The Haunted


"Melatonin"


~In my head when I'm all alone

A bit of blood and some broken bones

Open eyes on the cracks in the wall

As they grow this house is not a home~


Ainsley Maris Sims

I wake up to the sound of dripping water. My eyes open up and it's like I never was asleep. I can feel the splinters in my eyes, the red cracks and sleep dust that are all echoing the pounding feeling in my head that yells at me for rest. Nobody else looks any better than I do. The fact that everybody else is asleep vaguely passes along my brain as information that should be important, but I can't piece together why.

It's like the world is running on delay, all the information is still there for me to see. I can smell and hear and see and taste and feel but my brain is only seeing it as just that. Senses. Stuff. There's no sense of importance. It's like I'm staring at a messy arrangement of unfitted puzzle pieces and I can't figure out what goes with what.

It takes me a minute, but I manage to crawl onto my feet, shaking off the doozy feeling that makes the world seem like it's spinning in place. The living room is still the same as before. All five of my allies are laid out across the floor, heads propped up against walls and couch cushions and cardboard boxes and rolled-up sleeping bags.

"Everybody wake up," I mumble, shuffling over to my bag and absentmindedly sifting through my things.

They stir awake as slowly as I did, groaning and mumbling as they crawl to their feet and stretch out. Ariya is the only one who seems unbothered, in a cheery mood as she skips over to her bag and begins tossing food out onto the floor.

"Quick pre-hunt breakfast?" She offers, an excited twang in her voice.

"Sure, why not," May mumbles, her words barely legible as she shuffles over to the collection of granola bars and drops with a thud to the floor.

Pierre and Everly hold a bit more dignity in their approach, each of them snatching a few things off the floor before finding a wall to lean on as they munch through their breakfast. They almost look like their usual selves, Everly especially, but their eyes tell a different story. It's more than just tired, there's something else there, like they aren't really fully here right now.

It's easy to spot it when I'm in the same state. I mimic Pierre and Everly and at least take some solace in the fact that I'm not as out of it as Arno is. He still hasn't woken up, curled up in a ball on the floor without any sort of blanket or pillow or anything to keep him comfortable. It shows, too, his whole body shaking as purple lips move silently while his eyes squeeze tightly shut.

"There's something wrong with us," Pierre says, his voice hoarse, that normal confidence and control all absent.

"Speak for yourself," Everly mutters quietly.

Ariya pouts. "Aww, did we all have a hard time sleeping in the spooky haunted house?" She pretends to wipe a tear from her eye. "That's so adorable."

"There's something actually wrong with this place," Pierre continues. He looks around the room for support but nobody is there to back him up. "The Gamemakers are fucking with us or something, I don't know, but there's just something that isn't right."

Ariya blows a raspberry. "Then let's go kill the outliers that are in here so we can leave and you can go get a nice long nap at the cornucopia where you feel nice and safe," she says in a sing-song voice. She nudges May with her foot and May lets out a heavy sigh as she lifts herself up from the floor.

"Ariya is right," May says, the fake energy she tries to put into her voice doing nothing to hide her fatigue. "Let's just go finish this thing so that we can go. No point wasting any more time. We can split into teams of two and search this place up."

"Fuck that," Everly says. She twirls a dagger in her hand as narrowed eyes work their way around the room. "We each go out on our own. Twice as fast, right?"

Pierre laughs humorlessly. "None of you have ever watched a fucking horror movie, have you?"

They keep on arguing after that, shooting back and forth about searching pairs or solo or as a full team, but I'm not hearing any of it. The sound of dripping water has been echoing in my ears all morning. All night. All of yesterday. That constant tick-tick-tick, drip-drip-drip filling my head. But it's been just that. That sound. But now I can see it. Water, dripping from the ceiling just down the hallway. If I can just find it, just seal it shut, get that drip-drip-drip to finally end. . . .

I'm only half-aware of my surroundings. I'm moving, I know that much. My Katana is still back in the living room, but there's a dagger in my hands, clutched so tight that my knuckles have turned white and red. It almost feels like I'm standing still, that the hallway is moving around me, pushing me through and down the hall to where I saw water dripping. It isn't there now, though. The hall is empty, quiet, still.

