District 4 female - Hazel Mayfly, 17

"And I had, like, three other allies, but they're all dead now so I'm all alone, y'know. I think Rick wants to ally with me though, at least, he did during training, just because we're in the same district. Maybe I could take him up on it now, he's still alive after all. But then again, he's kind of annoying. And young. He's like, fourteen."

"Who's Rick again?"

"The mayor's son - super competitive in swimming and like, every sport, little blond kid."

"Right." Alex frowned, seeming like he was struggling to remember who Luderick Bellamy was. I was sitting against his cage, and I had been since I'd found him about a day ago. To my luck, no one was at the cornucopia when I arrived, so I just walked right in and found my tracker, and it took me a day to find Alex, but since I'd found him back in the spring section (he somehow was unaffected by the flood) I'd just sit by his cage and talk to him.

But the thing was, I wouldn't set him free. I just talked to him about anything and everything, telling him that if he was nice to me, I'd set him free. I hadn't even brought up his betrayal - it didn't seem like the right moment. I just needed him to make me feel less lonely. In a way, if I tried to forget what Alex had done to me, he was comforting to talk to. It felt like home. He was home.

I felt like I'd gone against everything I'd said to myself on the train - that I'd win for myself, get revenge on Alex, be the strong, independent woman who didn't need a man like him in my life, who could win this thing and stay bitter against Alex. I was a bitter person - I was bitter towards my parents, towards my brother, towards my ex-best friend. Towards almost everyone I knew, but I couldn't bring myself to be bitter towards Alex.

"Soooo, um… you know part of this game is that you have to, like, set me free…?"

I glared at him. After what he did to me, he thought I would set him free just like that? I found myself laughing at the thought - laughing like a mad woman, my tone high, crazy. I couldn't even stop laughing - Alex made me feel crazy.

Everything about him, the betrayal, the way I knew what he tasted like, I'd felt every part of his body and he'd felt every part of mine and I'd put so much trust into him, and how I'd seen him as my soulmate, how I thought we were going to grow old together and run away together, and I was going to marry him and I was going to have his babies and I was going to die with him as an old couple, and now, here I was, in the Hunger Games, talking with the man I loved, yet the man who had brutally betrayed me.

Thrown me away, and used me like I was nothing to him. Like a whole year of getting to know me and who I was, getting to see the side of me that no one else did, learning my favourite colour and my middle name and showering me with gifts and kissing me and making love to me and holding me when I was upset and buying me my favourite flowers was all for nothing. Like I was a waste - all I was to him was just a stupid girl who he got free money off of.

And I was so mad at him. Like I could punch him and scream at him and yell and kick and scream and kick and scream until he realised he was wrong - I was more than that, I was so much more than that, I was a fantastic thief and I knew the value of money and I never got caught stealing and I was strong and I was smart and I loved pretty things and bright colours and I didn't like the smell of fish despite being from district four and my favourite colour was green and he knew that, he knew all that and yet he looked past it. I needed his love, I was desperate for his love, for his attention, but what if the end was near and I was voted into the Hunger Games because Alexander Goldspinner was an awful man who I loved and hated and I was crying.

"It's OK, Hazel…" he said, and he was reaching out of the cage to stroke my hair, and I wanted to yell at him, scream at him, tell him to 'DON'T FUCKING TOUCH ME' but I loved Alex Goldspinner and there was nothing I could do about that. And he wasn't supposed to be in this arena but he was, because this was a Quarter Quell and the game makers put him in here with me and now I was talking to him when I didn't want to, and he was distracting me. Maybe this whole thing was a distraction and a trap.

The sickness in me came out swiftly, all over the grass, and Alex winced at the sight of it. He never had liked vomit.

"Do you really have to do that, Hazel?" he said, scrunching up his nose.

And that was it.

"Do you really have to be here? Did you really have to pretend to love me to get money out of me? Did you really have to use me? Am I nothing to you?"

"I suppose so," he said, and at that, I stood up, marching away from his cage.

Don't look back, don't look back…

He could save himself from that damn cage. I hated him.

District 6 female - Cindy Trimmers, 18

"That fucking rat…" George was fuming. I'd seen him angry, but not like this. He really had something against Career tributes. He hated how they were rich, he hated how they had trained for this his whole life. He hated how they thought they were better than us. He hated how they got the cornucopia every single year. We'd spent the past two days straight trying to find the girl from six, and even Carmilla was getting sick of it.

