HOSANNA RAYLES- Camille Igawa
It was just me and Visenya then, wasn't it? I was supposed to feel some sort of District loyalty for her. I just felt human loyalty. I didn't care where a person came from. She was a person.
DELILAH CLEMENTINE- Gabriel Farad
"Allah forgive Delilah, and elevate her station among those who are guided. Send her along the path of those who came before, and forgive us and her, Lord of the worlds. Enlarge for her her grave and shed light upon her in it."
Unique Dior- Res D1F
It was beyond haunting to be in the pediatric oncology ward. Mahi hadn't known what "oncology" meant until I explained it and he got all teary. On the surface, you would have thought it was just another wing in the pediatrics division. It was decorated with the same happy colors (which just struck me as performative, like someone smiling while they were crying). The only difference I'd noticed were the picture books in the knee-high bookshelf. They were about little rabbits and woodland creatures learning what to expect when your parents told you you were very sick.
We would have moved out into the other side of the pediatric ward, but we'd heard people moving around in there. From all the laughing, I suspected it was the circus gang. They probably would have coexisted with us, but we were afraid to scare them and set off a whole big ordeal. So we stayed on our side, which they hadn't entered once, and lived off the nutrient shakes and energy gels meant for kids who very much needed to put on weight. We'd even gotten pretty good at ignoring the orginal purpose of our little home, especially after Mahi took some materials from one of the little art tables and covered the ward sign with a sheet of paper reading "MAHI, UNIQUE AND DAISY'S HOUSE." Maybe not the most subtle if we got invaded, but sometimes morale is important.
"Hurry," Unique guessed, as Mahi added more details to his drawing. We had paper, we had colored pencils, and we had time. We'd gone through hangman and MASH and now we were on Pictionary.
Mahi laughed. "Nope," he said. We didn't have a timer, so we just sat there until we figured something out, no matter how hard it was.
I scrutinized the drawing, which featured a stick figure and motion lines, as well as less distinct details, as Unique giggled from across the table. "Limbo!"
"That doesn't even make any sense!"
"Silly!" Unique guessed. She fell into a giggle fit and leaned over the table.
"It's not even that funny," I said, smiling a little myself. It was good to be having such a good time. Dwelling on the negatives wouldn't get us anywhere.
"No, it's busy!" Mahi said. He burst out laughing. "Oh, I gave it away!"
I didn't realize how hard I was laughing until Daisy fell off her chair from laughing. Mahi plopped down beside her.
Wait. It hit me like a bucket of ice water. I giggled at the image. Hitting someone with ice water, that would be pretty funny. Then the truth set in again and I knew that knowing it wouldn't help me.
"Something's wrong," I wheezed, my voice pinched from the laughter still bubbling out of me. I looked up at the ceiling, but I knew it was useless. There were a thousand openings in the room. Not large enough for people, but large enough for gas. I cracked up again. Gas! Like ppppppbbtt…
"We have to get out of here!" I started to run at Daisy and Mahi, then caught myself and stepped back. It must be thicker by them, and that was why I was less affected. If I went in for them, I would die. Not funny die. Just die.
"Come on, let's go out there!" I said, pointing at the doors behind me. Mahi and Daisy didn't even look at me. Daisy was rolling around and Mahi was pounding the floor as they both just giggled. They look so funny…
I ran out the doors, not even checking if there was anyone waiting out there. I sucked in some deep breaths. The ice water feeling came back, and this time it wasn't funny. I took another deep breath and rushed back in.
I reached Mahi before Daisy. I looked down at him, at his helpless laughing face, and I gave a dry sob. He was too heavy. I would never be able to move him, not with everything I had. I ran past him to Daisy and grabbed her arms, pulling her on her back toward the doors.
"Weeeeeee!" Daisy squealed.
A hand clamped around my ankle. "I want some weeee too!" Mahi cackled. I yanked my foot, already panicking and feeling how funny it was ha ha he has my foot! But Mahi was so much stronger than I was.
