My computer totally stopped working so this is late :-/
TRIBUTES. I need them.
I said remember this moment, in the back of my mind
The time we stood with our shaking hands
The crowds in stands went wild
We were the Kings and the Queens
And they read off our names
The night you danced like you knew our lives
Would never be the same
You held your head like a hero
On a history book page
It was the end of a decade
But the start of an age
"Long Live" by Taylor Swift
D12- 16- (Astrid Levine)
I don't know what's going on. I hardly know where I am. Is anyone near me? Should I be running? What do I have to fear? Where is Mother? Where is Father? Where is Cara, my friend? Why do I hurt so much? How long have I been here? I feel so disoriented and want to figure things out right now but I can't move. My head aches. It screams with pain, and I think I might be screaming too but I can't be sure.
How did it come to this?
I have nothing with me. My throat is dry and a little raw, even… I must be screaming, crying out, asking for someone to end the pain… So why haven't they? Maybe it's just my imagination. My stomach gurgles and cries, longing to be filled. I am vaguely—oh, so vaguely—aware of a dim moan. Is that me? Is that why my throat is raw? Have I been moaning this low, inhuman noise these last couple…hours? Days? Weeks? No—I'd be dead in five days to a week. And surely I'm not well-hidden. Which brings me back to thinking about what I don't know: I don't know where I am.
Something different. My eyes aren't open but I can hear more than the moaning. It's fuzzy and distant but it's there. I'm aware that I'm sweating madly… Or maybe it's just raining. My throat. My stomach. My head. My everything. Oh, who knows if I'm hearing something different or if I'm just wishing I did? My throat, my head, my everything… It's a repeated thought that I can't get rid of, a silent moan that I can't let out of my mouth because I don't think I could speak if I tried to.
"—really! She's hidden, kinda." I want to crack my eyes open, because now I know I've heard something. A voice. It's not as distant as I thought; in fact, it gets closer with every single word spoken. I'm not even aware enough of my surroundings to register that I should probably be afraid. I'm going to die. But then, won't the pain end? Hasn't death been what I've wanting? No. I want the pain to end. But I want to live, too.
"Can she talk?" another voice asks. Both of the voices are male. The second voice is kinder, though, like he values finding me. Like I'm a treasure. The first voice sounded annoyed and weary, like he doesn't have time to deal with me, to deal with some idiot girl who he randomly found, sprawled across the ground, with nothing he can steal. Maybe that isn't exactly what he's thinking, but he's rude probably. I don't like him already.
"Should we kill her?" a third voice asks, and now I'm scared.
"Shut up, Decon!" the kind voice snaps at the person who wants to kill me. I feel him kneeling down next to me; I feel the soft ground underneath me shift slightly. "Oh…look at you. You're really properly beat up, aren't you?"
I will my eyes open, and my head aches instantly worse than it has since the bloodbath. Hazel eyes greet me—warm, soft hazel eyes that ask me to feel better, that beg me to show their owner that I will be alright. His fair-skinned hand reaches out to me and he scoops me up, standing up. I let out a shriek, and he apologizes immediately in his caring voice. He will make it okay. He will make everything better. I know from the way he holds me that he wants to do this, but I find it so odd that he cares here. In the arena.
The arena, the arena. My mind rejects the idea that I am in the arena and all I want to do is believe that, like before, my home was nearby. I was never reaped. And this boy never found me. None of them did. His eyes, no matter how hazel or how soft, are the eyes of a killer's. My enemy's eyes. I shouldn't trust him, and I don't.
"Hello?" he asks softly. "Can you speak? We'll get you all fixed up, but it's raining right now."
I open my mouth slightly to talk but realize I have nothing to say. And then I realize that I can talk. Everything I'd been mulling over—all the pain and the disabilities that confused me—were all figments of my imagination. I am pretty much fine, besides the raging, growing migraine, my stomach that begs for me to eat something, my throat that screams for liquid, and pretty much everything else…
My brain finally processes "raining," and I open my mouth wider, letting the rainwater slip into my mouth. It's hardly enough, but it's wet, clean water, and I'll take it over dying of dehydration.
