"The College: Lockdown"

A/N: Bit of a shorter chapter here, setting some things into motion. I've finished my two day vacation and am now back and ready to continue publishing a chapter a day of this lmao. I didn't proofread again btw cause I wanted to update tonight before it got too late whoops lol. Sorry if there's anything egregiously bad in there.

~There's no such thing as time to kill

Nor time to throw away~

Julie Novum, 14, District Three

All things considered, it wasn't the worst night of sleep Julie had ever had. Between the periodic screeching, the pounding on the front door that had gone on at some point, and the sofa that felt like it was filled with rocks - it probably should have been. Julie supposed that she was just so tired from what had happened during the daytime that nothing could have stopped her from passing out and enjoying some shut eye. Ty was not in the same boat as her.

Julie was unsure if the boy had ever even fallen asleep. She woke up when the sun was already high in the sky, and Ty was there at the kitchen table, eyes red as he stared in a cracked mirror, occasionally dabbing at a strand of hair and attempting to nudge it into place to no avail. Julie waited a few minutes, then realized he wouldn't be moving on anytime soon, and decided to help relieve him of his misery.

"Morning, dork," she called out to him with a long yawn.

Ty dropped the mirror on the table, and if it weren't already so cracked Julie would've expected it to shatter. "Well, it isn't really morning," he said, and there was a franticness in his voice that made Julie consider keeping her distance.

Julie looked out the window of their second floor dorm room they were holed up in, and saw that the sun was already beginning to fall, meaning she had slept in past noon. "Huh," she said. "Oh well, doubt I'll be sleeping much at night anyways. Some creepy ass sounds out there."

"You know, if they were gonna put us in a city, would it be so much to give us some running water? Maybe some toothpaste at least?" Julie peered over with worry as Ty continued to near-rabidly rant about the lack of toiletries.

"Well, it's a college dorm, I doubt they'd have any of that stuff here even if it weren't abandoned," Julie joked. Ty didn't seem to find it amusing, and so she quickly shifted her approach. "We can go search some more dorm rooms while we still have daylight, though. Just might wanna be careful, I doubt we're the only ones who found this place."

The college had only been a one hour walk away from the warehouse, and both of them had instantly jumped at the idea of crashing there. The academic buildings were all boarded up and seemingly impossible to get into, but the dorms had been more easy. There were some creepy vibes, but that wasn't really unique to the dorms. The two of them explored half a dozen rooms, managing to find a few snacks and two unopened plastic water bottles which they had greedily chugged. They were going to keep looking, but then that screeching sound had started up, and Ty swore on his life that he heard some coming from inside the building. They holed up after that, Julie catching some shut eye while Ty barricaded the doors.

"Besides," Julie continued. "We haven't even checked this place's bathroom, since you decided to board up that door too. Doubt they're gonna have shampoo and deodorant in their mini-kitchen."

"The bathroom is connected to the dorm room next door," Ty explained. "And we haven't explored that room yet. There's no telling what's in there."

Julie sighed, closing her eyes as she leaned back into the futon. "Something tells me if there was some evil mutt waiting in there we woulda heard it. They don't really seem to like being quiet."

Ty grumbled for a bit, but eventually gave in, his desire to salvage some semblance of his morning routine winning over his fears. Julie wasn't particularly worried. Call her overconfident, but she doubted that the Capitol would sic their mutts on them two on day two when they were probably the most popular alliance in the arena.

Ty pushed through the door tiredly, cracked mirror held in hand, and disappeared for a few quiet moments. Julie heard the mirror cracking against the floor.

"Oh fuck no!" Ty swung through the door, gripping tightly to his hair as he frantically shook his head. "No, no, fucking no!" He paced back and forth. "I hate it here. I hate it here so much."

"Uh, Ty?" Julie asked hesitantly. She slowly climbed to her feet.

"This place, this fucking place," he continued, giving a crazed laugh. "They're just trying to mess with my head. That must be it. I-I can't stand it. I just need my routine, that's all. Is that so much to ask for? No. No, it isn't. It's barely anything! But they - they just gotta tell me 'nope, not happening,' because it sure as hell isn't."

"Dude, what's wrong?" She asked.

He looked at her with cracked eyes. "What's wrong? What's wrong? What isn't wrong! I-I look like I just crawled out of a sewer, my hair is splitting and is a mess that I'll never be able to fix, I'm going to be looking like this for the next few weeks!"

