Author's Note

I do not own the Hunger Games.

District Three Male, Toshiro Micron-Bundar, 12

Chances of falling to his death: Eight five percent.

Chances of making it safely to the other side: Five percent.

Chances of being violently murdered along the way: Ten percent.

Or thereabouts.

Toshiro couldn't say he liked those odds.

"Does anyone have anything I can drop?" Cash was asking.

Kai frowned.

"I want to see how long it'll take to hit the bottom," she explained.

Toshiro wished he'd made a more reasonable ally. Or several. Rhea was frustratingly dreamy too. But they'd been dropped into this so suddenly that he had to work with what he had, and that was primarily this younger group of lunatics.

"We'll see how long it takes for you to hit the bottom," he said waspishly.

Kai snickered.

Cash scowled. "Hey! I don't know if that was a joke or an insult!"

Toshiro shrugged. "Take your pick."

"I don't think now is the time to argue!" Bakula called up from the ledge beneath them.

"It's always the time to argue!" Cash declared, raising her arms.

"Not right now," muttered Bakula.

"Shouldn't we be crossing over?" asked Greg.

Rhea hummed, peering over the edge of the abyss. "It looks scary. Maybe we should wait here."

"We can't. They'll find a way of forcing us over," Toshiro said grimly. That was how the Gamemakers worked.

That was what they'd done to his mother. Forced her from her hiding place and into the jaws of a trap.

He'd not die the same way.

District Six Male, Atlas Anderson, 17

This kind of thing was not at all what he was built for. Give him a good fist fight in an alley any day.

That useless bitch Venus had already gone and fallen, which left him alone. Though their alliance had truly already broken. And it wasn't like he knew the girl.

He had to care about his own hide here.

No way in hell was he trying one of those glass bridges, and the ropes were out for similar reasons. That left the monkey bars, unless he wanted to try his luck at getting to something like the floating platforms the girl from Two was using.

No.

Best to work with what he had rather than work on maybes. He'd go with the monkey bars. He had good strength in his arms anyway; he ought to have little problem swinging himself across. The boy from Eleven was managing it with ease, and the little kid from Seven was already nearing the centre.

Atlas reached up to test one of the bars. Solid, capable of holding his weight. Did he want it to?

He supposed he had little choice.

He grasped the bar with both hands and took an experimental swing before propelling himself out over the abyss.

In his first few moments, he knew it had been a mistake. His arms burned at the effort of holding him, and hauling himself forward was a strain. Nothing lay between him and the deadly fall.

But nor did he trust himself to go backwards, and so he forced himself on, swinging forward one bar at a time.

Screaming echoed from somewhere off to the left, but he didn't dare distract himself to turn and look. All he could do was keep moving.

Atlas had survived too long on the streets of Six to die now.

Another swing took him further out over that terrifying void of space, his hand slipping on the bar.

Atlas grabbed the next with some slight panic, his cry dying in his throat.

He'd die fighting if he had to go down.

District Eight Female, Meredith Singer, 18

No one in the Hunger Games could ever truly be trusted. She knew that. But this was a Game where no one else had to die, so long as they were careful.

It stung to know how little Iris rated her life as being worth.

Meredith hadn't expected her to care about her the way she cared for Terro, but she thought she might receive the smallest bit of acknowledgement for her remaining alive.

Apparently not.

Terro had already started moving out over the ropes, while Iris had stepped onto the glass bridge.

Meredith scanned the cavern. She couldn't see Nadine, but she could see Judas, working with a group of older tributes to get everyone out onto one of the crossings. A scattering of younger tributes were working further down, while the pair at the top in orange were surely the monsters from Nine that killed the poor boy from Eleven.

She needed to get over towards one of her ally grounds.

The ledge allowed her to make her way round, but it ended before she reached any of the other alliances, stopping above a steep drop. Beneath her, she could see the girl from Eleven, but she didn't want to risk a climb down like that one.

Fear twisted in her gut. Already Terro and Iris were halfway across, Terro scrambling over the ropes, Iris balancing warily on the glass bridge.

"Meredith!" shouted a voice.

She raised her head. Higher up, Nadine was balanced on another ledge, clinging to the edge of a glass bridge and looking down at her.

