★EDEN KARAM★

[AUTOMATIC 14]

The scent of a fiery doom pulled her from her dreamless slumber.

Eden came awake coughing as her body convulsed with coughs, attempting to expel the toxic fumes from her lungs with primal fervor. Her entire body ached, and for a long moment she couldn't remember where she was— had she blacked out during training again? Surely she would have remembered if her sparring partner had throw her hard enough to leave one enormous bruise where her back should have been. Every cough tensed her poor, aching muscles so her cries came out as squeak of suppressed, overwhelmed agony.

Eventually, her memories returned to her: blood and sand glinting in the sunlight, a thousand vibrant feathery forms circling her and crying out with accusing tones. The fall, framed with sunlight and ending in immediate, crushing blackness. Her head swam with the vividness of the recollections, even though they seemed far away and above her in a way she found difficult to describe. Her eyes opened, staring up to the darkened sky with its hypnotizing mosaic of dancing, fiery light and choking smoke.

As she struggled to her feet and managed to pull the cloth of her shirt up over her mouth, dirt and moss clung to her clothes, coming away from the shallow but decidedly Eden-shaped hole in the soft, slippery mud. That tiny give had most likely saved her life, she realized; had the forest been slightly less permeated with moisture, she might well have perished in the fall to the earth far below.

Death by jabberjay. She was entirely grateful that this was not to be her final experience in the Games: even beyond the grave she was quite certain the embarrassment would kill her.

The fire rose with a soundless roar behind her, and Eden found herself stumbling towards the beach. The heat behind her rapidly dried the mud that coated her back into hard, crusty earth like armor in some old fantasy epic from the times before Panem—

Hey! Would you look at that. This entry, including this little author's note at the end, has reached five hundred words! Isn't that neat? This is the number I need for this entry to be eligible for that gorgeous automatic 14, which unfortunately prevented me from sending in my preferred cri everytim composed of gifs and jabs at Internet culture. Now that I've reached it...hmm. See you next week, I suppose?

(And I need people to die for ballot reasons, so Hertzel Kozlowski and Laurus Enzo perished horribly in the fire, and Eden eventually killed Constantine Crane because Constantine was her least favorite Roman emperor. Nothing personal, really, she just hates his name and she wanted a severed head as a souvenir and trespasser deterrent. You know. Girly things.)

Peace, everyone. (Well, all this is still technically Eden's entry; so maybe peace isn't exactly what I should be writing to close things off. "Bloody murder for everyone :D" I guess?)

Either way, TheCatKing is calling it a night and enjoying the rest of his spring break.

★VIOLANTE MERCY GRINNELL★

[SAFETY NET]

Hair go bye bye.

★NEPTUNE SCYLLA★

"Wait! Lucas! Where are we going?" Neptune followed closely behind the energetic boy. He was not pulling her along so she could have turned back and gone home if she had wanted. But against her better judgment, she continued to follow him, as though he were pulling an invisible string. She was in a trance and her kryptonite was the beautiful, blonde haired boy.

Lucas continued to shuffle through the brush. He brushed aside a low-hanging branch before turning around and grinning ear to ear at Neptune. "It's a surprise! I told you that!"

"You did, and then I told you I don't like surprises."

"You have to live a little. Life's too short to not be spontaneous every once in a while."

Neptune laughed and shook her head.

When Lucas suddenly stopped she nearly ran into him. Neptune's mouth hung agape as she studied the scene before her. A small fire glinted in the middle of a small clearing, reflecting off the stones that sectioned off a safe distance for sparks. A green blanket lay on the dirt next to the fire, being warmed by the friendly flame.

"What is this?" Neptune's eyes wondered between the blanket and Lucas.

"Happy birthday!" Lucas pulled Neptune into a hug, ignoring her shock.

"Uh, thank you." Her eyes went wide as the flames in the fire grew.

"Come, sit," Lucas motioned to the spot next to him. Neptune followed, reaching her hand out to grab his.

"Lucas, the fire looks to be a bit too large." As she spoke the words the flames leaped up, engulfing nearby shrubbery. "We should go."

