Before you dive into reading this author's note, be warned—it's long.

So… hi, guys! Let me start off by saying I am soooooooooo sorry for the wait! I've been focusing on my characters for Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend, as you know, but now I am back and ready to make this my first writing priority as usual. I've also recently gotten new additions to the family (though not through birth; my dad's girlfriend and her daughters have moved in), and the oldest of her daughters is only a year older than me, so we've been doing a lot of summer stuff like riding bikes and playing Wii for hours when it's too dark, rainy, or hot to be outside, lazing around, playing softball, and just doing a whole bunch of random but fun stuff. Also, her two sisters really like me so I tend to have to entertain them, which isn't so bad since they haven't begun to annoy me and I hope they never will, but… you know how younger siblings can be, whether they're technically your siblings or not.

Also, the fair came to town, and so the only writing I've been doing at all is a bit of my HDMOF character making and of course RPing. There's just not enough hours in the day, even if I do go to bed around three a.m. every night… I've also had four sleepovers in the last week because I've decided I've been severely antisocial when it comes to my friends this summer, but who cares? It just means I've stayed out of the summer drama. But I have wanted a few sleepovers before I have to go back to school and go to school softball (which is ten times busier than summer softball because it's an actual traveling, serious, this-is-for-winning-not-so-much-for-fun league, whereas summer ball is just this-is-learning-and-fun-time). And I'm determined to actually play this year, since last year I sat on the bench and played maybe ten times in total though we had games every weekday for about a month and total. But last year I sucked—and this year I think I've majorly improved.

Also, I'm in desperate need of more characters for the sequel. If I don't get them, I will ultimately stop writing this series—and that would suck because I have awesome ideas for the future—and write some Doctor Who or GONE thing or something. So submit, submit, submit, and if you know any SYOT-lovers on the site, maybe ask them to? I just really don't want to quit this series, and I know forty-eight is quite a bit of tributes to submit, I really like the sequel's Quell and I'm keeping it like it is.

Anyway, on to the chapter! I hope you're all still with me, and that you enjoy and review the chapter. The feast is coming up… in three chapters? I hope so. This is the rest of Day Five, and I'm predicting now that Day Six will be relatively uneventful so it'll require only one chapter, and then Day Seven where the feast/trap/whatever-I-have-in-mind goes down!

Oh, you can´t hear me cry
See my dreams all die
From where you´re standing
On your own

It´s so quiet here
And I feel so cold
This house no longer
Feels like home

"So Cold" by Nikisha Reyes-Pile

D9- 17- (Asher Lightwood)

Aeris isn't acting right. She's acting…loopy, and on top of that she's acting as though she remembers nothing, as if in the course of our mysterious nap that I don't remember taking she's been stripped of everything that makes her Aeris Lockhart. I woke up to see her staring intently at the floor. Her eyes darted up and that was the moment I knew something was wrong. The coldness, the emptiness that her eyes always hold was replaced by a far scarier emptiness—and the telltale expression was the giddiness. Aeris is not giddy. Giddy is a meaningless thing to her.

Looking into her eyes, I find myself slipping away…but the shock of seeing her like this keeps me away from doing that. I will protect this girl for as long as I can because we've come to be more than close. We have a strong, unspeakable bond that some may mark as romantic but we both know it's more complicated and more tangible than that. Romance is a dream in the arena; we've grabbed onto an alliance stronger than anything else because it was a solid fact.

She then throws herself at me, and it's so sudden that I jerk back. And anyway, it's Aeris. Not that I don't want to kiss her… But we shouldn't, not here. If we weren't in the arena, I wouldn't be pushing her away from me, but we are so I am. She frowns at me and the look of disappointment and sadness makes my heart melt and then my anger roar. The Capitol has done something serious to her, and they're trying to do it to me too.

I have just enough brainpower after our brief, forbidden kiss to think, Maybe it has to do with the fact that we're not even trying to go to the feast.

