Unique Dior- Res D1F
Coprolitus Head died peacefully at home on December 8th, A.P. 67. He is preceded in death by his mother, Justinia, and his father, Dormus. Coprolite enjoyed following the Hunger Games and cooking outdoors. He is survived by his sister Keturah.
He was gone, then. I hardly felt guilty for the relief I felt. I'd known him as nothing but a lech and a predator. He needed to have someone's life in his hands in order to get a girl for himself, and even then she wouldn't take him. Surely there were good thing about him, but I didn't care enough to search them out, especially if all even a eulogist could say about him that wasn't terrible was that he enjoyed barbecuing.
After the contempt and relief waned into dull disgust, I was left with confusion. Why was I here, then? Someone picked me just for me? The prickle of excitement inside me quickly snuffed as I reached the most obvious conclusion. Someone else around here wanted me. I didn't mean it in a vain way. It was just, what else could it be? What did the Capitol care about other than pleasure? I'd always assumed One was their favorite District for exactly that purpose. We made pretty things, and thanks to the resources and luxuries the Capitol permitted us, we had the prettiest people.
"Something up?" Mahi asked as I slid into the cafeteria booth where he and Daisy were already seated. I'd picked out a slice of pizza, too distracted to make full use of the countless options.
"It's Coprolitus," I said. "He's dead."
"Well not to speak ill of the dead, but." Mahi let the unfinished sentence linger.
"But what?" Daisy asked, then laughed. "Oh, I get it."
"It's okay you're happy about it. If he didn't want people to be happy he died, he shouldn't have been terrible," Mahi said.
"I'm just... confused," I said. "Why am I here if he didn't pick me? Does someone else want me? No one else has said anything."
"Maybe it's just because you're good," Mahi said.
"But I'm not. I didn't even get picked," I said. I'd barely even trained. I only got sent in because he pressured them into it.
"It's because they wanted to let us be together," Daisy said, smiling.
"That's weirdly nice for the Capitol," I said.
"Some of them are nice. Broken clock and all that," Mahi said.
"Maybe," I said. In the long run, it wasn't exactly nice to bring us back knowing we'd die again. Still, it was nice to think someone out there was trying. I was happy to see my friends again. Maybe I just had to be content with that- just knowing that even the worst people in earth weren't entirely bad.
Mahi Katao- Res D4M
Weird how I was the best bet between the three of us. Unique was probably the smartest, but she was barely trained. Daisy was the most trained but also the most innocent. I was something of the best by default- I wasn't particularly ferocious, but my sheer bulk kept most people away and gave me a huge advantage in fights. It made me feel somehow responsible for my allies, like I was our best hope so it was my job to keep them safe.
"So what were you ladies thinking of for a plan?" I asked. Training was over for the day and we'd piled into Daisy's room to escape the crowds. It was awkward, to say the least, sharing a common room with the rest of the Fours. Usually we only crossed paths with our one District partner, who was almost always friendly with us if not allied with us. This time around there were a dozen-odd Fours in various alliances, some of which were actively at odds with each other. Going out into the common room was a tense minefield of ominous stares and wordlessly staked-out "turf" couches. A lot of us had given up and fled to coffee shops or random Games Building spaces instead.
"Just kind of wing it, I guess," Daisy said, lounging on her stomach on the bed. "Hasn't worked so far but what else do I have?"
"I've been thinking about that," Unique said. "Maybe we should sort of swap mentors." In the mix between mentors picking out their favorites and Tributes getting assigned when no one wanted them in particular, I'd been paired with Shelle, Daisy was with Careen, and Unique was with Shane.
"Here's what I was thinking," Unique said. She leaned forward where she was sitting cross-legged on the bed. "Daisy is the best with weapons, so she should stick with Careen to get better. I'm not very trained, so I might be better off doing survival stuff. I should go with Shelle to learn outdoor skills and also strategy, since she's really smart. You're already strong, so you can go with Shane to just kind of learn more. You don't really need much help, so you just get the extra mentor."
Has Unique always been so shrewd? Whether she was just getting more confident or whether she was learning from her failures, she seemed to know just where she was going. Speaking of...
"I was going to say that I should go into the Bloodbath farthest, since I can take the most hits and most people avoid me," I said. "Once we all learn more we can decide what supplies I should aim for."
"You don't have to run in," Daisy said, looking at me with concern.
"It's okay. Running right in is sort of my thing."