"What's your name?" the boy holding me asks. The two boys behind him are mixtures of curiosity and anger and impatience.
"Astrid," I tell him feebly. My weak voice certainly matches my physical frailness.
"Astrid?" one of the bows squawks. "Not something like—like…Amelia or Violet or Sunshine?" The boy holding me frowns and looks back at the boy who said this. "Oh, please!" he says. "You look at her already like a work of art. Not like an Astrid."
"I look at her like a miracle because obviously she is, to still be alive." The boy rolls his eyes. Really, he's not a boy. He's too old to be a boy; he's a least seventeen… I'd consider him more of a man than a boy. "She'll die just like the rest of us eventually," the man mutters pessimistically, and I cringe away from his words. How can he be so nice, only to say something so terrible? "Astrid isn't a bad name."
"What's…yours?" I ask him hesitantly.
"Nick," he tells me. "And behind me are Idiot and Jackass. Idiot, Jackass, and I are quite happy to be of your acquaintance." He smiles slightly, and so do I. "Let's get you cleaned up. No offense or anything, but honestly, Astrid, you look hideous."
D7- 15- (Jae Analetto)
I think that I'm nice and I am selfless because I want someone to see me and think that they want to protect me. I want someone to look at me and think me worthy of his care and affection. I want them to think that I deserve their arms around me and their strength towards anyone against me. I crave for them to desire to keep me safe and alive like I keep my siblings alive. At least, I help to keep them alive alongside my mother. And perhaps I am merely averagely selfless, but I want to see myself as more because that's what I want others to see me as.
My logic is weird, I'm sure, but it drives me sometimes to complete that last hour of work, hoping that that handsome man over there cutting up wood with my friend Jack will notice me and think that maybe, just maybe, he'll talk to me tomorrow. And it's not even love as in the kind where you kiss someone and marry someone that I want. I sort of just want what I lost five years ago when my dad left. I simply want his love again, his protection and his fatherliness. I know he was never the best father, obviously, but I wish he were. I wish he had stayed so I could've crawled in his lap for another year or so until I was absolutely too big. So I could say to him that I love him and he could say it back. So I could hug him and think that this was what the world was supposed to be like: like my dad. So I could see him and think that he was one of the few people who would always hold me.
Now I have no one to hold me, and I think that's what I really want. I want to fill the void. I want arms around my shoulders. I want someone to genuinely care for me through all of my flaws and my mistakes and my episodes of stupidity. I want them to smile and tell me not to blush when I get embarrassed because they love me and they think I shouldn't ever have to be embarrassed, or worried or scared or hungry. I am more of a people person than I usually give myself credit for, but somehow despite this fact, I am too shy to allow many people into my life.
Maybe that's why I stopped under the tree. Maybe that's why I didn't just kill the boy when he asked me to.
Now he lays below me as I care for him, unconscious. He had fallen out of his tree, but fortunately he hadn't fallen far. I suspect that his ankle is twisted or sprained, and he already beforehand had a large gash in his leg. Could it be called a gash? It looks like someone had a long sword or spear, shoved it in his leg, and when the person yanked away the weapon twisted around a bit in the boy's flesh.
His face is drenched in sweat. I wipe the sweat away with the bottom of my shirt. His eyes flutter when I do, and I freeze, as if when he wakes up he'll kill me. I know he can't; he's far too weak. But I am paranoid and afraid, so any movement I hadn't expected prior to it happening sets me on edge and gets my eyes skirting around the area, my heart thumping madly in my chest.
His eyes open all the way now and he moans in pain. His left leg is the main source of his pain, what with the twisted/sprained ankle and the big, almost circular, nasty wound in his calf. He must be extremely thirsty but I'm afraid to waste any water yet, when it seems like there is so little water in this entire arena. I will give him a gulp soon, when I know he needs it more than anything else, but until then I'll fix what I can.
"Are…" he gets out weakly, the low mumble, the unintelligible form of a word, coming out in such a way that it seems like his entire body shatters with just the movement of his lips; his eyebrows furrow, his eyes close tightly, and his face is completely contorted with unimaginable pain that I wish I could erase from his existence because it seems like he might just explode.