But I'll think about that more later because right now there is no time.

"Aeris," I say gently, looking up at her with concern. "What's up with you?"

"That's my name!" she exclaims, and I truly start to panic. She doesn't know her name? What's worse is she giggles. "What's your name? I want to kiss you after I learn your name."

I wonder if this is some cruel prank, and I know I should think better of her than that, but I'm really scared and I'd prefer if it was a sick joke that I could get angry at and then forget. But if this is losing her, if this is our last conversation, I can't take it. I don't want it. I don't want a world where these are our last words to each other and where one of us doesn't even know the other. The last few weeks would be gone—hell, her whole life is slipping from her fingertips, I bet.

"Aeris Lockhart," I begin in a contained voice, but then my anger and fear explodes, "stop it right now."

Aeris scoots back slightly, no doubt scared of my small outburst, but I can't help it. We're going to die anyway—or one of us is, at least, and maybe both. Probably both. Food and water aren't issues, but the fact of the matter is that we're defying the Capitol simply by not attempting the impossible for them. And while I don't want to defy them and get myself killed, I will die with the dignity of being smart. Dying because of mutts is, hopefully, faster than starvation or dehydration, right?

"What's your name?" she asks. I see tears starting to run down her face. "Please don't hurt me, nameless."

"Aeris, please." I lean forward and hug her close to me, rocking her, and she goes limp in my arms. This is the moment when I start to cry. I rock her more and hope that she'll come back to normal, all but forcing myself not to scream profanity at the Capitol, begging them relentlessly to spare her. Take me, but spare her. "I'm Asher Lightwood, Aeris, and you're Aeris Lockhart and no, please don't go to sleep! Please! Aeris, wake up!"

But it's far too late now. Her eyes are shut. Her heart still beats and she still breathes, but I have a feeling that if she wakes up at all, she won't be my Aeris anymore.

D5- 18- (Anya Saitov)

Movement.

That's all it takes to let me know that it's time to run.

I need food. I need supplies. I need kills. The wound in my stomach is faring well, but all the same I'd love to have medicine for it. I need whatever this movement was, but I'm not going to act like an animal. I don't want to turn into an animal. So I silently, stealthily, go toward them… but then I'm out in the open, and that's over. It doesn't take long at all for me to go from concealed to out in the open. It takes about two minutes.

Then I have to run, have to run quickly, and I do just that. The things I saw now reveal themselves to be tributes. I run, my feet pounding the ground, forgetting quietness—I'm ready for any attack right now. I need whatever food these tributes hopefully have. I need the love from the Capitol full of sponsors and Gamemakers. I need them to know I am fully prepared and ready to kill, and more than anything that I can do it entertainingly. I am not cruel, though; I will not draw it out. I will be sensible, I will be merciful—but I will be entertaining as well.

They are girls. I can see that as they dart to try to find a better hiding place, deciding I can see them—but ha! The joke's on them, because I couldn't see them. I knew the general vicinity in which they were hiding in, but other than that, I had no clue. They could've ran when I was checking somewhere too far off for me to hear if they were quiet enough, and could've gotten a good head start over me if they went as fast as they're going now—good enough that I may not see them or I may give up, deciding that it'll be too much trouble.

Now I know exactly where they are, and I'm not too far behind. I grin in amusement and to let the Capitol know that I am clever—much clever than them. Favor me, for I am worthy of victory. Sponsor me, for I am able to win. Love me, for soon I will be the face of the country even more so than the president, and so much more powerful. People cower down to the young, inexperienced lady we view as our ruler. They fear her and look to her for the rules, the crackdown. But victors? People worship them. They love them and look to them for future and for her to respect, what to do, how to act in this world, because we are survivors. We're stronger than the strongest because we are fearful and because we are clever and know all there is to know about the facts laid in front of us about this world. I don't care for the fame or for the money. I wish to survive at all costs, and the fame and the money? That's just a bonus.

