Inoculated City by Clash

No one knows what they're fighting for
We are tired of the tune.

Arena Day One

Ariella Saville, 14, District Twelve

I tap my fingers against my temples, willing away the terrible, terrible images from my mind.

It doesn't work. Nothing has. I shouldn't have stayed there, I could have been one of these awful scenes in someone else's mind. But I'm not. Not yet. I'm still here, but why won't the ones who aren't still here leave me alone. I'm not the one that killed them.

"Please go bother someone else," I whimper, not exactly sure who I am speaking to. I haven't been able to sleep more than an hour since I've been in this place, and that one hour was filled with more horror than every moment I've spent awake combined.

Nothing I have ever witnessed can hold a candle to what I saw yesterday. I don't think anyone can ever truly know terror until they've seen a life being taken away. Not only did I see that, but I saw that three times over. Three times I have seen the lively breaths give way to something impossibly still.

And now I can't stop seeing them. Replaying over and over in my mind, each time getting more and more terrible. Seeing their faces in the sky last night just made it worse. Made the detail in their expressions even more horrifying and the pain in their faces that much easier for my mind to create.

I open my eyes with a gasp, the image of the girl's body torn apart from arm to chest making it impossible to breathe.

What was it that my mother used to tell me to do? Counting details, yes I think that was what she called it. Whenever I was upset or angry, she would tell me to count at least a hundred details before she would talk about it with me. It always made me so mad when she would tell me that, but I realized later that she used the technique to get me to calm down first.

I try to focus, but the world around me feels so blurry that it almost hurts me to concentrate on one thing. I shake my head, picking something close to me. I pick a leaf off of the ground near my hand, forcing myself to examine it with every ounce of my attention. I trace every curve of the leaf with my eyes, inspect every indent and spot of filth on it.

By the time I have the image of the leaf memorized, I notice that my breathing has returned to normal. Just as quickly, however, the images begin to edge their way back into my consciousness. I swallow thickly, picking up a stone off the ground and get to work staring at its every spot.

Is this what I'm going to be doing for my last days? Memorizing pieces of nature as if they were the most interesting things I have ever seen. I toss it to the ground, immediately regretting the decision as soon as it leaves my hand.

I stand quickly. I won't spend another second wallowing in my self-pity, I refuse to. I have already wasted far too much of my time stuck in this horrible replaying of things that I have no business remembering. I absolutely refuse to spend another second in my mind when it's obviously doing me far more harm than good.

I just need a distraction.

For the first time I look, and I mean really look, around at where I am. It's magnificent. Truly I have never seen anything like it, or at least not from this close up. I've seen the border of the forests that surround District Twelve, but it's forbidden to go past the fences so I've never actually been this immersed in nature before. I'm sure that if my mind would stop flying it would be one of the most peaceful places I have ever been in.

I lean myself up against one of the trees, surprised by how sturdy it feels under my weight. That's another thing that I'm not used to is trees this tall. I remember learning that you could tell a trees age by its height, or maybe it was its width? Either way these things have got to be pretty damn old.

I keep walking, figuring that there is no point in staying in one place for so long. It's not like I have anything better to do than explore anyway. I guess I'll be killing two birds with one stone, stretching my legs and counting the details.

This isn't as bad as I thought. Well as long as I keep my head occupied, that is.

I have no way of knowing how long I have been walking, but judging by the way the air feels as though it's still heating up I assume that it is only late morning. Usually the weather evens out around noontime, then the temperature plummets by nightfall. I guess it doesn't really matter. I don't have anywhere in particular I need to be today.

As I venture further into the forest, the trees begin to thin out and I get this weird sensation of vulnerability as the amount of cover they offer lessens. I've almost convinced myself to turn around when something up ahead catches my eye. Against the blanket of greens and browns, the smear of grey stands out like a sore thumb.

There is no way I'm turning back now.

I pick up my pace, my eyes locked on the object that gets larger and larger as I approach. What I had originally thought was no bigger than the bag on my back is suddenly the size of a small house, then even bigger until I can swear it takes up the same amount of ground as the Justice Building.

When I finally reach it I can't help but look at it sideways. I'm not completely sure what I'm looking at to be honest. I want to call it a shack, but I don't think the word applies if the majority of the walls are on the ground. The best word that I can come up with to describe it is crumbs. The thing in front of me is the crumbs of whatever it's supposed to be.

