MALCOLM ROYDEN- Elara Angelo

I seemed to have a reputation for being cold and callous. They were so eager to forget I never asked to be here. Do they blame a bison for goring a wolf that attacked it? I would have been happy minding my own business eating grass.

SHALE BEECHER- Artemis Jager

It felt like losing a distant cousin. We didn't really know each other, but there was something there that connected us. We were the old ones- the ones who remembered Panem in its infancy. Back then people thought all of this blower over. We never imagined what it would become.

CHRYSOLITE ASTOR- Sky Larch

What a pretty name. It sounded so fancy, like a type of jewelry or something. I wondered sometimes what it was like to live in One. Did they eat meat every day? Did they buy new clothes whenever they wanted? I always wondered why anyone would want to risk all that in the Games.

SOREN LYTE- Lily White

Would he have done the same to me? I'd jumped straight to thinking of myself as a monster. I didn't know what anyone else would do in my position. Neither of us asked to be here. People can justify so much if it's for their good.

TULSI SA- Arielle Ermin

Just like that, I went from part of the masters of the arena to a lone and large target. I'd seen this possibility coming as soon as I heard there were guns at the feast. No one liked someone who could kill from afar. Of course they'd do everything they could to kill Emma. And Tulsi- most people measure someone by the company they keep. Now I was the only one left for them to hate.

EMMA WOLFE- Calvary Warsaw

I knew they would try. People are so angry when someone else is better prepared than they are. I wouldn't have been mad if an outlier had killed her. Emma accepted that hatred when she volunteered. But for a fellow Career to have such enmity for her just because she was better than they were… cowards, all of them. I never stopped hoping I could be with her again. Someday she'd be stronger than all of them.

MIALL PISCOT- Priscilla Piscot

We'd joked with each other, me saying, "Don't die!" and him waving his hand and making a "psssh" noise. He'd seemed more nervous than I was, but it was just because I leaned more on humor than he did. It had been hanging over our heads that this might happen, but I still hadn't really believed it. I'd thought he'd come back after just a few minutes out. The time stretched on and so slowly I knew he wasn't coming back.

MARLEY XANDER- Lottie Parker

That was the price of friends in the Games. Like a cat you loved so much, you knew from day one you'd lose them someday. That was the price of a party. You knew sometime it would end and you'd be left in an empty house, wishing it had lasted just a little longer.

KATRINA MOONSHADOW- Ferrari Benz

My heart skipped when I heard the anthem. It was the moment I would see her just one more time. People thought I didn't care about these things. I didn't care about my own death. Despite it happening five or so times- I'd lost count- it still didn't seem real. But Katrina I cared about enough to carry her half a mile. The pain had been real when I did. I just cared about her more.

Joseph Carpenter- Wandering Souls D2M

I should have attacked as soon as I saw him. He was looking out the open doorway of the pharmacy room, no doubt worrying about his allies at the feast. But when I saw who it was, I had something more important to do. He was perhaps the only one who could answer my question.

"Can you still be a Christian if you kill people?" I asked Castiel.

A second later I realized how it sounded. He'd already realized, judging from the fear and conflict in his expression. His face and shoulders relaxed after only an instant.

"If you kill someone, God will still love you."

I suppressed an urge to smile, knowing it would scare him more. It was just such an unexpected yet perfect answer. Yes, Castiel was exactly the person to ask.

"I didn't mean you," I said. I didn't even know what I'd planned to do after asking Castiel. It seemed in poor taste to drop such a bomb on him and then kill him right after. It was monumentally stupid not to kill someone in the Games, but were the odds he'd be the one to win? Especially after he literally just proved he put his faith above his life. "I guess I'm just trying to figure this out."

"Why don't you come in?" Castiel asked, waving me in with his arm. "We have some chips and stuff."

There were no chairs in the room- only the shelves of various pills and medications- so we sat on the floor.

"Honestly I don't really know how I thought make this make sense," I said. "I told myself the people in the Games were going to die anyway so it didn't really count as killing. It sounds dumber the more times I say it."

