A/N: Day 7! I'm so sorry this has taken forever. I had a lot of personal drama going on in real life, and it just dragged me away from fanfiction. However, I'm back, and I'm serious about finishing this chapter; it only took me two days, and I'm hoping over the next couple months I'll be able to finally wrap up this story. Anyway, I was also burnt out for a while after the craziness of last chapter. We hit a big climax point in the plot, but the Games aren't over yet and we still have a lot of action and conflict to go through. This chapter is insanely long to catch up with lots of people we haven't seen in a bit, so I hope you can forgive its absurd length and enjoy it!
DISTRICT ONE EULOGIES
Esquiria Pasquale
I force Junova to wash the blonde dye out of my hair the moment Trinity's heart stops beating from the poison coursing through her veins. The tears prick in my eyes as my stylist rinses and combs my hair until it's bouncy, curly, and above all dark brown again. Losing Zircon stung a little, even though I never thought much of the boy. Kenyan was broken up over him, and a rifle in the Games is one of the scariest things our tributes have ever had to face. Yet, seeing him fall was nowhere near as terrible as watching Trinity froth at the mouth and tremble as the poison leaked through her veins. It took all the self control I had to walk out of that Control Center without strangling Mags, without cursing her girl to the moon and back for being so goddamn smart and sly. Trinity was intelligent and confident and cold, just like I taught her to be, and she taught me something too. She reminded me that my District still had virtue and could still achieve glory, that all my girls weren't just airheaded bimbos raised for the slaughter. Watching her die was like watching that dream die, but I won't let it go. I'll bring a girl back, I'll bring back one of my own. This year just wasn't our year, and that'll never stop hurting no matter what I do.
District One
Zircon's family was devastated to lose their son to the Games, but they believed that without the gun in the Games he would've gone much farther, and this helped them grieve easier. His siblings both performed well in the Academy but missed out on the Games, going on to become Peacekeepers in the Capitol. His best friends Rubi and Romeo were destroyed over his death too; while Rubi moved on from it, Romeo became disillusioned with the Capitol and was executed years later due to rebel sympathies. Zircon's ex-boyfriend Tomas, who had broken up with him once he was selected for the Games, decided to erase the idea of Zircon from his life and start all over to avoid the pain he had caused the both of them. Trinity's family was proud of her daughter and all she had done in the Games, and they cherished her memory for the rest of their lives. Her sister Princess excelled in the Academy and would have entered the Games during the First Quarter Quell had it not been for the special twist that year. Trinity's best friend Claus was broken up over the loss of his partner in crime, but he got the eleventh star tattoo that Trinity never got to remember her by for the rest of his life.
Fender Hopkins, 17
District Six Male
Blurry dreams of my family and friends all crowding around me with beaming smiles evaporate as I feel something shaking me awake. I rub my eyes with a soft groan as whatever is shoving into my shoulder finally falls still. I blink rapidly to clear the sleep from my vision, and soon the world comes into focus around me. The sun is a faint haze over the horizon, and the short golden grass around us sways lazily in the morning breeze. Omri squats next to me, wide awake and ready to get going. Our packs are zipped up neatly next to him, while the chainsaw sits on his other side. The menacing metal contraption looks completely out of place here, in this world of grass and dirt and sky, but I'm used to seeing it with Omri now so it doesn't throw me off as much as it used to. Speaking of my ally, he shakes my shoulder a second time, and I swat away his hand, groaning again.
"I'm okay dude, I'm awake," I grunt out, rubbing my eyes again. "Goddamn, I haven't slept that soundly since the Capitol. I went down the moment we switched watch shifts."
"You sure did. I almost woke you up a million times to shut up your snoring," Omri laughs, shaking his head. "I'm surprised whatever Careers are left didn't come find us from all that racket."
"Shut up dude," I chuckle with a wide grin on my face. His mention of the Careers makes the smile on my face even bigger. "I'm still...in shock, I think, about yesterday."
"It feels like we're dreaming," Omri nods, a small smile still lighting up his face. His eyes gleam in a way I haven't seen yet; all of his pain and thirst for revenge fades whenever we talk about the Careers we saw in the sky these past two days. His entire face just glows, and he almost looks like a guy in those stupid Capitol propaganda ads about enjoying District life. I might not want to ever do shit with other guys, but I can appreciate when another guy is easy on the eyes. I can tell why the Capitol cheered for Omri during his interview from the way he's looking now. He could light up a room with that smile, and it's refreshing to see joy in the arena after so many days of struggle and boredom. It feels weird to dwell on that since people smile all the time in everyday life. They don't smile here, though, and I guess that's why I'm so hung up on it.
"It does feel like we're dreaming," I agree, staring at the sunrise. The colorful streaks of sunlight on the horizon just make me feel even better. Usually the artifical beauty would bother me, but today I can't help but appreciate it. "And for the first time in a really long time, it's a good dream, not a nightmare."
"Hopefully one of them that didn't die yesterday is injured and goes today," Omri says with excitement rich in his voice, his eyes glistening with wonder. "I mean...just think about it, if Chavez or Tyberios or even the Reaped Four girl died today, we'd be in the Top 8. They'd go see our families, and we'd be so close. With the chainsaw and us working together, we could do it. We could really do it, Fender. I always thought we stood a chance, but now...we could really do it."
"We will do it," I reply, nodding. "They're all going to be on their own probably. We might be the last alliance left in this Games, and we're in good shape. It's just crazy to think about. And then you have that crazy thing over there," I say with a chuckle, gesturing to the chainsaw. "They might just run from us if they see that."
"I'd love to see them finally have to be running from us," Omri murmurs with his mouth quirked into a smile. "The other Outliers will surely run from us too."
His tone darkens on that second sentence, and I know which of the other Outliers he's thinking of as his expression turns stormy. He doesn't go on and on about it, but I know the reason we move around so much is not just to keep the Gamemakers happy, but also because he's searching for Fuji. After she killed Ivy, Omri's been hellbent on getting revenge on her, and with the chainsaw he could certainly get that done. I don't remember the Three girl being particularly scary or skilled, and the only thing I remember about her is that she's engaged and talked about her fiancee during the interviews. Omri bristles at even the thought of her, however, and she did kill Ivy, so she must be pretty dangerous. I don't want to press Omri on it, because everyone else has to die eventually anyway, and I don't need to agitate my only ally by asking for exact details about his deep seated hatred for the Three girl.
"We'll find her soon," is the only thing I can conjure up in response, and Omri nods shortly in agreement.
"We will, and we'll make it last," he growls. The darkness in his voice makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but he isn't directing the emotion at me so I don't freak out. Omri certainly can go from happy to dark really fast, and it can get scary sometimes. We are getting deeper into the Games, and sometimes I do get scared he might turn the chainsaw against me. But for now, I think we both know it's best to keep working together, so I don't think I need to worry much yet.
"Wanna get moving?" I ask quietly, hoping to change the conversation from Fuji, and Omri nods.
"Maybe we'll find a wounded Career," he says with a grin, and I smile too. Now I can get behind bantering about murdering the Careers.
We get to trekking after that, our conversation lulling into nothingness as we drag our supplies through the prairie. We take turns carrying the chainsaw; it's about the length of my arm and not insanely heavy, but it's definitely more baggage than our half-empty packs. Usually I wouldn't be bothered by carrying around heavy things; it was my specialty back home anyway due to all my weight lifting before school. Out here in the arena, though, things are just a lot rougher. My muscle tone has already faded considerably, and I get tired carrying the chainsaw for too long. That scares me for when I have to get into a real fight, that someone might be able to out-muscle me because they've been getting better nourishment and rest, but I know I'm still bulkier than a lot of the other tributes so I try to push that thought from my mind. We have enough food and water for about a week now if we ration carefully and don't run into any surprises, and I think that'll get us deep enough into the Games hopefully that we'll either be dead or almost on our way home by the time we run out. The idea that this whole thing could be over in less than a week is crazy to my mind, but then I think back to how long this first week of the Games has been already, and I know it's not going to be an easy task. The Games always drag at the end, too, so I can't get ahead of myself. But right now I do feel like we're in a comfortable spot, especially since we haven't seen anyone in ages.
