Olivine Martinez POV

"You can do it! You can do it! Go, Ava!"

Marley and Lottie were cheering as Ava tried to eat her MRE. They were better than I expected, especially after I picked through and found the good ones. The beef strips tasted like dog food, but the chicken a la king was palatable. Lottie declared the spaghetti and meatballs the best and picked one for Ava. Ava had a plastic fork with a single noodle speared on it. She stared at it as it was halfway to her mouth- the same place it had been for ten minutes.

"It's so unhealthy. Isn't there anything else?" she asked.

"There's cookies," Marley said. She held up a bag of sugar cookies that came with the package. They were decorated like Panem's flag.

"That's even worse," Ava said. She looked back at her fork and tensed her muscles. She glared at the biteful of food and brought it an inch closer.

"You have to be strong for the alliance," I said. "You're going to lose weight anyway, no matter how much you eat. Every Victor has."

I could see the pain in Ava's eyes and I wondered what she was thinking. Did she already think she was a bloated whale, and every noodle made it worse? Maybe she thought we liked her now, but not after we saw how ugly she was. But of course, she wasn't.

I saw how brave Ava was when she swallowed the noodle. For the good of the alliance she would eat, even if it meant we hated her forever. Lottie and Marley cheered and slapped hands.

"Round two!" Lottie said. Ava knitted her brows and looked out the window.

"Shouldn't we check on whose cannons those were earlier?" she asked.

"Not until we've all eaten. And that might take a while. All day, if it has to," Marley said as she looked at the rest of the spaghetti. Normally, I would have agreed with Ava. If the pack had fought with another alliance and potentially lost members, it was the perfect time to attack. But this was more important.

Steel Keshmin POV

The pack was off our trail, but something worse was on it. It didn't look good for me and Troy, and it especially didn't look good for me.

"You should go," I told my only remaining ally. Even if the mutt hadn't been there, I hardly felt worthy to lead him. Cierra thought I knew everything. She would have followed me anywhere, and I led her to her death.

"Without you?" Troy asked. He sounded more surprised than reluctant. I didn't blame him. We all wanted to live.

"I'll slow you down. I'll be okay," I said. Nothing made sense anymore. I devoted my life to the Capitol and they sent a hellbeast after me. They killed Cierra, and there was nothing evil about her. They rewarded the murderers and killed their best citizens. Panem was different that the country I grew up with.

Troy looked at the door, which was shuddering under the dog's attack.

"I'll bang on the door so it thinks we're there. You sneak out the window," I said. I sat with my side to the door and pressed on my wound with one had while I pounded the door with the other. Troy started out the window and paused halfway out.

"Take care, all right?" he said.

"I'm not done yet," I said. He disappeared and I kept up the barrage until he was a safe distance away. When he was gone, I limped up the stairs and shut another door between me and the dog. I stripped a sheet from one of the beds and started bandaging my wound.

I'd been through worse. I clawed my way over a ten foot wall with nothing but fingernails and grit. I ran until soupy water surged into my mouth, then swallowed it and kept running. I'd fought cadets twice my size and gotten my ass kicked more times than I could count. I'd never quit yet, and I never would.

A parachute with a box underneath it blew through a window on a sudden stiff wind. I'd thought Panem had abandoned me, but someone still cared. I applied the medicine I found inside and planned my next move.

Victory Amarinthine POV

I didn't like being outside our hideout, but we had to find food eventually. Our plan was to sneak into the woods and find some plants. It seemed like most of the Tributes were in the buildings, so we didn't anticipate any difficulty. Before we got to the trees a giant falcon swooped down and almost carried me off. I stabbed it in the foot and it flew away. If we couldn't find any plants, plan B was to lure it back and shoot it.

We'd never had to deal with foraging before. I was in the pack last time, and there was so much food in the Arena that Jynx didn't have any trouble. I looked through half a dozen plants that all looked the same and tried to guess which looked the tastiest.

"Tori!" Jynx yelled from some distance away. His voice was urgent, and I bolted toward it. When I reached him, he was on the ground wrestling with Ash. He was holding his bow across his chest to block Ash as he tried to stab him with his sword.

"Hey! You can't kill Jynx!" I yelled as I ran up to them. I kicked Ash in the side and knocked him off Jynx. I stabbed him before he could get up. Stab wounds were tricky, so I stabbed him again, but as I did, his cannon went off.

Jynx got up and checked his bow for damage.

"Thanks. That was looking pretty bad," he said. It was dirty, but I did what I had to. Jynx shouldered his bow and we started to leave, but he turned back to me.

"You didn't have to italicize the 'you', though."

Ash Smith POV

I go into the Bloodbath and get whacked by my ally. I come back and get blindsided by someone else's ally. Allies suck.

Whyte Roberts POV

Our first parachute contained a sword, and axe, and... nail polish.

"Heck is this?" I asked as I held up the bottle. Floki took it and read the label.

"It says 'Silver Claws'," he said. I snatched it back.

"Shut up! Silver Claws? It's gonna give us cat claws! Let's put it on!" I said. Floki and I sat cross-legged on the ground and started painting.

"I just love this shade. It really brings out my eyes," Floki said in a Capitol accent. When he finished his right hand, I offered to do his left.

"I heard Taffeta say that Phoebus is seeing that skank Hysperia. Obviously Persephone is right for him," I gossiped.

"Oh! You smudged it!" Floki yelped in falsetto. The high-pitched cry coming from such a macho man made me crack up entirely, and then all his nails were smudged.

"Real nice. Now I look like a hooker," Floki said.

When we were finished, we wanderd around for half an hour like zombies. Whenever we had to pick something up we looked like the poshest of gentlemen with our stiffly extended fingers. When the paint finally dried, we were bursting with excitement.

"Aw yeah, time to smash stuff up," I said. "Watch me carve my name into the wall." I curved my fingers into wicked claws and dragged my nails across the concrete.

Nothing happened.

"What was that?" Floki asked. We looked closer to see if we'd missed the claw marks.

"Wait a minute! This is just nail polish!" I said. "It didn't give us claws at all!"

"We just painted our nails for nothing?" Floki said. They sent us normal nail polish? Who would do such a thing? Carnage and widespread loss of life was one thing, but this was serious. What was this world coming to?

19th place: Ash Smith- Stabbed by Victory

Ash was a welcome stable personality among more flamboyant ones. Tributes like him help the Games progress normally. It didn't seem like anyone was particularly rooting for him and he mostly blended, so I killed him. Being a loner is a huge disadvantage this time. At least he got his revenge on Mary Ellen. Thanks Calebbeers for Ash. He wasn't larger than life and he was a standard Career. That didn't make him boring, just a nice balance.