Time to lay claim to the evidence
Fingerprints sold me out
But our footsteps washed away
From the docks downtown
Samira Rider, 16
District 6 Female
Dove leads the charge down the hallways as we follow the lighted path along the base of the walls. The white walls have now turned a dark shade of red with a timer countdown on it. Giant white numbers have been counting down from 10 minutes, and now reside at 7 minutes and 48 seconds.
47
46
45
"It has to be around here somewhere!" says Elodie frustrated. "We've been running for forever, and I do not plan to die in space."
"Elodie calm down," says Dove plainly. She's emerged as the leader of our group since Maxwell died. When she told us about her color sounds, it was an interesting thing to hear about. I was also interested to listen to what my voice's shade is when I speak.
"I hear voices." says Elodie sounding nervous as we speed up.
All of the tributes are standing before an unusually small metal shed. The door is closed, and there is a large red ten on top of the door frame. When my alliance steps out into the clearing that everyone is at the timer stops the countdown, and a voice comes throughout the ship again.
"Tributes, hello!" says Alexandra Rabbel. "Such a pleasure to see everyone made it, and we didn't have to send the mutts out! I also want to thank you for following the no killing rule, this is bound to be a dramatic moment!" says Alexandra with an excited voice. "Now, here's how this will work. Inside the pod is ten seats. Once someone sits down and clicks the seatbelt in place, that person is off limits, and you must go for another seat. When all the seats are taken the doors will close, and those remaining on the ship will explode as the tributes that made it in the pod go to a new ship!"
"You said we'd just drift off!" yells the girl from District 1 with an angry tone.
"You will drift off," says Alexandra. "Just in pieces," she says with a small chuckle.
"This isn't fair," says Lenovo as he stomps his foot. He then lowers his eyes to Elodie and uses an imaginary knife to slit his neck. He then looks at her and points.
"Bring it, rich boy." says Elodie with an intensity that I've never seen come out of her.
"Tributes, standard rules apply...now! Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor!" but before she could even finish her sentence chaos ensued.
Like a bad movie, I'll drop a line
Fall in the grave, I've been digging myself
But there's room for two
Six feet under the stars
Alexandrite Renaldi, 17
District 1 Female
This is the biggest load of crap I've ever had to deal with in my life, so, of course, it has to be a life or death situation. I cannot believe the tributes that don't make it on this ship are going to be blown up. Never to be seen again, gone forever in space.
Alexandra screams go, and all of the sudden everyone becomes a monster. Before anyone moves, the first person to make it into the pod is the girl from 12. She buckles her belt, and the count from 10 goes down to 9 on top of the pod. The next person to attempt to make it in the pod is the girl from 11, but she is quickly grabbed by the back of the pony tail by the boy from 5.
"I don't think so," he says.
"Let the hell go!" she screams
"Not a chance." says the boy. 'You end here."
Arabia and I set our sights on Oliver as he is currently trying to sneak his way through the crowd of tributes fighting to get through. Asha has positioned herself at the door and is trying to allow her alliance members into the pod first.
The girl from 11 is surprisingly a scrapper, or maybe the boy from 5 is just a weakling, but they're very tied up.
The girl from 8 runs to the door and Oliver sees that as his chance to jump into the pod. Asha takes her fist and slams it into his stomach as he staggers back. Arabia grabs him by the back of his shirt and flings him into the wall behind her, and storms Asha at the pod, while the girl from 8 runs into the room and buckles a belt. As Arabia and Asha duke it out, I use that time to get a running start.
I begin to run full force towards the pod, and when I reach the entrance where Arabia and Asha are fighting I prepare to dive over Asha, but before I can do that something tiny slams into me. I look over and see the girl from 11 falling on top of me.
"Lenovo you asshole!" she screams as he makes a run for the doors and gets in the pod as Asha steps aside. Arabia has now fallen back, and Oliver is sneaking up behind her.
"ARABIA!" I scream, and she hits the ground just in time to avoid a jab from Oliver's sword. She turns around and kicks his ankle, and a loud crack fills the room. Everyone stops fighting, and for a brief moment, we all pause and look at Oliver who is crashed to the floor.
