Nate Fowler, 16, District Nine, Sagittarius

Boom

The cannon sounded, and Nate looked down in dismay, his hands still planted on Revalie's chest, going through the motions of performing CPR. Attempting, desperately, to make up for his rash action earlier. Nate still wasn't entirely sure what had happened. He was just angry and scared and wanted someone to pay for hurting Consus, no matter the cost.

There was a part of him that wanted to blame the island itself. He'd seen the vicious way his doppelganger looked at him, and his mind concocted fanciful stories, about how the vision the lake showed him had somehow taken possession of his body. But he knew better. The lake was dangerous, but it was just drug-induced visions. He'd seen it personally when BV made contact with the water. Whatever compelled him to kill Eli and try to kill Revalie, that was inside him.

Perhaps his vision had been telling the truth after all. Maybe he was just like Peacekeeper Serpentine.

Revalie's chest moved up and down and Nate could hear a slow, raspy breath. Nate was relieved. He didn't want to be responsible for two deaths in one day.

The feeling was short-lived: Consus.

Nate looked to his left, where BV was still performing chest compressions.

"BV. Stop." Nate said, "He's gone."

"I'm not giving up on him."

"You heard the cannon."

"The cannon's tied to heartbeat. People can come back from that. I just have to- have to…"

BV trailed off, too focused on the CPR to finish the conversation.

"Let him." Trent said. Nate had almost forgotten that he was still there. Ever since the fighting began, the younger boy had gone silent.

BV grunted, slightly irritated. It probably had something to do with the CPR.

"But he's already dead." Nate argued.

Trent shrugged, "If he doesn't discount the miracle, he'll spend the rest of his life wondering if it might have come. I still wonder what would have happened if I'd tried to help my parents."

"You would have been trampled with them, I imagine."

"But we can only imagine. We'll never know. Let him know."

Nate looked back to BV, arms locked and face lined with panic. He didn't realize that Consus mattered quite so much to him. Then again, he surprised himself with just how much he wanted BV to succeed.

Consus didn't talk much. Pulled his weight, but not much else. It was a rare moment when he had a plan, and most of the time, he was just the tall, final member who rounded out their group. But that was the thing, he was always there. A silent, unmoving pillar of strength.

For Nate, it was more than that. He was from home. Sure, they hadn't been in the same fields. Consus was never at school with him. But he'd seen him now and again, during reapings, or at harvest festivals. As tragic as it was for so many Nines to be reaped, it was nice to take a little bit of his District with him into the Games.

Perhaps that was why he'd been so harsh to Revalie. When Consus fell into the lake, it felt like part of his world crumbled away.

"Can you make us a fire, Trent?" he asked

"You want to stay here?"

"You said it yourself. We can't move someone while they're hallucinating. We have no idea what Revalie's going to be like when she wakes up."

"Maybe that's not our problem" Trent said, "She's not part of our alliance."

"You want to leave her to die?"

"She killed Consus. She'd do the same to us."

It was true. But Nate was still trying to figure out the balance. He wanted to survive, truly. But when he did so, he wanted there to be something of himself left.

There was a great, hacking cough, and suddenly Consus jolted up, spewing out water as he did so.

"It worked." BV said, almost shocked, "I told you. I told you he wasn't gone yet."

Nate had been overwhelmed to the point of numbness before. He'd been so scared that he couldn't move. So angry that he just stood there shaking, while Peacekeeper Serpentine mocked him about one thing or another. So overcome with sadness that he feared he'd never be able to take another step. But this was the first time that he'd experienced such a sensation because of sheer joy.

"Attention Tributes," A voice called out from an unseen source, "The Gamemakers would like to issue a redaction. There has only been one confirmed kill today. Therefore, the current Tribute count remains at 17."

A redaction. Nate heard this could happen, on occasion, but it certainly had never happened in his lifetime. A brief moment when the Capitol had been wrong. Where someone who was supposed to be dead rose again.

A miracle. And Nate had been so wrapped up in his own guilt, he'd almost prevented it from happening.

"I suppose now we know." Nate said.

"We do," Trent agreed. "I'll get the fire started."

Valency Adamant, 16, District Three, Sagittarius

It took a while to find another island. Not that Valency was particularly worried about it. The Sagittarius island didn't have a lot of food, but the tasteless rations they found in the cave would keep them fed well enough. And thanks to her desalinator, water wasn't a problem. She felt lucky there'd been enough parts to make it. Although, now that she stopped to think about it, she found it strange how plentiful supplies were.

There was a cannon. Then a few moments later, the Capitol announced a redaction.

"What does that mean?" Chenille asked, "How can a cannon not count?"

