Dorian Sargasso- District Four male (18)
Where there was a will, there was a way. It was Kallik's will in this case- she'd come up with the idea that was slowly getting us into the nettle thicket. I'd have been as happy going the other way. I wanted out of here more than anything else, but something had been wrong with me ever since we escaped the ants. It was like my nerves had just given up and snapped. I was terrified at every noise. It scared me that I thought I'd kill anyone who came close to me, even if it turned out to be my mother. At the same time, though, the thought of doing violence made me sick to my stomach. It had been a terrible few days, to say the least.
It was a stupidly simple idea. Obviously we could have penetrated the thicket at any time if we didn't mind the spines. We could have chopped them off one at a time and made our way through, but it would have been so slow that Persi and her allies would have seen us coming and could run off and leave us wading back the way we'd come. Then Kallik had an epiphany. She wrapped a leaf bark mf her arm and tied it with grass. Eureka! We still wouldn't go running headlong into the spikes, but we could move and chop without brushing against them and getting a burn. A little folding and experimentation let us make something resembling ski masks with eye slits, and then it was game on. As we trudged between the stalks in our plant-y armor, I thought back to my nerdy classmate Thresher and how he insisted some book called The Green Knight was the best English poem ever written.
We'd chosen the time of our attack perfectly. Humans were wicked good at picking out camouflage and especially movement. Making our move just before dawn would disguise us a little, and then if any of them got away we'd have increasing light to find them by. Then we could do what we had to do and be that much closer to home.
Enzo Charmont- District Twelve male (18)
It was a breezy morning just before sunrise. Our campfire cast flickering shadows on the gently swaying nettle stalks, giving them the creepy look of the tree outside your childhood window that seems to be reaching for you. On the bright side, though, I was playing with fire, and I wasn't even getting scolded for it!
Clover had finished his last watch for the night. He'd just gotten curious about my work and had stayed up to watch. I wasn't sure if Persi was actually asleep either, but she was lying down with a dead leaf over her head- we'd learned she hated when people saw her sleeping. Me, I could fall asleep anywhere.
"What if we burn up a nettle, then pour iodine on the ashes, then put it in the fire?" Clover's voice was a little hoarse as he asked. The three of us had spent yesterday trying out different combos of burned and unburned items seeing what would best filter out nettle smoke in the masks we'd made from strips of our shirts and layers of grass. Naturally this meant inhaling nettle smoke every time. We'd burn only part of one leaf and dilute it with grass, and it only burned a tiny bit, but it was still like having just a bit of sunburn in your throat.
"Can do." I hopped up to pluck a handful of nettle leaf. Clover followed, since it was easier with someone holding the stem steady. Clover squinted. Not an instant later, he screamed.
Clover Nguyen- District Eleven male (18)
My brain registered the human-shaped figures faster than my mind did. I felt a sudden pulse of adrenaline and screamed before I knew what precisely the threat was. Then I saw Kallik's eyes glittering from behind all the green. Even worse, I saw the horrible intelligence. She'd already raised her harpoon to throw, aiming it at Enzo. Enzo had already turned to run. I saw Kallik's lightning calculations. Enzo was moving. The leaves and stems between the two of them might divert her harpoon. She'd been aiming at his head, but with the shift in probability, she switched to a surer bet. She didn't have to kill him immediately anyway. He wouldn't be able to maneuver if he was wounded. She lowered her aim to center mass and threw.
She'd made the right choice. Her harpoon jostled slightly as a leaf caught at it. It flew toward Enzo as Persi, who'd jerked upwards at my shout, threw herself sideways and rolled to her feet in one motion. The harpoon sliced deeply into Enzo's side, knocking him forward into his face. Its slightly altered trajectory, though, was just enough that it didn't hit enough flesh to stop it. It kept going until it hit the stem of a tall, willowy nettle. I heard the noise of the dandelions my dad used to pop the heads off of as he sang a little nursery song. It was a tiny, deadly snap.