Verden Arell, 17, District Nine

"So what's the plan?"

I smile as I flip over to see Vera looking at me. It almost takes the edge off of the morning, waking up to see her so eager. I was afraid that after seeing what it would actually take to win she would abandon the idea. Frankly, I was just as afraid of doing the same thing myself.

I made peace with yesterday, with what happened. It was chaotic and I could have easily become scared in the moment and gotten a knife in the stomach myself. But I didn't. Both Vera and I are alive and well to see another day.

Unfortunately, three is no longer the magic number. Losing Radimir was a shock to say the least. To me, he seemed even more capable than Vera to handle himself and do what we needed him to do. I never saw the fight, but Vera said it was the blonde girl- Eileen. I remember her name and Vera did too, she was one that we were going to ask into our alliance until we saw her teaming up with that smiley blonde guy.

We both wholeheartedly agreed that he was not going to fit in with us, so we left both him and Eileen to themselves. It appears that we were wrong not to ask her. She's proved that she's like us.

Eileen and myself were the only ones to kill yesterday. Everyone else was just in a panic trying to get supplies and beat it. I didn't think I would be able to take a life so easily, in such a spur of the moment type of way, but it was oddly instinctual. I'm glad not to have had time to hesitate, and now that I know I am capable I hope that it will be just as easy the next time.

"I was thinking a few more hours of sleep," I yawn, stretching myself out on the forest floor and closing my eyes again. I'm not that tired, actually, but I feel the need to lighten the air around us. Even though we know what we're here for, it's still nice to pretend we don't. I feel like if I dwell too much on it I'll over think it and the guilt will hit me sooner than I plan to allow it to.

"Funny," she says flatly, but I can feel the smile in her words. Vera is a nice girl, and that fact alone would make me think that she wouldn't understand my plan of self-preservation. But she is also very smart as I have learned. We talked for a few hours in training before calling over Radimir, and in that time I realized that she's exactly the partner I need.

Willing, but loyal. Willing to do what it takes to live, but loyal enough that I can be fairly certain she'd hesitate before trying something against me. A second of hesitation is all the warning I can ask for.

"Alright," I groan dramatically and heave myself into a sitting position. "I figured we'd just walk around, look for food and water and stuff. Keep our eyes open for any tributes that didn't hide themselves well enough."

"Great plan," she laughs and I feign a face of hurt. "Walk around, wow. I never would have thought of that. How do you do it?"

"Do you have a better plan then, Miss Strategist?"

"You know what," she says after a half-second of thought. "Walking around sounds like a perfect plan now that I think about it."

"Nice save," I say, rolling my eyes. Vera gets up and reaches into her backpack, pulling something small and metal out and shoving it in her pocket. It takes me a second to remember the gun, the one that we found yesterday in the bag she grabbed at the start of the Games. We both managed to get a good amount of supplies, but she got the long end of the stick with that gun. I'll just stand to hope that all three of those bullets are used up quickly.

I grab the machete from beside me and toss it between my hands. We used to have a bigger version of one of these at the mill to use when the grains would pile up in the gears. Not to say that I'm very familiar with the thing even for that use, but at least it's something I'm used to seeing.

"Ready?" I call over my shoulder, but when I turn around she is already standing there with all of her things. I quickly sling my bag over my shoulder and toss the machete into my right hand. I can see the gun making a weight in Vera's pocket, and she carries a small knife in one hand as well.

We're as ready as we're going to be.

"Wait, what's that?" I'm about to ask what she means when I hear it too, a slow beeping sound that I can't quite pinpoint. We both look around us, the panic settling within seconds. I don't think the unexpected is exactly something that is welcome in a place like this.

"There!" I say finally, pointing at a white cloth that is falling down towards us. Without saying anything else, we watch the thing until it settles on the ground a few feet from us. Unable to contain my curiosity, I go pick it up.

It's a metal thing, and the white piece we saw looks to be some kind of parachute. I play around with the metal piece for a few seconds before it makes another beeping sound and breaks in half. I flinch, almost dropping it but managing to save it at the last second.

"What is it?" Vera asks from a couple feet away, the look on her face enough to tell me her uncertainty.

I pull out two water bottles and two bags of what looks to be dried fruits, my confusion growing the more I look at the objects. "I think it's a gift?"