Valency shrugged, "Maybe it shorted out and went off on accident. Maybe someone got better."

"Better from being dead?"

"It happens."

"So you're saying there's a zombie now?"

"No. I didn't say there was a zombie." Valency said, "I'm saying there might be one."

Chenille looked at Valency skeptically, "Same thing."

"No. There is, and there might be, are very different things. One of the basic scientific principles."

"Ok." Chenille said, then looked back out at the water.

Valency knew that it was nothing, or it might be nothing at any rate. But something about the way Chenille responded formed a knot in her stomach. Was she ignoring her? Most of the time, Valency wouldn't have minded that, or even noticed. She wasn't someone who needed to be liked, for the most part. Her family loved her, she had her inventions, she lived her life the way she wanted. Validation was such a small part of that, it rarely troubled her.

But there was a difference between simply not being liked and being hated. Eli's confession had shaken her confidence. He was supposed to be an ally, someone to trust her life with, yet not only had he disliked her, he disliked her enough that he felt like telling her.

Then there was the matter of Frazier. They had known each other since they were children, two people in the spotlight, despite being far too young for it. She was the genius child and he was the musical prodigy. Valency always felt a sort of kinship with him, and seeing him was often an anchor when fame became too much for her. When he volunteered, Valency was both devastated and relieved. One of them would have to die, which was terrible. But she wouldn't be alone.

Except, apparently, he hated her.

Valency still didn't quite believe it. Or perhaps she refused to believe it. But the possibility alone seeped in through the cracks of her emotional armor. One of the advantages of doing everything was that she didn't have to dwell on any one thing for too long. Keep moving, keep exploring, if she loved enough different things fast enough, the world could never touch her.

But her mind was on a hamster wheel today. No matter where she ran, it always came back to the same spot eventually. Did Chenille like her? Or was this another brush off, another person who was secretly hiding resentment?

"Has that always been there?" Chenille asked, pointing.

Valency looked in the direction of her finger, and saw a large structure, looming over them in the distance. Although too dark to see, she suspected it might be an island. And Chenille was right, they weren't moving fast enough for something that large to appear so suddenly. Most likely, it hadn't been there earlier.

The hamster wheel spun around again, and she returned to a thought she'd almost forgotten. Resources were easy to come by, as were weapons. Which meant that the Gamemakers weren't expecting many survival deaths. This was unusual, as combat-heavy arenas were often smaller, forcing tributes together. Valency felt like she had been rowing for hours.

Experimentally, she placed a hand in the water. It was cool, though not overly so. No one would freeze if they decided to swim or were knocked out of their gondolas. And despite the illusion of calm, the water had a strong enough current that she could feel it against her hand. Perhaps that was one of the reasons the arena felt so big: Their boat was being dragged towards the center, which meant that for every two steps forward, they were taking one step back.

Perhaps that wasn't the only thing the current was there for.

"I don't think these are islands." Valency said.

"What do you mean?" Chenille asked, "They look like islands to me."

"Islands are tiny bits of land mass. They're surrounded by water, but they're connected to the earth, just like a larger continent. I don't think these are attached. So they're floating. Like… barges. Barges made of dirt."

"Ok." Chenille said, using that tone again. What was that tone? Was she being obnoxious? Valency had to stop thinking like this. It made her lose focus, which was something she didn't have in large supply. "But what does that matter?"

"I think that the current is dragging them all to the cornucopia." Valency answered, "They're moving slowly, because they're large. But eventually, in a day or so maybe, the islands are going to start hitting the cornucopia, until the whole arena is a big Pangea."

Chenille let out a long, low whistle. "That's going to make playing defensively difficult."

"A little. But we know, now. And knowing is half the battle. With our desalinator, we don't need to spend as much time on any of the islands. So we'll explore it for supplies, then keep moving. Stick to the water. Maybe I'll find a way to automate the rowing, so we can keep a steady pace and beat the current."

"You're so smart."

Valency almost agreed, but Revalie's voice echoed in her brain.

'Talking like that is why people think you're arrogant.'

"Thank you." she said, and before she could read anything else into Chenille's reactions, Valency steered them towards the newly appeared island.

Hades Yamaguchi, 18, District Two, Libra

When Hades decided that he wanted to volunteer for the Hunger Games, there were a lot of things he took into consideration. Whether he wanted to become a killer, whether it was even ethical to use the Games as a way to gain the power to change the world. How much he wanted to focus on survival skills versus combat. He thought that he'd gone through every scenario, every question. Perhaps that was naivete. There were too many possibilities, too many ways for things to go wrong.

For example, he hadn't expected to be bored out of his mind.

