Walcott Patel- No Way Down D3F
We all sat up sharply at the knock on the door.
Taptaptap tap tap
At the correct code, Vulpes open the door and Tyler rushed in. He looked, well, like he hadn't survived, honestly. His hair was mussed like he'd been in a tornado. His pants had a big tear in them. And he was spattered in blood all over his front and face. Just spattered, like he'd made out with a blender. I guessed it was from the bloody chainsaw he held by his hip.
"So, how was the feast?!" I burst out.
Tyler shut the door behind him and slid down it to a sitting position, shifting after a second when he noticed he was in front of the door. Once he was in front of the thicker wall, he spoke.
"I got some stories," he said, staring off in a not really traumatized but more gobsmacked sort of way.
"Are you okay?" Deciduous asked, looking worriedly at the blood on his boyfriend's face as he knelt by him.
"Oh yeah," Tyler said. "I'm okay."
"Who'd you kill?" I asked.
"That's a rude thing to ask!" Deciduous chided me.
"He didn't mind killing him!" I defended myself. If he didn't mind killing him, surely he didn't mind talking about it.
"It was Jason," Deciduous said.
"Can't say I'm sorry to hear it," Visenya remarked.
"With a chainsaw," Deciduous continued, lifting the saw a bit off the ground. "So clearly, they weren't kidding about the special prizes."
"Did someone have a grenade? It sure sounded like it," Vulpes said.
"My man, that wasn't even the craziest thing." Tyler looked off into space for a moment, trying to even decide which to say first. "There were like a dozen Careers fighting it out. I know I saw Gabriel swipe at someone with a taser. Lottie lost her mind- she just freaking lost her mind. And…" He sighed.
"What? What is it?" Deciduous prodded.
Tyler looked at me. "You're gonna lose your shit," he said.
"Someone killed Shinju?!" He was quite right. If I got this close and someone else cheated me out of this, I was going to blow a gasket.
"Shinju's a vampire."
"Yeah, I told you all!"
"No, no." Tyler looked around at everyone else. "It's real. She freaking bit Jayla. She bit her. She had big gross vampire fangs."
"You've got to be kidding," Vulpes said.
"Why are you surprised? You already knew," I said. But the shock and disbelief on his face was unmistakable.
"You didn't believe me!" I cried, whirling to jab a finger at me. "You said you believed me!"
"I thought- I dunno," Vulpes sputtered. "It was an exaggeration or something?"
"She's a vampire! I told you she was a vampire! You just all thought I was stupid, didn't you?!" My pride cracked inside me as everyone's faces showed they very much had. "Oh my God, you really did! You thought I was a stupid crazy person!"
"No!" Visenya said, faltering. "We just thought it was a mistake."
"Anything else you've been lying to me about?" I looked from face to face and saw some guilty expressions.
"Look," Vulpes said, holding out his hands in conciliation. "I'm sorry we lied. You were right. We see that now. Okay?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Okay," I said. "No big deal." Now who was lying? Vulpes hadn't believed me, but he'd pretended he had. Why would he do that? Because he wanted something from me. To get me to join his team? To make me think he was my friend? I didn't know precisely what it was, but I did know I could never trust him again.
Elle Phant- Swing Vote D8F
All the cameras had to be on us at that moment. Who wouldn't want to see a feel-good moment like that? Richard calling down the hall, Tabitha flying to the door, and the two meeting in a hug like a bear trap snapping shut.
"I'm okay," Richard said again and again, as Tabitha checked for wounds.
"There were so many cannons," I said.
"I didn't see most of them. One of them was Anjou, though," Richard said. "Lottie threw him into a window. It was kinda hot."
"What were the prizes like?" Timber asked.
"BOY lemme tell you!" Richard said. "A gun. A hand grenade. Body armor. A chainsaw. Someone probably has a nuke."
"I'm glad you didn't try to get any," I said. "We like you better."
"There was a clown suit, too," Richard said, smirking. "I didn't grab it though."
"There was not," Tabitha said.
