Arielle Ermin- 28th Games D4F

Some things never change. I was from thirty years ago, while some of the Tributes were from just one Games over, yet I was here and they weren't. Humans have been here a long, long time, and we'd mastered killing each other some ten thousand years ago. Some things were new, like guns and lasers, but some things never changed. A pointy stick was still a pointy stick. Mine had three points instead of one, but it was pretty much the same.

There were only two floors left at this point, plus the basement, which mostly had open doorways. I suspected I was the only one still sealing doors. Tuesday seemed more the type to hole up with her blog and let people send her stuff. She was probably sitting in silk pajamas eating chocolates. I didn't know much about Wangari, but she struck me as more of a sneaky sniper type. Or maybe I was just being xenophobic, since she had that accent. Maybe she was actually a very extroverted and friendly sort who had a bunch of outlier allies. I certainly hoped not. The last thing I needed was a bunch of alliances. Usually at this point in the Games it was mostly loners. There was that one year when the two friends made it to the end, though. The Gamemakers had to send a plague to cull one of them. Personally, I'd been rooting for Siobhan.

Thus far it had been an inauspicious day. I'd seen the random Nine girl earlier, but it was after she'd seen me, since she was disappearing down a hall. I could have chased after her, but she had a good head start and there were a lot of places to hide. I'd find her eventually. Why was she even here? Not that I had anything against her. She just seemed like a really random pick to be this far into such a big Games. Guess she must have had something going for her.

From what I could tell from the map near the stairwell, the second floor had three lounges. The first one had no one in it. I thought about taking all the food out of the fridge to spoil, but I might need it myself sometime. If I was better with traps I would have rigged something up, but I was honestly embarrassed in case it turned out terrible and people didn't sponsor me.

Clearing an entrance was always the tensest part of hunting. It was ideally done with two people, but that ship had sailed weeks ago. I had to do it myself, just taking a deep breath and hoping for the best in that split second when I breached the doorway. Then I had to whirl as absolutely fast as I could in case someone was hiding behind the door, then whirl again to clear the rest of the room. Except most of that didn't happen, since as soon as I opened the door I saw Maxson and Gaius by the fridge- and Gaius was in a wheelchair. What is that all about?


Maxson Deloria- Swing Vote D6M

There was so much good stuff in the fridge, but it all looked tasteless to us. One of the most dehumanizing things about the Games was that you couldn't mourn someone. Todd was gone and we had to keep going like nothing at all had happened- like Todd was nothing. We'd shared some stories about him last night and reminisced about our short, strange friendship, but that wasn't nearly enough to honor a human life. Most of the world just thought Todd was gone and that was that. They didn't see how that meant so much more.

Gaius was the first to react when we both saw something in our peripheral vision. He twisted in his seat and pointed the shotgun at the door, right at Arielle. Just in time I restrained myself from shooting him a nervous glance. We didn't have any more bullets. That was just an empty gun.

"You got one chance," Gaius said to Arielle. She looked at the gun, her expression unreadable. An instant later she ran toward Gaius.


Gaius McClellan- No Way Down D12M

I'd known it was almost certainly what she would do. This wasn't the movies, where someone held someone at gunpoint through a fraught conversation or just long enough for an ally to burst in. Arielle knew that anyone, especially someone with my training, didn't point at something I didn't intend to shoot. If I didn't immediately shoot her, I didn't have bullets.

Arielle was halfway across the room when she threw her trident- early enough that I had less time to think of a defense, but late enough that it was impossible to miss. I managed to duck just enough to get the trident in my throat instead of my face. The middle prong hit dead center, puncturing my throat but blocking the hole enough I could still breathe a little around the metal. The left and right prongs cut into my neck. The blood spurting from the left of my neck indicated it had hit the artery. No matter how you cut it, it was a fatal wound.


Maxson Deloria- Swing Vote D6M

Gaius was ripped open before I even knew it. I could barely blink in between when Gaius warned Arielle away and when she threw. While my brain was still processing, my arm grabbed for the trident. I yanked it, knowing Gaius was dead either way. It stuck. I hadn't known how solid flesh could be.

"Hey!" Arielle said. She reached the wheelchair and grabbed the handle of the trident just above my hand. She shoved me, but I held on. I had just enough time to worry about how the motion was hurting Gaius before Gaius braced his hand behind the shotgun stock and shoved the barrel right into Arielle's face. The thick metal hit her cheekbone with an audible thunk that sounded so painful I winced. She fell onto her back.

