Mati Berlin- Child's Play D10F
The problem with energy drinks was all of that caffeine. It didn't do much for me in the energy department, but it certainly seemed to go right through me. As I woke up from a dream uncomfortably interrupted by a sudden preoccupation with dream-toilets, I knew I should have had water instead. To add to the immediate problem, I could already feel the fuzz forming on my teeth.
It never ceased to amuse me how still my allies were when they were sleeping. At any moment during waking hours, at least one of them was jiggling his leg restlessly, or fiddling with a pen, or making those silly bored noises hyperactive people always find a way to make. As I sat up, though, they were all still as death.
I leaned over Demarcus next to me, pushing his arm. "Sorry, sorry," I whispered. I hated being a burden, but the others would be aghast if I left the room alone. Jay was skeptical enough about going in only pairs instead of trios.
Wow, he's really asleep, I thought as Demarcus failed to stir. I crawled over to the mini-fridge and cracked it open so I'd have enough light to make sure I wasn't grabbing somewhere weird while I shook.
My breath stopped in my throat. Demarcus' face was broken in. It was all lumpy and flat where it shouldn't be, like an apple dropped off a counter. I lurched forward, my stomach curling in when I brushed his body reaching over him at Laken. I pulled at Laken. He didn't move, and I knew.
Is this a dream? People said that in books, but dreams didn't have this kind of detail and metacognition. I fell onto my side and scooted past Demarcus and Laken, grabbing Jay's pants and pulling myself toward him.
Please move, I begged. I hauled myself up on top of his chest and then I screamed.
Flint shot up, fists raised. He looked over, his eyes sharp with adrenaline, and saw me kneeling by Jay's body. Bits and strings dangled from the absence above his neck. I can't even close his eyes for him, I thought. Are his eyes closed?
"What the-"
I noticed Flint for the first time. I recoiled, throwing myself onto my backside and scooting away from him with my hands over my face. It was him. He came, and this happened. My back hit the wall and I started to sob as I realized I'd backed further into the room and he was between me and the door.
"Woah, woah!" Flint cried. He saw my terror and backed away. "It wasn't me, I swear! I was asleep!"
I curled against the wall and tucked my head under my arms.
"Hey…" Flint said, like you might say to a panicked cat. I peeked out and saw him waving his hands downward slowly. "Let's be cool about this, okay?" He had the most incongruously concerned expression for someone I knew had killed people.
I forced myself to breathe more deeply, since I was getting lightheaded. "They're all dead," I whimpered.
"Not all of them," Flint said brightly. He pointed. "See, Logan and Brad aren't here." He realized what that must have meant and his face fell.
"What did they do?" I asked. It must have been Brad, right? Logan wouldn't have. He must have run out and tried to stop him. But he hadn't come back. He must be injured somewhere.
"I don't know," Flint said, glancing out the door. "But we're okay, okay?"
"No, we're not." Reality crashed in and I wished I'd died with them. This way only meant I'd die alone.
Flint looked out the doorway again, then back at me. "Sh-" he caught himself -"ucks," he finished. He took in a breath. "I know this is weird, but I'm the only one left, so it's gonna have to be us now, okay? We're gonna be okay."
"You're going to stay with me?" I wiped at my face.
"I'm gonna stay with you," Flint said. "Let's just raid the fridge and get out of here. Maybe we can find somewhere nicer to stay." As though there was anywhere in the world not nicer.
Emma Wolfe- In Your Hands D1F
It had been a mistake, I knew now, to volunteer to take watch with Cyrene. The plan had been for us to go seek out all the wonderful poisons we were sure were in an Arena like this. The problem was, Cyrene was absolutely insufferable. Good God, she was like my evil doppelganger. All my life I'd been told I was better than other people, and that I was just a separate breed, and I'd hated it since I was a toddler. Cyrene, however, didn't need anyone to tell her she was God's gift to humanity. It was there in the way she sat ramrod-straight instead of leaning against her chair. It was there in the pretentious Capitol way she spoke. Oh, have mercy, she was one of those people who went somewhere for a week and claimed they "unconsciously picked up the accent". It's "'CA-pi-tol', you aristocratic asshole, not 'cah-PI'-tul." And all the rest of us were perfectly content sleeping on the mattresses we'd dragged into a circle for security. It was only Empress Cyrene who sequestered herself in her own room, exposing herself to literally anyone who happened by, because she "was used to her privacy." Well, you'll sure have privacy in a coffin. I'd taken to crooking my little finger every time I lifted a cup just to piss her off, since I happened to know that wasn't really how it was done.
Normally the sight of a lone Tribute approaching the Cornucopia would have sent my hackles up. It meant at best a crazy person, and crazy people were the worst to fight with, or far more likely, a trap. This time, though, I was just happy to have anyone to interact with but Cyrene. I stood and slid an arrow into place, but I didn't move to shoot just yet. A spate of cannons had gone off last night, one of them far more significant than the others. We'd been expecting a visitor. I'd just been expecting more. For someone to take down half of Jay's alliance, it had to have been either the Cabellos and their allies or Gaius and his. Perhaps they'd sent a representative, fearing we'd say that they couldn't have all been the one to kill Jay and thus we were justified in killing all but one of them? Clever…
"Isn't that one of them?" Cyrene asked beside me. Of course it was beneath her to know Logan's name. Far be it from Queen Cyrene to have studied the lowborn curs who claimed to be competition for us.
Logan reached into the bag at his hip and removed a head. I had to give him credit. I hadn't expected an inside job. Jay's head was pallid and slack, his mouth open like he was about to shout. After only a moment to prove its substance, Logan dropped it back in the bag.
"Not bad," I nodded. "You get all three?"
Logan didn't smile. "It's easier when they trust you," he said. Beside me, Cyrene whistled in appreciation.
