kick over a stack of crates that topple down onto her, and she shrieks as she is crushed under the weight. But, like a zombie, she rises back unscathed, more murderous than ever. Her whip is flying through the air recklessly now, banging against crates and scraping against the side of the wall. The only way for me to escape is to run away.

But I do not run away. I never run away, because if I run away, then I am not Mystic Archeron. I will not give up that little piece of myself, the last that I have left, to win. This is my last chance, my go for broke. The odds are a thousand to one, but I still have to try, because they will never break me. I have not started crying yet. I have not given up.

The back of the horn is a frenzy with all of the slashes and swipes of the whip, but I fire away anyway and hear a sharp intake of breath. The whip hits the floor and comes to a stop. A fourth arrow sticks out of her hip, and I can see a jet of blood spraying through the air.

But she is not done yet, and I am. I feel a sharp pain in my chest—no, my lungs—and breathing is becoming hard more and more labored. The life is running out of me with the hot blood staining my shirt. The life, but not the spirit. Not the fight.

Imperia Crimson raises the whip dramatically for one last time, and it hangs in the air for hours. My whole life flashes before my eyes: those innocent days spent running through our happy little garden with Weave and Weft; the first beatdown from Father; our great escape that ended in disaster, with just me left and both of them dead; meeting Morgana; losing Morgana; meeting Aquatico and Turquesa, and having one last hoorah. And now this.

I failed here, but they would all be proud of me back home, or up in the sky, or wherever they are. Maybe I will see them again very soon.

I look her in the eye as she comes down. I will not fall under her gaze. I should have won. I should have killed her, but I did not, and there is no changing that. But I still have something left that I will never let her have. And so, I stare her down as she kills me, and I give her nothing. My own little force of defiance.

And then the whip comes down and there is nothing.

X

Sierra Hay-Fields, 17, District Eleven Female

Nobody has crossed my path yet, for better or for worse. So far, I have amassed a large but lightweight pack that must be stuffed with blankets and a bag of jerky. The nights here are going to be very cold, but I do not have time to focus on that. I should be gathering up more food and supplies, doing a service to my alliance.

My alliance. I take another look out for them to check where they are, stopping as I fall to the ground to stuff a pack of hand heaters into the side pocket of the bag. Nerissa is not far from me. I see her pick up a knife and grin, not to me. She is supposed to be getting food! But she turns back around, and I see that she already has a canteen and a can of peaches. I have more important matters to attend to. I can already see the number of tributes starting to diminish. Rowan and Tessa are to safety, thank goodness, since I saw them run South. The girl from Ten is gone, too, but when I saw her leave, she had blood on her hands. And, of-course, there are the corpses already beginning to pile up—the boys from Eight, Nine, and Twelve—and I just cannot bear to look at them. They are bone-chilling and disgusting and devastating all at once, with a morbid sort of magnetism to them. It feels wrong for me to hold my friends' safety over theirs, but I do. We need to make it out alive.

Bolt is running for the cornucopia. That was the plan, but I want to be that person now, I want to be the provider and put my own life at risk, because I would not be able to bear it if Bolt died some easily preventable death just trying to get some weapons. Tabitha's partner's body is the centerpiece of the horn, a welcome mat for everyone to run inside. I saw the Two boy kill him. It was gruesome. I hope Tabitha did not watch. And, on the side of the horn, the girl from Eight is driving the girl from Nine closer and closer to the entrance, and Bolt is oblivious. I am panicking now, worried sick for my allies.

"Bolt!" I call out to him. "Bolt! Get back here, it's not worth it!"

If he hears, he ignores me and goes inside anyway.

This was not worth it. We should have just run off and taken our chances. We would have gotten sponsors anyways, because I know we were—are—popular. It could have just been the five of us, peacefully and merrily coexisting in a pleasant forest, forever and ever until the ladder came down and five Victors were announced. That could still be us! But I know, past every artificial bit of blind optimism and care and protectiveness, that there is only so much that I could do to prevent the inevitable. Eventually, they would send mutts after us, or drive the careers to us, or something, because I have lived in this world long enough to figure out that there is always some caveat, something that does not go your way, and it is just a matter of overcoming it. But I cannot shake the feeling that something bad is about to happen. Something is going to go wrong, something horrible, and it gives me a new sense of urgency, puts another ton of weight on my chest.

I am going to have to let some of my friends go or die. But I cannot make that decision now.

I search around for Raihan and Tabitha, and find them exactly where they started, together, on the opposite side of the field. No, no, no, no! They were supposed to be running to meet us at the tree line to the East to meet us. But one look to the East and nobody is there. Tabitha is pulling at Raihan, who is shivering and still on his pedestal, but he is immovable with fear, and Tabitha is not strong enough.

A hot flash of pride overcomes me for a moment, and I am beaming inside at Tabitha finally taking the initiative and being the one to motivate someone else, but it quickly gives way to terror. The boy from One is finishing up on the boy from Nine, the girl from Two is also near them but hovering around a different pair of tributes who I cannot identify, and the girl from Four is running out of the cornucopia with a spear rack wrapped over a shoulder, looking eager to kill. There is no way that either of them could stand a chance against a trained career, I just have to make it to them first and protect them, because that is my job.

