Final night.
District Three's Caia Wicken' s POV
"What did your parents say when you volunteered?" Kendrick asked as we ate our evening meal.
"Mom was worried." I answered. "Dad wanted me to come home. So did my brother and sister."
Kendrick nodded.
"And you know my story right?" He asked. Which, of course, I did. During his interview he talked about how he wanted to volunteer in the first place, and about how his father came over to him, and while they weren't emotional, they had an understanding when he explained what he was doing. He was also told that his mother fainted when he volunteered. His friend, Mac, was angry at him for volunteering, saying that he was throwing his life away, but was sad after.
Our families were alike. They wanted us to come home. It made me think of how his family would react if he didn't come home. Though he did say that if someone should win, it should be one of us. I couldn't agree more. He wanted to help District Three, and from everything I've seen, I couldn't blame him. If I won, I'd do my part to help the district. "So what do you think of the competition?" He asked.
"The career pack we should watch out for, as everyone not on their team does every year." I explained to him. "They have the typical careers except the District One boy, Calamity, and for the life of me I can't figure out why." It really drove me crazy why he wasn't with them. He acted so different at the reaping then he did anywhere else. It was strange, very strange, and I wanted to know why. "They seem like an unstable group at first glance, but really, they get along nicely, except for the occasional argument." Like normal kids.
"What about the others?" My ally asked me.
"Timber and Vida are both tough, but they don't seem to be too smart and are controlled by their anger. We don't have to worry about them too much, other then that, there's Adrienne Quintus and Malik Broker. The rest aren't as much as a threat." Though still a threat neither the less, but the career pack, the Timber and Vida alliance, and those two loners were the biggest threats. The rest were lesser threats for various reasons.
"What about Caritta?" He asked. "She seems like a big enough threat to worry about."
"Caritta was openly talking back to the Capitol, the Capitol will take care of her before we even have to think about her." I told him, thinking of how he couldn't of seen that. You don't talk bad about the Capitol right in front of them and get away with it.
"Then I guess all we need to do is avoid the careers and the other alliance." Kendrick said, looking confident. "Now what are we going to do about the bloodbath?"
"I don't know." I told him truthfully. "There are too many unknown factors to determine the best course of action." We didn't know what the arena was like, what the bloodbath field looked like, if there were going to be a big mass if tributes going into try and collect the items scattered across the field. Speaking of the items, we didn't know if the items were worth going after.
"But we'll never know what could be the best path until we're already in the arena." Kendrick told me. "And when we're in the arena, we might be far apart from each other, so we might as well make a plan now and go with it."
"No." I told him. "If we make a plan now it'll most likely go wrong the second people start running, we should think of one later."
"From what your saying, there is no plan, just make it up as you go."
"No," I told him, getting irritated that he wasn't seeing it the way I was seeing it. "You make a plan when you see what's happening in the bloodbath field. What you do is you see what the arena is, what supplies there are, how many people are running for the supplies, and decide wither it's worth it or not to run for the supplies or run away from the cornucopia."
"So basically make it up on the spot." Kendrick repeated.
"No." I told him, yet again.
"Okay then," He said. "Here's the plan. You do whatever you think is best, and I'll run towards the cornucopia and try to grab something useful."
"But you don't know if it's dangerous or worth it." I told him.
"We need supplies," He told me. "And though we can maybe survive without anything, having something with us will increase our chances."
"Not if you die and leave me partner less." I told him.
"Don't worry," He told me with a smile. "There's no way that I'm going to allow myself to die that easily and that early in the game."
I wished that I had the confidence he did, because right now, I wasn't so sure about anything. There were too many things to consider.
District Twelve's Zeal Skoda's POV
"What are you doing this time?" Asked the dark brown haired girl who had also volunteered to come to the Capitol.
"I'm making roasted white stuff." I told her as I cooked another one. "Want one?" I asked as I tossed the browned, fluffy food at her. She caught it, but didn't eat it. Why? Didn't she like it?
"Wow, you thought of cooking the marshmallows like this." She said in a surprised voice for some reason. "How'd you think of doing that instead of using a fire or what the Capitol people call a microwave."
"What's a microwave?" I asked as I threw the white food out the window before it bounced back at me, but it had turned into a light brown colour and was steaming when I caught it in my hand. "And I built a fire, but that lady got mad at me for making firewood."