"Are you alright?" she replied.

"I think so! Bit scraped up!"

"We'll meet on the other side!" Meredith pointed over the abyss to the ladders hanging over the stone. "I'll climb up to you!"

Nadine nodded grimly. "You swear it?"

"I swear it!"

"I guess I'll see you on the other side then!"

Meredith steadied herself and stepped forward to the nearest crossing, a set of ropes like the ones Terro was using.

She had a family to go home to.

District Two Female, Freya Slate Harmon, 15

Freya didn't know what to do other than follow Alexios's instruction to get to the other side. This wasn't how the Hunger Games were meant to go. There were too many tributes here, like a secondary bloodbath, and all of them trying to reach the other side. Screams and shouts echoed against the stone.

But worse was the snarling.

She didn't know what it was coming from, but they must have mutts stolen there somewhere, because she could hear them, snarling and snapping their jaws.

Freya wanted to go home.

"Keep going!" shouted Alexios, though he hadn't even started yet. Instead, he was working his way around the ledge, his eyes set on something to the left.

"What are you doing?" Freya shouted. It was one thing to take out other tributes in their way. It was another to hunt them down in an arena like this.

"Get to the other side!" he called back.

Freya looked out across the abyss. Prophecy had already set off, as had the pair from Four. Aelianna was edging round, much like her brother, though she seemed to be aiming for a group of younger tributes beneath them and to the right.

"Don't you want help?" she replied. They were meant to fight together and kill other tributes as a team. Separated, they were weaker.

Except she was the vulnerable one anyway. Alexios and Aelianna were siblings: at the end of the day, they were going to protect each other. For all they'd said they'd look after her, if they had to choose, they'd pick each other. And Freya didn't blame them, no matter how bitter she was about never having any siblings or even a parent to do that for her. They were each other's family, of course they'd protect each other.

"No!" yelled Alexios, and there was something like fear in his voice, as though he was truly afraid. "We'll handle this! You just get to the other side!"

Weirdly protective of them. And it would keep her from all the action.

The younger tributes were too far away for her to want the risk, while there were too many older, capable looking kids in the District Ten group. But there was a girl about her age in the same blue as the other District Four tributes alone and on a glass bridge.

Arika and Tristan had mentioned that girl, the rebel. It was her fault they were all in this hellhole.

Freya could take her.

District Six Female, Millicent Rivas, 14

She was panting and gasping for air by the time she made it to the end of the tunnel. The bastards must have started draining the air from the tunnel even as she was making her way through it.

"Assholes," she rasped as she rolled onto the ledge beneath the hatch. Her right air found open air and for a moment she panicked, flailing, convinced she was falling, until she flung herself flat on the ledge. It was just about wide enough for that, but not for much more or further.

Millie raised her head and peered over the side. The drop plunged away into nothing, and there was already a tribute dead at the bottom.

"Bastards," she muttered again.

A flash of movement caught her attention. Rusudan, on a ledge a little above hers, frantically waving her arms. "Are you alright?"

"Fine." Millie rubbed her chest. "I'm fine. Just a bit winded."

Rusudan glanced at the hatch behind her. "Do you think… Sally..?"

"There's nothing we can do now." Millie wasn't sure they could go backwards through these tunnels if they wanted to. If Sally hadn't followed them, they couldn't go back for her.

"We need to get over there." Rusudan pointed across the cavern at the ladders leading up to glass boxes above.

"We'll be playing their games," spat Millie.

"We don't have a choice."

Because if they wanted to live, they had to cross. If they didn't, they'd only be forced to continue, as they were when prompted to leave their little room.

If they wanted to live, they had to play the game.

And Millie wanted to scream and rage against that, but so too did she want to live, and that was how they were kept trapped.

"Where's Nixxie, do you see her?" she asked.

Rusudan pointed downwards. Millie followed the gesture to a glass bridge below, where Nixxie was already quickly making her way across, deft and even footed. It was almost impressive, except for the girl in brown rushing towards her.

"Nixxie!" Rusudan shouted.

Nixxie didn't seem to hear them. Or maybe she was mad at them still and ignoring Rusudan's shout.