I kneel down to the floor and I see it there though, proof. A few tiny droplets of water, sitting restlessly on the dusty wooden floor. It's silent for a long while, and I stay there, kneeling down, eyes shifting from side to side.

Drip.

My eyes shoot to the left. I'm up to my feet and following the sound in a fraction of a second, stalking through the halls, my ears focused, waiting for that incessant sound to start up again. It doesn't bother hiding anymore, though. It's faint at first, but it gets louder with every step, every twist and turn I take through the halls. More than just a quiet drip. A steady rain, a near-downpour of falling water that keeps getting louder.

A door appears in front of me. My hand forms around a brass handle that's cool to the touch. Suddenly I find myself frozen. The autopilot mode has turned off, that guiding hand suddenly lifted from my shoulder. Everything suddenly seems clearer for a brief moment. It's like that haze has lifted. I'm still tired and sleep exhausted and riddled with too much adrenaline to focus right, but it's a familiar sort of fatigue. The kind that I've gone through a hundred times before, training in the gym or out on the beach with Deirdre.

Everything suddenly seems so inane. I'm in the middle of this stupid mansion that the Gamemakers have rigged up to mess with us. They've been driving us all insane, and here I am following along with their game and wandering aimlessly through these maze-like hallways chasing some distant noise I can't get out of my head.

It's enough to make me laugh. A short, breathless one. But a laugh. I peel my hand back from the handle and am ready to turn around and attempt to trace my path back to the rest of my allies. To tell them all that we're all being pushed around. That we need to get out of here, get our brains straight, and not do anything horrifically stupid.

Then I hear it. Not dripping water, even though I can hear that too, faintly trickling past the wooden door. This is much more real, faint and quiet, enough so that I can almost convince myself that I heard wrong. Or that I'm just imagining it. But I take a step closer to the door, press my ear to the wood, and I hear it again.

Ainsley

My hand wraps around the doorknob and I push through. A rush of water pushes past me as I do, crashing into me and forcefully knocking me back a half-step before snaking into the hallway and shrinking away. I push through the doorway, wading through rapidly falling waist-high water.

My dad floats face-down in the middle of the room.

Logic and reason evacuate as I dash over to him, flipping him over to see his face. What's left is barely recognizable. Salt-water has dried and eaten away at his clammy, pale skin that's cool to the touch. His eyelids have fallen shut. But there's no mistaking him. Even his wrinkly, clammy skin is somehow familiar, the shadows of earlier memories grasping out at me when I run my hand along his cheek.

Black eyes open wide.

I scream and scramble back, pushing away from him as I splash through the shallow water, desperately paddling away. He isn't following though. He just sits up, hollow black eyes staring at me sadly as his head tilts to the side.

His mouth opens, strained vocal cords croaking out a distorted version of the voice I haven't heard in so long. There's no tone to the voice, nothing on his blank, unmoving face to give any sort of emotion. But still the words seem accusing. Judgemental. Blaming.

Even when it isn't easy

I shake my head, fumbling at my belt for my dagger as I continue to back away. My hands are shaking, though, and the dagger slips through my fingers, landing in the water and floating harmlessly away. I don't go to grab it. I just keep on crawling backward, through water that's only as high as my ankles now.

I reach the doorway and his eyes close shut and he falls backward. The water splashes as he collides with the floor. I blink, and he's gone. A moment later, the last traces of water soak into the floor and I'm left in an empty room.

The only thing I can hear is the sound of my own breathing. Ragged and heavy. Confusion and guilt and a thousand other unnamable emotions swirl around me in a heavy mess that leaves me unable to crawl to my feet. It's all I can do to stay on my hands and knees, my shaking limbs just barely keeping me from falling all the way to the floor.

A scream breaks through my trance and before I can even process what that means something breaks against my back. Wood splinters and breaks off and crashes against the floor as I'm sent sprawling forward, my back screaming out in pain from the blunt impact as my forehead crashes against the wooden flooring.

Instinct kicks in.

I spin onto my back, my feet coming up to block as the boy from Eleven appears in front of me, a furious look in his eyes as he drives at me with a dagger in hand. My feet connect with his chest and I'm able to forcefully shove him back. He stumbles out the doorway and into the hallway, barely catching himself against the wall.