"What'd you use?" She asked as I ate the soft cooked food.
"Pieces of wood and a lighter, duh." I told her. What was she, stupid? Didn't she know that you needed wood and fire to make a fire.
"I know that," She said a little bit angrily. "But how did you get the wood? In fact, where's the fireplace? I didn't see one on this entire floor."
"I got the wood from all the items laying around here." I told her as I tossed another piece of white food outside the window before it bounced back. I wonder how it bounced back. Magic? "I then broke them into little pieces then piled them up in the middle of the room and lit it up." And then that mean, weird looking lady started to scream like she was afraid of the fire. And then she put it out with a big metal can. "Then she put it out."
"Who?" She asked. "Our escort?"
"Fox girl." I told her. "You know. The one that keeps on telling me what to do and what not to do." I ate another cooked piece of white stuff. These things were good. I wish my friend's were here to enjoy them with me.
"That is our escort." Brown haired girl told me.
"Oh." I said. So that's what you call her. Not fox girl. "Do you want to team up?" I asked her, wondering if she'd want to.
"Hell no." She told me in an angry voice. "Why would I want to team up with a murderer like you? You and your friends go around killing anyone that you don't like and just make life a living hell for the district!"
What was she talking about? Making life hell for the district? We didn't do any such thing.
"We only killed one person," I told her as I threw another piece of white food and let it cook perfectly in a second. "It's not that bad."
"That still makes you a murderer," She growled at me. "What makes you think that it's right?"
It was right. The whole situation was right. The men and women in white kill those who need to be killed for whatever they did. We were just doing the same thing when it happened to us.
"Because it was right." I told her as I ate the cooked brown thing.
"Do you honestly think that?" She asked.
"Yes." I told her as I held out the bag of white stuff. "White stuff?"
"No thanks."
"Want to team up?" I asked, thinking of the other kids that were teaming up for whatever reason we were going to someplace else. They told us to learn things. For the arena. What's the arena they're talking about? They kept on saying, the arena, the arena, the arena, without telling us what it was.
Ah well, my friends back home told me to just be myself. So I am.
"No." The brown haired girl answered.
Darn, I wanted to be with her.
District Seven's Timber "Saw" Carther's POV
I let the smooth taste of light spirits and the light flavor of sweet, candy like flavoring, wash down my throat as I laid down with Vida beside me.
"Your tough." I told her as I took another gulp of Capitol rum. "Really tough."
"Your tough as well," She told me as she ate her giant dish of food. "Though still not as tough as me." I laughed a little. Yeah, that was true.
We finally had the fight that we had wanted since the first day of training. And while we weren't allowed to go out of the building, we were allowed to travel floors with the permission of the other tributes and their escort. And Vida's escort tried to stop me from coming down, but Vida somehow convinced her to let me down.
And the second the doors opened, the fight began. And just like the first time she hit me, it stung like a bitch.
Looking around us now, there was a destroyed table in front of us along with broken dishes and chairs that had been tossed about, scattered across the room.
"Yeah yeah," I told her. "Your physically tougher then me, but if I had an ax or hatchet you'd be dead."
"In your dreams." She told me with her cocky voice. "Ax, hand to hand, I could beat your ass any day." Something that I had gotten a little used to for the past three days. I didn't want to get into another fight with her, so I was going to steer the conversation away from angering her or myself. The last thing I wanted to do was to get more pain, lose my ally again, and perhaps die. So I didn't say anything about our first training day at the ax station.
"Your the second toughest girl I've even fought." I told her. "And I've only fought two girls for real."
I heard her start to laugh.
"So you lost to all the girls you fought." She laughed. "Who was the other girl that you fought? A big girl that you pissed off?" She continued to laugh like it was the funniest thing in the world. And that kind of hurt considering that I just lost to her and had bandages around my face, arms, chest, and had a swollen eye that was being healed with Capitol medicine.
"My sister." I told her as I downed some more rum. Surprisingly, she stopped laughing.
"I lost a my sister." She told me sadly. "Well, the closest thing that I could have to a sister."
"Who'd you lose?" I asked, wondering if this was the reason she attacked her escort.
