District 12: Remi Gardner (17) Pov-

The morning wind rustles through the trees, creating a jarring hum that chills me to the bone. It's almost like the rustling fronds are singing, casting a sense of foreboding over the scene. I can't shake it out of my head that danger is coming.

This is going to make me sound like some kind of nature-loving hippy, but I'm absolutely convinced the trees can predict the future. All the years I've hunted in the woods to keep my family alive have taught me that there are so many different kinds of wind. The light, warm ones mean that prey is near. The sweet-smelling winds signal it's about to rain. And the harsh, cold, biting ones tell as clear as crystal that something bad is about to happen.

I sit up in my sleeping bag. The sun's first rays of the new day illuminate our hilltop home. I suppose the first order of business is to make sure we haven't been robbed, whether by tribute or mutt.

I peer down at my arm, where I scribbled down a list of all of our supplies using a pen some sponsor sent me for whatever reason.

For weapons: our pocketknife, our fold-up spear, and my machete. Check, check, check. The wind has blown morning dew over their blades so that they shine somewhat. But not in a pretty way. The wind is making everything way more terrifying.

And for food: the small package of cheese and the head of lettuce. It doesn't seem like a lot on paper, but I have to remind myself that we also have the raspberry bush a ways south.

I eat about half of the cheese package before waking Adelia.

"What?" she asks, rolling over in her sleeping bag.

"We need to get up bright and early," I explain. "Before the others are up."

"Come on, girl," Adelia says, moving slightly out of her sleeping bag. "We don't have school. We're in the Hunger Games. It's like… eternal Saturday. At least let me sleep in."

"Fine," I say, slightly disappointed. "I'll just gather some more raspberries, and, if you get hungry, you can finish the cheese or start on the lettuce."

Adelia nods, and I quietly scamper south toward the raspberry bush.

It's mere minutes before I come to my first mark—a pile of three stones I assembled yesterday, sitting near a small pond. I've never drunk from the pond, mainly because Adelia and I don't have any iodine capsules. Besides, we get enough water intake from the raspberries.

I arrive at the berry bush about a quarter of an hour later. Actually, bush might not be the right word. It's more of a grove. Ten or twelve different plants bearing the bright-red fruit surround a thin, tall willow tree.

In a few minutes, my pockets are bursting at the seams. I gorge as many of the berries as I can and then pile them up in my hands before venturing back to camp. Being a 12 girl, I have a pretty good since of direction. Even without retracing my markings, I make progress back home remarkably quickly.

An earsplitting scream rings from the direction of our camp.

My stomach sinks into my waist, and my heartrate seems to double. Adelia is in trouble.

"Stop it! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Adelia's screams can be heard even from my distance.

"I'M COMING!" I scream. "STAY WHERE YOU ARE!"

I burst onto the scene and find myself greeted with a particularly odd sight. Three creatures with the upper bodies of men and lower bodies of horses—centaurs—crowd around my ally, each holding bows and aiming directly at Adelia.

I reach for my machete, only to realize I left it behind. I spot it next to the writhing 11 girl, shining in the ever-brightening sunlight.

Well, drastic times call for drastic measures. I hurl one handful of berries at the nearest centaur as if in an attempt to distract it, but it pays no notice to me.

The centaurs draw close to Adelia, and her screams grow louder. They release their arrows.

"No!"

But it's too late. Three of the arrows land in her body—one in her neck, one in her torso, one in her leg.

Her cannon shot is loud.

Once, when I was hunting, I was perched in the bough of a tall tree, watching a deer, when the branch snapped and I fell twenty feet to the ground. I wasn't injured, luckily, but this is the only time since I've felt that feeling of complete anguish—like fire is raging through my body, like I can't form a single conscious thought because I'm so shocked.

I turn to run.

One of the centaur mutts lets out a kind of battle cry behind my back, but I don't turn around. Completely defenseless, I race over the foliage, breathing having seemingly accelerated tenfold. I have to get away from those horrid mutts no matter what I have to do.

The thought of Adelia's lifeless corpse, like a candle with a flame blown out, powers me forward. Eventually, the cries of the centaurs fade further and further. I think I've lost them.

Shaking fiercely, I drop with exhaustion in a sunlit patch of bushes. My entire body is on fire. I'm going to die from this pain. My arms and legs are going to explode. Hey, what's that shadow moving closer…?

I can't help but let out a scream. The muscular District 2 boy towers over me, holding a glistening sword: three feet of deadly iron. Just beyond him is the cornucopia—aw, darn, I was running straight toward the cornucopia! Couldn't I have spared an instant to pick a better direction before fleeing senselessly?

But I don't have any time to brood over my bad decision. The 2 boy thrusts his sword into my gut. White-hot pain fires through my body, worse than I've ever felt before. Every cell in my body is about to explode. Please let this pain go away. Or better yet, let me die right here on the forest floor.

The last thing I see is the blade of his weapon as it cuts into my neck. Then it's lights out for good.

District 9: Luc Everett (16) Pov-

I pull the tightly-wrapped cube of cheese out of my pack, stomach rumbling with hunger. At first I'm apprehensive about eating it; besides my apple, it's the only food I grabbed from the horn yesterday. I should save it for when I need it more. But I figure that I won't ever make it that far if I starve to death this early in the games.

