Braddock Simpson- Heart of Darkness D7M
I couldn't believe it when I started to think again. I'd just seen a truck barreling towards me. People didn't think after that. I must have been dead, since nothing hurt. I must have been just about to die but not quite dead yet, because I was looking up at the bottom of the truck. Surely if I was dead I'd be floating away? Or I'd just click off into nothingness, but I was really hoping that wasn't it. It had always been too scary to think of.
As the moments passed and I didn't float away, I started to wonder if I wasn't dying after all. Why else wouldn't I be able to move, though? I couldn't even open my eyes. Nothing really hurt, though. It didn't feel bad, but it didn't feel good, either. It felt like I didn't have a body at all. A wave of dread and terror swept over. Was this just what being dead was like?
It was my own breath that brought me back to Earth. I couldn't feel it rushing in, and I couldn't feel my chest rising and falling. I could hear it, though. I could hear myself breathing. It slowed along with my mind as the panic ebbed away. I was breathing. I was alive, then. But I couldn't move. I couldn't feel anything. The panic shifted into chilled horror. There was a word for this. I didn't know it, but there was a word.
When people got hit really hard, sometimes it broke their backs. That meant they got paralyzed. It could be any part of your body, like maybe just the toes or maybe all the way up to your neck. That wasn't the worst that could happen, though. Sometimes, you got hit just hard enough to knock you loose from your body, but not quite out of it. You couldn't move at all. You had no sensation. Your body was dead and you were trapped inside it. I'd heard of it happening to people and them later recovering, but they were in hospitals getting cared for. No one cared for me, and even if they did, they wouldn't have even known where to start.
Help me. The words died before they were born. Surely I was bleeding, right? And soon I would bleed out? And then I'd be dead and I wouldn't be stuck like this? But I knew the ambulance was on me. I couldn't feel it, but I somehow sensed the pressure. Please don't let it be. Back in Seven I once saw a man who had been crushed by a tree. What happened to him had been passed around as a rumor between children as long as I could remember, but it was the first time I'd seen it for myself. The tree lay across his stomach- he disappeared under it, like that part of him just wasn't there. He must have been crushed to pieces underneath. I could still remember how pale his legs were. Those pale legs were why he was alive when I saw him. The tree had crushed his body past any repair, but it was also holding his blood inside him. Any part of him above the tree was still alive, just too broken to move. They told me if they moved the tree- the same one that was crushing him- the blood would rush out and he'd die. All we could do was listen to his last wishes and wait for the shock and damage to kill him.
Don't let that be it. I tried to scream, and sit up, and shove at the ambulance resting on me, and cry, and beg for help, and let the blood out, and nothing happened.
Gaius McClellan- No Way Down D12M
The defibrillator reached into my chest and punched me right in the heart. I felt everything in my body jolt like a flickering light. It was over as quickly as it came and left me lying on the floor gasping.
"Did it work?" Max asked.
"I don't know how I'd know," I admitted.
"Can you breathe?" Todd asked rhetorically.
"What does that matter?" I asked as I gingerly sat up.
"That thing must have fried all your insides, like your lungs, right?" Todd asked. "So if your lungs aren't hardening right now, you must be better."
"We really should have thought of this before we tried it." I breathed uneasily, trying not to let on how much I was panicking. With each breath I waited to feel the tiny catch that would tell me my lungs were hardening and I'd feel each breath cut off a little earlier until I couldn't breathe at all. Even after I successfully stood up I still didn't feel safe.
"How's your legs?" Max asked.
I took a careful step and bristled at the stiffness and spasticity in my legs. "They're the same," I said.
"But it's not getting worse?" Todd asked.
I took a deep breath and it was still unfettered. "I think it's not," I said.
"So you're not gonna turn to stone and die?" Max asked, breaking out into a smile.
"I don't think so," I said.
"Muscles don't heal right away. You probably just need to wait a few days," Todd said. I wasn't pleased about the idea of a few days, but I'd just have to tough it out.
"Let's go find Zibby," I said, leaning against the wall as I moved forward. "She'll want to see her grand experiment worked."
"If I was her I'd have locked us out," Max offered as we walked back.
"I would too, but I'm not nearly as… Zibby as Zibby," Todd said.
If you asked me, it could have gone either way. Zibby might have chalked up her experiment as concluded. In that case, she would have no more incentive to risk her own Games by letting in a bunch of boys who could turn on her. On the other hand, she tended to put science in front of common sense. It might be worth it to her to risk her life in order to see for sure that her conclusion was right.
When we reached the hazardous materials room, the question was answered. The door creaked open.
Toddward Howard- Swing Vote D9M
Zibby looked out at us eagerly. "So, how'd it go?!" she demanded as she shut the door behind us.
"I think it worked," Gaius said.
"Pull up your shirt," Zibby said, pointing at Gaius' stomach.
"What?" he asked, even though he was already complying.
Zibby rubbed her hand on Gaius' stomach. She turned to the side and touched the metal table we were standing by. There was a tiny crack as a little spark flashed on her finger.
"Yes!" Zibby said, punching the air. "That's static released by the nanobots when the AED overloaded them. They're deactivated."
"My legs are still stiff. How long do you think they'll take to heal?" Gaius asked.
