Author's Note
I do not own the Hunger Games.
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Emeria Delilah Echavoque, 15
Nothing disturbed them overnight as they slept, bundled up in each other's arms. Emeria woke first and freed herself from Silverie's grasp, stretching the stiffness from her limbs.
Silverie woke soon after, rubbing the sleep from their wide green eyes. "You should have woken me."
"Only been up a few minutes." Emeria peered through the window at the garden outside. "We should get going. I don't want to get trapped in here."
Silverie nodded as they stood. They understood. The two of them had played The Game before – but this wasn't just a game anymore. This was their own lives they were holding in their hands.
"Out to the woodland then?" they asked. The one alliance they knew had gone into the building ahead of them was too big for the two of them to challenge.
"Gives us room to run and hide," Emeria agreed, peering through the window to check the garden. Empty. "We should check whether any of the plants out there are edible before we go though. Bulk up our supplies."
It was a little risky, they could be seen by someone through the windows, and if that person had a ranged weapon…
But this was the arena. Everything bore a risk. And they needed food.
"Sounds like a good plan," Silverie agreed.
They opened the door, while Emeria held back with her bow at the ready, but no one attempted to jump them. Emeria slipped outside and made her way around the vegetable beds. Tomatoes, carrots, potatoes. Was this stuff edible? Because if it was, maybe they ought to think twice about not staying here. All this food…
"We should stay here," she said.
Silverie frowned. "What about the other alliance?"
"We deal with them if we have to. But look at all this food! We can't give this up."
Silverie looked clearly torn, but at last nodded. "Alright. But we'll have to trap the area, to keep it secure. This amount of food is going to draw other players in the same way it did us."
Emeria grinned. "Then I guess we get started."
Artemis Gilmore, 17
By the morning, some colour had begun to return to Apollo's face and his wounds had scabbed closed, though it still looked terribly gruesome. Artemis's stomach turned to look at him. She wished she could at least wash some of the wounds clean, but they couldn't spare the water, not until they'd found a supply they could use.
Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. The arena for the Seventy Fifth had been filled with fog during the day, to make it more disorientating for the tributes and make navigating the arena more difficult. Well, it succeeded at that. It succeeded at that arguably too well. They could be walking in circles for all they knew. And if they left marks on the ground to indicate where they'd been walking, they could end up leading another player straight to them.
Apollo was the first to give up, collapsing against one of the headstones. "We'll never find Ares this way."
"We can't give up!"
"And we won't. But this–" He waved a hand at the arena around them– "Is useless."
"What do you suggest then?"
"Let's wait until tonight, when it gets dark. We can make a fire torch and then we'll actually be able to see something."
"Yes, and everyone will be able to see us!"
"It has to be better than just wandering in circles! I swear, we've passed these stones three times already!"
"We haven… We have," she conceded.
Apollo patted the ground at his side. She sighed and slid down to sit next to him. "So we just… sit here until it gets dark?"
He took her hand, squeezed it gently. "Let's get to work making torches. We'll be ready for the night."
Iridescence Sterling, 17
They had been on the move all morning and made it much less distance from last night's camp than one would have believed. The main reason being that every ten minutes Iridescence's weakness would force her to stop and sit for another ten minutes, resting her head on her knees while she caught her breath.
"Maybe you'd do best without me." She looked up at Ares, who was scanning the woodland around them. "It's not like we're friends, and I'm only slowing you down."
"I'm not leaving you like this." He gestured at her, a fearful worry in his eyes. It was a striking difference from the last Game they'd played together, where he'd split her skull open during the bloodbath. Now they were playing for real, and here he was playing her white knight defender.
"I'm at least going to make sure you get back to your brothers. You won't make it alone."
Iridescence groaned and rubbed her head. "Ugh, I don't know if I'm going to make it with you."
"Don't talk like that."
"It's the truth and we both know it. You don't have to pity me."
"I'm not– pitying you. I just won't leave you to die."
"We've killed each other in-Game enough times."
"But this isn't just in Game!" He stopped and turned to face her, throwing his hands in the air. "You're living and breathing and so am I! And– I might not like you, Sterling, but that doesn't mean you deserve to die."
Her stomach dropped. She twisted her hands together. "I– You– Yeah."
It was wrong that she'd taken this long to see it. The Gilmores were rivals that they really only saw while playing the Game, rivals they intended to beat. But the youngest Gilmore was right. He and his siblings were also people, however annoying they were, living, breathing people that didn't deserve to die.
Iridescence bowed her head. "I– I'm sorry. I didn't think of it like that."
"Yeah. Well. You could be a little more grateful."
"I know. And I will."
Gilmore gave her a very strange look.
"I'm just… scared. And I don't want to be responsible for you dying if I hold you back."
Gilmore held his hand out. "Well, maybe if we're going to do this, we should try it properly. You can call me Ares."
She smiled. "I'm Iridescence."