Fun Fact of the Chapter: How the Mentors Won Their Games, Part XV. In Chapter 52, Veras mentions that "after the disaster that was the 183rd Games, the Gamemakers are careful to keep the mutts smart, able to anticipate the tributes' movements". This refers to D10 mentor Gavin Longwood, who managed to scare some of the arena's flesh-eating horse mutts into stampeding towards the Cornucopia, trampling the competition that had gathered there for the Feast.
…..
Day Eight.
The sun rises on a snow-covered arena, the very picture of tranquility but for the blood-soaked patch of ground where the Careers' camp had once stood. The camera dives down into the barren forest and sweeps pas each of the tributes in turn: Jace and Caprice, the last alliance to hold out, however shaky; Bri Geers, the fallen heroine, slowly dying at the edge of the arena; Veras Valdez, in hiding amongst the wolves; Link, the boy crippled not by his leg, but by his heart; Chantelle Jacobsen, the ruthlessly clever girl with nothing to lost; and Yon from District Eight, the unfeeling, almost inhuman axe-crazy killer. They've all heard the six cannons that can only mean Career deaths. They all know they're in the final seven. They all think they're safe, at least for now.
And they are. The audience needs a day to process the game change that had occurred just last night. The government is frustrated with this, but even President Shadow herself has to agree that what the audience wants, the audience must get. And so the sun sets without another drop of blood spilled.
It's not something the Gamemakers will let happen again.
…..
Day Nine.
The undead body of Chantelle's blind district partner tries to strangle her in her sleep. At the slightest touch, she wakes and reflexively shoves her knife into its forehead. It slumps forward. She stabs it again in the heart and walks deeper into the forest.
Jace and Caprice are running low on supplies and on patience. Jace is now spending half the time in a daze, lighting the necessary fires and rebuilding the necessary shelters without comment, almost as if sleepwalking. She rarely gets any actual rest, however, and anyone, including Caprice, can see she's falling apart. Few in the Capitol think to sympathize with her.
Another undead Thalia accosts Link from behind, knocking him to the ground. It pulls out some rope and starts making a noose, but Link grabs hold of a tree branch and pulls himself up. He doesn't have the heart to kill his former ally, however dead, and so he bolts away as fast as he can, katanas held with a death grip.
His leg starts to become an impediment, tripping him up about every ten yards, but he's faster than the walking corpse, at any rate, and so he has reason to believe he's out of trouble. What only the audience knows is that he's wandering dangerously close to Yon's territory, so close that a battle seems inevitable. Just a little further in to the east...
When it comes, the battle is quick but furious. Yon sees the boy approaching and abandons his meal, preparing himself to slice cleanly through Link's neck. Link sees him coming and tries to back away, swords at the ready in case Yon still tries to attack. Which he does.
The Eight boy runs forward and swings. Link ducks, then jabs at the boy's stomach. A blank look—blanker than usual, that is—flickers across Yon's face as he processes the orders he's been given. He soon concludes that killing someone is a higher priority than remaining uninjured, and so he swings again. Link blocks the axe's hilt with the blade of his sword, then makes a run for it. Yon follows, swinging a third time.
He does not miss. Cannon. Yon Trizzle now has two kills to his name, the highest body count of any surviving tribute yet.
…..
Day Ten.
Jace wakes Caprice at three in the morning to tell her ally that she's leaving. "It's the final six," she says. "I don't want to kill you, and I know you don't want to kill me. I'll go. We can split the supplies." She looks so vulnerable in that moment—biting her lip, pale hair against pale skin, only sixteen years old—that any argument about the supplies dies on Caprice's lips. So the Eleven girl just nods.
They divide what's left of the crackers in silence. As the sun rises, Jace heads to the west as Caprice retreats further into the makeshift shelter she and Jace had built. And then the wolves come.
Eight wolf-mutts circle around the two tributes, forcing them back towards each other. The girl raise their knives to fight, but they both know they're outnumbered. "Jace?" Caprice says, breath quickening.
Jace doesn't respond. She's in a daze. The wolves move closer.
"Jace!" Caprice has started to scale a tree. "Jace, get up here!"
The Nine girl wakes at the last second, grabbing a branch and pulling herself just out of the wolves' reach. Caprice helps her up, and together they stare down at the wolves and try to think of a plan.
"We have four knives between us," says Caprice. "That's enough to stab half the pack at a time. If we get them between the eyes I think we can kill them with one blow—let me try—"
She throws a knife at the nearest one with as much force as she can muster. Her aim is perfect, but the blade of the knife doesn't even penetrate the skin. As one of the four weapons they have falls to the ground, the allies come to a realization. The audience wants blood, and that's what the audience must get. Someone has to die in order for one of them to stay alive.
