The Bloodbath

[rook]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, border: F5F6FA solid 4px; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px 0px;][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true]

[/td][/tr][/table]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 1f0b0d; border: F5F6FA solid 4px; width: 500px; height: 181px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 13px 13px;][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true] HOPELESS something stops me from seeing too clear a misty haze floats 'round the room the murmurs make it hard to hear the voices and the words "That look on her face is one of determination. I wonder if she's found her nerve." The gong has gone and I find myself running forwards. I haven't given up, I've joined the struggle. My heart leaps to my throat as I throw my feet forwards in a sprint, panting hard, focusing on the Cornucopia in front of me. I notice hedges surrounding us, boxing us in a square, but there are exits, like partings in the hedge. A maze? Wouldn't be a surprise. A tribute cascades towards me and I find my feet, running at them because I need momentum to compensate for my size. I've never hit anyone before, not ever. The most violent thing I've done was to shove that pie down Linius' shirt. It's not normal for me, but for some reason I can't explain it feels so natural to lash out. [Hope attacks Siana Felies, Unarmed] [dice=200+5000] [Tripped -- 0.5 damage] I break off towards the Cornucopia again, having bought myself some time. I eye up a patch of goods in front of me and grab the first weapon I can get my hands on. Weapons are more important than food or drink. It's a sword, long and slender. It feels good in my hand, and so I turn around and try to find Eden. [Hope picks up a Broadsword] the days seem to drag away my speech is sparse and tends to slur i wonder what happened to my friend today can't hear the words your name has slipped my mind again lyrics by ultravox - graphics by rook - template by kire

[/center]

[/justify][/color][/size][/blockquote]
[/td][/tr][/td][/tr][/table][/center][rand=7148697469383478995253046276047848043151386082179600376500748098]

[Deleted]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/uc9ArcF.png); border: 120e0c solid 0px; width: 500px; height: 200px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 30px 30px 0px 0px;]

[/left][/table]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 2B2B33; border: 303045 solid 0px; width: 500px; height: 6px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;]

[/color][/font][/center][/td][/tr][/tr][td][/table]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: e1e1e1; border: e3e2f2 solid 0px; width: 500px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 0px 10px 10px;] The axe is almost as heavy as I am. That’s the first thing I notice when I heft it into the air, a struggling groan rattling up my throat. There’s no way I’ll be able to defend myself with this thing. I that moment, it hits me, how painfully small everyone in this Arena is. These are the weapons of men and women in the hands of boys and girls, most of whom have never had blood on their hands. The Quell twists are always cruel, but this year has a special sort of sadism in it, and it shows in how almost every weapon seems designed to be too-big for the person holding it. We’re all nothing more than children playing a macabre game of dress-up, putting on our forebearers’ oversized shoes and shuffling awkwardly towards a similar fate. There’s nothing left for me to do but play along. Stumbling clumsily towards a backpack that might hold some sort of salvation inside, I try to ignore the sickness in my stomach and swing the axe in a sweeping arc, clearing a path if not my conscience. [brendon attacks sticky washington with his great axe] [dice=200+11000] [dg stomach, 9] don't try to sleep through the end of the world and bury me alive 'cause i won't give up without a fight

[/justify][/size][/font]
[/color][/blockquote][/center][/td][/tr][/left][/table][/center][rand=99026775802485647018041501287371745686533860862305060099926777184]

[shrimp]

<div align="justify">

I’m not ready for this I clearly haven’t run enough I mean I thought that the cornucopia wasn’t so far away and now I’m going to be winded and I’m barely even there like back home they make it seem so simple, that you just have to run to the freaking golden dome of death and then grab something, someone, and flee or not flee, if you’re going for the wealth but here oh no it’s hard. But you know what I just have to keep at it because it’s life and death and no no there are people near me now no get away I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want you to hurt me and why can’t we just be friends and not here this isn’t okay oh no oh no oh no and now there’s someone in front of me excuse me but I have to get through moveeeeeee~
[Ewe runs into brendon; unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
[Bruised Right Foot -- 2.0 ]
obtains halberd

</div>[rand=82928687031380830861985164228826888893208396621055060976578388363]

[Rosetta]

Matilde"Scout"Watson

[/font]

It’s the day of my death.

