Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
Radiance Sterling, 17
The compass led them back the way they had come, and Radiance cursed both Luminescence for following it and Etheria for encouraging him.
"We already came this way, there wasn't anything here!" he bemoaned.
"Not that we could see," Luminescence replied.
"Oh, so that thing sees the mystical, does it?"
"No. But something could have been buried, or hidden, or if it is pointing towards Phoenix or Iridescence, they might be moving."
At the mention of Iridescence, the arrow of the compass spun round and came to a rest pointing diagonally behind them.
Radiance frowned. "Oh good. It's broken."
Luminescence shook the thing. "It's not broken. Maybe there's something we need to do to make it point us towards Phoenix–"
The arrow spun again and stopped once it was pointing the same way it had been before. Luminescence grinned. "Cool."
They continued on through the trees, pushing their way through the foliage. Radiance peered around them. "I'm kinda surprised we haven't come across more players."
"I'm not," Luminescence replied.
Etheria frowned. "Why not? Forty eight of us entered this Game."
"Yes, but all we've done is go back and forward along the same path. If no other players are in this area, it makes sense that we've not come across anyone."
"Oh. Yeah, I guess I could see that."
Something cracked in the woodland around them. Radiance froze, raising his mace. Luminescence braced himself with his spear. Etheria looked more hesitant, but followed their example and positioned herself with her enormous war hammer.
Radiance scanned the blanket of branches and bright leaves above them. Nothing. He squinted through the trees surrounding them and caught a glimpse of a tall shadow, slinking nearby. He tapped Luminescence's arm and indicated it.
"There," he whispered to Etheria, nodding at the shadow. Her face went pale, and she adjusted her grip on her hammer, readying herself.
"Let's go," he said quietly, stepping forward towards the newcomer.
"Towards them?" she squeaked.
"It is the way the Game works."
Luminescence was quick to follow him, peeling away from him to put himself at an angle to whoever was skulking. Radiance's heart thumped in his chest. They'd seen the faces in the sky, watched as their fellow players, some that he recognised from previous Games, convulsed and died.
He couldn't think about that. They needed to do this, they needed to kill. They needed to survive.
And all too soon he was stepping out in front of a girl, maybe around his age, with tiger-striped hair. She gasped at his appearance and raised the sword in her hand.
Radiance swung for her, aiming the spiked ball of his mace at her head. She screamed, staggering back. Luminescence leapt forward to drive his spear at her, scoring a strike against her chest and bringing her armour down to six in one go.
Despite all her hesitation, Etheria was evidently not one to be left out, because she charged forth, swinging her hammer. The other girl tried to lift her sword to deflect it, but the hammer crashed straight through her guard and slammed into her head. Her armour dropped to two. She screamed her frustration, launching herself at Radiance.
The impact of her hitting him took them both to the ground. His mace fell from his hand. She slashed her sword at him, once, twice, three times. Luminescence brought his spear up and plunged it down between her shoulder blades. Etheria raised her hammer and brought it down on the other girl's head.
There was an awful crunch and a dreadful squealch as her head shattered. She fell limp atop Radiance's chest. Hot blood seeped into his jumpsuit. He gasped, grasping at her uselessly. "Pull her off pull her off pull her off!"
Luminescence took the corpse around the waist and hauled her from him, dropping her next to him. The back of her head was a horror, a mass of shattered flesh and bone with blood gushing out.
Etheria made a dreadful noise, staggered back. "God– Oh god– Did I do that?"
"It's fine," Luminescence said as Radiance pushed himself up and stared at the dead girl next to him. "It was necessary."
"But we– We just killed that girl."
"And now we're closer to winning." Luminescence crouched down and began to pull the backpack from her shoulders. The green fabric had been splattered with blood.
Etheria covered her face with her hands, making a terrible hitched sobbing sound.
Luminescence upended the backpack and they shared out the contents. A small canteen of water, half empty. A packet of crackers. A line of rope. A blanket. A pair of socks. Radiance also took her sword and handed it to him. "So you'll have a melee weapon."
Luminescence nodded and hung it at his belt.
Etheria unrolled the blanket, revealing a second heavy looking dagger. She frowned and picked it up, then dropped it with a gssp a moment later. One of her nodes blinked out, bringing her to nine.
"What is it?" Radiance asked.
"It's spiky!" she complained.
Radiance frowned and picked up the weapon. Sure enough, a large spike stuck out from the hilt, right where someone would grab the knife.
