Author's Note

I do not own The Hunger Games.

Vivaldi Perlman, 16

His eepee really didn't match up well against this girl's axe, and there were still stars flashing before his eyes from Phoenix's… explosion.

Phoenix had…

Exploded.

Vivaldi had decided he was going to need time to process that.

He was going to need time to process the fact Phoenix was gone.

They'd been doing so well!

The girl swung her axe like it weighed nothing and brought the sharp blade into his chest, knocking four points from his armour. Vivaldi grunted, stumbling backwards. His feet caught on the grass beneath him, and he tripped, crashing to the ground.

"Vivaldi!" shouted Etheria, rushing towards him, hammer in hand.

The axe was coming down– down– down–

A crack–

The boy yelled, staggered–

Two of his armour nodes went out.

The axe buried itself in the ground at Vivaldi's side.

For a moment Vivaldi wondered what had just happened, and then he saw him. Thorin, whip in hand, watching the proceedings.

He did care.

A canon boomed, and Vivaldi turned in time to see the boy with the spear crash to the ground in front of a much younger boy. The youngest player in the arena, Vivaldi remembered. One of the girls made an awful noise.

"You little brat–!"

The boy turned and ran and–

Yes, that seemed like the best idea.

Vivaldi spun round and chased him into the darkness, in part because he wasn't sure what else to do or where else to run.

Vivaldi could still hear the boom of the explosion ringing in his ears.

Phoenix was dead, after being so strong.

Phoenix was dead, when she'd been the smart one.

Phoenix was dead, and he wasn't even sure what killed her.

They ran until Vivaldi was sure he couldn't run any more and he was sure Thorin's alliance wasn't following him anyway. Then, ahead of him, the younger boy began to slow down.

Looking around, Vivaldi realised they'd lost the other players and were now out here in the darkness on their own. The boy seemed to have realised too, because he stopped and trembled, looking around himself.

"Luminita?" he whispered, his pale eyes wide.

Vivaldi rushed over, hushing him. "Not so loud! The District players could still be nearby."

The boy nodded and dragged an arm across his face. "Sorry."

"No, no, it's alright."

"Are you– I mean, do you–"

"You want an alliance?" Vivaldi asked. He wasn't sure if he did, he'd just watched this little boy kill someone so much bigger and stronger than him, but nor did he want to be alone, and Phoenix…

Phoenix just fucking exploded.

Marcellina Arnoult, 16

Despite everything, she'd managed to stay with Emeria, the two of them stumbling away into the darkness. Emeria's armour was down to just three, and Marcellina was at four, but they'd worry about that when they were safe.

Emeria didn't want to risk the burning grasslands, so they had headed further into the graveyard, away from the continuing sounds of fighting behind them.

"I don't understand," Marcellina panted.

Celeste had been so sure. They'd all followed her; they'd all trusted her. Celeste had never said anything about exploding into flames. Or exploding at all.

"I do," Emeria replied grimly. Her face was dark with anger.

"Well– what just happened? Why did they… boom like that?"

"She betrayed us."

"What?"

"Celeste. She was always planning to leave us here and escape herself."

"But why would she do that?"

"Because that's what people do in The Game. They stab each other in the back."

"But… she left Zephyr."

Marcellina didn't have any siblings. She couldn't really imagine what such a relationship would be like. But Celeste and Zephyr had seemed close. Why wouldn't she take him with her?

Emeria shrugged. "Maybe they were planning it together so she could escape. Don't know. Don't care. I'm going to cut him down when I find him again."

Marcellina chewed her lip. "I'm just not sure…"

Above them, blue light bathed the sky, and the distorted Districts anthem began to play. Marcellina stopped and folded her arms, watching as the first face appeared above them. Pink haired and pretty. The girl that killed Silverie.

Emeria smiled at that, and Marcellina saw some of the anger lift from her face.

"Serves the bitch right," she muttered.

"Yeah…" Marcellina agreed.

There had been a lot of deaths today, almost as many as doing a usual bloodbath in a regular Hunger Games. After the pink haired girl, it was three players that Marcellina only vaguely recognised from the Pre-Games material, but then it was Sorcha.

Something twisted in her gut. She'd heard those canons, but hadn't thought…

She supposed she should have done. There were only so many of them left in the arena after all.

And then it was Celeste.

"Celeste Almon, agreed fourteen. Placed eighteenth."

Marcellina waited for the footage from her pod – but it never came, fading straight into the face of a near stranger, a young girl with scarlet hair.

"Phoenix Sterling, aged thirteen. Placed seventeenth."

Like Celeste, there was no death video, the feed fading straight to the boy Zephyr killed. They called him Magnus Calix, but that didn't sound like much of a District name, and for the third time in a row, no electrocution video played.

"I told you," Emeria said.

Marcellina could say nothing.