"Bitch!" he screams at her as we all stare shocked.
"That is why you would never win, Oliver." says Arabia as she lifts her dagger and hurls it in his chest.
BOOM!
"GUYS!" screams the girl from 10. "ONE OF THE SEATS JUST DISAPPEARED! DON'T KILL ANYONE ELSE!"
The girl from 12 ran into the pod, and Asha let her slide right past. The girl from 11 managed to make a break from Lenovo and dived right under Asha's leg. Asha tries to stop her from getting through by squeezing her legs, but the girl from 10 sat in the seat by the door and kicks into Asha's back, and she falls to the ground allowing herself to sit in the seat next to her friend.
This is the time to make my move.
Time to lay claim to the evidence
Fingerprints sold me out, but
My footprints washed away
I'm guilty, but I'm safe for one more day
Dailen Clervani, 18
District 7 Male
Absolute chaos is ensuing, but my eyes aren't in the pod or the number on the front. My eyes are on the girl from District 1 who is trying to slide by and get through Asha.
So far the girl from 10, 11, Ember, and Whitney are in the pod. Lenovo is on the ground holding his private area wincing in pain, the girl from 6 is just standing in the background, and I don't know where the girl from 9 or 3 are.
I watch as Alexandrite dances closer to Asha. She seems distracted by the District 2 girl who is weighing her options of how to fight through the crowd. I see Alexandrite pull a knife from one of the pockets in the cargo pants they gave us in the arena, and she brings her arm up to throw it at Asha.
"NO!" I scream as I take the ax in my hand and send it flying in her direction.
She turns just in the knick of time to hit the floor, and the ax continues to soar into the girl from 6's chest. Her eyes look huge as she sinks to her knees on the ground and falls over.
"SAMIRA!" screams the girl from 10 and 11.
I run over to her, and lift her head into my lap. "I'm so sorry!" I say urgently. "I wasn't aiming for you, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry," I say as tears start to well up.
She looks at me with a soft grin as she takes a deep breath. "You know," she says slowly. "My whole life I've longed for people to care about me. To want the best for me. How ironic is it I found it in a situation like this." she says as she takes another deep breath. "Thank you for coming over here. It means a lot not to die alone-" and her head tilts to the side.
BOOM
"YOU STUPID BITCH!" I scream at the girl from 1 who is still trying to make her way to pod door. She doesn't even turn around as I cradle the dead girl's head in my lap. I gently set the girl from District 6 on the ground and take the ax out of her chest. I walk over to the girl from District 1 who is currently crawling on her body to try and get ready to make another run for the pod. I grab her by the back of her hair, and she comes up with ease as she screams in pain.
I take the ax and run it across her neck as she gasps one last deep breath before I drop her to the ground again. "You killed my friend carelessly and without a second thought," I say as I kick her in the right shoulder, so she faces me when she's dying. "You deserve this."
Tears well up in her eye as she blinks and lets them roll down her face. She is struggling to breathe, and after a moment of gasping for air, she goes quiet and her cannon sounds.
BOOM
"GUYS! THERE ARE ONLY THREE SEATS LEFT!" screams Asha as I run to the pod and take a seat. As I'm running, the girl from 3 drops from on top of the pod and rolls her body into a seat that is right next to mine. Before I have any time to react, she clicks her seatbelt into the buckle, and it's Asha, Lenovo, the girl from 4, and the girl from 9, striving for a single seat.
Lenovo comes up behind Asha and grabs her by the back of her ponytail. She flies backward, and he runs into the pod. The girl from 4 burst into the pod at the last second trying to stop him from sitting in the seat. Lenovo wrestles out of her way and dives into the seat clicking his belt into the buckle. A bead of water falls on my head, and I look up to the ceiling and see the girl from 9 straddled in between two pillars as I sit down in the seat and buckle my belt. Asha looks at us shocked as the doors begin to close and she tries to throw herself in. The girl from 4 runs to the very back of the pod and throws herself against the wall.