"Nixxie!" Millie screamed, waving her arm. The girl in brown was swiftly nearing Nixxie's bridge now, a knife glinting in her hand. Millie yelled. "Nixxie! There's a girl! Nixxie!"

She must have heard them, but she never stopped.

Neither did the girl from Two, lunging across the bridge. For one terrible moment Millie thought she might have done it, but Nixxie was still moving, reaching for the ladders on the other side even as the girl from Two stumbled and fell onto the bridge.

"Come on! We need to help her!" shouted Rusudan.

Millie took another look at the pit below, and turned to the monkey bars that would hopefully get her to the other side.

"When I get out of here, I am going to raise hell."

District Eleven Male, Bakula Kalanit, 12

Just like home.

This was just like home.

Playing at home, singing from tree to tree.

That was all this was.

Except at home, he wasn't suspended over a pit of metal spikes with nothing between him and them.

With each swing he made, his heart beat a little harder, echoing in his ears. His arms beat with the strain in a way they'd never done before, even though he'd done this so many times.

He could let go and fall, and he'd be back with Saigon, out of this nightmarish arena.

But Saigon was dead, and he would have wanted Bakula to live, even if it meant fighting this pain, even if it meant swallowing the grief inside him.

Saigon would have wanted him to live, and Bakula was going to tear the throat from the girl from Eight for doing this to them.

Another swing, hard and fast, carrying him steadily forwards. Keep going, keep going, and he'd not die today.

Screams broke out somewhere to his right. The boy from Two was bearing down on Toshiro's half of the alliance, already reaching the ropes Kai was edging across.

"Kai!" Bakula shouted. Kai glanced at him, then at the boy from Two as he charged towards him, and continued the way across.

"What are you doing? Go faster!" screamed Greg.

Kai shook his head. "I can't go any faster!"

So he could talk! Just quiet then. Bakula supposed some people were.

The boy from Two swung himself onto the ropes, easily covering half the distance Kai had covered in a few scarce heartbeats.

A scream.

Bakula glanced around for who fell this time, but they hadn't entirely gone down. It was one of the girls from Two, now lying prone across a glass bridge.

"Freya!" shouted the boy, looking between her and Kai. He muttered a curse and then hurried back to the ledge. "Hang on! I'm coming!"

Ahead of him, Kai continued safely on his way.

District Four Male, Zale Tulius, 18

Andrew dithered at the edge of the ledge, looking down into the abyss. "What if I can't get over?"

"Then I guess the Gamemakers get rid of you."

He could see Arika, all the way over to his left with Tristan. Neither of the pair from Two though, which was a strange kind of relief. If she was breaking away from them, then even if she didn't ally with him again, she wouldn't be caught up in whatever was going on with the pair of them.

"I'm crossing the bars." He indicated the monkey bars3 near to them. "You can follow, or find a set of the ropes."

"I'm going to do that. Find ropes, that is." Andrew shook his head, looking at the monkey bars. "I'll never get over that way."

"Meet you on the other side then," said Zale, grasping the first of the bars. It creaked slightly under his weight, but from what he could see of the other tributes, they were holding their weight.

Andrew hurried away across the ledge as Zale swung himself out across the abyss. The distance was far more than he'd initially thought, but he'd done things like this plenty of times as a kid, and more in training. It shouldn't be a problem.

Around him, the other tributes were shouting their alarm and protests, struggling to keep themselves balanced as they moved onto their various methods of crossing. Some, such as the boys from Seven and Eleven, looked far more confident than others.

They could all live, if they avoided fighting.

But that wasn't how the Hunger Games lived. He could see the pair from Nine, who had killed that little boy in the bloodbath, already making their way across a set of floating platforms. Lucky for them, getting it so easy. Zale almost wondered if the gamemakers were favoring them. It wouldn't be the first time, and in a game like this where the clear aim was to make the tributes fight and prove their savage nature, it would make sense that they didn't want their pet psychopaths to fall to their deaths. It would be boring.

He swung himself a bar further. No time to really be distracted by thoughts like that right now. First he needed to live.

But if he could rid the arena of those maniacs later, maybe he could finally prove himself as being better than Arika.

He grinned. It was something to aspire for.