"Nasty trick," he muttered, wrapping it back in the blanket. Maybe it would do during an emergency later.
"Did it cut you?" Luminescence asked.
Etheria turned her hand over. "I think so, but it's under the jumpsuit."
"Keep it that way. You don't want to–"
"Get dirt or sap or poison in it," she finished with a grin.
Radiance laughed. "She's got you all worked out!"
Sorcha Summerfield, 17
The loaves of bread weren't much, but they did fill her up.
Damn, Sorcha had never imagined she'd be thankful for bread. At home, she could have as much bread as she wanted, it was just a staple.
Luminita had only eaten one of her loaves and packed the other away in her bag, along with the canteen of water they'd taken to share. As if they needed somehow to stick up on the stuff.
"We can't waste it," had been her comment.
"Sponsors'll send us more now that sponsorship is open," Sorcha grumbled, but she didn't push the argument. There had been enough fighting recently.
Once they had finished eating, Celeste had stood up and wandered over to the canyon in which the train tracks were sunken, peering down into it.
"Down there?" Zephyr asked.
She shook her head and pointed into the mass of fog on the other side.
"No," Silverie said, the first thing they'd said that Sorcha could agree with.
"We won't be able to see a thing," Emeria agreed.
"The fire bird awaits us on the other side."
"Look, maybe you could at least tell us what you expect this fire bird to do," Marcellina said.
"They know the way out. They will show us the path."
"And in order to get there, you want us to willingly walk into a wall of fog where we won't be able to see anything?" Sorcha asked, peering over the sunken tracks and into the other part of the arena beyond them.
"I know the way," Celeste replied.
Luminita sighed. "All in favour of following Celeste into the creepy fog?" She raised her hand, followed a moment later by Zephyr and then Marcellina. A moment later, Emeria raised hers. Silverie gave her an annoyed look, but didn't argue.
Sorcha sank to the ground and swung herself into the canyon to begin the climb down as she'd done what now felt far too long ago.
"We best get going then."
Phoenix Sterling, 13
They had found several more of the strange white buildings as they walked, but most were closed up tight and neither of them were strong enough to get them open. They tested at them a few times, however, leaning against the cold stone. And inside her head, Phoenix continued to turn things over. She had tried closing her eyes and focusing, attempting to catch a glimpse of the inside of her pod again, but so far had managed nothing. There must be something she needed to do to trigger it. Pain? Pain had done it before.
She drew her knife and held the blade above her hand. Vivaldi was a few feet away, investigating the door of their latest find, but he startled when she sliced the blade across her palm. There was an odd ding sound, like metal against metal, and then nothing.
Vivaldi hurried back to her. "What are you doing?"
Phoenix flexed her fingers. "It didn't cut me."
"Good!" He caught her wrist and wrenched her hand down. "Why were you trying it?"
"I wanted…" Phoenix faltered, hesitated, and then shook her head. "Never mind. It didn't work anyway."
"I guess your armour must stop stuff like that." Vivaldi reached for the knife. She pulled away and sheathed it back at her waist. "Yeah. I guess so."
There was a strange crack from somewhere behind her, and the wall she was leant against shook. She frowned, jumping forward to escape it. "What–"
A more audible thump came against the wall, and the entire thing trembled. Vivaldi yelled, drawing his epee. "What is that?"
"Either a natural disaster or a mutt, either way I don't think we want to wait and find out!" she shouted, grabbing his arm and dragging him away into the fog. This was the Seventy Fifth, she'd figured, so what gimmicks had they had for this arena? Fuck, this had all been before her time. Was this the one with the walking skeletons? Iridescence would have known. Fuck she missed her siblings.
She had half expected something to go off around them, an earthquake or a thunderstorm or a monster emerging from the fog, but nothing came. The two of them slowed to a jog and then to an ambling walk.
"Are you alright?" Vivaldi asked.
Phoenix grinned at him. "I think so." She laughed. "Wasn't that exciting?"
Apollo Gilmore, 17
The boost to his armour had done nothing to ease his pain, but it had boosted his confidence. He wasn't easy pickings for any random player now, nor did he have to fully rely on Artemis. He'd have liked it if he could get a few more nodes, but full armour-up gifts were expensive and only available during special events. Hopefully if he performed well, someone would send him a plus three or maybe even another plus five.
He paused as the wind brought snatches of voices to his ears, the sound echoing towards him.
Artemis frowned at his hesitation. "What is it?"
"Voices," he replied.