I can hear the voices of my brothers in my head, all telling me not to fight for anyone but myself, scolding me for always being too overemotional. I know that they are all right, but I have opened my heart to the floodgates—I never really knew how to close it—and now I am going to have to pay for it. But even as much as I want to win for myself, there would be no purpose for me if all of my friends, especially these two were to die here, now. Yes, there would be other children to inspire back home, but these are special. These are my lifelong companions, and their lives are in my hands. How could I ever look in a mirror if I let them stand stationary on a pedestal until their deaths?

"Raihan! Tabitha! Let's go!"

They are not moving. All around us, blood and carnage a swirling into a tornado of chaos and horror and death, but they are rocks. They are rocks, sitting ducks waiting to be shot, and it is up to me to save them, because I am always there, consistently reliable, dependable, the one who you can count on to save the day. And if I am not that, then I do not know what I am.

From when I was young, everybody always labeled me as great things. A fighter, a healer, a soldier, an artist, a genius. And I know that that is what I am, and that those around me whisper about my missed potential, about how I should be interning in the greenhouses instead of babysitting and listening in on rebel meetings. I know that I am strong, and smart, and powerful, and destined for great things, but those great things are going to be what I choose. It always felt so unfulfilling to lounge around and wait for my older brothers to scrounge up enough food to keep me standing, and slowly capitulate under their efforts to give me their "leftovers". I want to contribute. No, not just to contribute, I want to be the leader, and I want to help others, and use my talents for something worthwhile instead of poring away under a textbook or wasting away in the fields.

I am the leader, and Tabitha and Raihan are my charges, the ones that I am fighting to protect. This is what I was born to do. I am not losing anyone yet. But the yet is irrelevant.

I am running to save them, and get them moving, because I cannot have the blind hope that Raihan will get the nerve himself. But first, I turn on my heel and scamper in the opposite direction for a scythe propped upon a sharp rock poking out of the ground. I could be dashing to rescue them and scoop them up under my arms, but a force inside of me compels me to grab the scythe first, just in case. They need someone who can fight. Besides, I have time. I am one of the fastest here; my legs are sturdy and solid from years of labor from sunrise to sundown. I will still be able to keep them alive, but this will add a little extra boost to our odds. The scythe is cool and slender, but it was made for my hands.

When I pivot, only then do I grasp how far away I am from the children. The only way I can tell them apart now is by the length of Tabitha's hair. She still has her hair extensions in. That almost makes me cry. But I am supposed to be strong for them. I should not cry like last night. I know Tabitha has grown tenfold since we meet, but I should not force her to spend all her energy comforting me when I should be the hero, the protector, the guardian, and I should be the supportive one who never feels fear.

Nerissa is two-hundred feet from me now, running along to the flowery trees in the East. I am frustrated at her again, but this is no time to get worked up over petty grievances. Bolt is still in the depths of the cornucopia sneaking around the flailing whip in the background. A nauseating crunch and splatter echo in the tunnel. I have my choice. Run with Nerissa for safety, forge into the cornucopia to look for Bolt and better supplies, or pull Raihan and Tabitha to safety. In all three, I abandon some of my allies. But I know which allies need me most.

"Bolt! We're leaving, come on!" I shout into the shadowy black horn that looks endless. I might has well have yelled into an abyss.

With that, I push off the grass and rush to make it to them before anything bad happens. I am going to make it. I am going to rescue them, because it is my responsibility, and without that I am useless, and I am as selfish as all of the bastards who threw us into this for their entertainment.

"Move, move, move!" I order to them, razing my throat just to try to make myself heard.

Tabitha looks up at me and skips in the air. But now, Raihan is in a ball, rocking slowly, and I can hear him blubbering even hundreds of feet away as wind pounds my ears.

"Get your butts up and run! Run!"

I am not getting there quickly enough. The weight of the pack pounding into the backs of my knees buckles them every step I take. The scythe threatens to gash my leg at every moment—I never needed to learn how to run with one. I stick the jerky into my pants and push harder than ever, squeeze energy out of myself that I never knew that I had until all that I can hear is the blood thumping just behind my ears. I do not need to sacrifice all of this stuff, or else we will be stranded. I can secure everyone and everything that I have gotten, if I just push harder… But I am pushing as hard as I can push, and still, the exhaust is coming out of the tank just the same, the gas is already at its limit. And if I cannot speed it up… then they must shove everything behind them and start sprinting.

"Go! I said go! Come on, just face it and get going! Go!"

For a moment, it washes over them, and I am afraid that nothing I say will have any effect on them. Raihan is still bawling and cradling his knees, but I have no patience for that anymore. Tabitha lets go of him for a moment, and then I am shocked. Dumbfounded, I am, because a clap rings over the clearing for ten seconds, pausing everything just for a moment, and I take in with a jolt that she slapped him. But that gets him running. Nothing I could do was of any help, but Tabitha saved the day. My chest swells with sisterly pride again at watching her blossom from a trampled sprout, of a bud, to a blossom, to know much more than just a vain flower but a lion, too, instead of the morose, timid sheep I used to know her as.

And then I understand that none of that was true, because a gleeful yet icy laugh poisons all of my pride. Now, Raihan listens, and now Tabitha tugs him along the pedestal line, but they are running for their lives now. The boy from One, Marvel, races after them, armed with a belt of throwing knives swaying and glistening in the light as he chases them. He is not even running at full speed, jogging at a near leisurely pace, but he is still at pace with them, just drawing out his kill even more with a little pursuit. They cannot make it. I am running for their lives.