We hike through the grass for hours, scanning the expanses of golden prairie around us. Walking for miles every day fatigues me more than I'd like, and I'm honestly surprised we haven't seen anyone since we met up due to how much we travel. The arena must be massive to try and give us Outliers more room to hide, and we're far out now. The Cornucopia is the tiniest golden speck on the horizon, so small you could miss it if you weren't purposefully looking for it. The grass is so short out here it's below our waists, and it gets even shorter the farther you go out. I honestly don't like being this far out; I feel like the shorter the grass gets, the more likely we'll run into mutts or traps. However, I know Omri is on the hunt for Fuji, and a female Outlier all on her own running from someone like Omri is not going to stick to the center of the arena. There's also less chance we're gonna run into the Careers out here, although that's sort of irrelevant now that the pack is broken. Either way, I do wish we rested more, but I guess our constant movement keeps the Gamemakers appeased towards us because we haven't faced any major obstacles since the stampede.
We take a break at midday, the sun at its zenith in the clear blue sky above us. There's not a cloud in sight, and the sun beats down a little hotter than usual. I strip off the windbreaker I'm wearing, stuffing it into one of the packs while Omri takes out our daily ration of jerky and crackers. We gnaw on them in silence, looking around at the arena and staying inside our own heads. It's not that we couldn't talk if we wanted to; we're just comfortable enough with each other now that we don't need to keep forcing conversation all the time. I mull over useless things, like the steps of how to fix the radiator in a Peacekeeper's jalopy or the way Demica's hair would always fall in her eyes during class. I start chuckling to myself when I remember the way Torque dropped a dumbbell on his foot and broke his toe last year when suddenly I hear a rustling behind me.
Omri hears it too, his hand instantly wrapping around the handle of the chainsaw while the other rests on the belt of throwing knives on his hip. I scramble for my dagger since Omri has all our throwing knives, quickly drawing it out of where I keep it in the side of my pack. The rustling sound starts getting louder, and the stalks nearby begin to quiver. Omri waits to rev up the chainsaw, not wanting to alert whoever it is of our position if they don't know we're here, but I can see how his eyes flick nervously from the throttle to the grass and back to the throttle. My knuckles are stretched tight around the hilt of my dagger, which I'm honestly not that skilled with. I understand why he's nervous. We haven't faced anything in days, and even if it's the little girl from Ten, it's still going to be a shock to see someone else.
Suddenly the grass near where we've decided to rest bursts open, and a furry brown creature barrels out into the open, gnashing its yellow buck teeth at us intimidatingly. It leaps right at Omri, but he dodges out of the way quickly. The thing sails through the air where Omri was crouching moments before, slamming into the dusty ground with a pained whimper. I see deer antlers on its head, but the thing can't be bigger than my aunt's pet cat. As it turns back towards us, gnashing its yellowed fangs, I have to stifle a laugh as I see what the rest of its body looks like.
"What the hell is that?!" I chuckle as the thing growls at us and stamps one of its rear legs into the dusty, flattened grass in an attempt to frighten us. I know it's a mutt, and that means it must be dangerous at some level and we should be wary of it, but it's hard not to laugh at what looks like an angry bunny rabbit with clumsily large deer antlers spiraling out of its fuzzy little head.
Omri opens his mouth to respond, but then the rabbit-deer thing decides to pounce at us, making some horrid half-hissing, half-growling sound. I hold my dagger out at it in my best attempt at warding it off, but the thing goes straight at Omri instead, seemingly enraptured by the chainsaw in his hands as it slams into the side of it when Omri tries to dodge it again. Omri uses the chainsaw to swat it away, still keeping it off, and it hits the ground a couple feet away with a howl. As it pulls itself back up, the grass behind it rustles again, and another one emerges from behind it, this one larger with even larger antlers on its head. This one hiss-growls at us too, but it sounds a little bit more threatening this time, and no laughter bubbles to the surface. I'm not liking the fact that there's already another one of these mutts joining the first guy. I'm not really in the mood to meet the whole burrow of rabbit-deer today.
"Get me a throwing knife, I don't want to face these guys with just my dagger," I shout to Omri as I back up towards him until we're side by side.
"Just take one," he says back, jutting out his hip so the throwing knives are in easy grasp. I tuck my dagger into the waistband of my shorts before pulling out two of Omri's throwing knives. Then we go back to back like we've talked about doing if we ever have to fight anything as the two rabbit-deer start to circle us, hiss-growling as much as they can in an attempt to scare us. It's not really scary, and I feel the ludicrous urge to start laughing hysterically from the pure comedy of these cute little brown rabbits with murder in their eyes and bulky antlers on their heads. However, I keep my mouth shut as a third one slinks out of the golden grass to join the first two, just as menacing as the second one.
"Might wanna turn on that chainsaw. Looks like they want to see it in action," I murmur to Omri, and he nods shortly, quickly pushing on the throttle and pulling the cord on the chainsaw. Instantly, the blade whirs to life, and I can feel Omri's body vibrating behind me from grasping onto the machine. The rabbit-deer are instantly frightened by the loud grumbling of the chainsaw as Omri revs it until the blade is whirring at top speed. However, they don't flee despite the fearful look in their beady black eyes, and I know these things were definitely sent to give us a little something to do since we've been coasting along so far. Hopefully they won't present too much of a challenge; they might have nasty hiss-growls and murderous Capitolite DNA in their systems, but at the end of the day they're rodents with antlers and I can't make myself feel scared enough to consider this a real fight.
"Let's see how well this baby works," Omri smirks, and I let myself laugh a little bit as we advance on the rabbit-deer still back to back. I instantly throw one of my knives at the one Omri wounded earlier by hitting it with the side of the chainsaw. Its left leg looks broken as it limps around us, and I want to see how easy it is to kill these things before we go after the stronger ones. With one flick of my wrist, my knife buries itself in the fuzzy folds on the back of its neck. I was aiming at its skull, but the knife digs deep enough to do the trick because the mutt flops to the ground without much more protest than a soft whine.
The other two rabbit-deer mutts seem enraged by the death of their friend, one leaping at each of us. I pull out my dagger and slam it into the snout of the one that snaps its jaws at me, sending it reeling backwards. I feel warm blood splatter on the back of my neck and head as I hear Omri rev up the chainsaw blade. I glance over my shoulder quickly and cannot help but laugh out loud. Omri's rabbit-deer is completely headless, the little rabbit face and its outrageous antlers at his feet while the body, spurting blood from its decapitation, lays on the ground several feet from the head. Omri laughs too at how good the chainsaw is at cutting through stuff, both of us impressed with the power of our sponsor gift.
I'm so distracted by Omri's success with the chainsaw that I forget that my rabbit-deer is still alive. It leaps at me with a vengeance, raking some little talons I didn't see on its dainty paws across my right thigh. I swear as blood bubbles out of the small cuts, and I kick the thing in the face, sending it flying and breaking one of its antlers. Omri and I rotate without speaking as I stagger, clutching the thin gashes on my thigh. I grit my teeth as I press down on the wound while I hear Omri rev up the chainsaw and then cut through the creature's body with a wet sound. There's a pained hiss-growl, and I hear Omri shout a little as he revs up the chainsaw again. I turn and see Omri spattered in blood with the third rabbit-deer dead at his feet. One of its front legs is completely severed, while the rest of its body has been cut in half. The thing's jaws still gnash together weakly, its eyes blearily looking around despite the fact that it's not connected to the lower half of its body, and I finally don't find the little creatures funny. No matter what, it's not cool to see something that should be dead still alive even though half of its body is gone. It's crazy to imagine what that would feel like if it happened to me. I push that thought out of my head; there's some strong guys in this arena, but none of them are Scylas Ondino, and if I die it's not going to be because my body gets cut completely in half.
Omri quickly turns off the chainsaw and runs over where I've sat down in the flattened grass, clutching the four little slashes that extend from my hip to just above my knee with both hands. He sets the chainsaw down next to us before leaning over and grabbing one of the packs and rummaging through it. After looking through it, he sighs, glancing at me with an annoyed look on his face.