I tried to rationalise with him - tried to explain that there were other, easier tributes that we could take out, that we didn't just have to focus on her, but he wouldn't listen to me. If I was being honest, I felt a bit bad for the girl. Sure, I wanted her dead, but in a way, I wanted George dead more. He had said some completely disgusting things about the girl from two. How he wanted to hurt her so badly, how he wanted to do unthinkable things to her. I wanted to just kill her quickly - make it painless, but he wanted to enjoy it.

And when he mentioned one certain thing he wanted to do to her, it tipped me over the edge. It tipped me to the edge where I had pinned him to the floor, I had held a dagger to his throat, screaming at him, cursing him, and Carmilla had to pull me off of him, which made me angry at her. Why would she do that? Why would she save him, take his side, I had screamed in her face for a solid five minutes.

"HOW COULD YOU!" I'd screamed as George gripped onto me, taking my knife from me. "HOW COULD YOU EVEN SUGGEST THAT, YOU DISGUSTING PIG!"

"Cindy," Carmilla had hissed. "Who cares!?"

"WHO CARES!?" I had repeated, screaming and struggling against George's grip. "WHO CARES! GEORGE JUST SAYS HE WANTS TO FUCKING… HOW COULD HE… HOW COULD YOU…."

"If you care about the Career bitch so much why don't you go be with her, then?" George had said cooly, pressing my own knife against my torso.

I'd kicked backwards, hitting George in his groin with my foot, and he'd lost his grip on me, I'd taken my knife back, along with his, pointing it at him.

"We are allies," I'd snapped. "And because of that, I will keep the both of you alive for now. We have each other's backs. But if I ever hear something like that come out of your mouth ever again, and Carmilla, you defending it… you will both be sorry."

Ever since then, George had never mentioned it again. So now, on the sixth day, he was angry, yes, but he was careful with what he said around me. Carmilla had somewhat taken my side once again - she seemed to be switching sides over and over again. We'd both decided that once there were five tributes left - we'd kill him. Then we'd fight the other two tributes together.

Little did she know that I had every intention of killing her as well.

That night, we drifted to sleep at the cornucopia. If the Career girl wasn't going to have it - we would. I kept my knife close to me as I slept - all three of us did, every night. But at this point, I had it close to me because I was more worried about what Carmilla and George might want to do to me, rather than anyone else.

I was in a deep sleep when I heard Carmilla screaming.

My eyes snapped open immediately, and I saw Carmilla on the floor, bleeding, with the girl from two on top of her, and then suddenly George was pulling the girl off of Carmilla and pinning her to the floor.

My heart rate increased, and I watched as Carmilla squirmed and wailed as she struggled to breathe, with a knife directly in her heart. I pulled the knife out of her heart so she would bleed to death - making it quicker for her. I then watched as George tortured the girl from two - her screams piercing the night air. He ran his knife down the sides of her body, making her bleed out slowly but not killing her yet.

I heard a cannon signifying that Carmilla had died and saw George touching the girl from two's chest, and I couldn't let it happen. I kicked him off of her and stabbed the side of his head with the knife that had killed Carmilla, right into his brain. I heard his cannon and as I pulled the knife out, his blood was on my shaking hands.

I turned to the girl from two, who was crying on the floor. She was bleeding a lot.

I knelt down to her, and whispered a sorry before stabbing her heart, taking her out of the pain she was in. I was only sorry because she'd done nothing wrong but play the games well. But I'd beat her. I pulled the knife out and another cannon went off.

I dropped the knife and crouched down for a second, breathing in deeply, looking at the three of them there, bleeding and dead. It was an odd sight - these two people I'd grown somewhat of a connection to and a girl I'd told them not to hurt too badly, all just lying there dead and then just… me. Standing there. The air around me felt suffocating, in a way, because I couldn't help to imagine what would have happened if the girl from two had killed me first - I'd be dead, and would the others?

Somehow my alliance, and the final Career - were all gone in one night.

By the sixth night, there were six tributes left. And I knew that the sixth night would be a night I'd remember forever, however long my forever was.

9th place - Carmilla Wilkes (D5F), killed by Dania in her sleep on the sixth night

8th place - George Caron (D6M), killed by Cindy on the sixth night

7th place - Dania Khatib, injured severely by George then put out of her misery by Cindy on the sixth night