i'm so sorry in advance guys. this one got me too.

Valerie "Val" Wright (15) - District Seven Female

She hadn't stopped coughing for two solid days, and Val was ready to get out of here. Wherever this cursed place was, it was terrible. Honestly, Val was pretty sure that there was more dust in the air than actual breathing air.

God this entire arena was miserable. The rocky ground wasn't pleasant to sleep on either, and she was confident that she'd only gotten a combined five hours of sleep during the time that they'd been launched into the arena and now. At least the death toll projected in the sky over the last few nights told her that there were thirteen tributes between her alliance and getting out of this place.

But there would be no crying over her alliance (and its former member)'s fate. Crying would just lead to her brother and Oscar being uncomfortable and her getting dehydrated and putting herself at a worse position in the arena than she already was. Because, you know what the other kids back home in Seven said, hydrate or diedrate. Val would much rather not appeal to sponsors than diedrate.

"Cmon Oscar," she nudged the boy awake. "We're going to go see if we can find a better place to hide out."

The boy rolled over with a quiet groan and rubbed his eyes lightly after pushing himself up into a sitting position.

Of course, Vince was already sitting up and ready for them to head out, shoulders slouched and a typical grumpy look pasted on his face. Val walked over and ruffled his hair with a playful giggle, hoping to brighten both his and her mood. She wasn't quite sure whether it worked or not, but it did distract her just a little bit from her earlier thoughts about the dust and what it might have done to someone that she missed dearly.

A couple of minutes later, Oscar was more awake than he had been and the alliance was all packed up and ready to move. Val was just hoping that it wouldn't be too far of a walk before they discovered what they were looking for. She normally had some pretty good walking stamina from all of her venturing and hunting back home, but with all this dust, not even the most experienced runner would be able to run too much of the ground that they'd normally be able to cover.

Thankfully, only a couple of miles later, a shining obsidian building was discovered. It was only about a story and a half tall, but the fancy looking columns that it had made it look larger. But when the trio climbed the steps to enter it, the interior was a lot different than what they would have expected.

Several large touchscreens were attached to the lustrous black walls, and upon further glance, Val noticed that they had little boxes with each of the tributes' names and pictures on them. The options with both her and her brother's information on them were lit up in red, almost as if they wanted to be selected. And so she did.

Val pressed a finger to her glowing box and the screen let out a beeping noise, a metal clicking sound occurring behind her. Turning quickly, she noticed that a compartment had opened in a row of larger sized black storage locker looking things. And the best part was what lay within. A gorgeous looking bow and quiver of arrows sat waiting for her.

A smile just lit up her face, and Val hoped that there was a camera in this room as she tilted her head up and whispered, "Thank you so much."

Vincent "Vince" Wright (18) - District Seven Male

Vince had just barely had enough time to process the whole touchscreen thing where his name was lit up before he saw his sister pull a whole bow and quiver of arrows out of some newly opened compartment. What on earth prompted someone to get his sister a sponsor gift like that? She didn't need to be using something like that. He could do all of the protecting for her, and she could just focus on the survival skill aspects of things, but no, she never listened to him.

Honestly, he should have expected it, but he was hoping that if he kept giving her chances, that she might listen to him one day and decide that his plan was the smart one and the one that she should follow. He should probably just give it up. He'd done it enough times to pretty much know that it wasn't how a teenage girl like Val worked. Wait, did all teenage girls act like that?

The only two girls in that category that he'd been around were his sister and Diane, so he wasn't quite sure whether or not that was true. Although, he wasn't sure if he could even count his ex in that category because she hadn't acted like her actual self around him and had just been around him to fool him into trusting her. It was a mistake that he would never make again though.

His trust was reserved for Val, and Val alone. His sister was the only person that he knew was being actually herself around him, and he wasn't going to make an exception for anyone else, even meek little Oscar who Vince was pretty sure couldn't even hurt a fly.

"Vince! Are you even paying attention?" his sister blurted out to him. "You're next to press your name. It's lit up like mine, so I wonder what you've gotten!"