Artemis stopped to listen, and then grinned. "Looks like it's time to test that armour of yours, Pol."
He grinned back and drew his sword. Voices meant another alliance, which meant there was a decent chance it was the Sterlings. But even if it wasn't, it still gave them a chance at taking out more than one other players. Which would both improve their ranking and their chances of one of them getting out of here alone. The more that went down, the higher their own shot at survival went.
And it was a shot at survival now.
They pushed their way through the long grass, which had grown overnight and now loomed up above their heads. It made it impossible to see more than an arm's lemur ahead of them. At this rate they'd walk straight into the other players as a way to find them!
Artemis found the gap first. With her foot. She shrieked and lurched forward suddenly, and Apollo lunged forward to catch her wrists. She gasped, rolling aside and stumbling into his arms.
Where she had fallen was the sunken train tracks, the ground falling away. Apollo drew Artemis behind him. "You alright?"
Artemis rubbed her leg. "Think so." Her eyes lit up. "And look what we've found."
She pointed ahead, down the length of the canyon. Further along, a large group of players were scaling the cliff, making their way down towards the bottom. That was going to make a proper fight difficult – but it looked like there was more of them. And they could still cause trouble in different ways.
"Time to throw a spanner in the works?" Apollo asked.
Artemis raised her eyebrows. "Works for me."
Emeria Delilah Echavoque, 15
Emeria was just nearing the bottom of the cliff when something clattered from her head and bounced to the ground. She looked up, expecting one of the idiot newbies had lost their grip, but instead was met with the sight of two players she vaguely recognised, weapons in hand.
And with them now at the top of this canyon, they had the high ground.
Emeria slid down the remainder of the cliff, landing with a crunch at the bottom and swinging her bow from her back. Did she even have much of a chance of hitting one of them from here? She might not, they were a fair way above her. She notched an arrow all the same as the boy picked up a heavy rock and positioned it above Zephyr.
"Rats in a bucket!" he shouted, his blue hair flashing in the sunlight.
"Zephyr!" Luminita shouted.
Zephyr looked up at the boy, down at the ground, and then jumped, bumping and sliding down the cliff face and landing in an awkward heap at the bottom. Sorcha hurried to offer him a hand and froze as the rock came crashing down from above. She shrieked, stumbling backwards. Zephyr rolled to the side and the rock slammed into the ground where he had been a moment before.
"Don't you wanna stay and fight?" shouted the boy.
Silverie, who was still not even halfway down, froze in place. Emeria saw their expression fix into something like determination. "Silverie!" she shouted, waving her bow from below. "No! No, don't!"
But Silverie loved a fight, and this boy was standing there demanding one while in fighting distance.
Slowly, steadily, they began to make their way back up.
Emeria notched another arrow to her bow and fired it off in his direction, but it flew far too wide, soaring past the left of his head. She swore. He picked up another stone and hurled it at her. It caught her in the shoulder, though being smaller than a fist didn't even knock a point from her armour.
She fitted another arrow to her bow, but she already had so few. Was it worth wasting one trying such a long shot?
She looked at Silverie, who was getting too near to the boy for comfort. "Silverie! Don't!"
She was too far away to do anything to stop them or to help them. Emeria looked around the rest of her alliance, but none of them were close enough either. Nor did they have any ranged weapons.
"Silverie! Let it go!" she shouted.
Too late.
Silverie swung themselves over the top of the cliff and jumped at the boy, driving their fist into his face. He staggered back, drew his sword, and swung at them, and now it truly was a fight, bitter and furious above the high drop. From where she was, she watched the blue nodes off their jumpsuit go out.
Emeria wasn't sure who messed up first, Silverie or the boy, but one of them must have and they were entangled together. As one fell they took the other with them, dragging them to the bottom of the cliff in a mass of limbs and black. There was a trouble creak as they hit the ground. For a moment no one moved. The air was still. Two canons fired.
Author's Note
Angelica Pierce, 18. Placed thirtieth. Killed by Etheria Arquette.
RIP
Apollo Gilmore, 17. Placed twenty ninth. Killed by Silverie Erilea Amarendaje.
Apollo was an arrogant, competitive ass, but he was one of mine and I'll miss him. Still, I decided it's only fair to start killing my characters off too, and Apollo drew the short straw.
Silverie Erilea Amarendaje, 14. Placed twenty eighth. Killed by Apollo Gilmore.
Silverie! I struggled to connect with Silverie a little, but they did become fun to write for in later chapters. Thank you for them, WritingArtGenius.