The College: Faults

~Oh, I didn't mean to let it go

I didn't mean to bruise but I lost control

And what she said to me it still echoes~

Marquise Clifton

It was still raining. The sun hadn't even appeared in the sky yet, just a few dim rays of light slipping past the horizon. But three canons had gone off the previous night. Three dead kids. All of them the exact type of person Marquise was supposed to be protecting. How badly he was proving to fail at that job. He couldn't save Persephone, and he couldn't save any of the others that had died while he sheltered in an RV to wait out the storm, either.

One-third of them were dead already, just two days in. Marquise felt the weight of each of those eight corpses on his shoulders. Eight pairs of grieving parents, families, friends. And yet onwards he marched, not even harmed. He had even found food and water in the RV, enough to last him another two days at the least.

He just wished there was some way to find those who needed him. There were some out there that he knew needed help. Jamie, the sweet boy from District Ten, was all alone. All three of his allies had died in the same night. There was no telling where he was, or how he had escaped their fates. And there was Sparrow, the quiet girl from Twelve, whose plates had been directly between those of Arkus' and Aphrodite's. And with what the arena had to offer this year, Marquise was unsure if there was anyone he would write off as above needing help.

He just needed to find them.

The streets were empty, and he was beginning to think that he wouldn't ever find anyone on them. They were unsettling to walk, even for Marquise, and with the safety that the indoors at least masqueraded to provide, most would probably be holed up for the majority of their time in the arena. That didn't help him in his search much, though. The city wasn't massive, he had already managed to do a circle around the edge of it and roughly map it out. There were the apartment buildings, the storefronts, the small housing area, the park, the industrial area, and then finally the area that he was mapping out now, which seemed to just be more stores and apartments. Still though, he couldn't exactly search door to door, nor did he get the feeling that would be something anyone else would welcome or look forward to.

The thought was just crossing his mind when he turned the street corner on the final corner of the arena he had yet to visit. And in front of him, an answer to his question revealed itself. A university, academic buildings sprawling out but at its center a massive dormitory that Marquise got a feeling had attracted at least a few tributes.

He walked into the central courtyard, glancing around the area as the rain continued to dump down onto him. There were pinkish white trees all across the yard, and Marquise took a moment to take in the natural beauty, though stopped short of full admiration when he spotted something beneath one of the trees.

The grass was damp and nearly washed it away, but the tree offered just enough shade to reveal the unmistakable mark of barely-dried blood. Marquise knelt down to the ground, and was able to make out something else interesting. The grass was flattened in three paths, all leading from the tree to the cement patio of the central dorm. Right in front of where the paths ended was a door, and Marquise didn't hesitate, pushing open the door quietly as he held loosely to his bo-staff.

The hallway reeked of death, but then again so did everywhere else in the arena. The rain had washed away the scent momentarily, but not long enough for Marquise to forget the reality of where they were. Still, this scent was stronger than anywhere else, and he only had to follow the stench of rotting flesh for a few moments before he came upon an open doorway that revealed the source of the death.

A creature not too unlike the one Marquise had fought laid on the ground, its head separated cleanly from its body. There was something different about this creature, the infection seemed to have taken further spread than the one Marquise had seen, but that wasn't the only thing Marquise took note of. Intestines and guts stained the floor, yet the creature had no cuts or marks aside from his neck

The bedsheet of one of the beds was stained a deep red, while the floor a few feet away had guts spilt and strewn about. In the middle of the guts and intestines was a tennis ball, and on top of that, a note.

Lock your doors. Keep quiet. Don't let your guard down.

Marquise set the note back in place, and stepped away from the carnage, shaking his head. That explained two of the bodies then, but still left a third unexplained. He decided to keep searching. If not for his own morbid curiosity, then for anything that might help lead him to the final member of the decimated alliance. There were three empty backpacks on the ground, yet only two signs of death. Jamie had escaped, and in a hurry. And now he was left in this arena with no allies and no supplies.

