The Bloodbath

[esther kim d3 {lance}]

Good morning and welcome to the 92nd Annual Hunger Games Bloodbath, Tributes! Your Gamemakers have developed a very special Games for you. First and foremost, we would like to encourage each and every one of you to read the rules, as it makes life a lot easier for everyone when all parties involved are aware of the rules and expectations. Please note the new rules introduced as of this Games.

For smooth operation of the bloodbath, please be aware of the following:

1. You must wait TEN MINUTES between each of your posts. This counts for every post. This means 10 minutes between your intro and your first attack, 10 minutes between each of your attacks, and 10 minutes between your last attack and your flee post.

2. In order to verify this, you must quote your previous post at the beginning of each new post (exception, intro)

2. a. It is possible to edit the timestamp of your quoted post to make it look like you posted earlier than you did. This is considered cheating. This will not be tolerated. Anyone tribute caught doing this will sustain +20 damage and will have their attack/flee invalidated.

2. b. Please start each post (before any tables) with your tribute's name, what attack number this is, and, at the end, whatever the dice code you roll is. For example: [Arbor Halt, attack 3, 2069].

2. c. When you quote your previous post, please delete EVERYTHING besides the tribute's name, attack number, and dice code (as given above)

3. Other rules about bloodbath combat still stand:

- you must wait until at least three other people have posted before you can post again
- if you are in an alliance of four, you must wait until someone outside your alliance has posted before you can post again
- you can only be attacked THREE times between each of your posts
- your first post must be an intro with no attacks in it
- your first attack post must be unarmed before you can claim a weapon
- you may not attack in your fleeing post
- if you have a broken or severed leg or leg part, you may not flee without the aid of another tribute, who must also flee. Alternatively, you may flee on your own using three separate flee posts instead of one.
- once you flee, you may not re-enter the bloodbath
- fillers are not allowed
- all dice codes must be immediately obvious, even if you are using a table. Either put it beneath the table entirely, or make it easily accessible.
- you must specify who you're attacking
- all items - including weapons - that are picked up by a tribute can be claimed by the tribute’s killer

ANY violations of these rules will result in an additional 8 damage dealt to the offending tribute.

Each tribute's damage will be updated on the Hunger Games Engine, so pay attention and don't forget to refresh the page!

To clarify, the Wealth also includes any unclaimed items. In order to be eligible for the Wealth a tribute must post within the first 10 minutes OR be within the first 19 to post.

Turn order will be instituted at the end of the Bloodbath (at the discretion of the Gamemakers, when it's clear only a few alliances are fighting for the Wealth).

Good luck Tributes and may the odds be ever in your favor.

Today's Weather

Cloudy 
Air: Spooky, with a Hint of Blood on the wind
Temperature: 58F | 15C
Humidity: 69%

Items Lists
Located here

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

( mereddyd fawkes | d7a | intro )

I was alone.

For the first time in my entire life, there was nothing but silence, the sound of my breathing, and the birds chirping harmoniously outside. A small smile played on my lips as I realized how beautiful it was as their voices sang together.

But my smile was wiped away as I realized that this would be the only time, most likely my last.

And for some reason I was not afraid.

A light knock on the door and a shiver down my spine, but somehow I force myself to stand and put the biggest smile on my face, just like Mother always taught me.

Don’t let others know how you are really feeling.

It will only show weakness.

More silence as Jacquelyn guides me from my room. Silence on the ship. Silence as the Peacekeepers led me through the tunnels towards my death. Silence as my stylist dresses me meticulously and braids my hair. Silence all the way up until the voice overhead begins counting down and my stylist kisses me on the cheek.

”You’re stunning,” they say. ”Now let’s hope you can fight so the others don’t fuck up your pretty little face.”

A gentle shove into the tube, a small wave goodbye. Then nothing.

The Cornucopia, no chapel, rises before me. Broken down and barely standing, just like me. I can’t imagine what is in there, and no part of me wants to find out.

Twenty three others surround me, but I’ve never felt more alone.

The gong sounds.

And fear finally enters my body.


( meredydd fawkes enters the bloodbath )

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

( 1b elvena fray / introduction )

The first thing she does when she enters the room — tracker in her arm and veins stinging, singing with adrenaline — is shove her stylist out of the way. "I've dressed myself enough to understand the basics. Leave me." What should be a moment of fear is, perhaps, the moment she feels the most sincere joy. She can feel that hunger in the pit of her stomach that's always been there, growing new teeth in the dark. For a long time, the only thought that the disturbed the darkness in Elvena's thoughts was, I'm going to win the Hunger Games.

