I wanted to be awake but it was impossible. Sora had dozed off not long after our kissing, exhausted by the effort of dying. Killing Alba had taken a lot out of me and the arena had taken its toll. I wasn't awake when Sora died, and I knew that as I hadn't been holding her hand when I had fallen asleep that she must have woken and rather than wake me, had chosen to silently slip away while grasping one of only two friendly hands in the arena.

The cannon woke me and it took me some time to turn and look at her as I felt her lifeless fingers entwined in mine. She had closed her eyes in death and I was grateful as it would have been too painful to see those large brown eyes with their alluring slant, lifeless.

I extricated her from the sleeping bag with some difficulty as I was reluctant to disturb her but I would need it. She flopped about grotesquely despite my efforts to keep her head still. She might have had something useful on her but there was no way I could desecrate her that way.

All I could do was take her out of the hollow tree and lie her in the open, at peace. Free from the Games. Hopefully she was in a better place. Whatever that place may have been…

I didn't take my eyes off of Sora until she had disappeared into the belly of the hovercraft. Perhaps I had been alone too long… perhaps kissing her had been the most enjoyable experience of my life… all I knew was that I would never have met her without the Games and I had given her small pleasure in her last hours.

The parachute drifted past my face and I continued to gaze skyward, watching the point where Sora had disappeared forever. It was early, barely after dawn. Wake up time during the Harvest. Millers enjoyed a wakeup at a little more decent hour but it was still brutal. I wondered how District 8 textiles workers started their day…

I knelt and took in the small tin. It was plain silver and the silken parachute reminded me of the bed back in the Capitol. I hadn't slept for two days in those silken bedsheets…

The tin contained what I knew at once was medicine. It had virtually no colour, having an oily look to it and the appearance of needing to be smeared. I knew it was for my sword-cut flank and I felt the overwhelming compulsion to throw it away and scream and scream and scream until either tribute or lack of breath silenced me. I didn't know if this stuff could have saved Sora… I only knew my mentor had waited until now to send this to me so that I wouldn't 'waste' it on her.

There could only be one Victor…

Clearly he thought that I had a chance and others did too, if he could send me this. That was more depressing than heartening because it meant people thought I was an excellent killer. Though my treatment of Alba and Sora had probably also earned me popularity. Brutal but kind…

It was the eighth day of the Games and there were seven of us left. It was considerable attrition. Some Games might be drawn out over a couple of months but some might last a single week. I didn't think these Games would last especially long.

I didn't feel like drawing them out. I had my dwindling supply of food and my spear. Others might have liked to keep to themselves, last as long as they could… I just wanted it over…

I wiped the medicine upon my side, feeling the pain I hadn't really been paying attention to, fade away. I should have looked grateful, maybe even said something. But the more I thought about it, the more furious I became. Allies came together knowing they would have to turn on one another. Sora and I had not been allies. I had only been there to watch her take a mortal blow and make her comfortable as she passed from the Games. Aside from a brief moment right at the beginning, I had never thought of killing her.

She was dead for entertainment.

I wandered back to the river and crossed the bridge. I left my cache of food alone as I still had some rolls and apples left. I did check that it was safe as I wouldn't have put it past the Gamemakers to have interfered with it. Biscuits and dried meat… As much as apples and rolls were starting to stick in my throat, I knew those rations would be worse.

I still had plenty of iodine so the water was still plentiful. I was in clover comparatively speaking. Every time I blinked I saw Sora's smile. I could feel the wire in my hands that I had used to kill Sulla. As I considered my rapidly healing wound, I heard that single plaintive whisper for mercy from Alba. I had slaughtered the tributes from District 2 and shared some wonderful kissing with the female tribute from District 8. The three experiences did not mesh, they clashed horrifically.

During the mandatory viewings of the Games, I had never really considered the mental state of tributes. Some had obviously gone insane or psychotic but others, it was difficult. I had wondered if the Capitol was working on a way so that tributes thoughts could be broadcast, rather than just feelings interpreted from their faces. I wondered what the commentators were making of me right now. Perhaps they were working the angle that I had enjoyed a brief romance with Sora, tragically cut short…

The thought of it made me want to kill someone but definitely not my fellow tributes. Only the Gamemakers, people in the Capitol… The president who presided over it all. I couldn't have been the first and I wouldn't be the last…

I watched the sky that night and saw Sora's face again, one last time. I wondered what she had looked like before her stylists had gotten a hold of her. With her big eyes and bright smile, she hadn't needed much work. Not like me. Mine had actually commented that I looked so very ordinary that there wasn't much they could do with me.

Seven of us left. The Final Eight's family were always interviewed and Sora's would probably now be answering questions regarding me. Difficult questions about how I had shown strange respect to their daughter's killer and then made advances on their dying child… The Capitol always made drama out of nothing. It was their job.

Seven of us left. Three Careers. One of them would be the victor. It was inevitable.

One of the things about the mandatory viewing of the Games was that it meant I knew what to expect in an arena. Some were incredible death traps while others were mundane. This one had been mundane so far and that was a problem. The audience needed their thrills and tribute versus tribute wasn't always enough to sate their appetites.

I didn't want to think about what might be lurking around, hidden away below ground or in the trees. Perhaps they would release mutts or fire or turn the temperature all the way down and make it snow. They could do anything they liked. In this arena, they were Gods.