As Asha is climbing into the pod, Lenovo slams his foot into her hands. She falls backward out of the closing doors wincing.
"NO!" she screams. "THIS ISN'T FAIR!"
"ASHA!" screams Ember as she tries to unbuckle her seatbelt, but to no avail. Asha pounds on the door as they fully close and the room is quiet as we stare at each other. The metal door turns into a glass door as we drift off into space and the girl from 9 drops from the ceiling. The space station explodes moments later, and a voice comes over the intercom.
"Hello tributes, congratulations to our top 9!" says Alexandra Rabbel. "I'm so excited to show you what we have in store. Ellis and Arabia, sweethearts, we'll do you a solid, so you don't kill anyone of these tributes in the pod as we pick up speed." Two seats fall from the wall and the girls, with a great look of relief on their face, take their seats. The two girls adjust the seat belts and buckle them into place. "To be fair to the tributes who got a seat, however," says Alexandra. "We're going to play a game. Whoever loses this game out of Arabia or Ellis will ultimately die and not make it to the next part of the games."
"Wait for what?!" ask the girl from 4, who I'm assuming to be Arabia.
"You didn't make it in dear," says Alexandra. "Now, Ellis, pick a number. 1 or 2."
"Uh, 2?" says Ellis confused.
The tension in the room is thick enough to cut through with one of our daggers as we wait for the results of the game. It's a silence that is only broken when the girl from 9 begins to scream, and we see the seat belt tighten around her body. As the belt gets tighter and tighter, and her face continues to grow a dark shade of blue, she finally slumps down. Her lifeless body hanging limp as the girl from 4 is busy trying to catch her breath as she's appeared to have a panic attack.
"Now, congratulations to the top 8!" she says. "I hope you're in the mood for a surprise, tributes," she says. "We have another space station in store, but this time it's on the moon!"
So this is shorter, but I mean, I don't really know how to go on for 14+ pages like I normally do when people are trying to get into seats. Plus, in the original draft of this, Arabia got killed by Oliver, and when I wrote it I just couldn't keep it. So I erased it, but I had her written down as dead, so it threw my whole understanding of the seats for a loop. I do hope you enjoyed this though? We saw a lot of death…and in two more chapters we will have a victor.
13th Place: Oliver St. James, District 1 Male, Killed by Arabia Hakim- Oliver was supposed to be switched with Delta in the bloodbath. As I continued with this story I realized I needed a stable career boy. He was good, and I liked writing him when plot allowed so, and I think he got his moment to shine, but his time was out. Not to mention his submitter never bothered to review or let me know they were reading. So RIP. Thanks for serving your purpose.
12th Place: Samira Rider, District 6 Female, Killed by Dailen Clervani- So I won't lie to you, Samira was my victor when I first got wind of the character. As I continued to develop other characters though, I felt I wasn't doing Samira justice. So I felt this was the right time to let her go. Sorry Sally! I love you friend!
11th Place: Alexandrite Renaldi, District 1 Female, Killed by Dailen Clervani- Confession time, I created Alexandrite. I got a lot of D1 female submissions, but none of them were what I was looking for. I was tossing around an idea for a submission when I thought that I could just write her in my own story. She NEVER never NEVER had a chance to win. I don't want people to be confused. She was a plot device.
10th Place: Asha Titus, District 2 Female, Exploded with old arena- Okay, this was actually really hard for me to chose. I couldn't let Asha get any farther in this story without allowing her to win, and I have a victor picked that wasn't her unfortunately. I kept her around for as long as I could, and I hope I did her well!
9th Place: Ellis Rowden, District 9 Female, Suffocated by GameMakers- Emma I want to thank you so much for your last minute submission. It meant a lot that I could count on you to send this in! I hope 9th place isn't to crappy of a placement!
Congrats to our top 8: Cortana, Lenovo, Dailen, Whitney, Dove, Elodie, and Ember. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this play out.
Announcement: Still waiting for more submissions for Home of the Brave 2! Come on, guys! I'm dying for some tributes.
Keep it classy,
Caleb