Day 4:

Loire Lemaire, 16
District 5 Female

You'd think that I know better. That I'd see the black humour in it. They call it the Hunger Games for a reason. Even if my biggest threat is the other tributes, the survival elements of it all can't ever be underestimated.

But I didn't really believe the lack of food would be our biggest problem right now.

Mila and I haven't left the cabins since we arrived. It's not a bad shelter, given that it has beds and clothing. And despite including a bathroom, it has no running water. I know why that's the case. The Gamemakers want to force us out of here to look for supplies. And that means potentially running into other tributes along the way.

And I don't want to risk it. Even if the Careers aren't waiting for us, even though I had a gut feeling less people would choose this floor, that doesn't mean it's totally empty.

But we don't exactly have a choice.

"Mila," I say quietly, poking her sleeping figure with the handle of a knife. "Time to get up."
"Hnnnngh," Mila groans, flipping over onto her side and swiping her hand at me. "Five more minutes."
"You can get five more minutes later. We need to get a move on."

Mila sighs. I've noticed that everytime I bring up the idea of checking out a different part of the arena, she grows hesitant. She knows as well as I do that some movement is necessary.

"Come on. We need food. And some more water."
"Loire, I really don't know if it's a good idea."
"Realistically, we can't stay here forever either."

"I know," Mila mumbles. "But…I'm worried."
"Same here. I think if you were feeling any other way, it'd be really weird."
"And paranoid."

"Perfectly normal." I shrug. "What else is new in the Games?"
"You do have a point here." Mila pulls herself out of bed. Her movements are sluggish. I feel the exact same way.

The nights my family and I went without eating were some of the lowest points in my life. I remember staring at a half-finished canvas, worry twisting around in my gut. Praying to whoever might be out there to listen to me, begging them to let me find a buyer. The careful rationing, despite knowing it would barely be enough. Desperately wanting only enough food to just make it to the next day.

A beeping sound stirs me from my thoughts. A sponsor gift. I open it up to find a vial of poison. Might be useful, but it's not food or water. If we can't hope for sponsors to supply us with enough aid, then that leaves really only one choice.

"Come on, Mila. It's time we get moving." I flip open the butterfly knife and grip it with a sweaty hand. It makes me feel a little bit better to have a weapon on standby.
"Where do you want to go?"
"The mess hell shouldn't be too far from here. Let's check there."

Mila nods. "There's probably someone inside."
"We can deal with them if it's just one person. If they're smart, they'll realize they won't have to kill us."
"If they're not?"

I suck in my breath. "One step at a time. We'll just assert ourselves, and then they'll back off before we have to escalate. We can do this."

We creep from the barracks and gradually begin making our way towards the mess hall. At once, I shove the door open and glance around, knife poised in case I need it. I'm still holding the poison for some reason, not like it'll do us any good.

"What the hell!?" a shout comes from behind the counter. I only barely recognize the tribute; green outfit, so must be someone from District 7. Who was it again? Messier! Now the name pops in my head!

"What are you guys doing? This is my turf!"

Turf? Buddy, it's the arena. None of this is anyone's turf. I choose not to say that part out loud. "Yeah. And it's ours now. Leave, or it's going to get ugly."

The tone of my voice surprises even me. I'm not a very confrontational person. I don't like saying things I don't really mean. Now here I am, threatening someone else with their life. I don't know if I'd actually have it in me. I hate this.

Messier suddenly brandishes a spear. "Look. You're not actually gonna kill me. I can see you both shaking and I know you don't have it in you. I've seen people die, quite a few at my family's hands. Trust me, I know more about this than you."
They're fibbing; they can't do it either. But it's a two on one and I'm going to leverage that as much as possible.

"We need supplies. We're not going anywhere."

"Speak for yourself," Messier says. Then they begin to charge.

Messier Chitra, 15
District 7 Male

Dad's said a lot of things to me over the years, some of it helpful and some of it a load of bullcrap. I remember one particular lesson: being unpredictable. Never letting someone else know your next move. You are much harder to take on that way.

It's stupid, or it felt that way at the time, because I'd never be so brash enough to get into a fight. That was my siblings' thing. But this is a battle for my life and I'll be damned if I turn myself into a sitting duck. I swing my spear at Loire, and she only barely manages to duck. Mila lets out a shriek of horror, gripping the nearest table with white knuckles when I rear for her, but Loire jumps in between us instead.