My thoughts go from winning to killing when I get close enough to the girls. I don't pull out my sword yet because I'm running, but as soon as I'm near them, it's out. The girls have fierce determination in their eyes, but it's only amusing me more. I take a millisecond to see what I'm fighting—two little girls, one of them a bit off by the look in her eyes, with a couple knives in their belts and one with a machete—and then lunge at the one that seems to be the most competition.

The off girl with a machete attacks back. I feel the deep pain as her machete hits my shoulder and I spin a bit from impact. However, it doesn't take me long to recover before I swing my sword at her. Then I feel the knife in the back of my shoulder. The butt of the weapon hits me, and I laugh out loud at the girl's pathetic attempt at killing me. I turn to her and hit the sword at her, bracing myself for the pain from the machete that I know is coming. My sword goes in the hopeless girl's stomach. I twist, then yank. The girl screams, and her ally impossibly screams louder. Both are screechy and bloodcurdling noises, but the one in pain screams more subdued, and then resigns into shock of being killed, dying.

To my surprise, as I turn back to the insane girl, I wild swing from her machete that I don't have time to deflect or move away from gets a bit of my hand, and I yell out in pain as my pinkie drops to the ground. No matter how disgusting the sight is, I clench my teeth, look up at the girl, and see she's already running. Reflecting on the finger falling from me takes away time—but it hurts so bad! And I already killed one, didn't I? I can't do it. I'm so tired, so hungry, so thirsty, and so in pain…

I turn around and run away.

D3- 14- (Calypso Oswald)

I am numbed with shock and terror and sadness as Nelly kneels next to me, and whispers, "Fuck, fuck, fuck, please fucking live, please, Calypso, please." Only she pronounces my name "Cal-eepso," like someone people idiotically do and I find myself annoyed but in a better place, a place where getting angry with people who pronounce my name wrong is a pretty normal thing for an abnormal girl like me.

Then I snap back out of it, and even me, an aesthetic girl, cannot find a shred of beauty other than the bond of Nelly and me in this situation. Curiosity makes me ache with a tremendous force. I am curious about the other side, about death, and a million questions pound in my mind with each heartbeat, and while I am curious, I am terrified each time I take a shuddering breath that it's my last.

"Cal… talk to me… Please say something…"

I lift my eyes to her. Crumpled on the ground, she's leaning over me, knelt before me. I start to cry as I say, "It's going to take a long time for me to die, Nelly. I have to bleed out."

Nelly grabs my hand and squeezes. "I can heal you, then." I'm about to say something when she looks up to the sky and screams angrily and so, so loudly, "GIVE US MEDICINE! SEND US SOMETHING FOR HER!"

"Nelly…" I say softly. She's making me sad, so sad, and what I'm about to ask of her makes me so much sadder. "Stop. They won't." The tears stream down and my body is suddenly racked with sobs that send angry tendrils of pain through my body, especially around my stomach. She finally looks down at me, sobbing as well. It is visibly obvious that she is insane, just by the look in her eyes.

"Nelly, please," I whisper. "Nell, kill me."

D4- 13- (Nelly Carter)

NOOOOOOOOOO!

I think the word, but my mind is too scrambled to allow me to say it, so instead I let out the longest, loudest, scariest scream in the world.

While I scream, I ward off the killer by cutting off her finger. Tears stream as I scream, and I imagine my face is an ugly, contorted wreck. The girl runs off. The specifics don't get to my head, so all I know is: Plop! and the finger's on the ground. Whoops! and the girl is gone. It hurts, everything hurts, my head and my arm and my throat and my feet and my hands. I kneel next to Calypso and sob, sob, sob, the life out of me, and it hurts in a way physically impossible but so mentally real.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck, please fucking live, please, Calypso, please," I whisper, tears strolling along, creeping down my cheeks. The dying girl in front of me is my last grasp to sanity, and now that she's dying… I'm so sad. I'm so, so sad. Calypso and Ryan. Gone. Calypso and Ryan. Calypso and Ryan. I miss Ryan so much. "Cal… talk to me… Please say something…"

She looks up at me and cries. "It's going to take a long time for me to die, Nelly. I have to bleed out."

