Astra Quill
There was so much water. There wasn't any we could drink without getting sick, but it was everywhere. My skin was pruned all over, and my hair stuck to my back. There was something wrong with my feet. They were always wet, and I was afraid they were starting to dissolve. The skin was pale and baggy, and it slid off like plastic wrap if I brushed against anything. I would take off my shoes and try to dry them out, but even the air was wet. The water tasted nasty, but I had to keep drinking. I drank all the time to make sure it went in faster than it came out.
There was so much mud. It was caked under my nails horribly. I should have been able to ignore it, but it was always there. It started to bug me, and it was almost an obsession. I would scoop out as much as I could, but there would still be bits there. I'd shove my nails underneath each other until it hurt, trying to get rid of that eternal filth. My skin braided into dreadlocks and for the short periods when it was dry, it crunched when I touched it.
Spencer crossed paths with me when I was picking cattails. I saw him coming and tried to leave, but he ran after me. He must have wanted the cattails I'd picked, since I picked all the ones in the patch. He caught up to me and threw me down into the mud. I didn't want to fight at first, but then I realized he didn't either. He was doing it because he needed food to stay alive. I did, too, and if I didn't fight for it now, I'd have to later. I punched and kicked back at him, and when my fingers found a rock in the mud, I smashed it into his head. He stopped moving after that, but his cannon didn't sound. I hit him until I heard it fire. I didn't want him to threaten me again, and I didn't want someone else eating food I needed. I felt like an animal as I ate my raw cattails.
There were a lot of people in the Arena who were stronger than I was. Even though I was willing to fight after Spencer, it didn't do any good if my opponent was stronger. I had to slink through the Arena like a worm, slogging through mud deep enough to hide me and sleeping in tree roots that smeared me with more filth and smelled like wet earth. Before long it felt natural to be mostly underwater. I felt nervous and exposed when I was on dry land or in a tree.
On the eighth day, or maybe the ninth, there was a feast. I didn't go, even though I was starving. I was too afraid of the others, and after the feast, it looked like I was right. Five people died. One of them was Thompson. If he died, I certainly would have. I snuck to the feast area after all the cannons to see if there was any leftover food. All the bodies were still there, which was odd. Then I noticed there were six. One of them, Sarla, was still alive. There was no food, so I left. Her cannon came a few hours later.
The audience likes it when there's a big battle. There wasn't one this year. The last person left with me was Ever. She was stronger than me, so I kept hiding and trying to drink and eat enough to live. Then, as I was devouring another stringy, raw cattail, her cannon went off. Later, when I watched the replay, I saw she died of dysentery. She should have drunk faster.