Vince sighed, walking over to the screen and tapping his name with a fingertip. Soon enough, one of the smallest compartments at the top of the cabinet like thing that all of them formed popped open and Vince quickly stepped over to it before Val could get her hands all over his sponsor gift.

The shadows masked what it was just well enough so that he couldn't see the item that he wrapped his fingers around before it emerged from the locker. A dark green vial about the size of his palm was the object that he'd pulled out of the compartment, and Vince knew well enough that this had to be poison.

If it were something to be used for their survival on the consumption side, it would be labeled, and this was not. They must have figured that he was smart enough to know the difference between a vial of poison and a vial of medicine. Time enough that the Capitol gave him credit for more than being just a protective brute of an older brother.

"What is that?" Val asked curiously as she peered over his shoulder.

"Something that you should know better than to consume. Unless of course, you want to commit suicide, which I won't let you anyway."

Scoffing, his sister replied, "Oh please. I'm not stupid. I hope you know that of all people."

And again, with her attitude. Yes, Vince did know, in fact, that his sister wasn't stupid. But she definitely made up for it with her headstrong instincts to just jump into the middle of something. It would end up being the death of her if she wasn't careful, which was exactly why Vince was doing what he was doing.

Kasai Westbrook (18) - District Four Male

Kasai had somehow ended up on the last watch of the morning because apparently he was the least likely to slit everyone's throats in the middle of the night. Fine with him. The ability to be trusted was a point of pride where he came from, although Kasai really didn't care either way. The only bad part about last watch was the fact that he always ended up slightly more tired than the rest of the pack. They got their rest while he woke up early and didn't sleep very well during the time that the others had their watches.

Thankfully, his watch duties were about up for the day. He could hear the light commotion of the other Careers waking up and getting up from where they'd laid their sleeping bags on the ground of the marble building. It had been rather drafty, and Kasai was grateful to have a little bit of extra coverage with how thin the arena outfit that he'd been put in was. They all had similar ones except for Ruga, and it was definitely common knowledge that he didn't like being the odd one out like this.

"Morning everyone," Kasai mumbled as the others rose from the ground and started rolling up their sleeping bags.

"Morning," Goneril replied, the others following suit a few moments after.

(Again with the glares from Ruga. Feelings may have been hard for Kasai, but he definitely could feel a bit frustrated with Ruga's obsession with himself and thinking that he was better than the rest of them)

"So what's the plan for today?" Sublime cut in.

"We need to..."

"I say we..."

And they were back to cutting each other off again. It happened every single time that anyone asked what they needed to do, questions that they would ask the leader of the pack. Technically, they were supposed to be directed towards Goneril, who'd earned the spot and the pack's trust, but Ruga always tried to butt in because he still thought that he deserved to lead the pack.

It was his fault that he wasn't. After all, he'd been the one all for having Goldena in the pack, and what had she done? She died in the Bloodbath at the hands of the Eight girl. Admittedly, the Eight girl was a very strong Outlier, but still, all that did was make the pack look bad. Not to mention the fact that they hadn't gotten a single kill since the Bloodbath. That was surely making them look weak as well. But hopefully that would change today.

"Uh, how about we check out the rest of this building first and find a good spot to put the bulky stuff that we've got so that we don't have to carry everything while we go hunt down some more tributes afterwards," he suggested, trying to keep everything neutral and the Twos from having another yelling match with each other.

Eventually (with some groaning but whatever), everyone agreed to Kasai's idea and finished packing everything up. Everyone had a sleeping bag and a backpack to carry, along with their respective weapons, and they were just looking for a hidden little crevice or niche to primarily store the sleeping bags.

The group passed underneath another doorway that led them further into the largeish building. It seemed to be larger than it looked on the outside, and the exterior was pretty impressive already.

But, something in the air seemed off. Still, Kasai kept walking forward, until he couldn't?

His ankles was tangled in something, and as he bent down to get himself untangled, he was all of a sudden yanked off his feet.

