Chapter Seventy-One: Chain Reaction

Night Seven

Rhaemyr North, District Three Male

As risky as pulling off the same trick I did at the beginning of the Games is, I don't have enough supplies for anything else to work. Let's hope there's someone that still has a bit of a stockpile left, because otherwise, I'm already dead.

My best bet for finding excess supplies is finding the Career camp, wherever that may be at this point. After I ransacked the Cornucopia once, I don't think they'd like to allow me to try again, so I'll have to look for someone else this time.

It takes a lot of walking and even more time, but eventually, I hit the jackpot.

Someone's set up camp nearby. I don't know who, and I don't know why, but if a person is here, they've taken their supplies with them. Supplies that could very easily become mine if I put my skills to good use. All I need to do is get a little closer so I can find them.

The woods around here are thin enough that proper hiding places are scarce, but quite possibly the largest tree I've ever seen sits maybe fifty meters away from their camp, casting an inky shadow over everything. Looks like a great place to stay hidden and wait for an opening.

A few minutes pass, then a few more. I keep catching movement out of the corner of my eye, the camp's occupant still not settling down for the night. At the very least, that gives me a timeline I can work with: once they go to sleep, then I should be able to sneak in and get something from them as long as the place hasn't been booby-trapped to hell and back.

Then a second tribute enters my line of sight, appearing to speak with the first.

That's not good. If one goes to sleep and leaves the other to patrol I might still be able to pull something off, but it means my thieving window shrinks to a few minutes at most, probably less. Instead of being able to pick through everything at my leisure, I'll have to grab what I can and run.

After what sounds like some rousing conversation based on what little of it I can understand, the first tribute disappears, and their friend decides to start their patrol pattern by marching straight for my hiding place, something sharp in their hand.

I'm not sure what her deal is or which one of the remaining tributes she is, but that doesn't matter at the moment: even if I manage to surprise her I'm not sure if I can take her down in a fight. I could run and try somewhere else, but that'll probably just prolong the inevitable: there's no guarantee I'll find anything else I can eat if this doesn't work out. Thus, I glue my back to the other side of the tree, hoping that wherever she's going, she could do it without seeing me.

She's mumbling something under her breath, although I can't make out the words. She keeps on coming closer, closer, closer, my heart beating faster by the second as I meld into my surroundings the best I can. I'm wearing dark clothes and the moon's not really out yet, so I might be hard enough to spot.

She comes around the tree all at once. She takes a few more steps past me. Then she turns around.

We make eye contact.

She screams.

I scream.

The knife is thrown in my direction before I think to move. My limbs cooperate with my brain at the last possible split second, meaning the knife doesn't go straight through my chest and kill me. It still goes straight through my shoulder, the piercing agony sending me to the ground.

It hurts really, really bad, and the bleeding doesn't look any better, but it hasn't been followed up by anything else and she's still screaming, so maybe that's the only knife she has. In that case, I'm not dead as long as I can get out of here. My good arm presses against the tree trunk as I push myself back to my feet, the pain making everything fuzzy, including my adversary's words.

Then, I hear something sounding like footsteps, and three clear words cut through the night. "He's over here!"

Shit shit shit shit shit, I need to get out of here now before they catch up to me, if they do that I'm dead. Fumbling blindly through the trees with my arms out, knowing one mistake will kill me, I still don't see the root before it trips me and I'm on the ground. Again.

Two pairs of footsteps approach. I try to get back up but all I get is a blinding pain in my back and screaming in my ears, I can't get up I can't get up…

Most of my body erupts in agony, then a veil falls over my eyes and everything disappears.

Sienna Starboard, District Four Female

The first thing I notice is Godric shaking me awake. When I hear the cannon go off, I jump up in a split second. Knowing Godric, whatever caused the cannon is near, and the time to deal with it is now.

"There's screaming coming from over there, and I heard multiple voices," Godric says. "Someone's over there. Maybe even Clara if she's behind that cannon."

I don't think I'm ready to face Clara yet, but I'm going to have to at some point. Might as well still do it while I have an ally by my side. "Let's go investigate, then."

We throw what remains of our supplies onto our backs, then break into a run. I stay behind Godric, since only he knows where our destination is. Both of us keep our weapons out, not knowing when things will go sour: all it takes is one errant mutt or poorly placed root to change our current objective into something unrecognizable.

Something goes our way tonight: before anything bad has the chance to happen, the probable source of all that noise enters my field of vision.

We see them a few seconds before they see us. Two girls, neither of whom are Clara. I don't remember either of them cozying up to each other before the Games started, but circumstances change, and it's not like I can stop and ask them about it. Both of them bolt the second they notice us, and at this point, our only option is to chase them down.

