Day 1:

Loire Lemaire, 16
District 5 Female

This was a good choice. I haven't seen anyone show up yet. Of course, it could mean that someone's hiding in the mess hall or the change rooms, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, I want to see what supplies we have.

I open up the bag and peer inside. Two water canteens, both of them feeling like they're full of water. A throwing knife. A roll of bandages. A coil of wire. And a flashlight.

Mila sighs in disappointment as she sifts through the meager supplies. "That's it? That's barely anything!"
"Well, at least we'll be okay for water." I try to stay optimistic, despite the fading hope in my voice.
"Yeah, but there's no food in there. The only food we have is what you brought."

She's right; a loaf of bread isn't going to last very long between two people. And the rest of our items can be a little hit or miss. The flashlight makes me a little skeptical because as great as it would be to navigate in the dark with, I don't want to draw any attention to myself. The wire, I have no idea what to do with it. I'm no electrical engineer. I just put it back in the bag.

I just glance around the bunks we're hiding in. "Do you think there's anything around that could be useful?"
Mila shrugs. "I don't know."
"Well, we're here and we'll be here for a while. We have to check."

We split up and start looking through as many hiding places as we can. I don't come across anything that's particularly useful, except for a lot of clothing. It might be a good idea to grab a few things if it gets cold at night, but for now I leave the clothes where I found them. The plan is to make this a temporary base of operations until we have to leave.

Then I hear the cannons go off.

Six of them in total in rapid succession. One after another after another. It makes me feel a little sick. Six people, dead and gone just like that. Reduced to cannon shots in the sky and statistics in notebooks. These were once real people who had dreams and hopes and ambitions and it might have all been for nothing. Mila told me about what she saw happen to Tati, but we don't know who else is dead and that's honestly a scary feeling. It amplifies the dread too, and makes me more aware of my own fate. The idea I could be next and I'd never truly know until the danger comes for me.

Mila fiddles with a yarn hat she found. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm holding up. You?"
"I'm scared."

"Me too," I say quietly. Mila just looks up at me. "I'm pretty terrified."

Mila blinks. "Oh," she says after a few silent seconds. "I mean, you did take good control of the situation back there."
"I can't really say acting under pressure is normal for me, but when you're the eldest of a rambunctious crowd, you get used to it." I laugh. "In jest, obviously. I love my family."

Mila opens her mouth to say something, but we're cut off by a strange noise that sounds like bells. A small box carried by a silver parachute suddenly begins to float through the doorway and towards us. I reach up to grab it and pull it close. There's my district emblem on the lid. A sponsor gift for me? Already?

Mila gawks. "You must be popular, Loire!"
"Dumb luck."
"Well, open it and see what's inside."

That I do. I pry off the lid to find a dark pink butterfly knife inside. Mila gasps and I just feel shock go through me. They were a really interesting and unique weapon to come across in training, but I knew I had to be realistic. There was no reason to suspect there was one in the arena.

I pick up the knife and carefully open it up. "Well, we won't be hurting for weapons."
"How do you use it?"
"Ideally, I never have to."

Mila laughs nervously, then goes back to playing with the hat. She pulls a thread loose and keeps pulling. I just watch and honestly, I get it. Keeping my hands busy is a little distracting and distracting myself from thinking too hard is all I can do.

I didn't even realize how badly I'd miss my paints until now. It's the little things that sting the hardest when you notice they've finally been taken away from you.

Hunter Appalachie, 17
District 10 Male

"This was such a bad idea."

"What do you mean?" Ascella asks, pulling back a shower curtain and peeking inside. All that waits for em is an empty shower. I don't know what ey expected, poking through various toilets stalls and curtains and crap. "Look. We got plumbing!"
"Plumbing. Big fucking deal. We have no water and food."

Ascella crosses the changeroom and approaches a sink across from the bathroom stalls. They tug on the knobs and then once ey pull enough, water begins running from the faucet.
"Okay…maybe we have water."

