Juniper Triton- Swing Vote D4M
Christobal and I loved each other, but we both had things we couldn't share. I never wanted him to feel like a burden. He was valuable just for being a person- his worth didn't depend how he could play the Games, even if his life did. All the same, the secret I had to keep from him was how much responsibility fell on me to make up what he couldn't. It was great Christobal had been out mugging for sponsors. According to Drone, we already had tons of support lined up. When we got to the Arena, though, it was going to depend on me to make use of that. With the money we had lined up, we could probably buy a trident, but would Christobal be using it? No, I would be the one killing someone with it. I had to be the one to prepare myself both physically and mentally for what that would require.
Anyone who acts can tell you that you can feel yourself shift. As I was walking to the training room, I felt myself change from my real self to a character I was playing. It hurt remembering how fun the change usually was. Usually I was doing one of my mermaid shows in the circus. I got to pull on that tail and feel myself become Jackie the Merman. Jackie was fun and playful and liked to wave at the kids. That wasn't how I was changing today. As I walked toward the training room, my muscles tensed and my steps grew larger as I shifted from myself to a Career.
It was heartbreakingly relieving, letting myself hide behind a character. When I tried to tell Christobal about my worries about my own adequacy and performance, he always insisted I was being too hard on myself and that I was definitely enough. It was nice of him to say, and I knew he believed it, but the truth was that no matter how much he loved me, it wasn't enough to make me believe it. I still felt the gnawing fear of messing up, of embarrassing myself and letting everyone down. It seemed like the only way around it was to pretend to be someone else entirely.
All the mentors I'd met in the Academy said the killing itself was one of the easier parts. I thought about that as I pulled my trident out of a dummy, bits of fabric clinging to the barbs in grim foreshadowing. Was it that easy, taking a life? I hadn't been right there up next to Stevie when I killed her. I hadn't even seen her die. It still haunted me, thinking about the bullets punching into her and how I felt when someone shot me. There wasn't any way around it, though. This was what Careers did.
Alsace Cartier- Let the Good Times Roll D1M
Without District Seven to hate, honestly I wasn't sure what I was doing here, and hating them just didn't seem to have the same pizzazz anymore. Loki wasn't in the Games with us and the other Sevens just seemed like scared kids. Plus Lyon had told me I was a grade-A moron for thinking he wanted to be avenged, so there was that.
"You ever feel like training is kind of a wash?" I asked Lyon as we halfheartedly dueled at the swords station.
"Oh my gosh, yes," he said, letting his sword fall to rest its tip on the mat. "I've been trying to focus but it's just so boring."
"You wanna do something dumb?"
"Like what?" Lyon asked.
I said the first thing that came to mind. "You wanna try every station in the room and see who can be better at more?"
"Do I want to compete with you? Duh. We're brothers."
There were just about six hours left in training and eighteen station, rounding out to a neat twenty minutes per station. Two hours later, I was in the lead, having taken archery (which neither of us had ever tried before, so that was pretty disastrous), the climbing course, tracking, hammock-making, and edible plants. Not to be outdone (except I was totally outdoing him), Lyon had smoked me in swords and fishing.
"Ha, what do you think of them apples," I said as I nurtured a tiny bundle of lit tinder.
"HA!" Lyon stomped the fire before I could react. He hunched over his own tiny flame so I couldn't get to it as he blew.
"Not fair," I pointed out.
"C'est le guerre," he said.
"How is this even important?" Lyon asked as we struggled over knots. It was a tight race, but in true sportsmanship, we both agreed Lyon's were less snarled.
"Oh, Akari lost her shirt!" I called as Lyon neared the track finish line ahead of me. He was only fooled for an instant, but it was enough.
"Ha, landlubber," Lyon smirked before demolishing me in the swim race.
We had a few ties on the way. While making shelters, for example, we realized if we worked together we could make an awesome giant shelter. The camouflage fight devolved into us making sick war paint. Both of our woven baskets failed so badly we tore them apart and left the mess for the instructor.
"How do we tell which mannequin is more healed?" I asked at the first aid station.
"Which one is less dead?" Lyon said. Another tie it was.
I was ahead by one. If I won the gauntlet race, I would forever be the superior brother.
"You ready to get wrecked?" I asked Lyon.
"I know you are but what am I," he said back in a mocking voice.
We charged in.
Mist Hastings- Your Vote Matters D4F
I didn't recognize the girl who was walking up to me. I could tell she was one of the Careers- her muscles and bearing made that obvious. Still, she looked oddly nervous as she approached.
"Hi," she waved shyly. "I'm Charybdis. I guess you don't know me."
"Hi. I'm Mist, but I guess you knew that," I said. Was she looking for an alliance? I wasn't what I would call prime real estate.
"You used to be sick," Charybdis blurted in a strange mix of eagerness and guilt. "But they fixed you, right?"
"Yeah," I said, smiling a little. I wasn't really sure of anything about myself. Of my memories of the last four or so years, I had very little idea what was real and what wasn't. I was pretty sure I really had killed Troy, but I hardly thought it was on purpose anymore. Crazy people do crazy things and people say it's not their fault. I wasn't sure about it all, but it was starting to come together.
"Me, too," Charybdis said. "I was depressed- like super depressed, so depressed I didn't even know I was depressed." She paused, gathering her thoughts. "It's weird, isn't it? Changing so much?"
Like falling into bed after a long day, I felt the relief of having someone else understand. "I don't even know who I am," I said. "I'm not sure what I like, or my personality, or anything." I'd fallen ill during puberty, the time of life when someone's personality could shift entirely, like a metamorphosis. I'd lost all of that to my mania.
"For me, the world seems so impossibly bright. I feel like I can do anything." Charybdis beamed. She considered me. "Maybe this means you can more or less pick who you are?"