I am gripped with fear, and horror, and shock, but I do not clam up like Raihan. I should thrive in this scenario, like I have even time before. I turn my fear into vigor and spirit and determination to save them, to fulfill the goals I always had set for myself but never fully recognized. But there is so much at stake now, and my breathing is becoming labored from the fatigue from running, but more so the fatigue of worry and the thought that maybe this is it, that I will not be able to stop this now.

But that is impossible, because there is a clean, deserted stretch between me and my friends and the boy from One. I can take him. I am taller, and more muscular, and if I get into close range his throwing knives will be neutralized.

The girl from Four, leaps into view from out of nowhere, spinning her spear like a baton and slashing it at me. Every time, I only narrowly parry with my scythe inches from my skin. She is like a whirlwind, spear and dark brown hair a tornado. After all of those days spent in the woods with Syrco training me how to fight, or refreshing and improving in the Training Center, I thought that I was ready, but with every near, my arms rattles a little more under her tremendous force, and my wrists are threatening to give out. I have to beat her, I have to find a way, because everyone needs me now, and I cannot choke, I have to save them, all of them, and myself, everywhere, and it feels like my head is going to explode!

I hear a haggard battle cry that must be Imperia's from behind and take a chance to look back out of concern for just a glimpse at Bolt, just to check on him.

He is outracing Imperia and the tip of her snake flying after him. She has four arrows poking out of different parts of her body. I have a sparse ray of hope in this bleak nightmare, just a sliver, but I will cling to it now, because I have nothing else.

"Don't worry, Raihan, Tabitha, I'm coming!" Bolt shouts.

And then everything is knocked sideways. I am weightless for just an instant before I fall onto my pack. My chest sears and aches from the pain of the spear, and I feel like a roach flipped on its backside, totally defenseless. The straps pin me down, and it is too long for me to sit back up. My head is suspended in the air, upside down, and my neck is more vulnerable than it has ever been, practically begging for this career girl to slice it.

It will not end this way! I am the protector, and the leader, and the warrior, not the one about to die while all her allies are in danger. They are all going to die, and it will eb my fault, because I could have saved them if I… I cannot even think of what I did wrong… I cannot think of anything, from all of the blood rushing to my head…

The career girl sits down on me and braces her spear.

I am bawling now, more than Raihan ever did, because I failed at the final stretch, when it was most important. Worse even than killing my friends, I let them die when I could have saved them, could have saved all of us, could have done something spectacular. My head is pounding, and everything is fading into a blotchy, red, upside-down mess now.

"I'm sorry you had to go like this," the Four girl says.

"I don't want your apology," I spit out. "If you were really sorry, you never would have volunteered for this place. You're an evil savage. You call yourself upstanding and moral and a good person, but you chose to enter a death game and kill twelve-year-olds. You will never be more than just a child killer!"

The girl has not moved. I can sense a little bit of self-doubt in her eyes, finally something other than her standard, smiley mask. But I do not have a chance to say anymore, because she rams her spear into my throat.

This is not how I wanted to go out. The first of my allies, the strongest, and the smartest, and the bravest, the role model, the first one to die. My head spins upside down, but all that I can make out are legs. I cannot lose my allies now. I have opened my heart to them, so there is no going back, but my heart will not cut it anymore. But she has not brought down the spear yet. There is a chance, still. But someone else will have to help me now, because I am devastatingly powerless. I should not have to ask someone else to save me, I should be the savior, but I do, and I am praying my friends will see me, however selfish it is to want them to risk their lives for me.

I hear a dull squelch and a shriek. It takes me a second to notice that the Four girl has fallen off of me. A pale hand extends out of the heavenly light.

"Nerissa!"

She pulls me to my feet, and I take a second to squish her in a hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"My pleasure."

"Come on, we need to rescue the others," I say, scanning for them.

Marvel is closing in on the kids. Bolt is trapped off by Imperia, trying to dart around her to make it to them but hopping back to avoid her whip every time. I have to save them both, but how can I choose?

"I only got her in the pelvis, let me get one more knife in her."

Nerissa points at the career, writhing around in pain as a knife sticks out just below her hip.

"No, Nerissa, we don't have time! Here. Take everything back to the spot and I'll make sure everyone gets there."

I shrug off my pack and hand it to her. It looks colossal on her back, but she teeters off with it anyways. I pick up the scythe and snatch the knife out of the Four girl.

Raihan and Tabitha are over the hill, and I am so close to them now! This is my moment to walk the walk, and protect, and save lives, and everything else I knew that I could achieve. Tabitha is sprinting along the grass like bolt of lightning, every step taken with an authoritative pound on the grass. I am nearly across the pedestal line now, where I will be able to intercept and let them pass. When she sees me, here face lights up, and all of the rays of sunshine dancing in the clearing form a spotlight on her, my new little sister, my pride, my inspiration. Raihan, too, is racing at her pace now, and his face is hardened and determined. In the distance, I see Bolt finally evade Imperia and book it for us from over Raihan and Tabitha's heads. It is all going to be okay. I won't have to lose anyone yet.

But then Tabitha falls as they reach the final stretch. Raihan keeps on running, blazing past me in a flash. For a second, I think the worst has happened, before I see the knife sticking out of her hamstring. There is still a chance.

"Damnit, One, get Three!" Imperia commands. "Two, what the fuck are you standing around for?! Where is your partner?!"

I reach Tabitha. She is not dead yet, only incapacitated, so I can still make it out with all of us alive. I can still save all of us, and I will never have to feel the pain of defeat, and of failing my friends, and the misery of grief. I could have prevented all of this if I had closed myself off, and kept to myself, and played the part of the silent brute, but that is not me. I have no regrets. Or, I will not as long as everything goes to plan.