I stare at the ceiling, blinking with bleary eyes. The ceiling is blank, white and smooth. I long for the cracks in my own. My bones ache, and my very skin is bruised without Carlos’s snores in the next bed and the shuffling of Ardal making coffee in the kitchen. I try to paint it with my eyes on that blank ceiling. Yet, when the door opens, it’s my stylist come to take me to the roof.

Somehow, they get me onto a hovercraft (I am numb) and sit me down. I try not to breathe the entire way there. If I take a huge gulp of air, perhaps my last in life, my delicate lungs will puncture. I feel weak. My skin is made of paper. They sanded it down until it was smooth. My knuckles are healed up pretty well also and the absence of the scar I was so sure I’d have makes the hair on the back on my neck stand straight up. It’s like I’m not me. I’m a tribute. I’m not me.

I got a six in training. Higher than I expected for a girl who nearly cried in front of the Gamemakers. Maybe in the Arena, I will last six minutes. Maybe in the Arena, I will kill six human beings. I will cry for six hours for Ardal will be disappointed in me. He said not to hit the other kids. He said not to lose my temper. He said never to raise my hand to others. I broke his rules in six easy points and now I will try to break his rules again in twenty three human beings.

My six in training is nothing compared to the nines and eights I saw flash across the screen. Nothing compared to the ripple of muscle under tight skin or the inches or even feet over my head. I think of Iago (I’m not sure where he is). He’s just as vicious as I am…but I doubt he ever had the same restraint Ardal supplied for me. He could rip my throat out in a second and think nothing of it. I take even breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth, trying to ease the butterflies scraping up against my stomach. They only seem to start poking me with knives.

When we arrive at the underground bunker-like area where I’m to wait before the start of the Games, I can barely walk. Ardal’s pocket watch is ticking against my chest, where I’m strung it up, ticking away the heartbeats I have left. In the shower, I allow the water to roll off of me, running a hand over my smooth legs, my hairless underarms. They’ve made me beautiful for death. A girl will come home to Ardal. A nice little daughter. I hope he still loves me then.

Ardal and Bertie, too, they’re the moral decisions kind of people. Ardal read a lot and Bertie, he knew a lot of people and he was concerned a “good boy” and was all kind to girls. I bet he’ll make a good father one day. Just like Ardal. Carlos is growing up into it, but I’m a hopeless case. When I mess up real bad, Ardal calls me to him. “Matilde,” he says sternly. I hate that voice. I hate that name. Matilde is the girl in the white dress that he wants. Matilde is the one who will get it, who understands that it wasn’t right to spy on Ms. Harcourt next door just because she does this funny thing where she shakes and foams at the mouth every so often. Scout is the one who scales the trees, who he loves, but Scout can lie and fight and Scout cries when she’s called Matilde.

I can hear my stylist asking me to eat. Soft, but wispy. I can feel them helping me dress. Gentle, but fleeting. I can see them fitting my pocket watch into my pocket. Carefully, but quickly. My lower lip trembles and a ball forms in my throat. Ardal would never…Bertie would always…even Carlos.

I just want someone to hold my hand.

Now, they’re putting me into a tube. Why this? Why me? Tickticktickticktick. Be strong. Matilde is crying in a tube she only has a minute to enjoy. The tears stream down my cheeks, the bile rises in my throat and my legs are trembling. I am going to die. I’ve seen it on television. Heads rolling across the ground. Skulls split open. Hearts torn out. My stomach is turning inside out, my heart is beating so quickly it’s stopped. It’s going to stop, stop, stop.

