Dionysus Bacchus- District One male- 18
Of all the places to get sick, it had to be the Arena. I could go months without so much as a stuffy nose, and it had to be now that I got a stomach bug. It was probably the food they gave us. All these beans couldn't be good for your stomach. We all had the most obvious symptom of eating too many beans, but it seemed to be worse for me. Maybe I hadn't washed my hands well enough before I ate sometime. We didn't want to use our drinking water for that and the rest of the water around here wasn't exactly clean, and we didn't want to use up all the sanitizer in our first aid kit.
"You guys go ahead. I'll guard the stuff today. I got a stomachache." I said when we were splitting up to do some hunting.
"Oh, no. Do you need some medicine?" Nailah said, with a very concerned expression.
"I just ate something that disagreed with me. I"ll feel better soon." I said.
"Couldn't possibly be the suppurating rotten water you called alcohol, right?" Allure snarked.
"Whatever. Did it kill me? No." I said.
"Didn't get you drunk, either." Allure said.
"Just because I ran out and it wasn't strong enough yet. Maybe I'll try again." I said. It HAD tasted like I'd gotten a little fermentation, at least. I couldn't be expected to get it perfect on my first try.
"Drink lots of water and it will probably go away." Nailah said as she rifled through our first aid kit. She left with the others as Kjole stayed behind with me.
"Not to be that guy, but it was probably the alcohol." Kjole said once Allure couldn't hear us.
"Okay, maybe. Always a few roadblocks when you're trying to invent something." I admitted.
For hours I waited for my stomach to settle, but it just kept getting worse. Throwing up had always been the worst part about drinking. No one likes throwing up. First you just think maybe you might throw up, so you stop moving around and try to keep your stomach still. then you know it's coming and lean out of bed over a bucket, then you just wish it would be over, then finally you do anything you can just to make it finally happen. The on-and-off rain all day wasn't raising my spirits, either.
I'll spare the details and skip right to afterward.
"Ew." Kjole said as I swished water to get rid of the puke taste.
I held my stomach. "But wait! There's more."
"It's gotta stop soon. You have to have thrown it all up by now. You didn't drink that much." Kjole said after the third round. She was right- I was mostly just throwing up spit by then.
"You've never heard of someone dying like this, right? Like, not from drinking too much but just from drinking once?" I asked. I was starting to get a really creepy feeling.
"I've heard of people passing out and dying or whatever, but that's because they drank too much, like you said. You can still talk and you're clearly not super drunk so I don't think so." She said.
"I must have already been under the weather." I said. I hadn't felt completely normal since the Games started, to be fair. We were all sleeping on the ground and standing watch and of course we were always just a little stressed. It was just to be expected that we wouldn't be as healthy as normal.
My stomach rumbled and I thought for a minute it was going to come out the other way and of course the only thing I could think was NOT IN FRONT OF A PRETTY GIRL! But to my great relief it changed course and I bent over once again.
Wow, that really took it out of me. I was so tired I just wanted to lay down and sleep until it was over.
"Dionysus?" Kjole asked as she nudged me. "You okay?"
"This sucks." I wheezed. To be honest, if I was this sick at home, I'd go to the hospital. But, even then they'd just give me some stomach medicine and send me home to get better mostly on my own. What's your immune system for if not this?
I rolled over to take the weight off my stomach, ready to roll back to my side if my stomach heaved again. I had friends who'd thrown up while they were on their backs and one would have died if my friend Minos hadn't been an absolute champ and scooped it out of his mouth. I fidgeted back and forth uncomfortably, every position pressing my stomach somewhere.
Breathe deep, I reminded myself. It always seemed to help when I breathed slowly. But the next cramp came with zero warning and I barely rolled over before it all came out. I kept heaving even though there was nothing in there. It was hard to even catch my breath. I heaved and panted until finally I lay still.
Kjole Schmiecel- District Eight female (16)
Oh, they must have found someone, I thought when the cannon went off. Then I noticed how Dionysus hadn't reacted and my own stomach turned.
"Dionysus?" I asked, shaking him again. One look at his blank eyes and still-open mouth told me the truth.