Jace has slipped into a daze again, possibly in shock. She doesn't resist when Caprice grabs the front of her shirt and choke-holds her. She closes her eyes. She's ready to sleep.
But the Eleven girl is not killing her. Instead, she's whispering in her ear, so low the cameras can't pick it up. "I don't want to kill you. I don't want to kill anyone." And with that, she lets go and springs into the air, falling to the ground with a sickening crack.
The wolves gather around the corpse. Jace drops her knife on her late ally, a mercy kill in case she hadn't already died. Cannon. The Nine girl leans back and closes her eyes again.
The body of Caprice Alexander rises two minutes later, only to be promptly pulled apart by the still-hovering wolves. The pieces writhe a bit and are ripped into smaller, then smaller, then smaller pieces, until nothing is left but bloody bits of flesh and flaming red hair against the snow.
…..
Day Eleven.
"Congratulations, final five tributes of the 191st Annual Hunger Games! I know we're in the final days here, but I just wanted to inform you on behalf of our generous sponsors that there's an upcoming Feast at the Cornucopia at midnight tonight, so any tribute can grab some nutritious snacks and medical supplies to fuel him or her through the rest of the Games! The victor could be you!" A crackle of static, then silence.
Veras Valdez is starving—for food and for sponsors—and he knows his only chance is this Feast, no matter how much of an obvious trap it is. He collects his things and moves silently through the woods, for the first time budging from his cliffside tree.
On his way out, he passes by Bri Geers. Remembering her training score, he bolts away, only realizing that she was a sitting duck after the fact. Agh. He could have gotten sponsors with another kill. Now his only hope really is the Feast.
By the time Veras arrives at the Cornucopia, the moon is high in the sky. He glances at the empty clearing, sighs, and waits for what could be his savior—or his death.
…..
Day Twelve.
Chantelle has also decided to attend the Feast, worried about the gash in her arm that seems to be only getting worse despite her best efforts. She doesn't know if any of the other tributes are injured, but knows the medical supplies must be meant for her. She has plenty of sponsor-provided food, especially after that note from Annabelle and Langdon. But she can't dwell on that now. She has to focus.
A gong strikes both midnight and the beginning of the Feast. The ground trembles as something rises out of the ground—an enormous basket filled with food, with a few backpacks of other items surrounding it. Chantelle waits. Veras runs, hoping to collect the food early enough to avoid whatever trap the Gamemakers have planned for them.
As the Five boy reaches the basket and snatches a loaf of fresh bread, six shadowy figures appear from inside the Cornucopia, heading steadily towards Veras. The moonlight reveals them as the Careers—the corpses of the Careers.
The undead Emerald throws a knife with a flick of her wrist. Veras ducks, but not quick enough. It hits his arm, and as he tries to pull it out, Carreen's body throws a spear. Cannon.
Chantelle darts back into the forest, knowing now that she has no chance of getting her needed medicine from the Feast. What she needs to do is get enough sponsors to buy herself the medicine—either that or kill the other three tributes left before the infection kills her.
At this point, the latter seems easier.
…..
Day Thirteen.
The days grow shorter as the snow piles on. Bri has no supplies to last her through the thick of this winter, and certainly nothing to fight the frostbite eating up her fingers, and yet she still is able to grab hold of the undead Caprice, who has climbed up the edge of the cliff and sprung upon her from behind. Bri twists the corpse's arm and reaches for one of the arrows freezing in her quiver. One stab. One push. Caprice's corpse falls back down into the abyss at the furthest edge of the arena, dead once more.
An undead Luka is sent after Yon to keep the action going. Fighting a Career is considerably harder than fighting the District Three boy, especially when the Career is already dead and thus has nothing to lose. One of Luka's knives digs into Yon's left arm; the Eight boy doesn't even stop to wince in pain, instead swinging his axe at his attacker's head. Undead Luka ducks and lunges at Yon's leg. A knife in the calf. Another swing. The axe blade slices through skin to crack one of the Career's rib bones. Yon rips open the boy's chest and leaves him lying there.
Chantelle has made her way back to Jace and Caprice's former shelter. It has collapsed under the snow and no one is there, so Chantelle moves deeper into the forest in search of footprints leading to the nearest competitor.
As the sun sets, Chantelle reaches Bri's camp, if it can even be called a camp. She moves in for the kill.
Bri grabs an arrow and throws it at the Ten girl. Chantelle swears—it's hit the same arm that had already been wounded. She throws her knife in return, hitting Bri's throat. Cannon. The once-unstoppable huntress dies a frightened twelve-year-old, choking on her own blood.
Yon. Jace. Chantelle. The final three.
Two of them are on the president's kill list.
The fate of the Capitol rests entirely on Day Fourteen.