Zibby was already brushing past us to open her notebook. "Oh, they won't get better," she said without looking back.
"What?" Gaius almost gasped. "What do you mean?"
Ha ha, Zibby, you got us, I thought. In a minute she'd tell us the real answer. I could appreciate a sense of humor.
"The AED deactivated the nanobots. The ossified tissue-" I was grateful she'd defined the term earlier- "is still ossified, though. You'd need some sort of invasive procedure to correct that."
"You mean I'm stuck like this?" I'd never seen Gaius so visibly emotional. Even when he was turning to stone he'd kept most of that inside. He must have reached the end of his rope.
"Yeah," Zibby said. "It sucks. We can still win, though. I've been working on a plan to bind a pathogen to the xenon already in the fan system. Since it's heavier than air, it will fill the hospital from the bottom floor up and we can hide on the top floor-"
"Wow, just like that?" I broke in. "Don't overthink it or anything."
"It's going to take a lot of thought," Zibby went on unbothered.
"No, I meant it sure seems easy for you to kill people," I said. I knew what people had to do in the Games, but I was uneasy with how effortless and even exciting it seemed to be for Zibby.
"It is, usually," Zibby agreed, clearly not seeing anything objectionable about that. "The meningitis took out nine of them. I was surprised it was that many- it's not that contagious."
"Wait, when was that?" I checked off some figures on my fingers. "That was you? All those deaths a few days ago?"
"Yep," Zibby said. "I crawled up in the vents and released a vial of meningitis." she looked down at some drawings she'd made. "For this next time, I think we can find something even deadlier. If it's a lung or blood-based disease, it could even be enhanced by the xenon."
"We?"
Zibby Spooley- A Night to Remember D8F
"We?"
I looked up at Todd to reply. "Yeah, 'we'! We're gonna need to fight smarter if we want to get rid of the stragglers. Just look at Gaius." I pointed. "He can barely walk. He can't fight anyone."
"That doesn't mean I want to murder everyone," Gaius spoke up.
"What else is there, if you want to live?" I asked. I understood some people felt squeamish about this sort of thing, but it was just stupid to put emotions like that in front of my own safety. I had a lot more I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't going to throw it away because of some superstitious morality.
"Not that," Gaius responded after a pause.
"You're just gonna lay down and die?" It wasn't as judgmental as it might have sounded. I was interested in the idea. If it was true, I could interview him and maybe do some exploration of the subject.
"No," Gaius said. "But I'm not doing this, either." He stopped, unsure of what he would argue but certain of his position.
"What are you even going to do if you win?" Todd asked, in what sounded to me like a somewhat mocking tone.
"I thought maybe the Capitol would let me keep studying. Maybe they can use all the results," I said. It had been running through my head for the last few days that maybe they'd even hire me as a Gamemaker. If I just focused on experiments they found useful, they'd give me all the resources I could imagine.
"I think maybe it's time to part ways," Gaius said.
My body tensed. I could tell from the set of his face that he was past 'thinking'. As much as I wanted to focus on my notes, I knew what that meant. If Gaius and the others weren't my allies, they were my enemies, and there were three of them and one of me. I stood and backed away from the table and the boys, picking up a flask of clear liquid.
"If you want to go, then go ahead," I said. "But this is sulfuric acid and if any of you get near me I'll melt your face." It really was, too. I wasn't the type to bluff.
"Don't worry. We'll just go," Gaius said as he and his friends started for the door. "Thanks for the help."
Todd paused as he passed the table with my running Bunsen burner. He turned and fixed me with a venomous look.
"We're going," he said. "But I'm not letting you do this." He grabbed the edge of the table and flipped it. The Bunsen burner flew off the table and hit a rack of chemicals up against the wall. The burner fluid sprayed out from the base and flames spread like a wave across the liquid. Several flasks and bottles broke when the burner hit the rack, sending a bitter chemical scent into the air as the contents ignited in a small explosion. The room lit with an orange glow as the heat touched us all.
"What are you doing?" I screamed as Todd ran out the door behind Max, who was helping Gaius. I sprinted for the fire extinguisher in the other corner of the room. I couldn't let all these amazing resources go to waste. I needed to douse the fire fast, before it reached my notes. I could never replace everything I'd written down in there.
My eyes flicked over the extinguisher, confirming it was safe for chemical fires. I pulled the trigger and foam sprayed out over the blackened rack and its smoldering contents. Even as I was spraying, the heat ruptured another flask and the flames exploded out and down the shelf. As I turned to head off the flames, there was the crackling of glass and then a wave of annihilating heat.
18th place: Zibby Spooley- died in explosion
With someone as singleminded and focused as Zibby, it only made sense she'd die chasing science at the expense of everyone else. This would have been avoided if she'd had more tact, but Zibby is very smart, and very smart people are often susceptible to thinking that other people are just like themselves. Zibby assumed everyone put cold logic ahead of any trace of humanity, so she thought of course the Stadwatch would be on board with her planned massacres. She did not take into account that Todd, in particular, is very emotional, and definitely values life. He wasn't even trying to kill Zibby. He just wanted to destroy her dangerous chemicals, and she refused to leave them. Oh, juicy irony, am I right?