Now, we’re rising. I’m rising. The others are rising around me and I’m glad the sun is bright for I take the moment to quickly wipe my eyes. Be strong. Ardal’s words to me mean one thing only: I will die today. I will die one of two ways.

I will die as Matilde Watson. I will be shipped to my father in a box. In a white dress.

Or

I will die and be re-christened as a girl in a playground. A wild beast insulted. I will be Scout. Ardal isn’t here to tell me otherwise.

The Cornucopia glistens in front of me, stockpiled high with weaponry. Around me, there are indistinguishable tributes and I can taste the adrenaline pumping through their views and into hands prepared to wring my neck. There’s something green surrounding us, most likely brimming with dangerous beasts. I am a young girl. My skin is made of paper. My lungs will puncture with sharp breath. With ten seconds left of Matilde, I know there’s only one way to survive.

When the gong goes off, I run to the baptismal waters.

[/blockquote][/blockquote][/color]

[✨ zozo.]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/2oRWr6W.png); border: 120e0c solid 0px; opacity: 1.1; width: 125; height: 300px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 10px 0px 0px 10px;]

[/td][td][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: f0f4f7; border: 000000; solid 0px; width: 375px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 10px 10px 0px;]

Fire dances within me, licking at my skull and spurting from my head the colour of the sunset or an autumn afternoon. It bleeds - no, I bleed - down my skin and grapple at something to stop the pain but nothing falls into my hands but the open air. My feather, my precious token, hammers at my skull with the beads my stylist had bradied into it ("Please," I'd asked quietly when I'd first arrived in the Capitol, "Can you put this in my hair?") and I envy the bird in which it came from. How easily it would be to stretch my arms and fly away from this place where everything hurts and kids scream with furious means and ill-fated intentions. But I think to my feathered crown where they came from and realised that the bird must have had to die for it to be placed upon my head. I hope it's death was quick, and by no means like this.

[/size][/center][/td][/tr][/tr][/left]

[/table]

attacks [eden] with [unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
Miss -- 0.0 damage

[picks up meteor hammer]



[/center][rand=373242799891158942998140689451247597601244738325486042957108002156]

[Deleted]

Cassie Radke

[/font][/center]

This place was so strange, so foreign. The stench of blood was already starting to fill the air, and right now, it was severely strong, overwhelming even. The first seconds off the podium were like standing in the headlights of an oncoming car, a feeling I knew way too well. You kind of get stuck, and it’s almost like a temporary sense of being paralyzed. I finally found my bearings, and instead of just watching the kids flying past and the blood spilling out onto the ground, I started making my way towards the first familiar face, Shadow.

“Shadow! I’m here okay, I’ll watch your back.” I shouted over the screams of murder and death. Whether or not he heard me, I wasn’t sure. But it didn’t matter, I said it, and the thought is what counts. I was ready, well as ready as I was going to be, until I realized, hey Cassie, you’re kind of missing a weapon. Well, that thought came a little late, as I had already struck out at the nearest person that was within striking range.

[attacks Siana Felis, unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
[bruised left knee; 2.5]
[collects flail]

[rand=450038081035017977610175546724349087798684369772677281987303867936]

[Deleted]

When I run toward the Bloodbath, I don’t stop to look at Emery trouncing whatever pathetic kid she’s got her hands on. I don’t bother to see if Ewe can move his damn leg. I won’t know if Matilde is behind or in front of me (though considering I’m not much a runner, probably ahead). Instead I focus on the slow, steady rhythm toward the waiting weapons. The cornucopia shines in the sunlight and I think for the briefest of moments that I want to grab a sword. Inevitably, however, someone grows just a little too close. Shadow, is it him? No—another face pushes through and I extend my fist. I want to break his nose, or shatter his teeth. I want to hear him scream as he goes down. My heart pounds, and I swing.
[Iago attacks Brendon with unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
[Result5094 -- Bruised Right Wrist -- 2 damage
(Unarmed)]
[Iago collects his mace]

