LAKEN DERVISSEY- Beth Crissino

I was beginning to see I'd royally messed up. To stop Laken from killing Mike, I'd killed him. So... now what? Kill Mike and be a massive hypocrite? Take myself out of the equation and devastate my family because I prioritized someone I'd known for three weeks over them? Leave it up to the whims of the Gamemakers? Maybe I should have let Laken do it. If we'd split up and he'd gone to Mike, Mike would think I had nothing to do with it. It was the gentlest way I could think of. Too late now.

Kade McNamara, District Eight female (13)

The water was only up to my thighs when I went in. Then a wall of water hit me and I was tumbling in murky darkness with no idea of where I was or where I was going. I reached out frantically, trying to get to the surface, and realized I didn't even know which way the surface was. It was pitch-dark under the filthy water. I couldn't breathe and I was washing downstream with branches and debris smashing into me. My head broke the surface and I gasped in air before I smashed into a submerged log with such force I was bent over it by my stomach like a clothespin. My face went underwater halfway through my breath and water rushed into my mouth. I felt something squirming inside my mouth and just had time to figure out it was a leech before I managed to push against the log and get my face back above the water. I reflexively swallowed to clear my airway and felt the leech tickling my throat as it went down.

The water was surging against my back so forecfully I couldn't take in a full breath within seconds. I tried to push one way and then the other, trying to get either over or under the log and hoping I wouldn't get pinned underneath if I went under. A chunk of bark sloughed off and I slid over the log, letting me breathe but tumbling me straight back into the current. I reached out for the solid ground five feet away but it was gone in an instant.

When I was little I used to get so excited when I'd go to a photoshoot and the hotel had a pool. I'd wade around and pretend I was a dolphin and do handstands and have splash fights with the other models. That was what water seemed like to me then- a fun, happy friend. It wasn't like that, not all the time. I knew now that water could be a mindless, monstrous force past anything you could deal with. It could pick you up and throw you like a leaf in a tornado. It didn't care if I lived or died. It could tear me apart and it wouldn't even notice.

I smashed into something soft and thought I must have hit a mossy tree. I turned my head and saw the inside of a tiger's mouth through a veil of rain as it hissed at me, its ears pinned flat in terror. Orange and black blocked my vision and then I was underwater, disoriented and stunned by the tiger's blow. I saw its legs churning vainly above me in the water, backlit faintly by a flash of lightning. I felt something underfoot and pushed off it to break the surface. The tiger was already fifteen feet away, churning the water around it as it tried to aim for solid ground. It was just as helpless as I was. It smashed against the base of a tree and its spine whorled as it twisted to climb up. It climbed clumsily, like a frightened kitten, and its sides heaved as it found a solid branch and lay gasping and snarling. It was so quick the tiger was in the tree before I thought to be scared of it.

Someone else had already died in the flood. I swept past a body face-down in the water, its long dark hair twisted into strings. The current sent its arm out toward me and I thanked the water for yanking me away from the pale, dead hand. Maybe it was Beth. She had dark hair. I couldn't even remember who else was left with me. I didn't think there were many of us. It might have been Valencia. Her hair was dyed white but it might have been mud.

I tried to grab onto a branch overhead and it snapped off in my hand. The force sent me underwater, where I scrabbled for some dark seconds before I saw a hint of light and aimed in that direction. In the darkness, moving so quickly and helplessly, I couldn't get it out of my mind that if I hit something, that would be it. It would knock me out and I'd tumble in the water until the water was inside me and had flooded the life from my body.

My hand hit mud and my fingers trailed through it. I didn't understand how I could be feeling mud when my head was above the water. My feet were mired in it, too- I could feel mud, where until then there had just been more water. I remembered then what I could clearly see: I was above the water. I was feeling mud in my fingers and underfoot because I was in the shallows. I flopped forward, tearing at the mud with my fingers and pushing off it with my feet. I was still moving downstream, but not so quickly. I was at the edge of the water. I flopped forward again and my chest fell on muddy but not submerged ground. I slid out of the water like a snake and lay facedown at the edge, with barely enough energy to hold my face up from the mud. I was too exhausted to care when tiny claws nicked at my leg. I lay struggling to breathe as the rat hauled itself up my body and out of the water. It fell on its side inches from my face and we regarded each other like the two half-drowned rats we were.