I'd like to consider myself pretty fast, but I'm also weighed down with half our supplies. Neither of our new targets is slow, either, so we're going to have to work to chase them down unless one of us wants to risk throwing something, and doing that at night in thick woods is a bad idea on so many levels. Too easy to never find it again. Too easy to provoke something you didn't mean to.

Both of our targets have the good sense to run, and both of us follow them. I doubt either of them has the same top speed we do, but at the same time, all they're carrying fits in a pair of relatively small backpacks, so they almost certainly have a lighter load. This might take a lot longer than I would have hoped.

Only a few minutes pass before the shorter girl starts trailing behind her companion. Godric senses the opportunity, putting on an almost inhuman burst of speed to try and catch up. Our target isn't looking over her shoulder, but even if she hears the footsteps her pace doesn't change. I try and keep up in case there's trickery in the works, but I'm not quite that speedy, leaving Godric to close the gap. Three paces behind, two paces, one—

Godric slashes. The blade cuts deep. The girl falls without a sound.

I prepare to end her suffering, but her cannon fires before I can reach her; Godric did his job well. Her companion keeps running, running, running. I slow down for a few seconds to scoop up the fallen girl's supplies, then charge ahead to meet Godric once more.

However, try as we might, we only have so much stamina, and the load on my back is starting to take its toll. Everything finally manifests when our target makes a hard swerve around a tree and breaks from the path. I manage to do the same just fine, but Godric's leg slips out from under him and he takes a nasty spill, tumbling end over end.

I could keep up the chase, but ensuring Godric's safety is more important at the moment. "Is your leg okay? That didn't look fun…"

"Hurts a little, but nothing too bad," Godric says. "I should still be able to run."

"How about let's save the running for tomorrow morning," I say. "We'll get back to looking for her when it's light out."

Even low on breath from all the running, Godric still has enough energy left to shoot that idea down. "We can't count on being able to do cleanup later. Sure, we're on better terms than the Careers from last year, but anything can happen at this point."

Given how last year went, he has a fair point, but I'm willing to bet if that scenario happened again, even Clara would put aside her distaste for Godric long enough to ensure that her final opponent was a Career. Her predecessor's actions ultimately led to that disaster, so she of all people would have to know that. Then again, given that she betrayed her allies way faster than her predecessor did, who knows anymore.

Our target's still audible in the distance, so we try our best to follow the noise for a while. However, either she's smarter than we gave her credit for or we needed to brush up on our tracking skills before we got here: before long, it fades entirely, replaced by nothing more than a light breeze. A few more minutes of searching for footsteps or other clues later, and both of us agree that as much as we need this, it's probably not happening tonight.

"Well, I'll declare that a partial success," Godric says. "We got someone, at least. I don't think she was important, but it's better than nothing."

That hurts a surprising amount, but he's right; a kill puts us back into the public eye. We're not quite sure what Clara's been up to, other than plotting our demise (perhaps laughing maniacally as she does it), but she's probably been getting plenty of attention. Now some of that light shines on us. Once more, Clara is our biggest adversary in all things: if we can deal with her, the rest of the Games should fall into place.

"We're getting close to the end," is all I can say. "There's six tributes left, including us. Gets us two, maybe three days before the finale. Perhaps even less if things get sped up."

Godric nods. "That has me thinking. Say things go perfectly. We handle the other four tributes, it's just the two of us left, and both of us are in good enough condition to fight. What happens then? Do we just… fight to the death? Do we make some kind of code of conduct? How is any of that going to work?"

Godric could be laying it on thick to disguise the fact that he's about to betray me, so I'll watch my back these next few days. However, that's not my current concern. I might as well at least try to answer his question.

It doesn't take long to figure out I'm not very good at that. "I'm sure we can figure it out. All I know is that even if it comes to that, it's going to be tough."

Godric agrees without a second of hesitation. "It'll hurt afterward, I know it will. I'm from the District known for producing the most powerful, battle-ready tributes of all, and how the Games changed them is… unsettling."

He doesn't follow up on that, but he doesn't need to. Sirena had perhaps one of the least traumatic Games any Career faced, and she still came back a different person from when she entered; colder, less vibrant, and more driven, even if she could still open up the same way she used to. I haven't gone through that much yet, either, but that could change at any moment.

Will I be the reason Godric dies? Not yet, but soon, I have to be. I have to want to be. Nothing else will get me out of here, and that thought is not sitting well.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to get back to work, so I recommend you get some sleep," Godric says. "We'll handle things as they come."

As much as I want it to, sleep doesn't find me. Maybe my brain's trying to ward off the incoming nightmares or something. Either way, though, it's shaping up to be a long, unpleasant night, perhaps the last one I'll ever experience.

Thomiah Marshall, District Eleven Male

When the screaming started, I tensed. After the first cannon shot, I retreated to a more defensible area. With the second cannon having just gone off, I'm waking Lacey up. I'm not sure what's happening, but it's happening fast, and I don't want to be unprepared for whatever comes next.