Now she thinks, here it is. My blood red dream is coming true. She looks at her reflection, pretty face just begging someone to ignore the threat hiding just behind; the razor blades tucked between the petals. She combs her blonde curls over her right shoulder, tightens her corset and loosens the fabric bunched at her neck. Lost somewhere between a swashbuckler and a creature of the night, seeing herself in someone else's clothes doesn't bother her as much as it should. The viewers won't be tuning in to catch the brand of the dress she's wearing. They want the carnage, just as much as she's always wanted it.

Phase Two.

The most important step; the final revelation. If she wants to become the victor, she will prove how she is deserving of the title. She fancies breaking the killing record, wonders about being the first person to gut a tribute of all their organs, taking eyes before taking lives. Something is terribly wrong with Elvena Fray. Always has been. But here, in this moment, crimson chiffon and chamber doors closing around her. It's okay. It's normalized. The Capitol wants her to be exactly the kind of girl that she already is.

All they want is a show.

She drags her nails along the glass as her pedestal carries her higher, a shrill scream breaking the quiet static inside her brain. No allies, no weapon, already too powerful for her own good. She's sure of that. This is the result of eighteen years of dedication. In blurs, in flashes, she can make out her face in the reflective surface in front of her. She forces a smile, only briefly, and only for herself, before her expression falls flat once more and she emerges into a new, vicious world. Hers.

As she scans the space, glancing at each of the tributes in turn and drawing a finger slowly across her throat as she does so, the timer ticks down. She makes the final cut when the gong sounds. And she doesn't hesitate.

Never.

^{( elvena fray enters the bloodbath
& receives the antidote )}

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

terra casimir d3 : intro

Whirring with rage, there's a fire in my veins that cannot be tamed. It burns with the might of a thousand fires and harnesses the power of a million screams - it echoes within, in the caverns of my body, every untouched corner becoming tainted by its hell. Because there's a fire that burns for only one thing: for this rage to be released, for the beast to come out and for the stars to fall in line with my feet so I can bathe in their light and shine brighter, better, scarier than they ever will.

I'm not sure I feel that same resentment towards my Mom anymore. Part of me is happy that she's put me here - fate works in funny ways, and whilst her unholy prayers beg for me to suffer a crooked end, I take pride in knowing that every breath is in spite of her and her wishes. Every step that I take will pain her, every move that I make will make her spit my name in disgust. Good - and she can keep on praying too, because once I'm done with this arena, I'll turn home into the next. No prisoners, no mercy, just hunger. Insatiable and always begging for more - it is a dull ache that I long to feel.

She put me here, and she will be the reason I get out. I am motivated by her need to see me fail. So much for being the daughter that always kept the peace, because today, war starts and I will be a soldier on the frontline. High on the ecstasy of uncertainty, chaos becomes the fibres from which I can forge my own crown. And when I get back home, I'll spit in her face for making me queen of a damned kingdom. I've promised myself many times that I'll make her pay for what she did.

As the lights fall and the air turns cold, so does my blood.

It begins again: the addiction. The thirst and need to feel alive, satisfied only by seeing death. And these grounds will certainly feed me the substance I need as everyone wants to get out. Nobody will stop for anyone, myself included, and whilst that should insight a sense of fear into me, I don't let it into my body. The fires burn too bright and it shies away, because I know deep down that I've fought worse demons on the streets of Three... the children of the forsaken can't hurt me if I don't let them.

And so - I won't.

My mind is sharp but my teeth are sharper. As time counts down, they extend into fangs. Just one bite is all they ask for, just one bite, just one - and it doesn't seem so impossible to do that.

This sensory obsession has taken over my head and my heart and leaves little room for much else. Fuck knows what the plan is, fuck knows where my allies are and fuck knows what lies beyond the darkness that consumes me. Yet the uncertainty of it all gives rise to a mayhem that I can call home, because really, it's no different to the sun-bleached chair in the living room that has been there ever since Dad died. It's no different to those metal tacks that I'd thread through the skin atop my thumb which were a gentle reminder of what things used to be like. It's no different from the side of my Mom's bed that wouldn't be made up because grief was an addiction that she could not overcome.

