Eleanor Cotton- District Eight female

Time slowed down when the count began. Sixty seconds passed by like they were pushing through jello, oozing into the next second. And when the Games began, the Bloodbath was just as slow. The clashing of metal and the screams of the dying sounded distorted, all cacophonous and out of tune. Then I turned and saw Aimee kneeling by Jaxxon, trying to stop the blood from his throat. And behind her was Chantal, her arm already cocked back. I opened my mouth to scream, but it took so long. The spear was the only thing that didn't slow down.

"Aimee!"

Time snapped back into place, and the suddenness and speed jarred me. An instant of rage overwhelmed all common sense, and I ran at Chantal. Without the spear she'd just buried in Aimee's back, she didn't like the look of a bull-sized girl charging at her. She turned tail and dove into the water. By the time I got in after her, she was gone.

"It's not over!" I screamed as I tread water, and it was only blind luck that Pray or Belisarius didn't snipe me while I was sitting still. "You hear that? I'm gonna find you!" Wherever she was, I knew she'd hear me.

I'm coming for you, Chantal. Run wherever you want. You can't run forever. To the ends of the Arena I will hunt you, and I will kill you.

Aimee wouldn't have wanted me to do this. And it was precisely because she wouldn't want this that she was dead. All I wanted was to be with the best friend I'd made in years. That would have been all I needed. If she'd lived, or if we'd never met, I would have lived a quiet, unrebellious life throwing freight on trains. Now I wanted blood. I didn't care about winning an unwinnable game. I just wanted to see Chantal bleed before I died.

Back in sixth grade, we read a book about some kids who crashed on an island. They started out normal, but by the end, they were savages. Kind of like the Arena, huh? The part that always stuck with me was the stick sharpened at both sides. Just the phrase got inside me and made me uneasy. It was like they were so violent that even the other side, the one that went into the ground, still had to be sharp. The side with the head and the side in the dirt, both sharp. It chilled me in a different way when I sat up in the dark, holding a rock in one hand, scraping a stick until it was sharp on both ends.

When the tsunami sank one of the islands, I was thankful. The Arena was smaller, and Chantal had less room to run.

The boy from Four didn't know about my mission. He came across me and thought I was another notch for his belt. I didn't use the stick on him. I squeezed the life from his throat with my bare hands, until his face went red, and then white, and then blue. It was nothing vengeful with him. He tried to kill me, and I couldn't die. Not until I killed Chantal.

When we finally met, our roles were reversed. When she threw the spear, I saw the fear in her eyes. It made her hand shake, and the spear went wild. I hit her solid in the chest, and we both went flying. She turned herself over and tried to crawl away. I grabbed her leg and hauled her in, bearing down on her with my full body. I hooked my arms around her back and crossed them in front of her chest, and then I pulled. I leaned back and pulled up with all my muscle, the muscles I earned from years of heavy labor. Her back bent easily, and then more grudgingly. Her struggles went from calculated to frantic as the movement grew harder and harder to drag from her.

All at once, something gave. Like a breaking branch, her spine snapped. Her torso yawed up at a wild angle, the boneless flesh moving easily. Her arms flopped weakly and her legs settled limply into the grass. Still I pulled, until the nerves and bones inside her were a scrambled soup, until only skin held together the pulp that was once a body. When her cannon boomed, I pounded the stick into the dirt by her sightless eyes.

I came for you, Chantal. I came for you and I killed you.