"Nothing wrong with looking a little rugged," Julie offered weakly. "You look like a young, er, old Finnick Odair."

Ty continued on as if he hadn't heard her half-assed compliment, and she was almost glad. "My routine is gone, all of it. It's a city. A city! Yet there's nothing. Nothing here that any civilized person would use. There isn't even an alarm clock! And when I walk into the bathroom and see a tub, I think to myself, oh, maybe I can find a way to relax and have a hot bath. Maybe a sponsor can give us a big gallon of water, or maybe even there'll just be some shampoo or anything. But nooo, that would be too much. The bed is lumpy, the mirrors are all broken, the toothbrush in there is growing mold on it, the bathtub is filled with blood, everything is covered in dust-"

Julie choked on her spit, wheezing as she raised a hand, shaking her head wildly. "I'm sorry, what?" She demanded.

"The-the floor, the walls, the ceiling-"

"I meant the part about the tub being filled with blood!" Julie shouted over him.

"Can't even smell it, that's how much this whole city already reeks," Ty whined, collapsing onto the sofa next to Julie.

"Let's backtrack," Julie said, shooting up to her feet. "There is a bathtub in there."

"Yes." Ty sighed.

"And it is filled with blood?"

He nodded glumly.

"Like, filled to the brim?"

"Yeah."

"Is it real?" Julie asked, hopefully.

"I didn't exactly stop to check," he grumbled.

Julie took that as her cue, and wandered into the bathroom. It was as much of a mess as everywhere else, filled with dirt and grime and dust, and sure enough a bathtub too. The tub was filled to the brim with a thick red substance that let out a stench that made Julie gag and wonder how she hadn't noticed it earlier. She brought her shirt up to her nose, covering it as she leaned in closer. It may have been her imagination, but she swore that she saw something move.

"Fuck this!" Julie shouted, backing away and slamming the door shut behind her. "We're moving, and we're gonna find a place that doesn't have some sketchy ass stuff hiding inside of it, and we're gonna barricade the door and never leave. Fuck this arena."

"Maybe a sponsor will send me some moisturizer," Ty added absentmindedly, staring off into space and looking like he hadn't heard a word that Julie had just said. Karaoke contests and dance floors suddenly felt so far away, and Julie wondered if the sharp pain above her eye was a blood vessel popping.

She slung her backpack over her shoulder, dagger at her belt and flashlight in her hand as she began shoving the barricades away from their front door. "I'm leaving. If you want to stay with the demon hiding in the blood bath-" Julie paused for a second, then turned to face a corner of the room where they had spotted a camera the previous night. "Funny." She turned back to Ty. "You can be my guest."

"I'm coming." Ty sighed. He slowly gathered up his things, and Julie was grateful that the mirror was still in the bathroom so that he could only toy with his hair for so long before giving up and following after. "This arena really sucks, you know that?"

Julie ushered him out, then slid the door shut behind them, dragging a hand down on her face. "We can pass on the complaint to the higher ups when we get out."

Ty snorted. "Yeah, we."

Julie shifted her bag, staring at her ally as he walked ahead of her down the hallway, scanning the doors and windows. "Yeah," Julie murmured.

Vivian Ostera, 18, District One

Troy still seemed out of it. Things had gone quiet once the bloodbath had ended. There was none of that bravado and confidence from Troy like he usually emanated. He sat down on one of the crates in the center of the warehouse, a distant look in his eyes. Vivian hadn't tried talking to him. They may not have been as shaken up as he was, but it was still all coming so fast. The bloodbath was. . . gruesome. They had known what going into the arena meant, but seeing that level of destruction, the way that they were vaporized, it was enough to shake any confidence they had. And then there was the one body, the boy from Seven. They were indoors, and so no hovercraft came for him. His empty eyes had stared at Vivian for an hour before they finally took him and dragged him outdoors.

It was out there that they heard the screaming sound coming from somewhere distant in the city. Troy had come rushing out, battle-axe in hand and looking ready for a fight. Vivian didn't love the sound that they heard, but when Troy suggested hunting for the source, they didn't have any good alternatives. They were careers, after all. Only four tributes had died at the bloodbath, so that left a lot more that would need to be killed by somebody.

They hadn't found anybody, and late into the night when the screaming got louder and closer, Vivian had finally managed to convince Troy to bunker down for the night. He was hesitant, but eventually gave in, and they watched as the five faces shone in the sky. Troy offered to take first watch, and by the time Vivian woke up it was already early morning and Troy was still awake. When they complained, he just said that he wasn't feeling tired. His voice betrayed that lie, but Vivian didn't push it.