Marvel is facing the other way, laughing as Bolt tries to run a circle around him.

Tabitha says nothing, like normal, not even moaning at the knife in her leg. Our minds are one, and she wraps her arms around my neck, knees falling into place in the crooks of my elbows. She is on my back now, and I am shocked at how light she is, and at how little she whimpers as her warm blood dribbles down my hands.

"I'm going to save you," I tell her. "I'm going to save you."

I have to repeat it to myself, because my body is near giving out. But I am so close now. Nerissa is a hundred seventy feet away, standing at the gate to the inviting, flowery wonderland, and Raihan is waving and shouting as if we are in a lighthearted piggyback race.

Tabitha's weight thumps me hard in the back as we are in the air, but I only stumble and forge ahead. We are so close! I hear Marvel start to run, to chase Bolt, but I do not have time to worry about that, because all that matters in this moment is staying safe and staying alive.

But I feel Tabitha's grip start to slacken. She is probably just tired. I am not looking back, because we are going to make it. No matter how close to the edge my body is before is falls into the abyss and I cannot get up, or how the looks on Nerissa and Raihan's faces are turning to ones of horror and alarm, I will make it. I will be the hero, and everything will be fine, and—

My ankle buckles under a root and everything is flying for one moment before it all slams into the dirt with a jarring, merciless reality. Tabitha slides off of my back and rolls in the ground in front of me. Two Four girls are a hundred feet away, or maybe two-hundred, or fifty, I cannot tell. Bolt is gone. Raihan and Nerissa are black spots against a blinding white wall screaming for me to run, to drop everything and run for it, but I cannot, because Tabitha. Tabitha!

My heart stops. She is not moving, only laying there, in a crumpled heap, staring up at me sorrowfully.

"We need to go, Tabitha! What's wrong?"

"I can't," is all that she can force out.

"No, Tabitha, we agreed we would never say that! We agreed not to just give up!"

If she will not go on, then I will carry her on. But as I go to lift her, I feel the dagger wedged in between her ribs. This cannot be happening! No this is not real, I am not losing her, we can still make it, Tabitha is not going to die! My head is pounding with panic, and sadness, but not resignation, because this is just a hurdle. Everything in life is a hurdle that you can beat if you jump high enough. I can beat this.

"Sierra, run! Leave her! Run, or you'll die!" Nerissa shouts over all of the madness.

I look back and see the Four girl ambling closer and closer. But I still have time. I can still save the day. I pick Tabitha up again.

"No, Sierra," she says. "Leave me. Go. I'm dead, you're not, so go." She coughs up a weak line of blood.

"I told you that I would protect you, so I am going to protect you!" I insist.

"You tried, Sierra."

I tried. I tried, but I failed, for the first time, when it really counted.

"Don't throw your life away on me. Just remember me, and don't forget my brother in the orphanage if you make it out of here. Don't beat yourself up about it."

She is getting choked up, and I am already wrecked with sobs. I can tell that she wants me to stay with her. And I could stay with her and guard her body until my last breath as I duel with the Four girl. But if I do that, I will be outnumbered and die.

"I'm so proud of you, Tabitha," I whisper. "I love you."

"Same… goodbye, Sierra." She barely coughs the words out with a fountain of blotchy, red spit.

I am immeasurably proud of her, and I love her like a sister, but none of that matters now. The Four girl is getting closer. I cowardly run away and leave Tabitha for dead. She will not have me to cry on for the most important part of her journey, but I need it more than her now.

Nerissa and Raihan egg me on from the trees, pulling me along with them once I finally reach the foliage. It does not carry the same relief it should. They tug me into the forest with them, shouting unintelligible rabble. I insist on turning back around just as the Four girl reaches Tabitha, ready and so not ready. But nothing that I can do will matter anymore. The spear comes down, and Tabitha is dead.

X

Carroll Heinback, 16, District Six Male

I should not have run into the Bloodbath. Honda ordered me to run to Keeley immediately when the gong rang, to disregard the bounty in the clearing and run for the nearest water source. But I did not do that, I ran in anyways, even though I knew it would infuriate her, and even though I knew that Keeley would be lost in the fold unless she did not listen to the advice either, which, if I am being honest, was likely. And maybe I did it because I thought that it would help anyway, and I did not want to be that pushover tribute that competes every year, who plays it safe and fearfully and cowardly and does not come out of hiding until he or she is inevitably tortured by the careers or mutts. All that it got me was a beating and a small gash on the forehead courtesy of the boy from Nine. I do not want to lay down and die. Now, though, as death is only a breath away from my throat, it is getting nearer.

I should not have run to save the girl from Five, because she was going to be just another number knocked down, just another step closer to victory, but my conscience got in the way. I feel better this way, knowing that, even if it was ill-advised, I never would have been able to live with myself if I saw a person in distress and did not go and save them, even if I might not be living much longer. She was just a random girl, someone I had never even engaged with, maybe sat beside as we were waiting for our Private Sessions, but that was it. And I still got too attached, too attached to some random person who I have never and never will interact with, or maybe too attached to the idea of saving someone and being granted some form of concrete proof of helping. She is motionless on the ground still, all bloodied and bruised, her features indistinguishable under the curtain of red blood smeared across her face, the only movement the blood spurting out of her gut and coagulating in her core. It will still probably be meaningless, because she is dead meat, and I would never be able to help her in my current state.