Approaching our camp, I find that all the noise woke Lacey up faster than I ever could, and she's ready for battle.

"Could be the Gamemakers using mutts to clean out the weaker tributes," I suggest.

"Too many different voices to be a mutt, no alliance is that big this far in," Lacey says. "It's tributes fighting other tributes."

"In that case, I'd say there's too many of them for us to risk getting involved," I say, not wanting to jump into the middle of an ongoing fight for no good reason. "Let's find a hiding spot and wait for things to calm down, then we can figure out our next move."

To my surprise, Lacey agrees with me, so we pack up all of our supplies and move into a thick cluster of small trees, each of us picking a trunk to use as cover. It raises questions about where we'll sleep, but I'm sure we can figure something out if we stay here that long.

A figure sprints into view, their path perhaps thirty yards from where we're hiding. They have a backpack on their back and are probably a girl if the hair is proper indication, but other than that, I can't identify much about them. What I can identify, however, is that maybe fifteen seconds later multiple Careers leap into view and charge in the same direction the first girl was running. Thank goodness we hid, because even if we could have gotten the drop on them, taking on the Careers in non-optimal circumstances promises to spell disaster, and I can't handle any more of those.

Lacey looks in the direction that the three of them went but doesn't make a move. I'm not sure what she's thinking at the moment, but hopefully, she's willing to share her secrets so we can come up with a plan of action. "What's the plan?"

"I'm coming up with something as we speak," Lacey says. "All three of those tributes are important to the rest of the Games, and if we can surprise them, we can finish things up from there."

That makes me pause, albeit not for too long. "Well, I know who the Careers are, so no need to refresh me there, but who were they chasing?"

"Former ally of mine," Lacey says. "We split involuntarily a few days back; I'd been looking for her when I found you."

At the very least, that makes the next question obvious enough. "What separated you two?"

"Simple enough," Lacey replies. "We got chased by the Careers, she went one way and I went the other. If I'm remembering correctly, that's about as common as it gets."

Even if Lacey's likely set on doing something very specific tomorrow, we still talk for a few minutes about the possible alternatives, of which there aren't many. The Careers ruin everything they touch, and our plans are no exception. The conversation gets steered back to where we started without much effort, and I don't make any attempts to change course again. Although this goal might not be my goal, it's still reasonable and attainable provided things don't completely go to hell.

Therefore, once we reach a lull, I make my case. "I'd still say our top priority is figuring out how we're going to handle the Careers. There's at least two of them still alive, possibly three. The numbers just aren't in our favor. However, I can't argue against having someone else help us. She didn't score that badly if I remember right, she has to be good at something useful."

Lacey seems to agree. "Assuming she's still alive at that point, I'd like to look for her in the morning. Plus, with her luck, we'll find the Careers right next to her. That's the last roadblock we have: once we clear it, we're in full control from that point onward."

If it means I have the chance to stay alive, I have to take it. Lacey hasn't led me astray so far. I'll have to be wary of her knives, but for now, they're my best chance at going home.

I have family and friends waiting for me to come home, and I can't let them down. Everything I do from here on, I do for them.

Zari Morelett, District Six Female

Alexa. Lacey. Toren.

All allies that have been taken from me, either by other tributes or plain bad luck or both. All someone close to me that I'll probably never see again.

And that's not even getting into everyone back home, all of them probably watching even at this hour with the Games so close to finishing. My parents. My siblings. My friends. All of them watching. Waiting. Hoping.

Nope, nope, nope. I have to stop. Too much negativity. Too much sadness. As much as I'd love to have a breakdown right now, the second someone else finds me, I'm dead.

I'm probably dead anyway, but it's the principle that matters. And look at me, I'm at it again.

My legs burn and my lungs scream, but I keep moving. I don't know what other horrors await me in these woods, and I'm not taking a break until I can find somewhere hidden from prying eyes. Once something like that is found, then and only then can I take the time to think.

After what feels like several extra miles, I notice a cluster of tall, thick bushes not far off the path. It's not the best hiding place, and for all I know it might already be taken, but at this point, beggars can't be choosers. As soon as I make a cursory check for other tributes, I drop to a crouch, surrounded by greenery on all sides. It looks like I won't be seen unless someone's right on top of me, but I'm not taking chances. Once I figure out a plan, I'm going to be on the move once more.

First, I examine what I have on me at the moment. Most of our supplies were with Toren, so they're lost: the Careers have taken everything for themselves by now. All that's left for me is a bottle of water, maybe enough food for a single meal, and all the serum. Maybe Toren arranged things that way on purpose so the more valuable supplies had a better chance at escaping. I'll never know, and it doesn't matter; I can't ask her anything anymore.