A yelp emerged from his throat at this, his allies shouting back where they were standing on the ground. What was going on?

There. In the only shadowed corner in the room. Of course. It was Naymena the deserter with her traps, come to kill them all the coward's way. Kasai wasn't about to let that happen, but first he had to get out of this blasted trap.

Except, he couldn't. His arms were just too tight against his body and he had nothing to cut the rope with. No, there had to be a way to escape this, right?

Akin to a spider, Naymena climbed her way across the web of rope that she'd weaved to catch one of the Careers. As she got closer, Kasai knew that there was no hope left for him. There was no way that he could escape now. He was the fly stuck in her web that couldn't escape. But that didn't mean he still couldn't give her a hard time though.

He started struggling in the rope's hold, wriggling and squirming as he watched the dark angel that would soon take his life approach. Even the struggle that he put up didn't phase her. His district partner just pulled an arrow out of the quiver on her back and made moves to hold his head still.

Kasai took a final breath as she touched the point of the arrow to the nape of his neck and closed his eyes when he felt it pierce his skin. And then, there was nothing but darkness and silence.

Boom!

Indigo Whitesand (17) - District Eleven Female

The cannon didn't even surprise her. Honestly, it was a welcome feeling at this point. Such a bad thought to have, but Indigo was glad that there was one less person in between her and seeing Verde and Eleven again.

Indigo was so tired of wandering around, trying to find a shelter with food and water nearby. It had been a whopping three days since she'd last eaten something and the constant growling of her stomach was even more annoying than her hunger and thirst.

She would find something eventually, she kept telling herself. It would come. She was liked at least a bit during their time in the Capitol, so someone would have to send her something, right?

Wait, what was that? Oh, it was a building! With an orchard next to it too! Finally.

Alright then, Indigo thought to herself. She would go explore the building first and find a good place to set up her little camp and then scope out what was growing in those couple rows of what looked to be fruit trees.

The black marble seemed to almost radiate the heat that never abated in the air in this part of the arena. It was really reflective though; Indigo could even see her exact reflection through the orange smog of the dust that never vanished from the air either. Nothing back home even came close to reminding her of this. Everything in Eleven was dulled from years of use, and even when it was replaced with a new thing, a gritty film came over it quickly and made it look just as old as the thing next to it.

However, the inside of the building was even more peculiar than the outside. Upon walking through the doorway, Indigo noticed that the left wall was covered in two large touchscreens and the right wall was covered in locker-type compartments made of the same material as the structure itself.

As she approached the larger of the touchscreens, Indigo noticed that there was a little option with her name and face on it. It was glowing red too. It couldn't be anything bad, could it?

Well, she was already in the arena with odds for certain death against her, so she might as well see what this did. Pressing the pad of her index finger to the option, Indigo spun around as she heard something open behind her.

One of those locker compartments had swung open, revealing a shiny silver canteen and two packs of something. Picking the objects up, Indigo realized that it was two packs of rations and a canteen full of water.

She dropped her chin to her chest, clutching her gifts to herself and silently thanking whomever had sent them to her. Now, she had a sliver more of hope for her survival.

Goneril Albion (18) - District Two Female

Everything had delved into chaos the moment that Kasai let out a yelp, and afterwards, when his cannon thundered through the building, the Careers had no idea what to do.

In the moment, Goneril knew that there were two choices that she could make: the brave, but risky decision to fight the person that had killed Kasai, or the "cowardly", but safe decision to run and find cover so that her cannon wouldn't fire next. She chose a mix of the two. She would stay and fight for a little while, but if the figure came down from their perch and started firing more shots, Goneril would be taking her leave.

Screw Ruga and what he thought about her. Everyone knew that they were rivals in the same alliance, and Goneril could very well handle herself on her own. Plus, it would make a good show for the Capitolites when she came back and hunted down her district partner and defeated him.

For now though, all Goneril needed to focus on was fighting and her survival instincts. Kasai's killer dropped down from one of the ropes that hung down from their trap, and it revealed their face. It was Kasai's district partner, the one who had nothing to do with the Careers before they even met each other. That.. made sense. But now it was time for the girl to die. Then, they would have one less major threat in their way.

