Flint Kenyte- No Way Down D2M
I called it "scalpel-bat". It wasn't exactly an accurate name, since the bat was really more of a bar. I'd managed to loosen it from a bunch of pipes going up a wall in one of the rooms. Hopefully it wasn't the air circulation system or something important like that. So far I hadn't died of carbon monoxide or noticed any unusual flooding, so it seemed I was in the clear. The "scalpel" part was accurate, though. If getting hit with a heavy metal pipe didn't bother you, the scalpels I'd taped to it probably would. I'd heard somewhere that scalpels were ridiculously sharp, like they could cut molecules or something. Apparently it made it really hard to heal if you got cut by one, since the cut was so thin your body didn't recognize it or something. It kind of grossed me out, but not enough to not hit someone with one.
Our alliance seemed to have gotten the job done, even if we couldn't take all of the credit. There were only two Ones left and five of us Twos. Statistically speaking, it was almost certainly going to be one of us who won. We were the most populous District left and already came with advantages from the start. That didn't mean much for me, though. I was a person, not a statistic- something the Capitol had never understood.
As I worked, I idly wondered what the cafeteria looked like. With the Careers so fractured, it was almost fair game. Jessie and Fable were almost certainly back together again, though. They might be, by default, the head alliance in the Games. Maybe they'd claimed it. Otherwise, there was that one large outlier alliance. If they were still together, they might be the ones to beat. There were three of them, assuming they were still together, and Gaius was sort of a quasi-Career. In any case, I was humble enough to be satisfied with the pudding and applesauce I'd found in the gerontology ward. There was also this weird thick water. I'd read the label and thought "It's gotta be just a name. Why would anyone make thick water?" But nope, it really was. Old people are weird.
It was the smallest of noises I heard outside the door. In any other situation it would have caused sympathy. I heard a tiny, annoyed little "ouch."
I held my scalpel-bat tight to my side as I ever so carefully peeked out the cracked door. Arielle was standing in front of the next room down the hall. Her expression was both irritated and pained as she poured something onto her right hand. Anyone else would have been distracted enough to not notice me, but Arielle had been preparing for this for years. She looked over immediately and we locked eyes.
Arielle Ermin- 28th Games D4F
Patience is a virtue and all that, but I was getting pretty fed up. I'd been clearing rooms and sealing doors for three days and I hadn't found a single Tribute. If this went on much longer, the Gamemakers would send a mutt or divert someone to me to spice the Games up. I almost thought, for a moment, that that was what had happened when I saw Flint peeking out of the next room down the hall. It was probably just a coincidence, though. Or more accurately, an opportunity.
Flint glanced toward the door. Clearly he was thinking about trying to run away down the hall. It wasn't an option, though, because tridents can be thrown. He reached the same conclusion and slammed the door shut as I ran toward the room. I yanked on the door, hoping I could get to it before he locked it, and it flew open. As I was thrown across the hall by the violently opening door, I gave Flint credit for taking the direct approach. He'd simply held the door shut and waited for me to come so that he could do exactly this.
As I stood up, I thrust out with my spear. Flint, who had been drawing back a barbaric-looking studded pipe at me, had to stumble back quickly and pinwheel his arms to keep balance. I kicked him in the knee and with his already-compromised balance, it was enough to take him to the floor. I was raising my trident when my body locked up.
What are the odds? I was able to ruefully ask myself. I'd actually prepared for this. I still couldn't move with the electricity screaming through me, but this actually wasn't my first time being tased. The Academy really does prepare you for anything, though we usually expected this from a Three and not a fellow Two. One thing we all learned is that no matter how strong you think you are, you're going to fall over. Flint realized that as I was starting to drop onto him. Just an instant later he realized that if I touched him while the taser was still touching me, we'd get a very unfortunate complete circuit. He yanked the taser back just quick enough to save us from dying in an embarrassing taser sandwich.
The moment after getting tased is like trying to keep fighting when you've just been slammed by a bull. This is why we train, though. Flint was clearly shocked when I immediately punched him in the face. He rolled aside when I followed the blow with a trident stab toward his stomach, but he wasn't fast enough to escape a big gash in his side. He swung his bat up at the side of my head. I pushed the handle down and the studded top hit the floor with a very grating scraping noise. Several of the scalpels popped free, lying on the ground around us like land mines. I snatched one up and aimed it down at his face. He went to block it and I had to be impressed at the million-in-one shot. The scalpel punched clean through the center of his palm. Even as his face contorted in pain, Flint shot up his other arm and punched me in the side of the jaw. My hand slid free of the scalpel. Flint yanked it out of his hand and stabbed it at me. I twisted to block all my vital areas. Flint kept going, unconcerned about which part of me he hit so long as he did hit. I felt a tiny pain, like the little sting of an immunization. It was so easy I couldn't believe it when I saw the scalpel handle sticking out from my knee. It was entirely bizarre, feeling like I should say "ouch!" but really not feeling much pain.