"Ugh," he says after a second, and his voice is composed now. "Headache."
I look at him, shocked. "Headache?" I ask incredulously. That look of pure and utter agony…was for simply a "headache"?
The boy nods. "Ooh, my leg hurts too." He sits up slowly, winces a little, and then makes a move to sit up. I quickly stop him by putting my hand on his shoulder and gently pushing him back towards the ground. He rolls his eyes, looking at me warily and then glancing all around. He looks at me like he's suspicious; like he doesn't think we're pretty much allies if I went to all this effort to help him with his wounds. But he does seem annoyed and rather confused, asking, "What?"
"Your ankle—it's—"
He frowns and reaches down, touching his ankle lightly. "Ooh," he groans again, but shrugs. "I can walk on it. It may hurt for a bit but I have to walk on it." He scoots back, just slightly. Maybe he only leans back. "Now, who are you?"
I raise my eyebrow. "Well…Jae from District Seven." I stick my right hand out to him slowly.
His right hand returns slower, and we exchange a tentative, weary, untrusting handshake. "I'm Leo," he tells me, and I think I might recognize the name from reapings or something—maybe training scores. I know he's from District Ten, though—or I think I do. "Leo" just rings a bell in the District Ten part of events. "I'm from District Ten," he continues, confirming my theories about his district.
We both let our hands drop, and sit there a second. "Are we allies?" Leo asks after a second.
"Oh," I say, and nod. "Yeah, um… Yeah, we are."
"Then can I please have some water? I'm going to die of dehydration before we can even worry about this big thing on my calf."
I smile slightly at his dark humor—is it humor?—and pull out a water bottle.
D5- 18- (Anya Saitov)
Having no ally doesn't faze me in the least, seeing as that was my original strategy in the first place. Being allied is being tied down with more and less chance of survival—the others' skills are things I can use to my advantage, but I have to share my food, water, and resources. It's being stuck to them, having to wait until they wake up to get going but being safer at night with a watch system. It's waiting for them to catch their breath but having them have a look around to ensure our safety while I catch mine.
I didn't spend a day in the arena with an ally. I spent probably five minutes, waiting, endangering my self. And now, free to roam as a please, not having to listen to my old ally's opinions on killing or on anything he thought, really, I'm glad he didn't live, no matter how cruel that sounds. I am naturally a considerably cruel-sounding person and I don't really care that I am or what anyone thinks of that. I think what I think, and I say what I say, and I do what I do.
At first I skirted around the mountains a bit on the first night, looking for lost tributes that stayed, and slept there. Then I moved out to the woods, so far off, intrigued and knowing that, though it seemed there wouldn't be, water sources would be found along the way. Gamemakers wouldn't want everyone to die of dehydration or starvation, so I entrusted their need, their yearning, for violence and drama. Their predictability—or, rather, what I can predict with common sense—has become my only ally.
I have nothing to stay close to or skirt along next to as I make my long journey towards the distant, far-off woods, tempting the tributes. I have run through a number of possibilities. It could be a trap. It could be an illusion. It could be too dangerous to go into—could be just another way to get us so close together, so visible to one another, so vulnerable. The Gamemakers are certainly setting us for something that they're planning—but what? They're not just handing us a luxury. Not just telling us, "We'll give you everything you want as long as you make the trek to it." No one's going to look for fights except the Careers when they're zipping towards the woods.
But who looks for fights anyway?
They'll want bloodshed. And soon. We're down to a disappointing twenty-five tributes. Surely the bloodbath was spectacular, but not enough, not enough. Only ten deaths at the bloodbath must've let them so far down that they're planning as I step forward, forward, forward to bring us to each other, to bring blood down the hills, blood to the floor, a cannon to our ears, a face up in the sky. They need a death. They need two. They need three, four, five. Day Two had better be spectacular, they must think.
Night falls in the arena slowly. Evening is long and drawn out, a tedious time between night when I can go a little faster and make a bit more noise, drawing nearer to the time between midnight and dawn when I will sleep away the drowsiness and fatigue brought down to me by the raging sun, the roaring heat, the endless footsteps, and the nonstop calculations, analyzing the every plot that might be approved by the Head Gamemaker, if that's how Gamemaking goes.