They knew what he wanted out of the Games. He had made it pretty explicit, for all of Panem even with his interview, but still they had somehow just pushed that reality aside. Now that they were in the arena it felt so foreign and unthinkable. He wanted to die, and in an arena like this one, Vivian wasn't sure that they could stop him if that was his goal. The thought scared them more than they'd like to admit.

Troy's spirits had returned as the day moved to a start, though, and that was enough to distract Vivian from those dark thoughts. He was cheerful, making jokes and telling stories while they walked through the empty streets.

"And so Loki turns himself into a snake," he declared, as if it were completely out of the ordinary.

"A snake?" Vivian asked, nearly laughing. "Why a snake?"

"Thor loves snakes," Troy said plainly, and Vivian shrugged. "So Thor picks up this snake, to admire it, and Loki transforms back into himself and says 'Blergh! It's me!' And he stabs him."

"How do you know all these stories?" Vivian laughed.

"Admittedly, that one was told to me by a kind man at the party, not from the book." He shrugged. "But I choose to believe him. It's very much the kind of trick that Loki would pull."

"It seems in character," Vivian agreed lightly, smiling to themself at the silliness of it. Here they were, in the middle of a terrifying arena where they had to fight to the death, and they were listening to stories from some children's book.

"Woah!" Troy said, and he let out a low whistle as he turned the street corner ahead of Vivian. They quickened their pace, jogging to his side and taking in the view with him.

"Woah," Vivian echoed.

Ahead of them a dozen pinkish white trees formed a semi-circle around an overgrown lawn, the outlines of a path leading towards a group of brick buildings that looked sturdier than most of the buildings that Vivian had seen so far. A giant sign was split in half, with pieces of concrete lying in a pond while what remained looked to read out University of.

"Never have I seen a tree like that," Troy said wondrously, approaching the trees with piqued interest.

Vivian followed after, spinning in a circle to take in the whole thing. "Crazy that they've stayed up, even while everything else in this city is falling apart and ugly."

"A good place to rest for a short while, perhaps?" Troy offered. He sat down cross-legged on the lawn, and smiled up at Vivian.

"Almost makes you forget where we are," Vivian murmured. Hesitantly, they sat next to him, taking off their backpack and setting it on the ground. They laid their bow and quiver on top of the bag.

The two were quiet for a while, taking in a sight that wasn't vines and rusting cars, and enjoying the smell of fresh flowers instead of the persistent scent of death. It was calming, and left Vivian with an abstract sense of longing for something they weren't sure of.

"I spent many years imagining the arena," Troy said after a while. His voice was soft, and he almost seemed like he wasn't even speaking to them. "I always imagined the battle. It would be a fierce fight, myself against many, and I would take down countless with me, but eventually fall despite it. Death would come quick, and I would open my eyes, and Valhalla would be waiting." He went quiet, a mask of a smile on his lips. "It was a nice dream, something so simple. Life never is though, I suppose."

"I never imagined the arena at all, really," Vivian said, and the words came out before they could censure them. "I just imagined the victory. I guess that was kind of dumb of me."

"Perhaps both of us are fools," Troy said, not unkindly as he flashed a grin that Vivian sheepishly returned. "Or perhaps our journey is only just beginning, and this was a necessary step toward something greater."

"And what would that be?" Vivian asked.

Troy just smiled, and shrugged. "I haven't the slightest clue. Maybe there's something that the two of us both have yet to discover."

Vivian looked down at the grass, brushing their hands through it as they felt their cheeks flush the faintest shade of pink. "Maybe," they said, and they hoped that the two of them could just continue to sit there, no tributes or mutts or hunting, at least for just a little while longer.

Inesa Hugo, 18, District Eight

Everything had been torn apart. Inesa was supposed to be part of the strongest alliance in the Games. She hated every single person that she was stuck in that alliance with, but the annoying week in the Capitol was supposed to be worth it when she got to ride easily to the finale off the back of a massive alliance. And then they all jumped off their plates. As if that weren't bad enough, Vesa got his throat cut open by the little girl from Two, and Udon proved to be every bit as slimy as anticipated, backstabbing her to join the other Career pack.

And now she was stuck with Juniper Lourdes. She supposed it was better than nothing, but out of all the people to survive she was severely disappointed that it had to be Juniper. Any of the others she could have manipulated, Troy or Udon most of all, but Juniper was worthless. The girl was all smiles and cheer during the Capitol, and now in the arena she was barely more than mute.

