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Fun Fact of the Chapter: How the Mentors Won Their Games, Part IV. Montague Lennox, Marius's mentor and the mayor of District Two, led the Career pack during the 142nd Games. The pack was very efficient that year, in part due to Montague's leadership, and the only non-Career left after four days was the unusually vicious boy from Nine. After the Careers' violent split, there were only three tributes left. The Nine boy caught and tortured the One girl, but Montague mercy-killed her before attacking and killing him.

…..

Yon Trizzle, District Eight

I didn't even know I was asleep until I wake up. I don't know what time it is. I don't know how many days I've been in this arena. I don't know if any more tributes died while I was asleep. I don't know and I don't care. At least, I'm trying my hardest not to.

When I look out on the forest around me, I find that part of the forest is burned. The ground is all wet and there's a thick fog all around that makes it so I can barely see the fountain a couple yards away. The light coming from overhead is dim and gray. And it's cold. Very cold.

No one has came my way for the past couple of days, so I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do. The Head Gamemakers said to kill as many people as I can. Does that mean moving? My mentor said not to move if I have a good hiding spot. And no one has found me yet. But if I'm hiding, I'm not killing as many people as I can, and if I go out of my way to kill I'm not hiding and—

I hurl my handaxe into a nearby tree, cracking open the wood. I can feel something, the same thing I felt during my private session with the Gamemakers—anger. Frustration. Fury. Things that no one had told me to feel. They scare me. Now I'm scared, too. I try to push them out of my head, but they just end up coming back, stronger than ever, and I'm slashing at trees with my axe and my knives and I fall to my knees and let them sink into the ground, breathing hard and loud.

A silver parachute marked D8B falls from the sky and lands in front of me. I pick it up and unwrap it. It's a large, warm loaf of bread. Bread from District Eight. I haven't eaten anything but berries in the past couple of days, so I slice it up with my knife and eat about a third of it. There's a piece of paper attached to the container. I pick it up and read it. I don't know if it's from my mentor or one of the Gamemakers; all I know is that it's my next order and I'm ready to follow.

It says: Keep doing that, but with living things next time.

…..

Caprice Alexander, District Eleven

The Gamemakers seem to be making a conscious effort to screw with the arena as much as possible. First the earthquakes, then the thunderstorm and the messed-up lighting, then the forest fire, and now the fog and the tree leaves, which seem to be going into harvest-mode despite the fact that it's the middle of the summer. When you look up, all you can see is red and gold and brown. It's breathtakingly beautiful, but there has to be some kind of deadly catch. This is still the Hunger Games, after all.

"What the hell is going on?" Jace asks, staring up at the canopy almost distrustfully. For a moment I'm confused—who hasn't heard of fall?—but then I remember Nine is an industrial district. They drill for oil. Jace has probably only seen trees in the Games, never mind trees whose leaves change color.

"It's normal," I say. "Well, normal for September and October. I have no idea whatsoever why it's happening now."

"They're speeding up time," Bri says. "Does that mean we'll be having bare trees and snow in a couple of days?" It's supposed to be a joke, but she seems too preoccupied to carry it out. Her thoughts are very clearly elsewhere.

"Winter is coming," Jace mutters. A chill runs down my spine and I freeze in panic. Another craze is coming on, and I can't seem to shake them off as easily as I could before I was reaped.

"Um, I'm going to go find some more berries," I say, and dart off before anyone can object. I'm sprinting though the hazy forest, trying to get as much distance from my allies as possible. I don't want to hurt them, and when I'm in one of my bursts of emotion, I have no self-control whatsoever.

All of a sudden I stumble over something on the ground and fall flat on my face. As I scramble to my feet, my brain struggles to process what exactly it is that I tripped over. It's big, very big, with dark fur and sharp teeth caught in the middle of a snarl. Glassy yellow eyes and a fatal stab wound right between them. I'm looking at the corpse of a wolf muttation, and even though it's dead, there are certain to be more to follow.

…..

Marius Sheer, District Two

What with the nearly-blinding mist and all, I'm fairly sure that today is going to be yet another unsuccessful tribute-hunting day. That's all right by me. I'm not really one for watching other teenagers be tortured to death, though both Luka and the Capitol seem to be big fans of that sort of thing. Luka, that sadistic bastard, killing for the fun of it, or at least that's what he claims. I know, I'm a Career and I really shouldn't condemn him for something I've been training for all my life. But I prefer to think of myself as more desensitized to violence, rather than enjoying violence. And I've only killed one person, Kirby Knightly, who specifically asked for it.

Kirby. He keeps invading my thoughts, even though he's been dead for days now. Kirby, who couldn't bear to live in an arena where his girlfriend was slaughtered, who didn't even give himself a chance. I had only known him for about a week, and yet the way I think about him makes it seem like an eternity.

I shake my head and try to focus on what's in front of me. Four fellow Careers—Gabriel stayed back to guard—and trees and the fog. No tributes as of yet. No one speaks; all of us are too absorbed in our thoughts, no doubt thinking about either strategy or home—the two are intertwined.

I try to force myself to think about Armen, what happened to him, why he lost, what his weaknesses were and how I can learn from them. When that becomes too difficult, I switch to thinking of all the reasons I need to win. One, to bring pride to my district; two, to give Mom and Dad and Maria a better life in Two; three, to avenge Armen and live the life he never got to finish; four, to get back to Callia...

Callia. I'm not sure what I think of her, and she's probably not sure what to think of me. But I need to get home for her sake, if only so we can properly sort our feelings out.

