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#16
District 11 Male
Name: Chestnut Cromwell
Age: 12
Score: 3
Odds of Victory: 45-1
Fact: He was the only person in his family who didn't need glasses.
Chesnut just wanted to stop feeling so afraid.
His life had been nothing but fear since he was reaped.
Actually, it had been nothing but fear for a long time before his first reaping.
Chestnut felt it was hardly his fault. Not when District 11 and Panem as a whole were full of so many dangerous things. Cruel peacekeepers terrorising citizens, parasites and mutts that would attack crops and bring punishment upon the farmhands, incurable illnesses that could strike anyone at any time… Chesnut thought fear was the appropriate response.
Cowards would live longer. The best way to avoid danger was to run away and hide from it. He'd happily be a coward if it meant that he'd be a coward who would survive.
But there was no hiding when it came to the Games.
Not during the parade where his tunic of cherries and apples was laughed at.
Not during his time in the District 11 accommodations with his scary mentor, the one who was known as a violent criminal before his own victory.
Not during training where he'd been an easy target for bullying from the careers, especially the long dead brute from District 4.
Chestnut still had no idea how he'd managed to outlive that monster,
Now he was in the arena, and that certainly meant there was nowhere to hide.
He'd tried, oh how he'd tried. But he was always found and forced to bolt from one hiding place to the next. He had, for a few brief hours, thought maybe he'd have an ally going into this, someone to count on and rely upon for protection.
Then Cherri was killed in the bloodbath and he was left alone.
That was how he'd been living for the past week. Hiding as best as he could, living off of scraps, trying to bear the increasingly worsening rain and hoping he wouldn't be found as he cowered in the wheat and grass like a hunted rabbit.
His cheeks, cut prior by the cruel boy from 10, stung dawn until dusk. His joints ached from all the running he'd been having to do. His empty stomach gnawed and ached for sustenance.
Chestnut wouldn't wish the arena upon anyone, but he had three brothers… all of whom were of reaping age. Why hadn't any of them volunteered for him?
The same reason nobody in District 11 would dare volunteer. Death was too certain, victory too unlikely. It was an impossible thing to ask of anyone.
Chestnut hadn't seen any other tributes since the boy from 10 was killed. He'd hidden in that field for ten hours, somehow managing to stay beneath notice of the careers. They'd all ran past him, not realising how close he had been.
He'd heard every moment of the boy from 10's fiery demise. Whenever Chestnut closed his eyes, he saw the fire and heard the howls.
He should have been happy the maniac hunting him was dead, or at least he thought he should be. But Chestnut only felt sick. He still remembered the smell of the boy's cooked corpse.
Just like meat. Just like pork.
The day so far had been just as rainy as it always was and there was clearly no signs of it coming to an end. Chestnut had no idea how the arena wasn't flooded yet or why the ground hadn't become muddy and swampy, but he'd take the blessing, small as it was.
At least he could still move around. Though move as he did, he always ended up returning to the wheat field to hide deep within.
The careers had passed by a few hours ago. Three of them had, anyway. Gusts of wind by the gamemakers had hinted them to come closer, but in the end they'd been distracted by nearby fruit trees and their desire for something more than cornucopia rations.
It had been the perfect cue for him to head the other way, crawling nice and low towards the ground. He was a mile away and they'd not suspected a thing.
Before they'd headed away, a cannon had boomed. They'd kept an eye out for a hovercraft and seen nothing, concluding that the rest of their alliance had killed someone in the salt mines.
Chestnut knew right now was his only chance left if he wanted to get some more supplies. If one career was dead, two of them were in the mines and three were right there heading away from the wheat, then there must've been none of them at the cornucopia!
The trek was long and Chestnut wondered if he'd even make it. He was so tired and drained. He was barely able to go on as it was even before he'd started the hike.
His paranoia of running into trouble or being seen along the beach meant he had taken the long route, looping around the cliffs and rocky hills that led to where the Games began.
Sundown was approaching by the time Chesnut, struggling to stand, finally made it. He was in luck, there was nobody around.
There was, however, a sense that this was too good to be true. All of the gear was inside the cornucopia, but was it really as simple as just walking over to help himself?
Chestnut very much doubted it.
For a time he stood where he was, knees knocking and eyes burning from tears he was too dehydrated to truly shed.
There had to be traps, but how was he going to set them off when he couldn't see them? How was he meant to see them when he could barely stand.
He strained his mind, trying hard to recall what he had seen from his launch plate during the countdown. What supplies had he seen? The sort that could be used to make a trap? He couldn't recall any trap components or pieces. But there had been something else… several of the same item. What had it been?!
Distant images flickered on and off in Chestnut's exhausted, weary brain. Images of a metal trap with sharp teeth. The same sort of trap left out in case dangerous animals came by the orchards and farms.
"..B…b...b…" Chestnut tried to speak. He knew this one! "...Bear trap."
All it would take to set them off would be weight. Just something a bit heavier than the sand they were buried within.
The rocks littered around the hills would do.
It took Chestnut, exhausted as he was, several minutes to grab an armful of rocks. Staggering forth, he threw them at the mouth of the cornucopia one by one. Some missed. Some hit their mark. Three traps were set off, enough to at least clear a path to a crate with a bottle of water placed atop it.
The water went down in seconds. Chestnut wheezed, having drank so fast he'd almost made himself choke. He continued to gag, heaving with his hands upon the crate.
Then, slowly, be began to feel better.
He began to think clearly again, or close enough to it.
Enough to realise the supplies were unguarded, he was past the traps and that nobody else was around.
Chestnut wasted no time in looting as much as he could. As much as he dared. The basics came first; a big backpack which he quickly stuffed with food and water bottles. Comfort came after that; a sleeping bag, new gloves and boots, a bag of fruit slices.