The search didn't take him long. Right across the hallway was another open doorway, and this one was even easier to decipher. Blood and bits of brain splattered across the window, and a shell casing was discarded on the floor. There were no notes here, but the message was clear.

Marquise knelt down, examining the casing and letting out a sigh, dragging his hand down his face. He wasn't there to protect them, but that didn't mean he had to give up, or that he had failed. There was still someone out there in need of him, and he was going to find them. He had to.

He stood up, pocketing the casing as he ran a hand along his bo-staff, shaking his head. A renewed sense of purpose filled him, and he refocused on a new, more specific goal. One that he wasn't going to fail. Marquise was going to find Jamie Curie.

Juniper Lourdes

She was still asleep.

Juniper woke up a few hours earlier, and had spent those few hours focused on three things. Three things, flickering through her head as she pondered on what she was going to do. Their empty food cabinet, her dagger, and Inesa Hugo.

Juniper wasn't a murderer, at least she didn't think that she was. But she was a survivor, and survivor's always adapted. Her current reality was simple. She was stuck in a worthless alliance with somebody that wouldn't be any help to her. Inesa didn't want to move from the house for the whole Games. That gave Juniper three options. The first was to stay with Inesa, which was as good as suicide. Even if Inesa didn't backstab her, the Gamemakers wouldn't take much longer to come after them.

Option two was equally as fruitless: just leave with her backpack while Inesa was asleep. There was nothing to gain from it. She wasted two days in the arena with someone and not only did she not gain anything from it, she lost half of the food and water they found in the house.

That left option three, the only option that made any sense. The option Juniper knew she had to go through with. So why was she hesitating so much? She had the dagger in her hand. Inesa was still sleeping. All she had to do was slit her throat, and she gained so much. One more tribute down on the path to victory, and a kill which would have the Gamemakers leaving her alone for a while, and the sponsors more eager to support her. All she had to do was slide a blade across a little bit of flesh. It was as simple as that.

She wished that as soon as she solved that little logic puzzle Inesa just dropped dead, but it had to be more difficult than that. Figuring out the solution was easy, acting on that solution was a whole different beast.

Juniper thought back on the last time she had faced a similar option. When the choice was to go to bed hungry or use what had been given to her to line her pockets deep enough to keep her stomach full, the action had been easy. Well, not easy, not at first anyways. That first step was always the hardest, but once she had dipped her toes into the water she was swimming in no time.

Maybe killing was just like that. You dip your toes in, and from there it just gets easier. Your hands stop shaking when you pick up the knife, your gut doesn't twist at the thought of the blood, and your conscience doesn't scream at you above it all: this is wrong.

Was it even? Who could blame her? She was doing what she had to do, what Inesa would probably do to her if given the chance. Only one was going to survive, so what did it matter if someone died from her hands or by some careers, or a mutts? If anything the death she was going to give Inesa was much quieter and more peaceful than the one she would get otherwise. It was a mercy, if anything.

That thin line of belief was enough to spur her into action. She took hold of the knife, a tight grip to stop the tremors in her hands. She walked over to Inesa, and blocked out her thoughts. She wouldn't let herself second guess this. No overthinking, no last minute revelations. She thought about nothing but the motion of the knife. Pressed across the throat, then slicing. Simple. Pressed against. Slicing. Pressed. Slicing. Press. Slice.

She brought the knife over Inesa's throat, and as the steel pressed against her, Inesa's eyes shot open. Panic rushed through Juniper's body, and the simple process was lost from her mind. She yanked the knife back, pulling it away as if she were a schoolchild hiding a hidden toy from her teacher.

The blade dragged across her throat as she pulled it, and Inesa's throat split open. Blood trickled out in a steady wave, and Inesa did nothing but look up at Juniper with dead eyes, silent for a long moment aside from a faint choking sound, before finally silence.

Boom!

Inesa's eyes stared accusingly into Juniper's. She felt the sudden desire to throw up, but stopped herself, looking away from the body and holding tightly to her throat, forcing herself to breathe. In through the mouth. Out through the nose. Or was it the other way around? She couldn't remember.