Etheria Arquette, 17

She'd lost Vivaldi somewhere in the chaos. And Emeria and Marcellina, the new girls they'd met with. Instead, she'd found herself with Iridescence and a boy with green hair, who seemed to be holding her up.

The longer they ran, the more Iridescence and the other boy slowed down, until at last Iridescence muttered something and the boy lowered her to the ground behind a pair of large gravestones.

"Is she alright?" Etheria asked, crouching beside them. "What's wrong with her?"

"We're not sure," replied the boy.

"I'm dying," Iridescence muttered dryly.

"What?"

No, she couldn't.

Phoenix had died – but she'd never seen Luminescence's face in the sky.

Which meant if Phoenix was dead…

She had to keep Iridescence alive for Luminescence.

He couldn't lose all his siblings the way she had.

"She's not dying," grumbled the boy.

"Keep telling yourself that."

"She's just melodramatic. She's made it to day six like this, she can make it further."

"What for?" Iridescence asked.

"What?"

"What for?" she repeated, looking up at him. "Phoenix is dead. Radiance is dead. Luminescence is… not dead, but might well be infected like Luminita's sister. What have I got left?"

The boy took her hands, and it felt painfully like Etheria was seeing something she shouldn't, a moment for them and no one else.

"You've got me," he said.

"I… I'm Etheria, by the way," Etheria said to the boy. He probably didn't care. He was allying with Iridescence, who was so much better than her, and Iridescence seemed to care about him, whereas she'd only looked at Etheria as though she was just a friend of Radiance's.

"Ares," the boy replied.

"Nice to meet you."

He looked at Iridescence. "Can we speak for a moment?"

Oh. This was the moment when they threw her out then. Etheria should have known better than to follow them and make assumptions.

"It's alright," Etheria said, pushing herself to her feet. The arena was dark around her, and she wasn't really sure which direction to go in. "I'll just… go."

"No, Etheria!" Iridescence reached for her – and collapsed.

Etheria froze, but Ares seemed to know what to do. He was better than her. He knelt and rolled Iridescence onto her side, positioning her carefully.

"It's another seizure," he explained.

"Oh. Will it… hurt her? Kill her?"

Ares gritted his teeth. "They haven't yet."

Which was something, she supposed.

Luminita Summerfield, 17

She could still see Sorcha's face in the sky.

They had argued, they had fought, they had hated each other–

But at the end of the day, they had still been sisters.

And now…

Now Sorcha was dead.

Luminita blamed herself for this. She had been the one that wanted to see Sorcha put her money where her mouth was and win a Game. if she hadn't taunted her…

Luminita sighed and curled up against the gravestone she'd nearly fallen over. It was cold here, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She was still seeing Celeste as well, the girl they'd all trusted.

They'd all believed in her.

Luminita wasn't sure if Celeste had known, if the explosion had been part of her plan all along, or if something had gone wrong, that she hadn't predicted that, or if… something else had happened altogether. She didn't know. She didn't want to know.

Sorcha was still dead.

Celeste was dead.

Her precious Firebird was dead.

And with them went any chance of ever escaping this arena.

Luminita had always been overlooked and artistic, but she wasn't a stupid girl. There was only one reason the hijackers would send District kids into the arena alongside the Capital kids.

To wipe them out.

She was never leaving this arena, just like Sorcha had never left this arena, on the sole account that she was a Capital kid and therefore slated to die.

"I won't do it," she muttered at the sky as she tucked her bag under her head. "Whatever it is you want me to do… I'm not playing along. I won't give you that satisfaction."

If it was the one thing she could do, the only thing she could do…

Then she'd do it, and at least take away a small part of their reason to rejoice.

She owed Sorcha and Celeste that much.

Enki Saguaro, 17

They hadn't moved from the site of the explosion. Oh, they weren't mourning like the Capital kids (like Vivaldi), Temo would be perfectly fine, but they were still shaken.

"What the fuck happened?" Maiya said into her radio.

All she got back was static.

The explosion must have knocked out their communications.

Enki hoped it hadn't broken anything else. He didn't see how it could have done, it had been an in-Game explosion and shouldn't have affected the pods–

But it shouldn't have affected their communications either.

"Still nothing?" Tabitha asked.

Enki stared into the darkness. So far, none of them had spoken about him saving Vivaldi. But they would. He shouldn't have done that, but he couldn't bear standing by and watching Maiya cut Vivaldi down.

Vivaldi…

Enki almost wished he'd gone down earlier In the bloodbath, maybe. It might have been less painful.

Now…

Vivaldi…

Vivaldi cared.

The look on his face when Enki saved him…

And now he was out there alone, with the contaminant that had been released into the arena, and other Players, and the zombie mutts, and possibly with allies that might explode–

Slowly and mechanically, Enki got to his feet and picked up his backpack. Away near the crater, Maiya and Tabitha were still arguing. Enki picked up his whip.

He had a boyfriend to save.