That hell will always be worse than this one.

terra enters the bloodbath

[umber vivuus 12b 🥀 [dars]]

^{Chiara de Soto, 11a | Post One | Intro}

chiara de soto

I'M THE GIRL YOU'D DIE FOR

Listen. So far, it's all going according to plan. The Capitol likes me, the Gamemakers believed me when I told them I was special, and the outfit I'm wearing makes my tatas look fucking killer. There's a fashion-over-function black pleather baret framing my hair, which has been left down but pinned out of my face beneath the cap. I'm wearing an unbuttoned black riding cape with silver tassels on each shoulder above a half-unbuttoned white blazer over a black lacy undershirt, a pleated skirt I've rolled up about six inches past my knees, fishnet stockings, black wool socks, and black combat boots.

"I look like some kind of gothic doll." I speak to my stylist, some pathetic old loser who has no actual say in the things she's designing named something ridiculous like S'mores or something. At the very least, she's gotten properly good at dressing up teenagers for death. Maybe, Chichi thinks, just maybe, the old broad can find some semblance of usefulness in her last years because of it. How precious.

There is still of course still the matter of making the three people I claimed to have an alliance with in the private training session actually be my allies, but it should be easy. I've been studying.

And now its time to see if it'll make any difference. I'm not going to sit here and tell you guys I'm not afraid- I am. But also, I've been in fights before. And if I keep telling myself this one isn't any different, that this could literally like basically just be a drunken pasture-party fight, I'll be fine. I've never lost one of those, you see.

They don't usually got weapons and shit, but like... neither do I, you know?

I pretend to breathe normally despite the protests from my lungs and step into the tube.

"Teeth?" I ask, showing them to Miss Graham Cracker. Cookie? Ice cream sandwich? Whatever, irrelevant. She nods, signaling they look good. "Tits?" Another, less-enthusiastic nod.

"Cool. Literally tell Katelyn I was serious about the fabric dye though. Especially now that I'm looking at the outfit. It could use some Chichi, like for real."

I step into the tube without looking her way because I weirdly enough can't stop the tears from welling up in my eyes. Not because I like her or anything- I haven't spoken to... Campfire Coco..? once since I've been reaped except to tell her I was gonna take off the outfit she made for the parade once it got to the end to be naked. Once I can hear the door slide shut behind me, I sniffle for the first time, shaky inhale. You got this, loca. They ain't shit. Them people ain't shit. You're gonna be a star. The plate clicks into place.

You already are a fucking star.

The gong rings.

(chichi enters)

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

[damion rothbauer, intro]

others - me

This darn outfit they gave us is way too tight. Not that I would typically mind, though. I don’t hate my body. Maybe if I were Dustin, I would, but can ya’ blame the kid when he took our unlimited ice cream to heart? His body is built like a pint. Round and long. This outfit did the opposite of round. It made me narrow. One could use me to create a 90 degree corner with how this corset tightens up. There were these weird cuffs on the end of the sleeves that I refused to have, along with some weird fancy bow-lookin-thing. I was not havin it. My stylist that helped put on the garment agreed, so off it went.

Before we got put into our elevator tubes, we were given another shot. No explanation. No nothing. At first thought, figured it was the tracker. But we already got that before we got our flight here. So what the fuck are they doing? While I’ve once heard someone say that the Games start from the moment you're reaped, the physical games experience doesn’t start until you’re in that tube. Maybe it’s to do with the arena itself. Do we need to get our internal temperature change, or is there something in our genes that we need modified? Is it just an extra tracker because the arena’s so big? I don’t know - I do ice cream, man. Not this science shit. If I live long enough, I’ll find out anyway.

As I begin to rise, I wonder what Delilah is thinking. Dustin, too. Part of me hopes that he’s not watching. He’s still just a boy, and his brother dying is nothing to help him. I hope she doesn’t let him watch. Does Scoops know where I am yet? Is she worried about me? What am I kidding. She’s a cat. She just wants her bowl filled. There’s no way an animal could mourn humans. Or I think. For being someone in a district that houses cattle frequently, I don’t really know much about animals Just the things they produce.

Vision was something else as I finished my ascend. It was like a foggy fall morning in Ten. We surround a tall, white structure surrounded by a world of gray and black. Taking us back to the time when television had no color, had no sound, had no noise. Only the grayscale image that flutters and flickers across the screen. The structure has faced an obvious fall from grace. Bits and pieces of the brick have fallen off, leaving open scars in the abandoned worship home. Ma and Pa went to church for them special holidays, mostly as a second hand to our grandparents. I never really went. The worshiped upon palace would often scare me because it reminded me of the dead. That’s what chapels are used for, though. Death and life. What a better place to start our journey.