"I'm sorry," Juniper panted out. She shook her head, dropping the dagger to the floor as she ran a hand through her hair, letting out a ragged breath. "I'm so sorry."

She took another minute, focused on her breathing, her eyes closed as she went through the steps. Then, she bent down, picked up her dagger, and slid into her pocket. She took the backpack off of Inesa, emptying its contents and taking anything that she decided might be useful. A spare flashlight and another spare shirt, and that was it. That was the price of Inesa's life to Juniper.

She shook away that thought. It wasn't about that. It wasn't about a price, and it wasn't her fault. They made her do this, and Juniper was just surviving. It wasn't personal. It wasn't cruel. It wasn't evil. It was survival. You couldn't blame someone for that. Could you?

All the thinking hurt Juniper's head, her brain pounding against her skull as she took a step away from the scene. She decided that she needed fresh air. More than just a quick step outside. She needed out of the entire house. It didn't feel right to stay there anymore. She had to find somewhere else. Besides, she reasoned with herself, she needed to go searching anyway. For food and water, the things she needed to stay alive. That was all this was, afterall. Survival.

Talon Olympus

They went hunting as soon as morning broke in the sky. Nobody seemed to be in the mood for it, but they all reluctantly followed after him, their desire to leave the arena as early as possible outweighing their fear of the mutts.

Talon and Maya had chatted for most of the morning about them, trying to figure out what exactly it was that they were. They came across another of them while sweeping one of the rooms, and Ciera went running away screaming, leaving Talon to slice it clean through the neck again.

It was definitely fungus, they could figure out that much. The room that the mutt came from was filled with spores, and they all quickly slipped their masks on and continued their search. They were on the third floor now, and still hadn't found anything, and Talon was getting suspicious.

There was still rain outside, not as heavily as before, but still enough of a downpour that the Gamemakers wanted them to stay inside. So there was someone else in the dorm still, most likely. It was possible that it was Jamie, the last of the crippled alliance, but that didn't seem like enough to warrant a confrontation. Why would the Capitol want the Careers to find their favorite darling? There had to be someone else.

Udon was getting restless. He knocked down a door, hollering out and asking if anybody was home as he did so. The boy had complained when Talon took down the mutt that Talon had 'stolen his kill' and Talon was beginning to wonder if he should hope that the boy tried his luck against the mutts. His addition to the alliance was purely a numbers game, and with their opposing alliance out for the count, Udon's place was no longer necessary. Then again, Maya was the only one in the entire group that Talon could count as necessary, and backstabbing three allies this early was probably in bad form. So he would deal for a little while longer.

It would be a lot easier if Lana was still around, but she was still missing. Talon saw her kill at the bloodbath, and it was clear that she didn't take it easy. She didn't run away out of shock or fear, she ran away out of shame. It shouldn't have bothered him. She was just another opponent after all. But something about the idea of her being alone in this arena rubbed him the wrong way. He wasn't sure what it was.

"Fucking hell, this is so boring," Udon moaned, kicking a door open and lazily peeking inside.

"We'll have plenty to keep us excited if you don't shut the hell up," Maya retorted, taking a seat in the hallway and unwrapping an energy bar.

"You keep saying that," Nikola said lazily, sitting down next to Maya. "But this entire place seems empty. I think we found everybody that was here already."

"That's what I'm saying," Udon exclaimed. "We're wasting our time. We should be searching more of those stores. Who knows, maybe there's a few more of those revolvers out there."

"And maybe this time we won't waste the ammo," Nikola grumbled.

"It wasn't a waste," Talon said simply, leaning against the wall as he munched on an energy bar himself.

"Yeah, agree to disagree," Nikola retorted, shaking his head.

"It's not like we need much ammo," Udon said, acting as if he were holding a pistol as he closed an eye and took aim. "Just one for each of the tributes still out there."

"I'd save them for the mutts," Maya muttered through a full mouth.

"Psh," Udon waved her off. "Anyone who dies to a mutt is an idiot. Fuckers are slow, dumb, and loud."

"Be careful, you know how much Gamemakers love their dramatic irony," Talon said, with a hint of bite.