[/size][/justify]
[rand=4657562435604632772572095505893267387178516946739252837372478098]

[Ivana Vox [Chime]]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 0 0 0 0 px; width: 420px; height: 200px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: D2CDD1; padding: 0 0 0 0 px; width: 420px; height: 5px;] ivana vox + fourteen + district six + female

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 376px; height: 32px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 15px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-width: 3px 0px 3px 3px; border-color:#D2CDD1; border-style:double; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 140px;] There is no organization to this madness. It’s tangled limbs and flying splatters of liquid and the pounding of my feet against the ground, my heart against my ribs, the crunch of the landscape as it flies under my shoes. I don’t know up from down anymore, just know with everything in me that I have to get to the Cornucopia before anyone else. I’ve never run so fast in my life. My blood pumps so fast that my head is spinning, sending signals through every part of my body as adrenaline courses through me. I can’t even tell one person from another, my vision blurring with red around the edges. It’s only been a few seconds, maybe a minute. It can’t have been longer than that, but already the arena is filled with screams, yells, desperate gasps for air as infantile lungs give out. I can’t tell up from down. Maybe it doesn’t matter anymore. We’re stuck inside a cage anyways, no matter how far away the bars extend. This is the prison in which we’ll serve our life sentences, our punishments for things that we never even did. Our ancestors did this to us for freedom, and now we fight to die in a cell. Even I don’t have time to observe the chaos surrounding me. I’m one of the bodies with flailing limbs, trying to cut through the crowd of children. I feel my skin connect with someone else, but I can’t hear the apology that’s swallowed whole by a thousand other sounds. The knowledge that I hurt someone, hurt someone after all those years of healing even the most desperate souls, has my eyes blurring with tears. I’m lucky to trip over a weapon, to make it seem like my lurch to the ground was for a useless contraption of metal in my hands. Faking it. Faking a desire to survive. There’s three girls relying on me. That’s my only condolence left.

[/size]
[/td][td][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; border-width: 3px 3px 3px 0px; border-color:#D2CDD1; border-style:double; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 140px;]

[Attacks Eden; unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
[result -- damage]
[collects halberd (glaive)]

[/size]
[/td][td][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 15px;][/td][/tr][/table]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 10 10 10 10 px; width: 376px; height: 32px;]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: D2CDD1; padding: 0 0 0 0 px; width: 420px; height: 5px;] template inspired by chelsey

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: ffffff; padding: 0 0 0 0 px; width: 420px; height: 140px;]

[/center]

[rand=63973083207383759925719685852528781871733255684411311769275926054]

[Onyx]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 500px; padding: 80 0 80 0px; border-radius: 0px; border-style: double; border-width: 0 0 5 0px; border-color: #ffffff; background-image: url('http://i1241.photobucket.com/albums/gg516/bitteronyx/neele_zps6b58350b.jpg'); background-repeat: repeat-x, background-position: bottom, bTable]

[atrb=style, width:500px; background: #ffffff url(http://www.subtlepatterns.com/patterns/fresh_snow.png) repeat; opacity: 0.8; padding: 10px; border-radius: 0px;] AND THE WAR CAME WITH A CURSE AND A CATERWAUL AND THE WAR CAME WITH ALL THE POISE OF A CANNONBALL

[/font][/center][/size][/td][/tr][/table][/center]

[atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=width,500,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: #ffffff; opacity: 1.0; padding: 10px; border-radius: 0 0 15 15px;] <div align="justify"> Tributes already fall behind me and around me, but neither my mind nor my feet have failed me yet. I try to catch sight of Cassie or Shadow, but know that they must be approaching from a whole sixth further round the Cornucopia than I am. The sound of a bone crunching somewhere to my left stops me momentarily in my tracks and I can feel acid rising in my throat. I think of all the rats I’ve crushed in my hands, and wonder if I could break a human bone, too, if the time came to it. Screams fill my head, but I can’t tell if they belong to the imaginary victims I’ve conjured up out of speculation, or to the real, hurting children on every side. I need to find a way to focus my mind and block out all my speculations, because as I keep running my vision starts to blacken with panic. This horror is overwhelming. In a moment of terrified blindness, I trip and fall forward, into another tribute. The wail that erupts from me is cut short as I hit the ground and all the air is knocked out of me. Painfully, my back teeth crash together and blood begins to seep from a tear in the flesh of my cheek. As my vision straightens, I see that lying on the ground, just out of reach, is a long metal flail. What god is watching over me? It takes all my effort to crawl forwards to it, grab it, and get back up again, but I manage it, somehow, and after spitting out a phlegmy gob of blood (the first of much to be shed, I know) I keep running without looking back. [[Attacks LUCY, unarmed]] [dice=200+5000] </div>

[rand=41961380280554295207901334390044260405136574991052184400784317404]

[Knuckles]

"Jim, Sticky it's time to go!" Every muscle in my body is convulsing as I look around the cornucopia. My stomach lunges into my throat. I force myself to swallow everything as it burns my throat on the way down. It's too much for me to handle. Weapons clashing against other weapons. It's too much. I can't be here anymore. I need to run. I need to get out of here if I want to survive. I must survive. I run away from the cornucopia with my weapon and other items in hand. I sprint as fast as my legs carry me. I run. My heart pounding in my chest as I pray nobody else is following me. I run into the distance away from the fighting not wanting to look back. I hope Jim followed me.

Narration 4C4361
Thoughts A091AE
Hearing 80779B
Speech A3A3D0
Other DECDD1

ooc: Storm has fled

[Deleted]

<div align="justify">

I am surrounded by oblivious faces: people who actually think they have a chance at these games. They all seem to blur together in this great pit of ignorance and arrogance and all of the other –ance words that currently apply. If I really wanted it enough, I know I could win these games on Day One, but I can’t fathom going back to the place where people will look upon me only as a prize, only a trophy with the name “Moreno” written in gems across the front. For a second, I think about how satisfying it would be to win, but I quickly negate the thought and bring my fists out in front of me. If anything, I can at least have fun dying.

[attacks Brendon Halt, unarmed]
[dice=200+5000]
[ Bruised Right Femur -- 3 damage]

[Grabs Meteor hammer (flail)]
header by Stare <3

</div>

[rand=6807504750322550588860430289059954374966071918613588531680870801]

[Meghan]

Panicked breath subsides as life and death becomes the anthem of choice here in the arena. I have already leapt from my plate and aimed my sullen hands towards the nearest tribute when the gong has finished its winsome tune. The happy scowls and words of passing are no longer of importance as we practice a friendly game of fatality. We are each of our own volition in such a setting as this, and I cannot afford to be friendly to anyone.

I do not check twice to see if my fist has hit its mark. I am already running, sprinting towards the center of the feud in the hopes to find a weapon.

"Oh mighty ghouls above, what fears and wonder have you brought to us today?" I challenge as I run, my voice ringing out just for the goddess above. Let her hate me even more. I will not be there pawn no matter what circumstance they force me into.

[Beatrice attacks Siana Felies, UNARMED]
[dice=200+5000]
[miss 0.0]

[collects her WAR HAMMER OF DEATH]

My fingers close around a metal handle and I know its not the familiar blade of eternal rest I, like a dog, so lovingly cared for. But it would do for now. Heavy and sturdy, it could at least get me a couple of broken bones. Enough to distract an opponent, to weave around their defensives.

