Jessie Cabello- A Night to Remember D2F

My breath came fast and shallow as I wound the bandages around Fable's leg. She was so pale. She could hardly speak. I kept plying her with questions, begging her to keep talking to me. She was doing all she could, but the Games didn't make allowances for effort.

"What day is it?" I asked for the second time, gently but insistingly shaking her shoulder.

"I dunno," she said, sounding almost drunk.

"It's-" I stopped, suddenly realizing the absurdity. I didn't know what day it was. We were in the arena. Duh.

"What's your middle name?" I asked.

She thought for a long second. "Tiffany."

"Your middle name is Tiffany?" Jayden broke in.

"I didn't pick it." At Fable's groggy defense, I let myself relax a little. If she was alert enough for that, maybe she'd pull through.

Jayden tensed beside the cracked-open doorway of the examination room we were hiding in. She relaxed as she recognized who was approaching.

"We found this," Chrome said as she, holding up a bottle of pills as Elise and Arno followed her through the door. I couldn't help but notice the lack of concern from Elise and Arno. They looked upset, like anyone would when they saw someone in pain, but not entirely concerned. If you asked me, they looked like they were faking concern. I knew what they were thinking. Our alliance had gotten them through the Bloodbath. The more time went by, the more they were thinking that the numbers needed to thin, and that our three-way bond was a threat to their two-member partnership.

"What is it?" I asked, even as I was reading the bottle.

HEMOCYTIN

For extreme blood loss, when transfusion is contraindicated.

EFFECTS: Promotes the accelerated production of red blood cells

SIDE EFFECTS: Fatigue, hypercoagulability, bone damage with long-term use. In rare cases, may cause blood clots.

Patient should avoid sudden movement or standing

It was the next best thing to a transfusion. We knew Fable's blood type (A+) but we weren't at all confident about inserting an IV. None of us knew how to find a vein and I couldn't imagine it was good to inject blood into something other than a vein.

I poured out two pills, as the rest of the information on the bottle recommended, and gave them to Fable, with a paper cup of water from the sink in the corner of the room.

"I got these, too," Elise said as she offered me two more bottles. I read the labels and found one was iron supplements and the other was vitamin K pills.

"You feeling okay?" I asked as Fable very slowly sat up on the examination table.

"Had better days," she said with a thin smile, "but I've had worse."

"So I guess we're staying here for a while," Arno commented. It was politely phrased, but I could hear the concern. Fable wasn't in much condition to move- we were more or less one member down. I doubted Gaius would try to press his luck, but there were other alliances to worry about. But Fable was right. We'd had worse days. Just a little time to get better, and we'd be back out there.

Mist Hastings- Your Vote Matters D4F

I wasn't sure why a hospital had an experimental ward. That seemed like more of a laboratory thing to me. Then again, I hadn't been in hospitals for… a long time, I thought, but when I really thought, I wasn't sure. There was a lot I didn't remember about my life starting from sometime after my fifteenth birthday. I now knew that was when my schizophrenia started to develop- which was early, I heard, but not unheard-of- but I'd only been able to see that in hindsight, after it was over. In my memory, it still seemed like the moment the world started to crack under me and reveal a new reality that hid itself from everyone else. Even with my new understanding that it was delusion, it still all sounded perfectly logical in my head.

I plucked a bottle off a shelf and read it curiously.

Beta-alinine 4420 52% Chondry-alkenoidal keratine version 3.0 Pyromorphic, hydrophobic. Handle with care

I set the bottle back on the shelf, quickly but very carefully. I wasn't sure what any of that meant, but I didn't want to mess with it. As I was setting it down, I saw the figure behind me reflected in the glass. It was a female figure, and her back was to me. I turned around and saw, through the shelves separating us, a dark-haired girl about my age, two shelves away. She wasn't holding a weapon, and she was sneaking but not hunting.

"Hey," I said, knowing it would scare her but not wanting t scare her worse by seeming like I was trying to sneak up on her.

The girl dropped to a crouch, throwing her hands over her head. She looked sharply over and saw me waving timidly from behind my shelf.

"Sorry. I thought it would be worse if I didn't say something," I said as the girl cautiously stood back up. "You're not a Career, right?"

"No," she said. "Wait, you don't know me?"

"No," I said. "You famous or something?"

The girl smiled with a sort of embarrassed expression. "Sort of," she said. "I'm surprised the gossip hasn't gotten to you."

"You're not gonna believe this, but I was like super insane until a few weeks ago. I wasn't really aware of any of the gossip." As we peeked out at each other, I got the feeling we might get along. Maybe we could even be allies.

"I'll just be honest, since there's no reason not to," the other girl said. "I'm Shinju. Which isn't the part that's hard to be honest about. No, people gossip about me because I used to think I was a vampire."

I had to smile. "What, like how we all knew that one kid who insisted he knew a super secret technique to instantly kill someone?"

Shinju half-laughed. "No, like I killed people and drank their blood."

I recoiled a little, my stomach sinking. "So… do you still do that?"

"No no no, I do not do that anymore." Shinju's face went dark. "Doesn't help the ones I already hurt, but I don't do that anymore."

What did someone say to something like that? The honesty in Shinju's voice, and the way she was so upright about it, gave me the crazy feeling that maybe she really had changed. And didn't I know more than anyone else about what mental illness could do to someone? Partnering up with a girl who drank people's blood seemed like the dumbest idea in history. Then again, people would likely tell her that partnering up with someone who, until a few weeks ago, talked to her dead boyfriend constantly was a bad idea.

Parallel to the both of us, across the room, the door clicked shut. Both of us turned sharply. I couldn't believe how stupid we'd been. We weren't the only ones wandering the arena, and our conversation had led Cierra right to us. She stood just in front of the door, her sword drawn, her eyes flickering over us as she planned her attack.

