Birdie Seguaro- District Five female (14)

This was just about the best week or so of my life. I'd never dreamed I would get to go to someplace like this. It was as different from the desert as could be. I'd seen coniferous trees before but never this many. They just kept going forever. The desert was mostly brown. Here it was so green I could smell it. It really did smell like the candles my grandmother burned in winter- what we called winter, anyway. Once back home there was a flash flood and after it went down to safe levels I got to play in the streams. Here we had a river all the time. Just all the time! It was just there! And birds and salamanders and once a fox came into camp and we all watched in awe, trying not to spook it, until it went for our bag of rice and Kendall shouted at it. All in all, the best time of my life. But not today. Today sucked.

"This sucks," Taylor said. We were sitting around our fire waiting for the Viking hordes to come. We hadn't even bothered to cook our rice yet. They couldn't take it or anything. We were just too blah to cook. We just sat there hungry and stewing in our misery.

"I'm not much for cusswords, but I could cuss," Leo said.

As we sat, we swapped theories on what Ellekoner would take. Taylor said they were going to take our shelter. Our shelter was nothing but some pine boughs, which Ellekoner already had, but Taylor said they'd take it just to be dicks. Val feared for his spare underpants and had smeared them with mud as a really gross deterrent. I honestly had no idea.

"Here they come!"

Kendall, being a Career, was the first to hear them coming. Isabella had told us all that Ellekoner could send two people. We didn't have much idea who to expect, though we suspected Octavia might want to see her brother. She didn't, though, or at least she didn't come. Probably she was afraid of courting votes by having an ally on the other tribe. Instead it was Amberlynn and Enzo who came into view.

"Hey!" Enzo called, waving an arm. "How are ya?"

"Had better," Taylor snarked.

Enzo and Amberlynn reached camp and started making a round. Amberlynn was carrying a woven grass basket. Someone over there must have been a weaver, too. That was good news for our baskets, which were the last memento we had of Clover. Some people on our tribe were really good liars, because all of us insisted we hadn't voted for him.

"Oh, cool," Amberlynn said of our shelter. "Ours is actually smaller than that. I guess we get cold easily."

"How'd you all make the fire?" Enzo asked.

"Four-eyes over here." Trydan pointed at Taylor, who flashed a thumbs-up.

"Man, it would be evil if we took those," Amberlynn said. "Don't worry, pretty sure that's against the rules."

"So what are you going to take?" Kendall said, speaking for all of us. We really just wanted this over.

Enzo and Amberlynn shared a look. They got these cheesy smiles that were worse than an evil laugh.

"About that…" he started. "Your stuff kind of sucks."

"We discussed it, and it kind of sucks you all have terrible luck. So instead of taking anything…"

Enzo lifted off the top of their basket and reached inside. "Ta-da!" He lifted out a half-full bottle of yellow liquid and a canister of dried leaves.

"We decided to share our stuff!" Amberlynn announced with a showman's flourish.

No kidding? I had thought it wasn't exactly unfair, but sort of a bummer, that the teams were so lopsided. We weren't even terrible at everything. We just never won.

"For real?" Kendall echoed my thoughts. He got to his feet curiously with the rest of us.

"We looked through our stuff and we had some extra cooking oil," Enzo started as he handed the bottle to Leo. "And Lana's a really good cook, so she made this spice blend."

Amberlynn reached into the bottom of the basket. "And this rope," she finished, taking out a small coil. "I dunno, you could tie something together or something."

"You all for real?" I asked again. I guessed when we thought about it, we'd barely interacted with Ellekoner. We'd built them up in our heads as arrogant golden children, but they were probably just normal people like us.

Enzo shrugged. "No one's dying this year, so we might as well have some fun. Besides, I think we're gonna merge eventually. It would suck if we all hated each other."

"That's pretty cool," Kendall said. He gave an approving nod.

I unscrewed the slice jar and took a sniff. It smelled like vegetable soup. We could definitely work with this.

"You think Isabella will be mad if you don't take anything?" Trydan asked.

"Oh. Maybe," Amberlynn said. "I dunno, what do you all not need?"

"Here, take this cool rock I found." Leo reached into his pocket. We weren't sure what the rock was, but it was purplish translucent with a white vein that left a line if we dragged it across something hard.

"Woah, that is cool," Enzo said as he took it.

"And… this pine bough." Kallik took one off the top of our shelter.

"Wow, it's a perfect match for the ones we have!" Amberlynn said.

"Is it against the rules to visit each other other than this?" Yarrow asked as Enzo and Amberlynn were leaving.

"I've been wondering, too," Amberlynn said. "I don't remember anyone saying it."

"In case it is, tell Octavia I said hi," Val said.

"She said hi, too," Enzo said. He waved. "See you soon!"

"See you soon!"

Kallik- District Two female (18)

Josie was a pretty cool kid. She'd been following me around for the past few days, trying to help me fish or gathering wood with me or things like that. She seemed to think I was the coolest thing ever. I remembered being her age and thinking older girls were so wide and mature and pretty. It would pass eventually but until then I'd be cool about it.

"You wanna hear a secret?" she asked. She kicked her legs back and forth as we sat on a log braiding some grass into a rope.

"Sure," I said. I had a feeling it might be about who on our tribe was the cutest, based on her expression.

"Leo and I kissed," she said.

I looked up sharply. "What?"

Josie didn't notice my alarm. She was looking off dreamily. "We were getting water a few days ago and he said I was really pretty and asked if he could kiss me. He's so cute so of course I said yes. I thought he was too old to notice me but he says I'm so mature for my age." I let her keep going. "When we get back we're going to write letters. He says if he gets a job on the trains he can come visit." She looked at me with the starry expression I'd seen in way too many of my friends. I'd worn it myself once, though my own precocious crush had ended when I saw Atanarjuat blow a snot rocket one day. This was far more serious.