And I should never have tried to help Aleyn or Scylla or anyone but Keeley, or maybe I should rope Keeley in there as well. If I never would have deluded myself into imagining some fantasy world where I could snap my fingers and remove any mental illness they had, or form some childish circle of holding hands and make everyone sing kumbaya, then I would have helped everyone else out more in the long run. But I did not do that, and I do not regret it at my core, because when I ask myself whether striving to keep my life or striving to help others, to make some positive change bigger than myself, and to not give up being strong for others as a way of finding the light for myself, the answer is obvious.

I just wanted to help. I wanted to help Keeley, and actually do something worthwhile for our alliance other than moral support and grab some food. I wanted to save a random girl's life, my competition, because of some counterproductive, empowering, wretched, precious sense of good and sense of worth in my being. I wanted to extend a helping hand out to people who obviously needed it, even though they could kill me the very next day and I would not know, even though it was pointless considering only one of us could live…

And it got me here. But I do not regret. I cannot regret it, because if I do, then I am nothing, then I am a poser and a fraud, and everything that I have strived to be and claimed that I am is going to be thrown out the window.

I do not regret it, even as Aleyn mashes my head in the dirt, and my nose throbs and aches, and Aleyn's knife is centimeters away from cutting my throat. But I have to win. I have to win, for my parents, and my friends, and for Daisy and all of the other children at the hospital who need inspiring, and for a bright and shiny future that was right on my doorstep before it got snatched away. But I know that that future is still a possibility, still a reality, because if I toss it away then I am nothing but a quitter.

"Any last words," Aleyn growls under his breath, hot and sweaty and meaty, steaming on my face.

"These aren't my last words."

He punches my throat just for a laugh, and I send out a rasping cough. He hits with deceptive strength for such a small boy, a whole a foot shorter than me.

Without thinking, I throw a right hook back at him. It is pure, amateur instinct, but it collides with his bony ribcage and I feel a tender give, the rattling of skin and bone and nothing else. But before I have time to feel loathing for myself and the harm that my hands could cause to someone not in control of their own body, his broken, piercing fingernails dig into my neck, not a stranglehold but a vice-like grip.

"Oh, so now you fight back? I thought you were all about being a pacifist? But, let's be honest, we both knew that that was bullshit from the start, that you were just trying to manipulate Aleyn before you killed him. And who can blame you, he is a wimpy, dumb fuck. You're such a hypocrite, Carroll."

"No!" I retaliate.

I worm my hands out from under his body as he sits on me and give him an upper cut. He flinches, and for a second I can see something timid, something so scared, the old Aleyn, before it returns to whatever this is.

I cannot hurt Aleyn, not after he opened his heart to me and gave me some sort of foothold or life vest, so I did not drown amidst the complete lack of usefulness outside of Keeley. This is just the other persona that he so bravely divulged in his interview. And if I help him, and if I bring him back somehow. I am not going to fight Aleyn anymore. I am a healer, not a fighter. This dual personality is just a phase that I will have to wait out, because I am brave, and I can weather the storm. And, Panem help me, I know absolutely nothing about Dissociative Identity Disorder order than Aleyn's symptoms and that there is no cure. But there is a cure, there has to be a cure, because there is always a better, happier, brighter way out of things, and I will find it, whatever it is.

"Come at me, Carroll! Give me all that you have, and I'll kill you!" Aleyn barks, blood spilling out of his jaw and staining his teeth a bestial red.

His eyes are alight with something cruel, and calculated, and sadistic, and when he looks up towards the sun, it catches his hazel eyes and they almost look red.

There is no good inside this monster, but there is good inside Aleyn, good that I would not be able to live with myself if I exterminated, good that just needs to be brought to the surface. I know there is, because he still holds the knife up above my throat instead of coming down. Aleyn is still in there somewhere, holding the blade in the air with all of his might.

"I am not going to kill you, and you are not going to kill me," I say.

"You're weak, Carroll. The only reason I want you is because you are a hypocrite, and a liar, and to prove that if you get given the opportunity, you will try to kill me to save your own neck. It's only human."

"I am not going to kill you. I am not!"

My blood starts to pump even faster as he presses the knife into my bare neck. An acutely stinging slit starts to leak a tiny trickle of the stuff. My life begins to flash before my eyes, all of the happy times, and the sad times, and the wins and the failures, and it all seems so unfulfilling, even if I know that I helped so many people already at the hospital, because it never seems like enough. So, I cannot die, because I am not done yet, so if I have to fight, I will! And maybe it is the fighting I am so terrified of, not the death. No. It is both of them. The healer and warrior in me tearing me apart, two sides waging war on me, waves of battle and hate and confliction threatening to rip me in half.

Aleyn is open, midsection completely exposed, as he crouches over me like a panther. I have an opening. But I cannot bring myself to take it, because I cannot kill, so I am weak, and strong, at the same time, and I do not even know which is true anymore.

But I have to make a decision. I have to buck up, face the facts, and fight Aleyn, or whoever he is now. Keeley would be encouraging me, telling me to throw all caution to the wind, give up on saving Aleyn, and beat him to the ground. If she needs me to stay calm, I need her to become tough. She is probably at the tree line right now, waiting on me, calling for me and hoping that I can hear her. I do not hear her. I need Keeley, I need her comforting words of egging me on, telling me to fight, because without that, I am the pushover, if I cannot kill this boy

And then he flies off of me to my left, and Keeley is there grappling with him, my savior. She is a head taller than him, and her slender build actually has some tone, unlike Aleyn, and she is a hellcat, clawing and biting at him to kill, even with no weapon in hand.