I grab her hand and hold it tightly, looking at her sadly, but the look on my face cannot possibly tell her how sad I feel. I don't want to be insane. I don't want her to die. Spiders. I like spiders. Squirrels. I hate squirrels. They will take over, but McLovin will rise from the dead and save us all…

"I can heal you, then," I tell her determinedly. Fueled now by rage, I scream, thirsty for the blood of the bitches that won't save her, "GIVE US MEDICINE! SEND US SOMETHING FOR HER!"

She says things. I can see her mouth moving, but I'm screaming too loud, and then she's sobbing and I'm sobbing and looking down at her.

She asks me for the impossible. She asks me to kill her.

I look at my machete and sob harder. "Please, Nell!" she screams. "It hurts and I don't want to wait to bleed out."

I don't even know what I'm doing. I pick up the knife that ricocheted off the girl who killed her. I put it in her heart. I scream. The robotic movements allow only unanimated thoughts, but back, way back, in my head, I scream. I sob. Out loud, just before she goes, I say, "NOOOOOO!"

And then I collapse, and she goes absolutely limp.

My kill.

She was my kill.

Astra is eleven years old. She is not old enough for tesserae, she is not old enough to go into the Games, but she is old enough to watch them. She's also old enough, and has been since birth, to be trained to be prim. Proper. Perfect. Calypso, her sister in the Games, always rejected her mother's insistence to be sophisticated, quiet people, and though Astra understood why, she never really understood her sister as a whole, but she has always loved her.

Now she watches as she dies.

Her mother is holding her right hand. Her father has her left. She sits in between them on the couch in their living room, watching the television, seeing the scene in the arena miles and miles away unfold thirstily. But they are not thirsty for the entertainment the Capitol wishes for—they are thirsty to see the turnout of this battle that promises to result in at least one casualty. What worries the Oswalds most is that Calypso is practically unarmed compared to her insane, vicious ally and the emotionless girl trying to kill them.

The commentator, Mira Wendenburg, and the new interview, Gem Yngsi, watch in delight, which makes Astra furious. Mira says, "Oh! Calypso's down."

"I liked her too," Gem says, like Astra's sister, Astra's Calypso, is already dead. She can get out of this. Astra knows this. She has to.

Astra watches as the nameless murderer that's killed her sister turns to her sister's ally Nelly. She silently hopes that the machete that is swinging wildly in Nelly's hand cuts off the girl's head, and because of this kill they get medicine to heal the gaping, bloody, disgusting black hole in Calypso's stomach. But she knows it's not possible, and all that Nelly gets is the girl's finger. It falls to the ground. Astra turns away, not wanting to see that, but she doesn't stay turned around long enough. She sees the bloody stump and feels sick to her stomach. Does it matter though? The Capitol will break her—if not now, then in the next Games, and she will see far grosser things. A bloody finger? That'll be nothing in the years to come.

"Oh! What do you know—Nelly just took Anya's finger!" Gem says, quite excited. Astra doesn't care about properness as she thinks about just how satisfying it would be to slit Gem's throat. Then she thinks with horror, They've already desensitized me. She didn't throw up like she used to when she saw blood on the television… She doesn't want to be what they want her to be.

Anya runs, and the Games pause and look to Gem and Mira's reactions to the fight scene before the inevitable death is shown. She knows it's coming, but Astra refuses to accept it until the cannon sounds. She knows it will and it hurts. That sound will be the most painful in the world, and fuck primness—she'll be pissed, and she'll let it show that she is not the Capitol's puppet or her mother's puppet. Astra will be her own, and she'll be the silent rebel by not being who everyone wants and expects her to be. Till the day she dies.