It's enough time for me to get back to my feet. He charges at me again and I reach for my belt, but my dagger isn't there. That confusion is enough for him to get the jump on me, and all I can do is bring up my forearm to block the dagger from meeting my chest.

The pain is excruciating, unlike anything else I've ever experienced. But adrenaline has taken over my body, hijacking control of my muscles and forcing me to not balk, pushing into him and driving the dagger a quarter-inch deeper into my forearm as I punch him in the throat. His hands shoot up to his throat as he staggers away, leaving the dagger behind in my arm.

I don't waste the moment, charging into him and lifting him into the hallway in a full-body tackle. His body crashes against the wall, seeming to shake the whole building on its foundation. He punches me in the side of the head and my vision blurs for a moment as I stagger back. Both of us take woozy steps, grasping for footing on the wet floorboards as we eye each other up.

His eyes widen. I hear footsteps behind me and quickly look back to see Ariya approaching, bowie knives in her hands. I don't waste any more time examining her, snapping my head back to the boy from Eleven. But he doesn't seem so eager to fight anymore. He stumbles a half-step back, barely catching himself from falling as he shakes his head. The fire and rage and determination is gone from his eyes, any emotion pulled out of his expression as he stares past me with sunken eyes.

"No," he murmurs, shaking his head. He takes another half-step backward. I take a step toward him, but he doesn't seem to be seeing me. "No," he repeats louder. "Not again. I'm not. You can't. I don't."

His hands go up to his head and he takes hold of his hair, pulling tightly as he shakes his head. From behind me, I hear Ariya take a step forward, and that spurs the boy into action. But he doesn't charge toward us. He runs away. I start to follow, ready to chase him through the halls. But he doesn't turn away at the corner.

He runs straight into the window and jumps through.

A split-second passes in silence. Then a faint thud. A canon booms. Ariya says something. But I can't hear her.

A drop of water falls from the ceiling. The sound it makes when it hits the floor almost sounds like another canon.

Ariya Arden

So this has been an unfortunate situation. A reminder to my future self: don't jump down into mysterious rooms that you have no way to get out of. I doubt it's advice I'll ever have to follow again, but still, it's worthwhile.

Maybe I should have known that following a sketchy hole in the wall with a blood-painted keep-out sign wouldn't be the best idea, but I still hold onto this being a terrible Gamemaker trap. I mean, oh no, I'm stuck in a tiny little room with no food or water and no escape with nothing to keep me company but a desk with a bunch of books written in a totally different language. So spooky.

Admittedly, it might be a little scary in the right setting. If there were no candles lighting the room up, or the candles started dimming and going out every once in a while. Really though, if they wanted this to be scary they'd have to not lock me up in here with May. Hard to set a scary tone to things when she's locked here with me reacting like an adorable little idiot to everything.

Still, though, it's beginning to get a bit frustrating. Let us fight a mutt or have to escape from some ghosts or zombies or vampires or something, it's just the boredom that's starting to get to me. Hearing the first cannon an hour or so after we got stuck down here was bad enough. But now it's been a full day and we suddenly hear another cannon go off. Is that the rest of our buddies killing the outliers in here? Did Pierre and Everly just get slaughtered by some crazy mutts right above us? Is all the action going on back at the cornucopia or somewhere completely else in the arena? The tension is killing me. We didn't even get to see whose face was in the sky last night.

"I swear, if we don't get out of here soon I'm gonna go insane," I moan.

"Probably shouldn't say that out loud," May says from her spot at the desk where she continues to pour through those unreadable books. I'm pretty sure they're a different language, but May seems able to read them just fine. I probably should ask about that, but the idea of asking her how she can read it and then her just replying that it's in English and I'm just stupid is enough for me to keep quiet.

"Why not?" I reply. "Afraid the ghosts are gonna hear me?"

"No," she says. "I'm afraid the Gamemakers are gonna hear you and realize all they have to do to drive you insane is just keep you in here. I'm not trying to be stuck in here doing nothing while you go crazy for the next few days."

"You're so thoughtful," I say in a drawl. She shrugs.

I hop onto my feet and slide over to the desk, propping my elbows on the table and reading over the assortment of books and pages May has spread out. Looking at her from here she has this determined look etched onto her face, more serious than I can remember ever seeing her, and it's got me curious enough to ask.