"I forgot, Fuji took all my bandages," Omri growls, his face dark. He looks even more frightening than he usually does when he talks about the Three girl since rabbit-deer blood is splattered all over his face and t-shirt. However, I don't say a word about that; I know I would've gotten way more than a couple little scratches on my thigh if Omri wasn't here with his chainsaw, and I know his anger isn't directed at me at all.
I'm about to say we can use my windbreaker to cover my wound when I hear a tinkling sound in the sky above me. Omri hears it too, smiling as he tilts his head up to the heavens and spots the silvery parachute drifting down through the spotless blue sky. I feel eternally grateful that I'm not going to have to be walking around the arena with my plasticky windbreaker wrapped around the open wounds on my thigh as the sponsor gift lands with a soft thud on the grass next to me. I eagerly scoop it up, twisting the canister and throwing off the top half that has the parachute connected. Omri grabs it from where I've tossed it in the grass; he likes keeping the parachutes and the canisters in case we could need them for something. I don't know what they'd be useful for, but he's right that we have to take any resource we can in the arena. As he does that, I pull out a miniscule bottle of ointment the size of my thumb and a roll of bandages that looks just big enough to wrap around my entire thigh. I can't help but chuckle a little; Calla might be a bit of a bitch and half-high whenever you see her back home in Six, but she knows how to get you exactly what you need in the Games.
"What'd you get?" Omri asks after stuffing the canister lid and the silvery parachute attached to it into one of our packs where he keeps the one from the chainsaw.
"Just enough ointment and bandages to cover my wounds," I laugh, holding up the small bottle and roll of bandages for Omri to see. He laughs too as I roll up the leg of my shorts so the entire wound is exposed. Normally I'd feel a little self-conscious showing skin all the way up to my hip, but I'm refuse to get an infection out here just because I'm being camera shy about the fact that the nation is gonna see my upper thigh.
"That does look like it's exactly the amount you need," Omri chuckles, quieting down as he watches me slather the ointment across each cut. I clench my jaw in pain, trying not to show that the white-green ointment stings, but Omri still notices. "Sting a little?"
"Just a little," I huff, trying to play it off cool but obviously not doing well. Omri just chuckles again before standing up and surveying the area around us to make sure there's no one nearby. I wrap up my wounds as quickly as I can, making sure to apply as much pressure while wrapping while still trying to cover all of the cuts.
Once I'm done, I stagger to my feet, and I can barely feel the four identical slashes on my thigh; the ointment must have numbing properties, too.
"You think we should get moving out of here?" I ask, picking up the packs from where they're sitting next to each other on the ground.
"Yeah, definitely," Omri responds, wringing his hands together before stooping to pick up the chainsaw. "I'm tired, but our little buddy right here definitely isn't the quietest thing ever, and I don't need to face any Careers today after facing a troupe of feral jackalopes."
"A jacka-what?" I ask in confusion. "How do you know what those things are called?"
"Oh, yeah, I forgot you're from an urban District," Omri chuckles. "They're called jackalopes. They're these things from a tall tale they tell out in the fields in the agrarian Districts. From back before Panem existed, if you believe those stories. They're little rabbits with deer antlers, and they look exactly like the way my mom used to describe them when she'd tell me bedtime stories."
"Well, I guess that makes sense, since we're in an arena that you farm kids would theoretically do better in," I muse. "First those cow things, now these jacka-whatevers. I feel like such a city slicker every day."
"Bison and jackalopes," Omri laughs, shaking his head. "I'm going to get you to learn some basic zoology before we get out of this place."
"Whatever," I shoot back as we grab our stuff and hike off through the grass. However, Omri's words linger in my head. Before we get out of this place. I know it's stupid, and I know he didn't mean it that way, but that really is what this all feels like so far, like the two of us working together and excelling at these Games. And I know that's not how it works, you don't both win just because you worked together, but it's hard to accept that when most of this Games has been us working together. I just keep reminding myself that we're separate people, and that one of us is gonna have to be dead for the other one to go home. I love Omri to pieces, I really do, but I'm not gonna let him catch me off guard just because we work so well together. It's the Hunger Games after all, and I have to remember you can't trust anyone, especially when they have a chainsaw in their hands and vengeance on their mind.
Cordelia Nile, 17
District Four Female
I'm still walking when the sun is almost entirely over the horizon and my body feels like it's about to fall apart into a thousand little, aching pieces. Even then, I make myself keep walking a little bit more. My back aches from carrying my spear and the packs I filled up with supplies two nights ago, and my feet are sore from miles of running and then walking and then staggering, but I don't stop moving until the grass is so short it's almost like someone's lawn back home. Once it's that short, I know I'm almost as far out from the center of arena as they'll let me go. As if to warn me, a flock of hauntingly black crows flies overhead, some of the only animals I've seen this entire Games, squawking ominously as they fly over me before disappearing from sight. I take that as my sign that I'm testing the Gamemakers too much by going any farther despite the big show I put on yesterday. With a huff, I collapse on the ground, setting my spear down in the short grass and shrugging my packs off of my shoulders so they fall to the ground with twin thumps.
I lay back and take off my shoes, groaning as my sore legs ache when I pull them to my chest. I massage my toes, my heel, the arch of my foot. It hurts to do it, but it starts to feel good once I work hard on them, and I spend as much time as I can on each foot before I get paranoid and have to look around my surroundings to make sure Chavez isn't closing in on me with his throwing knives ready to slash me open. Once I rub my feet, I move onto my legs and then my shoulders, spending long hours working on my muscles that have been ravaged by hard work and even harder stress over the past twenty-four hours. The mindless action of rubbing and rubbing and rubbing until all the tension is dispelled from my body is addictive. I can almost pretend I'm back home, and that Beck is giving me a playful massage at the beach after a long day of training in my garage with my dad. That memory brings on too many good ones, too many good experiences for this godawful arena. If I think too much about my family or Beck or District Four itself even, I'm going to cry, and I can't let them see me cry, not after the stunt I managed to pull off yesterday that proved to them all I was not someone to be ignored in these Games.
I really didn't think I was going to make it, after the other Mentors sent the plastic forks as a warning and only Trinity and Ardin ate their soup. I was lucky enough Tyberios attacked Carmen first, and that I'd gotten Chavez and his big ego to underestimate me enough that he was more focused on them and himself than me while I grabbed my stuff to run. Still, I know how close I was, and it's a terrifying thought to think that if Chavez had glanced my way one moment earlier, or if Tyberios had hesitated to attack Carmen for one second longer, that I might not be laying here right now, fingers probing every sore tendon and tissue in my exhausted body. I don't dwell on those possibilities that didn't happen either, though. No point in thinking about how I could've died when I'm still here, and when there's still plenty of ways I could die now.
Maybe I can stop thinking about the ways I didn't die, but I can't stop thinking about the girls that did die yesterday. Mags told me every day before the Games that killing someone, even if I was a mile away when they croaked their last breath, was going to be the hardest, strangest, most painful thing I'd ever do. I hadn't really believed her; I knew killing was bad, and I knew how broken half of the Victors looked when they came out, like their souls had been scooped from their bodies. However, I thought my animal instincts would override, that the pure need for survival would override that morals I'd been taught my entire life. I was wrong about that. Part of the reason I didn't stop walking, besides the fact I wanted to be as far away from Tyberios and Chavez as possible, was that it gave me something to do and kept my exhausted mind occupied enough to not really have to think about anything. But now I'm laying in the grass and all of my muscles have been massaged and there's nothing to do but think about what I've done.