Merryn Celtey, 15, District Seven

"Dallas!" I yell when I see the blonde girl. I cover my mouth a second later, realizing how terrible of an idea it is to raise my voice in this place. I start running towards her.

When she sees me she is on her feet. I reach her just seconds before she has put all her things back in her backpack. "Dallas, I'm so glad I found you. I was looking all night, where did you go after?"

She eyes me up and down for a second before speaking. "I told you in training. We're not allies just because my idiotic mentor says we are. I didn't tell you where I went because I didn't want you to find me. So don't waste anymore time looking for me."

I'm speechless. I assumed that she was just under a lot of stress, that's what her mentor, Warren, and Cateline both told me during training when she snapped at me. After I couldn't find her yesterday, I panicked and thought maybe she'd been hurt and that was why she had not found me yet.

Tears begin to gather despite my pleas for them to remain stay hidden. "I'm sorry. I guess I misunderstood."

I nod and turn around, readjusting my bag on my back as I walk back in the direction I came from. Nearly every part of me wants to look back at her, and when I finally give into the urge I regret it almost instantly. She's gone, not one sign that she was ever there at all.

I whisper a good luck to her under my breath, hoping that somehow it will reach her.

As soon as I am sure that I'm far enough away, I let myself drop down beside a stream. Though it does nothing to stop the tears, simply putting my hands in the water instantly calms me. This place reminds me a lot of the forest behind my house that I would run through with Finley on the sunny days in District Seven.

Just thinking about Finley makes the quiet tears turn to sobs. I miss him so much, there's hardly been a day where I haven't seen him since I met him and now it's been at least a week. What I wouldn't give if this really was the forest from Seven and Finley were to come bounding through the trees to tell me to stop admiring the wildflowers.

How did I end up in here?

I cup a bit of water in my hands and bring it to my lips. I have no idea if it's clean, but I'm so thirsty that I don't even care. I spent all my time looking for Dallas and hoping that she would have a plan when I finally found her. I don't know how to survive in nature. I spent a good deal of time in the woods growing up, but I had always had the house waiting for me when I got back. Now I have nothing and I am completely alone. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to take care of myself.

I splash water on myself, but it does nothing to calm the panic running through my body. I only had one plan, and that was to get allies. I couldn't even do that one, because I made the choice to be with Dallas on Cateline's advice. I had other requests, from Jonah and one of the other girls, but Cateline said that Dallas' spunk would do us well in this place.

And now I'm just alone.

"Look, there's someone!" A girl's voice breaks through the silence that has settled around me. I look around for the source but find nothing. In a panic, I grab my bag off the ground and make a dash back into the forest.

Not even ten steps later I realize my mistake. I see the girl first, blonde hair and bright eyes that look familiar but that I also cannot put a name to. She points towards me and I take off without hesitation in the opposite direction, stopped not even three steps later when I see who she was talking to.

His name echoes in my head. Verden, one of the tributes that Cateline mentioned a few times because of his high rating and excellent conference performance. She said that he was one of the favourites of the people that were organizing the Hunger Games.

It's not even his face that catches my attention, it's the giant knife in his hand. I've never seen one that large, and it's definitely not something that is used for cutting vegetables.

I back up a few steps, considering my best option for where to run to. I barely recognize the words that Verden yells to his partner, but she grabs me from behind before I even have the chance to make a break for it. I struggle against her, but it's obvious I am not getting out of her grip.

You'd think that I would panic more seeing the knife get closer to me, but it is really the opposite. The closer it gets, the more hopeless I feel and I think my body just starts to shut down. I stop squirming, my shoulders slump in her grip, and the only thing I can feel is the chilly breeze that makes my tears feel like ice.

Finally I just close my eyes, the odd thought that this place will be the last place I will ever see. I think back to the woods behind my house and put myself there just as pain blossoms in my chest. I can't help the feeling of loneliness that pops up, just before the world goes dark around me. Even though there are people around me, I am still going to die alone.

Connor Leland, 18, District Two

I feel like it makes me a terrible person not to trust my allies after yesterday. One of the tributes, the big guy from District Nine I think, came after me when I tried to get closer to the supplies pile. I didn't even see him until Venice was already pulling me away from him after having scared him off of me.

I could have been hurt or worse before I even realized what was happening.

I owe my life to Venice and I can't even bring myself to trust him fully. Santana is a whole ther story. I don't dislike myself for not being able to trust her, she's hardly said more than a few words to me since we agreed to be in an alliance. Even though it was Pascal that suggested the truce, and I trust Pascal quite a lot, that doesn't mean I trust Santana.

