Kenneth Spino, 14

District 9 2nd Male


"You hear that?" Telata whispers.

The group falls quiet. The look on Telata's face is a look of fear, but not in the way you might expect. Not the look of prey trapped under the claws of a predator, but the look of a tiny little mouse quivering in the dark forest, ready to scamper if things get messy.

None of us try to hide it: this group has absolutely no glue holding it together. I'm not even sure if I trust them. Telata, Spurr, Ronan, and I: if a threat comes along, we're to scatter without looking back.

"I hear it," Ronan murmurs, and in just a few moments, I can hear it too. The ripple of water, of course, but continuously, like the level of the ground just dropped somewhere and the entire mass of water is surging to account for the gap.

I notice a little eddy of water forming near Spurr's shoulder. Things are changing in this arena. For worse or for better? Probably for worse.

"We need to keep moving," Telata says, shaking her head. "It was probably nothing anyway."

Even she doesn't sound convinced.

From above, we must not look like much. To be fair, we aren't much. Telata is thirteen and I'm fourteen. Even though Spurr and Ronan are sixteen, none of us has the strength to hold our weight in a fight. Even the combined strength of all four of us probably couldn't compare to that of a single career.

A few minutes of travel take us to a little island. Parts of it literally fall into the water as we trudge onto it: so unstable, we hardly dare to move for fear the entire thing might collapse.

"Are we sure this thing can hold us?" I ask.

"No," says Ronan, laughing a little. "If we stay here long enough, we might fall straight through the mud and suffocate."

That lowers the temperature ten degrees. Blushing, Ronan mutters an apology. I can't stop the mental image: being helplessly tugged down by the mud, killed by gravity and the ground, the things I've coexisted with my entire life. At least Caden, Teff, and Lena went quickly.

"I hear it again," Telata mutters. I take in a big breath and listen carefully, and sure enough, there it is: the burble of falling water.

Spurr sighs. "The island is getting bigger."

And it is. The water level seems to be falling everywhere, exposing small pieces of land. With the silence broken, we begin to breathe and move again. But Spurr remains dead still, eyes and mouth wide open.

"What?"

He struggles to speak.

"Spurr!"

He snaps back to life. "Oh, Stinn. I read about this in a book about District 4. When the water level lowers suddenly, it means the water is being drawn away to create a big wall. A wall of water that destroys everything in its path."

"A tidal wave?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"We're safer here than anywhere else."

"That's not true. We need high ground."

Telata groans, stamping her feet in frustration. Sheer and utter panic has taken over her expression. "The only high ground is near the cornucopia."

The gamemakers. They really know how to get us killed, don't they?

"Then that's where we're heading."

Ronan grabs Spurr's wrist. "Remember Caden and Teff and Lena? We aren't going back to the cornucopia. Not when there are this many tributes. Not when escape is so far away."

"If we're drowned, or crushed to death, or something, I promise you'll have your fair share of regrets. Now let's get moving!"


Fusae Soccorso, 16

District 3 7th Female


Katya sighs as she pushes aside a cluster of white flowers. "I hate this. I hate this so much."

Gwenith sighs. "All of us. Just keep moving. We'll stop to rest at noon."

"It is noon," Katya complains.

I look up at the sun. Though blocked by the thick fog, it's still partly visible, a faint circle of red keeping the arena faintly lit. Just then, the heavy clouds begin to clear. The feel of hot sunshine is shocking, almost alien, after an entire day of nothing but cold mist. None of us want to agree with Katya, but this seems like a good time to stop, so we start searching for land.

In this part of the arena, the white flowers are thicker than normal. Before long, it's difficult to move at all through the net of thin green stems. Milly takes a step but finds herself trapped, her feet entangled. Gwenith pulls out a knife and helps cut her free.

"Land," I say, pointing at the small, flat island up ahead.

"Land," Katya agrees wearily.

The thick cluster of white flowers is actually centered around the island: a nature defense mechanism. If any kind of predator comes along, not only will we see them first, they will have to fight through quite the tangle to reach us.

As soon as all four of us are safe on the island, a faint beeping noise fills the air: the sound of a sponsor parachute. The basket, covered with a red plaid napkin, lands on Milly's lap. She pulls up a corner of the napkin slowly, as though suspecting something dangerous might be inside.

"Apples!" Milly exclaims, pulling one of the bright red fruit out of the basket. She brings it up to her mouth, but Gwenith slaps it away.

"Don't eat that!"

"It's a sponsor gift." Milly crosses her arms. "It's gotta be safe."

Gwenith looks a little embarrassed, like backing down might make her look weak. "I'm not eating that until you eat it."

"Fine." Milly takes a big bite. The group waits in silence, as though we expect her to suddenly fall over and die. She doesn't. We're all a little suspicious still, but our hunger weighs out our suspicion, so each of us has an apple before Milly can take another bite.

I burp and reach for another apple. So much for being careful.


Socket Alexial, 17

District 3 1st Male


"So what's with all these white flowers? They're gonna kill us or something?" Sorghum shakes his head, annoyed.

Maizie reaches down and picks up an entire bouquet of the beautiful blossoms: pale in color, but so rich in depth, almost like the petals are made of silk spun from moonlight. Definitely not natural. Maizie must not find them to be a threat, because the next thing I know she's shoved the bouquet under her nose and taken a huge whiff.

The three of us stare at her, waiting for her to collapse in agony, for her throat to close up, whatever. Nothing happens. In fact, when Maizie lowers the flowers, she has a giant grin on her face.

"She's insane now, isn't she?" Sorghum mutters.

More silence.