"There might have been, actually. Some of the bags had people's names on them. I didn't notice if there were any for any of us," Richard said.
"Was there lots of food?" Nene asked.
"I didn't see any," Richard said.
"Then how was it a feast?"
As was expected, Richard was hungry after being out all day trying not to get killed in the feast. We set out a round of nutrient shakes and broke into smaller conversations.
"Were you really going to go?" I asked Timber. I hadn't forgotten how he'd volunteered.
He drew back shyly. "I didn't want Tabitha to be scared."
"That's really nice of you," I said. We'd barely known each other for a few weeks. A lot of people wouldn't even do something like that for their best friend.
"She's kind of like my sister," Timber said, smiling at some memory. "She has Down Syndrome." His face went panicky. "Not like that, I mean!" he started.
"No, no, I get it," I said, smiling.
"She's just so innocent and sweet, and Tabitha's like that, too," Timber said, confirming my interpretation.
"It must be nice sometimes, being able to hold on to that," I said. My own life had been pretty easy, and I still retained a lot of my own joy. People like Tabitha were lights that refused to ever go out.
"I always thought I'd have my own kids someday," Timber said wistfully.
"I wasn't really sure," I said. "I worried I would mess them up, but you do your best."
"I like to think I took good care of Sequoia. Axel, too," Timber said. "He's my brother. He's delayed, too, but we don't know why. Maybe the hard life in Seven messes with babies. Maybe it's just genetics. I wouldn't be sad if my kids were like that. Sequoia and Axel are really cool."
"If you ever get out of here, I guess you'll take care of them forever," I said.
Timber's face lit up. It hurt my heart, seeing what a family he could have made if we'd ever had a chance.
"That would be great! We wouldn't have to worry about school or jobs anymore. They could just play all day."
I looked over at Tabitha, who was on her stomach doodling with some colored pencils. "That would be perfect."
Fable Anders- A Night To Remember D1F
knockKNOCKknock
My heart thumped and I leaned forward on my bed. Chrome stood up where she'd been sitting beside the door.
KNOCKKNOCKknockKNOCK
She opened the door. Jessie came in, looking impressively undamaged after all the chaos and cannons we'd heard. I quickly gathered the reason for it when I saw the gun in her hand by her hip.
"I thought I heard gunshots," Jayden said.
I hopped off the bed, pleased to feel my leg holding up nicely. It really was almost better. We just hadn't wanted to take the risk of reopening it.
Jessie squirmed in annoyance as Chrome looked her over. "I'm okay!" She complained. "You're always so worried."
"Okay, okay," Chrome relented.
"Who'd you kill?" Jayden asked excitedly.
Jessie sat on the examination bed, so I hopped back up to sit next to her. "Havelock," she said.
"Just him?" Chrome asked, curiously rather than accusingly.
Jessie smiled self-deprecatingly. "I tried to get Elissa, too, but I missed."
"Missed?" Jayden said in a high-pitched, jokey voice.
"It's way harder to aim these than I thought!" Jessie said. "They jerk back really bad when you fire."
"You gotta fire like this," Jayden said. She bent over, bending her knees and sticking her butt out, her hands together.
"How'd you know that?" Chrome asked.
Jayden's smile matched Jessie's. "Saw it in a cop movie."
"It was mostly outliers who died. I was expecting more Careers, but I guess we all came at different times. Jason went out, though," Jessie said.
"Good riddance," Jayden said.
Jessie looked around the room. "Are Arno and Elise in the bathroom or something?"
Oh boy, here it comes.
"They're dead," Chrome said.
"What?!" Jessie did a double-take, jostling me so I had to put out a hand in order to not fall off the bed.
"Yeah, we killed them," Jayden said.
"Why didn't you wait until I got back? They could have gotten one of you!" Jessie said.
Chrome put her hand on her chest. "This time it wasn't me trying to keep you safe, I promise. It was just that while you were gone the didn't expect it, since our majority was lower. It was a pretty impulsive move- I didn't even think it up until you'd been gone half an hour."