The closest of the Careers to their opponent was Ruga, who of course, attacked in a largely dramatic fashion. That's how it always was, and it was going to get him killed eventually. (Hopefully by Goneril herself; she'd done a fair amount of observing his weaknesses: physical and mental.)

Goneril had to give it to the girl, she was an efficient fighter even if her main weapon was long distance. That seemed to be the case for a lot of the Careers, except for Ruga, because he had to be different of course. It would be the only flaw in her plan to eventually take him down, but again, it was something for future Goneril to figure out.

She kept back from the dueling pair, not wanting to really get in their way. Ruga seemed to have himself involved enough where he wouldn't want any other help. He was stubborn that way too, refusing help and instructions. That was truly the biggest reason as to why he was so insufferable.

Then, true to his dramatic self, Ruga cried out loudly, having been struck with the blunt, most solid part of the Four girl's bow. Goneril heard the crack from his nose too. That was definitely broken, but he'd live. Naymena, which Goneril was fairly sure was the girl's name, followed the shot to Ruga's nose with a swing at his ribs that followed with an even louder crack. Yeah, definitely some broken ribs too. Those weren't as easy to walk away from.

Speaking of walking away, Goneril figured that Ruga did not have this handled anymore and decided that even though it was entertaining and kind of funny, she'd rather get away now uninjured instead of staying for the Ruga getting beat up show.

She ran through the doorway that they'd come into the room through and quickly down the steps, aimed towards one of the nearby buildings. They would expect her to keep running, and not wait them out until they left, so Goneril wasn't worried about being discovered.

There, just ahead was a smaller building made of the same material as the one that she'd just exited. Goneril sprinted there quickly, scaling the few stairs before ducking into the doorway. Inside, a screen was mounted on one wall and a set of golden lockers sat along another.

Hurrying over to the screen to investigate it, Goneril saw her name was lit up and decided to click on it. Was this how they were doing sponsor gifts now? She heard the click and whoosh of one of the lockers opening behind her and smiled when she turned and saw what was within it.

A piece of chest armor. Heck yeah. Take that Ruga. It would make it all the much harder for her to be defeated.

Oscar Gamero (12) - District Ten Male

Oscar wasn't planning on telling his allies, but he was a little bit jealous of them. They were lucky to get the attention of the Capitol and get sponsored, and Oscar wished he could get a sponsor gift too.

It was okay though. The true gift that he'd gotten was his allies, and like on the farm, Oscar needed to expect little and be very appreciative for what he got. It was the Hunger Games, so it would probably be even less than the farm. If he'd lived most of his life on that farm with the mindset that he'd had, he could live for a few more days in the arena.

To be fair, the farm had come with animal friends to keep him company, but the Hunger Games came with real friends. Oscar had never had friends like that, but it was nice to have people to be around in this terrible place and situation. The only sad thing was that it was the Hunger Games, and it was kind of common knowledge among the alliance (although not spoken out loud) that Oscar was pretty useless and weak and would probably die pretty soon.

Death seemed scary, but also, that was what had happened to his closest friends (animal and human), so would it really be that bad? If it was bound to happen, at least he would see Billy and Betsy again. (And maybe Val or Vince or both sooner or later).

"Goodnight Oscar," Val smiled sweetly at him as she crouched next to him and her chosen spot to sleep next to his. "I'd say have sweet dreams, but I figure no dreams at all would probably be more peaceful."

Oscar softly smiled back at the older girl, thankful for how she always managed to lighten the situation with her humor or kindness.

"Night Val."

He closed his eyes and hoped that his dreams would do as Val wished them to.

"Oscar..." a familiar voice taunted him. "You better run before I start chasing you..."

He got up with a start, running just like the voice said to. What was talking to him and why did he have to run?

Branches crunched underneath his feet as he sprinted through a grove of dead trees, still surrounded by that constant cloud of red dust. But then, he got curious, turning around to see what exactly was chasing him.