I take hold of one of the papers and flip it upside down. "Are you actually understanding any of this, or are you just bored and randomly shuffling this stuff around?" I look her in the eyes and squint. "Or are you getting possessed by a demon and putting together some sort of devil incantation ceremony where I'm gonna be the blood sacrifice?"

She looks at me dully. "I'm not possessed," she says slowly, as if I were the biggest idiot in the entire world.

"That was only an answer to one of my questions," I say in a lilt.

She sighs, snatching the paper from my hands and placing it back in its place on the desk. "I can't understand all of it, because it's all probably a bunch of nonsense that doesn't even mean anything."

"Or it's some demonic stuff," I pipe in.

"Or it's some demonic stuff," she echoes. "Either way, I'm just looking for patterns. There's some shapes and drawings and stuff here and maybe something in here is a hint for how we get out of here."

I nod my head. "I knew we kept you around for something, look at you. Big 'ol head on your shoulders. Right. No way they just leave us here with no way to escape."

"Exactly," she says. Then, she sighs, shaking her head as she steps back from the desk. "But no matter how much I try, none of this makes any sense. I've got nothing."

"Hm," I say.

She rests her chin on her palm and stares at the paper, then shakes her head. "Maybe a new set of eyes could figure it out though."

"Maybe."

"Just, if somebody else were to look at it, maybe they'd see something that I've been missing."

"Yeah, I guess."

May scrunches up her nose thoughtfully. She turns to me. "Tell you what, I have an idea."

"May?" I ask.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not an idiot."

"Huh?" She asks. I raise an eyebrow at her, and her face goes red. She scratches the back of her neck. "Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry."

"Look," I say. "I'm glad you think this is the big secret for how we get out of here, but I'm not buying it. So let's make a deal. I boost you up into the little vent or hole in the wall or whatever it is, and I'll read through this bad boy while you go find the rest of the pack and come up with a way to get me out of here. Rope, or something, I don't know."

She bites her lip. "Ariya, I don't–"

I sigh. "You don't want to split up, because you're afraid of a trap. Right, I know, you've only said it a million times already. But look. We've been here for over a day. We're already in the trap. At this point, we either just finally spring it and get it over with, or we wait it out and die the pussiest death of all time by starving to death in a tiny little room because we were too scared of the big bad spooky haunted house."

"Well, actually you'd dehydrate first–"

"May."

"Right." She looks between me and the books uncertainly. Her eyes look up at the ceiling and it's like she's waiting for something before she finally looks back down to me and nods her head. "Fine, I don't like it, but okay. We'll do your plan."

"Finally," I say, sighing in relief. "Seriously, this dusty air is beginning to bug the hell out of me, and I am in dire need of a good drink. First things first when my plan works and we get out of here, you're making your dad sponsor us with some booze to celebrate escaping this hellhole."

She laughs at that, almost a bit too hard honestly, needing a minute to collect herself as she puts her hands on her knees and laughs like I just told her the funniest joke of all time. "Sure," she finally says, wiping a tear from her eye as she nods her head, climbs onto the desk, and motions for me to boost her up into the hole in the wall. "I can't wait."

Kyler Valde

The hike down from the mountain takes us all night. We woke up early, long before you could really even call it morning, and started our trek down. Azai said it was to make sure we got down to scout out the cornucopia before they left for their daily hunt and it was hard to argue with that, even though it made the walk the most miserable one of all time.

We made it through, though. It's hard for me to complain about being tired when Basila and Tamika are managing the hike just fine. And after just a few hours we make it to the bottom thanks to Basila's shortcuts.

But the walk down was only the start. Azai made the call that we all needed rest before we made any moves. He and Tamika took the first shift sleeping, leaving Basila and me to keep watch of the cornucopia and see if they make any moves. That was a few hours ago, and there's still not been a single sound from their camp. Sunrise was an hour ago and while them not being awake already would be suspicious on its own, the sunlight offers up something else that's even stranger.

The cornucopia seems entirely empty. There's nobody on guard, no Careers perched up somewhere on the metal hull at the center and keeping watch. If they are there, they're all hiding inside the metal hull itself. That possibility is enough to keep Basila and me from moving in and assuming that it's empty, but it's strange.

"What if they aren't there?" I ask in a hushed tone.

