Day 6

Ross

Ross opens his eyes on the morning of day 6 because it's raining. He sits up in his makeshift fort and looks around. His surrounding are all wrong. Rain is falling. The rain isn't violent or extreme. It is soft, but still steady in a slightly soothing way. The night before, the trees were covered in nothing but vibrant green leaves, but now, they are laden with pink and white flowers and blossoms. Their aroma is strong. This isn't right. Ross and Jesse fell asleep in the summer field. The trees were green and the temperature was high. However, they are now in the spring field, with the flowers and the falling rain. "Jesse," he says, shaking his companion awake.

"Huh?" Jesse groans sleepily as he slowly sits up, rubbing his tired eyes.

"Jesse, look," Ross adds, motioning to their new surroundings. This jolts Jesse awake. He jumps to his feet, looking wildly around him.

"How did we get here?" he demands.

"I don't know..." Ross looks around more. He notices a few things. None of the trees have moved or have been removed. They are all exactly the same size and in the same position. The only difference is that now they have flowers. "Jesse, I don't think we went anywhere."

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, everything is in the same place. The trees just changed."

"So, what do you think happened? Do you think the Gamemakers did this?"

"Yes, I do. We're nearing the end. There's eight of us left. They are probably trying to throw us off our game by changing the seasons," Ross explains.

"So, they made the entire field into the spring field?"

"I'm not sure. There's only one way to find out." Ross stands up, grabbing his backpack and slinging it around his shoulders. He picks up a baton and a pistol. "Let's go to the cornucopia and take a look." Jesse follows his lead, grabbing a backpack of his own. Jesse wields a knife and a baton seeing as he has no skill with firearms. The two remaining Careers walk swiftly through the rain. They stay extremely alert, scanning the forest around them for fellow competitors. With it being so close to the end, the other tributes must have an intense hunger for victory. They will do anything to take out their opponents. Ross and Jesse reach the Cornucopia with no trouble. The table has been replaced with the golden horn once again. The two of them turn around in a circle to confirm their assumption: the entire arena has been changed into the spring field.

"Is this good or bad?" Jesse asks.

"Well, if they change the weather every day, it'll start to be really inconvenient, but as of right now, it's just a way to get the tributes moving."

"So, what's your plan?" Before Ross can answer Jesse's question, he looks up. Floating down in the rain is a package wrapped in silver paper floating down on a silver parachute.

"Look," Ross says, pointing up to the item. It floats gently down and comes to a stop on the wet earth in front of Ross's feet. Him and Jesse share a glance. Ross bends down and picks up the sponsor gift. He rips away the paper to discover another gun. However, this is not one of the small handguns with rubber bullets that were offered at the feast. This a double barrel shotgun with two very real shotgun shells. There is a note attached to it. Ross holds it up to his face. "Keep representing our district as well as you have been. Sincerely, J.P."

"Who is that?"Jesse asks, confused.

"I have no idea, but they sure do believe in me."

"You only have two shots. You better make them count."

"Don't worry. I will. As a matter of fact, let's go hunting," Ross says with a grin. Jesse nods, and the two run into what used to be the autumn field.

Erin

Erin is determined. When she watched Jared die, a fire was lit inside of her. She found the motivation she had been missing at the start of the games. She is now officially ready to fight back. She had woken up earlier that morning and began walking. There is going to be no more hiding and being idle. She is in the top 8. She is too close to victory to just give it up by sitting in one place. She wants to find her enemies, and she wants to kill them. Even though she is only armed with a knife, she is sure that her newborn ferocity can carry her through a fight. To pass the time, Erin has been practicing jabs and swings with her knife against invisible adversaries. She wants to be prepared when she comes across an enemy.

Suddenly, Erin realizes that something is different. She breaks out of the spring forest and into the clearing that contains the cornucopia. She looks around and notices that there are no longer four different, seasonal quadrants. Instead, every field is the spring area. This severely confuses Erin. What are the Gamemakers planning now? The District 3 girl shrugs off her theories and begins to journey into what used to be the winter field. She has been harboring a constant form of adrenaline ever since she woke up. She is not in the least bit tired or fatigued.