"Let go!" I screamed, kicking him with my free foot.
His hand slid loose and I fell forward onto my hands and knees. "That wasn't very funny," he said, looking at me sadly. It was excruciating, laughing and crying at the same time as I crawled toward the doors.
Outside, with a clear head, I cast around desperately for anything I could use. My eyes fell on a toy chest and I dug through until I found some jump ropes. I tied them together and threw one end out toward Daisy.
"Grab on! Please grab on!"
Daisy Stem- Res D4F
I howled with laughter as a rope landed by my head. "Snakey!" I cried, lifting up the plastic end and pointing it at Mahi. I tried to make a hissy noise, but it fell apart as I started laughing again.
I looked at the rope again. Oh, I was right! It really was snake! A hilarious long skinny snake with a pink face and a rainbow body. Noodley snake! The rope fell from my hands as I lay my cheek on the floor and cackled.
I rolled over onto my back, my chest heaving with how hard I was laughing. The ceiling was swimming. It was moving this way and that, swirling and undulating. Sometimes a little critter would pop out and then duck back inside.
"You see that?" I asked Mahi, pointing up.
"They're so cute," he said back.
"Look! Birds!" Crazy multicolor birds, the kinds with the big funny beaks. Pelicans? Rainbow pelicans flying every which way. They were so funny Unique was screaming. Rainbow pelicans, coming right down at us.
Christobal Chanel- Swing Vote D8M
"Cyrene, Jynx and Wyatt," I said.
Juni considered, his eyes scrunched and his chin in his hand. "Kill Cyrene, since she seems like a stuck-up biatch. Wyatt said he was going to marry Dominique in the arena, so I shouldn't break that up. Guess we'll have to have a one-night stand. Oh, that would still break it up, wouldn't it? Okay, marry Wyatt but it gets immediately annulled because of bigamy, so he goes back to Dominique. That leaves Jynx, so I'll take one for Wyatt and Dominique's marriage and bed him."
"Very noble of you," I said. Maybe we should have been doing something more productive, but what a lot of people didn't know about the Games was how very much downtime there was.
"All right, all right. Mahi, Castiel and Mati," Orientation was no consideration, of course. It was a sacred rule of Bed, Marry, Kill that everyone involved, including yourself, was assumed to be pan for the duration of the game.
"Castiel's all self-sacrificing, so he'd want me to kill him," I said. "There's no way I'd one-night-stand Mati. She's way too sweet. I guess I shouldn't assume and maybe she's into that, but I'm not taking that risk. That leaves Mahi as my sweet lover man."
"Good choice. He's definitely one of the hottest guys here," Juni said.
"Really? You like Mahi?" I asked.
"Are you kidding? You saw him in the pool right? Talk about a merman!"
"You know, I think he's available," I said.
"No way. He's always with those two girls," Juni said, waving a hand at me.
"Unique's totally not dating right now. She had that gross guy hitting on her all the time and she's enjoying the single life," I said.
"What, were you spying on her?" Juni asked, genuinely curious.
"Okay, fair question, but no, I just heard her and Mahi talking about it in the cafeteria," I said. When Mahi talked, everyone could hear it.
"Daisy doesn't seem like the dating type," Juni said, seeming to reconsider.
"Maybe the stars will align and our paths will cross," I said with a fake romantic sigh.
"I should have shot my shot," Juni said, shaking his head at himself. "It probably wouldn't have worked out, but I bet he would have liked the compliment."
"If he had taste, he would," I said. I might not be good at winning the Games, but I was fire at being a wingman.
"So who do you think died?" Juni asked.
"Woah, holy mood swing!" I said. I'd been thinking about it too, though. Just when you thought you might be able to think about something else, a cannon came and put you in your place. "Fingers crossed for Cyrene."
"Maybe she died so hard she got two cannons," Juni joked.
