I spin and see Rachelle standing over Sydni. I rush at her, screaming, "WHAT DID YOU DO YOU LITTLE—" She turns and runs past me. I would have chased her, but the sight of Sydni has stopped me in my tracks. Her face has been carved off. It's literally lying on the ground in front of me. All that's left is a blob of bloodied muscle and—I have to look away. I spin again to see Rachelle and Togru running off towards the forest. Rachelle turns and yells, "See you tonight!" She points to the sky, then turns and runs after Togru. I stand there, stunned for a moment. Sydni's dead, and I have an hour…no…about fifty-eight minutes to kill someone else. It's surreal, knowing exactly how long you have left to live. I start to run until realize I'm weaponless. I rush over to the messy pile of weapons and dig through it until I find what I want. A whip and a curved knife. I start to get up and run again before I become conscious that I have no game plan. I can't just run into the forest without knowing what I'm gonna do, or who I'm gonna go after. My first instinct is to go after those…those beasts from 1. But I already know that they're planning on me chasing them. They're running as fast as they can and they're possibly hiding out somewhere. No, I need to go for someone else. Someone slower, who doesn't know that I'm in danger. I immediately look towards another section of the forest. The tributes from 6. I jump up and run into the forest. Fifty-five minutes left. I look back and watch the hovercraft pick up Sydni. She had been nice, and I had been attracted to her, but I couldn't waste a second saying goodbye. Otherwise, I'd be joining her.

I run into the forest and immediately see a trail of crumbs on the ground. Is that fat kid seriously eating on the run? Following the trail, I soon catch up to the tributes. I take caution to hang back so that the beeping noise isn't heard by the two of them. It turns out not to be a problem; the boy talks so loud that I can't even hear the collar myself. His ranting plus the amount of food he's shoving in his mouth while he talks is enough to drown out any noise. "So where are we going?" he asks the girl. Before she can turn around to answer him, he grabs a hunk of beef jerky out of his bag and chews it loudly with his mouth open. She looks at him, disgusted, and then whispers to him. "Qrew, you need to stay quiet. Those Careers might be tracking us." She's right, one of them is. While the boy talks about how scary the Careers were and how he thought he'd never get away, I climb a tree and silently move through the branches until I'm directly over the two tributes. They've stopped in the middle of the forest, because the boy needs to use the bathroom. The girl groans when he tells her, and says, "Make it fast." He nods and excitedly hops over behind the tree where I am perched. The girl wanders off away from the tree, muttering to herself about how this idiot is gonna get her killed. She has no idea. I realize that now is the perfect time to strike. I take my whip and fashion a noose out of it. Then I slowly drop it down to the boy's head while he looks down at the ground, finishing up his business.

"One shot, Lucas. One shot," I tell myself. I take a deep breath, and then slip the noose around the boy's head and pull. The last thing I hear the boy say is, "What—" before he is lifted into the air. I almost drop him right back on the ground; how can a kid from a poor district like 6 weigh so much. I quickly tie the whip to a strong branch and he stops falling. Now, besides my beeping, all I hear is the boy's gurgles. The branch begins to bend, so I get underneath it and keep it propped up with my body. "Qrew, do you hear something?" Oh no. The girl's coming back. "Qrew, I think I hear beeping. We gotta go." Qrew's body goes limp on the noose, and a cannon fires. My collar plays a miniature fanfare, then stops flashing and beeping. I feel around on it and find a knob that wasn't there before. Pushing it, I feel the collar snap open. It falls down and lands on the ground directly below the fat kid's body. "Qrew?" The girl comes into view now, collar beeping. She sees the collar on the ground, and looks up just as I spin to get behind another branch, out of sight. The branch snaps, and the plump corpse falls down to the ground, slamming into the girl and pinning her to the ground. The branch follows close behind, and bounces off the body of Qrew. I can hear the girl's muffled screams; she's jammed between her dead partner and the ground. I peek over the edge to watch her try to get out. One arm and two legs flail ferociously from underneath Qrew. I would be lying if I didn't say that every living inch of me wanted to go roll the dead boy off her and save her life. Reality grabbed that notion out of the sky and crushed it between its hateful claws; she'd just go after the first tribute she saw, which would be me. Soon, the screams coming from beneath the body start to fade away, and the flailing becomes more relaxed. Then, as the girl loses the last of her reserves of oxygen, she stops moving all together. Two minutes later, a cannon fires.

I climb down the tree quickly; my whip is still tied to the boy's neck, and I need it back. I get down just as the birds go silent above me. The hovercraft is here. I waste no time in untying the whip from the branch. I then loosen the noose from the boy's neck and run away from the bodies. I did it. I'm safe. I'm alive. I watch the hovercraft pick up Qrew. Parts of his fat body stick out from between the claws that hold him up. He disappears into the dark underbelly of the ship. The claw comes back for the girl. I get a glimpse of the almost flattened redhead before she too vanishes into the craft. Then it departs, and bird noises return to the forest. I climb up into a tree and sit on a branch with good foliage cover. I sit there until the last of the sun slips under the horizon, painting the sky black. No stars. The anthem replaces the raven-like blackness, forcing me to shield my eyes for a moment. The monotonous music plays, it's ever-repeating "da-da-da-daa-daa-daa-daa-da-duh-duh-duhn-duhn-duhn-duhn-da-daa-daa-daaaaa" ringing in my ears. Then the faces start to show up.

First is Sydni. The ten seconds that her beautiful features sit pasted onto the sky feel like an hour to me. I could have saved her. I didn't have to kill anyone today. She disappears at the peak of my misery, to be replaced by Marilee. After her comes Jude, the boy from 4 who had been the one to crack jokes at the Career lunch table in the Training Center and make us all forget for the moment where we were. Following him is the girl from 6 and Qrew. Seeing them only makes me think of Sydni, so I look away until I hear the "blip" that signals the appearance of another face. It's the boy from 8, the peacemaker, the pacifist, and ironically, the one who died first. Following him is the girl from 8, whose fate was decided for her by her partner's ideas. Then the boy and girl from 12 are shown. The girl from 12 looks terrified even in her tribute photo. I'm tempted to mourn all of my dead friends and the innocent victims. Reality slaps me across the face and reminds me that in order for me to live, everyone else must die. Fourteen tributes to go, and I'll get out of here.