I can’t really think of an ice cream flavor to put to this. Maybe “charcoal”, which was essentially dark chocolate. But the dark, rich energy that this building provides is unlike anything else. The large doors hang on hinges, open, as if it’s in need of fulfillment. It’s been such a long time since anyone took the moment to stop and pray that it’s lost its structure, its meaning. It’s obvious that we must enter the church in order to gain any prize. On the perch of the building lay a knell that waits to be rung.

Time begins to speed, as I try to gain my senses, but there’s no use. Too much is happening - will be happening to even try and be concerned about anything. There’s only one goal here, and to enter the chapel alive, and exit the chapel blessed.

[enters the bb]

[rook]

[izzy rodríguez d6b - intro]

izzy rodríguez

The crackling of a voice lost over 280kHz of long frequency radio reverberates down a long tunnel, where I find myself lost, moved like cargo into the correct facility, ready for exportation. Deportation. Exploitation.

The noises are louder now, fizzing in my ear. I want to unleash myself at the Peacekeeper, tear his radio from his chest and beat his head into a bruised, grotesque purple red mess with it.

I'm far away enough from Six now that I feel ripped from it, torn away and left to bleed, an open wound pulsing, yearning for home. A home that I never knew I was so much a part of until my name was incorrectly pronounced through tightly pursed lips.

I breathe those streets. They are part of who I am.

Now I'm an ugly laceration, breathing heavy, walking slowly, fading gradually, dying eventually.

They give me something for the pain, a sharp stab in the neck, and it's more adrenaline shooting through my system, more fire in my core. I'm left, twitching, aching, yearning. The anticipation grips me, the tube opens, and I glare at it. The great glass cyclinder stands resolutely, unmoving under my gaze. It waits.

Two minutes.

I don't know how to kill. I don't know how to look someone in the eyes while I take the life that they hold and rip it from their grasp. I can't send someone to the pale, to some cold beyond, watch as their body becomes just a shell of where something just lived.

I'm not ready, and I'll never be ready, but I'm here, and I need to find something deep inside myself and light a match against it, ignite and burn through the other twenty-three beings up there and go home.

Back to Six. Back to where I can breathe again.

A warm trickle runs down my upper lip, and the taste of iron on my lips is sweet. Another gush of blood from my nose under this pressure combined with the injection in my arm causes the room around me to wobble, and I stagger to the tube, the door seals shut.

It's hot inside, and my head throbs. My nose continues to bleed - more than usual. I dab at my lip with the back of my hand.

Shit. That's a lot of blood.

The light pours in from above, and bleeds in with the room that smudges around me, and then I

feel like...

everything is going

dark

[izzy faints as she enters the bloodbath]

[✨ zozo.]

kiko verte d6 | intro

They'd put a tracker in our arms, ticking time bomb - and then right before the glass tubes shut they stab me in the neck.

A small gasp escapes out of my mouth from the shock, a click! in my ear - pinched nerve. Feels like when I'd gotten my ear pierced and bled so much I'd near passed out from the sight, but when I pull my hand away there's nothing there. 

A dull throbbing replaces the sharp sting - "what did you-?"

The glass door shuts, cutting me off. And as I rise I can't help but panic, knowing god knows what they just put in me. Maybe it's the adrenaline but I feel flushed, heart racing, like I need to get out right now. Maybe it's playing with my mind, hallucinogenic - I've seen what drugs can do to the mind. Convince me to stay. Make me run toward the slaughter, right into the eye of the storm. Stab someone's eye out, not even flinch. 

Poison a man, leave him to die - wait, I did that already. 

And I-

I liked it - 

Smile on my face, I feel the corners of my lips tug upwards. Teeth bared, instinct.

I plunge forward. 