"Everyone's good at rationalizing their own sins. We do that every day," Castiel said.

"But if God loves people so much, and I killed so many people, wouldn't that mean he's like really mad at me?" I asked. It was almost like talking to a therapist. Castiel was so bizarrely unfazed by what I thought was an eternal catastrophe that I felt safe saying more.

"He doesn't exactly get mad when people sin," Castiel said. "He mostly gets sad that the sinner is running away from him. He's very sad the people died, but he's always hoping that you'll come back."

"What, you can kill people and not get punished?" That one I wasn't cool with. If God didn't even care when people murdered his people, I didn't think he deserved to be followed.

"Oh no, there's punishment," Castiel said. "It's just not Hell. No one knows exactly what it is, but it seems like it comes after you die but before you go to Heaven. Personally I imagine it's something like he shows you all the pain your sins caused and that really sucks, but then he lets you into Heaven."

"So I could just go on killing people? Theoretically?" I asked, adding the second part because I was pretty sure that wasn't what I wanted anymore.

"Theoretically, but…" Castiel paused. "Works don't save you, but anyone who's really following God will try his best to follow God. God knows you're going to mess up and no matter how many times you sin, even after you're saved, he'll still take you back, but if you keep sinning and don't care, you gotta ask if you really believe."

"I want to," I said. I wanted there to be something more, and to see Bella again. That was a really selfish reason to believe, but my reasons to believe something didn't affect whether or not it was true. It also just made sense to me. The universe came from somewhere. If it just poofed out of nowhere, that was magic. If God made it, then God made it. Either way you ended up with magic. A God that had a personality and purpose made more sense to me than a blind, ignorant force just creating a beautiful, orderly world randomly. And I could feel something inside me that wasn't from Castiel or my own thoughts. If I wasn't afraid of the Capitol, I think I would have asked Castiel to pray with me. The good thing about prayer, though, was that I could do it secretly.

"In the end, no one knows everything. For the best answer you have to go to God. It's between you and him what you decide," Castiel said.

"Thanks," I said as I rose. I should have something more, about how cool it was that he was so brave or some spiritually wise thing, but I couldn't think of how to make it not sound cheesy. I looked back in the doorway. "I'd say I hope you win, but I don't think you even want to."

Fleur Laveau- No Way Down D11F

Castiel's face was already peeking out the doorway when Walcott and I reached the end of the hallway our room was on. He saw Walcott with me and poked his whole head out the door like a giraffe, cracking us both up.

"Heyyyy, Walcott!" he said, waving.

"We bumped into each other at the feast," I called back.

"I didn't kill all my allies," Walcott explained as we entered the room. "They died after I left."

"I didn't think you killed all of them," Castiel said. He looked at our bags. "Ooh, what did you get?"

"We didn't look inside yet," I said. "We were waiting to do it together."

We sat on the floor in a loose triangle. Walcott opened hers a bit quicker than I did, so I waited to see what she'd gotten.

Bummer, it's nothing!

"That is so lame!" Walcott protested. She wadded up the paper and threw it.

"It's not nothing. We have a backpack now. Joke's on them," I said. It was pretty lame that they'd added reinforcement to the sides of the bag to make it look like it had something inside.

"Maybe I got something good," I said. I flipped up the top of my bag.

Oops! It's MRSA!

"What's 'MRSA'?" I asked.

"Ooh, I heard about this!" Walcott said excitedly. Before she could continue, her face fell. She jumped up and started rifling through the medications around us.

"What? What is it?" I asked, already guessing it had to be some disease. Even as I was speaking, I started to itch. I scratched lightly at my arm and pulled away as my skin started to split and form blisters.

"Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus," Walcott said, with the practiced tone of someone repeating an unfamiliar word mixed with an urgent controlled panic. "You get it from hospitals and it's really bad."

"What cures it?" Castiel asked as he jumped up to help her look.

"I don't know! But it's not methicillin!" Walcott responded as I started to think something was very wrong. I didn't want to move and risk popping the blisters (boils? I didn't know the right term), but I felt something thick in my chest. I could breathe easily, but it seemed like the air was wet inside my lungs. After a second I could hear it gargling with every inhale.