Weapons came last, and all he knew how to wield was a knife. So, a knife he claimed.
The rain was coming down hard and more clouds were moving in. Chestnut blinked, sure he was seeing things, but he was not. Of the new incoming clouds, some of them were distinctly unnatural colours.
Some of them were pale, sickly shades of yellow and green. To Chestnut, it was obvious there was more than just rain in there.
The nearby entrance to the mines would give him the shelter he needed… but it was dark. So dark. So dark and scary, surely full of many horrors, not to mention two of the careers.
But with the rain so heavy, and something nasty on the way, what choice did he have? Chestnut headed into the mines, whimpering as he went.
The dark was just another of his fears, and one no amount of equipment could overcome.
Even a flashlight would run out of batteries eventually.
One tunnel led to the next. It wasn't four tunnels before Chestnut was fairly sure he was lost, but he didn't dare to stop or attempt to head back. If some kind of terrible rain was on the way then the remaining careers would be entering the mines soon, and even if they didn't, well, it was more likely that the best places to hide would be deeper in the darkness, right?
Chestnut kept delving deeper, not seeing any other option to choose.
He wandered for an hour, maybe two, before he emerged at an underground chasm. He couldn't see where the deep drop ended for the darkness. Tired from all the walking, he dropped his backpack down and began to root for a bottle of water.
He'd only just gotten hold of the bottle when footsteps drew near. Fast ones. Shouting as well.
"Nowhere to run Seven! I'll catch you, you know I will!" a prissy voice mockingly called out.
A tribute, the boy from 7 ran right past Chestnut. They hit the backpack, not even noticing it within the darkness, and send it tumbling over the edge of the chasm.
"No!" Chestnut wailed.
The girl from 1 ran past, also failing to notice Chestnut. He watched, frozen in fear, as she got closer to the boy from 7. It seemed she was sure to throw a knife right into his back.
Or it was until, noticing a thick wire set up between the chasm and a distant lower platform, the boy from 7 made a leap of faith and, using his axe as a t-bar, rode the wire down to the other side of the chasm.
One swing of the axe later and the wire was no more. Neither was the most direct way the girl from 1 had to catch up to him.
"Later bitch!" the boy from 7 laughed, running off.
"You bastard!" the girl from 1 screamed, stomping her foot.
Only then did she suddenly pause, as if realising something big for the first time. She turned around, locking eyes with Chestnut.
A smirk appeared on her face.
Chestnut took off running without delay.
"C'mere, little boy!" the girl from 1 teased. "You were never winning anyway, so how about you let me get this over with before something worse gets you?"
"No, no, no! Leave me alone!" Chestnut wailed.
The harder he cried and screamed, the louder the girl from 1 laughed. She chased him through the dark, easily keeping track of him with her flashlight.
Chestnut, being barely able to see in front of himself, tripped over a rock and dropped his uncapped water bottle.
He regained his footing by fluke, but couldn't save the water.
The bottle's contents splashed on the ground. It was just enough to cause the girl from 1 to slip over and hit her face upon the gravel. The flashlight fell too, its bulb breaking on a stone.
The furious cries and cursing of the girl from 1 echoed across the tunnel, but Chestnut didn't stop as he rounded the corner.
"Little brat! Come here!" the career girl screamed.
Chestnut quickly pressed himself in an alcove against the wall and held his breath. It took every ounce of whatever scant willpower he still had to not whimper or sob.
The girl from 1 ran past him, oblivious to how close he had been to her. She continued to rush off into the darkness, not once looking back.
Chestnut ran back the way she'd chased him as soon as her swearing was out of hearing range. He didn't stop running as he rounded the chasm where the boy from 7 had escaped.
He didn't stop running as he sped through a tunnel heading in a slow downward spiral.
He didn't stop when he saw a distant figure walking through the darkness… the girl from 8, was it? One glance at the curly haired girl heading to the higher tunnels had him running faster than ever before, long before she could've turned to notice him.
He didn't stop running until his body burned and bile filled his dried out throat.
Chestnut only stopped when he'd gotten close to the deepest depths. Light was scant, save for a flickering bulb overhead above a crate beside some motionless mine carts.
It seemed like a good place to hide.
A great place to hide, in fact.
"Gotta hide, gotta hide," Chestnut whimpered, grabbing the crate's lid and starting to shift it away. "Gotta hide, gotta hide, hiding's safe, safe to hide, gotta hide…"
At last he managed to yank the lid off of the crate.
In an instant a figure lunged out from within, a desperate and terrified look on their own face.
They had a knife held tightly in each hand.
With a warped battle cry they dug both knives deeply into Chestnut's chest, piercing his heart and lung.
Chestnut barely had a chance to wheeze and cough out blood. He whimpered as he fell down backwards, dead a moment after his head hit the ground and blood began to pool.
The girl who stood over him finally jerked herself out of her own adrenaline fueled panic, enough to take in what she had just done and who was lying dead on the ground at her feet.
The girl from 9 trembled from her head to her boots, horrified by the murder she had committed. She stammered, though the sounds barely resembled words. Just stutters of the half-mad.
She leapt back as Chestnut's pooling blood almost reached her boot. With a shrill, wheezy scream she ran blindly through the tunnels back where Chestnut had arrived, tears falling every step of the way.
Chestnut, for the first time in his life, didn't cry nor scream nor whimper.
He didn't make a sound.
If he could, he would've lamented that of all things to have doomed him, it was trying to hide.
Tribute Deceased
Ranking: 9th
Cause of Death: Stabbed with dual knives (by Teff)
Time Lasted: 6 days, 23 hours, 5 minutes and 45 seconds
The odds weren't in his favour
District 11 Eliminated