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

silver strauss | intro

silver strauss

it's been a slow, bleeding blur from the reaping till now.

moving, no, falling in slow motion, yet at a breakneck pace. time was odd like that, you'd learned. odd but all-powerful - time wielded an axe of ichor and swung, guillotining at it's leisure. it made sense to you now why people feared time, why they tried to outrun it. because time was a terrible thing. it was always behind you, ever-moving. it's inescapable, you can only hope to stay one step ahead. here, trapped in this sterile, blinding room in the capital, waiting tensely for the inevitable to happen, is when it hits you.

a tiny, pin-sized crack appears in your psyche - a chip in a windowpane. it's small but there, not noticeable but there. silver strauss, girl of stone, you aren't as strong as you appear to be. you do your best to hide it, choke down your fears and swap your wide-eyes for a strong, stoic gaze. that's your whole contrivance - appearing as something you're not. whether it be a fearsome, killing-machine career or a girl void of emotions, it's all a mask, a facade to hide behind.

you can't hide from yourself in the games, it all comes out. perhaps that's the most terrifying part of this whole thing - not time or death, but confronting everything you try to suppress. everything that you have pushed so far down inside that you almost forgot it was there, the pain and scars you thought were long gone. the games have yet to begin and you're already feeling the mounting weight of the pressure - your knees beg to buckle underneath.

ten.

time has done it again, a blur of events one after the other, a sequence of code carrying out its specified parameters.

it was a quiet ride to the pod chambers, your arena outfit had been pre-assigned and you swiftly put it on, enveloping your body in the fabric. and now you're here. the arena is dark and damp, it smells of rot and decay, as if this place had sat here undisturbed for centuries. a church lay in ruin before you, rocks and dust collected upon it. you're too prideful to ask for help so you pray for it.

one.

the clock hits zero and time starts it's chase.

silver strauss enters the bloodbath

[pogue]

[ d5 cash humboldt | intro ]

He chews on silence the morning before his reckoning, feels it creep in through the walls and wade through the bloody mirage of orange and red, Capitol lights splattering themselves across the sides of his room. He'd long since given up on turning the walls into an image of Five, a mockery of where he'd come from. After all, that place was as much of a home as a coffin six feet under, had chewed him up and spit him out and dragged the remains across the dust and soil until there'd been nothing left. The walls are nothing more than a false comfort, a mockery, a reminder he never wanted but one they deem him needing nonetheless.

It's like he'd said in his interview: all he had was his family, and they are not here. There is nothing left but aching bones and rotting flesh, he's a dead man walking. The bedsheets wrap around his skin and suffocate out what is left of a wounded animal's dying soul, ice and venom seeping into his veins, Five branded into his back and a promise written into his future. The silence chews, gnaws at his own severed heartstrings as he slips into the darkness one last time.

It's still tearing him flesh from flesh and limb from limb when he stand before the last steps of his final resting place, looking at his reflection bend and melt in the glass of a hollow tube. He gulps, swallows dust and dirt and hears the voices of his own family blend together in the background. He has seen animals torn limb from limb on the ranch, wandering wolves and cat fights and sickness riddling their veins. He's pressed a gun to their temple and put them out of misery and suffering, forced them into the darkness until he couldn't feel anything anymore.

Now he stands, ripe for the slaughter, an animal of their own design and an unwilling participant to what he is about to do-to what they are about to do to him.

And the latter rings true in pain and fury. It's a brief flash of beings in white that make their way towards him ever so quickly, their ghosts in the glass joining him for a brief moment before a needle finds it's way into his flesh and he gasps, stumbles forwards with a shove from the man behind him and hits the inside of the tube.

It's immediate, the way fire spreads throughout his veins and he feels his legs threaten to buckle under the sudden pain. He sputters spit and bile, feels it dribble down his skin as he looks towards the Peacekeeper's who had injected him. Eyes wide, jaw agape, there's a string of expletives that he never gets to spit out towards their murky reflections, the ground beneath his feet rumbling and launching him upwards towards the arena, ceiling opening wide and harsh sunlight blinding his gaze.

It's only when he removes his hands that he sees overcast rays of light illuminating the land before him, smells familiarity in the way to air simmers and rots with its own sickness. Before him stands a church dedicated to no religion, a sacrifice already made amongst its offerings. His blood runs cold as the timer above threatens them with a promise its designed to keep, their lifelines counting down slowl. His allies and his enemies meld into his mind as one, aching bones and sore muscles tensing as the timer continues to count down.

Animal to pack, pack to slaughter, he jumps from the pedestal and into the fray.

✧ cash enters the BB ✧

[heather - d2 [mylee]]

[ Carsyn Bowers | District Eight | Introduction ]

C  A  R  S  Y  N

All the good stories start with a broken man, and the broken man is alone.