And then I spot them.
A boy and a girl. I can't tell how old they are, but I can see red hair in the darkening arena. Fiery red hair. I break into a run, drawing my sword from its nice little pocket in my backpack. We're so close. We're yards apart. A monstrous hill that killed the my legs, left them aching and sore after I climbed it, ran up it, was all that separates us before. And now it's inevitable: We have to fight. If we don't fight, the Gamemakers will make us fight.
So I go after the girl first because it's logical. She will obviously be the easier one to kill, being smaller. Getting her out of the way and dealing with the big guy while doing so seems like all I can do. This is the disadvantage to being alone: If I find myself in a confrontation where there's no way I can't fight, and I'm faced with two or more allied people, I'm outnumbered. There is no one to watch my back and say, "You take that one. I'll take this one," and deal with the other tribute himself or herself.
Sword connects with sword. Hers is longer, slightly, but it looks like that makes it heavier, harder to wield with her small form.
The boy's knife comes at me. I swing my sword blindly, trying to get him and his weapon far away from my flesh, trying to wound him or kill him. It doesn't affect me—killing. It's just another thing I have to do.
My sword hits the boy. He cries out. Blood spurts from his side, his chest, flows down his stomach and reaches his legs. Taking this opportunity, the brief second of opening where the girl is distracted by the fact that the boy is now wounded and falling towards the ground, and where the boy is too hurt to fight back, I snap my sword down at his neck, slicing a major vein. A jugular vein. I pull my sword further and hit another. The life-sustaining veins spit blood. He lets out an inhuman gargle.
The cannon fires.
"Sage!" the girl whines, and I feel a sharp pain in my stomach. I jerk away before she can deepen the cut and feel sick as I see blood pour down me. No, no, no. I'm not going to die… I lunge at the girl, but she backs away, eyes wide. Swords clash again, and she's going further and further away. As she nears her backpack, she leans down briefly to snatch it up so she can dart, and I take this time to poke my sword at her. "Aaah!" Crimson liquid spills down her face. I don't see what I hit before she's sprinting away.
As soon as she's make her ascent up the giant hill, I know that I don't want to follow her. My stomach hurts very badly, and I need to assess my wound. My legs still yearn for rest. So I make my way through a small valley-like dip between the two big, steep hills on either side of me. As soon as I'm a hundred or so yards from the body and I absolutely have to stop, check on my bleeding stomach that I'm putting pressure on, let my feet and legs have a break, and hydrate as well as feed myself, a hovercraft descends and pulls up the body.
I'll live. I'll live.
A parachute falls from the sky towards me. I gladly open it. The size of it tells me I don't have a lot of sponsors; people are just impressed with my fighting. Bandages. No painkillers, no food, no water. But I appreciate the bandages nonetheless. I raise my shirt and wrap the bandages tightly, wincing while I do so, and am glad to find that the bleeding has stopped. The bandages' pressure will help me.
I'll live.
D1- 17- (Adelina Summerfield)
Everyone is discouraged when they hear the cannon fire.
"Daphne!" Dante says, demanding my sister's attention. "We have to get back to the Cornucopia, Daphne, we have to. We've leftVixen there for two days, and we've not killed anyone. We didn't pack enough food for a long trip, and I'm not starving. We have to get back; we have to."
Dante, the pest, the rat, the annoying weasel he is, has been whining and pouting the whole trip. We haven't killed anyone. It truly sucks, because two people have died at others' hands since the bloodbath, and the superiors of the arena are left without kills. So his whining, pestering, and griping are all very, very, very motivating for us: With each and every aggravating word he says, each of us feels the desire to kill growing stronger and stronger. I even see calm, patient Jackson growing frustrated with Dante.
"Dante," Daphne says reasonably, slowly, her voice even, and she's obviously trying not to explode on him, "we will return to the Cornucopia, for the trillionth time, when one of us gets a damn kill. Okay?"