"My only friend." She told me as she pushed her plate off her lap and let the dish and food fall to the floor. "They killed her by melting her." She explained. "That fucking escort didn't seem to care, she didn't say or do anything. I was so bad that I volunteered so that I could beat her stupid face in."
She was like me. She had lost someone and flipped out.
Just like me, she hadn't planned on going into the Hunger Games, she just wanted to kill the one that was calling how was going to die.
"I know how you feel." I told her as I sipped the rum again. "I lost my older brother. So I volunteered because I wanted to kill the escort." I sighed before continuing. "During the goodbyes, I told my family, now consisting of one older sister, two younger sisters and two younger brothers, to not expect me to come back home."
"Well, that's good, because if I had to choose between you or me, I'd choose me every time."
Gee, thanks, you really know how to make a person feel welcome. I thought sarcastically. But she was right. If I though I had a chance of winning and I had to choose between me or my ally, I'd choose myself every time as well. But I wouldn't of said it out loud.
"I don't blame you," I told her, extending the bottle of rum towards her to see if she wanted some. "I wouldn't choose me either." And while that wasn't a lie, it wasn't the truth either. I did want to win, but deep down, I knew that I wasn't going to leave the arena alive. Vida though, thanks to her being blissfully ignorant, she might actually beat the careers and everyone else with her only advantage, being strong.
"I doubt that," She said as she took hold of the bottle. "Everyone chooses themselves."
"Back home, I'm called Timber 'Saw' Carther" I told her. "Want to take a guess?"
"Because you see things that people already saw." She answered.
I don't think she even knows what a saw is. Did they have saws in District Eight? I don't think so.
"Because when I have a saw, which is a tool to cut mainly wood, I end up hurting people, or something goes wrong." I told her, thinking of the things that happened because of me holding a saw, including making my brother, Chip, a retard.
"Well," Vida said tipping the bottle down towards her mouth. "Let's hope you get a saw then." Then paused. "Or, let's hope you don't get a saw?" She said with wonder in her voice. She seemed to think for a second before shrugging.
"Do you know what my parents said during my goodbye?" She asked. "My dad started arguing with me about volunteering, but then my mom stopped the both of us. He then apologized to me quickly for some reason then hugged me." She told me before I could even say anything. "They then told me to try my best to make it home and to not do anything stupid."
Too late. I thought. And your dad stopped because he loves you and didn't want his potential last words to be one of argument when your mom broke you two up. What good was fighting anyway? Because of my fighting I had no friends, no job, and now, a lost brother and no live to live anymore.
I'm guessing that you and your dad are alike, but your dad loves you, so that's why he sacrificed trying to win an argument and just went with whatever you said.
Vida then tipped the bottle all the way towards her mouth before she got a mouth full of liquor before she spat it out just as quickly. "What is this crap?" She asked looking at the alcohol like it was poison. "Poison?"
District Eleven's Adrian Colton's POV
"Where's the alcohol?" Caritta asked nastily towards me as I gulped down another mouth full of booze.
"I dumped it all down the drain." I told her, smiling as she looked a little shocked and surprised by my answer. "And this," I said as I held up a small bottle of spirits, with only a little dark orange liquid left inside of it, in front of her face. "Is the only bottle left."
She made a low growling sound before she made a grab for it, a fraction of a second before I smashed the bottle on the floor. The look on her face was priceless.
"You bastard!" She shouted as I laughed at her. "I needed that!"
"Needed it or wanted it?" I asked, still laughing at her.
"Needed it!" She shouted at me while glaring daggers at me.
"You know," I told her, thinking about the times where she said her parents were useless and abusive to her and how much she hated them for it. "For someone who hates their parents, your sure turning out to be just like them."
"I'm nothing like my parents!" She shouted. "My parents don't care about anyone but themselves and like to abuse people. They don't know anything about me or anything!"
"You don't exactly know anything about anything yourself." I told her. "The only thing you care and see is yourself."
"No I don't!" She shouted. "Those little kids, I volunteered so that they wouldn't have to die!"
"Too fucking late!" I shouted angrily to her. "You volunteered too fucking late! You let half the other kids get slaughtered! Why?"
"Those kids deserved it! They made fun of me and made my life worse by shutting me out and calling me names! Everyone in the district hatted me because I was bi-sexual."
