Toddward Howard- Swing Vote D9M

I kept looking at my allies, one after the other. I couldn't believe we'd all made it. I'd been steeling myself for days, trying to get ready for losing some of them and torturing myself imagining which ones it would be. We were all here, though. I wished I could stop time and we could just stay like this forever. I wouldn't even mind living in a hospital all my life. I'd had worse food.

For the moment we were holed up in a very boring-looking and not cinematic office, but that couldn't last long. We were huddled on the floor in a circle, trying to decide on the best place to settle long-term, whispering in case sound got through the not-too-thick-looking door.

"So what would be the safest place in the entire hospital?" Theo mused, his hand on his chin.

"Maybe the nursery?" I said. I'd certainly want to make sure babies didn't get kidnapped.

"No," Valencia said. "It's wherever they keep the good drugs."

I couldn't help smiling a little. "Well you just came right out of the gate with that one."

Valencia looked at me a little archly. "It's not rocket science. If I'm going to risk life in jail, it would be for opioids, not a baby. Why would anyone want a baby? They're a ton of work. Heroin, however, is a lot more fun. I've been told."

"I think she's right," Gaius said.

"So where's the good stuff?" I asked. There were wall maps scattered throughout the floor, but I hardly thought there was a label for "drugs people want to steal".

"It's probably not listed on the maps," Gaius said. He got to his feet. "The employees must have a list, though. Maybe there's one somewhere around here."

"Hold on," Theo said after we spent a few minutes trying to quietly shuffle through papers. "This stuff is all about bones."

"Yeah?" Valencia asked.

"So this office must belong to a bone doctor. We need to find an office where a drug doctor works."

"Oof," I said, frowning. "You're right." We looked around at each other, realizing that we were going to have to leave our safe (or at least we could pretend it was safe) office and roam around exposed until we hopefully found what we were looking for. Oh well, though. It was a small price to pay for hard drugs.

Keylor Herald- Into Thin Air D7M

The party girls were after me. Even as I ran, my spit foaming with exertion and my mind going a million different ways in panic, I could appreciate how ludicrous it sounded. It was a lot less funny when you could see them behind you. Olivine was in the front, with that same cold hunter's expression so many people before me had seen as they died. Marley was in the middle and seemed to be almost just out for a fun group jog. If one of them killed me I hoped it was her, but there was still something unsettling about her playful attitude. Then there was Lottie at the back, making up for her lack of speed with her overwhelming force. I started to feel the floor shaking under me and knew she was getting closer.

I'd hoped to make it to the other side of the floor and lose them on the stairs, but I wasn't going to make it. One of Marley's throwing knives had already taken a chunk out of my arm. The only reason she hadn't thrown more was that Olivine was between her and me. Any second now she'd stop playing around and tell Olivine to fall back, clearing the way for her. I had to take a chance and duck into the next door I passed.

I slammed the door shut behind me and almost sobbed in relief when I saw it had a latch I could click shut. I turned around and found myself in some sort of lab. There were six long tables arranged throughout the room, each with a faucet and a hole for garbage. There was one of those plastic skeletons leaned against one wall and a cabinet of various tools on the other.

"Awww, he locked himself in," Marley's voice came through the door.

"That's okay," I heard Lottie say. "You know what time it is? Door-kicking time!"

The door shuddered, bending out just a little so I could see a sliver of Lottie's side. I looked around for a hiding spot, but at the second kick the door flew open. Lottie charged inside, stumbling until she stopped her momentum. I darted between a row of desks, hoping to keep one between myself and the party girls. Of course, since there were three of them, Lottie simply blocked the exit side of the row while Olivine ran around to block the other side. Marley ran up alongside Lottie to squeeze past her and get to me where I was boxed it.

I took a wild leap and landed almost on the other side of the table, coming down on its edge and flipping over to the floor. I rolled up onto my feet, my elbow throbbing from where I'd landed on it, and ran for the door.

I didn't know I was hit until I was already on the ground. I lay there wondering when the pain in my hip had started. I went to press on it with my hand and hit the shaft of a spear. Before I could pull it out or even really react, Marley and Lottie were on me. Marley yanked the spear out of me and handed it to Lottie. I was confused for a second before I saw her lift it over my head. I shouldn't have been so harsh on Marley. Not all Careers had the decency to want to end things quickly. Lottie was the only one of the three strong enough to easily put a spear through a skull.

Emma Wolfe- In Your Hands D1F

Something like this had never been done before in the Games. So many Tributes, especially Careers, didn't explore the full ramifications of their Arena. Every Arena had its own opportunities, some of them never before seen in the Games. It was worth taking time out of our hunt and allowing some of the Tributes to find hiding places or rooms to barricade. The Games weren't just about quantity of kills. What mattered most was who you killed.

It had taken us most of the night to finally find what we were looking for. The room didn't have an obvious name. We'd gone all the way up to the seventh floor to check out "tech support" only to find it was a bust. Then we hiked to floor two to check out "admin", which was another bust. A few more tries later, we finally found it.

The "communications" room was mostly generic-looking equipment and random bits and pieces of components. It was so small we were almost touching each other. But there against the wall was the one thing we needed. On top of a black desk behind a rolling office chair, there was a single button labeled MASTER RADIO.

"God, we're such geniuses," Margo said as Cyrene took the seat. It had been her idea, so it seemed only fair. She took out the sheet of paper with our plan written on it in her neat handwriting. She pressed the button.

"Good evening, Tributes. This is the Career pack speaking. This Games being an unusual situation, we have a very unusual proposal for you. Whoever provides proof that they have killed Chrome Cabello, Jayden Chadsey, Gaius McClellan or Jay Dallas may come to the Cornucopia and take any supplies they can carry with no interaction from us. We will leave you unmolested and provide a grace period of one hour before we resume our hunting."

Crazy, right? No one would believe a bunch of Careers. That was where the genius part of our plan came in. It was incredibly daring and even I felt a twinge of nerves as Cyrene continued.

"We state this on Snow's honor."

There it was- an inviolable bond. Even the Careers would never dare to dishonor Snow. Our deal was completely binding. Anyone who had any capability to do so now had every reason to kill our biggest enemies. Careers didn't have friends, but we did have bribes.

112th place: Keylor Herald- speared by Olivine and Lottie

He would have bled to death from Olivine's spear so I credited both with the kill. The hunters are out so it was inevitable that some people would die. Keylor didn't stand out too much in the crowd so he was one of the ones to go. Still pretty cool he climbed K2 though.