"Penicillin!" Castiel suggested as I rose to help, terrified at the weakness in my legs. "That cures like everything!"

"They're all brand names!" Walcott responded. "Sirxaid. Kelofil. Darmata. What is any of this? Why wouldn't they just put the real name?!" I leaned back against a shelf and slid toward the floor, barely able to stand with how little air was reaching through the water in my lungs.

"I found it!" Castiel frantically twisted the lid off the bottle and poured some into my hand. "It says take three!"

I popped the pills in my mouth and swallowed, one sticking in my throat and painfully sliding down. I lay on my side, trying to push myself up a little to get the pressure off my chest. Castiel and Walcott looked at each other nervously at the rattling wheeze every time I breathed.

"I don't think it's enough," I whispered. Everything seemed far away. I barely had the energy to keep my eyes open.

"Take more," Walcott said, pushing pills into my relaxed mouth. They lay there, bitterness spreading across my tongue, as I tried to push them back into my throat. No, no, I wished I could tell them. I don't think it's enough no matter what. I didn't see Baron Samedi this time. I wondered what that meant.

Jayden Chrome- Heart of Darkness D1F

"It's not gonna work."

"It's gonna work," I argued with Chrome as I slipped on the rubber gloves.

"I'm pretty sure this is not gonna work."

"You saw how it worked," I said. "Nothing happened until he unfolded the paper. I just won't unfold the paper."

"Why the gloves?" Fable asked.

"Honestly, it's kind of just me being superstitious, but I figure if I wear gloves doing it, it's more obvious I am not touching whatever's on the paper."

"And if it doesn't work?" Jessie asked.

I shrugged. "Probably I'll die horribly. But fortune favors the bold," I said. For my part, I was pretty sure it was gonna work. The Gamemakers always loved creative use of the arena, as long as it didn't disrespect them. I was doing the exact opposite of disrespecting them. They probably had tons of fun thinking of horrible diseases to put in the bags. I was giving them a chance to see one of them that hadn't gotten picked. Otherwise their work would have gone to waste.
"I have to say this is a little messed up," Fable commented.

"You think I shouldn't do it?" I challenged, looking over at her. She looked down. She could play the good guy all she wanted, but she wanted our enemies eliminated just as much as I did.

As expected, the feast was deserted. The bags were all where we'd left them. The only thing different was the bodies had been removed though there was still a bloodstain where some unfortunate had opened a bag after we left. I picked one of the bags off the couch. My allies recoiled as I opened the bag. As I'd expected, there was nothing but a piece of paper.

Moment of truth, I thought as I fished it out. It lay in my hands with the sensation that I was holding a live grenade.

"Well?" Fable pressed.

"I don't feel anything," I said. Whatever horrible death was in my hands, it seemed a fold of paper and a rubber glove were shield enough.

"That's creepy," Jessie said, looking at the folded sheet.

I didn't admit it, but it was creepy having the paper in my pocket until we went hunting and I could lay it on top of a pile of granola bars in a nursing hutch we passed. As soon as I was free of it, I felt a curious anticipation. After all that effort, I was going to be so mad if whoever next went into that hutch didn't notice it. Or if the joke was on me and it turned out to be something good.

50th place: Fleur Laveau- MRSA (specifically pneumonia caused by it)

Well bummer. Right after finding Walcott, Fleur gets Feasted. Her allies tried so hard. Castiel managed to reason from the -illin ending that penicillin and methicillin might be related. What he couldn't have known, though, was that penicillin doesn't cure MRSA either. They might possibly have been able to help Fleur in time if they'd known that it was vancomycin they were looking for. Once again, luck rears its head in the Games. Walcott got nothing. Fleur got a thematically appropriate (MRSA is usually found in hospitals) death sentence. She really does have bad luck with toxic things.

It would be more realistic if the tributes were more scared about discussing religion, going off real-life despotisms, but it served the story so I allowed it. Castiel's just not scared anyway. I'm not like committing to this, but it's very possible he's quietly blacklisted from winning the Games.