Author's Note

I do not own The Hunger Games.

Apollo Gilmore, 17

Whoever had been following them and fucking with their stuff seemed to have given up after they decided to risk crossing the canyon. Perhaps they thought there'd be too much of a risk of being seen trying to cross it themselves.

"Think we lost them?" asked Artemis eventually, picking out a patch of long grass to stop and rest in.

"Not sure. But it looks that way," Apollo replied.

She leant against his shoulder. "Great."

"Gotta admit, it's a sneaky strategy."

He admired their nerve, honestly. It was one of the boldest strategies he'd come up against in the months they'd been playing The Game. Maybe he should have thought of that - but then they'd have to work out how to make it work with him and Artemis and Ares. Probably wouldn't. They weren't great at sneaking, better at full on assaults.

"Ugh. Cheeky bastard," Artemis muttered.

"You're just mad we didn't get there first."

She rolled her eyes. "Am not."

"Are too."

She looked up at the sky as it began to turn silver and the District One anthem filled the air around them. "Think they're going to liven things up for Day Four?"

Apollo shrugged. "Not sure."

The Gamemakers would, if this was the real Hunger Games. It had been a quiet few days, there hadn't even been any deaths today, but the Capitol audience craved entertainment, violence. Blood.

There hadn't been much of that so far.

But then Apollo suspected that wasn't the point of all this. It was punishment, a desire to see them go through what the scum District tributes went through. And as such, the actual entertainment didn't matter. It was the suffering. That was why he was still wandering around bruised and bloodied, his armour at zero. Because he was suffering, and those watching could take some glee in that.

"Camp for the night?" Artemis asked as the sky above them darkened.

Apollo nodded and gave her a slight smile. "Sounds like a good plan."

Maximillian Marcus Badondé, 18

He had killed a boy, and Maximillian still wasn't sure how he should feel about that. He'd seen his face in the sky the night before, watched the recording as he died, and felt… nothing, really.

The boy had to die so Maximillian could live, and that was all there was to it.

He hadn't had any arrows, but he did have food and water, as well as a small silver blanket, and the knife meant that Maximillian could set about trying to carve arrows of his own from small tree branches. So far they didn't fly so well, but they should work as one-use weapons. He filled his quiver with the flimsy things and tried to ignore the worry in his belly.

A boy was dead because of him.

No.

No.

He had to focus.

This was an arena filled with poison, so he'd spent the day picking flowers and breaking branches from trees to get to the poisonous sap so he could smear the arrows in it. That should make them a little more effective.

The sky didn't turn silver tonight, and there wasn't any music. There'd been no canons, no one had died. That might be a good thing, but it still sat uncomfortable in him. It meant there were more players out there for him to worry about.

He climbed a nice large tree to rest for the night, though he hadn't seen any other players that day. Perhaps this was an emptier part of the thought worried him too. If it was, it meant he'd have to leave this area and actively try to track some of the other players down. That was a riskier tactic. He'd rather keep his head down, but he also couldn't allow himself to stay here and die of starvation or dehydration.

No, he decided.

He'd stay here the night and rest, and when morning came, he'd make his move to start hunting.

With any luck, he'd find someone with a few more proper arrows.

Marcellina Arnoult, 16

Their newly expanded alliance was an awkward thing, too big to be cohesive really, and with very few of them trusting all the others. Marcellina ought to be able to trust Calpurnia, and something in her trusted Luminita, but Silverie and Emeria were strangers and the Almon siblings were… strange. They seemed harmless, and both were smaller than her, but they were… weird. Celeste had said nothing since they first met her, while Zephyr stayed close to her and only spoke to answer questions posed to him.

"They're fucking weirdos," Sorcha muttered, who hadn't let that issue drop.

"Do you have any better ideas?" Luminita hissed back at her.

Sorcha didn't reply.

Ahead of them, they were reaching the other side of the grassy field, where they could see the sunken train tracks. They must have moved kinda diagonally, too, closer to the edge of the arena, because not too far to the right, she could make out a great heap of twisted and warped metal. Presumably what was left of the trains that had run down the tracks.