Dorian Sargasso- District Four male (18)
I ran ahead of Kallik as she threw her harpoon, needing to be closer to use my own weapon. She'd aimed at Enzo, so I set my sights on Clover. I was right to trust her. Her harpoon cut him down and blood, dark in the morning twilight, flowed onto his shirt. I raised my sword to strike at Clover, who had seen me and was already turning to run. Past the both of them, Persi was already fleeing.
The darkness thickened slightly. Movement caught my eye and I looked up to see a nettle stalk tipping over, aimed right at me and Kallik. Kallik, a few steps behind me, was able to jump aside. I wasn't so fortunate.
The nettle stem fell onto my head and shoulders, crushing me down with its weight. Spikes punched into me- one in my hip, one in my arm, one in my cheek. Immediately, I started to burn. Venom shot into my body in and around the wounds from the spikes, though none were deep. My loosely tied leaf armor was instantly torn off by my involuntary thrashing, letting leaves that felt like acid-soaked sandpaper force themselves over every bit of exposed skin. I didn't dare open my eyes. Not after I opened my mouth to scream and a leaf jutted into my mouth.
My body seemed to peel away from me. I felt the swelling as my skin and insides reacted to the irritating venom. My movements almost immediately went clumsy, frustrating my attempts to flip onto my stomach and tear myself free of the mass of nettle greenery I was agonizing under. My flailing hand closed on leaf and I pulled on it even despite the itching torment that knifed across my palm. I pulled it anyway, since I knew I had to do anything. My body was swelling, and so was my throat.
At the end of a scream, I inhaled for another. It whistled against the blisters I felt lining my throat. The pain vanished for an instant, only an instant, in the fear. The next breath was like sucking air through a straw. My cheeks felt fat and tight and my lips protruded so far I bit into them when I tried to gulp air. Tighter and tighter it closed, like someone was choking me from inside. I'd never known how much I took for granted. All my life, when I'd tried to breathe, I'd never found myself failing.
My hands flew to my mouth, seeking for a blockage to tear free. They settled on my tongue, which lay thick and clogging, and tried to shove it aside. Whimpering cut-off clicks shook my chest as my screams died in the bottom of my throat. I lost control and my eyes flew open. As the leaves scraped over them and the tears ran salt on my raw skin, I prayed for the strength to tear off my own face.
I was sealed, sealed like an insect in amber. My tongue was pressed against the roof and sides of my mouth. My throat was a hose that had been pinched off and stopped. In a haze of pain I heard the glottal uck-uck-uck of blocked air. It hurt, it hurt, it was worse than the ants. I hadn't known the worst terror in the world was something as small as no breath.
Persi Caraway- District Eleven Female (15)
My stomach dropped when the nettle hit Dorian. Career or not, I didn't want to think about it. It wasn't the spikes I was thinking about. It was the burning, itching leaves. I could only imagine it was like having your skin removed and being dumped in lemon juice.
I was at the edge of the clearing when the nettle landed. Behind me, Clover was helping Enzo to his feet. My first thought was that it was foolish of Clover to be so noble, but then I saw Kallik wasn't attacking. She was standing near the bottom of the nettle looking at her harpoon tangled in the debris. She could get it out, but it would take time. She shot a malevolent look in our direction, conceding that one against three- two and a half, with how shaky Enzo looked- wasn't worth it. The three of us ran down our path as Dorian's screams changed in pitch, switched to retching hiccups, and then suddenly winked out.
...and her head popped off! Anyone else sing that while holding a dandelion and popping off the head at "popped"? Maybe it was just my mom.
13th place: Dorian Sargasso- the most severe case of anaphylaxis in history
And here's the whole reason I had the nettle patch. Maybe it wouldn't go exactly like this, I don't know, but it probably wouldn't be pretty. Nettle can cause anaphylaxis in severely allergic people, but I suspect a dose that big would get anyone. Dorian did nothing to deserve this. I just thought it was meaner to have Kallik's strike get someone else killed instead of going for the karma route. Dorian was having a pretty tough time with his blossoming PTSD, so I thought I'd do this too and just be an absolute dick to him. RIP to Dorian who at this point probably isn't sad to be dead.