I'm uneasy about fully trusting anyone, even if it would make my head stop running a hundred miles per hour every second of the day. Something Pascal told me, comparing the Hunger Games to war time, really stuck in my mind. Even soldiers with the same goals in mind are going to do anything it takes to protect themselves first.

Even though the other tributes are good people, they're still going to do what it takes to save themselves first.

That means that even though I can say with absolute certainty that both Venice and Santana are good people, I still can't trust them because ten times out of ten they're going to choose themselves over me. I can't blame them for it because I'm doing the exact same thing. Which means that I can't trust them.

All I could think about when I was trying to fall asleep last night was why I am staying in an alliance if I know there will never be able to be trust in it. I'm still fighting with the idea of leaving, for almost no other reason than to finally put my reeling mind to rest. The only real benefit I can see to staying is survival, which of course is the entire basis of this tournament.

Frankly, my mind's just a mess right now and I have no idea what I should be doing.

"It's your turn for watch, Connor," Venice whispers, shaking my shoulder gently. I open my eyes, realizing that I have spent the past few hours lost in my head instead of sleeping. I yawn and pick myself up off the ground, moving to allow Venice to take my place. Beside us, Santana hardly stirs. I'm jealous of her ability to sleep so easily.

I pick up my knife from under my bag and check the pocket of my sweater for my gun. It's my most precious find from the supplies pile, mostly because it's something I am used to seeing. I was trained for the war, and while so far that hasn't meant much to me here it does mean that I know how to shoot a gun and quite accurately I might add. I haven't let it get out of my hands reach since I got it yesterday, just the heaviness it creates in my pocket is enough to make me feel that little bit more secure.

Looking over at Venice and Santana, both lying on their sides and deep in sleep, it's hard to think that I could believe they'd do anything to hurt me. I guess that's just normal, for people to look so harmless in their sleep even if they aren't. It was the same when I lived those few months in trainee barracks. Every kid in there was trained to shoot someone point blank in the back if they were given the order to do so and yet even they managed to look like babies when they were asleep.

I jump when I hear the anthem begin to play. Venice and Santana roll over, eyes squinted but open to the sky. Just as last night, the Capitol seal is the first thing we see in the sky. Then, a girl with freckles, red hair, and a sweet, sad smile. I swallow the lump in my throat, forcing away the guilt that I feel for not recognizing her. She's dead, probably by some horrible means earlier today, and I can't even whisper her name to say goodbye or thanks or sorry or whatever you're supposed to say when someone dies.

As soon as the anthem dies out and the girl disappears, the other two are already all but asleep again. I shove my hands into my sweater pocket, fingering the gun in my pocket. It's funny how something so deadly could give me this much comfort. I guess knowing that I would have the upper hand in any assault attempt is a nice thought, even if it ends in something so messy.

The only thing that bothers me about the weapon is the knowledge that it couldn't possibly be the only one. There were so many backpacks, packages, and various skewed supplies. It's a ridiculous thought that I managed to secure the only gun. I just hope that whoever it is that has the others has even less courage than I do.

The terrible irony in this situation is also impossible to ignore, especially now that I am left alone with only the night sounds and my thoughts as company. I was trained for a war that I never ended up fighting in, and now here I am.

I won't let the peaceful trees and the whimsical breeze fool me. This is as much of a battlefield as anything I would have ever faced as a soldier.

Merryn Celtey, District Seven

Song: Inoculated City by Clash.

A/N: That didn't take nearly as long as I expected it to. I started this last night and it just happened and now I've been forced to update instead of waiting a couple more days. Don't expect updates to be this fast like exams are coming I don't even know why I'm writing I think I have a problem.

I'm super sorry to Heather for the death of our dear Merryn. She was a lovely girl and I very much enjoyed writing her, but unfortunately it just wasn't in the cards for her to survive much longer.

I don't have much else to say, so I'll just leave some questions down below for any of you who want to send me a review and make me really happy.

What do you think of the developing plots? Any predictions?

Who do you think will be the next to fall?

That's basically it. I'm going to say it again just because I can, but for anyone who has yet to check out The War Game on JabberJayHeart's profile I really recommend you do. It's a collaboration story that will be starting in the next few weeks between myself and the famous King of SYOT's. You don't want to miss it!