To be fair, she had been in a similar boat for most of the first day. It was hard to overcome the shock, and Juniper being covered in a good layer of blood probably hadn't helped her mental state. A sponsor had been kind enough to send a sponge that she used to scrub herself off, though without water she wasn't able to salvage her shirt and was forced to throw it out in exchange for the spare in her backpack.

The two walked for a long time in silence after the bloodbath, and didn't stop until the screeching sounds got close enough to them to scare them both into finding shelter in a small house. When morning came and they both woke up, neither leapt at the idea of going outside to explore some more. They had a safe place to stay, and as far as Inesa was concerned that would be enough. Let whatever terrifying mutts were lurking out there wipe everyone out while she stayed put inside. It wasn't like walking around accomplished anything. If she did run into someone, there's not many people she'd feel confident taking in a fight.

Her path to victory was closing around her, and the thought was driving her mad. She kept trying to troubleshoot, figure out some way to get out of the mess she had been dug into by her idiotic allies, but nothing came. A whole day, night, and morning of thinking and all she had was the brilliant idea of waiting inside until she was the last one left. And even that wouldn't work, because she had Juniper hanging around with her.

The house had at least provided them with some food and water. By the time they sheltered, Inesa's stomach was growling and her throat was aching, and while the kitchen wasn't fully stocked, it had enough. There was a case of six plastic water bottles the two of them had split, and then a handful of energy bars, a stick of jerky, and a can of chicken noodle soup. It would've been enough for a few days, but since she had to split the find two ways, they were already down to just the can of soup that neither of them were loving the idea of chugging cold.

"I keep waiting for a canon," Juniper said from the window. She was leaning over the edge of the sofa, chin resting on the backrest as she looked outside tiredly. It had started raining a little while earlier, slowly at first but it was steadily building up to a downpour. "Kind of messed up when you think about it."

"They're gonna die eventually, might as well be now so the victor can get out of this place as soon as possible," Inesa said, continuing to twiddle with her thumbs as she sat at the empty dining table.

"I suppose," Juniper said breathlessly, sighing as she drummed her fingers against the glass. "I wonder why it's raining." She paused, then quickly added. "I don't mean that in the larger, scientific sense, before you go thinking I'm an idiot."

"What do you mean, then?" Inesa asked, not in the least bit interested but needed something to take her attention away from the monotony and boredom of sitting in a powerless, empty house.

"There's clearly some deadly mutts wandering around outside," Juniper said. "The Capitol is all about ratings, so they probably want to see us interacting with them. Getting chased, having to fight them, being scared by them while they lurk in the shadows right beside us. Us just sitting inside and waiting is hardly good entertainment, and yet here we are, locked in while it pours out there. So why? Why do they want us inside?"

"You're overthinking it, they're probably just making it rain cause it sets the mood."

"Or maybe there's some people outside now, and they wanted to heighten the tension by making it dark and rainy. Sure, it's possible." Juniper stopped, the tapping on the glass quickening until it suddenly stopped, and Juniper spun around in her seat. "Or they know with an arena this big, this filled with mutts, the odds of getting tributes in the same spot is unlikely. So if they got a chance to lock people in the same building as each other without them knowing it. . . ."

Juniper trailed off, then slowly looked back to the window, a curious shine in her eyes. Inesa coughed. "I assume you don't mean that someone's in the house with us," she said, halfway serious.

She shook her head. "Doubt it, though they might be trying to get us stir crazy so we move out when the rain stops. Probably not a bad idea to do that, anyways." She hummed to herself. "No, I think there's something else going on out there. There's some people out there that are a lot closer to each other than they probably realize."

"Well, hopefully we start hearing some canons soon then," Inesa said, picking at her nails.

"Yeah," Juniper said. She went quiet for a long moment. "I guess we do hope for that, don't we?"

A/N: Enjoy this chapter without death, and prepare yourself for the storm that is coming lol. I'm trying something new where I split Games chapters into "chapters." So "The College" will be a chapter focusing on what happens there. What that means is that certain characters will get a ton of focus for a few chapters, then might disappear for a bit. I thought it seems fun so I'm giving it a shot, we'll see how it goes. Next update will be Night Two, which will be the conclusion of this chapter. See you all then!

PS: We haven't yet seen everyone that's at the college. . . .

Trivia(1 point): They don't think it be like it is.