Beth Crissino, District Four female (17)

I didn't know what to do. I honestly had no idea what to do. If the Cornucopia hadn't flooded, Mike was still there. I didn't think he'd move until he had to- he'd be hoping I'd come and we could see each other before whatever happened. But what if I did go? What would I do when I got there? Mike would tell me he didn't want to win if someone else had to die. But did he really mean it, all the way down? I knew he wanted to mean it, but wasn't there some part of him that wanted to live? Didn't he deserve it? It wasn't fair that he should die because he was willing to make the sacrifice. He deserved life the most becausehe was willing to make the sacrifice.

He's alone right now.I knew for sure that Mike wouldn't want to be alone. I knew I wanted to go to him. My father always told me when I couldn't decide on something, I should flip a coin. I'd find myself hoping for it to land one way, and I'd know that was the side I wanted more. I wanted to go to Mike, but I didn't want whatever would happen next.

Then there was Kade. Somewhere out there, Kade was holed up, maybe in another section of tunnel. I hadn't thought about her since the Games began. I'd assumed she would die somewhere along the way and that would be that. For a couple of days I'd thought she was dead until I did some accounting in my head and remembered I hadn't seen her face in the sky. Somewhere out there was Kade, the monkey wrench in all of this. Mike would never want me to kill her. I didn't want to either. But was it fair to ask me to throw away my life for someone I'd never met?

But that wasn't everyone, not really. Somewhere out there, my family was watching. I didn't remember much about my mother, but I remember what happened to my father. He cried harder than I did on the day I had my training accident and had to go to the hospital. I remembered how he was driving so fast he crashed into the Academy fence on his way to pick me up. I knew he would never, ever get over my mother. It was something I'd thought about as I trained. I'd never thought I'd get picked. I couldn't imagine the responsibility of knowing if I failed, my father would never be the same. But here I was, swept along by my own inability to speak up and say no, pick someone else. It wasn't fair of me to pass the suffering on to my father. And my brothers. They all said they'd protect me forever and woe unto anybody who broke my heart. What about their hearts?

I didn't know what to do. I could sit here and search my heart for hours and in hours I wouldn't know what to do. I hoped someone else knew. Someone just tell me the right answer to this.

I got up to start toward the Cornucopia. I didn't know if Mike would know what to do, either. It even crossed my mind that if he and Kade had seen each other, he would have invited her to stay. I might get to him and find all my problems facing me at once. I guess it just seemed a little less horrible to not face them alone.

It was slow going with all the mud and debris stirred up by the flood. I was so wet I was shivering in the evening air. I scrambled over fallen logs and the drying corpses of rodents and some sort of wild pig. Birds chattered overhead, seemingly trying to find each other and discuss what had gone on. I couldn't tell what color my shoes were. I was like a golem- some mud creature trudging toward a goal. Like a golem, I shouldn't have been here.

A cannon split the air, sending the birds scattering. I looked up at the sky in mute shock, thinking for a second I'd see the face right then. I looked at the thin rays of the setting sun I could see between the trees. I couldn't see the face yet. But it wouldn't be long.

Mike Mothra, District Eight male (16)

The sunset was lovely. I couldn't see it too well between the trees, even though some of them had fallen, but I could see the golden tone it cast on the air. The water had receded, leaving the ground around the Cornucopia muddy but passable. I was still sitting on top of the Cornucopia, just thinking about things. I supposed I'd have to leave soon. The water had swept all our supplies away. I wondered if Beth or Kade might find some of them.

