Cordaire Stevens, 16
District 3 1st Female
We don't reach the cornucopia until early morning – which is entirely my fault, because my head injury dragged the group down substantially. But Maizie doesn't seem to mind. I doubt she was very worried about us anyway.
She greets us instantly after we step out of the water. "Any kills?" The standard career pleasantry.
"No," Socket says. "Cordy is pretty beaten up though."
"I'm on it," Maizie says briskly. She races back to the cornucopia and returns with a blue pill between her fingers. "This should help."
Naturally, I'm a little suspicious, but I figure it's a bit to early for career in-murder, so I take the medication without much worry.
Maizie hands us each a basket full of supplies. "Rations," she explains. "I put them together while you were away. I've been organizing."
She leads us to the cornucopia, where the once-scattered supplies are organized into neat rows. The walls of the horn being crowded with crates, racks, and backpacks, the center area is completely clear, with four sleeping bags laid out in a line. A surprisingly comforting welcome.
The pain in my head flares up again as I start to chew. Some kind of Capitol food that feels like mashed potato but tastes like chicken. "Any attacks?" I ask casually as I take the last bite of my ration.
"Not really," Maizie says. "But I did see somebody. It was late at night, and I saw a snorkel moving through the water. Then I saw the flash of his eyes. I tried to chase after him, but he got away. It was really dark."
"Snorkels…" Sorghum says, scratching his head. "Remember the big group of kids from the training center? The ones who always joked about using snorkels to spy if there was a watery arena?"
A realization strikes me. "It must have been a kid from that alliance, coming to spy on us. Either he volunteered to gauge how many careers there were, or his friends sent him off because they thought he was the most disposable."
"Either way, not a threat," Socket says. "They're expecting to face one career. Instead, they'll have to face four."
As if on cue, the noise of footsteps rises up outside the cornucopia.
We leap into action immediately. Maizie and Sorghum grab their spears and rush outside, their metal spoons clattering loudly in their tomato soup.
"Come on," Socket mutters, grabbing his knife. I follow suit, racing to face our weak attackers.
By the time I reach the bottom of the slope, a cannon shot has already sounded. Ronan's eyes are lifeless, Sorghum's spear skewered cleanly through his chest. The others immediately swim for their lives, but they can't escape Socket, who cuts open Kenneth's chest with two heavy chops. Panicking, Kenneth grabs onto Taure, keeping him in place long enough for me to leap into the water and slit his throat with a single fell swoop.
"I'll keep guard," I say quickly, racing back to the cornucopia as my head pounds.
Socket nods in understanding. Then he, Maizie, and Sorghum plunge into the water in hot pursuit of the escaping tributes.
Bryony Withers, 18
District 9 4th Female
Boom! Boom! Boom!
I stop dead in my tracks. Oshea looks cautiously left and right, scanning the stillness for any sign of a threat.
Bolt blanches. "Do you hear… do you hear that?"
Screaming, come from the direction of the cornucopia island.
"It's the careers," Oshea says. "Some outlier built up the nerve to storm the cornucopia and paid the price." He says it with such authority that I instantly believe it's true.
We stay still.
"That means the careers will be following! Let's get moving!"
We aren't in good shape for a fight with the careers. Just before dawn, we were attacked by a swarm of duck mutts that left us bruised and bleeding. I'm so exhausted I don't think I could swing my blade hard enough to break human flesh.
It's hard to find a balance between moving quickly and moving quietly, because none of us are very good swimmers, not even Oshea. We travel along without speaking a single word. An hour passes. Then two hours. No sign of the careers.
"Land," Bolt gasps, pointing ahead.
I involuntarily let out a sigh of relief. He's right. Just up ahead. The thought of rest makes a new kind of energy flare through me. I just need to make it to that patch of land, then I could rest my aching muscles.
As we grow closer to the island, Bolt starts to slow down, eying it suspiciously. Then he stops completely.
He drops his voice to a whisper. "There are… there are people on there."
And there are. Four tributes – girls by the looks of it, though one of them is completely bald – lie down on the island, their arms stretched behind them so that their hands are barely visible from the water. A bed of tall grass hides their bodies from being completely seen. A smart hiding place, but not perfect.
"Do we do it?" I whisper.
"Of course," Oshea says. "Move quietly. Reach the shore and then pounce. Just let yourself go. We have to act quickly.
I hear Bolt gulp at my side. His hand closes around his knife as Oshea lofts his sword. My blade, which is curved like a sickle, suddenly feels so much heavier in my grasp.