What? That's not even possible. No one just dies of a stomach bug that fast. Sure, you could die of dehydration because of vomiting, but that took days. Dionysus was just talking and had enough water in him to spit. This didn't make any sense.
No, it doesn't make sense. Because it wasn't the alcohol. That alcohol could have killed Dionysus but it would have taken days for the germs to get that far. This was poison. I thought back to Nailah, so weirdly concerned about Dionysus. She was always so socially awkward. Of course she'd overcompensate when trying to act normal.
So what do I do about it? The weirdest thing was I wasn't even mad at Nailah. I was mad at a country that made her into this.
Archibald Pell, District Eight male (13)
This could work for as long as I needed it to. The boiled water from the sink tasted gross still but I hadn't gotten sick from it. I'd saved some of the beans before emptying the can, and the other two cans would last two days each at least. After that ran out, I'd have to search the building for more food, but I could keep the danger to a minimum and hide here maybe even until the games were over.
It was really boring, though. I'd always liked things to be neat and orderly but even I was starting to feel cramped. I wasn't dumb enough to leave the bathroom in order to find something to entertain myself, but I could try to think of things to do without leaving.
I wonder what's happening back home. Everyone was watching the games, of course. But if I put that aside, I could imagine normal life back home. My parents would be at work, I thought- I really wasn't sure what time it was, since the bathroom didn't have windows and I'd been in there at least a day. I pretended in was mid-day. Mom and Dad would be at work. Amelia would be at school, and she probably had a peanut butter sandwich, since that was usually our lunch. I was really lucky I liked peanut butter, since we couldn't afford fancy lunch meat. Grandma would be home working on her crossword puzzles. I liked helping her with them. All the words had their own place and fit together perfectly.
I bet the sheep were all okay. Blue would be having her lamb soon. She wasn't really blue, of course. It was just Amelia's favorite color and it was her turn to pick a name. I hoped we got to keep the lamb. I didn't like it when we had to sell them to a different shop. If we did have to, I hoped it happened while I was still in the arena.
I stood up from where I'd been sitting under the sink in order to take care of stuff. That was another good thing about hiding in a bathroom. I was afraid of flushing the toilets, since it would make noise, but if I used the sink it was quiet and I could run some water after to wash away the smell. I used the sink farthest into the bathroom to keep the smell down even further and so I wouldn't forget which sink was clean to get water from.
A few minutes later I jumped up when there was a bang on the door. The chair rattled but held steady.
"It's locked." Nero's voice came. I held my breath, begging them to keep moving.
"Someone's in there." Nailah said.
"Why do you think that?" Nero asked.
"It's a bathroom. There's water in there. And we haven't seen any other locked doors."
I was horrified that I hadn't thought about it. I should have locked some other doors so it looked like it was just random.
"Well they know we're here now. No use being quiet." Nero said. I heard another bang, much louder than the first, as he started to break down the door. Panic flooded me as I looked around. There was no place to go. The ceiling wasn't the kind with tiles I could pull up and climb inside. There was no other exit, just toilets and sinks. I stood at the far end of the bathroom, my breathing speeding up as I looked from wall to wall like a rat in a cage. I dove into the last stall just before the door splintered.
"Ew." Allure's voice finally joined in. From the crack under the stall I could see the careers' feet as they walked in. They were all leaving little puddles of water, meaning it must have been raining.
"I'm just going to stay here unless you need me." Allure said, stopping at the door. I heard Nailah sigh in annoyed resignation.
"This one?" Nero said as he opened the first stall. "Nope." I huddled beside the last toilet, which was just large enough to provide cover until they inevitably opened my door. What do I do? There's nothing I can do. I'm just a little kid. There are three of them. They were going to find me and there was nothing I could do. I put up my sleeve so they wouldn't hear me crying.
"This one? Nope."
"This one? Nope."
"This one? Nope."
"This one?"
The door flew open. I raised up the hatchet I'd gotten in the bloodbath. "Stay back." I squeaked. Nero took a step back to be farther out of my range and aimed a throwing knife. I was relieved when I saw it coming at me. Honestly I'd been imagining something worse.