No. It couldn't be. Jovan was back in Ten, still terrorizing the others kids after he'd laughed when Oscar had been reaped.

He couldn't have been brought into the arena, could he? Wasn't that against the rules? And most of all, why did it have to be him? Didn't the Capitol like the older kids fighting and all the bloodshed that came from that better than emotionally terrorizing the youngest tribute?

"I'm going to catch you, you little animal-loving freak," Jovan sneered at him.

Now, the tears began dripping down Oscar's face. He didn't want to deal with any of this. He'd thought that he'd exchanged one bad situation for another, but they just had to get added together and he just couldn't take it anymore.

Oscar turned back around and his brain screamed at his legs to run as fast as they could, pumping back and forth to just get away from that mean boy so he could get back safely to Val and Vince. They could save him from his bully.

Except, he stumbled before he could get back all the way to camp, and in his haste to check where Jovan was behind him, Oscar scrabbled over the edge of a gorge, slipping into it on the loose rock.

And then he woke up.

Oscar screamed as he saw one of his hands holding himself onto the cliff face for dear life. So it hadn't totally been a dream? Oh god what was he going to do he was going to fall and die and go splat on the ground.

He could hear Val and Vince, but they just didn't seem close enough to save him. And they weren't.

His fingers were slipping off the rock, dust and debris crumbling and falling into the cavern and onto him. Oscar just didn't have enough strength left, and as his hand finally slipped off and he saw his allies as they arrived just too late, he closed his eyes and thanked whatever force existed above that he didn't have to deal with anything hard anymore.

Boom!

What the heck did I just write? I'm so sorry guys, don't worry, I'm getting sort of emotional about what I just did too. But yeah, the arena is even more evil than you guys thought and we've got a pretty neat way of delivering sponsor gifts too! Speaking of sponsor gifts, thank you to everyone who sent sponsor gifts for this chapter! The lucky tributes really appreciated it! The sponsor system is still working the same as I said last chapter, just shoot me a message of who you want to sponsor and what you want to sponsor them and we can go from there. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully updates will come more frequently as of next week! See you guys in the next one!

Alliances:

The Dysfunctional (Split?) Career Pack: Sublime, Goneril, Ruga

The Survivalists and their Stalker: Reverie, Anne, Zain

The Gloomy Sunshine Girl and her Protector: Val, Vince

The Agriculture Buddies (but separated): Indigo, Agri

Loners: Zeno, Naymena, Georgette, Natalia

Kills:

Sublime Winterson - II

Goldena Powers (DECEASED) - I

Ruga Palaemor - I

Naymena Lachlock - I

Kasai Westbrook (DECEASED) - I

Georgette Coiro-Metaxas - I

The Arena - I

Eulogies:

16th: Kasai Westbrook, District Four Male - spinal cord severed with an arrow by Naymena Lachlock

Honestly, Kasai really just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time along with the fact that I just didn't have as much of a specific plan for him as the other Careers. (I did also like the irony of his district partner killing him also). I'm also going to be truthful about saying that I didn't totally click with him as much as some of the other tributes too, and he and Sublime are really similar in the aspect of being emotionless as well. I do wish that I could have put myself in a position to expand on his backstory a little bit more too, but I'm pretty satisfied with his fate, and I hope his submitter is too! Thank you so much to tyquavis for submitting Kasai!

15th: Oscar Gamero, District Ten Male - lured into falling off a cliff by the arena

Oscar bby, I'm so sorry to do that to you, but I knew that you weren't going to survive for much longer. His death genuinely has made me the saddest out of all of the tributes that have died so far, and the main reason for this is his alliance and relationship with the Sevens. He was just so innocent and totally didn't deserve a fate like this, but alas, it is how the Games work. At least he can now join Billy and Betsy and have an amazing stress-free afterlife as they cheer on Val and Vince (aka the remaining members of the real and honorary Wright Clan). Thank you so much to n3b for submitting Oscar!