The broken man, alone, confronted with his own brokenness, has two options: accept that what has been broken has, in fact, been broken, or rail hard and fast against it, determined to hold the pieces together and deny that cracks run mean through him. This is the pinnacle, I think of every story about loss, and I think all of our stories can be boiled down to this, if you draw them out long enough.

I have all the pieces to become this, and yet I am unsure if I have found my way to those crossroads. I’m here, rising into the arena, and my body no longer feels like my body only--arm warm and aching from the prick of a needle, the coursing of god knows what into my body, all the extremities of it--maybe it’s not been mine all this time and I’ve been fooled, happily so.

There’s tension between the not-mine body and the broken man in his solitude, but I cannot put my finger on it, and do not have time to.

When the light breaks, I see nothing but a sea of broken bodies, twenty-four of them and then some, the ghosts of the living dancing out beyond the circle of the chapel. Some of them take my shape, dancing or picking at the dirt, looking for the wilted stems of flowers lost in the first frost of the season. All things die, one of them whispers to the flowers, as if this means anything after the fact.

There are ghosts of the others, too, I imagine, Coyote as a young boy digging a hole in the dirt and dropping into it the dead body of a lamb. I want to know how much he’s buried of himself alongside those animals, if he knows what he’s at risk to lose each time.

And even though the cold those ghosts send through me is unnerving, I want to dance with them, and to try, even if futile and senseless, to take their hands in my own and spin under the dull light that’s canvassing us all. It creates in us all such an ache, not bright and piercing but dull and patient, patient as if to say, I can wait for the realization you must make, at least until sundown. That must be enough time for you. I am giving you a place to find it, to worship, to come to terms with what the divine will ask you to transgress in its name.

The throb of the light feels almost like a heartbeat, deep and pulsing underneath us. It lights up the steeple of the chapel as if to say yes, you know where the heart is, how to find it. Why hesitate any longer?

[ table: pogue ]

[ carsyn bowers enters the bloodbath ]

[Cait]

[ace bellisario intro]

► ► ►

Predictably, you don’t sleep.

You’re still wiping half-formed night dust from your eyes when they knock at your door and dress you in cheap, dark fabric. The lion or the lamb, what you thought you were and what you have become are two wholly different things, but in the dying light of your last sane moments, they feel the same.

You ask how your life came to be this. You search the faces of the Peacekeepers escorting you down empty corridors, but they won’t look back at you. They’ve done this walk too many times; they know better than to engage with children marked for death.

And even though this is what you have been working towards your entire life, you don’t feel how they said you would. The promise of glory and greatness and a Bellisario legacy is all you’ve ever known. You knew the stakes that came with that, but the reality of murder in order to get there? It’s a wild thought, hitting you like the aftershocks of an earthquake, so violent that it rings through your whole body, shakes your bones to life.

It's probably why you don’t notice the Peacekeepers stopping dead in their tracks. It’s probably why you don’t notice them turning to you and pulling a thin, fluid-filled tube from out of their pocket.

It’s probably why you don’t notice them plunging the needle deep into your neck until it’s too late.

“What the fuck?!”

Reflexively, you punch the Peacekeeper square in the jaw. You don’t remember making the decision to do it – there’s just the feeling of stinging knuckles and dread intertwined with adrenaline, white and acidic. It feels good, though. Gets them to finally look at you, and you smile at the anger on their faces. Good. They stand poised, ready to launch themselves towards you, but the floor beneath you vibrates and you’re being sent skyward before they can retaliate, and you never imagined you’d be grateful to be propelled to your certain death.

“Fuck you guys.”

You can’t help but feel the slightest of guilt. You’re not mad at them. You’re not mad at anyone, really. Just yourself, and the knowledge of that knocks the wind out of you, suddenly, swiftly.

You gasp for breath as the world around you comes into view, appearing out of the haze of bright lights and stars dancing in your peripheral. Twenty… two bodies stand around you, a prominent absence of a body on a pedestal directly in front of you making you scratch your head.

There’s no time or space to ponder the strange omission, as the timer ticks down and the air takes on a new mood. You are terrified, and nervous, and desperate, and ready to burn the whole world to the ground.

“Fuck this.”