I score up the dirt with my foot and coat a layer of earth over the wrapper. The taste of the cheese in my mouth is almost heavenly.

My hands reach out and pull aside the curtain of branches that have hidden me from sight for the entire night. Immediately, the nearby stream comes into view. I can't bear to leave anything behind in case I can't find my way back, so I shove all of my things into my pack except my hunting knives (I keep them in my hands, just in case) and tread quietly to the riverside.

I cup my hands and scoop out a handful of cool water which I use to wipe the grime off of my hands and face.

I stand up to walk back to my camp, but something catches my eye—or many things, rather. The green plants with pink blossoms dotting the riverside. The harsh morning breeze throws itself over me, picking up the scent of the blossoms and flooding my nose with the aroma of something flowery I might have smelled in my parents' kitchen back home back in 9.

Before I can stop myself, I've kneeled by the blossoms and picked four of them. It's like being in heaven to sniff them up-close. I put them close to my mouth without thinking about it.

Do I eat them? Do I dare? The plants could be poison. They could be some drug that'll make me go crazy. They could…

Too late. I've already shoved them in my mouth, and it instantly floods with saliva. Before I can stop myself, I've stuffed my face full of the petals. The world instantly looks brighter now that my stomach is full. Says a lot about my upbringing if you think about it.

District 11: Jaro Veldt (15) Pov-

The moving boulder haunts my nightmares. I know it's the stupidest thing imaginable, but the way I see it there are only two possibilities. The first is that the boulder moved almost half a mile while I wasn't looking. I can't seem to shake the image out of my head of it having sprouted legs like a mutant spider to follow behind me. And the second possibility is that it was a different boulder that I saw the second time. My handprint on the surface was left by another tribute.

And I suppose there's a third possibility. I'm literally going crazy.

I come to a stop in a cluster of tall, thin trees before setting down my trifecta of supplies: my sleeping bag, my pocketknife, and, of course, my yo-yo.

It takes a surprisingly short time for me to find food. About a quarter mile away from where I settled there's a tree bearing bright-orange fruit; peaches. Fortunately, being from 11 has at least one advantage: I have a knack for recognizing what's edible and what's not—what I can trust and what I can't.

I eat two peaches and shove two more into my pockets before returning to my camp. Given that I have food and water (there's a pond about twenty feet away that I sip from to quench my thirst) my next order of business is making shelter.

And there's only one way to do that. The hardcore way. Gathering branches and stacking them like logs.

I trim my nails with a sharp rock and start to search for sticks when I spot something. Inside of my yo-yo, there's a red flash. It only lasts for an instant, but it only takes that long for me to figure out there's more to the plastic toy than meets the eye. I find the yo-yo breaks in half as smoothly as silk, and inside is a compass with a hand that wiggles slightly as it points dutifully north.

Deaths this Chapter:

15th: Adelia Faye, District 11 Female – Shot with arrows, by centaur mutts

When I first read Adelia's form I didn't have a solid opinion on her. She seemed a bit cliché having lots of younger siblings in a poor district, but there was more to her than being a carbon copy of Katniss Everdeen. I liked how she was the studious one of her family but unfortunately most of her personality traits were obscured by the stress of the pre-games. Sadly she never made it far enough to see her family again D:

14th: Remi Gardner, District 12 Female – Stabbed with sword, by Nero

Remi, Remi, Remi. This girl was the source of some fun scenes, no doubt. Like her ally Adelia I at first felt she was one of the million Katniss clones out there, especially being female and from District 12, but even so I liked how… is cunning even the right word? Mysterious. Always brimming with ambition. If her creator is reading this, sorry for your loss. I hope her family can manage to put food on the table without her. If not, I use my secret author powers to send them a lifetime's worth. Oh, and one other thing. I know her death was a little rushed, but the characters will discuss it more later to make up for the brevity.

Alliances:

Careers: Declan, Nero, Jaehaera

Jack and Jill: Cerise, Erik

Loners (For Now): Pixel, Dory, Adelaide, Lincoln, Luc, Mavvi, Orford, Jaro

A/N: I am terribly, awfully sorry for the terribly, awfully long wait for this chapter. Between family obligations, schoolwork, and composing my clarinet sonata, time to write has been slim to none. I'm just glad I got this out before I leave for vacation in a few days. And so two more tributes are down! With Remi's death District 12 is now the second district to lose both of its tributes, after District 8.

Sponsoring is now open! For those of you who haven't seen the rules yet they're pretty simple. You can only sponsor a tribute in a chapter that contains their Pov (so for now you can only sponsor Luc and Jaro). If you want to sponsor a different tribute you'll have to wait until a chapter with their Pov. The note is a maximum of three words by default, but you can make it longer if you need to by paying more points (see the bottom of the sponsor system for exact prices). You have twenty-four hours from the posting of this chapter to PM me or review if you want to sponsor one of these two gentlemen.

And finally, the winner of last chapter's random competition was Sparky She-Demon! Congrats to them.

Question: If you could save Finnick, Prim, or Rue from death, who would it be?