"Come on in," I said, waving with my bow. "Pleasure doing business."
Logan walked past our table to select a large backpack. He took a dagger off a table and clipped the holster to his belt. He peeled off his shirt to strap on a cut-resistant vest. He filled the backpack with this and that- a flashlight, some brass knuckles, a telescoping javelin, some rope, and other sundry items. When he was satisfied, he walked past us again to go into the cafeteria. We heard some clattering as he took out nonperishables like tuna cans, packets of instant potatoes, crackers, packaged snack cakes, and canned vegetables. He took a last look at our supplies after he came out. After grabbing another knife, he headed out as dismissively as he'd come.
"Not even scared?" Cyrene couldn't resist calling after him.
"Not on Snow's honor." He didn't look back.
"Damn," Cyrene said after he was gone, as we sat at our table digesting the scene.
"I know, right?" I said, woman enough to admit there was something we agreed on. "Guy's got balls."
Chrysolite Astor- Tyger, Tyger D1F
It was a most inauspicious start. Shale and I had considered our competition, and how things had gone after our time, and come to the humiliating conclusion that we were small fish in a big pond. I was only grateful that almost everyone I'd known was dead. Degrading as it was, at least everyone watching knew us as long-shots from the start. We were the only ones who had to deal with once being warriors and now skulking in the dark. But oh, even if I got out of this, I would never be able to look Peridot in the eye again.
Shale twiddled her fingers as we sat next to each other beside the door in the nurse's office we were squatting in. We'd been living off the stash of sparkling water (disgusting) and bucket of mixed nuts (Shale liked the pecans and I liked the cashews) stashed under his desk. We'd also been sleeping under the desk, since its thick backside faced the door and gave us some cover if someone burst in and attacked us. If someone attacks us, I thought with contempt. We aren't even thinking of attacking someone else.
"I'm gonna lose my mind," Shale said, leaning her head back and letting it fall. She'd been taking the confinement harder than I had. She paced sometimes, like a tiger, and she'd taken to doing crunches and push-ups to "stay sharp". Maybe it was a reflection of our fighting styles. Shale used a sword, a weapon where you had to seek out and run to your enemy. My bow was more suited to setting up in a good spot and waiting for the moment. A tiger and a mantis, if you will.
"You wanna go out and fight someone?" Shale perked up immediately at the words. The idea scared me, frankly, but what else could we do? We'd been out of nuts for almost a whole day. Sometime, someone was going to come in and fight us. Outmatched or not, I was still Career enough to want to go out with my boots on.
"You really think we can?" Shale asked. She might have been more action-oriented than I was, but she was just as realistic about our chances.
I shrugged with resignation. "Guess we gotta find out eventually."
I could feel the restless energy pouring off Shale as she crouched behind me. We'd decided to be conservative on our first outing, and that meant relying primarily on my bow. So Shale was relegated to surveillance, crouching behind me and watching my six. As for me, I was huddled right at the corner of a couch in the sitting area nearest our office hideout. As it turned out- we'd been too preoccupied to check on our way in- we were in the gerontology ward. I wasn't sure what that meant.
When the girl stepped into sight, I almost blew the whole fight by firing early. Shale must have felt the same impulse, since she grabbed my shoulder and barely stifled a yell. Be cool, I told myself. Just because we weren't up to the modern Career level didn't mean I couldn't shoot alone outlier girl, even with the cheaply-made practice bow I'd been able to snag at the fringes of the platforms. The two of us peered at the girl, willing her to keep coming. She'd have to be far closer than normal range for me to get her with my pee-wee bow.
I held the arrow to the bow, literally holding it since the crappy bow didn't have a nock. I pulled it back, frustrated at the ease with which the bow gave. I wasn't even entirely sure it would pierce all the way through her.
Shale leaned in behind me in a silent you-got-this movement. This one's for all the old-timers, I thought, and I let the arrow fly.
Mercedes Swift- Madness Begins D6F
I needed food. That was going to be the real killer here. There were a million places to hide, but in the end, every one of us would need to come out sometime. It had been four days since the Bloodbath and I hadn't eaten since the jar of lollipops I'd found on day one. I'd gone through almost the entire floor one room at a time, sure with every one of them that my luck would run out and someone would find me.
It wasn't like the other time I died. The arrow was so slow I saw it in the corner of my eye before it hit me. It sank into my hip with a feeling like I was being stabbed by a very large pencil. I staggered back, but more in surprise than from the force of the impact.
"I got this!" A woman leaped up from behind the couch across the waiting room from me. I tried to run, but the flesh pulling around the arrow inside me blinded me with pain and I half-fell, catching myself against the wall. The woman closed the distance between us and grabbed me by the arm, throwing me to the ground. My head bounced off the ground and the room went gray.
"We did it!"
Above me, two girls slapped their hands together in the air and scream-laughed. As I weakly tried to rise, and the girl who'd thrown me knelt on my back and grabbed the back of my head. I felt someone patting me all over as the girl raised my head.
"She doesn't even have anything!" I heard, just before the other girl slammed my head down. "This sucks!"
There's nothing particularly Willuna in this chapter but she was having a rough day so it's for her.
101st Place (?): Mercedes Swift- Shot by Chrysolite and killed by Shale
It was either Mercedes or Sofia, since I was waffling between the two long-shot soft 6 girls. I picked Mercedes not really because she had any flaws, but just because I wanted to see how far Sofia could go if I gave her a chance. Mercedes didn't get much screentime here, so you're probably better off reading her original story. Sorry to waste a newcomer but it always happens to someone with this many newcomers in a story.
This might not be the right placing since I accidentally killed Gavin twice. With this many people I always get lost and end up having to correct things later. Very sorry if Mercedes' submitter was gunning for 101st place and this turns out to have been spurious.