Eyes swivel to Daphne. Tension is rising, especially between the District Six idiot and the District One girls. Dante sometimes forgets to hide his hatred and sends us blatant, though indirect, messages that he hates Gleam, Daphne, and me that all of us pick up on. It's either Stone or me that probably hates him the most or me. Or maybe Gleam. Vixen is guarding the Cornucopia, and Azaleigh, Daphne, and Jackson are too patient to know if they hate him like Stone, Gleam, and I do. So the fact that she snaps at him so openly is kind of surprising, considering the fact that she's the leader of the Careers and she's supposed to keep tension down.
"I get it," Dante grumbles, falling to the back, carrying all of the heavy stuff that Jackson isn't since he's at the bottom of the pyramid of Careers. Jackson is the strongest so he carries a few sleeping bags—his because it's his, Stone's because she's small and knows how to insult you so much that you get confused and do stuff for her, and Azaleigh's because he obviously likes her—and a backpack full of lots of food, lots of water, and his weapons.
I have orange juice in my pack. I took it because I thought it would be nice to have that with a meal. I drink water while we're walking, but I don't want to have to choke down whatever we hunt if that's what it comes down to with water; I'd like a bit of luxury, and I found it lying in the Cornucopia: a simple little bottle, like the water bottles, filled with the yellow-orange, sweet drink. I also have my weapons and snacks for eating along the trip, like all of us do in our backpacks. We packed for three days, and since it's day three and we took off on day one, we do need to get back and restock.
But not before killing. Never before killing.
"Hush just a sec," Azaleigh suddenly says, and we all look over at her. She stops so we stop. Jackson is particularly close to her, the backs of their hands touching. When they were walking, they might have been holding hands. It would be impossible not to just hold hands when they are so close, their arms swinging as they moved along the trek, the long, long journey. They'll be getting more sponsors for that. I could've had that with Beck, but it would've been fake caring and affection. I wouldn't have cared about the fakeness. But the relationship Azaleigh and Jackson tenderly hold between each other seems genuine.
"What is it?" Jackson asks in a low voice, just above a whisper.
"Hush," Azaleigh repeats, her eyes scanning around. She frowns. "I swear I heard tributes."
All of ours eyes light up. "You did," I say. "If you think you did, you did. They must've heard us coming and now they're quiet."
Gleam nods in agreement. "Yeah," she says, nodding. "Adelina's right."
Daphne creeps forward, lowering her voice so only the group of us can hear. "Be absolutely silent. Drop everything but your weapons. Two people will stay back in case whoever's out there comes this way. We don't make noise 'til we spot the tribute, got me?"
Excited nods.
"Who's staying back?" I ask, knowing she won't choose me to stay back.
Daphne looks around at all of us. "Any volunteers?" No one volunteers. "I didn't think so. Dante and, uh, Jackson. Jack, if he darts, he's officially out of the Careers. Kill him. If he tries to steal anything, hurt him. If he draws a weapon on him, you call for one of us and we'll help you kill him."
The threat gets across to Dante. I can tell by the look on his face that he won't be trying anything special. I like the way my twin has worded it too: She's told Dante the exact rank of crimes he can commit against his very generous host Careers. Theft, pain. Escape, quick death. Trying to kill a real, official Career…painful, painful death.
Though I know he won't try anything, I see something light up in my eyes, and from that moment on, I know I have to keep an eye out for him. If we're ever not watching, he may try something. If he kills another Career, I'll kill him. If he kills my sister, I'll hunt him down to the end of the Earth to slaughter him and make him beg for mercy with his dying breath. He won't be killing me.
We take off with just our weapons, sprinting through a copse that turns into a small—very small—area of tall trees, growing randomly in the midst of the grassy area.
It reminds me of something we learned about at school, in one of the few things they taught us that had nothing to do with the Games and District One and the district's industry. It was Panem History or some class like that. We were talking in school about arenas, and the different landscapes and terrains the Gamemakers use. One was a savannah. I remember the definition: open, flat lands with scattered trees and bushes. The terrain this year doesn't exactly meet a savannah's criteria because it's not flat, and part of it is woods, mountains, desert, and river—and there are some pretty random trees thrown into the grassland. But the little thicket reminds me of that.
We spot the two people just outside the group of ten or eleven big trees. I smirk. One of them is mine.