Flint pulled away underneath me, trying to get free. I didn't want any chance of my knee getting jarred and stabbed even deeper, so I let him go. He grabbed his bat and I tensed to continue the fight. Instead he ran down the hall, emboldened by how long it was going to take me to get to my feet and aim my trident. I didn't see the need to draw out a battle that had already brought injuries for both of us. I needed to focus on my knee for the moment, and Flint had his own problems. He was trailing blood all down the hall as he flew. His hand and arm were just streaked with red, while his shirt was discoloring at his side as well. Neither of us were in condition to keep fighting.
Wangari Kariuki- Res D2F
They didn't prepare me for this. When I was little, I thought the people at the Academy knew everything. They were the strongest, obviously, and also the smartest, since it takes strategy to win the Games. Everything I learned there was clearly of the utmost importance. Anything they didn't teach must not be important, or they would have taught it. The first blow to that certainty was when I had Kamau. The nurse put him in my arms and I knew I'd been wrong about everything. The little baby looking up at me was the most important thing in the world. Nothing could ever be half that important. The Academy hadn't told me about the knifing love I feel for him, and the determination to protect him that I knew went past anything I had imagined in the Academy. None of them knew anything about that. None of my instructors had children. I didn't learn anything about motherhood or empathy or the unbearable but priceless anxiety and delight I had in him. I'd had to learn every bit of it on my own. It had been so hard but so worth it.
As I walked the halls of the hospital, thinking a bit about another hospital with more positive memories, I was learning more things the Academy hadn't prepared me for. Death was always part of life in Two. We didn't fear it so much as we hated it. Death meant someone had failed. They weren't strong enough to win the Games. Even for those who hadn't volunteered this attitude remained. Death meant you weren't strong enough to beat your illness or the accident that took you. We held death in contempt and spread that contempt to anyone contaminated by it. Never in all my life had anyone taught me about mourning.
Sometimes I thought I was going crazy. Even with the culture surrounding death in Two, I'd had some idea of what people did when they lost someone. I'd seen movies where bereaved people sat around their houses while friends brought them food and tried to say the right thing. Death meant you visited the gravestone a few times and maybe wrote in a journal and cried at the funeral, and then you were good. I guess at the very least, I thought it made you sad. Sometimes I was sad, but just as often I was angry. Sometimes it seemed so obviously true that Kamau would be dead for a little while, but then he'd be back. Sometimes I was stuck in the memory of finding him. I kept repeating the memory, certain that if I did it right, with no skips or breaks in concentration, I would earn him back. Other times I'd be searching through a room, trying to find someone to kill, and I'd just start crying. I wouldn't even feel sad. I'd just start crying, like my eyes were ahead of the rest of my body. Then, just as suddenly, it would stop. I wondered if that meant I wasn't really sad enough. If I really loved Kamau I would never stop crying.
I knew one thing: I wanted the Games over as fast as possible. I could indulge in my fantasies that if I won, they'd let me bring Kamau back. Maybe it would help me get through the Games, even if I knew it wasn't true. But, while I felt guilty even mentally admitting it, that wasn't the reason I wanted out. I knew they wouldn't let me have Kamau back. If I won, though- if I got out of here- I could get help for all these feelings I couldn't bear. They had people who helped with things like this. In Two it was something shameful- something to hide from everyone and tell yourself was only temporary, until you were strong enough again- but I didn't care anymore. I wanted to go to someone who knew all these things and would teach me how you were supposed to go on living.
When I saw Nene and Tabitha, then, I didn't hesitate. They were walking toward the edge of an open seating area, just twenty feet from a hallway that would block my shot. As I aimed from the balcony above them, Nene turned back to say something to Tabitha. She looked up at me and her face melted in confusion and urgency. She threw herself backward, landing just inside the hall and almost entirely blocking my shot. As she jumped, she called out a warning to Tabitha. Tabitha, who was still inside the line of fire.
Tabitha Sparks- Swing Vote D3F
"Hospital food's really not so bad."
Nene turned to respond to me. She looked up and her face went scared. She jumped back, landing on her backside and elbows in a way that had to hurt. I reached out my arms as I stepped toward her to see if she was okay. She pointed in the direction she'd looked, opening her mouth to tell me something. As I stepped forward, I started to turn to look.
20th place: Tabitha Sparks- shot by Wangari
Tabitha is one of those tributes who's, to say the least, a long-shot. It's pretty clear she wasn't going to win this one, so we all had some fun seeing her for a while before this happened. She's also one of the cute happy tributes who gets earmarked for an easy death. While it may look like she was weirdly slow in her last POV, it's meant to have happened over like two seconds. This won't be easy for Irina, but... could have been worse, I guess? I don't think that will help her much.