Kayla Rakkor, 15, District 9

I dream that I am back in District Nine, walking through the woods. The sunlight is filtering through the trees, and I am trying to avoid making up poems about the dappled patterns it makes on the ground as I creep through the trees, hunting. The bow in my hands is loaded, but I have yet to see any prey today. I need to find something before I go home, to help fill my family's quota. Food turned in to the butchers means food for us.

Then I hear the soft whining, and I know that I am dreaming about a specific day, when I was thirteen.

I cautiously step around a tree, and then I see the wolf.

The wolf, standing maybe two yards away from me, staring at me with its brown eyes. Its gray and white fur is long and sleek, and it eyes me warily. I hold my bow out in front of me, hesitant to fire. I rarely ever see wolves in the woods, but in school we are taught that they are incredibly fast and skilled hunters. If I run, it might give chase. If I shoot and miss, she might attack. If I kill her, then I get a good kill. Wolf meat is not as wanted, but wolf fur is a precious thing. There would be a lot of food on the table tonight.

I begin to slowly pull back the string, hoping that she won't move, won't attack…

Then I see the snare, hanging from a nearby tree branch. I also see that it has caught something by the neck, something small and furry.

A wolf pup. It's probably this wolf's baby.

I look at the wolf, and then at the dead pup, and then back at the wolf. She's still staring at me, and I look deep into her light brown eyes. There's an expression in those eyes, an emotion that I can't name, that I don't know. It's old and it's sad, and there's an emptiness at its center.

On that day, I turned and ran back home. Now, in the dream, I walk up to the wolf and I sit down in front of her, setting my bow and arrows aside. The wolf's face changes, gray fur turning to brown skin, and then Anise is kneeling in front of me. She takes my head in her hands and kisses my forehead. Then she stands up and runs away, and the woods fade into darkness.

When I wake up, much later, she's gone.

XXX

Briar Tussen, 12, District 11

I wake up to the sound of fast footsteps, someone running through the trees, but by the time I'm out of my sleeping bag my attacker is already on top of me. I scream and beat at her with my fists, but she pins me to the ground with my arms and legs tucked beneath me. It's Robin.

"Hey, Jude!" she shouts over my yells and the rush of the waterfall. "Come on!"

I try to roll over and push her off, but she holds me down.

"Stop it, you little pipsqueak! You'll send us both over the edge!" she snarls.

Jude comes loping out onto the rocky peak, moving slowly, with bandages wrapped around his leg. They don't seem to affect how well he holds his battleaxe, though.

"We gotcha, monkey!" he cackles, raising the weapon high over his head as he approaches.

He's going to kill me! I'm going to die! I'm going to die!

"No, no, no!" I wail. "Help me! Help! Mom! Dad! Help!"

"Briar! Briar!"

Someone's screaming my name, too, and just as Jude swings his axe downward she comes sprinting out of the forest, barreling into Jude and grabbing Robin's hood, her momentum carrying them all over the edge of the cliff.

I roll onto my stomach, staring down at the three rapidly receding figures. The big one's Jude, the smaller is Robin, and between them…

"Anise!" I gasp.

They hit the ground, and the axe buries itself in Jude's back. I can see the blood stain the ground, even from up here, the blood from his back and their heads.

Three cannons fire in quick succession.

"Anise!" I wail, crying her name down the mountain, over the noise of the waterfall. "Anise…"

Tears blur my vision, and I curl up into a ball, sobbing.

Anise… She saved me… She's dead… She's dead…!

I can still see her, crying on the roof of the Training Center, refusing sweets on the train, smiling as she hugged me good-bye…and back in District Eleven, when she ran by my house, looking so happy and free…

She shouldn't have died. It's because of the stronger people, the bigger tributes. They killed her.

The tears slow, and for some reason, despite all of the sadness, all I can think about is the rope.

The rope.

The rope.

In my mind, I see many loops linked together, hanging from a tree…

I sit up straight.

They killed her.

I'll kill them.

Shimmer Argent, 18, District 1

I keep us moving, so that I can think. Three cannons fired this morning. Who were they?

Yesterday, there were eight tributes in the arena. Thera, Carn, and I are here. That leaves Jude and Robin, both from Eleven, and the girl from Nine. Did Jude and Robin take down the weaker three? Or did the three somehow overcome one or both of them, while one or two of them died in the battle?

I can't assume anything. I can't risk killing Thera or Carn now, if the other two still out there are Jude and Robin. I'll have to wait until nighttime, when I'll know for sure.

If both Jude and Robin are dead, then I'll kill both Carn and Thera. Carn first—I'll stick a poisoned knife in his back before he suspects anything. If not—

There's a scuffle behind me, and Carn yelps. I whirl around to see him pulled off of his feet and into the air by a rope around his leg, and another rope falls around his neck—

There's a faint snap, and then Carn Hurdy's cannon fires.

He's dead.

There's a rustling in the bushes as someone tries to escape. I throw a knife towards the movement, and there's a yelp. Thera hurries over, slices, and there's another cannon.

"District Eleven boy," she announces, wiping his blood off of her sword.

My mind races. Two more deaths. That means that there are three tributes left. Me, Thera, and…who? Either Jude, Robin, or the Nine girl. I could take any of them on my own.

That leaves Thera.

I draw a poisoned knife in my left hand and Phenom's sword in my right at the exact instant that she draws her own. We stand still for a few moments, facing each other.

"Go ahead," I say. "Make your move…while you still can."

"Only one of us is going to leave this spot," she replies. "It's not going to be you."

"You sure about that?" I grin, baring my teeth. "Because, if you ask me, I think you're frightened."