"Guys, you gotta smell this," Maizie says.

No one is eager to run to her side, but Maizie shoves the flowers in Cordaire's face, and soon enough, Cordaire is giggling like a little kid on Capitolmas morning.

Sorghum grabs me by the shoulders, which is a little alarming, but the dead serious look in his eyes keeps me from acting up.

"I don't trust those flowers," he mutters. "Stay right here."

He storms up to Maizie and slaps the bouquet out of her hands.

"What was that for?" she cries out. "I thought we were friends."

Sorghum struggles to wrench Cordaire's freshly picked flowers out of her hands, but her strength is impressive. As I run to Sorghum's side to help, I catch a whiff of the flowers, and for just a moment, I forget where I am. A wave of bliss washes over me, making me want to curl up and watch shapes swirl in the fog until I disappear.

"Oh, no you don't," Sorghum grumbles, pulling all three of us in. "Get back to your senses, you three. Those things mess with your mind. We can't have that ruining our pack."

The look of awareness slowly comes back to Maizie's and Cordaire's eyes. Maizie opens her eyes wide in alarm. "You mean…"

"Drugssssssss," I hiss.

"Socket!"

Cordaire fans her face, like an old-fashioned gesture from a black and white movie. She quickly changes the subject. "How come we didn't smell them earlier? They're literally all over."

"Too small to smell from a distance," I suggest, lips set in a firm line. "They can't hurt us unless we get up close. But just to be safe…"

I rush uphill to the cornucopia and find a small piece of cloth. I tear out a strip long enough to wrap around my mouth and nose. "Socket Alexial's anti-aroma apparatus, trademark HG 1000!" I call out. "Step on up, don't be shy. Free of charge!"


Harvey Reynolds, 17

District 9 8th Male


There's a weird kind of comfort to being alone. At least, that's what I thought for most of the first day. I think back to training and remember all the big alliances that formed from the chaos of forty-eight: the four careers, the five anti-careers, the terrified little kids with nothing in common but a desperate and fleeting hunger to see the next sunrise.

I could never trust myself in an alliance, because I think I'd become too comfortable with my allies. I'd consider them my friends too easily, and I don't think I could ever turn my back on them even if my life depended on it.

For hours and hours I wade through the muddy bog, alone with my thoughts. They're my only companions. My only instruments are my body and my knife, having snatched the latter from the bloodbath. I narrowly dodged death at the hands of the anti-careers, the boys named Oshea and Bolt having come at me from two different angles just as I slipped into the water. It was a miracle I survived.

Every breath now is a miracle, and so is every beat of the heart whose only goal is to keep me alive. In an alliance, nobody's heart can beat for someone else. The word "friend" is a flimsy artifice.

On my own, I'm as happy as I ever could be in the final Hunger Games. That all changes when the roaring noise fills my ears.

The entire world starts to spin around me, and my bare toe hits a jagged piece of rock underneath the purpose. I sob in pain and whip my head back and forth, searching for the source of the sound, but it seemingly comes from everywhere, wrapping around me like a horrible blanket of panic.

The wall of water crashes into me before I have time to breathe.

I am thrown into the murky, soupy water, spinning and whirling. My lungs immediately threaten to burst, piling pressure against my mouth. My lungs sting with the pain of asphyxia within seconds. Dark spots dot my vision.

Losing sense of everything but my instincts, I let out a scream, kicking and flailing against the water that cannot be defeated. It holds me prisoner, with no means of escape. The world begins to fade as the last few bubbles stream from my mouth.

Bubbles.

They are my only indication of direction. I rocket in the direction of the bubbles, gasping so loudly it sounds like I'm screaming as my head breaks the surface. I am immediately thrown back under by a wave taller than me, but this time I have more breath.

I can still see the initial tidal wave on the horizon: several times taller than me, but it's hard to make out its exact size from a distance. Seconds later, I hear the first cannon shot.

Keeping above the surface is like lying under a bench press. I can't raise myself upward or gain the traction to hold the thing better. I can just hold it where it is, spending all of my energy to keep from being thrown down to the gritty mud at the bottom of the water.

Luck alone is why I survived. If my head had hit the bottom of the water, I might have died immediately. If the second wave had come just a second earlier, my lungs would have filled with water when I took my first breath.

Luck. I'm not a career; that's my only chance at getting out of this place.

All at once, the thirst for companionship washes over me. The exhaustion is nothing to the feeling of being lost, alone, helpless. If just one other tribute was here with me, I'd feel so much stronger. For now, I am a discarded twig floating down a river, to be deposited in the sea or worn away until I am only dust.

Gradually, the foaming demon of the water begins to lose its wrath. With simply no more energy to tread water, I muster up the last ounces of willpower I have and swim to the nearest tree, grabbing onto the trunk for dear life. I stay there as three more cannon shots fire. I stay there as the sun sets behind the fog veil and darkness falls over the landscape. I stay there as the national anthem sounds and the faces of the four tributes who died under the tidal wave are projected into the sky. I have survived, but maybe I wish I had been washed away by the current, shattered and torn, then dissolved into nothingness.


Tallie Chett, District 3 5th Female

Olivo Trunks, District 9 4th Male

Florian Stone, District 9 9th Male

Secala Wade, District 9 10th Female


Remaining Tributes (26): Cordaire, Socket, Taure, Milly, Kaicee, Oshea, Laurisa, Bolt, Fusae, Coco, Telata, Katya, Silicon, Spurr, Maizie, Sorghum, Kenneth, Bryony, Desdemona, Othello, Gwenith, Elodie, Harvey, Liose, Demi, Ronan