Erin jolts to a stop when she hears a rustling behind her. Gripping her knife so strongly that her knuckles turn white, she turns around in order to discover the origin of the sound. Standing only a mere ten feet away from her with a smoldering expression and a baton in his right hand is Brian. For a moment, the two just hold each other's gazes. Then, Brian takes a step forward. "I bet you're enjoying the weather change," Erin blurts, trying desperately to scramble for time in order to form a successful plan.

"You could say that. Being soaking wet is definitely better than almost freezing to death each night," he admits.

"I'd probably agree with that. So how's your little alliance? Nikki and Conner right?" Erin nervously flicks her eyes around her. A couple of feet to her right is a thick branch laying on the ground.

"How did you know? You didn't go to the feast," Brian says, taking a second step forward. Erin holds her stance.

"Jared and I were spying. We may not have went, but do you think we'd miss something like that? It was pretty entertaining. You three did a pretty ruthless job." The knife is starting to feel heavy in her hand.

"One of us is going to win. I can promise you that."

"Well, it's probably not going to be you." Erin digs her heels into the earth and takes a running leap at Brian. In his surprise, he takes a wild swing at her with his baton, but he misses. She grabs his leg and, not bothering with the knife, bites down as hard as she can on his ankle. Brian cries out, kicking her hard in the shoulder to knock her off. With a painful groan, Erin gets back onto her feet and takes a swipe at Brian. The blade grazes his arms, cutting a hole in his jacket sleeve and draws blood. The boy grits his teeth and tackles Erin to the ground, knocking the wind out of her. She gasps for breath as she makes a stab with the knife. It plants itself deeply into Brian calf. He shouts out in pain. Erin pulls out the blade, but Brian sits up, whacking her hard in the abdomen. Erin screams, tears of pain already starting to form. She would be utterly surprised if one of her ribs didn't break from the force of the blow.

Erin drops the knife for a moment, reaching up and clapping her hands hard against each of Brian's ears, causing him to be plagued with a disabling ringing sound. She grabs the knife back up and scrambles to her feet, holding her hurt side. Slightly clumsily, Brian runs at Erin and grabs a handful of her hair. Pulling her head back, Brian starts to swing at her head, but Erin kicks him hard in the shin and then flings a slap at his face, allowing her to remove herself from his grasp. Shouting a type of battle cry through clenched teeth, Erin takes her turn at tackling Brian to the ground. He falls hard on his back. Erin wraps her hand around his throat and raises her knife, ready to deliver the finishing blow.

Claire

Claire and Amberlyn quickly realized the Gamemakers plan behind changing the seasons of the arena. They want the tributes to get up and move, looking for other tributes or possible the season that they were in, even though they would never find it. However, for the time being, the two girls are going to stay put exactly where they are. They are extremely safe surrounded by their traps, and they want to stay that way. However, Claire dismantled a few traps to make coming and going easier and three rabbits have set off separate traps. The two are enjoying their miniature feast when two figures walk into the clearing with them. "Amberlyn," Claire says nervously, jumping to her feet and wielding her hunting knife. Amberlyn finally notices the two intruders and scrambles to her feet as well, gun in one hand and hatchet in the other. Jesse and Ross chuckle tauntingly.

"Don't worry girls. Even if you put up a fight, it won't matter much," Ross says. Claire notices the shotgun in his left hand.

"Where did you manage to find that?" she asks.

"A sponsor actually. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Oh, so you didn't get a sponsor gift?" Amberlyn asks quizzically, pointing at a shotgun-less Jesse. This visibly bothers him.

"I'm not too worried about it. I'm sure I'll get one soon enough," he answers, clearing his throat uncomfortably.

"Not if you're dead before that," Amberlyn says. She turns to Claire. "You get Jesse, I get Ross?" Claire nods and the two spring into action. Amberlyn runs viciously at Ross with her hatchet raised. Claire pulls out a baton, and just as Ross is about to fire his gun, she chucks the baton, hitting Ross hard in the head, causing him to drop the firearm. Jesse whacks Claire in the leg with his own baton, but before she falls, she digs her nails into Jesse's arm and drags him down along with her with her other hand. Amberlyn raises her own gun to fire, but Ross punches her in the stomach hard and wrenches the gun from her grasp, throwing it off into the woods. Jesse lands a punch against Claire's cheek, but she retaliates by slashing his arms with her knife. He screams in pain. Ross pushes Amberlyn roughly to the ground and leaps for his gun. Claire and Jesse cease their fight and turn towards the other two when Claire hears two extremely loud gunshots.