"If you won't do it, then I will!" Keeley shouts at me as she wrestles the knife from Aleyn's grip.

I am lying dumbfounded a few feet away, completely nugatory while my thirteen-year-old ally is killing a boy one year her senior for me. This is shameful in every aspect, a contrived and corrupt death trap meant to break the bonds in between us by getting to hurt, and hurt, and kill, and kill. I know that I have a backbone, and I know that I am brave, but I am not ending another human beings life, not when I see the desperation with which the children try to cling on in the hospital, or the unrestrained wailing of their families when the heart monitors stop beeping. I know that I am more than just a stupid clown jesting for a feeble and unreceptive audience, even if I do make them laugh. However much I want to push this idealization of humanity and of the Hunger Games away, I cannot let it go, and I am taking it as a sign not to give up on it. And I will fight with all that I have until it goes up in smoke or finds a way.

"Stop it! Just let me talk to him!" I shout in relationship as she swings a fist into his already broken jaw.

"Are you crazy? How can you think that you are going to get him back, Carroll? People are stupid, and fickle, and hard to read, so it's best to just rely on yourself. But we have each other, Carroll? Isn't that enough?"

"No, Keeley, even if I want it to be, even if it should be, it never will, because—"

Because I need to do greater things than just try to survive with an ally. That is wrong. Saving Keeley is that sense of closure and satisfaction and heroism that I have been craving. But I am cut off as Keeley goes flying, hanging in the air for what seems like an eternity, before falling backwards with a thud and a gasp. Now, I might be too late to tell her.

In a flash, every grievance and bit of apprehension I have for committing the unimaginable, the ultimate sin, falls away, and I lunge for Aleyn, hands outstretched to pummel him, or strangle him, or whatever I need to do to save Keeley.

"Don't touch her!" I shout.

I run full force with such surreal power that everything goes fuzzy for a second. I felt the cracking ribs, splintering under my head as I rammed into Aleyn. I might have just given myself a concussion, because everything is starting to ache, ache with horrible pain, but nothing like the crushing sense of guilt weighing down on me, and the knowledge of what I must do to finish what I started, because Aleyn is already wriggling to get up. Everything is double, two fuzzy twin images going closer and farther like a pair of magnets.

The girl from Five is being carried off by her partner, cradled as a stream of blood runs down the boys' pants. I could not even save her, because she is surely dead by the end of the night. And, only twenty feet away, Scylla? Her body quivers and shakes as her voices must be rattling her. But she is watching us, petrified with something like horror. And Keeley, where is Keeley? She is running, sprinting for her life, and for a second I am worried that she might continue through the line of tall, sturdy trees. I want her to be safe.

And then the devious gleam of it catches my eye as I look around, trying to regain my bearings. Aleyn's sparkling, silver dagger is mere feet from me, practically begging to be put to use. I should not be tempted by that, since I should never come across any scenario where I have to use it. But that is just hiding the truth from myself. Jokes and laughter and trying to make people smile is never going to save the day, and that is the only thing that I am good for. The familiar blue wig, pleasant pink and white checkerboard shirt, cool white paint, and even those god-awful yellow shoes meant for a giant's feet were soothing, less like a mask and more like an accentuation of my personality. But now, I am in cargo pants and two layered jackets, and this does not feel like me. I am losing myself, because my hand shoots to the hilt without a second though and slashes it through the air like a madman's would.

Aleyn—no, not Aleyn, because Aleyn needs saving, Aleyn is not the one in control of his body right now—is flat on his back, groaning in pain. He is so vulnerable, even more vulnerable than when he opened his heart to me that one day in the elevator, and what have I done to repay him? Pressured him to uncomfortably come clean about his disorder to the nation. Get turned down by him when I proposed an alliance. Who can blame him for not wanting to ally with me? But allies do not matter anymore. I am a healer and a fighter. Maybe there is a difference in being a fighter and a killer, after all.

His death is right on my fingertips, a helpless bug stranded on its back that would be so easy to squash instead of trying to coax back into the outside. But nothing has ever given me that true sense of fulfillment, not even entertaining at the hospital deep down, because I still watched a child die every month, sometimes every week, and sometimes when I try and recall them all in my head I lose count in all of the masses and see an innocent, sickly white, precious face now dead without a name and cannot forgive myself. I am not going to kill Aleyn Garsow, I am going to redeem and rescue him.

I am straddling him now, wrists pressed into the dirt. He cannot move. He has to listen.

"Aleyn, I know you're in there," I start tentatively. "I know that you hate yourself, and you feel the guilt for what your other half does, but you shouldn't. You have a way to control this! Let me guide you to the light—"

"I don't see any fucking light," he says, so opposite from the Aleyn I know, the real Aleyn, that it is jarring. "Just a coward who likes to spread his own hypocritical, naïve bullshit because he is too weak to accept the reality that he is going to have the do more than just play make-believe in his sheltered sandbox."

He spits in my face. The glob is acidic against my cheek. I shake my head.

"No. You're in denial."

"You're in denial," he mirrors.