D12- 16- (Astrid Levine)

They turn on us before we can even react.

Nick kisses my head with a weak smile and guides me along. I wish he would stop trying to reassure me but I say nothing about it. I hold his hand and squeeze his periodically to let him know that I'm fine. He returns the favor and I know that I appreciate it, even if I can just look over at him and see that he's perfectly fine. Still, the squeeze is better than anything I see; sight can easily be an illusion, a trick from the Capitol. Feeling him, the warmth and the small pressure—that's real.

As I am thinking this, I see Damien and Decon finally stop their whispering and turn, weapons raised. I scream and I don't even know why until I feel the pain in my chest. Down. I'm falling and there's nothing to do. Nick is charging at the boy… Damien… He was the one with the hatchet, right? And Decon had the axe? Or was it the other… other way around?

The sight of the hatchet did not scare me. Could've been fake… Should've been…

My head hurts.

Nick! What's Nick doing? Get back here, Nick, I try to say, but my brain won't let the words come out of my mouth. Nick, please, I need you! Nick! He's fighting them away, using the sword savagely. He wants them to go away. Why does he want them to go away? The D boys are so… so… what's the word? Funny. They're funny! Ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha. I will miss them when they go.

Oh, wait, does it have to do with the pain in my chest? It doesn't hurt that bad, but I dimly remember it hurting before that a lot worse. What did they do to me? What happened?

Nick kneels down next to me and I see the D boys are gone. What're their names? I don't know. Nick is bloody and I try to wipe away the blood. I wonder how it got on him… He scolds me though and I begin to cry. I don't know why he's so sad, but he is. I can tell. His pretty, warm, kind eyes are sad. Why are they sad? Why won't anyone answer me? Oh, that's right, I'm not talking.

"Astrid…" he says. He's crying. He kisses me and I really like it. I smile widely and squeeze his hand, remembering that he likes that and I like that too. But it only makes him cry harder and I frown. I see something in my chest and my eyes widen as realization comes to me… but then it slips away. What was I thinking about just then? Answer me, damn it, Nick!

"Say something, Astrid. Please. Say something…"

I swallow. "N-Niiii-c-ck." Why is my voice so raggedy? Oh. Thing in chest. Blood! Blood! D boys.

Eyes closing. Can't stop them. Feels nice… Brain… won't work.

Nick…

"Astrid!" Cara calls, smiling as she comes over to me in the schoolyard. "Hey! I had fun the other night, didn't you?"

I remember things, some recent and some from so long ago…

Mommy and Daddy are fighting. "Evangeline, damn it, Astrid's gonna wake up. Let's take this outside."

I'm already awake. And I'm scared. But I know Mommy and Daddy love each other.

"No!" Mommy screams. "Grover, you get out of my house, and you come back when you're ready to apologize!"

No, Daddy, don't go! I think, but I don't say it.

Nick's eyes. I like them.

I remember once an old lady tripped over my foot and hit me with her cane. I was little. I didn't mean to almost make her fall. But she hit me anyway, and I cried and my daddy said she was a mean old woman and that I should not ever go near her. I told him I didn't want to and he smiled slightly, wrapping his arms around me and saying, "I know, Astrid. I'll have your mother make an ice pack."

Fighting with my mom.

"You snuck out?!" she screams.

I cringe. I knew I shouldn't have, but Cara begged me. "Cara—"

"No excuses!"

"It wasn't my fault, though, Mom…"

"Go to your room! Now! You will not be allowed to leave this house or have anyone over except for school and the reaping, Astrid Levine!"

I'm hungry. And I feel wet and my eyelids don't want to stay open, but no one's coming so I keep on wailing. And no one's coming still. And I am so, so angry.

He's still looking down at me when I come out of my trance. And his eyes are the last things I see.