I grab onto Loire's shirt and make an attempt to punch her in the face. She shoves me off her and against a table. Underneath my weight, some of the plastic cutlery I've been using scatters everywhere. I grab a fork and jam it into her arm. It does nothing in terms of damage, but it's enough to make her pause. I shove her to the ground, pressing a foot against her chest to keep her pinned down.

I said neither of these girls have it in them to kill. That's true. But…I'm not sure I'm that stone cold either. It seems easy from a distance. Difficult, but I thought I could do it. Now it is so much harder.

I pretend Loire isn't a tribute, isn't a person with ambitions, dreams, and character. She's maybe a Peacekeeper whose face is hidden behind a helmet; those fuckers, I'd take down without any hesitation. I heft the spear into the air, ready to plunge it right into her head. It'll hopefully be enough to kill her right then and there, and I can feel less guilty.

Then I suddenly feel something sharp in my back.

My backpack is sliced open and its contents begin to spill out as Mila drives a dagger into the fabric. "Get off her!" she shrieks, pulling at the remains of the backpack and by extension, me. She grabs at my wrist with her free hand, her body weight pushing up against mine, the spear dangling dangerously in the air. I push her away and jump off Loire. I bring my knee up to hit Mila in the stomach.

Then I step on something: a roll of bandages that fell out of my tattered backpack. It's enough to trip me and now both of the girls are looming over me.

Fuck this. I have no idea what's happening, but I gotta get out of here. They want the stupid mess hall that badly? It's theirs!

I grab what remains of my backpack; there's nothing inside but the jar of peanut butter I've been eating for the last few days. I bolt out of the mess hall as fast as I can. Where do I go from here? Back downstairs? Forget that, the Careers will be waiting for me.

The first hallway I see, I take off running down it. A doorway appears at the end and I can't see any evidence of anyone living inside. In fact, the doorway looks obstructed. There's some kind of thin…almost a wire…wait a minute…

The wire tightens around my ankle and throws me into the air. I squeeze my eyes shut as I feel the wind knocked out of me and my face explodes in pain when I'm thrown against the wall. I think my nose is broken. The wire digs into my skin and it hurts.

"Messier!?"

I find the courage to open my eyes. Even though he's been turned upside down, I can still recognize Hunter's face. "How did you-"
"Hunter! You gotta cut me down! I'm bleeding!"

Hunter reaches down to pick up the supplies I dropped. Ascella pops out from behind him, staring at me in shock. The throwing knife ey clutch is wobbling. "Who did it catch?"
"Messier."
"Oh."
"You should probably go back inside." Hunter grimaces. "Not gonna be pretty."

Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no. "Ascella? Look, you can reason with him, right? Things don't have to escalate, you can just let me go and we'll all go our separate ways."
"I'm sorry, Messier." Ey avert eir gaze, suddenly smiling sadly. "It's not exactly my decision to make."

Tears begin to sting my eyes. "Please. I don't wanna die."

Hunter's expression is emotionless and I can tell he's doing it on purpose. "It's not my ideal situation, but it's not personal either. If this didn't happen, the Careers would've gotten you. And with all your screaming, you're gonna lead them here."
"Hunter, I have done absolutely nothing to you. You don't have to do this."

The wire feels wet, as blood trickles down my leg. I could slip through it at any moment and it could flay me. I've never been so scared before, even when the Peacekeepers interfered back home. "You can't…"
"It'll be quick, I promise."
"But I don't want-"

The last thing I feel is metal against my throat.

Reggie Baxter, 18

District 12 Male

The cannon fires. I don't flinch. It doesn't matter who it is, because it's someone I have never met and therefore won't mourn. Harsh reality, but reality all the same. If I lose myself over each little death that happens, I won't have it in me to win. And that's all that matters. Each person dead is a step closer and that's how I'm going to treat it.

I resume my old job of checking Garnet's injuries. Thankfully, Garnet looks the best he has in a while, probably helped by the antibiotics he was sponsored this morning. Part of me was tempted to steal them for myself and spend the rest of the Games in a druggy haze. I shouldn't. I need to keep a clear head for the sake of my survival and my allies.