I don't feel guilt in the way you feel guilty about breaking your mom's favorite dish or stealing someone's pencil at school. This guilt is different, something I've never really experienced; I know I had to do what I did, and I don't regret what I did because I know the pack would've broken soon anyway and I'd be in a white Capitol body bag right now instead of breathing heavily in the outer stretches of the arena. There's no regret, and there's recognition of the necessity of my actions, but the guilt is still there, deep and dark and encasing my heart like a fishing next being squeezed around a wriggling school of fish. I feel like I can't breathe when I think about Trinity looking at Tyberios in utter fear or Ardin laying on the ground by the fire, foaming at the mouth and scratching at her throat futilely. It's even worse when I think of Carmen, screaming and sobbing and begging as Tyberios crouched over her and then murdered her there like she wasn't anything but a training dummy. I know I shouldn't judge him for what he did. I tried to poison him, after all. It's just hard when I know who Carmen really was and when I understood what she really was fighting for
Thinking about who they were and who they could have been is harder, but I'm alone in a sea of golden grass, and my mind is eager to betray me. I could sense something between Tyberios and Trinity, the way they smiled at each other and slept next to each other and didn't think it was obvious. It reminded me of when I first met Beck and we'd be kissing under the bleachers at school or winking at each other in class, and we thought no one noticed. Really we were so painfully obvious that I'm surprised no one laughed about it right to my face. I don't feel as bad about Trinity, though; she never liked me, and if I try hard enough I can pretend she wasn't a real young woman with a real family and real dreams. I can pigeonhole her into the icy seductress she sold herself to the Capitol as. And despite myself, I feel no sympathy for the cold-hearted siren I'm able to conjure up out of my memory, all flirtatious winks and restless bloodthirst.
It's harder with Ardin, just because she never gave me a reason to dislike her. Chavez and Trinity were always openly rude to me, while Tyberios blatantly thought I didn't deserve to be in the pack by the way he never even tried to talk to me more than idle chit-chat around the fire. Even Zircon had stopped paying attention to me during the Games, making my heart ache. But Ardin was always blissfully neutral on me, kind in a perfunctory type of way but never underestimating me or seeing me as less than, just assessing me as someone who had scored lower than her but was still a threat, like everyone else in the arena. I was a little sad she was the first one to die and that Chavez didn't drink the poison first; I was hoping she'd at least get to see him die before she went.
Thinking about Carmen is the hardest, and despite myself I shed a single tear when I think about the sweet mother of god knows how many children who was only my age. I crouch on the ground, pretending to rest while I let that single tear fall, being sure my hands and pack cover my face so well that the Capitol will not catch that single droplet. They cannot see my weakness, because I'm still here to fight, and I won't let Carmen's death have happened in vain. I know it's not my fault; Carmen was going to die no matter what happened, no matter if I let the alliance kill her on the first day or if I tried my best to get her all the way to the end. She still helped me, though, putting the poisoned salt and pepper into her soup and keeping calm enough that morning that the others never suspected a thing until the plastic forks came. I try not to think of her little baby in her arms during the Interviews, or the thought of toddlers back at home with a sobbing man who loved her. I shed a second tear thinking of the little kids confused at why their mommy's not on the TV anymore. I think about Carmen for too long after that, about her fearful eyes that seemed to glow in the night when she whispered about being afraid to die. I think about the few little smiles I coaxed out of her when it was just the two of us alone at the Horn while the others hunted, and the way she always made sure to scoop a little extra soup into my bowl whenever she cooked for us. I think about the axe splitting open her chest with a wet cracking sound as I ran for my life, and then a few more tears come, and I couldn't stop them if I wanted to. The Capitol probably sees, but I don't really care, because I effectively murdered three girls yesterday, and if a few tears scare them off from rooting for me, then they can all go to hell for all I care.
Once my tears dry, I make myself sit up and start considering my gameplan moving forward. The past is overwhelming, of course, but I'm still in a death match with eight other kids, and I can't avoid that fact for much longer. Thinking about what will happen next is even more terrifying than thinking back to Ardin foaming yellow at the mouth or Tyberios's axe sinking deep into Carmen's chest while she screamed my name. Up to this point in the Games, I had a plan. I laid low, I stayed quiet, I practiced my spears and poisons and tried to make friends. I saved Carmen, bonded with her, and made our plan to poison the others. And then it miraculously worked, and I was able to thin the competition and make it out alive. But now I don't know what to do. I always assumed the poisoning would be an endgame scenario, when I had no one left to kill but someone like the druggie from Six once I'd taken out the other Careers. But there's six Outliers out there, and one of them has a gun, and the two strongest Career guys are still around too. I'm running out of ideas, running out of tricks to outsmart them. All I have now is a spear, a pack, and my determination in this endless sea of golden grass, and I don't know if it's going to be enough.
I can't give up though, not after all that's happened so far. I let myself dream of my family even though doing so aches, because it's a warm fuzzy ache that almost feels sort of good, and it's better than thinking about Chavez or Tyberios or the little 10 girl with the gun appearing from the grass nearby ready to kill me. I think of my siblings and I laughing after our days of training in our garage, drinking cold juice on the pier and watching the boats come back in. I think of working in the bait shop and meeting all types of people in the District, and learning how to tie knots and plenty of other nautical skills that are useless in this arena. I think of Beck pressing his lips to mine at the school dance this spring and how endless the world felt wrapped in his muscular arms as we swayed on the dance floor. I think of my parents clutching me close in the Goodbye Room in the Justice Building, the guilt heavy in their eyes because they knew that the reason I was here might be them and not a stroke of bad luck. I think of all of District Four, and I hope they are cheering for me over Chavez, cheering for the girl that has worked the piers like them and knows what it's like to be a powerless little cog in a broken system like them.
I let all these hopes and images flow through me, imagining everyone I love crowding around me and the rest of District Four doing so as well, imagining an endless linked chain of hands scarred from fishing lines protecting me from whatever is going to come next in these Games. In my imagination, I look into a thousand dark, shining eyes and at a thousand tan, sun-weathered faces, all telling me silently to come home. Within myself, I gather the power to keep fighting, no matter the costs. My parents might be rebels, and I might have no chance to really win these Games, but I won't give up just because the odds are stacked against me. If there's any chance I can make it out of here alive, I'm going to take it, and that means doing whatever it takes to make it home to that District full of sea-faring people energizing me in my mind.
Lord Parthenia, 16
District Twelve Male
Miriam and I both stand in the doorway of the cabin as we watch out midday meal drift down slowly from the sky. The past three days since Zircon died, our Mentors have been able to send us enough food to keep us fuller than we'd be back at home. It always ends up coming in the middle of the day, and we've come to expect it now. This package is smaller than the others, and I know it's because we haven't done shit since Miriam made the Careers run like little girls, and also 'cause the prices are going up the deeper we get into the Games. I step out of the cabin and catch the parachute as it nears the ground. The wide silver canister is a little warm to the touch, but it doesn't burn as I clutch it to my chest. Miriam grins excitedly as we walk back into the cabin to dig in.
"Snow, my stomach feels like an empty pit right now," Miriam sighs, and on cue her stomach growls eagerly. We both laugh at that as we sit down on the floor.
"We're definitely getting spoiled. At least we know everyone's still interested in us, and I'm so grateful for everyone's support," I say as cheerily as possible while I set down the sponsor gift on the hardwood floor between us. I make sure to put on my sexiest grin too, knowing that there must be some old Capitolite widows out there who are swooning for me or something. Otherwise, I have no idea what would compel Eris to feel comfortable enough to keep sending us meals like this.
"You're gross," Miriam groans, gagging in disgust as I wink slyly at the cameras I know are poised on us.
"What, you're not grateful for our supporters? How rude Miriam!" I mock her playfully as I unlock the clasps on the sides of the silver canister containing our meal. "If you're going to be so fucking thankless, I'd be more than happy to eat your half of this wonderful meal."
"That's a good joke," Miriam scoffs, and I know it's her turn to play up her persona for the Capitol now. "Are you the one who shot a Career in the chest and got everyone interested in us?" I don't say anything, just rolling my eyes as I lift the lid off of the sponsor canister, warm steam quickly flowing out of the container. My mouth waters at the sight while Miriam scoffs again at my silence. "That's what I thought. You would never have the balls to do what I did."
"Just wait till we see them again, and I'll show you who has the balls here," I snap back with a mischevious grin. "It's not like there's that many left to shoot, anyway."
Real smiles fill our faces this time, and there's no need to put on an act or any bravado for the Capitol now that we're talking about the dissolution of the Careers. When we saw two of them in the sky last night, we cheered like crazy. Seeing Carmen up there, my District partner, was tougher, but I tried to not let it get to me. The fact she made it this far at all was an absolute shock to me, because I just assumed she'd gone in the Bloodbath and I'd missed her face in the sky or something. And the fact she went out with two Careers might mean she had something to do with it. I just know what losing a parent does to a kid, I'm the prime fucking example of that, so I hope her little kids are going to be okay back at home with their dad. They should get enough help from the District after losing Carmen to be able to make it by without her. Even District Twelve isn't heartless enough to let little kids who lost a mother to the Games starve to death, even if we were heartless enough that no one volunteered to keep her from coming here in the first place.