Daisy Stem- Res D4F
The Capitol had everything. They even let you send out for a roll away bed if you just asked. We weren't sure it could hold up to Mahi's prodigious muscles, so Unique and I shared it while he took the big bed, after a lot of convincing on our part. I wasn't entirely sure we weighed less together than he did, but Unique was pretty skinny. That, and it felt like less weight if it was spread out on both sides of the bed instead of being one Mahi.
It was long into the night, but we were still talking. From dirty jokes about what the Capitolites must have thought we needed two beds for, to plans for the Games, there was still a lot to say. As the night went on, the conversation got less focused and more metaphysical.
"What do you all think happens when we die? Like if we don't get brought back," I asked. I was looking out the window, at the multicolored lights blurring out from the endless city buildings. It was weird thinking people had been talking about this since we all still lived in tents in some desert.
"I've wondered about that," Unique said. "Obviously getting cloned interrupts it. I guess maybe it's something living people can't understand, so our brains empty it out."
"Like a new color or something," Mahi said. "Or those things that only make sense when you're really drunk."
'There's definitely something," I said. I couldn't wrap my head around anything else. Just the fact that we could think about these questions meant there had to be something. I couldn't believe in a world where things understood the concept of a soul but it didn't exist. It was too horrible. If I was wrong, I'd rather be wrong.
"I don't know. Maybe it's just like before you're born," Unique said.
"People always say that, but it's bull. "There can't just be nothing. There just can't."
"Why not?" Unique asked.
There was silence from Mahi's bed. "There just can't."
"What about bad people?" Unique asked.
"Maybe we all get cleaned up after we die. I don't mind if bad people are there if they're not bad anymore," I said. Most people were really just confused, anyway, if you asked me. No one thought they were bad. People who did bad things were either mistaken or mentally ill.
"Really bad people go somewhere bad," Mahi said confidently. "Like people who hurt animals or kids."
"Maybe they just disappear. Like they lost their soul privileges," Unique said.
"That makes sense, but I hope they get cleaned up instead," I said. It did seem true there were some people out there who were just bad. Even then, I couldn't make myself like the idea of them just not existing, or them getting tortured forever. Maybe some sort of system where you went to the bad place for a while, like a prison sentence, and then got to go to the good place.
"After my cat died, I felt him jump onto my bed a few times," Mahi said. In the dim light, I could see Unique was skeptical but unwilling to object.
"There's a lot out there," I said, looking out past the buildings to the sky, the stars hidden by the lights. I had to have a soul. If I didn't, how did they bring me back? I'd just be a shell. I didn't think I was a shell. No, it felt like I was something more.
Keylor Herald- Into Thin Air D7M
The longer I trained, the more I appreciated what a one-in-a-million opportunity I had. I'd always known I was supposed to do something great. Winning the Hunger Games would have been enough, but now I had the chance at something even better. To win against twenty-three was impressive, but to win out of more than a hundred was astounding.
The doors to the training room opened at six in the morning. Fifteen minutes early I was there, lurking around the corner so the milling Careers wouldn't mark me as a target. I slipped inside five minutes after the doors opened, watching for a moment when no one was really looking at the door. I snuck over to the fishing station, mostly because my back would be to most of the weapons stations. Hopefully no one would pay much attention to another random figure in the room, and by the time anyone really looked at me, more people would have come and I wouldn't stick out.
As I braided vines into a fishing line, I looked longingly at the more glamorous stations. At the sword station I could see a glittering curved falchion, just like the one I'd loved so much my first time around. I could just see myself swinging it around like a classical knight, but I needed to be prudent. When more people were here, I could risk flashier skills. For now I needed to blend in and not put a target on myself. Yes, I hoped for super cool fights in the Arena, but even one person could be deadly to fight. Fighting a whole pack wasn't ambitious, it was just stupid.
"That's pretty good," the assistant said. "It should catch littler fish."
"How do I catch the big ones?" I asked.
"Big plans, huh?" the assistant asked, smiling.
"Go big or go home," I said.
When I was satisfied that I had not only "pretty good" but sufficiently excellent fishing line, I moved to the agility course. I almost ran toward with enthusiasm, really. The agility course was the perfect place to let myself loose. If I cranked it up to the highest level, I'd get knocked off almost immediately. That would make me look clumsy to the Careers, and after a few laughs they'd write me off. I'd fall off a lot, sure, but I'd keep going. After hundreds of failures, eventually I'd succeed. And when I did, it would be at the very highest level.