Basila is leaning up against the tree trunk, her eyes wide open as she continues to intently scan the cornucopia. "They are," she says. "They wouldn't just completely abandon the cornucopia. All their stuff is still there. Just look at all that food. They wouldn't leave it behind."

"I'm not saying it makes sense. But they aren't all there. There's no way."

"They might all be camped out in the hull. Cuddling with each other under the covers because they're too scared to sleep," she murmurs.

"Or, they're all out hunting and left this place behind."

She shakes her head. "Maybe, but we don't know that. Unless–"

BOOM!

A cannon fires off, shaking the arena and stopping Basila mid-sentence in dramatic fashion. We both share a look. Basila runs off to Azai and Tamika and I keep my eyes on the cornucopia, waiting to see if anybody stirs awake. But there's nothing.

A minute later Basila comes back, Azai and Tamika tiredly stumbling behind her as they shuffle up for a look through the trees and bushes. Azai taps his foot against the floor incessantly, gnashing his teeth as he looks around.

"That has to be them," he finally says.

"It doesn't have to be," Basila says.

Azai shakes his head. "Yes, it does. Think about who's left. Lakin, Eliya, Epzo, Morah, Vesta. Which one of them is going to kill somebody who isn't a Career?"

"If one of them killed Ceeja, then Lakin–"

"And which one of them would have killed Lakin?" Azai shoots back. Basila doesn't have an answer ready for that, her mouth clamping shut. "Either somebody killed a Career, or a Career killed somebody. Either way, it's the same story. They're all out hunting."

"And they just left their base completely empty?" I ask. "Something isn't right."

Azai looks ready to continue the argument, but he's cut off by Tamika letting loose a sharp whistle. All three of us snap our heads over to her and she nods her head to the cornucopia. There, stumbling out of the cover of the metal hull with a stretch and a yawn, is the boy from Two. The Career that killed Alyssane.

Tamika's jaw hardens and Azai sets a hand on her shoulder. Basila smiles and pumps her fist in a silent celebration. "This is perfect," she says giddily. "We couldn't ask for a better chance than this."

"I don't know," I say, watching as the boy fiddles through a rack of weapons, swinging a longsword around with ease as he takes practice cuts through the air.

Azai shakes his head. "I know how we may feel about that one, but this isn't good enough. We got one shot at making that place go boom. We can't waste it on just one Career. Especially not him. He's one of the last ones we have to worry about."

"Exactly," Basila urges him. She looks at me expectantly. "Don't you guys get it? It's just him. The weakest Career, looking sleepy and bored and stuck at the cornucopia all by himself. His allies just killed somebody, which means they can't be too close by. Odds are they're gonna be out there a while longer hunting."

"Unless something draws them back to camp," Tamika interjects, her voice hardening.

Basila smiles and shrugs. "Like, say, a cannon that they can't account for. A familiar face looking down at them from the sky. They get mad, all riled up and group together to head back to the cornucopia to take it back and see if they can find whoever killed their precious little friend."

"All six of them come back together and hit the clearing," Azai says.

"After we have hours alone at the cornucopia to wrap up our present for them nice and perfect," Basila continues.

"Boom," Tamika whispers.

Azai shakes his head. "It'll actually work."

I shift uncomfortably. I try not to think about why that plan doesn't make me feel as excited as the rest of them. "We're skipping past a big part of this plan. We still have a Career standing there at the cornucopia. How are we supposed to take him out?"

"The old-fashioned way," Basila says fiercely. She wraps her hand around a stone and squeezes tight. "I got the sling, you got some muscle. Azai almost took down Pierre at the bloodbath by himself. All four of us together against the loser who was too scared to take on a real fighter at the bloodbath? The coward who went after the little girl because she was the only one he could take?"

Azai nods his head. "We can take him."

I bite my lip, looking between the rest of this little group and the lone Career standing at the cornucopia. Something about this plan just doesn't sit right with me. I don't know if it's killing the boy from Two that's putting me off, or managing to set off the explosives, or just the idea of killing seven people so simply, like it's nothing at all. But I try to push that aside. For a moment I replace the boy with Two with the girl from Two from last year. I imagine it's the girl that killed Amara that's standing at the cornucopia, twirling a sword around the air like there isn't a single bother on her mind.