"Are you going to eat anything?" Miriam asks, and I perk up, realizing I've been zoning out thinking about Carmen and my home District. "This stuff's gonna get cold, you know. It might be from the Capitol, but it's not magic."
"Sorry, just thinking," I mumble, eyes cast down to the ground before I shake my head and put on a glittering smile. Dumb, Lord, dumb. I can't look fucking depressed while there's a steaming meal in front of me; I know we're still on the main cameras right now, for the sponsors to get to see us devour the gifts their denarii were able to buy us. "Just thinking about shooting Careers, you know. Really absorbing stuff."
Miriam just rolls her eyes, reaching down into the canister and pulling out another strip of juicy brown meat. My eyes finally drift down and see what we've been given; a heap of warm pulled pork and some salted greenbeans all covered in a rich gravy sauce. My stomach rumbles so loudly that it elicits a laugh from Miriam, but there's pulled pork in her mouth and she starts to choke on it a little from laughing while mid-chew. I can't help but tease her, knowing she's not about to die on me from a piece of pulled pork. Well, at least she probably isn't about to die on me. I'd never let her live it down in the afterlife (if there is one) if she died from choking on pulled pork.
"Come on, get through it! If you can't defeat some pulled pork, you're not going to be able to beat anything else in this arena!" I laugh, watching as Miriam coughs a couple more times before swallowing and sighing in relief. Once she's done though, she shoots a glare full of daggers at me, and I know I've awakened a beast. This will be entertaining, at least.
"You're the one who moans constantly about wanting booze from day to dusk," Miriam snaps, her smile ravenous as she shoots right back at me. "And don't even get me started on how you think those things on your arms are muscles. Stop flexing them, I think the Capitol is good without you trying to make something out of those stringy little things. Just eat your pulled pork and don't come for me anymore, 'kay?"
I laugh, and to piss her off, I purposefully flex my arm, making my biceps bulge noticeably out of my shirt. Miriam just sighs, turning back to our meal and digging out another clump of pulled pork. I shake my head too, letting my arm relax after flashing another wink for extra measure at the camera I'm pretty sure is hidden in the mantle of the fireplace. Those Capitolite grannies better be satisfied with that; I can be a bit of a manwhore when I'm in on my own back home, but doing it in the arena for cameras just feels a bit...exploitative. Thinking about the creepy women from the Capitol with their purple skin and giant, curved talons makes me shiver, but I don't let my disgust show. They might be disgusting, but I also know it's what's keeping my belly full, so I can't complain. If I make it out of here alive, I'll have those bloated plastic grannies to thank more than anyone else.
Miriam and I spend the next ten minutes in silence, devouring all of the pulled pork and greenbeans and even licking the gravy from the sides and bottom of the canister like animals. The first time we did it, we both were red and hot with shame, feeling like street dogs trying to gnaw every bit of flesh off of a bone. Now though, neither of us even thinks as we use our tongues, fingers, whatever we can to lick up every last drop of gravy and every last fleck of pulled pork. This is the Hunger Games, and if you want to survive you have to sacrifice your dignity. It's impossible to pretend to have dignity when you have to grovel to the people trying to kill you for food, and then when you have to lick every drop up like a beast because you don't know when more will come. When I get out of here, maybe I can have dignity again, but survival comes first and foremost now, and if that means slobbering up the gravy on the sides of a metal sponsor canister like a rabid dog, then so be it.
We don't talk much for a while after that, chatting about stupid things like what the weather is like in our Districts, and the differences between the farm animals I never bothered to learn about in school. Dumb, mind numbing stuff to pass the time and make the cameras slowly turn away from us until we're not the center of attention. Once that happens, it's late in the afternoon, closer to dusk than dawn. We've been talking about the differences between donkeys and horses for about twenty minutes when I finally stop talking all of the sudden and lay down on the ground with a sigh.
"You think that's good?" I whisper quietly, stretching myself out on the hardwood floors.
"Yeah, I mean, I doubt they know what the difference between a donkey and a horse is either, but someone's probably getting killed right now or something, so we should be fine," Miriam smirks, laying down on the ground next to me. Her face falls, though, and her next words are a barely audible whisper, the type of voice we use when we start talking about stuff we don't really want the cameras to hear. "God, I can't believe I'm saying that, happy that someone's probably getting killed. It's weird, the way my brain's starting to work, the way I'm starting to really think this stuff."
"It's becoming less of a character," I nod, clenching my jaw anxiously. "I get that. I mean, I've always been a dick, and I've always been flirtatious, so it's not that hard a lot of the time. Things aren't easy in my part of Twelve, you know that, so I'm used to working hard for my life. But it's just different knowing...like, it's not just my life anymore. They're all seeing it, and I'm getting too used to that."
"I know, I forget the cameras are on us sometimes, but when I think about it it freaks me the heck out," Miriam mumbles, picking at the dirt under her fingernails with a frown. "I mean, I'm getting too used to it too, but when I really sit and think about the fact that they could all see us right now if they wanted to, that's terrifying to me. The lack of privacy."
"It's just weird knowing everyone knows my name and everything," I sigh, not adding the for now because we both know it's there, knowing this weird type of fame is not going to last forever, especially if both of us die here in this fucking grassland. "Growing up, I was alone for a long time, and I've never really known that many people well, so it's weird to think all of Panem knows me all of the sudden."
"You were alone for a long time?" Miriam asks, sitting up and looking at me with knitted brows. "I mean, we've talked about what Twelve's like and your co-workers and stuff, but we've never really talked about...well, you know, your family and stuff. You never say anything about them."
"You don't either," I snap back defensively, instantly raising my walls at Miriam's words without realizing it. Her eyes open wide at my response, and I groan, rubbing my temples. "Sorry. I just...it's a tough topic, I guess. It's not something I talk about a lot, it's not something I want to talk about most of the time really."
"I understand that," Miriam whispers, staring off into space, her voice barely audible. "I don't like talking about my family either, just because it's so painful. It gets lonely when you grow up as an only child with your parents not being able to be there as much as they want to be."
"Yeah," I sigh. "Yeah, I was an only child too...yeah." I don't know what to say next, because I never talk about this shit with anyone. But it bubbles to the surface anyway, because I've been in this cabin for too long with Miriam now, and if we're going to die anytime soon, I want her to at least know some of my story. "My moms died when I was a your age, actually."
"Oh no, Lord, I'm so sorry," Miriam whispers, turning to me with pity on her face. I don't get upset at it though; I know she understands, if she's been through anything like me.
"It's okay," I murmur, staring up at the ceiling of the cabin and biting down on my bottom lip hard, forcing myself to say it, forcing myself to get it out of my system. Maybe I can finally get their ghosts out of me before I die. Maybe I can die lighter without them smiling and laughing and cuddling in my brain. "They adopted me when I was four or five. I remember the orphanage. It was dark, and cold, and we had to eat rats sometimes when they didn't give us enough food. I remember when they picked me out and took me home. They were rich. Well, at least District Twelve rich, rich enough to afford a house in the merchant part of town and give me three meals a day. It was a nice life. I was happy, I was a good kid, I had everything I wanted. I was spoiled, really, probably as much as some of the Careers."
The memories I never let see the light of day come tumbling out now. I remember going to the baker's with Mom and Mama, and them letting me pick out whatever cookies I wanted. At home, they'd play games with me, chasing me around our little two story house and getting me new toys whenever they thought I was too bored. Mama was such a beautiful singer, and she'd sing all day as she did all the complex needlework for all the merchant families. I would sit at her feet and listen to her sing the old Twelve songs, the happy ones and the sad ones and the bittersweet ones as she stitched little kids' clothes back together and embroidered the dresses of the other merchant women. And then Mom, she would go out every day for hours, fixing up the woodworking in people's houses since she was a carpenter. She would come home every night smelling like sawdust and sweat, and she would scoop me up in her arms and tell me she thought about me every moment she spent fixing other people's homes and shops. They would tuck me into bed every night, and I didn't have a care in the world. I had friends at school too, and they'd come over and play sometimes, and Mom and Mama would make them snacks and we'd have the best time. They were the best people, kind people, the type of people that usually don't survive in a place like Twelve. It all hits me hard, these things I haven't let myself think about in the years since they've died, and I can't help but let myself cry a little as all the warm, beautiful memories of my childhood wash over me.