I'm just a kid. This isn't fair at all. I wasn't even born during the rebellion. How could anyone want this?
Samantha Von Hindenburg, district twelve female (13)
You really think you can do it?
I am brilliant, yes, I reminded her.
Yeah, yeah. But with this equipment? Under these conditions?
In full disclosure, I'm not certain it will work the first time. But progress is all about experimentation. For days I'd been gathering supplies. I'd found odds and ends all over the Arena, mostly in the tall buildings, that were either what I needed or close enough that they might work. I'd been fitting them together and tinkering with them and I was certain I was almost there.
And if it does work? You'll go back and what, I'll be normal again? Still in the arena, which sucks, but can't win them all.
To be fair, I have never encountered this situation either. But I theorize that you will be the same after me as you were before me.
Finally something reassuring. I'm gonna have a cold, though, since you keep tramping us around in a thunderstorm.
Nonsense! This storm is precisely what we need. The biggest obstacle to my return was the procurement of enough power to run my machine. With just a metal pole I can construct a rudimentary lightning rod that will provide all the power I could need.
Pretty sure I've seen this in movies before.
And it worked, no?
I don't think that means it will work in real life.
In the movies it was not Doctor Hindenburg working on it.
It didn't look like much. The oddly-shaped pile of parts, all pushed-together and sometimes about to fall apart, did not resemble the smooth brutalist beauty of my original machine. I was embarrassed, even, to represent the motherland with such an effort. But once my machine powered up and I could get back home, I could resume my more highbrow endeavors.
Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.
Do you mind? I am trying to work.
Sorry, just bored. You almost ready?
The rain poured down on both of us as I put on the finishing touches. It would have been hard to even hear Samantha over it if we weren't talking inside our head. While it would provide the necessary power, it did add another layer of concern to my experiment. If I didn't finish in a timely manner, the water could damage some of the parts of my machine, and it was uncertain if more components could be found around the arena.
It was a good a time as we would ever get. I pressed the button I'd made out of a clothespin wound with some wire and the machine hummed to life. My prototype back home had flashing lights and various toggles and switches, but the primitive imitation in front of me was just a pile of parts attached with wires to a pad I would stand on.
And now our fate is trusted to luck. I have no way to construct controls, so we must hope that some sort of balance in energy will return me to the site of the original spatial disturbance- me leaving my home.
Oh great, what if it doesn't? I am going to be so mad if we get sent back to the dinosaurs.
It WOULD be a great opportunity for science.
After this I've decided I'm meant for the arts.
I set up the lightning rod and then sprinted for the platform, terrified that a bolt might come before I'd positioned myself. I stood under the raging sky, all blacks and grays and roiling with the rain and thunder and lightning. It gave me a bracing feeling of the power of the world and all the scientific knowledge left to discover.
Any last requests before I return?
I really shouldn't mess up history, but maybe try to tell people Panem is a bad idea?
That is something we seem to agree on.
The clouds over us flickered and my heart flickered with them. Here it comes!
In a flash of light, I saw Deutschland.
I just thought I'd amp things up with a lot of deaths at once
11th place: Dionysus Bacchus- poisoned by Nailah
It was clear from the start Dionysus' performance would depend on his choices regarding alcohol. In this story I decided he backslid, since breaking addiction is really hard and he was under even more stress than normal. Of course that affected his relati0onship with his allies, but he had a lot of fun connecting with Kjole, the other outcast career. He was a long shot to win but he affected a lot of people before he died.
10th place: Archibald Pell- stabbed by Nero
Archibald's death was nearly inevitable. It was just a matter of when the careers found him. He had the best hiding place he could have under the conditions, but still. Pell was able to last this long, which proves he was smart, but like he said, it wasn't fair.
9th place: Samantha von Hindenburg- struck by lightning
So ends the most unusual tribute of the bunch. Dr. Hindenburg was so fun that right away I knew I had to end it this way. Those of you with optimistic hearts can say they actually made it and they're both in Germany right now... hopefully fleeing, but at least alive. Maybe the doctor can even see his friend Werner again.