Back to Garnet. Looks like his bleeding has stopped for good and now we can save on bandages. I feel a little proud of myself. It's a shoddier patch job than I'm usually capable of, but he still has a leg and he'll be able to walk way better now.

Speaking of which…

"We need to find somewhere else to go," I say. "The Careers, by a stroke of really dumb luck, haven't found us yet, but they could. Plus, we have no food and no water anymore. So we need to move."

Kerkylas shakes his head. "That's dumb. What this place needs is proper fortifying. We'd have to run back to the Cornucopia and that's like basically putting a huge target on our backs. But if we set up an actual base here, we can make it harder for them to kill us."

I gesture broadly. "Have fun fortifying."
"I'm strong! I could make something work."
"Unless you're strong enough to rip the walls off, I'm very skeptical. But by all means, try."

Kerkylas scowls, but then I see the hurt briefly flash in his eyes. I've been trying to keep the snipes to a minimum, because arguing makes nobody happy. It annoys Garnet, it annoys me, it seems to rile up Kerkylas even more. Sucks. All he has to do is let go of his pride a little bit and then this wouldn't even be a problem.

Garnet sends me a look. "Sorry," I mutter quietly. Might be best to just nip this in the bud before things get even more heated. "I just don't want us to be sitting ducks."

"We won't," Kerkylas insists. "Not if I have anything to say about it."

I repack the medical supplies. The rest of the day is uneventful. No more sponsor gifts or anything. Nothing for me, anyways. I try not to feel a sense of discouragement, because maybe the sponsors are saving up for something grand. Or maybe Lark got his shit together and decided to withhold gifts until he was certain I'd absolutely need them.

That's all it is, right? People still like us, right? There's no need to pitch a fit over the lack of sponsors, it definitely doesn't indicate that people don't see me as the person I know I am. If Lyle can scrape up enough money in 12, he'll get me something for sure. I'm not being left out to dry. I didn't do anything to deserve it.

I curse myself for having such wayward thoughts and freaking out over nothing.

Day turns to night. I feel nothing staring up at Messier's face in the sky. Garnet makes a stray comment about how they kinda unnerved him in training or something, and that's all the attention we spare them. Then the arena grows totally dark again.

"Tomorrow," I say as I curl up into a ball to get some rest. Kerkylas is taking the first shift tonight. "Tomorrow, we will find a better hideout."
"Sure," Garnet mumbles, on one last dose of the painkillers. "By the way, Reggie…thanks."

"Thanks?" I stutter a little, but pray it isn't recognized. "For what?"
"For healing me. It could've been way too easy for you and Kerkylas to drop me for my injuries, but you didn't. You took the time and supplies to patch it up."
"Well, yeah. That's my job."

"I know. You're basically a doctor. Good."
"Good?"
"You're a good person."

Then Garnet turns over and the conversation ends. His final words still ring in my ears. I'm a good person.

So why do I not entirely believe him?

17th place: Messier Chitra, District 7. Throat slit by Hunter.

I wanted to go a few more days before killing off Messier, but I felt that their death was going to be inevitable due to a large amount of tributes all clustered on the same floor. I don't think that anyone was too surprised by their death; the Gamemakers were never gonna let Messier get very far. Perhaps they could've saved themself by being a little less stubborn when it came to getting in a 2 vs 1 fight, or perhaps by making better choices in 7. They lived a dangerous lifestyle and it cost them.

Soooooo...yeah.

Uni midterms basically bled into uni finals and I got hit by a huge case of writer's block when it came to DoaS, so that slowed down progress a LOT. Not much to really report on my end, since so much of my time was just taken up by schoolwork, a few health issues, and tons of assignments. Here's to hoping 2023 goes a lot more smoothly for me. But hey, someone died this chapter and I know that's what you're all really here for anyway.

There were a couple more sponsor gifts that didn't get featured in this chapter since they were given to tributes whose POVs weren't shown, so check out the blog to see a full list of everything. I may also be posting a couple more moodboards soon, since I've made a ton for the DoaS mentors. Just to give you all a little something while you wait for updates.

See you all next chapter (eventually),

-Vr