"Everyone?" I growled. "Everyone? Or just those kids? Because as far as I've seen, the only people that's made fun of my friend Garret for being bi-sexual were immature kids in school." The look of shock and confusion was exactly the look I pictured her having. "That's right, my friend was bi-sexual, didn't you know that?"
"He must of only told you." She said.
"He's openly bi." I told her. "It shows your ignorance to the district." I then paused for her to absorb my words. "Now tell me, do you know who me and my friends are?"
"Farmers." She answered quickly.
"Wrong." I told her. "We're famous through the district, so you should be able to guess who we are. Adrian. Jeana. Bailey. Amos. Garret. Haley. We're special through out the district and well known. Everyone knows who we are, except maybe you."
"Your lying." She accused, looking at me like she knew all. "Your farmers or tree climbers, and your too big to be a climber. Or wait, your a food hauler."
"Wrong again!" I shouted happily, because I was right the whole time. "We're tammers! We train the peacekeepers dogs! And we're on pretty good terms with them!"
"So what if I don't know who you six were! There's thousands of others around!" She wasn't talking her way out of this. There might be tens of thousands of people in District Eleven, but everyone knows who the tammers are. Well, not everyone apparently. And I was well known because I fixed just about everything for people. They came to me when there was a problem, and I fixed it. I also had my friends help me as well if they were around and willing to help.
"Everyone knows at least one of us." I told her. "Or, at least knows what we do."
"Not everyone does!"
"That's right. Because there's you. You only see things that matter to you and you don't care about anything other then yourself. It was proved that during the reapings. You let the people that bullied you get killed. Your worse then they are you stupid cunt! I admit that everyone was scared, but you only volunteered to save your own skin! Everyone, which means those kids at your school, make fun of your sexuality because they're immature kids who attack anyone who'd different from them. But you didn't know that, because your short sighted mentally."
"Fuck off!" She shouted angrily. She was grinding her teeth and growling at me, and all I could do was laugh at her. "And stop laughing!" She then threw a punch at me, which, even though I drank almost a whole small bottle of spirits, dodged her attack and tripped her before she crashed to the ground.
"That's another reason nobody likes you." I told her, turning serious again. "You lash out at anyone you don't like, which is everyone. You don't try to connect with people, only shut yourself away. The kids don't like you because your different and an easy target for mental abuse, and the adults don't like you because you hate the world and don't try to change in anyway or try to deal with your current situation."
Jeana had been abused, but she choose to make a difference in her life. She left home and discovered her talent. She left her life behind and started a new one, and while it had been rough for her, she continued on, because she knew that her old one was worse and she didn't want to live her life like that.
Garret was Bi-sexual, but he grew up quickly and found that the only people who cared about that were either the other Bi-sexuals, the gays, and the young immature kids who make fun of anyone different from them. And only one of those three were bad.
"The District hates you too," She said in an attempt to turn some hate against me. "You joined the careers." I shrugged.
"The careers are alright people. They have their problems, but they know who they are." I told her. "And they can be fun to be around." Though it was considered bad to join the careers if you were an outsider, I wasn't going to let the thoughts of people back home scare me into thinking that I shouldn't join them. I was going to win, and if I was going to take some abuse from the district in order to do so, so be it. They'll hopefully forgive me when I come back and make the district a little easier to bare.
My district partner tried to get up, but I kicked her in the ribs and she fell down to the floor again before I pressed my foot on her back, keeping her down. "The thing is, my friend Garret and my girlfriend Jeana had problems like you. Bi-sexual. Abuse. Anger problem. And yet, they got over it and became accepted by people. You blame all your problems on everyone else and just focus on your own little world. It's time to grow up you cunt muffin." Cunt muffin, one of the many words that Tanner used to make fun of Selene.
Garret and Bailey. They were my only friends left. During our goodbyes they told me to knock some sense into Caritta. That's what I was doing. I hoped my words had some impact on her, because I wasn't going to spend all night talking about her problems.
My family, they told me to come back, no matter what. And i was going to. Because I was going to win for everyone, even for my jerk brother, who also wanted me to come back.
Trust me, I was going to win, for everyone. "Don't think your the only one with problems," I told Caritta. "Because you've made hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of parents suffer a fate worse then death because you couldn't think of anything beyond pay back."