"I don't know what to tell you, Hunter." Ascella lets out a laugh. "You really shouldn't give up so easily."
"I'm trying to be realistic."
"I'm realistic too! But a fun realistic. It's called optimism. You should give it a go sometime."

I sit down on a bench in the middle of the lockers and open up my bag. I pull out the coils of rope inside and study them in my hands. It's not a lot, but it's enough to make a simple snare. The only question is where I'd hang it. I need something sturdy but bendable to make the trap work and in the changeroom, I don't exactly have a ton of options.

A loud bang suddenly startles me from my thoughts. "Ascella! Are you trying to get us killed!?"
Ascella sheepishly looks up. "I wanted to see what was in the lockers."
"Can you do it more quietly? We don't know who else is nearby and I don't want them to come for us."

Ascella goes back to poking through the lockers. I study the doorway of the changeroom. If I get a pole or something, I can hang it there. Of course there's only one way out of here and if another tribute shows up after the trap goes off, we might be fucked. But the snare is enough to buy us the time to escape or at least kill whoever gets stuck.

Right. Kill…

Back home, we never did the killing ourselves. The animals got caught and were either killed by the snare, or starved to death. Uncle Ted preferred the former, said it wasn't right to leave anything to suffer and the least we could do was provide a relatively quick and humane death. I never understood it. A dead animal is a dead animal and it's more meat for us. Doesn't matter how it goes.

Once in a while, we'd check the trap to find something still 's why we brought knives, either to kill the animal or cut it free and let it go. Uncle Ted did that once. I remember how upset I was, since I was the one who set the trap and it finally caught something. I thought Uncle Ted was being a total idiot. I can't say I understand it any better now…but I still kinda get it.

It's less blood on your hands if you know the thing is already dead. When you're the one who has to make the choice, it gets a little foggier.

"Hey, I found something!" Ascella pulls a flashlight and a tube of liquid out from a locker. "Burn ointment. Might be useful."
"Well, I certainly hope you aren't planning on playing with any fire."

Ascella turns the flashlight on and off. "Never hurts to take it with us, right? You can't say whether it might come in handy at some point."
"Sure, I guess. Pack it in the bag."

Ascella rearranges our meager supplies. "Are you planning on doing something with the rope?"
"Yeah. Gonna try making a trap."
"That sounds cool. I hope it goes well." Ascella laughs nervously. "Wow. That sounded morbid, didn't it?"

"Oh yeah, totally. You hope I kill someone slowly and painfully. Some ray of optimistic sunshine you are."
"I'm a murdery ray of sunshine now. Just like you're a murdery rain cloud."
"I'm a what? What does that even mean?"

"I dunno. You called me sunshine so I needed a comparison." Ascella grins. "It's okay, though. I get it. It's hard to feel optimistic all the time."
"I guess it would be. Life's like that, you know. Not fair."
"Nope," Ascella agrees and I try not to blink in surprise.

Vivian Shaw, 18
District 1 Female

We briefly evacuate to the west observation deck to give the Gamemakers a chance to clean up the Cornucopia. That's fine by me; I don't want to spend my time stuck hanging around a bunch of dead bodies. So unsanitary.

The cannons fire. Six in total. Okay, it's not too bad. A bit less than most recent years but we can work with it. It's a small arena, a very small arena. The odds are in our favour to hide everyone quickly. We will more than certainly make up for today's lack of bloodshed.

"Good job, folks!" Prism says suddenly, snapping me back to attention. "Not a bad haul for day one. We really kicked their asses."
Arietis scoffs. "Yeah, and Ganbataar had to go and get his ass wrecked by an outlier. Also, I didn't see you Fours picking up the slack. What, did you think all the supplies in the Cornucopia would run off or something?"

An accusing finger is pointed at Avonlea as Arietis rants, as if he wants to hold her solely responsible. Suddenly Cy jumps in front of her, pushing Avonlea behind him. "Leave her alone. You're being an asshole."
"I'm being correct. You two were absolutely useless out there."