"Have you done anything else with him?" I asked, acting normal.

"Just talking," Josie said. "It's hard to find a place with no cameras."

Oh hell no do not find a place with no cameras. I was freaking out, trying to figure out what even to do, when an ugly thought came to me. Josie seemed so sincere. It seemed horrible to think she would lie about this. But it was also horrible to think Leo would do this. I knew what I'd been told about religious people, but I also knew Leo. He didn't seem like that. But I knew how important it was to believe victims. But I also knew tribal council was tonight.

Yarrow's interview (unedited): We've got to get rid of him. I wanted to go to Isabella immediately but the others said tribal council was good enough. God that's disgusting.

Taylor's interview: This is bullshit. She's lying. I know that's horrible to say and normally I'd believe someone, but get real. She's never mentioned this before? It just happened to come out on tribal council night? It just happens to be Leo, the nicest person here? She's just trying to save herself. This is beyond evil and I'm not falling for it.

Taylor's edited interview: This is bullshit. She's just trying to save herself. Beyond evil.

Leo's interview (unedited): I don't kiss little kids! There are cameras everywhere. Y'all at home better watch the footage and you'll see. She has a crush or she's trying to get me voted out, but I didn't do it! I don't like little kids! Ew!

Shep's interview: This happens sometime in my community. It's really gross. I don't know what's going on here. Josie didn't seem like she was trying to get Leo in trouble. She seemed happy about it. But why would Leo be that stupid? If he does like little kids, why would he do it on TV?

Shep's edited interview: This happens sometimes in my community. It's really gross and it's always the religious ones.

Val Vella- District Two male (18)

Boy howdy did we have something to discuss tonight.

"Anything to discuss before we start the vote?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah. Leo's a pervert," Yarrow said.

"I'm not!" Leo, sitting at the edge of our bench, spread out his arms with the palms up.

"Is this true?" Isabella's face went alarmed in a very genuine way. Cameras or not, this was serious.

"No! We're in love!" Josie said. Kallik, who had seated herself between her and Leo, blocked her as she reached out to him.

"Bullshit," Taylor said darkly.

"Pull up the footage!" Leo pleaded.

"There are areas in the island with no cameras," Isabella said uncertainly. "Are there any witnesses to this?"

"No. We asked," Kendall said.

"But we have to believe her," Yarrow said.

"This is very serious," Isabella said. "We'll be investigating thoroughly. I may not be able to tell you all the details of what we find, but for now there will be a cameraman with Josie at all times for her safety."

"We didn't do anything wrong!" Josie protested.

Me? I wasn't sure I was buying it. Josie was a smart girl and she had to know that as the smallest, she was a target. It may not have been her fault, but we were tired of losing. Real truth, though? I didn't care if it was true. They clearly hadn't had sex, so Leo was at worst a gross creep who got caught in time. And whether or not he did it, if he went home, I didn't go home. And if he didn't, Josie would.

"You certainly have a lot to think about," Isabella said after a few more statements. "If anyone has an immunity idol, now is the time to play it." Silence. "You may cast your votes."

Birdie went first. She came back and silently slid into her place on the bench, her face uncertain. Taylor was next, then Kendall. Shep walked into the voting hut, then stood in the door and held his slip up.

"I didn't know what to do so I wrote Kallik," he said, showing the name he'd written extra large to be visible. "I just knew it wouldn't be her. I'm not mad at Kallik."

"No, no, I get it," Kallik said.

"I did that too but I picked Trydan," Birdie admitted. Everyone else cast their votes in silence.

Isabella stood behind the ominous urn. "Once I've read the votes, the decision is final." She picked out a slip. "Trydan." She tossed it to the side. "Kallik." Clearly the votes had been arranged to get the bogus ones out of the way. The air went fraught as she went for the first real one.

"Leo."

Leo nodded silently. Taylor put her hand on his.

"Leo."

"Leo."

"Josie."

Josie looked up with a scared-little-girl expression.

"Josie. That's two votes Josie, three votes Leo."

"Josie. We're tied, three votes Josie, three votes Leo."

Interesting. Still a win-win for me. Either we lost our weakest member or someone with such a good social game he almost survived this

"Josie. That's four votes Josie, three votes Leo, one vote left."

Josie was crying. I noticed it wasn't silent. Leo just looked confused.

Isabella opened the final paper. "Fourth person voted out: Josie."

Josie's exit interview (unedited): I don't understand how they could do this to me. They said Leo shouldn't have done this. Why did they punish me, then? And send me home? I don't even have a home. I'm an orphan. I have nothing to go back to and no one in the world cares about me.

Fourth eliminated: Josie Stone

Bit of a surprise here as far as out of universe goes, but I messaged Josie's submitter some time ago and got zilch so I'm pretty sure she's not active. It entered my mind a few days ago that Josie would 100% falsely accuse someone in order to save herself. I thought I probably wouldn't do it since I wouldn't want to the damage to the eliminated contestant's reputation, but when Josie needed to go instead I saw my chance. In-universe Leo will quickly be cleared based on triangulation of cameras and the Tributes' safety trackers. Josie definitely would have wrought major havoc if she'd stayed. Bummer she was inactive but I at least got her to make this much trouble.

Idol news: it's been found! The idol was hidden at Çatalhöyük, a paleolithic/neolithic site in Turkey that is often pronounced "cattle-hoyuk", though the accurate pronunciation is a little different. Congrats to the finder!