I am in denial. Not denial that I am what Aleyn two calls me, but that none of this will work out again, that all of my plans for justice and joy and relief would go up in smoke, be squandered by the close-mindedness of everyone else, or maybe the unforgiving, hateful reality of life. But I will not acknowledge that, I will stay stubborn and forge ahead in my pursuits until my little utopia is true and every tribute is smiling.

"Carroll, what are you doing? Just kill him or run!" Keeley shouts irately from the safe zone.

"I'm convincing him!" I argue back.

"No, you're wasting time! The careers are finishing up, hurry!"

She gestures to the clearing around her, but I only see the girls: the girl from Nine is woozily and injured at the gate to the horn, the girl from Four is chasing the five person alliance, and Scylla is now cradled into a ball on the floor, shivering a pulsing randomly with small gasps and squeaks. I want to help her. I can help her. I can do this!

Black spots dance before my eyes again as Aleyn headbutts me from the ground. The gash in my forehead tears open some more but I blink away the redness pooling on my eyelids.

"You hear her, Carroll? You're wasting time with me. You're just prolonging your death."

"I could kill you!"

It comes from nowhere, and yet everywhere, all of the pint up rage from nobody listening to me, nobody having faith in me or relenting enough to let a smile grace their face. It is because of people like them that we are stuck in this miserable world that only the best of us are trying to make decent, and I am sick of it! And for a moment, I do contemplate driving down the knife into Aleyn's chest and watching the blood pour out onto my hands before common sense grabs ahold of me. The knife hovers inches from his sternum, ready to puncture flesh, trembling with anticipation and force before I give out and snatch it back, tears dripping from my eyes onto Aleyn's face. Keeley is rallying for me, telling me to do it, but I can't. I won't. I will not bloody my hands with that. There is still righteousness and humanity in this world, and it is my job to spread it to even the darkest, most desolate of minds.

"Please, Aleyn, listen to me!" I plea to deaf ears.

"I am not Aleyn."

"Do it, Carroll! Come here, and we can run away!" Keeley cries, but she is pleading to deaf ears, too.

I am stuck, as stuck as Aleyn under me or Scylla rocking in her protective ball as she is tormented by the voices. And I could not help either of them. I am sure that I could one last time.

I am stuck, until my concentration finally lapses and Aleyn punches me in the throat. The next thing I know, I am not my back, and we are reversed, now me at knife's point. My life is flashing before my eyes as I draw raspy, rattling breaths in, but it is not working, I am suffocating, I am dying, just like I am surely about to be dying if I do not think a way out of this somehow. Keeley would tell me to be strong, and to fight, and to not hold back until the boy was dead in the dirt. But I am not Keeley, and even if I learned so much from her, I know that there are better ways.

"Aleyn, you don't want to do this. I know you're in there!"

Aleyn scoffs and says, "I have his best interests at heart."

"You think you're weak, Aleyn, but you're not! They call me weak too, for being friendly, and optimistic, and trying to get others to laugh, because they don't understand. Aleyn, I understand you!"

He is unresponsive, sadistic and unfeeling veneer not wavering. But I know that I can find a way past that.

"I might not be able to relate, but I can do my best to help, and make things as bearable as they can be. Come on, Aleyn, we can run away together."

"I don't want to run away with you."

He starts to jeer derisively, but I can see a twinkle of doubt, of uncertainty and remorse and desire to escape, in the corner of his eye.

"Yes, you do! You want to break free, and be rid of it, and find a way to be happy again, don't you?"

"No!"

This is working. I can see the resentment, the fading hatred morphing into resignation and despair, painting his face. It is working, until it is not, and he turns with a new devilish glint in his blank eye and rams the butt of his word into my eye.

I let out an agonized scream, but he does not respond and goes for the other eye. This time he misses. And again, he misses.

I cannot go on dodging like this forever. Keeley has given up on calling my name now, but I know that she is there. And I can feel all of the children watching from their hospital beds, their beloved jokester friend defaced and about to die. But I can make it through this. I can still change his mind. I can still win without making a kill or get everyone to stop killing and come together. I can still prove that there is more to the world than just becoming complacent in your miserable, smog-filled, everyday torture of a life.

"Yes, you do!" I bellow. "You want to be happy, Aleyn!"

"Second!"

"You're Aleyn! Come on, Aleyn, come to the bright side, the happy side, the good side! It always wins."

And then he stabs me straight through the chest. Everything is quiet for one deadening moment before I scream, louder than I have ever scream before, and it echoes as if underwater, spinning around in my head. I hear another scream, Keeley, and maybe Scylla, too, and shouting, and running, and Aleyn's face, stoney-faced and proud. At every breath there is unbearable pain, so much pain, and I just want it to be over already. But this is not the end. This cannot be the end, because I have hardly done anything yet. I have accomplished nothing, helped no one, been nothing but a well-intentioned crybaby.

I feel the sticky spot, and I know this is it. Keeley is running for me. I shout "go", but I cannot hear myself anymore, and before long she is fading out into splotches of black.

I failed her. I failed Mom and Dad, and Daisy, and Carmichael, Jack, Petra, and Helen, too, up above, because I thought that I could accomplish something. I knew that there was something better just at my fingertips, but now my fingertips are clawing at life and it is slipping away. Maybe that is what I was glossing over this whole time. I will never have any chance to find out now.

I don't want to die. Life is sad, and devastating, and full of unfair, unexplained death, but I thought for just a fleeting moment that I was immortal. That I could make some change. I picture Daisy crying in her hospital bed, Carmichael throwing his violins and aisles and canvases in a frenzy, Mom and Dad clinging to each other on the podium, Petra shedding a tear or two and never finding out how I really felt about her. And I picture Keeley wailing as she runs away without me to support her. I helped all of them. They all needed me as much as I needed them. But that is all that I will ever get.