"Oh Snow, Lord, dude, it's okay," Miriam tells me softly, crawling over to me and wrapping her arms around me. I don't object, letting her embrace me as I try to stop from crying. These Games have just exposed every bare nerve of mine to the open air, and it's so hard to not feel more emotional than I ever have before in my life. All the stuff I've buried is just bubbling up, and I don't know why. Miriam removes herself from me and pats me on the shoulder, trying to smile. "Do you wanna keep talking about it?"
"Yeah," I sigh, wiping the tears from my eyes. "Shit. I hate fucking crying. Sorry. Anyway, yeah. First Mom died when I was 11 in an accident at work. One of her assistants wasn't paying attention and his saw went straight through her leg. Severed some artery that's really important, and she bled out before they could get anyone to help her. The guy got hung in the gallows, but it didn't mean anything 'cause...well, Mom was still dead you know? It broke Mama. She was like a ghost after that. She stopped working; we still owned the house, but we barely had enough money to eat. She got sick that next winter, when I was 12. The herbwife said it was just a simple flu, something most people would be able to fight off, but Mama didn't want to be living anymore. I cried every night but...but she still gave up, and she left. And then I was just a 12 year old all alone in a big, big house with no idea what to do."
"Lord," Miriam breathes, and I see the devastation on her face. "I'm just...I'm so sorry, Lord. I'm so sorry."
"It's okay," I murmur, even though we both know it's not. "That's just why things got bad for me. I couldn't sell the house and lose that memory of them, but I couldn't live in it either. So I just...I just ran away, into the bad part of town, and I never came back out again. And I became...this," I shudder, gesturing down to the muscular body I've built for everyone except myself. "Gosh, Miriam, I'm sorry, that was a lot. I just...I just have never thought about it, but almost dying really brings things back into perspective."
"It's okay," Miriam tells me, giving me another hug. I let her, hugging her back, and I swear to Snow she feels like the little sister I always wanted but never had. She lets go and looks at me sadly. "It's okay, I've had it rough too. I'm lucky, my parents are both still alive, and I still live in our house, but...well, my mom has cancer, and we don't have the money to help her. My dad works endlessly in the slaughterhouses, hoping that with loans from his brothers and stuff that he might be able to help her. He's never home, and when he is, he's like a zombie, not wanting to talk, just wanting to rest. He thinks it's going to be okay, though. But, I mean...it's pretty hopeless, you know? She had to be in a wheelchair at the Reaping. She's just on her last leg, and I know if I don't make it out of here..." Miriam trails off, tears in her eyes now too. "I know she's going to die, too, if I don't come home. And I don't think I can handle that, knowing that she's gonna go because of me."
"We're going to do our best to make sure one of it makes it out of here alive," I reassure Miriam, squeezing her shoulder tightly. "I'm serious. We have the gun, and I know that we're still in the fucking Hunger Games, but I'm not turning against you unless I have to and we're the last two left. I want one of us to make it out of here alive."
"I want that to happen too," Miriam tells me, and we hug one more time. As we hug, I realize we haven't been whispering, that we've been sobbing and talking pretty loudly, that the Capitol must have been watching this whole exchange. That thought makes my stomach drop, but then we hear a twinkling sound outside and we both stand to go look. Two little parachutes land in the grass after drifting through the darkening skies, and we each pick them up, finding they're for both of us. We both crack them open as we walk inside, finding a pale sugar cookie inside each.
"Your story is incredibly inspiring," Miriam whispers as she reads her note from Oxen, wiping the last tear from her eye.
"You're a bigger fighter than I knew," I read off of my note from Eris. The message resonates within me, affirming the truth; I've been through a lot more than I've given myself credit for, and apparently the Capitol doesn't think I'm obnoxious for crying about it. I tuck the little slip of paper into my pocket and pick up my cookie, turning to Miriam and mustering up a sly grin. I lift up my cookie in a toast. "To having fucked up childhoods?"
"To having fucked up childhoods," Miriam says in response, and we clink our cookies together before stuffing them eagerly into our mouths, the last dregs of tears in our eyes drying up as we smile at each other in relief.
Chavez Belasco, 18
District Four Male
I've never been this desperate to kill someone in my entire fucking life. There were nights I'd lay awake this year after I got picked as the volunteer, itching to be able to get my hands on some gleaming throwing knives, the super sharp ones that they don't let us touch in training back in Four. I'd imagine flinging so many of them into someone that all I could see would be metal and no skin or blood. Just a sea of metal. I would imagine that in my head over and over, yearning to leap out of my bed and fight someone, to feel the sweat raining down my back while I fought for my life. In the Capitol it was even worse; some nights I just didn't sleep, doing sparring exercises in the living room while everyone was asleep or rewatching the most violent parts of the older Games in order to prepare me for the slaughter I would have to do, the slaughter I wanted to do. Even on the days after the Bloodbath when we did nothing but sit around and walk in the open grass close to the Cornucopia, the bloodthirst within me was never this high.
Now, it feels like my blood is fire, and like my senses are sharper than they ever been. Maybe it's the fact that I'm finally alone in this arena that is starting this intense need to kill. I finally feel like the solitary hunter getting to prowl after his prey, like a jungle cat free to pounce on anything it wants in the rainforest. The feeling is exhilarating, and I'm soaking in every moment, but I also know that being alone and free to do whatever I want are not the only reasons my entire body tingles to fight someone. The thing that really gets me, that drives me absolutely wild for spilled blood, is thinking about how fucking Cordelia Nile of all people beat me to the punch and broke the pack before I could.
I had been planning something for the next couple days; gradually keep baiting Ardin and try to see if she'd fess up to knowing anything about the gun or not. I wanted to build distrust between her and the others, thinking they'd all be as nervous about her seemingly knowing about the gun as Cordelia was the night before...the night before she took what was supposed to be mine. It was going to work, too, with the information I had at the time; I could get them all to hate Ardin, and then there'd be a divide between myself and Cordelia, and Tyberios and Trinity. I thought I could manipulate Cordelia with how frightened she seemed, using her as a little meat shield against Trinity who hated her and Tyberios who she didn't talk to. I had no illusions she trusted me, but still; I was under the impression she knew she was going to die and was looking for anything to salvage her situation. I guess I was wrong on that account, and I have to give her some props for that. If you'd told me before we got into this arena that Cordelia Nile would kill a third of the Careers before we'd even reached the Top 8, I would've laughed at your joke. But I guess the cliche is right; expect the unexpected. No one expected that, I'm sure.
Still, I'm not too worried about her. She's out in these grass fields that I'm prowling on my own now, and there's nowhere to hide but the horizon, and the Gamemakers won't let her run from me and the others forever. There's no more soup cauldrons for her to poison or any other skanks from Twelve to manipulate. It's just her, the supplies she managed to grab, and her wits. And to tell you the truth, maybe she was able to outsmart us with the soup, but I highly doubt whatever her runt of a father taught her in their family's garage is going to hold up against the lessons I learned in the academy.
I'm not really worried about anyone right now; Tyberios is the only person that could possibly take me in a fair one on one fight, but I doubt he's left the Horn after I left him there with his dying girlfriend. It was too funny, the way he pleaded me to help fix her like a little boy crying over a broken toy. I always respected Tyberios for his level-headedness and the way his muscles were even bigger than mine in some places, but that right there proved to me that he was not someone to fear. What kind of boy from Two cries over a girl from One, and I mean really cries? There was nothing to earn from sobbing while Trinity foamed a the mouth in his arms like a dog with rabies except self-pity. If he can't handle losing her, I doubt he'll be able to survive this arena alone with no one to keep him company and those headaches of his coming at him harder than ever. Maybe he'll got crazy, and I'll get to put him down like a wild animal. I've never fought someone that's completely unchained from reality, and the idea of facing something so full of spite and the need for survival sounds exciting, especially with how hungry I am to find something and fucking kill it.