Amberlyn looks down slowly at her stomach, placing her hands over where she was shot. Blood is running over her hands. "No!" Claire screeches, detaching herself from Jesse and running at Ross. Knife raised, she catches Ross by surprise and stabs him three times in the stomach, until she finally kicks him to the ground.

"Ross!" Jesse shouts, doing the same as Claire and running for his companion. Claire

catches Amberlyn as she starts to fall to the ground. Jesse elevates Ross's head and lays it on his lap.

"A-am I going to d-die?" Amberlyn asks shakily. When Claire hesitates, the wounded girl begins to cry. "Claire, I d-don't want to die."

"Don't worry," Claire answers, fighting back sobs. "It's going to be fine. We're going to patch you right up and get back to fighting all of these weaklings." Amberlyn chuckles weakly.

"Jesse, you can't stop now," Ross commands. Despite his injuries, his voice is strong.

"I'm not going to." Despite his best efforts, a single tear rolls down Jesse face and lands on Ross's hand.

"Stay on your toes, okay? Don't let them catch you off your guard. You could win this thing." Jesse nods, afraid that speaking will send him into a sobbing fit. A canon sounds off.

"No! No, no, no!" Claire screams, shaking the deceased Amberlyn violently. "I need you, okay? I can't go through all of this alone!" Ross's eyes flutter shut as a second canon fire. Jesse gasps for breath, still fighting the sobs.

"I'm going to miss you, man." Jesse stands, laying Ross's head down on the earth.

"Good luck," he says to Claire, wiping away his tears in the rain. The girl watches as Jesse leaves the clearing the same way he came, dodging the traps. Claire steps away from her fallen companion, trying not to fall apart.

Brian

Before Erin could deliver the final blow, Brian kicked her off of him. They continued to thrown blows and slashes, but no one is getting ahead of the other. Brian takes his baton and flings it at Erin, expertly hitting her hand and knocking the knife away with a sickening crack. An unbearable pain shoots up from her hand and all the way up her arm. With her able hand, Erin reaches down and picks up the branch. She swings it and manages to hit Brian with a blow to the head. He falls to the ground, not yet out cold. Not bothering to get back on his feet, he crawls quickly at Erin, pulling her feet out from under her and forcing her to fall on her back. He digs his knee into her stomach, prepared to punch her forcefully, but she rakes her nails across his face, pushing him away and this time jumping on top of him. As fast as she can, she repetitively scratches Brian's face and arms, drawing blood and forming several deep scratches. She stops the scratching and wraps her hands around his throat, trying her best to squeeze the life out of him. He struggles at first, but soon begins running out of oxygen and his arms fall limp beside him.

Just when Erin thinks she is home free, a golden trident pierces abdomen. The trident is pulled away and a foot kicks Erin's quickly dying body off of Brian. The nearly dead boy's vision begins to clear as he gasps for air. He looks up to see his allies standing over him. "We heard the screams and hurried as fast as we could," Conner explains, lowering the trident.

"Are you okay?" Nikki demands, concerned as she leans down next to Brian.

"F-fine. Thank y-you." A canon fires, signaling Erin's death.

"Welcome to the top 5, kids," Conner says as him and Nikki help Brian to his feet. The three of them walk back to their campsite and Nikki dresses Brian's wounds as best she can. Nothing was too severe. He is just very tired out from the fight. The three eat dinner as they watch the sun go down. Three faces shine in the sky, Ross's, Amberlyn's and, of course, Erin's. Brian breathes slowly for a moment, now fully realizing that Erin's face was almost his.

Author's Note: Here's a quick congratulations to our Top 5!:

- District 1's Jesse Klapheke

- District 4's Conner Hutchison

-District 8's Brian Davis and Nikki True

- District 12's Claire Morgan-Sanders