Gods who kept their eyes on me. After nine days you found yourself picking out the larger ones. Most were invisible to the naked eye or camouflaged. Others you could see focusing in on you, the lenses constricting and dilating with a slight whirr.

The audience would be okay for awhile with the number of deaths lately. At the moment, they would be more interested in watching us suffer. I was okay for a bit, after today I would have to go back to my cache. My meat and biscuits would last me several days maybe… then the Hunger part of the Games would take hold.

I decided to head to the Cornucopia, either for a confrontation or to see what it looked like after the fire. I would have a better idea about how the Careers were holding up. Death may have inevitable but it was always good to know the odds. It was all about odds. May the odds be ever in your favour… They never were though. That was the point.

I was strolling through the trees like the most reckless fool to ever grace the Games but I didn't see why not. As the odds weren't in my favour and never had been, being careful or being reckless really didn't matter any difference; I would die either way. What were a few more days of life in this place? Maybe with Sora as an ally… I smiled momentarily at this wicked thought and then banished it from my mind because she was dead and with a single victor, one of us would always have been required to kill the other.

Suicide wasn't a frequent occurrence in the arena. We were all too young, too eager to cling to life… Sometimes you wondered if an accidental poisoning had been deliberate and the Gamemakers had just edited the footage. No one knew the truth.

My truth was that I wanted to die. And the sooner the better... I had already murdered two people. How many more could I kill? Who would kill me? Some Career with a professional thrust of sword or spear, a thrown knife maybe… perhaps little F3 would drop from a tree and smash me over the head with a rock.

It really didn't matter.

To that end I didn't even bother to scan the trees before strolling out into the open toward the Cornucopia. I could see from here that it was blackened and scorched. My fire had certainly been successful.

No one challenged me. If anyone was watching they probably thought I was insane. The viewers wouldn't know what to think; so far my boldness had paid off. It was probably my trademark…

The horn was filled with ashes, puddles of melted plastic and the blackened and warped metal of weapons. I had almost certainly left everyone still alive in this arena resorting to improvised weaponry to supplement what they had managed to grab during the Bloodbath and whatever the Careers had possessed while they had been out hunting during the fire.

Continuing with my recklessness, I climbed to the top of the Cornucopia. The route I took wasn't an easy climb and I would be difficult to reach; no one would be able to creep up on me without the sound of their climbing on the metal reaching my ears. If Sulla's leg hadn't been injured, this was probably where he would have stood guard.

It was foolish to be up here with my almost finished supplies. It would have been smarter to retrieve my cache and then come up here in case I was cornered by the Career pack and they tried to wait me out. But I doubted it. With nothing left for them here, they were doubtlessly scouring the arena for obvious food sources and the remaining four Careers.

I was rather familiar with the route to the Cornucopia and back to my cache now anyway. I could retrieve it and settle in a nook by the river before night had truly fallen. I wondered how I looked up here, with my spear and my pack would look like it was stuffed full of supplies when really it was just my sleeping bag which was a real luxury, especially as the other tributes might have nothing to keep them warm at night. The Careers alone probably slept by a fire. No one else would risk it.

The weather continued to be unsettlingly pleasant. Here I was sitting in a reasonably comfortable position, in a low grass meadow with an encircling boundary of trees and a nice breeze in my face and I definitely didn't feel like I was locked in a struggle to the death. If anything this was something I had never had; a moment to rest and relax and enjoy the world.

Even if it wasn't real.

I sat there for a couple of hours before I saw movement. I had seen ducks in the river and heard birds in the trees but I hadn't seen any ground animals and I still hadn't. What I saw was either M5 or M6. They stood out by the tree line, unafraid of me because I was too far away, just as I was unafraid of them. They were probably trying to figure out who I was and what I was doing keeping a vigil on the worthless Cornucopia. Well… worthless unless the Gamemakers announced a feast and then we would all descend upon it. It was a sure fire way to force a confrontation.

We gazed at each other for awhile and for no reason other than that I had tried to remain civil in here, garrotting and heart stabbing aside, I waved at him. For moment he didn't react and then perhaps because of the absurdity of the situation, he waved back.

It was the last thing he did. What was unmistakably M1 suddenly appeared beside him and I had a view of his throat being cut, a spurt of blood clear even at this distance. He fell to his knees and though it was unlikely, our eyes seemed to meet. What was he trying to convey? Accusation for distracting him and letting M1 kill him? Gratitude for a touch of friendliness before he was killed? Perhaps for no reason other to see someone in death… He fell face first into the grass and the cannon sounded.

With his bloody blade, M1 gazed at me now and then bolted into the trees. I knew immediately he was going for reinforcements. I wasn't going to stick around for three Careers.

I made it back to the river and sat up in a tree in case they were in pursuit. I didn't know if they had any tracking skills but if they did, perhaps they wouldn't be able to track me up a tree or even think I could climb one. I wasn't going far. The hardest part was getting the spear up. The only way to do it was to thrust into the bark as high as I could, scramble up and pry it loose.

No Careers showed up. I was safe until the fanfare played and I learned it was M5 who had died today. Six remaining, three Careers… their falling out was inevitable. They were probably only still together because their pack consisted of two girls and one boy. Two Career boys would have turned on each other days ago, especially considering how depleted our ranks were.

Six remaining. Eighteen dead in nine days.