"I like that," I said. I got to pick, any sort of person in the world I wanted to be. The first thing that came to mind was appreciative, like Charybdis. The Games were horrible but I did have this second chance at a meaningful life. I also thought I wanted to be a little bit immature. I'd missed so much of my childhood, and I wanted it back. Maybe I'd go buy some stuffed animals or eat every kind of ice cream I could find. I was already getting some grasp of my strengths and flaws. I seemed to be a pretty polite sort of person, and I already knew I got impatient easily- I found that out when two Capitolites were walking EXTREMELY SLOWLY in a narrow corridor. I had little pieces of the old me, and the rest I got to fill in however I wanted.
Gabriel Farad- Power to the People D5M
It was nice just having time with Dominique. In between all the stress and violence surrounding us, it was nice just to be with her. I could ground myself, and remind myself that there were good things in the world as well as bad. When she was talking, I liked to watch how her mouth moved in its own special way I hadn't seen in other people. When she was just sitting still, I liked to look at her generous curves and lay my head on her soft chest. The Games were bearable with her. I couldn't imagine what it was like to do them alone.
"Last day of training," Dominique mused, mostly just to say it, though she turned toward me so I could see the words without having to rely on my interpreter. "I guess we should be making the most of it." She made no move to get up. We were in the Nine lounge, playing some casual hands of poker. Not to brag, but I was dominating. Often people didn't think about how a lifetime of reading lips- and the nonverbal communication in the face- left Deaf folds insanely good at catching facial movements.
"Want to make some mischief?" I signed, smiling a little.
"I suppose you want to go prank the Careers?" Dominique asked, her expression both long-suffering and intrigued.
"You know me so well."
Dear Fours,
You are the stupidest bunch we've ever seen. You haven't even been keeping tabs on each other, have you? Alsace has been breaking slivers off the spears so you get used to the wrong balance. Mahi has been having an affair with a Ten. Which Mahi, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know. Laken says he's in the Mean Careers but he's made a secret alliance with the Nice Careers. And did you all know Faust has a secret son? We're going to rip you apart in the Arena.
All My Love,
"Who should we have sign it?" I asked Dominique.
"Rapture. Screw him," she said immediately.
All My Love,
Rapture Kai
It was an excellent choice. Not only was Rapture horrible, like Dominique pointed out, but he was one of the few people aggressive and confident enough to actually write a note like that. Almost certainly the Fours would see right through the letter, which I left stuffed into their door, my hoodie pulled up so the cameras wouldn't give me away. They'd probably laugh it off, but maybe they'd get just a tiny bit suspicious. Wasn't it possible Laken was double-crossing his alliance, or that Faust had a love child? But we were just getting started.
Dear Twos,
I suppose you think you're the strongest District. Wouldn't you be surprised to hear that Akari sleeps with a baby blanket? It must be her token. By the way, Marley says she's especially excited to mummify Valerie. Maybe start moisturizing ahead of time? And did Jessie ever tell you she only got picked because the top five contenders got food poisoning at an event? Sixth place is the charm, I guess…
Sofia Ferrari- A Night to Remember D6F
People always said they'd do anything to win. I'd said to myself, too, though I'd never been confident enough to say it to someone else. They'd just laugh. Someone like me, someone who cried when she saw a classmate stub her toe, doing anything? Eating bugs was one thing. Honestly they didn't taste terrible. Hurting someone on purpose was beyond anything I'd imagined. But I wanted to get home. Every day I was seeing more that I wanted to live. There was more in this world for me and I was willing to fight to see it.
The head in front of me didn't look like most of the dummies. It was made of translucent gel and was only a bust, ending at the shoulders. Through the skin I could see the model blood vessels and bones embedded in the gel. Out of the skinless eye sockets, two gaping brown eyes judged me.
"Eye gouges are the single most effective fight enders," Atala, the assistant said. I hadn't seen her last time- she looked pretty young. "It's the most common advice given in self-defense classes, not that it means much. Everyone thinks it's a good idea. No one wants to do it."
I put out a hand and gently touched the eyeball, expecting my hand to come away moist. The rubbery gel gave slightly under my fingers. I tried to tug, then chickened out at the nausea that welled up in me.
"Make a stiff hand." Atala demonstrated, her fingers curved into claws. "Jab straight into the eye. Try to wedge your fingers in between the eye and the socket."
My stomach churned as she went on. I could feel the tears coming. I couldn't imagine fingers there. It was too horrible to picture. Fingers squishing my eye jelly down, my eye deforming as dry flesh slid across it…
"Push hard. Harder than you think."
"Then pull," I whispered, trying to make myself think I could.
"No, don't pull until you feel the optic nerve. It will be thick, like licorice. Pull that."
My hand shot out independent of my thoughts. I felt the gel on my fingers and jerked back.
"It's a start," Atala encouraged me.
I took in a breath. I closed my eyes. In a real fight I'd have to look, but this was where I could start. I tried again, whimpering at the feeling of the gel dipping under my fingers. I pushed back, amazed at how far the eye socket went, at how far I could go. I felt the crunchy, ropelike nerve.
I jerked back. The head glared at me, unable to express the pain I'd put it through.
I'm so sorry, I said to it. But I want to live.
Past the ridge of the eyebrow. Between the eye and socket. The nerve, flexible yet strong. Pulling. Pulling harder. Stretching. Giving. Feeling the wetness and motion that would be in a real person. An eye in my hand, its nerve like a tail. I could feel the blood that wasn't there.
That's everyone on my list except Mercedes Swift, whose original story I can't find. If anyone has info on MERCEDES SWIFT, hit me up. There are also no doubt some people I missed, so I'll add them next chapter with Mercedes. Now we can start the fun part! I didn't skip the parade, BTW. I just wanted to get the POV slog out of the way first.