[d6a georgie cham 🍓🐢 frankel]

[8a Nicoli Rasoio | Introduction]

► ► ►

There is a candle burning for me somewhere. Lit by my mother in the window of the kitchen. She will be sitting beside it, the lights of the television screen dancing behind her in the other room. Words will leak from her lips during her silent prayer. Hands pressed together, muttering the recited words. A prayer disguised as begging. Begging that the life of her son is not taken today, or any other day that is before Ripred’s desired time for me.

It is the same prayer I recounted this morning, during my last moment of silence alone at the side of my bed. Then I was pinched away and marched to where I am stood right now.

I am draped in a strange attire, all grey in colour with a tight dark blue waistcoat…and a cape! A hat squishes onto my cranium, like the style my family wears but it feels bigger and a little less comfortable. They have stripped me of any style of my identity, and all of this is supposed to be my funeral dress. Am I really going to meet RIpred wearing…this? I suppose my cousins will be adorned in the bizarre styles that the Capitol laid upon them too, unless there is a wardrobe where they have been sent too.

Now for the setting. I am deposited into a elevator by the peackeepers. There are no goodbyes or good lucks, just grunts and a relief that their tight grip is no longer clutching onto my wrists. This is it now, the only time in my life where my future relies on myself and not the Rasoio script that has already been written for me.

Everything will be different.

I won’t know the steps.

Will there be time for my schedule?

My morning. My Midday. My Evening.

I will have no control once I enter here.

Every fibre of my life is already slipping from my fingers and the complete management of my existence that I have had for eighteen years is crumbling, just like the chapel that is slowly revealing itself to me when I arrive in the arena.

A complete ruin but at least it is a small familiarity. The state of the chapel is a true reflection of what is about to come, maybe it is a message from Ripred. It looks like solitude behind those shattered glass windows or maybe it is a warning to stay away. I only have one way to find out and time is ticking along with my curiosity.

Nicoli enters the bloodbath.

[charade]

You know the first thing that stands out to about the games prep is the outfit. I mean, it ain’t that shit ensemble that they had me wearing at the opening ceremony, but it’s just…weird? I can’t guess at the theme. Button down vest.

Black pants. Fluffy sleeves. This—thing they put around my neck. I look like I’ve been invited to a fancy dinner party. If this was like, nautical I’d know there was water. Gave me a pith helmet? Alright it’s a jungle out there.

This? I don’t know what to do with this.

“Hold it!” the stylist says as I start to walk away.

“Someone up there likes you, we have a last minute addition to your look.”

I can’t help but grin.

Fuck yeah they do. The leather jacket is aces. Sweet as fuck. And its padded too. Extra protection. Oh yeah, someone up there wants the hurricane to be unleashed. Bet its cause I got the highest damn training score outta everybody. Double digits baby.

Alright yeah, so the 11 from eleven tied with me. Prolly just pulled her shirt up or something unless those rumors about an underground career center in 11 are true. I don’t know how she could have tied with what I did.

Eh, it doesn’t matter anyway. I gotta get my head in the game and away from the needle that—

FUCK

OW, DAMN! That shit hurt. Fuck, feels like my neck is on fire. I knew they put tracking chips in us but DAMN.

That shit actually made my eyes water. Blink it away Kat.

Blink it away.
Well, there we go. The platform is rising. Hm. That’s new.

First off its dark as fuck. Cold too. Goddammit, not a winter themed arena. But like, we’re in front of some kind of building?
Stained glass windows. Steeple. It's a church. 
But when we get done spilling blood it'll just be four walls and a roof.

-Katrina sykes has entered the bloodbath-

[pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]]

[Elle Aye, Intro]

She hasn’t branched out too much since she had been here. She barely even interacted with her own district partner at this point. Elle though did attribute that to her district partner probably not wanting anything to do with her. She wasn’t going to force herself into a situation that she didn’t need to. If someone wanted to seek her out, they could. However, alliances never really made sense in Elle’s eyes. She was the queen of this realm, and everyone else was just a pawn to fall.

Sure, she might have been selfish, but so was Annie when she was in the games. Right? How do you actually get to go into an arena and come out completely absolved of all your crimes? A lot of people still lauded her for the sheer perfection that was her games, and even Elle had to admit, her games were on the precipice of full and complete. However, if the twist wasn’t there, then Elle would have agreed. Her opinion of Annie is that of probably most of the victors. She got the best deal out of anyone.