Next, I have to worry about everyone else. I count off the remaining tributes on my fingers. Me. Three Careers. The highest scorer who isn't a Career. Lacey. All of them strong. All of them deadly. All of them capable of killing me one way or another.

With Toren gone, I have no one left to consider my options with, so that means I have to come up with whatever's to follow on my own.

Taking down any of them in a fight will be nearly impossible, I'll need luck on my side. Outlasting them isn't an option: while this Arena isn't the friendliest one in recent memory tributes have survived far longer in Arenas far harsher. Finding an ally still sounds risky at best and might not even happen, but unless something miraculous happens it's still my best option.

Of my options, the only tribute I have a chance with is probably Lacey. The Careers aren't going to want me, I know that already. There's an outside chance the boy from Eleven would join forces with me, but we didn't speak at all before the Games and I'm willing to bet he can fend for himself, so I'd prefer not to risk it with him. Meanwhile, I have a prior relationship with Lacey, and somehow she has the lowest score of all remaining tributes besides me. She's my best shot at making it to the finale, whether either of us likes it or not.

The wind picks up, everything around me rustling. Okay, I've been here too long, time to get moving again. Keep yourself together, Zari. Stay in the game.

As I get up, the serum vials clink extra loudly as they slide into each other, and that's when the obvious solution finally clicks. Given how much the Gamemakers hyped the serum and how little of it there is to find, it must be quite a valuable commodity. All I need to do is find someone willing to split the serum with me in exchange for a temporary alliance.

It won't work with the Careers, they'll just kill me afterward. There's been far too many examples of that throughout the Games' history, and I can't remember a single instance of an alliance between a Career and anyone else going well off the top of my head. The other two tributes, however, I at least have a chance of working with. In the unlikely case that diplomacy prevails in the end, I might have a group of allies that have a chance to fend off the Careers.

Where I'm left if that happens remains up in the air, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

That leaves me to find someone. I doubt the Gamemakers want me to do anything at this point, since I likely have the lowest odds of winning by a significant margin, but just the same, I do my best to get their attention, and the attention of however few sponsors I must have at this point.

"I don't know if anyone else is listening, but if you do, I need all the help I can get," I say. "As much as I'd love to say otherwise, I can't do this on my own." I repeat the same message in sign language, just for old times' sake.

It's likely a futile gesture, but at the very least now I can say I've done something to help myself out of this mess. Everything else is going to boil down to luck.

Let's hope I have enough of it to see this through to the end.

Eulogies:

-Rhaemyr North, District 3 Male, 8th Place (Killed by Zari and Toren): Rhaemyr had plenty of fun moments, even if he didn't find opportunities to use his skills as much as I would have liked once the Games started. However, Rhaemyr said it best himself; something always goes wrong. This time, it just happened to be enough to kill him. Thanks for sending him in, Sparky She-Demon.

-Toren Laris, District 9 Female, 7th Place (Killed by Godric): Toren had a bit of a rough start for me, I don't think I did enough to distinguish her at first. However, while this took a bit of time, but I felt like I got in a groove writing her, both bouncing off her allies and as her own person. Unfortunately for her, she just wasn't fast enough or lucky enough. Thanks for sending her in, Axe Smelling God.

Kills:

-Other: 3 unassisted (Aryion [suicide], Catarina [mosquito muttations], Odysea [drowning]), 1 assisted (Artesia [bear muttation])

-Galadia: 2 unassisted (Fox, Vick), 1 assisted (Alexa)

-Godric: 1 unassisted (Toren), 3 assisted (Faolan, Marius, Spark)

-Clara: 1 unassisted (Remi), 3 assisted (Faolan, Alexa, Sotia)

-Lacey: 1 unassisted (Galadia), 1 assisted (Maxxer)

-Sotia: 1 unassisted (Romeo)

-Zari, Toren: 2 assisted (Sotia, Rhaemyr)

-Odysea: 2 assisted (Nascar, Artesia)

-Thomiah: 2 assisted (Nascar, Maxxer)

-Sienna: 2 assisted (Marius, Spark)

-Artesia: 1 assisted (Nascar)

Guess who's back, and still very much alive. NaNoWriMo, anyone?

I'm still way off the pace this year (as usual), but I've already cranked out more words than I have most of 2023 combined and still have 20 days to work with, so I'm considering that a success already. That's also part of why this chapter's a bit longer than usual: once I got started with it I just couldn't stop.

With just six tributes remaining, I think I can safely say the end is near: I can't see anything stretching the rest of the Games longer than a few days more. I'm still figuring out how I want to finish this story, but we'll get there before too long. I hope. It has been more than five years since its inception. (Thank you for sticking with me if you've been here since the beginning!)

That's all I have to say. See you next chapter!