The vibrant greens of the grass, and the shiny turquoise of my wig, and the blaring yellow of my shoes setting it apart from the depressing, eggshell colored hospital walls, and the vibrant lights of the Capitol, the solid gold of my tuxedo, the platinum blonde of Helen's hair, the cinnamon brown of Mom's muffins, the ugly green smog of District Six that I was always able to find so much potential in. It is all fading to black, and my grip on life is falling. It was nowhere near enough. But it was enough.

X

Eulogies:

24th: Rooker Hilt, D12M, 13(3), killed by Arlo

I don't think anyone is surprised to see this here. Rooker was obviously designed to be a bloodbath, and his perpetually blaming and childish attitude quickly got old. I feel guilty about my incredibly short intro for him, but after that, I think I was still able to transform him into a tragic character, and one who underwent some development. He was so tough to crack, but when he did, he broke. That is, until the very last moment. His death was very gruesome, but it will have some serious repercussions in Arlo's arc. I loved all of my tributes, and he was no exception, but compared to amny characters, he was flat and had no chance of winning, so this was his time. To Rooker, a boy who might have been happy in another life.

23rd: Coleus Yarrow, D9M, 16(5), killed by Marvel

I doubt this one comes as much of a shock either. Coleus was not a very popular tribute, and his nature of being very wary and quiet constantly had him falling into the background, try as I might to make him relevant. In the end, I think I succeeded, and his arc with Tessa was something I found touching. He was able to overcome his paranoia and distrust eventually, coming a step closer to redeeming himself in his own eyes in the process. I do believe that Coleus was a good person, just one torn up with guilt who could never see himself or the world as more than a ruse, but for that, I loved him. I also had a blast writing every one of his POVs, and I think that they are some of my best work from this crew of bloodbaths. I loved Coleus's backstory, and it contributed to a very well fleshed out and layered character that I really tried to do justice to. He did have some fans, and I am sure they will miss him very much, but it was time for him to make way for the more important tributes. To Coleus, a boy who finally found a way to break down his barriers. Thank you 66samvr for submitting him.

22nd: Cassius Heart, D8M, 16(3), killed by Rhiannon

Cassius was a very fun character to explore. Unlike any of the other villains of this story, he allowed me to write a clearly unlikeable character who still had a lot of humor to him. It was refreshing to have someone so unthreateningly pretentious and self-serving in the cast, up until he was not unthreatening. His death will have serious effects on Rhiannon, but he was really not a huge factor, like almost all of these deaths. His pessimistic and imperious attitude got old fast, but I believe I wrote him realistically. He really tried to change, but it would not come as fast as he needed it to, so he gave up. Not every tribute's arc was a positive one, and while he demonstrates good progress, his was more of a reversion at the end. And who knows, maybe he could have made it far. He was always an obvious early death, and I needed someone to fit Rhiannon's victim mold, so these two matched up perfectly. To Cassius, the boy who knew he needed to change his ways but never really could. Thanks TheShippingPrincess for submitting him.

21st: Mystic Archeron, D8F, 16(8), killed by Imperia

Where do I even start with Mystic? She was an awesome character with a beautifully written form, and, though her concept and backstory was very unique, I felt like I could never really do her justice. She was never really well-liked, but I always adored her, and I will be very sad to see her go. I cried very hard writing her death, because I think her internal struggle struck a chord with me more than I realized. She didn't quite get her revenge, but that was how she grew at the very end. Turquesa and Aquatico will fight on in her memory. Thanks Rune Whispere for submitting her.

20th: Tabitha Declan, D12F, 13(3), killed by Tabitha

For a tribute probably intended to just be the occasional sad young orphan filler, Tabitha was so much more to that, both to me and the characters. She was able to grow into a brave, realistic, and spunky girl, past her scars and fears, when she found her new family. Her relationship with Sierra was one of my favorites in the story, and I just loved every second of writing her growth as a character. Unfortunately, she was the quietest of her alliance, and her death here will be a catalyst for many of their arcs to come. They will fight on with her inner strength. To Tabitha, a girl who found strength in friendship. Thanks TheShippingPrincess for submitting her.

19th: Carroll Heinback, D6M, 16(4), killed by Aleyn

I won't even pretend that Carroll was not a top five favorite of this whole cast. I really identified with his struggle as someone constantly watching sick children, because I lived through his position with my own sister, and his tender drive but usual ineffectualness to help really went deep with me as well. He was one of if not the best person of the whole cast, to the point where that was what got him. He was not meant for this, and he could not let go of his idyllic future until it was too late. I cried my eyes out writing his death, as he was a tribute very near and dear to my heart. Sadly,his arc must end here.

X

Oh. My. God. I cannot believe this. As I am typing this out, I am still bawling from writing Carroll's POV, but I am also just overcome with the reality of this. Six of my babies are gone, and it hurts, but this is a huge milestone! I never really envisioned myself reaching this point in my writing prowess or this achievement as a writer, and for that, I am so proud of myself. I have to give a special thank you to a few people: Para, Jay, Juud108, and Very New to This, thank you all for constantly reviewing and being my special little support group. Thanks as well to Goldie if you are reading this for being Discord Verses' supreme team mom and all-knowing badass, and for always being there for a helpful tip.