My fists tighten. All the doubts and worries evacuate my mind and I turn to Azai and nod my head. "Alright then," I say. "I'm in. We kill the boy from Two. We rig up the cornucopia to blow. We kill all the Careers right here and now. Today."

Azai slaps me on the shoulder. "That's right." He looks around at the three of us and nods his head. "Let's go kill some Careers."

Everly Amata

"What the hell do you mean we should stay?" Pierre exclaims.

Ariya remains calm even as Pierre stands tall and angry in her face, a light smile still across her lips. She shrugs nonchalantly. "There's still one more outlier in here. Since when did we just leave outliers alive 'cause we're too scared to chase them?"

Pierre doesn't back down. "We chased District Eleven here. We killed District Eleven–"

Ainsley mutters something in response to that but nobody pays her any mind and Pierre continues on.

"We did what we came here to do. It's over. Why the hell would we stay here any longer? Shit, I bet Ethan is back at the cornucopia fucking things up right now. Who knows how he's managed to avoid doing something stupid and getting himself killed for the past two days."

"We didn't kill everyone here," Ariya repeats calmly. "We came in the house because we heard a girl scream. We haven't killed a girl."

"Shit, if we need to kill a girl to leave I think I can make that happen."

May steps up in between them and carefully pushes Pierre a few steps back, Ariya laughing all the while and Pierre miraculously avoiding leaping out at her and trying to make that promise come true.

A few quiet whispers from May seems to be enough to get Pierre from turning this into a full civil war, though, even if he still looks just as pissed off as before. Tensions have been running high all morning for a thousand different reasons, it's only a matter of time before somebody snaps.

The argument over whether to split up or stay in pairs lasted for what felt like a whole hour and only ended when May pointed out that Ainsley was missing. We split up by ourselves to go look for her (thinking back, I can't remember how, when, or why we split up by ourselves to do that after spending so long arguing about not splitting up), and reconvened a half-hour later when a cannon went off and we all eventually made our way to the spot of the kill.

Or, as it turned out, the spot of the death. The similarity in him jumping out the window to what happened with his district partner went without saying. Combine that with the fact that the only people who saw it was Ariya –who's been acting all sorts of strange all morning– and a very out of it Ainsley, and that just shot tensions even higher.

Pierre has been shifty and distrusting and quick to anger. Ariya has been antagonistic and too unbothered by everything going on. Ainsley has been on edge and distant, fragile and out of it. Right now she's in the corner of the room, sitting on the floor and soundlessly mouthing something to herself while she hits herself in the head. Arno looks even further gone than Ainsley does, his skin pale and his lips purple and his voice coming out in short, erratic bursts that randomly change in opinion from begging for us to leave to saying we need to stay from moment to moment.

May is the only one who seems to be vaguely approaching normal. She's been antsy and stumbling over her words but she isn't sleepwalking or a ticking time bomb either. I can recognize in her all the things that I'm feeling right now. Tired beyond belief, most of all. Like the walls are closing in all around us, that we're creeping closer and closer to something horrible. That something is wrong with all of this. Like there's something off here and I can see it and I know it's there, but I can't figure out what it is.

And then on top of that, I'm seeing things.

It's hard to say if it's just sleep deprivation or the Gamemakers playing tricks or what, but I'm at least present enough that I can be sitting here and acknowledging that what I'm seeing isn't real. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm not sure how much longer that will last. May is the same way. She keeps shaking her head, snapping her eyes around the room and muttering to herself. I'd like to say that I can just block everything out and not completely lose myself. But one look at Ainsley is enough to erase that notion. If someone as logical, as rational and present and centered as her is such a mess, what's to stop me from becoming the same?

"We need to leave," I find the words spilling out my mouth and I'm not sure who I interrupted to say it, but I don't particularly care anymore. All that matters is leaving this place before all of us lose our minds and kill each other.

Pierre has never looked so relieved, his hand going up to his forehead as he gives me a grateful look. "Oh my god. Thank you! Finally, someone who isn't a total fucking dumbass."

Ariya laughs. "Everyone knew Pierre was a pussy underneath all the bravado, but who knew? The quiet killer is quiet because she's a scared, insecure pussy and knows everybody will see right through her if she opens her mouth to speak."