It made sense to send Nixie and Ally out. They were both capable killers, and Nixie needed an opportunity to either get her head on straight or take herself out of the equation. And of course, given the current tension, he needed to send Solomon out to reduce the potential of friendly fire. But that meant that he was left to guard the cornucopia, with no one but Millie for company.

Millie was an intriguing sort, but hardly a social one. Most of the time she stood at the banks of their island, impossibly still as she watched the lapping of the waves. He tried to make conversation on occasion, but she just stared at him blankly, as though she wasn't sure what he was doing.

If he had anything else to do, he doubted it would bother him. There was something about Millie that was far more thoughtful and intelligent than he would have expected from someone her age, particularly given her background. There were moments when they would stand together without speaking, and he felt more known than when surrounded by hundreds in his home district.

But now they were on day three, none of the others had come back, and no one had come close to the cornucopia. There were only so many times he could count their supplies or try to bait his companion into conversation. He was starting to feel like if this continued, he'd swim out to another island, just for something to do.

He wasn't quite there yet, however. So once again he stood next to Millie, fully expecting to be ignored again.

She surprised him by speaking first, "There's something going on with the islands."

Hades cupped his hand around the eyes, but he lacked her ability to see in the dark. All he could make out was darkness, and possibly, different darkness. Still, he knew enough not to doubt her.

"What is it?" he asked.

"They're closer. I think they've been doing it for a while. But I didn't notice at first."

It was a strange revelation, and one he wasn't entirely sure how to approach. But at least it gave him a problem to solve.

"Do you think they're going to crash into us?"

Millie nodded.

Well, that wasn't good.

"How slow are they moving?" he asked

Millie didn't answer for a while. Sometimes she did that when she was thinking. The girl often paused in conversation, or left them entirely. Hades knew she hadn't forgotten him, though. She always answered him eventually.

"I don't think it will cause any damage." She said, answering the meaning behind his words rather than the actual question. It was a talent of hers. "But we may need to brace ourselves. Stay away from the weapons."

Hades could do that. "Do you have any idea when they'll hit us?"

The sky lit up, and instead of answering Millie covered her eyes. This had happened the previous couple nights as well. The girl was oddly suited to this arena, but there were still moments where her vision did her a disservice.

"The boy from Four died." He narrated to her, "I'm a bit surprised by that. He was trained and had a strong alliance."

Millie said nothing. Usually it was just because she had nothing to say, but it still made him a bit antsy.

The image shifted, which surprised Hades. There had been two cannons today, but the head gamemaker herself had gotten onto a microphone to say that the second was an error. Yet there was one of the Nine boys, a black and white photo that slowly grew more saturated. As the anthem reached its climax, the words 'still alive' appeared underneath the boy's photo.

"Consus is still alive." Hades said, "The really large boy from nine. I wonder what happened."

Millie attempted to look up, only for the light to force her to hide again, "I remember him. He was nice to me."

"Well, the Capitol wants him dead."

"How can you tell?"

Sometimes Hades forgot how sheltered Millie was. She was an expert at human nature, understanding intimately what people wanted and what they might do to get it. But the minute politics showed up she was clueless. That was alright. Hades had learned from the best and could lead her through it.

"They showed his picture during the anthem and specified that he was still alive." He explained, "Which means they just told all the other survivors that he had a near death experience and is probably injured. If I knew where he was, I'd probably target him now. Him and BV are the two members of that alliance that I'm the most worried about and I can't be the only person thinking like that."

"Does it bother you how easy it is for you to think like that?" she asked.

It truly was astounding how insightful she was.

"It used to. But that was years ago. I destroyed all of my doubt during training."

The anthem faded and Millie removed her arms from her eyes and looked directly at him, "Why do you want to kill people so bad?"

Hades paused. He felt like he owed her a good explanation. "It's not that I want to kill them, exactly. But the Games happen every year. Nothing I do will stop them. So at some point, I just realized that if I was in them, there was a chance I could use the Games as an opportunity to enact real change. That way, the deaths would mean something."

Millie's pause was much longer than his, and he suspected that she was going to wander off again. But instead she just turned back to the water. "Give me an hour. Maybe two."

"What for?" he asked

"To determine when the islands are coming."

She hadn't forgotten, even though Hades had. "Thank you." he said.

Millie didn't answer. She just stared off into the darkness, and Hades let her be.

AN: And that's the end of day three, everybody. No deaths this chapter (the opposite even) so there's no eulogies. But I like having little author's notes, so here I am. I love you all, thank you everyone who reviews and talks to me about the story. Feedback makes me super warm and fuzzy inside. But even if you don't review, I really appreciate you for sticking with me. I hope you enjoy this chapter!