"It's dark," Calpurnia said suddenly. "And I'm tired."

Luminita nodded. "We should stop for the night."

Silverie frowned. "I thought we wanted to keep covering ground."

"If we keep covering much more ground, we're going to go headlong into the train canyon," Zephyr said. The first non-question-statement he'd decided to give since they met the boy.

"We need to find the fire bird," said Celeste.

Zephyr took her arm. "We can keep finding it in the morning, when it's light and we can see where we're going."

"But Zephyr, it's important!"

"I know, I know. You've said. Multiple times. But we're tired, it's late, and we don't want to go on and get hurt."

Celeste pouted. "Fine."

Their camp for the night was large, and they even considered lighting a small fire, but decided against it, not wanting to draw attention to themselves. Where it came to food, Emeria and Silverie seemed to have much more than the meagre amount had by Marcellina's group, but refused to share.

"They're going to ditch us," whispered Luminita.

"Ugh. Can't the freakazoids do that?" asked Sorcha.

"Stop calling them that!"

"I'm just calling them what they are!"

Marcellina finished her share of the crackers, drank her share of the water, and took a few steps away from them to sit where it was quiet enough to speak and think.

"Daddy," she whispered, clasping her hands together. "I'm sorry I disobeyed you to play The Game. I promise if I get out alive I'll never break a rule again. And– And I'll even do all my homework. And the housework too." She closed her eyes. "But I don't know if I can get out alive."

Luminescence Sterling, 17

It was a strange relief to be back in the beautiful, poisonous part of the arena. At least they could see where they were from this side of the canyon. He could even see his hand in front of his face. The three of them set up their small camp and played rock paper scissors to decide who took first watch.

"It's been too quiet," Radiance said.

Luminescence nodded. "We'll have to be more alert tomorrow."

Etheria frowned. "What do you mean?"

Radiance grimaced. "You've seen the real Games, right?"

"Well, of course! Doesn't everyone?"

"Most," Luminescence agreed.

"So what's the issue?" Etheria asked.

"Normally when you get a couple of quiet days like this, the Gamemakers'll throw something in to liven things up. Mutts, an arena disaster, a new twists, force players together. Something." He shrugged. "There haven't been any deaths since yesterday. If they're in it for the entertainment, they're going to want something happening."

"Oh."

He was right, Etheria had seen that happen during the real Hunger Games, but it had never occurred to her that it might happen here in The Game too.

"The longer it's quiet for, the more likely it is something's going to happen," Luminescence added.

"So tomorrow could still be a quiet day?"

Luminescence shrugged. "It could, but I doubt it."

Maybe they hadn't discussed that theory, because Radiance frowned. "Why?"

"Time limitations on the outside."

Etheria could think of nothing, and Radiance's frown deepened. "What?"

"Think about it. Usually when we play The Game it takes us an afternoon on the outside and two to three weeks on the inside. But whoever's done this won't have an entire afternoon. The peacekeepers are going to be trying to get in to shut it all down. The hackers running this can't afford for us to have too many quiet days if they want to kill as many of us off as possible."

Radiance turned an awful shade of white at odds with his name. "That… does make sense."

"Yeah. We'll need to be careful." Luminescence touched the chain he had managed to drag with him from the train graveyard. While they had been camped out in their little den of trees, another train had come thundering past to charge headlong into its doom in the pile of scrap metal. Every so often, they could still hear the groan of metal echoing through the woodland as something shifted.

"We need to find the girls," Radiance said.

Iridescence.

Phoenix.

The longer they were separated from them, the more danger they were in.

In a best case scenario, the two might already have found each other, but this was the Hunger Games and that was idealism. Iridescence might have found someone, but Phoenix was probably wandering about by herself.

"We will," Luminescence heard himself say, though he wasn't sure who he was reassuring. "We will."

Enki Saguaro, 17

The other players were better at hiding than they'd expected. They'd spent the entire day trawling the arena around the cornucopia and found nothing.

And Enki's heart ached with guilt.

He'd thought this would make him feel important, make him feel powerful, make him feel better.

But all he could really feel was guilt.