The only person I let myself be wary of is the little girl from Ten. The fact she's still in the Games with that rifle of hers presumably still in her possession is the only reason I'm exasperated with the pack splitting. I was ready to kill all of them myself; I'm still incredibly upset I missed out on the chance to gut Ardin myself. However, it was nice enough to watch her swell yellow and choke on her own bile at my feet; knowing she got killed by someone who didn't even volunteer was almost as good as getting to kill her myself. Still, I was hoping I'd be able to make her and the others help me track down the little girl from 10 and take her out. Now that we're all on our own, we're going to be a lot easier to kill with that thing, because one person against another person with a gun is a lot different from five people against one person with a gun. From a purely strategic perspective, it was absolutely stupid of Cordelia to split the alliance before we killed the Ten girl. But from a purely strategic perspective, Cordelia also probably knew she was fucked if it came down to hand to hand combat when the pack split, so she probably didn't want to risk missing her chance to poison us all like a coward. I'm just pissed we didn't get to get rid of the gun, but I also highly doubt the Gamemakers are going to let her march straight to the end just because of it. She must be able to run out of bullets, or they might try to take it away from her towards the end. I just have to avoid her for now or figure out a way to disarm her without putting myself in the line of fire, quite literally.
I'm not sure how I'm going to do that, but I have plenty of time out here to figure it out. I was thrilled to be in this arena at first, because it seemed like the perfect arena for us Careers to wipe out all the Outliers within the first week and have an awesome final battle. But instead, there's only two of us volunteers left and way too many Outliers left as well, and I'm getting tired of this endless arena of golden grass. Its height allows people to hide in plain sight if they stay close to the ground, and there's no landmarks besides the cabin where a girl with a gun is hiding. There's no way for me to figure out where any prey could be; I just have to keep walking and walking and walking, hoping that I eventually cross paths with someone. It's mind numbing, just walking through the grass that looks the same no matter where you look. I'd thought this arena would be one of the easiest ever to navigate, but if anything, its utter simplicity is its worst feature. I just hope that I can find someone out here sooner than later, or I'm going to have to start cutting down the grass or something to take out my anger.
I stop for a rest a couple hours after noon, sitting down on a patch of ground that's bald of any grass, about the size of a pedestal. I sit down in it, the grass in this area going just over my head and ensuring I'm invisible from anyone that would be around me. Standing up, it's about at my waist, but it seems so much taller from the ground. I unclip the two belts of throwing knives at my waist, sighing a little in relief at being rid of their weight. I'm happy to have such an arsenal that I can fling them at will and not worry about running out, but it's a lot of weight to put on your hips, even hips like mine that are strong as fuck from...well, yeah. I'm not going to add that aching desire to the bloodthirstiness that's already making me go insane. To distract myself, I unzip my pack and take out one of my water bottles, taking a few swigs before taking out a protein bar and biting into it. I chew slowly, savoring the peanut-butter taste in my blank mouth, but it really isn't that satisfying. Just another reason I need to kill someone; I'll probably get a sponsor gift of food if I make it a fun kill for the audience, and I'm ready for some real food after a week of jerky, protein bars, crackers, and the Twelve skank's watered-down soup.
Once I finish my protein bar, I zip my pack up again and then clip my throwing knife belts back around my waist. Then, I stretch my arms and legs before getting up and surveying the area around me. Still no sight of anyone, only the countless stalks of golden grass swaying slowly back and forth in the soft summer breeze. I already feel like the grass is so short out here at my waist, but I have a feeling it'll get shorter the farther out I go. I'd assumed that a lot of tributes would be hiding in this middle-height grass since it's far from the Horn but still provides cover. Maybe I'm just unlucky, but I haven't even seen a sign of a single tribute in the hours I've been searching. I guess it could make sense they'd be hiding out in the shorter grass even farther out, wanting to put as much distance between themselves and the Horn as possible. There could also be other landmarks on the far edges of the arena like the cabin that we just couldn't make it from the Horn. Either way, I decide to go as far out as I can manage and hope that my fortunes will change and that I'll be able to find someone to slash open before the anthem plays tonight.
It takes about an hour of walking straight ahead, but eventually I get to a part of the arena where the grass is so short that it's around my ankles and I barely notice it as I walk through it. I feel a little exposed out here, and I suddenly feel foolish. What if the girl from Ten is out prowling, and I'm making myself an easy target? I remind myself I'm purposefully on the other side of the arena from her for now, though, and that Outliers aren't very logical, especially after a week in this endless golden prairie. Some of them are going to be scared stupid enough to want to just get as far away from the Cornucopia and the scary Careers like me that they'll go this far out where there's no cover. Or maybe I'm completely off and there's no one out this far. Either way, I'm already here, so I might as well spend the rest of the daylight I have looking around before I head back to the taller stuff to camp out and rest for the night.
I think I'm not going to find anything after a couple hours of searching when I spot something shifting on the ground several hundred feet away as I'm surveying the area around me. Darkness is starting to close in on the arena, the sun shimmering on the lip of the horizon, and that's when I see the girl. She's laying on her left side on the ground with her back to me, and I see her white-blonde hair hanging limply in a ponytail from her head. Her right arm is wrapped in bandages, and she holds it off of her side, as if it hurts. A smile creeps onto my face as I recognize her as the morphling addict girl from Six. I can't remember her name for the life of me, but the excitement and bloodlust soars in my veins, filling me with a heady feeling. I remember her talking to herself at the Reapings and staring off into space during training; I guess I will get the chance to gut a crazy tribute after all.
I'm about a hundred feet away from her when she finally notices me. She quickly looks over her shoulder in confusion, and then her eyes open wide like saucers. She seems frozen for long moments as I keep languidly prowling closer to her, flipping a throwing knife between my fingers on each hand. When I've closed half of the distance between us though, she suddenly screams, but the sound is gravelly and low from the disuse of her voice. She pushes herself to her feet and tries to run away, but she's slow moving; she runs with a slight limp on her right leg, and I can see her clutching her right side in pain, and of course her right arm is entirely bandaged up. She must've run into something out here, which just gives me more incentive to kill her and get out before it finds me too.
With my heart pounding my chest, I let her keep fifty feet of distance between us, savoring the feeling of watching her scream madly and stagger through the grass awkwardly. I could've killed her minutes ago, but the chase is too goddamn fun, and who knows when I'm going to run into another tribute out here, especially one that's this easy to kill. I think she might be the lowest scorer left, although I didn't pay attention to the weak Outliers' scores well enough to know for sure. If this girl's the last tribute I'm really going to have fun with, well then, I'm really going to have fun with her.
After about ten minutes of pursuing her, I see where she's leading me. There are several steaming pools of water that are slightly elevated out of the ground here, and I can instantly guess that they're some type of hot springs. She runs right around them, doing her best to weave between them, and cursing out loud as she looks at them wildly.
"Fucking burst! Fucking burst again!" the Six girl howls at the pools as she runs around them, and I see tears streaming down her face now. However, the pools remain still; I'm guessing they must be some sort of trap, and that's how she got injured, and she was hoping I'd be dumb enough to touch the water and get hurt. I laugh at that, a loud and haunting thing, and I can see her start crying harder at that.
"They're not going to save you, Six," I scoff, picking up my pace now, eager to close the distance between us. She's officially been chased, and my hands are twitching too much with my throwing knives in them to keep waiting much longer. My body just screams to kill her, not because I'm scared that giving her more time is going to allow her to outsmart me, but just because I'm desperate to take out my pent up rage and bloodlust on her. There's forty feet between us, then thirty, then twenty, then ten. She looks at me with fear in her eyes as she turns and faces me, her eyes wide open in primal fear. She throws her pack at me, but I easily dodge it, the mostly empty cloth bag flopping to the ground without a sound behind me.
I scoff at that too, shaking my head. "Given up, Six?"