[/i]

I lick my lips and dive into the battle once more, ready to take on the world of tributes. "Come at me, bro."
[/color][/blockquote][/size][rand=38853401201777162025760279502719665852129319682722695307198446244]

[Cato]

Accepting that staying in the bloodbath would be impossible, Jim got a tight grip on everything he managed to grab so far and ran away from the bloodbath. He felt so exhausted and tired, but he hoped these items would help save his life and the lives of Sticky and Shine. He wanted to stay longer to make sure they made it out alive, but now was not the time to do anything foolish. Hoping that his allies got out alive, Jim using every last ounce of energy within him to sprint from the cornucopia.

result: Jim flees the bloodbath and uses first aid on himself for -3 damage.

[florentine, d4b ❁]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=style, background-image: url(http://i.imgur.com/IpC5GpL.png); border: 120e0c solid 0px; opacity: 1.1; width: 125; height: 300px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 10px 0px 0px 10px;]

[/td][td][atrb=cellSpacing,0,true][atrb=cellPadding,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 262424; border: 000000; solid 0px; width: 375px; padding: 0 0 0 0px; border-radius: 0px 10px 10px 0px;]

lucy peverell.

[/center]

There is no malice in the rise and fall of your feet as the countdown ends and end of your life begins. You do not search for survival, for permission, for validification. Wide blue eyes without tears take in your surroundings - the Cornucopia, magnificent and shining, and the darkness entrapping the clearing - they are looking for your allies. Quickly, they find them, and you want nothing more than to protect them for what you are entirely convinced is wicked.

[/blockquote][/size][/color][/font][/center][/td][/tr][/tr][/left]


[/table][/center]

[lucy attacks name, sword]

[dice=200+1000]

[collects purse]

[/font][/center]
[rand=4912881727796048054458421422168619805201485287398719231277005747]

[Verbal, Lord of The Dreadfort]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 02080C; border-top: 0D8185 ridge 4px; border-bottom: 0D8185 groove 4px; border-left: 0D8185 ridge 4px; border-right: 0D8185 groove 4px; width: 460px; padding: 7 3 7 3px; -webkit-border-radius:50px 50px 0px 0px; width:500px] Linus

[/color] Cohen[/font][/size][/center][/td][/tr][/table]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, background-color: 02080C; border-top: 0D8185 ridge 4px; border-bottom: 0D8185 groove 4px; border-left: 0D8185 ridge 4px; border-right: 0D8185 groove 4px; width: 460px; padding: 7 3 7 3px; -webkit-border-radius:0px 0px 50px 50px; width:500px] What can be said of this boy's morning? I had orange juice. And toast. Then I got on a hovercraft that would take me to my imminent disembowlment. Charming. The view was so breathtaking. Out the window, viewing the scenic beauty of the wilderness. I had never really seen mountains before. I'd never seen a lot of things before I came to the Capitol. "This place was nice..." I thought. What was District Eight? A titanic textile mill of rock and steel. The Capitol boor the fruit of our labors. Our miseries. It was the place to be. That is, if they didn't want you dead for their own twisted entertainment. But there's no time to dwell on what's happened. Sixty seconds marks the clock, every number audible. 60... 59... 58... 57... 56... 55... 54... 53... 52... 51... Everyone around me poised to kill, and me, the crippled kid with the average-ish training score. They all wanted to slit my throat. 50... 49... 48... 47... 46... 45... 44... 43... 42... 41... My limp was aching me. I had been on it too long. 40... 39... 38... 37... 36... 35... 34... 33... 32... 31... This was where the whole thing would end. The pageantry, the cheering, the limp... 30... 29... 28... 27... 26... 25... 24... 23... 22... 21... Poor orphan kids got reaped all the time. It was a lucky occurrence. No one would miss them. Be hurt if they were taken away. I was dying for someone I didn't know. And a million people I hated. 20... 19... 18... 17... 16... 15... 14... 13... 12... 11... Try to focus on strategy! There was no time left. None at all. They nailed me to a stake, and I must fly. The other tributes, like vultures... 10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... I am a dead man. [Linus enters the bloodbath.] So kiss me goodbye... Honey I'm gonna make it out alive... So kiss me goodbye... I can see the venom in their eyes. So kiss me goodbye...

[/center]