District One's Calamity Mershade's POV
The warmth of the clear liquid spirit warmed up my entire body with each little glass. It didn't taste very good, but it helped me not think too much and with it, I cared a little bit less about things as it made my head and body feel kind of fuzzy. Fuzzy and good.
Like what your hearing? Zane asked me as I poured another tiny glass of vodka.
Shut up Zane. I told him as I downed another glass of liquid fire.
It must really hurt you hearing it. Zane said as the noise of pleasure continued. It was faint, but still audible, even if there were walls between the source and us. I mean, did you really think that something like that would come so easy?
It's none of my business what happens through those walls. I told Zane as I poured, yet again, another glass of clear spirit.
Nobody cares about you. Zane told me, even though I already knew that. After all, with the way I've been treated since those incidents happened, everyone has been looking at me different. I mean. Even she doesn't care about you. You can hear it right now.
I wish I wasn't awake right now and hearing it. It was two in the morning and I hadn't been able to fall asleep, then about an hour ago, that irritating noise started. It started out quiet, but then the noise built up until it became louder, and louder. The banging and crashing and the squeaking and the grunts and moans. Damn it, why did I have to hear it?
Shut up Zane. I know what's going on and it ain't any of my business. And it ain't any of your either.
I feel anger building up.
Anger towards you!
I am you. So your only mad at yourself.
I hate you!
The feeling's mutual.
I then decided that drinking the alcohol shot by shot wasn't enough, I was just going to drink straight from the bottle. Maybe then I could get to sleep, not hear the sounds of fucking coming from one of our mentor's rooms and have Zane shut up.
It's a sad life your living Calamity. Zane told me as I started to gulp down the liquid that burned my throat and spread it's warmth through my body. I mean, first you lose them, then you lose another, now you've lost her. What'll happen next?
I'll lose you. I can feel you getting weaker as this brain of ours get's hazed with alcohol.
I could say that your getting weaker as well. His voice said, getting weaker.
Keep talking like that Zane! Right now I'm in control and I know that you can't hold you liquor!
Neither can you asshole! Now stop drinking!
Scared Zane?
No! I want to do something with you. I want you to see something.
My body then started to move away from the drinking area of our floor and towards a set of rooms. More specifically, the room where all the sounds were coming from.
I forced myself to not go, but Zane was trying to make me go.
Fuck off Zane! I told him as I finished the last of the vodka and dropped the bottle to the floor before grabbing a bottle of light caramel liquor called brandy.
Your scared. Zane said as I twisted the cap off the glass bottle and started to down it as well. That's why you don't want to see the truth.
I know the truth, I just don't want to see it.
You don't want it to be real. You still want to believe that you have a chance. And that's why your drinking those spirits right now.
Your letting me do it though, idiot.
I then felt myself collapse on the floor. Whether it was from fighting Zane or from drinking all that liquor I don't know. But either way, I was glad, because I wasn't going to be dragging myself to where I didn't want to be dragged.
Ha! In your face Zane! I'm going to pass out!
Suddenly, a stinging pain erupted in my right knee as the sound of glass shattering occurred.
Ow! What the fuck?
Not if your in pain your not! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha h- AHHH! The fuck?
Ha! Take that Zane! Not so fun getting bit now is it? OW!
Shut the fuck up Calamity!
No, you shut the fuck up!
You shut the fuck up!
I hit Zane and he hit me back. We shouted insults to each other and tried to gain dominance over each other, but I was drunk, and that meant that Zane was having trouble taking over. But I lost control to Zane, unfortunately. But I regained control again! Ha! In your face- Shit! Stop hitting me your asshole!
Stop bashing me against walls then!
Wait! Truce! I'm not feeling well! I told Zane as I felt the warmth in my stomach work it's way up to my throat.
Ugh, neither am I. Zane said as sickly as I did. Ten second truce!
At that moment, we both vomited on the floor. The strong, acidic taste and smell lingered in the air as we spilled a mixture of liquid and solid foods. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.
I wiped the puke off my mouth and used the last few seconds of our truce to recover a little.
Fuck you Calamity! Zane shouted, telling me that our truce had ended.
Fuck you Zane!
A/N: Well, this chapter I think was more talking then showing, unlike the chapters before it. Hope you liked the final days chapter. Only one more Capitol chapter until the bloodbath.