"The fuck is wrong with you?" May asks.

"Oh, and Miss Redding is too scared." She laughs. "I don't even have to explain why that's funny, because we all already know why."

May takes a step towards her but stops herself from going any further, clenching and unclenching her fists as her jaw tightens. "This place is fucking with you and messing with your head and you're lucky it is because otherwise, I swear I'd fucking kill you right now."

Ariya giggles. "You're so cute when you pretend to be a real Career."

Pierre steps in, pushing May back. "Let's make things real simple. A vote. Do we stay like dumbasses or grow a brain and fucking leave. I vote leave."

May shakes her head and takes a step back, throwing her hands up into the air. "Leave. Obviously."

Ariya rolls her eyes. "Wimps. I'm staying."

Their eyes fall to me as the last functional person still here, but before I'm given the chance to answer Arno steps up, his whole body shaking and his voice frantic as he stammers out, "We have to stay. Finish this off."

"Oh, fuck off." Pierre laughs. "He's fucking possessed or some shit. Zombie kid bit him and he's turning. Brains are rotting."

"What brains," May mutters.

Arno narrows his eyes at them, his voice hardening even as it still shakes and stutters. "You two spent the whole pre-games acting like you were so much better than the rest of us. So much braver and stronger. I agree leaving seems smart, but every single decision that you two assholes have made has been the wrong one. I think I trust you two being wrong more than I trust my own instinct at this point."

Pierre scoffs. "Fucking whatever. Two to two then, what does Ainsley say, is she still with us enough to give an answer?"

We all turn to Ainsley, but she doesn't seem to notice us, continuing to silently mouth words to herself while she hits her head and stares at the hallway.

"Yeah," Pierre says. "Fucking gone. That should count as a vote for leaving but what the fuck ever, we'll just count it as an abstain because it doesn't matter. Everly?"

I pause for a moment, letting the silence sink in. Pierre and May are looking at me expectantly, desperation and fear seeping into their body language. Arno is back to la la land with Ainsley, their minds somewhere else entirely. But Ariya is different. There's something in her eyes that's off.

Something clicks into place in my mind.

"I vote stay."

Ariya laughs.

"What the fuck?" Pierre exclaims. "Why the hell would we–"

"It's not an option," I say harshly. I think over each one of my words carefully, combing over them to ensure that every single word is correct, that I get it right. I can feel the balance of the Games shifting with each sound that comes from my mouth. I have to get it right. I have to convince them. "We have to stay. The Gamemakers aren't going to just let us leave. After everything that's happened? It would be anticlimactic. It's not their style. They'd stop us from leaving. Throw some mutts at us or bar the doors shut. And if we make them stop us, it will get worse. There's some sort of end to this. Either an outlier girl or a mutt or something in here we need to find. We just have to find it. The quicker we get on that before we all end up like Arno and Ainsley, the better chance we have of actually getting out of here in one piece."

I'm met with silence. Seconds tick by in agonizing, eerie silence as I wait to see if it worked. It was a convincing enough lie. I might be convinced by it. The pain on my back grows stronger, excruciating and burning and melting pain that I have to grind my teeth together to stop myself from reaching back to grab at it. It takes everything to stay still and silent. To not give them the pleasure of showing that I feel it. That I know what they're trying to do to me.

Finally, Pierre kicks a sleeping bag on the floor and lets out a barrage of cusses. He storms back and forth, continuing to let loose every swear he knows. Eventually, though, he stops and turns to me, the look in his eyes telling me everything I need to know.

"Fine," he says. "We stay then. We play right into their little game like we're a bunch of dumbasses. We go split up all on our own and comb this house over, looking for someone who probably isn't even here. Or, those of us who still have a functioning brain do, at least. Ainsley and Arno sit here and take a nap on the floor, I guess. Fuck!"

He storms off with that, scooping a spear into his hand as he marches through the hallway. He punches the wall, his fist smashing a hole into the drywall that he doesn't even seem to notice as he continues pushing along.

May follows after a moment after, more hesitantly as she takes care to ensure that she has a dagger at her belt and hook sword in her hand. Then it's just me in the room with the other three. Ariya and I lock eyes for a moment and I nod my head, drop my sword and dagger onto the floor, and head off into the halls.


A/N: Day Four, part one of four.