As always, enjoy!
Destiny Valentina (District 4)
My eyes leave the sky as the small face of a 12 year old from District 12 disappears forever and I allow myself to feel the ache in my legs after the hours spent traveling. I have no way of knowing for sure how far I am from the other tributes, but I feel relatively safe for the moment. That is, until snow starts dumping from the sky or wild cats appear to skin me alive or something like that, but for now I think the Capitol is satisfied with the amount of bloodshed they've seen. My stomach turns at the thought and my mind takes me back to the cornucopia.
I trained for these games, yes, but I never planned on volunteering. I planned even less on being reaped from the pool of girls from the fishing district. Wanting to be here is almost as dumb as the people who end up volunteering. Now my life depends on winning these games and, well, I never was the betting type.
Back at the bloodbath, I was the first to the cornucopia, scooping up supplies right and left. I really had no idea who was behind me; otherwise I would've hesitated before slashing violently at the girl from District 7 with a machete. I remember her falling, how she didn't even scream, just crumpled to the ground and lay there dying while I held the weapon that ended her life. It was all I could do not to vomit. I ran through the clearing where we started and headed to the woods immediately, guilt following me as no tribute possibly could. I crouch down and open my pack, trying to shake the dead girl from my mind.
My high expectations are met when I see my bounty. The medium black pack from the very mouth of the cornucopia holds a silver thermos made of some type of altered, Capitol metal. I've been in the cold for hours now, but it is still warm to the touch. Besides the bottle, I find a large bag of dried beef, a coil of sleek wire, matches, some iodine, and another jacket. All of that, my machete and a wool blanket I snatched up help to put my mind at ease.
I wipe my bloody sword on a dense evergreen and wash what's left with snow as night sets in. The temperature starts to freefall downwards and I think to myself that probably everyone who isn't from 1, 2 or 4 is in for a very long night.
Dawn Corto (District 6)
The small beam of my flashlight leads my way through the free falling snow as I keep slowly heading up the mountain, surely leaving a trail of thick blood behind me. I was doing well, only going for a blanket and a handful of other small supplies, until the boy from District 1 shot me in the back as I turned and ran. His arrow pierced me just below the right shoulder blade and, god, it hurt. If he can't follow the blood that still flows freely, the tears and sluggish footprints I leave behind will surely attract him.
I think back to my mentor and mother's only advice to me: hide. That's how she won, how most tributes win if they aren't a career. She probably could've elaborated, given me some life saving tip that would push me through this nightmare and back home, but she was already on her way to a place far away, farther than even the Capitol's best hovercrafts could reach. Morphling was her choice of transportation there.
I stumble over the frost touched rocks and lose it completely, falling to the ground and whimpering in pain. Pain from my disgusting wound and where my head hit the ground but especially from the hole where a loving mother should rest. Snow starts to pile on top of me, a hoary grave six feet too shallow.
I can't do it, I-I just can't. It's cold, so dang cold and no one cares about my life anyways. In fact, I'm just thinking about how long it would take me to die right on that patch of ice when I hear it- a sponsor gift! Right now I was probably receiving some life saving medicine or drink and I know my mother has not given up on me. Snow whips me in the face as I rise to my knees. I turn and see my parachute. It doesn't bring me medicine or food or even a pair of gloves; it brings death.
The boy who shot me walks forward with an ally close behind him, snow whipping his ashen hair. I know what's coming, but my legs are too frozen, my back too sore, and his smooth, confident features too sure to do anything but continue to kneel before him. I'm helpless as he pulls another dark arrow from the sheath on his back and sets it in his bow. He stops a few feet away from me to take me in, the powerful hawk circling a lowly field mouse. The tall boy behind him shifts his feet impatiently and that sneer-faced boy he lets his arrow fly.
The pain is unimaginable. I live long enough to feel him rip the arrow from my neck and see a cascade of crimson blood pour out of me. I hope my mother's sunken, vacant eyes watch her only daughter die.
Boom! There goes another one. With 15 tributes left to fight for the crown, who do you think will win? Please give me suggestions guys! 'Til next time.