The second we step onto the land, one of the girls wakes up screaming. Before I can stop myself, I bring down my blade, gauging open her gut. As she writhes back and forth like a dying fish, her organs spill out onto the mud, her crimson blood trickling in little rivers down to the water.
I let out a gasp of horror, fear seizing me by the chest and freezing me in place. Only one other girl dies, falling victim to the lethal bite of Oshea's sword.
By the time the two are dead, the other two have escaped. We follow in hot pursuit, but fifteen minutes of searching yield no more victims.
Six hours later, we are drifting through the water, lying low and quiet as the sun starts to fall.
"Did either of you catch who they were?" Oshea asks. "I didn't really notice."
"Katya and Gwenith," Bolt says with a deadpan expression. His tone is hard to read. "The others are named Milly and Fusae. Fusae is the bald one."
"Well, we got two kills," I say. It's an attempt to keep the conversation from escalating, because I know Oshea gets grouchy when his prey escapes. "That's enough to make the audience like us."
"I sure hope so," Bolt says, but he looks just as nervous as I feel.
Othello Brooks, 18
District 9 6th Male
Boom! Boom!
"That's five cannon shots today," Demi says instantly. "Seventeen tributes left."
Something about her tone sounds accusatory. It isn't hard to see why. The number of tributes is now creeping dangerous close to twelve. Once five more tributes die, we're out of here. Imagine there are only thirteen or fourteen tributes left. Any kind of alliance becomes extremely dangerous.
I know she's never really trusted me, but I must confess having someone to talk to has been the only thing keeping me sane ever since Desdemona died.
"Yeah," I say in an empty voice. "Seventeen tributes left."
"Hey," Demi says. "How do you think they're doing the first stage? Are there six different games going on at the same time, or are they happening one after the other?"
"One after the other. Remember the chariot ride? The twelve survivors of the District 5 and District 8 games were sitting high in the stands."
Demi doesn't respond for a while. She just stares ahead with her cold black eyes.
"It's going to be a really, really long wait," she says at last. "We have to wait through four more games just like this one until we go back into the arena. It'll take months."
"Right now, let's just focus on making it out of these games alive."
No answer.
"Demi?"
She's gone.
Suddenly a hand shoots out from the water. Demi rockets to the surface, coughing up water. Her black eyes gleam with fear. "Something grabbed me," she exclaims.
At that moment, a thick, rubbery strand wraps itself around my ankle, pulling me under. For a moment my mind can't comprehend what's going on. I am completely helpless as the cord tugs me under, the surface getting farther and farther away.
Demi grabs my hand and helps pull me back to the surface, eventually breaking the rope-like vegetation. "Move!" she says, letting out a scream as another strand narrowly misses her wrist.
It's a terrifying game of tag. In my scramble for the nearest mangrove tree, I hardly notice the sound of the cannon shot. I heave myself onto the roots with Demi by my side. We stay silent for a moment, watching the green ropes flail under the water, searching for unsuspecting tributes to pull under.
"You heard that cannon, didn't you?" I ask.
She nods.
Ten minutes later, the victim appears. His corpse floats on top of the water, wrapped in a cocoon of the green strands. They hug his chest far too tight for him to be able to breathe. Though most of his body is obscured, I still recognize his face: Bolt from District 3. He had allies, Oshea and Bryony. They must have survived. But Bolt himself was not so lucky.
For the next several hours, we hardly dare to move. A silver parachute delivers us food and rope to tie ourselves onto the roots. Demi wants to climb into the branches and sleep there, but she decides against it because she doesn't want to risk falling back into the water.
It's a pretty nice resting place, actually. Just us and the stars.
At midnight, the anthem sounds, and the faces of the six tributes who died today parade across the fake sky. I fall asleep to the noise of water rushing under the roots – and the noise of the killer plants whipping back and forth under the water, like dogs waiting under a dinner table for scraps.
Taure Sooks, District 3 2nd Male
Bolt Reuben, District 3 6th Male
Katya Audrin, District 3 10th Female
Kenneth Spino, District 9 2nd Male
Gwenith Lissen, District 9 7th Female
Ronan Stuart, District 9 12th Male
Remaining Tributes (16): Cordaire, Socket, Milly, Kaicee, Oshea, Laurisa, Fusae, Telata, Spurr, Maizie, Sorghum, Bryony, Othello, Elodie, Harvey, Demi