Again my body knew what to do. I yanked the trident again, feeling some pounding strength this time, and it popped free of Gaius' throat. I bent my knees and brought it down at her while she saw what was coming and gasped.


Arielle Ermin- 28th Games D4F

A lot of people don't know how hard it is to stab someone to death. In the movies it's just one stab and then done. Half the time there's not even any blood. Careers can sometimes accomplish that, but it's after a decade of training. This is everything we train for, and it's still hard to get that perfect shot. Maxson got in one unusually good stab right away- while I was trying to stay conscious after getting a shotgun barrel in the face and my head hitting the floor- and it didn't kill me. People also didn't know how very quickly shock set in. Between the head trauma and the stab wound in my lower chest, I couldn't recover before Maxson got on top of me. I gasped again as his knee shoved into the trident wound. I threw up my arms as he stabbed again and got three deep slashes down my forearms. It broke the momentum enough that the final strike wasn't as damaging, but it still cut another deep gash into my upper stomach.

The trident kept slipping on the blood on my hands and arms as I tried to grab my trident back. I didn't like how warm my chest and stomach felt. It wasn't the proudest of moves, but I grabbed for Maxson's crotch. He took in a sharp breath and leaned forward, but didn't let go of the trident, though I managed to shove it down and cut a gouge in his thigh. He shot down one hand and yanked at mine. With all the blood, they both popped free, Maxson squealing again at the last tight pressure. He stabbed again, a deep stab just under my ribs, and then lurched off of me, backing away as he pressed his hands to his crotch.

I stumbled to my feet, glaring at Maxson and hoping I looked scary enough to hold him off. He didn't even look at me, though, instead turning to Gaius, who was still gurgling as he held his hand to his neck. I lurched out of the room, leaving a far-too-large trail of blood.

It was too much damage for me to patch up. I only kept going out of some refusal to give up, even though I knew there were no options. I kept going, leaning more and more against the hallway wall, until I finally lost strength and slid down to the floor. I looked back at the trail of blood I'd left, impressed at how much my body had hidden inside itself. It was streaked across the walls, the floor, my clothes, my hair.

I'd made it so far. It was heartbreaking how very, very hard you could work, how close you could get, and it counted for nothing. As I lay dying I thought of Four. I wondered if even looked like what I remembered anymore.


Gaius McClellan- Swing Vote D12M

Maxson hobbled over to me, trying to run but clearly still feeling Arielle's last attack. I smiled, feeling the skin at the side of my neck pull with the motion.

"I think you got her." It came out a whisper.

"Oh…" Max was busy looking at my neck wound. "Oh, no."

"Don't bother," I said. "It's curtains for me." Max didn't know it, but getting Arielle was the best thing he could have done for me. For military people, our own lives were never the priority. What we wanted more than anything else was to accomplish the mission. We knew that our number might come up at any time. What we were fighting for was worth it. This wasn't my old job, but I still had something I could count as worth it. Max was relatively unharmed, though I didn't like the look of his leg wound.

"Let's get that," Max said, trying to cover the wound in my neck and ignoring his own wound. He must have known as well as I did that it was useless, but it was nice of him to try. We were never meant to win, were we? Me, mostly- I was too strategically-minded and martially experienced for the Capitol to trust. Todd was too hard to corrupt. Max was a great guy too, but he was the most palatable of us. He had a chance to really enjoy his life if he won. And me? The mission was completed, or at least I could tell myself it was. We'd killed Arielle and made the Games slightly more winnable for Max. He'd always been something of a cold fish. Maybe he wouldn't take my death so hard.


9th place: Gaius McClellan- stabbed by Arielle

Based on the wounds, I'd guess Gaius bled out very shortly after Maxson stood up, sometime around when Arielle was starting to sink down the wall. Gaius had all the skills and temperament to last a long time, plus he had tight-knit allies. He refused to give up even when he was using a wheelchair, but for all his skills and tricks, that just plain IS a big liability in the Games. He got past Jessie and Fable, he got past Brad, but people were going to keep dogpiling him until this happened. He blazed bright, though. He has everything to be proud of.

8th place: Arielle Ermin- blood loss from Maxson

Originally ItsaCatsWorld was absent during this story, and since Arielle was always one of the stronger Tributes, those two attributes made her a solid pick for someone to last a long time and get a lot of kills. Then her submitter came back so I started giving her some additional details and cool moments. She wasn't my Victor pick, though, and eventually this had to happen. I think she was definitely the favorite throughout most of the Games though. She came to chew bubble gum and kick butt, and she was out of bubble gum. She's forty years in and she has forty more still in her.