I go back to thinking about my allies. If anyone were to betray each other, now would be a perfectly good time to do it. I shudder a little and tighten my grip on my axe. I could probably beat any one of them in a fair fight, but if someone were to go at me from behind and stab me in the back, I'd be dead before I even realized it.

Apparently Carreen is thinking the same thing, because about a minute later, she stops and turns around, her brow furrowed.

"Something the matter?" Luka says with a smirk.

The Four girl doesn't respond, looking more and more worried by the second. Finally she takes in a breath and says, face carefully neutral, "Emily's gone."

…..

Chantelle Jacobsen, District Ten

A flash of red darts through the forest in front of me. Though her face is a blur, I can easily guess that it's the girl from Eleven—she's the only redheaded tribute this year. I hesitate for a moment, waiting to see what's chasing her. When nothing shows up, I, being the opportunistic tribute that I'm supposed to be, begin to pursue her myself.

I can just picture the broadcast in the Capitol, playing the standard supposedly-dramatic chase scene music as we run through the woods while the commentators bet on who's going to kill whom or if there are going to be any deaths at all. I roll my eyes. I'm not actually planning on killing her, not yet. I'm just going to do a little espionage. As I recall from training, the girl from Eleven—Caprice something or other—was in an alliance with the girl from Nine and the twelve-year-old Seven girl who got an 11 from the Gamemakers. All three of them were considered among the best bets to win besides the Careers.

Either Caprice is headed toward her allies or away from them, but I'd bet on toward. That would work out well for me—she'd lead me right to her camp, where I could hide out and spy on them while figuring out the best way to break them apart. I want these Games to be done with as quickly as possible, and that means breaking up the alliances early. That way, they'd turn against each other and wouldn't have many qualms about killing the others off. Less work for me, anyway.

Eventually the redhead slows to a more manageable pace. I accidentally brush against one of the tree branches. I duck behind the tree just as Caprice whips her head around. After a few minutes of this, I peek out from my hiding spot to see the Eleven girl on the move again, back turned toward me. I can begin to hear voices, presumably the voices of her allies, talking about something or another. I stop trailing the girl and scale a tree. The leaves work well as cover, and it gives me a good vantage point as well as raising my chances of survival should a fight break out.

A silver parachute drops out of the sky, bearing three ration packet meals for D10G. Food. One thing I once had lacked but now have plenty of, all thanks to making interesting television.

I'm both thankful and disgusted at the same time.

…..

Eadem Ordinaria, District Six

The rain washed away the footprints I had been tracking, my only lead. Damn those bastards in the Gamemaking center—aren't they supposed to like it when tributes go picking fights? Whatever. I'm going to keep heading in this direction anyway and hope I get lucky. Their camp can't be that far away.

My stomach growls in indignation. I've been so busy tracking that I haven't bothered to eat much lately, and then only berries. I shouldn't let something like that bother me, but if it's going to insist...

I pick some edible berries from a nearby bush and cram them into my mouth, leaning against a tree and sighing in exasperation. It would be so tempting to just give up right here and now; any normal tribute would do that, I'm sure. Give up the hunt, find a good hiding place, and stay there until the competition has narrowed down significantly. But I will carry on, if only to prove to myself that I can.

Proving things. It's pretty much the story of my life. Proving to my mom that I'm a normal boy and a good son, proving to Dad that I'm worthy of his attention, proving to the factory owners that electrocuting me is a bad idea for a punishment, proving to myself that the pain of electric shocks doesn't hurt so much. Proving that I'm capable of handling myself at the reaping, proving to the training instructors and Gamemakers that I'm a contender in these Games, proving to the Capitol audiences that I am a force to be reckoned with. And now, proving to everyone that you should not ignore me, because I'm a lot more than they all bargained for.

I get myself a drink of water from the fountain and begin heading in the general direction of the footprints, absentmindedly muttering under my breath. I have no way of knowing whether I'm getting closer or farther to my prey, and I'm just about to try heading in the other direction when I spot my quarry in the distance.

Time to be the predator.

…..

Link Anderson, District Three

Thalia's alive. Thank whatever god there may or may not be for that.

I still don't know why she collapsed—maybe too much physical exertion, maybe some Capitol drug that made its way into her system—and, to be honest, I really don't want to know. All I care about is that's she's safe now, after awakening from her stupor a couple hours ago.

Despite the fact that, well, we're in the Games and only one of us can live, I've got to say that my district partner has grown on me. She's odd, certainly, but her intelligence and courage more than makes up for that. It's saved us both a number of times. Besides, she's kind of cute. And when it looked like she was dead or even comatose... I just... I just couldn't stop thinking that maybe I couldn't have gone on without her, at least not for long. The rational thing to do was to leave her there and lookout for myself, but I simply couldn't make myself be that ruthless, no matter how badly I want to win these Games and get back to District Three.

I try to push these thoughts to the back of my head—tributes who have an emotional attachment to their allies are 3.92% less likely to win the Games, and you need all the help you can get—but they just keep coming back, as insistent as ever. Finally, when I feel like I'm about to explode with uncertainty, I mumble something about going to get water in order to get out of the awkward silence between me and my district partner. She hands me the water bottle and the iodine and I head off to the nearest fountain to clear my head.

Call it love, lust, friendship, admiration, whatever you want, but the fact is that there's an emotion inside of me that I can't get rid of which might hinder my gameplan in the near future. What to do? Obviously killing or abandoning Thalia is not an option. Perhaps I can get it into my head that I have to protect myself in order to protect her—that way I'm looking out for my own interests without compromising my feelings. The logic's a little skewed, but as long as I can get my brain to play along, both Thalia and I should be safe. I exhale deeply, factoring this new piece of information into my mental calculation of my odds.

And then I hear the scream.