Celeste Ligon, D3

There were a lot of things I wasn't good at. I wasn't good at computers, which was why I got picked. People in Three used so much of their brains for science they didn't have any left over for compassion. If you weren't useful to the District, there was no reason to keep you alive. I was never good at organizing myself and applying logic to problems. I had emotions and they came out one way or another. The others didn't like that. I wasn't sure if killing a kid over something as minor as that was coldly logical or callously emotional.

I wasn't much good at running, either, so I was surprised I made it through the Bloodbath. There are always a few who slip through, and I must have just gotten lucky. Just about everyone else my age got killed- Harmony, Taylor, Jonathan. It wasn't even the Careers that did most of the killing. They went after the strong ones, like Frankie. The littler ones were all Beth. They were all near her on the platforms, because the Gamemakers didn't want someone innocent to win.

Acee kept me alive after that. She only sent me one thing, but it was the thing I needed most. She knew I could live weeks without food, but only days without water. Every day at least one cannon sounded without any screams or commotion as someone else died of dehydration, and every night at least one cannon sounded with screams as someone died from Careers, Beth, or dogs. Things cleared up a little after the seventh night. Based on the loud discussion and cheers I heard from the other side of a hill, it was the Careers that freed the rest of us from Beth. Mist was one of the ones that dehydrated.

I wasn't sure why I kept trying to survive. There was no way someone like me could win. I wasn't here because I was good at killing people or because I was evil enough to try. I was just a reject. Three thought there was no value to someone like me, and people from Three were pretty smart. A lot smarter than me, anyway. I kept moving more out of a morbid fascination with the cannons and a dark curiosity over how many people I could outlive before the inevitable happened.

Before the Games, Acee told me she knew she had a good chance from the start. She said she knew that if things went as planned, she would definitely win. She didn't disregard the possibility of bad luck or calamity, but she was never really scared. Of course she wouldn't be. She was the ideal Three citizen. If every Tribute was like her, all Victors would be from Three. She never said anything about my chances being low. Either she was more compassionate than the others, or she saw something I didn't, but I couldn't imagine what it was.

I never saw any other Tributes until the very end. I kept count of the cannons and was more surprised with each one I heard. I never would have imagined I would outlast Eltara, just like I never would have imagined Frankie and not I would die in the Bloodbath. I never started to get any hope, though. Just because I'd been lucky this far didn't mean I had a chance of winning. I took it one day at a time and was too scared to look any farther ahead than that.

Two and a half weeks in, me and Erwin were the only ones left. I had no idea how things were going to turn out. Erwin wasn't the kind to kill people. He had a wife, and they were about to have kids. If he was anything like he was before the Games started, he wouldn't be looking for me. It would be the dogs or the Gamemakers who decided who won.

He wasn't looking for me. I knew because of the dogs. The next few nights, they hovered at the ends of the horizon but didn't come right at me. They moved slowly enough that I could stay out of their way. Sometimes they split into two packs and some of them ran off into the night. They were herding us together.

I saw Erwin the third night. There was blood on his face and he looked brokenhearted. He came to me slowly, and I didn't run. Running wouldn't save me. There was no way I could get better than second place. I didn't want to draw it out. Erwin sat next to me on the ashy grass.

"I killed Nairobi," he said. He flexed his arm spastically, like he was remembering something. "They want us to be killers, and now I am."

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked, wondering why he hadn't done it yet.

"I don't want to be like that," he said. "I didn't want to be what they wanted. I changed when I killed her. I became someone else. I don't want to do that again." He started to cry. Emotions were something I understood. I scooted closer and held him. Being there is more important than talking.

The dogs didn't like us not fighting. They howled and ran at us. I bolted right away, and Erwin came after me. They chased us both toward a cliff. It was either get killed by dogs or get killed by falling, and we both picked falling.

All my bones crunched when I hit the bottom, but I was still alive. Erwin's head came open like someone stepped on a berry. There were a lot of things I weren't good at. I wasn't even good at dying.