Author's Note:

I do not own the Hunger Games.


As dusk began to draw in Bunny had found a small cave to set up camp in. The three of them gathered up armfuls of firewood to use, and scavenged around the edge of the woods, finding small berries and roots to snack on. Luciente had killed a large thing that looked a bit like a rat, which Bunny was currently cooking over their small fire, while Luciente stared at the forcefield.

It got weaker every time she flicked it, she could feel it. More than that though, she could feel what it was made of, the energy. If she tried hard enough, she wondered, could she tear a hole in it, at least big enough so as they could escape?

Perhaps. She had never tried such a thing.

She rubbed at her arm. It itched less than it had when she first arrived in the arena, barely an odd tickle now. Technology never lasted long around them.

"Put the fire out!" Nathaniel hissed. "Someone's coming."

Hurriedly, Bunny tossed handfuls of dust and dirt over the flames. Down by the trees, a tribute in dirty orange sprinted past. They must have seen the smoke, but they didn't stop. Luciente hesitated a moment, watching as they vanished around the edge of the trees.

"Who was that?" Bunny asked after a moment, frowning after them.

"The girl from Six, I think," replied Nathaniel.

Luciente hummed an agreement. "My money's on her."

"What?"

"The girl from Six. You should have bet on her."

"I couldn't; I'm a tribute."

Luciente said nothing. Bunny set about trying to relight the fire. "This is another you thing, isn't it?"

Luciente smiled.

Bunny sighed. "Good to know this is all for nothing and I'm going to die."

"No one said you were going to die," said Nathaniel.


The ghosts didn't seem to like the forcefield. They had all gone to it a few times, but now they were mostly staying close to the treeline and occasionally the cave. Bethany and Heaven were being their usual floaty, glowy selves, but the boy from Four seemed agitated, flickering in and out, flashing between the trees, appearing in the cave and then by the forcefield and then way away down the strip of land.

Luciente had never seen a ghost act nervous before, but she guessed that this was what that looked like.

She could still feel the darkness, closer - much closer - than it had been before. Mostly it was contained in the trees, but occasionally it seeped out, spilling over the land like black ink.

She shuddered.

There was something else with it too – and not just Hyperion and Ilenia, who were painfully close, too close too close too close – a brilliant, burning hot red, anger and righteous fury but not evil, violence but not darkness, a strange mixture of hatred and protectiveness, rage and love.

Every now and then Heaven would vanish, and she would sense her near the darkness, and then she would return. Luciente tried asking her about the red fire, but she only received feelings of fear and anger and flickers of blood and ice in reply.

Luciente hummed in vague interest and then went back to listening to what interested her.

He was close now, so close, painfully close, and yet so was the darkness, the heavy cold evil pressing down over the land around it.

He needed to be faster.

He needed to be more careful.

She stood as he drew closer still, scrambling down from the cave.

"Where are you going?" Bunny called. Luciente jumped the last few feet to the ground, landing on all fours. Heaven and the boy from Four flickered by the trees for a moment. Four looked worried, but Heaven…

Could ghosts look scared, Luciente wondered as she straightened up. Could they even feel fear? She certainly never had.

Nathaniel followed her down, and after a muttered curse Bunny did so as well, scrambling down the cliffside and hurrying after them.


As they got closer to it Luciente could feel the temperature drop, like she had walked into cold storage, ice biting to her bones. Nathaniel stopped, shaking his head. "What is that?"

"Evil."

"Oh good," said Bunny. "Let's walk towards it."

"We don't need to."

"What?"

Hyperion still looked strong. It was the first thing she noticed, beyond all the blood and dirt, and the torn clothes, the tired eyes, he still stood strong, his shoulders square.

She smiled, and she felt warm when she wrapped her arms around him, rested her head on his shoulder. He held her close, buried his face in her long hair. It smelt like salt and dirt, gritty and stiff beneath his calloused fingers.

There were no words needed.

It felt like a lifetime had passed when they parted, and she gazed up at him with those pale eyes as though he was her world, her lifeline, her connection.

Bunny cleared her throat, jabbing her knife in Ilenia's direction. Luciente swayed around Hyperion to peer at her. "Oh," she said brightly. "Hullo. Do you remember me?"

Ilenia rolled her eyes. "You know how to make an impression Ten."

Hyperion blinked, and looked between the two girls. "She must like you Four."

"Thanks," Ilenia said very insincerely.

Hyperion looked over Luciente's head at Bunny and Nathaniel.

"This is Bunny," Nathaniel said uncertainly, pointing at her.

Hyperion grunted.

Bunny sighed and slowly lowered the knife, eyeing the two newcomers. "So they're friendly?"

Nathaniel grinned. "Hyperion's our ally."

"And the Career?"

Hyperion laid a hand on Ilenia's shoulder. "She's with us now."

Ilenia flinched. "Now you're back with your sister, maybe we should think about splitting Ten."

He fingered his spear pointedly.

"Look, there's only seven tributes left, and five of them are here, not killing each other like we're meant to do." She glared up at the sky. "Our audience on high isn't going to like it."

"Fuck the audience." Hyperion squeezed her shoulder tight. "Isn't that what you've been proclaiming? You're with us now."


They stopped by the cave only to pick up their supplies. The evil was near, and she wasn't comfortable stopping and being so close. They had to move, to keep moving.

"We saw the girl from Six run past," said Bunny.

"Looked like she had the devil on their heels."