"I heard that happened once in an earlier Res Games. Someone's cannon went off, but someone else was giving them CPR and they came back."
"They should have done a 'wah-wahhhhh' sound," Juni said.
"The cannon sound, but in reverse," I suggested. "I think they didn't do anything because they were too embarrassed. It messed everyone up because their count was off."
"I lost count the second day in," Juni said. "There's what, like seventy of us left?"
"Too darn many," I agreed. "On the bright side, two went today."
"Yeah," Juni said. "On the bright side, two kids died."
Cyrene Longuemare- Let the Good Times Roll D4F
It really was embarrassing, how few people we'd killed. Clearly it was time for a classic Career massacre. In an arena like this, there were a million ways. I'd been going over a few possibilities, and I thought I'd landed on the best one.
It wasn't entirely for vanity that I slept in my own room. Privacy was a comfort, but it was also a strategy. What I learned in that room, away from my allies, was something only I learned. It had occurred to me recently that this was an unorthodox Games, and there might be unorthodox options. If I turned out to be wrong, I hadn't lost anything. But when I toggled the switch on the computer on the desk next to my examination table "bed", I watched the screen light up and smiled.
USERNAME? The computer prompted.
ADMIN, I typed, and the same when prompted for a password. If the Gamemakers were going to make the computers functional, it was only logical they'd make them usable. Sure enough, the display shifted from the login screen to a page of various programs and applications.
"Search," I said clearly.
"Proceed," a welcoming neutral voice responded.
"Toxic substances in this location," I said.
"What level of toxicity? Choose from one, which is the lowest, to five, which is the highest." Helpful of the Gamemakers to aim the AI at laymen and not people who actually worked at a hospital.
"Five," I said.
"Toxic substances and live pathogens are stored in a vault on floor seven, in room 778," the AI responded.
I liked the sound of "live pathogens." It wasn't as satisfying to kill from a distance, but work had to come before pleasure.
"What is the most dangerous pathogen in the vault?" I asked.
"Please specify," the AI prompted.
Of course. A term like "dangerous" was too subjective.
"What is the fastest-acting pathogen with the highest mortality rate, which also has an antidote or neutralizer available in this building?" I asked, adding the second bit as I realized the necessity.
"Telstron V may be ideal for your purposes. Exposure causes death within twenty minutes. The substance is available in liquid or gel form and remains active for five days after application. Immunity to Telstron V is granted by ingesting Anti-telstron, which is packaged alongside Telstron V."
That did sound perfect. "Is there a noticeable odor or taste?" I asked.
"No," the AI responded.
Just one more question. "Where does the hospital's water supply originate from?"
"The master pipe is located in the basement, in room 0212."
The last consideration, before I left, was who to take with me. Even a Career shouldn't travel alone, though I didn't need to tell them my plan if I decided it wasn't prudent. Not Emma, since she clearly had a problem with me. I suspected she thought of me as haughty, and I would have to take steps to be more friendly to her. I'd take Margo if everyone else fell through, but I considered her too aggressive and impulsive for my tastes. Diamond came to mind as someone weak enough to not try anything rash. To round out a solid trio, I thought Talise was an intelligent pick. She was clever enough that I'd do well to stay close to her until the end, but I was confident that when that end came, I could eliminate her. It was decided, then. Time to trim the fat.
98th place: Daisy Stem- Laughing gas from Majesty and Arleen
Daisy always dies by getting carried off by birds. Quite the hard prospect when the arena is a hospital. But worry not! I will be the first person to ever say, luckily the Joker is here! That really worked out perfectly. RIP Daisy who never wins but is always a winner.
97th place: Mahi Katao- Laughing gas from Majesty and Arleen
Since Mahi is mine I could give permission for the death POV from Daisy to cover both of them. He's way heavier so it took longer for him to die BTW. It's kind of the best way he could have gone. Still sucks tho.