"I'm not frightened!" Thera snaps. "You're the one who has reason to be afraid here."

"No, I'm not," I calmly correct. "You, on the other hand, have bungled things from day one. You're on the verge of having to face things leaderless for the first time in your life. There's no mentors, no help after this. You're helpless, Thera Adrastea. You're useless, and no matter how big a blade you hold, that's not going to change. You poor, pitiful, worthless thing."

She flips out, letting out a screeching wail and charging at me, sword held outright. I bat it away easily with my own, grinning even wider now. Carn wasn't the only one who had anger issues, and now I have a clear advantage.

Thera stumbles to the side, and then swings her sword at me again. Again I block her attack, deflecting the blow into the foliage. But she's facing me again, faster than I would have expected her to be able to given her anger and lesser skill with a blade. Her attacks are coming so quickly, I have to focus on my swordplay, rather than the knife in my other hand. If I could just…get…by…

We slash and slice at each other, ducking around trees, moving away from the two corpses. I shrug off my backpack, leaving it on the ground so that I can move more freely. Thera swings around a thick trunk and runs, and I follow.

We come to a clearing, where she turns and swings at my neck. I duck, rolling forward into her legs. She stumbles backwards and falls. I shove myself back onto my feet and bring the sword down towards her, only for her to thrust upwards, slicing through my right leg.

"Augh!" I shout. I drop the knife and grab the blade of her sword, cutting my hand as I yank it out of my leg and out of her grip. As I stagger aside, dropping the sword, too, she rolls to her feet. My blood is splattered all over her face.

Thera lunges for her sword, and as she picks it up I grab my other poisoned knife and stab it into her side. She screams and swipes wildly at me, opening another cut on my cheek, but I stab her again and again, until the venom must be everywhere in her bloodstream and she's in a fetal position on the ground, screaming her head off.

The screams get louder and louder, and then they finally stop, and yet another cannon fires.

I sag to the ground, pressing both hands over the wound in my leg. I have to stop the bleeding, first of all, or else I'll be dead. The wound is deep, but I don't think that she severed any major arteries, and the cuts on my face and hand are superficial.

A silver parachute lands next to me, and I rip the package open. It's a medical kit—painkillers, and most important right now, bandages. I wrap my leg and then my hand in gauze, refusing to let myself wince in pain.

I'm above that. I'm the best fighter in this arena. She just got a few lucky strikes in, that's all. Makes it more dramatic.

Once I've fixed myself up, I try to stand. Pain shoots through my leg, and I quickly find that I can only move around if I limp heavily. I curse softly. This won't help me win.

I stick the two swords into Thera's body, so that they'll be collected. Whoever's left, I'll take them at a distance.

I grab the medical kit, Thera's backpack and my knives and I begin to slowly make my way back towards where I dropped mine earlier. Heading all the way back to where Carn died would be pointless. No doubt his backpack and sword, as well as the rope and anything else the Eleven boy had, were taken by the hovercraft that came to get them.

This leaves me with not much food, and even less supplies… All I can do now is wait for sunset, to find out who I'm up against.

XXX

Claudius Templesmith and his buddies are jabbering on about how exciting things are, and how they can't wait to see what happens next, but their words barely register with Vivienne as she stares blankly at the screen.

"Hey."

Aspen sits down in the chair next to her.

"Hey," the District Nine mentor replies, turning her head to look over at him.

"Some day," Aspen says with a shrug.

Vivienne nods slowly. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It wasn't like there was anything we could do…and they died bravely, both of them."

Vivienne nods again. "When does your train leave?"

"Tomorrow morning, after breakfast," Aspen replies. "Or…or later, if you want."

A small smile crosses Vivienne's lips, and she shakes her head.

"No," she says. "Go home. Comfort the families. You know the drill."

The anthem is played over the television, and despite themselves they turn to face the screen again as the death recap begins. It had been a very bloody day in the arena. The two mentors silently watch Anise Leenan, Jude Paraux, and Robin Sarabia tumble down the waterfall, Carn Hurdy hung by a noose, Briar Tussen's neck get sliced open, and finally Thera Adrastea succumbing to her poisoned wounds.

"It's hard to believe that this was all just one day," Vivienne mutters as the screen shows a split-screen view of the arena, with Shimmer Argent on one side and Kayla Rakkor on the other, while the pictures of the dead are revealed in the sky above them.

Carn Hurdy, 18, District 2. Thera Adrastea, 17, District 2. Jude Paraux, 17, District 7. Robin Sarabia, 16, District 7. Briar Tussen, 12, District 11.

Anise Leenan, 15, District 11.

Kayla's hands clap over her mouth, and she sags back against the rocks, tears streaming down her cheeks. Shimmer laughs, leaning against a tree with an expression of incredulous delight on her face. She takes out a knife and tosses it into the air, catching it again and placing it back in her belt, which now holds three normal knives and two poisoned ones. The camera focuses on Kayla for several moments after it stops filming Shimmer, but she's not saying anything, just trembling. The screen shifts to an aerial view of the mountain.

Vivienne shakes her head. "What's she going to do now, Aspen? Even with that leg wound, Shimmer's got her out-armed and out-skilled."

The District Eleven mentor does not respond. After several silent minutes, he stands up.

"See you at the Victory Tour," he says, touching a hand to her shoulder before he leaves the room.

It takes a moment for Vivienne to comprehend his words, which she realizes had been less of a farewell and more of an answer to her question.

"What's she going to do now, Aspen?"

"She's going to win."

Vivienne closes her eyes. If only that were true…

XXX

Remaining Tributes:

Tribute-Name-Age

1G Shimmer Argent 18

9G Kayla Rakkor 15