"Can confirm," I piped up. "It just came out of nowhere."
"I don't even-" Jessie started. But what was there to say? We weren't going to bring them back.
"Pretty ice-cold," I agreed. "I'm just happy they didn't decide I was dead weight and get me, too."
"No, you're getting better," Jayden said. I didn't bother to comment that she hadn't said if I wasn't getting better they still wouldn't kill me, and she didn't touch on it, either. Under every Career relationship, whether businesslike ally or close friend, there was always that undertone. Careers can be good friends, but they can never be lifelong friends.
I liked to think Jessie and I were the exception. Probably it was because we were both just a little resigned to death. People like Jayden, the ones who thought they could get out of this, would do what it took to cling to that. People like Jessie and me were able to value friendship above life because we didn't think death was the worst thing in the world. We'd been through this a couple of times by now. I had to admit it didn't seem likely we'd be the ones to defy all odds and survive. Someone would, but just one someone out of so very many people. I'd never say it to Jessie, but I wished it was just the two of us. It was wildly selfish of me to want to separate her from her sister. It was just that even if her sister thought I was good friend to Jessie, she'd never value me like Jessie would. She'd kill me in a second to protect Jessie, not that I held that against her. Jessie and I were the only two real equals in our alliance. We didn't look at each other as a business partnership, like Jayden, or see each other as something we needed to protect, like Chrome. We were just two people stuck in the same situation and happy to be in it together.
Juniper Triton- Swing Vote D4F
I felt like Santa Claus himself coming through the door laden with bags. Christobal, of course, was even more excited than a kid on Wintertide morning.
"You made it!" he yelled, running up to hug me.
"Hold on!" I said, dropping my bags before his embrace could crush their pointy bits into me.
Christobal picked one up and noticed his name on it. "Wow, they were personalized?"
"Not all of them," I said. "I got both of ours, though."
"Did anyone fight you?" he asked.
"Jessie almost shot me," I said.
"She doesn't use a bow. Guess that's why she missed," he said.
"Yes, but also no," I said. "It was a handgun."
"No kidding?" Christobal's shock was evident. "They had prizes like that?"
"Let's just see what they picked out for us," I said. When I first saw the names on the packages, I'd kind of been hoping Christobal's was a guitar, but it was way too small.
Christobal dumped out the bag. A bunch of pieces clattered to the ground. We looked at them for a moment and then put it together almost simultaneously.
"No way," Christobal said, grinning at me. We started fitting the pieces together and soon we had a fully assembled guitar, the seams invisible once they were fitted. When Christobal strummed it, no noise came out. He tried again, more firmly, but still nothing.
"Did we miss a piece?" I asked, looking into the bag. I turned it over and four earbuds fell out. "Try again," I said, popping one in. Christobal strummed and the music sounded it my ear.
"Sweet!" I said, pushing two towards him. We could hear the music without attracting enemies.
"What's in yours?" Christobal asked.
I lifted the top off and found a weird drum-looking thing. It wasn't like any drum I'd seen, though. It had dents in the side and a weird shape.
"It's a hand-pan!" Christobal said, grinning as he took it out. He fished out the earpieces that came with it, which fitted over the top of the ears so we could hear both instruments at once. "You hit different parts to make different sounds." He demonstrated a few.
"It's not a gun, but it's pretty cool," I said, settling the hand-pan in my lap. "We can have concerts. Maybe people will send us stuff."
"They can't hear us, silly," Christobal pointed out.
"Oh. Right," I said.
"Maybe the Capitol will dub the audio over the broadcast," Christobal said.
"If we play songs with a lot of different moods, we can be the soundtrack to the entire Games," I said.
Christobal strummed a sad riff. "For when someone dies," he said ominously. He played a few happy notes. "For a sponsor gift." He played a tense series of quick notes. "Chase scene."
"I got one," I said. I took a metal binder off the desk in the office we were hiding in. "For when Tabitha tells a joke." I pounded the drum, then smacked the binder on the floor. Bu-bum tsssh
