Author's Note

I do not own The Hunger Games.

Luminita Summerfield, 17

They set up what was to be their base in the cells of the prison building, with Marcellina staying behind to guard it while the rest of them left out onto the grassy fields to search for other players.

So far, they had, thankfully, had no luck.

They had reached the edge of the field, where the train tracks were sunken deep into the ground. On the other side stood bright, colourful trees, littered with neon coloured plants, but in order to get there they would have to climb the canyon that was the train track.

"Come on!" Sorcha demanded, already halfway down scaling it.

Luminita shook her head. "I really don't think that's a good idea, Sorcha. What if another train comes?"

"Then we stay to the sides! Come on, if there are going to be other players anywhere, it'll be on the other side of this!"

Calpurnia glanced anxiously back at the prison building. "I dunno. Will we have time?"

"If we don't, we'll just spend the night cycle out here. Come on!"

"But what about Marcellina?"

Luminita groaned. Most of their supplies were back at the prison, which meant she couldn't send Calpurnia back, but she couldn't go back herself either because she had to stop Sorcha doing something stupid to get herself killed.

"Maybe we just shouldn't," she said weakly.

Sorcha grunted and jumped to the bottom of the tracks. Luminita sighed and started to follow, looking first at Calpurnia. "We'll turn back when it starts to get dark."

Calpurnia was more reluctant, but at last she began to climb down behind them. Hopefully Sorcha would be satisfied just seeing what was on the other side.

But Luminita doubted it.

Zephyr Almon, 13

Celeste was never particularly good company. She preferred her dolls to people.

For the last day and a half though, she'd been even worse company.

She'd said nothing, even when Zephyr tried to ask her a question, and preferred to spend her time mutely observing the arena around him. Three times she stopped to sit in a patch of long grass and run her hands up individual stalks.

"Look," Zephyr said for the dozenth time that day.

Celeste looked at him, but that wasn't a sign that she might be helpful. She'd looked at him the last time too, and then lost interest almost immediately. It was almost as though…

"Celeste." He took her hands. She flinched slightly. They'd never been the kind of siblings to interact like this. Zephyr squeezed her fingers. "Please. I know you can… do things. Tell fortunes."

He had tried to do it too, sometimes, when he was younger, but this was Celeste's thing, she was the prophet – except the girl from Ten, the one from a few years ago, had been able to do so much more than just tell fortunes.

"And sometimes you make the lights flicker," he continued, thinking of all those times their parents had replaced the lightbulbs at home because yet again they seemed to be failing. "But I need you to do more than that now, please. I need you to get us out of here; I need you to get us all out of here." He met her eyes and tried to find some kind of love, some kind of care there. Weren't older sisters meant to look after their little brothers? "Please, Celeste."

She turned away. Zephyr groaned. It had been a stupid thought. When had Celeste ever done anything remotely helpful? All she did was mope around being creepy.

"Great," he muttered, taking a few steps away from her and kicking at the grass. "Thanks."

Maybe he was being too hard on her. They were both just kids, what could they do from stuck inside this thing? No, they just had to stay alive until someone on the outside let them out.

A hand touched his arm. He jumped and spun round, only to find Celeste had followed him. She raised an arm and pointed at the large, grey building in the distance.

"You want to go there?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Alright." Zephyr found her hand. "Let's get going."

Etheria Arquette, 17

Her conversation with Radiance still echoed inside her head. He didn't really want her as an ally anymore. He had Luminescence and Iridescence, and they were all siblings. She was the outsider here. If one of their allies had to go, of course it would be her. What purpose did she serve anyway?

It had taken them some time to climb across the train tracks to the other side of the arena. It wasn't any better over here. A heavy white fog hung over everything, and she kept falling over big rocks. The three of them were staying close, but they couldn't see much of each other in the fog.

"Radiance? Luminescence?" she called.

"Here!" came replies from both boys.

Relief flooded through her. It would be so easy for them just to leave her. And they probably should. She was weighing them down.

A figure appeared from the fog and a hand found her own. She turned towards the shape.

"We're going to stop for a bit and see if the fog clears," he said.

"Alright," she whispered.

They stopped and settled within a ring of standing stones, and passed round her canteen of water so they could each take a mouthful of water. Etheria sighed, learning back against one of the stones.

"I wish I'd never come here," she said.

Luminescence squeezed her hand. "I wish we'd never got ourselves so involved in it."

"If we're talking regrets, I wish we hadn't brought Phoenix with us into all this," said Radiance.

Etheria closed her eyes. "I wish I'd got to have more time with my brothers."

But Eulicles had never even reached his eighth birthday, which he'd been so excited for, and Erewhon had been gone these five years. What sort of relationship would the three of them have had, if they'd stayed together like the Sterling's had got to?

"I wish we'd let Phoenix focus on her trains and engineering," Luminescence said.

"I wish we'd spent some time doing Iridescence's stuff instead of dragging her into our virtual reality games."

"I wish I'd spent more time with Armistice."

"I wish I'd spent more time with Father."

"I wish we'd listened to Mother more."

"I wish people liked me more."

Radiance turned to her. "Of course people like you! I like you!"

"Yeah, me too," said Luminescence.

"No one likes me," she muttered.

Radiance squeezed her hand. "Don't be stupid. You're a great person. I'm sure you have lots of friends."

Etheria closed her eyes. "I wish that was true."

Maximillian Marcus Badondé, 18

He had been trudging through this stupidly bright forest for hours. His feet hurt from all the walking, his shoulders ached from the weight of the backpack, and his fingers throbbed where he was clutching his precious bow, despite his scarce few arrows. The only thing that might make all this worse was if any sunbeams had been making it through the foliage and heating things up.

Maximillian groaned, stopping to lean against a tree.

And somewhere close, footsteps crunched through the undergrowth.

He tried to move quickly, finding a study branch to hold him and climbing up the nearest tree. Once he was a good way up, he pulled out one of his precious few arrows and nocked it on his bow.

He didn't have to wait long.

A boy, younger than him with long purple hair, came stumbling through the trees. None of his armour nodes were lit, and he looked disorientated, tripping and stumbling over his own feet. It didn't look like he had any more arrows, but there was a knife at his belt. Maximillian could use that.

He counted to three and released his arrow.

It pierced through the boy's neck.

His body thumped to the ground.

A cannon boomed.

Maximillian waited a long moment to make sure there were no allies coming before climbing to the ground.

He salvaged his arrow and took the boy's knife before relieving him of his large backpack as well.

Hopefully this one would have something useful.