"Ooh, yeah, maybe there's even one waiting just past this door, ready to take me out the moment I open it," Udon said sarcastically. He mimicked the sound of one of them, letting out a croaking sound as he scratched at the door feebly, taking a few swings to pound on it. "You're about to die!" He shouted in a distorted voice.

Maya shook her head and Ciera rolled her eyes. Udon turned away from them and back to the door. "Idiots," he murmured.

He pushed open the door, and got it open a single inch before something leapt out at him, tackling him to the ground. Nikola reached for his dagger while Ciera and Maya scrambled back, and Talon went to grab his sword, but stopped short as he saw what- who it was that had come out of the room.

Lana was on top of Udon, blood staining her shirt around her gut as a spare t-shirt was tied around the wound. Blood covered her pale face and her palms, where three sharp blades were seemingly attached to each of her hands. The blades were dug into Udon's sides.

"What the fuck!" Udon screamed, and he said something else but it was lost under the sound of both of their screams as Lana thrashed wildly at him, her eyes rabid as she tore him apart. The canon went off, and she finally stopped, her breath ragged as droplets of blood rolled down her cheeks.

Boom!

Her head snapped over to the rest of them, and Ciera scrambled even further back as Lana's eyes went wide, still rabid as she looked between all four of them in a defensive stance. She slumped over, her legs shaking as she struggled to stay on her feet, her skin pale as she looked ready to collapse from a light breeze.

"Hey," Talon said, his voice as gentle as he could manage. Her eyes darted to him, still feral but now swirling with uncertainty as she took a step back while he stepped forward. She shakily held the knives up intimidatingly. "Listen to me, you don't have to do this."

He took another step toward her, and she lashed out with the knives, forcing Talon back as she pointed them towards him. Her lip trembled as she shook her head. Nikola shuffled in his place behind him, and her eyes snapped over to him, nearly crumbling to the ground as one of her ankles gave out. She limped backwards a step.

"Lana," he said. Her eyes went back to him. Beneath all of it, Talon saw her eyes wobbling with fear. Talon stepped forward, and she got defensive again, holding out her knives, but she didn't lash out this time. Talon knelt down. "Don't be the monster they want you to be."

She hesitated at that. Her knives fell down for a moment, then were pulled back up, but weakly. She stared through him, her entire body shaking and threatening to topple over as she shook her head. The knives fell from her hands, and she took one step toward him before collapsing to the ground.

Talon rushed forward, catching her head before it could collide harshly with the floor. He shoved the knives aside, and dragged her a foot further from the body, cradling her as her eyes struggled to stay open, her head still slowly shaking as she mumbled something incomprehensible beneath her breath.

"It's okay," Talon said, and he felt a pit in his stomach as he shook his head. "It's okay."

A/N: Short update this time, it was originally gonna be one giant 6 POV chapter but I decided to split it in half instead. See you all tomorrow with the finale of this chapter!

16th: Inesa Hugo. Throat slit by Juniper Lourdes. Inesa was a really fun character who in a normal story would've been really unique and interesting to play around with, she just had the misfortune of being sent to a story with like 6 other manipulative characters. It was kind of just bad luck on all their parts, and it's made it difficult to find room for all of them, and since Inesa was doomed anyways she was the most obvious choice to go here, especially since it spurred another character's arc into motion. Dreamer, thanks for sending another incredible character my way and for your constant support since the very beginning of this verse. I hope you stick around to see how it all comes to an end!

15th: Udon Chang. Stabbed by Lana Birkhead. Udon has been someone who's moved around a lot in my plans. He's been everywhere from bloodbath to final 8, but in the end somebody needed to die in that alliance, and he was the one that made the most sense for right now. He was a fun character and always easy to write, and I'm glad I got to have him around. Thank you AlexFalTon for sending him in and supporting me from start to finish. I hope you stick around to see what happens next!

Trivia(1 point): I'm having indecision about my placement plans, so I'm starting to get to the point where this is important to ask: Who do you want to see as victor?