But then she went on to pull 3 other tributes out of the fire in ten years, and now, Elle didn’t even see much of Annie in the capitol. People told her it was because she didn’t really need to be here anymore. She did her job, won an award for it, and now was the mayor of the very district she brought fame and fortune too. Correlation equals causation? Maybe. Elle wasn’t too convinced. She couldn’t be, because being convinced that it was just that easy to get into the arena and come out a victor? That was child’s play.

---

In fact, Elle wasn’t sure that she was going to make it out of here in one piece. She was as vicious as the rest of the careers in here, but she wasn’t stupid. Elle knew that luck and situation did play a lot into just how far someone could go. Elle always planned for the worst case scenario, something that her mother hated because she felt that Elle could do anything she set her mind too. Was that true? That was still too be determined. Elle got to this point after all. She was now half way to proving that anyone could walk into the arena and have a fair shot at winning it all.

The doubt though? That would always be there. No matter how confident Elle presented herself, that did not matter in the long run. The games did not care about confidence, Elle had seen too many times how confident people are massacred in the arena. It’s a gristly sight, but not one that Elle was surprised by. The blood and the guts was just something that came with the territory after all.

Elle was determined to make it out alive. However, there would always be that little inkling in the back of her mind that she could die here.

If that was the case, she was going to make sure that everyone in Panem remembered her name for ages to come.

---

Day of and she is ready. She was out of bed before the avox could even come by her door to wake her. She glides out of her room and sits at the table to eat just enough food for the energy benefits. She barely makes eye contact with anyone, because she already can tell that no one is on her side. That is none of her worries at this point. Flying solo was always the better choice. Less people to trust, more chances to keep moving around. She could probably explore the whole arena by herself. It sounded perfect in her head if she was being honest with herself.

Once she was finished, she was escorted by a group of peacekeepers to the next phase of the arena preparation. She was escorted onto a hovercraft where a tracker had been implanted in her arm. She winced for a moment, but then looked forward to mean mug whoever was sitting across from her. She was not going let anyone stop her from making her mark on the arena after all.

Elle Aye was not someone to back down.

---

She walked into the room that was assigned to her and she was met with weird tubes of liquid and a tribute uniform hanging on the wall. She was instructed to put it on, and she didn’t argue. It was easier to just do what was told. She knew that. The last thing that she wanted was to been seen in an unsavory light by the GM’s. Anything to get just a little bit farther? That was the goal.

She walked out from behind the curtain and smiled as her stylist had come around and complimented her on the look. She thought it was cute too, however, she wished it was just a little more grey. She couldn’t complain, the all black ensemble would probably just get hot. That was really the only thing that she was worried about. She did a twirl in the mirror before looking to her stylist. She shared a smile before walking towards the tube that was going to lead her up to the arena. However, before she had walked in, the stylist had called her back over.

When she turned around, she saw a guy in a white lab coat and before she could react, she felt something sharp pierce her skin. She raised her hand but it was caught by a peacekeeper, who then threw her hand down and shoved her to the ground. Elle was in pain, but that did not stop her from kicking out the feet of the peacekeeper that had thrown her to the ground. She wanted to react more, but her body felt hot, and the feeling was starting to envelope her skin. It felt like it was on fire. Once the peacekeeper had gotten back to his feet, Elle had kicked his feet out again, but another peacekeeper had picked her up and thrown her into the tube for her to be ascended in the arena.

She could feel her skin crawling, soreness in her mouth and hands, and she did not feel like herself anymore. She screamed against the glass, and the peacekeepers simply looked and laughed at her. The platform started to raise her up, and she was now panicking. She realized that her mouth felt like they had sharp fangs.

She was a monster.

Well, even more of a monster.

---

When she feels the cold damp air hit her skin, she looks up to see that she is now in the arena. She was a little hesitant at the sight of the building she saw. It looked like it was going to crumble right in front of them. She noticed the stain glass window first thing. Elle is not impressed one bit, but that is probably because she felt like a thousand suns had been striking her body tenfold. She grimaced for a moment before at least getting to her knees. She looked up and noticed that everyone seemed to be out of it as well. Like they had all been assaulted the same way before getting up here.

Elle grimaced as she realized that there was still a bloodbath to get through, and that meant she was going to have to push through her discomfort.

She watched the time click down, and then she realized that there was a silhouette of someone in the distance. Elle was now even more intrigued. She knew what she was here too do.

The timer kept counting down.

The moment it hit zero she leaped off the pedestal.

She would make everyone remember her name.

Live or die.

[Elle Aye enters the bloodbath]