"We ran into Cairne," Ilenia replied.

"Cairne?"

"Boy from Two."

"Huh." Nathaniel folded his arms across his chest. "We outweigh him five to one now."

"Yeah, I can count pipsqueak," Ilenia sniped.

Nathaniel rolled his eyes. "So we work together against him, Four. Get rid of the biggest threat."

"What's the point?" Bunny asked suddenly.

"What?"

She waved her hands in the air. "I mean, it's all pointless. We're all going to die anyway, if the Six girl's going to win."

"What?" repeated Ilenia.

"We're all going to die anyway. Maybe we should save ourselves the trouble of the fight!"

"Bunny, no one said you were going to die."

"This is the Hunger Games, Nathaniel! There is only one Victor, and according to the witch girl, it's not going to be one of us!"

Luciente touched her arm. "Bunny. Everything is going to be fine."

Bunny flinched. "I hope you know what you're talking about."

"She always knows what she's talking about," Hyperion rumbled.


The anthem played as night fell, and the little girl from Twelve appeared in the sky. They sat together around their small fire and watched as she faded away, a life reduced to nothing but a cannon and a smiling memory.

Ilenia shook her head. "She was just a kid. She deserved better than this."

Nathaniel pressed his brow into a frown. "We all deserved better than this. At least you volunteered."

She folded her arms across her chest. "I thought I could make a point." She stared at the flickering fire. "Seems pointless now."

Luciente smiled. "Sometimes bold gestures need to be tried, even if they fail."

"Yeah," she mumbled. "Maybe."

Luciente glanced back the way they had come, gazing into the darkness. She could still feel it, that cold evil, but it was… different now, somehow. She frowned, feeling for her warm stone and trying to feel further. Bethany and Four were stood behind Bunny and Ilenia, while Heaven was a short distance away, looking the same way she was. Luciente stood to join her, offering her one of the bones from the rat thing. Heaven held her hand out and the bone dissolved as she wrapped her fingers around it.

"Something's different," Luciente said. "Something's changed."

The evil felt… more consolidated. Less scattered; more tangible, like she could hold her hands out and grab it if she really tried. What was that? Why had it suddenly become different? And it was moving away from them, instead of towards, creeping through the trees back in the direction of the beach.

That sense of wrongness swirled in her chest, building up like a tornado.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The girl from Six was not so far from them, maybe two miles, just inside the trees. The boy from Two, Cairne, was nearest the evil, so near that it was hard to sense him, his presence disguised by the ice cold darkness.

Hyperion appeared by her shoulder. "What is it?"

She pulled her warm stone from her pocket and took his wrist, pressing the stone into his palm. He folded his fingers around it. "What is it?"

"I found it. It makes things… more."

He looked about himself. There was a flicker of green near them, and blue and pink back by the fire, and in distance, far, far away, there was that darkness he had felt, the ice cold evil.

"I wanted to bring one for you too, but I dropped it."

"It's alright." He turned the stone over in his fingers. "What do you think it is?"

"I don't know. I've never felt it before." She turned to him, met his gaze with those pale eyes. "Can you feel it?"

He held the stone out to her. "I don't think I want to."

They returned to the campfire in silence.


He took first watch that night, followed by Bunny, and then Ilenia, Nathaniel, and then Luciente.

She had already laid awake much of the night, listening to the arena around her and feeling out the forcefield. There had to be something, she knew, there had to be something, there had to be something. All this time, all her life, they had all been drawn here, to this time and place. Why? There was something, something, but what?

Halfway through the night, the boy from Four did something Luciente had never known any other ghost to do.

He squeaked.

Ghosts were silent.

Ghosts didn't speak.

They might point, or look, or not, but they never, ever spoke.

The boy from Four squeaked, and then vanished in a flash of blue.

Luciente sat up suddenly, startling Ilenia, who was on watch.

"Something wrong?" she asked, reaching for her spear.

Luciente glanced around them, fingering her own slingshot. "Thought I heard something."

The boy from Four was at the beach again now, with the girl from Two, and she could no longer feel the anger from her but fear, fear like nothing she had ever felt from a ghost, terror and panic and pain, and there was the darkness again, close, too close, too close, and the boy from Two was there too, in pain, afraid, tripping over his own feet, screaming.

At the beach there was that same flash of heat, red hot, white with rage, and then she felt no more of the boy from Four or the girl from Two.

Luciente lay down again, resting her head on her arm, but she didn't get any sleep.


THE FALLEN

Twelve Female: Tamika Tran (12) Killed by Cairn Aphelion of District Two. Placed eighth.

Let's face it, we all knew this was coming. It's honestly a miracle it hasn't come sooner, but I've had no reason to kill her off. Mika was a fiery little girl and awesome for a younger character, as well as unafraid to mouth off to people bigger than her. Unfortunately, because she was one of the few that didn't want allies, after she somehow escaped the bloodbath and managed to somehow miss the bigger alliances, she kinda faded into the background and was presumably off doing her own thing until she decided to pick a fight with Cairne. I did originally want to kill her on screen, but I just couldn't make it work plot wise. Thank you for her Celtic!

CURRENT ALLIANCES:

Super Unwieldy at this point in the Games: Ilenia Costello [D4F]; Nathaniel Volkner [D5M]; Abundance Harper [D9F]; Hyperion Ripley [D10M]; Luciente Ripley [D10F].

LONERS: Cairn Aphelion [D2M]; Arielle Wayne [D6F];