She lurches herself at me all of the sudden then, desperation bursting from her every muscle, and I see the tiniest flash of silver in her hands. I recognize it as a tiny throwing knife, the type they give the little kids when they start training in Four and aren't strong enough to throw the full-sized ones yet. She's right on me then, slashing the tiny blade along my right bicep, but the insignificant weapon leaves such a small gash that it barely drizzles blood. I laugh at the tiny wound before smacking the blade out of Six's hand and then shoving her away from me hard. She screams as she falls onto the ground, and she begins to moan as she lands on her broken right arm. The bandages begin to unspool, and I'm taken a little aback for a moment as I see half-exposed bone peeking out from under the wrappings. However, I don't let it stop me, and I kick Six right in the broken arm, making her let out a bloodcurdling scream that makes the corners of my mouth curl up in enjoyment.
"Didn't enjoy that one, did you?" I ask her as I crouch on the ground next to her. She's crying and moaning now, and she desperately tries to crawl away, clawing at the dusty ground in front of her. However, with a swift movement I flip her onto her back and then slam the two throwing knives in my hands into her palms, holding her arms about her head. She groans and struggles, but she just ends up burying the blades deeper in her hands and the ground beneath them. It's not like she has a chance now anyway, but she's not making it any easier on herself. She tries to kick at me as I pull myself on top of her, but I straddle her legs in a way that there's nothing she can do as I draw out my sharpest throwing knife and dangle it above her face.
"Let's have some fun, shall we?" I snicker with a gleaming smile, winking at her. Six's eyes are still full of tears, but suddenly she screws up her face and spits a glob of saliva into my face. It hits me right in the eye, and I reel backwards, using my hand that's not holding my knife to wipe it away.
"G-go to h-hell," she stutters out between sobs before spitting at me again. This little bit of spit doesn't even leave her lips fully, landing weakly on her chin, but it enrages me. How dare she, when I'm a Career and she's just about to die? How dare she try to spit in my face again when it's not going to do anything but make her death worse?! I can only see red as I watch her spittle dribble down her chin, the ungodly saliva she meant to send into my eye yet again. Before I know what I'm doing, I'm burying the throwing knife deep into her throat, all the way up to the polished chrome handle. Six's eyes go wide at the fatal wound, surprised by my swift attack. The blade severs her jugular, and in moments she's gone, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
I sigh at my rash move as I pull the knife from her throat. A wellspring of blood erupts out of the deep wound, and within moments her cannon fires as her entire neck and the grass around it turns crimson. I make myself stand up, shaking my head in disgust at the fact I let an insignificant little druggie from Six get to me enough that I didn't make a show of her death. The level of unfulfillment I feel from the kill wriggles in my chest; it wasn't this grand murder, full of dozens of artistic strokes with my knives across every open expanse of her skin. It wasn't the beautiful torture I've always envisioned practioning in the Games on every of my victims. It was just death; a simple knife to the throat, the kill an Outlier makes when their only goal is survival. I wrinkle my nose in disgust at myself. Next time I'm going to have to do better.
I still get rewarded for my kill though; a fried tilapia sandwich floats down from the sky, my favorite meal, and I heartily devour the thing a couple hundred feet from Six's body after washing the blood from my hands. I watch as the hovercraft comes, its claw picking up her frail, pale body in its massive metallic grip before melting away into the endless blue skies. Once it's gone, I go over to her pack and look inside. The only things I find are a half full water bottle, a few shreds of food, and a coil of rope. I take the water and the rope, throwing the extra pack and crumbs of food into one of the pools to see what happens. However, there is no movement, and I sigh at the fact that the arena is providing no entertainment for me today.
As I hike back into the taller grass to rest for the night, I push my discontent with the Six girl's murder from my mind. It wasn't the prettiest death, but it was still a death, and I've slimmed down the competition yet again. I still have the highest score in this arena, I still have the highest odds, I still have the highest number of kills. I'm still the king of this fucking place. It's just hard to feel victorious about what I've accomplished when I'm all alone here in this mind-numbing sea of golden grass. The boredom just seeps into every activity, even murdering apparently. However, I know I'm in the Top 8 now, only a third of the tributes left in this arena, and that thought makes me smile. I think of how they're going to go talk to my brothers and my parents soon, and also my best friend Almieda and all the guys and girls I've spent fond times with back in Four. The thought of them all cheering for me at home lifts the angst I feel and encourages me to not let me get so down on myself. So what it was a lackluster kill? It's still a kill your brothers or Almieda are never going to get because they weren't man enough to make it into the arena. It's still a kill that no one else can have, because I put my knife in that girl's throat and no one else is ever gonna have the pleasure of seeing the life drain from her eyes as intimately as I did.
I think back to all the kids I've murdered now; two at the Bloodbath, the stupid Seven boy who tried to attack me, and then the terminally ill Five guy who sacrificed himself for that pipsqueak that has the rifle now. Watching them bleed out was like the first hit of a new drug, an exhilarating high I had never experienced before. Then, it was the chubby Eight boy a couple days later, taking my time as he writhed and screamed. That was like taking a drug a second time and upping the dosage to feel as high again, making the death bloodier and more violent to sate my cravings. Now I just had a bad high, that's all, killing the Six girl, but there's still plenty of fun to be had, plenty of kills to be made. I console myself with that fact, that when I kill someone worth my time that it's going to be fun again, as I trek deeper and deeper into the grass and the sun begins to completely disappear over the horizon. I'll never let my killing be that boring again, I can assure you of that.
A/N: There we go! The first week of the Games are over, and there's only eight tributes left to play! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, I had a blast getting back into writing it, and that's why it's so goddamn long even though there wasn't the most action just because I wanted to spend some time exploring the relationships of the remaining alliances and getting in Cordelia and Chavez's heads after the pack split. However I'm sorry idk how it got bigger than the chapter where the Careers split xD. I'm going to try not to go this overboard on length, but we all know I write crazy amounts so I'll make no binding promises about length in the future. I hope it was at least an enjoyable read. Now, onto eulogies!
9TH: LIBBY MILES, 6F - Killed by Chavez
Libby was a character that I really enjoyed writing. I actually was the one who invented her whole subplot with Torcido's and everything; it was definitely a little over the top and I definitely did not stick to her form incredibly well, but I just saw the potential in her character and I had to take it. I had been planning to tie off her subplot in the Capitol and kill her in the Bloodbath, but her arc just had so much more potential for development in the Games by giving her the time to realize stuff about her past, and I couldn't pass up on that chance. However, I feel like after the whole geyser scene and remembering why Anaya died, her arc was effectively over and she had little place in the rest of the story, so it was time for her to go. I really loved writing her though and she will definitely be missed as one of the underdogs I loved writing despite her near-zero chance of winning.
Kill Count:
Chavez Belasco: 4 (Baron, Jayce, Calico, Libby)
Trinity Vegas: 2 (Rufus, Gaia)
Zircon O'Dile: 2 (Soya, Millard)
Tyberios Palatium: 2 (Bernie, Carmen)
Cordelia Nile: 2 (Ardin, Trinity)
Carmen Ionique-Astron: 2 (Ardin, Trinity)
Ardin Varnell: 1 (Sage)
Fuji LaMac: 1 (Ivy)
Miriam Park: 1 (Zircon)
Arena Events: 1 (Luke)
We're officially in the Top 8 now! Congratulations to Tyberios, Fuji, Cordelia, Chavez, Fender, Miriam, Omri, Lord, and all of their submitters! I love every single character in this Top 8 so much and I thank all of you who submitted them for trusting me with such great characters. These last chapters are going to be tough to write, but I hope you guys like the endgame I have planned out for these eight :)
Next chapter is going to be a shorter one, the Top 8 Interviews, and then we'll be getting back into the Games. I'd love to hear what you guys think, especially about predictions; now that we're in the Top 8, who do you see winning, and who do you think is definitely not winning? I appreciate all your feedback and your reviews, all your support after all these years means the world to me and I couldn't ask for a more loyal and supportive group of readers! Hopefully we can finish this story in 2021 and finally get the resolution this story deserves. But yeah that's it! Hope you guys enjoyed it!
P.S. I'm putting up a poll on my profile about who you want to win, so please go vote so I can see how you guys feel!
Until Next Time,
Tracee