Cy bristles. Before a fight can happen, I push in between them. "Hey, save it for the endgame. Arietis, I understand your frustrations, but there's no need to jump to conclusions like that. And Cy, nobody is calling anyone an asshole."

I have my hands held out like a rabid animal trainer holding two beasts at bay. I feel like one too. How much longer until we all tear each other apart?

"But-" Arietis begins, but I cut him off. "Nope, don't wanna hear it. It's day one. So let's just all get along and stop blaming each other, okay?"

"Sure," Cy mutters quietly, the first to back off. Arietis doesn't. I shoot him a pleading glance. I can't work with him if he digs himself a hole like this and he knows as well as I do that he's already placing a huge target on his back. Thankfully, Arietis drops the matter. "Sure. Whatever."

"Thanks, bud. Prism, what do you want to do now?"
Prism looks around. "It's getting a little late. I guess we won't get up to any hunting today, so tomorrow we'll start first thing. We'll figure out the pairings then, but I want one group watching the Cornucopia at all times. Is that clear?"

I flash a thumbs up, followed by Oylmpia, the Fours, and finally Arietis. Prism claps their hands together in response. "Good. I think they're done cleaning up the Cornucopia, so we can go back and sort through our stuff."

It's a pretty good haul. The Cornucopia was stuffed with enough supplies to last twenty-four tributes a few weeks, and most of it wasn't collected by the escaping outliers. Obviously we'll ration, but it'll be enough to keep us going for a very long time. I'm just excited to get my hands on some more knives. You can never have too many.

The day dwindles into a crawl of moving supplies around and cleaning up the Cornucopia. We throw out six sleeping bags for everyone to spend the night in and Olympia quickly works out a watchman schedule.

When it's time to eat dinner, I slice up a loaf of bread and place some dried meat and fruit inside. Not the most extravagant of meals, but it'll do. I find myself sitting on a crate facing one of the observation decks when I hear a noise come out from behind me.

Arietis is offering me a bowl. "We found some fresh vegetables so Cy made a salad. Want some?"
"Sure." I'll take anything fresh at this rate. "Hey, I hope you're not too sore about the whole ordeal earlier? I wasn't trying to insult you or anything."

"Yeah I know." Arietis sucks in a breath. "Cy wasn't gonna do anything and even if he did, I could totally kill him first."
"Arietis."
"Okay, fine. I have a tendency to put my foot in my mouth. Sue me."

We fall quiet. I just poke through my salad until Arietis speaks up again. "You know, it's your idea. The whole betrayal thing."
"I know that."
"So what's the point of trying to save their asses, then?"

"I shouldn't even have to answer that," I laugh. "Look, do you trust me?"
"Of course."
"Do you trust that I'm acting in our best interests right now?"
"Yeah."

"I'm buying us time," I remind him. "Once they're no longer useful, that's when we go. Trust me, the Fours know they're on the bottom and they won't just sit there and take it. Their first target will probably be Prism for obvious reasons. If we let them and Olympia take the fall, we can get out while they all fight and nothing will happen to us. We just have to wait."

Arietis just rolls his eyes, but he's smiling. "I'm not a very patient person."

And that was day 1.

You might have noticed the kill counts and alliance statuses aren't posted here. That's because I have moved them to the blog, alongside which supplies and sponsor gifts each alliance has. You can use it to better check out what everyone needs or has, so you can plan your sponsor gifts accordingly.

So of course I get the misfortune of having two days of three classes in a row XDDX. Yeahhhh everything I said about an upload schedule has more or less gone out the window. I will try my best, but please don't be surprised when there's only one update a month instead of two. Five courses in the span of four days does something to someone. Feel free to hit me up if you're worried about updates, but remember that real life happens to everyone and we're all on this site as a hobby.

See you all next chapter,

-Vr