Shinju and I locked eyes. Even together, we couldn't fight Cierra. There was only one chance for either of us. We fled down different aisles of shelving, knowing Cierra could only chase one of us at a time. One of us might be able to make it to the back door while the other was dying.

I should have put all my energy into running, but I couldn't imagine anyone else wouldn't have done what I did. I glanced behind me as I fled. Cierra had picked me. With her training, and my own mania until just a few scant weeks ago, it wasn't fair in the slightest. She gained on me effortlessly, even as I tried to dodge between shelves, and was on me in a flash. I heard the crashing of bottles as Shinju tripped into a shelf in her own flight, then the door handle turning as she reached the exit. Then Cierra was on me, and her sword was in me, and I knew I wasn't hallucinating my blood.

Maybe we would have been friends, I thought as I looked out at the open doorway so impossibly far away from me. I would have liked that.

Logan Quinn- Back to Normal D5M

I'd never told the others how much I had to fake. We'd only lost two person in the Bloodbath. Seven of us, and we'd only lost two, one of which we'd only known for a few days. So many people had gotten it so much worse. Rachel had lost all of her allies like a flash of lightning. Yet here we were, moping like it would bring them back. It was the one thing that annoyed me about Jay. It was one thing to value life, but it was going too far to ignore those who were still living in favor of people who were gone.

We have more important things to worry about, I thought but didn't say. If the Careers' hit on Gaius and the others was successful, we'd be next on their list. Not me, maybe- though there was the possibility- but certainly Jay. And if Jay went down, our alliance was over. Demarcus and I might stick together, bonded by our shared past in gangs, but a duo wasn't much in this environment. Jay didn't have the luxury of wallowing in self-pity. We needed him.

"So we going after the bounty or what?" Brad demanded, clearly not as bound by etiquette as I was. He sat restlessly kicking around one of the weighted balls that lay around in the therapy room we'd found ourselves in. Of course we would end up in a place like this. I almost wished Zach was here, even if it reduced my own odds and almost certainly meant he'd die again. He would have liked the place, with its weights and resistance bands and exercise bikes. It had its practical advantages, too- I certainly wouldn't want to get hit in the face with a flying twenty-pound dumbbell.

"What, go kill someone?" Jay asked, looking up with a mix of confusion and horror.

"Yeah. This is the Games," Brad said dismissively.

"We tend to be more of a defensive alliance," Demarcus said. He looked peeved but not yet outright angry. On my own part, I was starting to think Brad might be more than I'd initially estimated. There was nothing about him that would spur emotional connection, but that would only make it easier to fight him when the time came. For now, he was aggressive and cold, two things anyone needed to win the Games.

"And you're a dead alliance, at the end of every Games so far," Brad said.

"Some things are more important." The fire was starting to come to Jay's eyes.

"Spoken like a six-time loser."

Demarcus jumped to his feet, his fists clenched. He shook as he stood, but said nothing. The air went sharp as everyone glanced around.

"We're all upset," Mati's voice piped up, cutting through the tension. "We should focus on the important things. We're almost out of food. Maybe we should go look for more?"

I could feel everyone relaxing as they chose to think about other things. None of us, however mad we were, wanted to start a brawl in front of someone as gentle as Mati.

"Where would there be food other than a cafeteria in a hospital?" Laken wondered aloud. "Anyone here been in a lot of hospitals?"

Demarcus and I shared a knowing little smile. Gang life wasn't soft.

"The maternity ward?" Jay suggested.

"I could go for some nice formula," I said, and everyone started snickering. At least I hadn't said breast milk.

"The nutrition ward. I don't know what they call that," Demarcus added.

"There's probably a whole other kitchen," Mati pointed out. "There's usually one for visitors but also the one where the patient food is made."

"That's right!" Laken said. The open seating area by the Bloodbath implied a cafeteria for visitors and staff. And it was so small, too- surely there was a larger one for bulk cooking.

"Let's find that one," Jay said decisively but not bossily. He rose from the exercise ball he'd been sitting on. "Then Mati can make something really nice. That would make everyone feel better."

"Yeah!" Mati cheered. "Applesauce and ice cream and all that hospital food. I'll make it good, though."

Everyone was in good spirits as we started peeking outside and planning our route. Just the change of scenery would be nice, but there were other benefits, too. While we were moving around, there was the constant danger of imminent death. It didn't sound like a benefit, but it was perfect for chasing other worries away. As long as we were on the move, we simply didn't have the headspace to think about what we'd lost.

In a silent room, occupied only by a cold and no-longer-bleeding body, a shelf lay half-fallen onto the ground, held up partway by the table it had fallen against. Its contents, dozens of glass bottles and vials, lay in shards on the ground, threatening anyone who might walk through without looking. A noxious mix of chemicals mingled in pools, slowly seeping into the tiles beneath them and releasing vapors that may have poisoned anyone who lingered in the room. On a small pile of shards, there was a brownish tinge of drying blood. Someone had run through the shards, unable to tread carefully because of what had been pursuing her. Across several of the shards, still holding the disparate pieces together, was a wet paper label. The letters were smudged with the bottle's contents but still visible.

HANDLE WITH CAUTION

Recombinant 6638, version 6.0

Viral capsid single-generation parasitomutate

For use in severe degenerative leukocyte dystrophy

Dr. Robert Neville

106th place: Mist Hastings- stabbed by Cierra

They say to kill your darlings when you write. I clearly don't follow that, but happy stories do eventually lose their effect if nothing sad ever happens. Mist deserved to be able to explore who she really was outside of schizophrenia, but I decided to finally be cold for once and not give her that chance. It sucks, since I like Mist, but I have to be mean to someone I like eventually. Our condolences to Mist, who deserved so much more.