One of them is also injured. He's not mine. I want a fight.
But Stone and Gleam are already running, an unlikely pair to fight, towards the uninjured girl. The boy, who looks like he's having trouble walking as they run away from the four of us, is now my only option. I guess I'll take what I can get. I send Daphne a look that asks, We're in this together, right? and she nods. We pick up speed, racing towards the boy. Gleam and Stone reach the girl and take her to the ground easily, their combined efforts unbeatable. Her cannon fires already.
"You take him down," Daphne says.
I look over at her. I love her to death, my sister. She's my best friend, she's always been there, and she's just great. But, in all honesty, and I mean this in the kindest way possible…she's a wimp. She always seems hesitant with violence. She must've decided that she doesn't want to do this and chickened out. I roll my eyes and hope she doesn't see it, give her a big nod, and finish the short, short sprint to the boy.
I swing my katana smoothly, the sharp, single-edged weapon slicing right through his flesh, bringing a load of blood down his back. He cries out and falls forward. I collapse over him, driving my knee into his back, and plunge my katana smoothly into him where his heart his. He screams, an ugly, ugly noise, and then it's over: He's dead. We've killed. We can go back to the Cornucopia.
I let out a content breath and step away, go back to my supplies with Daphne, Gleam, and Stone, knowing that a hovercraft will soon come down and pick the bodies up, take them away from the arena. Knowing that I killed one of them. I'm actually glad that my sister's a bit of wimp; the glory is so much nicer to revel in when you know that you did something entirely on your own.
Twenty-one tributes are left to kill.
Tributes whose names are in bold are alive:
D1- (Luxuries)
1. Gleam Diode, 18, female. Megalor9
2. Adelina Summerfield, 17, female. CapitolRules
3. Daphne Summerfield, 17, female. CapitolRules
D2- (Masonry)
1. Azaleigh Rommel, 16, female. Araka-chan
2. Beck Ferrari, 18, male. WhyNotDream
3. Stonesia "Stone" Zhunder, 16, female. XOXOFutureFame
D3- (Technology)
1. Forrest Montgomery, 17, WhyNotDream
2. Calypso Oswald, 14, female. WhyNotDream
3. Rylan "Ry" Ashmore, 14, male. the epic bookworm
D4- (Fishing)
1. Vixen Payne, 17, female. jblonde123
2. Nelly Carter, 13, female. Bowserboy129
3. Jackson Brothel, 17, male. Araka-chan
D5- (Power)
1. Anya Saitov, 18, female. the epic bookworm
2. Allegra Ride, 12, female. WhyNotDream
3. Tenne Bradhe, 18, male. BlueYoshGuy
D6- (Transportation)
1. Dante Kyanide, 17, male. Megalor9
2. Cade Allens, 17, male. bijtjen
3. Phoenix Grant, 18, male. the epic bookworm
D7- (Lumber)
1. Decon Crow, 17, male. Bowserboy129
2. Jaelyn "Jae" Nicole Analetto, 15, female. SpunkyFun
3. Damien Andrews, 16, male. Jammerock2000
D8- (Textiles)
1. Damon Grey, 18, male. sportygirl123
2. Dan Axton, 17, male. Jammerock2000
3. Alicia Ludwig, 13, female. the epic bookworm
D9- (Grain)
1. Asher Lightwood, 17, male. Rikachan101
2. Aeris Lockhart, 15, female. Rikachan101
3. Fiona Ryder, 17, female. sportygirl123
D10- (Livestock)
1. Nick DiLaurnetis, 16, male. CallingMeFakeWontMakeYouReal
2. Jak Crenshaw, 17, male. Jammerock2000
3. Leo Rivers, 16, male. WhyNotDream
D11- (Agriculture)
1. Skylar Mitchell, 14, female. Jammerock2000
2. Kayla Baker, 16, female. Jammerock2000
3. Sage Birr, 17, male. the epic bookworm
D12- (Mining)
1. Krumr Strongthews, 18, male. CapitolRules
2. Carlyn Hansen, 17, female. CapitolRules
3. Astrid Levine, 15/16, female. CallingMeFakeWontMakeYouReal