Evening started to turn into night as the light dimmed. The sounds of calling toads and night creatures, no longer afraid of being seen, rose into the air. What a fine day it is to be a frog, I thought with a little smile. Water everywhere, and so much mud. The water at the edge of the platforms rippled as some fish or water animal slipped by under the surface.

The sun disappeared, but not the light. Out beyond the edge of the platforms, beyond the river the flood had made near the Cornucopia, fireflies rose into the air. The first one winked on so suddenly I thought I hadn't really seen it at first. But it flashed again, slowly enough I could see the arc it was taking through the air. It was joined by others, first slowly, then in a swarm. They drifted through the trees beyond the water, a blanket of pinprick lights.

Something flitted past my cheek. I turned and saw a moth almost hovering in the air beside me. It was dun-brown with a white stripe. It settled onto the Cornucopia near my hand, walked in a circle, and took off again, its feathery wings rustling like vellum. It reached the wall of fireflies and vanished from my sight.

Seems like the place for a moth to be, I thought, and slid down the damp side of the Cornucopia to land in the squishy mud at the bottom. I waded over toward the fireflies, who were undisturbed by my approach. As I reached the first of them, I saw more beyond them. They stretched in a faintly-defined line to somewhere farther in the forest like a golden path. Might as well see where it goes, I thought as I followed.

The fireflies, dotted here and there with the moths attracted to their light, thickened as I approached a clearing in the woods. By the light I could see between the trees I thought there must be a massive swarm of them, but as I reached the clearing I saw they were merely gathering around a light in the sky. Above a pool of water surrounded by fallen trees, there was a ball of light in the sky, bright but not painful to look at. It was like the moon had lowered until it was only thirty or so feet off the ground. All around it there were moths circling it and dipping in and out. Below it, the smooth water reflected it, doubling its light.

I want to touch it. Even if I hadn't been a moth person, I would have wanted to touch the light. It looked like it would be cool to the touch and maybe a bit thick. It was the most beautiful light I'd ever seen and something about it felt familiar. It certainly didn't feel threatening at all. It seemed to reach out to the moths around it, welcoming them in. I'd never tried to explain to the others how moths weren't something I liked. They were something I was. I still woke up every day and expected to see a moth in the mirror. I looked so weird because I wasn't meant to look like this. No one else could understand that, just like they'd be confused if I asked how they knew they were supposed to be human.

I waded out into the shallow water, ripples arcing out around my shoes and sending up undulating reflections of the light. Moths flew past me like they weren't at all bothered by my intrusion. Green moths, brown moths, speckled black-and-white moths. Frogs and night insects sang from the water around me. I wished I could show it to Isabella and the others.

There was something in there for me. It was as clear as the light in front of me. There was a rippling tingle in my back as I stood under it, like a shiver running all under my skin. Something stirred in me that I'd felt before but never had a word for. I stood on my toes, reaching up to the light. My fingers split its light into narrow beams. It was too far away, I could see. I would have to fly to reach it. And so I did.

3rd place: Mike Mothra- followed the moths

In real life, Wandering Soul was a psychological warfare operation built around exploiting Vietnamese death rituals to scare the Viet Cong using sound recordings and flashing lights. When I got Mike, that fit perfectly with my idea to adapt the idea of the soul motif to this muttation-type thing that does... something. Something involving a soul. Transforms their body, maybe? To something they were meant to be? While I always planned the wandering soul, I'm very happy it worked out to do this for Mike. Mike was the soul of this story from the start and like everyone, he deserves better than death in the Arena. He was singular, though, in that winning wasn't his preferred outcome. He wouldn't have wanted anyone to die for him. He just wanted to be a happy lil moth. And so here we are. Congrats to Nat for being among the few who achieved a supernatural moment for their Tributes, and goodbye to Mike, who embraced the light.

So here we have it. In one corner we have Beth, a trained Career with another Career kill under her belt. In the other we have Kade, lying facedown in the mud with a leech in her stomach. Join us in the next few chapters for the brawl of the century.