D12- 17- (Carlyn Hansen)

I hold Krumr's hand on my watch, knowing he won't let me do it any other time without getting frustrated eventually. I think this is cute, but I have more of a heart than he does and I crave the affection I know that he won't give me, and if I win, no man will ever give me the affection I wish for. I wish for the freedom of making out or having sex—which Krumr and I have not done and will not do because I'm not like that and because I'm not stripping for the whole Capitol to see—but I also like holding hands, the man stroking the woman's hair. I want that as well, and the fact that I have to get it while Krumr is asleep angers me a little bit.

I sigh and pull my hand away, thinking more about Krumr himself than the two of us and our intimacy. I don't want him to die, nor do I want him to be tricked, though I can spot the traps easier than he can. We almost ran into a snare that someone set and then abandoned, but I pointed it out seconds before he stepped into it. He pretended to be annoyed that I saw it and he didn't, but I knew he appreciated what I did and that he was somewhat impressed.

I know it's almost his shift and I'm glad. I want to sleep. Before I wake him up, I ponder what will happen on Day Seven, and also what might happen if we don't go. Surely mutts will attack us or something—or is that too cliché? Do the Gamemakers have something new up their sleeves, or are they sticking to what they know so well? It doesn't really matter because I won't ever know. I'm not risking it.

I pull my hand out of Krumr's and wake him up, and just before I fall asleep, I feel him take my hand.

D1- 17- (Adelina Summerfield)

I'm woken up by a sharp pain.

It's dark outside, but I'm still really tired so I know it can't be all that late. The pain is in my throat. It's so dry. I pick up my water bottle and take a long, long gulp to hydrate myself. Still, my throat feels so dry… I wonder why.

I put on my night vision glasses and see Daphne's awake. Deciding to talk to her, I stand up and expertly move over all the sleeping people, when suddenly an eruption of pain sends me tumbling to the ground and I cry out. I start to cough a deep, throaty, disgusting cough that makes my insides feel like soup, and it gets louder and louder and more and more painful.

"Ade?" Daphne says worriedly, coming to my sides. I begin to throw up as I cough, coughing so hard and throwing up so much stomach acids after last night's dinner has already left my stomach. My throat feels raw and I want to scream in agony but I can't. Daphne pats my back as she, terrified, screeches, "Adelina! Oh, my God, what's going on? What can I do?"

I can't talk though. My mind is beginning to feel funny and I collapse in the pool of bloodiness that I threw up and coughed up. I stop coughing and lie in the disgusting, sticky puddle, wondering what the hell just happened. My throat still hurts too much to talk, and I feel like my stomach is eating itself out. The pain is so awful that I grasp my hair and begin to tear clumps of it out, but that does not compare to the rawness of my throat and the pain in my stomach. I try to swallow, try to talk, and the stinging in my throat increases tenfold.

I hear Daphne stand up and look through my pack. She inspects my water, and I can't tell because of the slight greenness my glasses put off, but I think her face pales. She turns to me and says quietly, so, so quietly, "Oh, my God, Ade. Nightlock. There was nightlock in here. Someone poisoned you." By now everyone is up but Dante. Everyone's eyes are wide, because though they can't see, they can hear. "Everyone, give me your packs now," snaps Daphne.

And then the world fades quickly into darkness.

D6- 17- (Dante Kyanide)

And the first District One bitch is down.

I'm awake the whole time that she's dying but I don't show it, mainly because I'm not entirely sure that I completely emptied my backpack of my supply of nightlock, and acting as inconspicuous as possible will save my life. I must live, too, if only to kill Daphne and Gleam as well. But I'm set on living through these Games, determined to win. However, with a bunch of angry Careers knowing I killed one of their own… the odds of survival begin to dwindle.

"Get up, asshole," Gleam spits, nudging me. I narrow my eyes and glare at her. Luckily she's not wearing night vision glasses, so she doesn't see the glare.

Daphne checks all of the backpacks and then she picks up mine. I hold my breath and suppress a grin when I look at the body of Adelina Summerfield, one of the bitchiest brats in the entire fucked-up, bitchy country. No one sees the corners of my mouth tilt up for a split second as I revel in the glory of avenging my dead brother and ridding the world of her nuisance of an existence.

I didn't have any poison to get the job done, so I figured nightlock would work out, though it's a bit messier. I'll need to clean my fingers up or keep them covered tomorrow because they're stained with berry juice, and that'll be a dead giveaway to the fact that I killed her. I only hope that they don't turn on me just because I'm an outside Career before I can find the time to kill the other two District One hoes and then flee. It'll be difficult. I may only have the time to kill one of them before I have to run from the Careers, and I can let someone else take care of the last one or I can kill her in the final battle. Either way, as long as she dies, I'm satisfied because I killed the worst and most annoying one.

The wrath of her sister will be great if she finds another Career decided nightlock would be a good thing to keep in handy. I actually hope that happens because it would be very entertaining to see happen: to see her flip out and then kill them slowly and probably with the vicious help of a few other Careers who're eager for a kill of any sort, whether it's truly theirs or not. I doubt Daphne will let them carry out the final blow. It would be even more entertaining to see her flip on someone for taking the final blow of the supposed killer of her sister. I can tell how protective the girl is—was—of her sister.

She searches through mine. Then she slowly slides a pair of night vision glasses onto my face. I frown. But then I get it. Her fingers slowly, painfully, draw out something from my backpack. It's a straggler from the clump of berries that I stupidly did not see and left precariously and mindlessly in my backpack. It's the doom, the death, the damnation of me. And I am most certainly in this second damned.

Daphne pulls out one nightlock berry. She stares at me savagely, and before I know it, she's on top of me, screaming and shoving the nightlock down my throat. I spit it back up, and she gets to work on torturing me. I know no one will help, but I scream the word, in pain, anyway. This death is so lonely. There is no one to come help me. No one ever would.

D1- 17- (Daphne Summerfield)

I feel such strong emotion over Adelina's death that my chest physically hurts, and my heart mentally hurts even more. Emotions swell, and I know that I cannot sob but that's all I want to do. The need to let out all the pain through crying relentlessly would be invited, welcomed happily. I can't seem weak, even after this, to my fellow Careers. I just want to apologize to my sister for all the fights we've had, and hug her and tell her I love her and promise her that she can win—not me. Not me if it means she dies. She can live with the pain that will forever bring me.

I take my knife and slit his arms. Long, deep cuts go up the length of his limbs now, and he's still screaming though the worst is to come. I now take my cleaver and cut both of his hands off with a bit of effort. Then his feet are taken off swiftly. After that, in my rage, I yell at him several choice words repeatedly. I take off his nose and scoop out his eyes. It starts to get disgusting but I am so, so angry. I cut his lips off and then drive a knife into his heart. I don't even know when the cannon sounds, whether it was before the knife to the heart or not.

The other Careers stare at me in something like awe for what I just did to the boy from Six. I snap at Jackson, "Take the scum's body and his parts. Throw them somewhere. I got my sister." He nods and quickly does as he's told, while I delicately pick my sister up and walk far away, as far as I dare. I lay her down, kiss her forehead, and shed the tears I don't dare to shed back at camp. "Goodbye, sister." And then I walk away. Away from my best friend, my sister. My blood.

I will win for you.

And the Capitol will have hell to pay.

A/N: That chapter was so hard to write! I mean, I didn't have writer's block, but it was so sad. I really liked all the characters I killed here, but to be honest I was saddest with Calypso. She is my Rue. But it'll be very fun to see Nelly go even more insane than Gray after Ryan - especially since she lost Ryan as well as Calypso and she was already a bit off before their deaths - and I hope that WhyNotDream stays with the story and reviews even though all of her tributes are dead!

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