Despite the smoke that continued to sting her eyes and catch in her throat, Neptune felt unusually calm. The warmth reached the pair and she almost welcomed it. But then a terrible cough came from Lucas's body, raspy and all consuming.

"Lucas!" Neptune screamed as the fire engulfed her partner. Tears fell freely from her eyes as she watched her love burn alive.

His coughing became a loud and awful scream of agony. The skin on his body began to blister and then melt, almost as though he were made of plastic. A foul odor reached her nose and then a bang as his skeleton exploded, sending shards of bone into the surrounding area.

Neptune felt the shards pierce her skin, pain lurching through her body. She let out a yell and her throat began to fill with blood. She could no longer breathe and her eyesight was failing her. The flames from the fire caught onto her clothes. With one last grab at air, Neptune lost consciousness.

Neptune sat up, gasping for air. She did not receive any relief, however, because a thick smoke hung in the air. The sweat that had become a constant companion, along with the terrible heat, had amplified been ten-fold. She felt as though she were swimming through a sticky swamp. Her eyes stung as she looked around. She could not see any of her allies but right then her mind only wondered why the world around her was up in flames. And why she was dreaming of the dead--dreaming of people who were long lost and therefore did not matter.

As she continued to choke on the polluted air, feeling the ground for her bag. She found it but when she went to grab her trident she gasped, her hand blistering in contact with the hot metal. Neptune cursed herself for sleeping through the gamemakers play and for lacking the reflexes to wake before it was too late. I have to get to the water--I have to make it to the ocean if I don't want to burn to death. She had often thought of the ways she would die, her particular favorite was a former lover coming cried out as a burning tree fell in front of her, sending a flurry of sparks into the air. Which way is the beach?

The red hot flames disguised any sort of identifying markers of where she was. So Neptune turned, disoriented and ran towards the clearest path she saw. She could not breathe and the running and pounding of her heart did little to help her condition. She felt bile rise in her throat, her gut reaction to the choking on the ashes. She felt her skin blister as she accidentally ran too close to the flaming shrubbery. The pain was nearly unbearable and she had half a mind to run into the middle of flames and let the devil take her back home.

Another falling tree made her jump and a flaming figure caused Neptune to trip. The face of the fallen tribute was no longer distinguishable among the ones still alive.

Only a little ways more, Neptune coaxed herself to continue running. She knew she was going to die if she remained in the burning jungle for much longer, there was no way she could survive in here much longer.

In a last ditch effort, Neptune sprinted faster than she ever had before. She let out a squeal, which immediately turned into a fit of coughs when she saw the cool blue of the water greeting her. She ran across the red sand, which reflected the color of the burning woods. Water... Water... Water... was her only thought.

However, as soon as she reached the deep indigo sea, she was thrown backward--and not forward into the relief she needed to feel. She hit the sand hard, her head fuzzy from the impact. What is this?

Neptune looked at her skin, inflamed from the encounter with the burning jungle. "Kill me now," she muttered to herself, "what is the point of living when I look like this?"

Suddenly a commotion on the edge of the jungle caught her eye. Tributes exited the fiery furnace one by one, and in turn they began to fight. It was a trick, a ploy, how incredibly clever.

★ADEL ASLET★

Late Entry 

★EVELYN GRAY★

The moon was smiling at me tonight. A crescent moon tilted on its side, its pure white light piercing through the night. As I bobbed up and down with the waves, the acrid taste of saltwater filling my mouth every time I tried to take a breath, the moon's smile seemed to move up and down, laughing at my desperate attempts to stay afloat. Without the sun to warm it, the water was cold, and if quickly sapped the warmth from my body. Even if I didn't drown, it was only a matter of time before I froze, drifting aimlessly away from the island.

A wave, even bigger than any of the ones before, crashed into me, pushing me back under the water again. The meager amount of air left in my lungs was abruptly pushed out. I could only watch helplessly, struggle aimlessly, as I watched the bubbles of air float towards the surface. The light of the moon was distant, barely visible through the wall of the water, the stars completely obscured. For a moment, I wanted to stay there, separated from the rest of the world, my body completely sapped of energy and warmth. Then, as I floated with the current, I felt my feet scratch against sand, compact from the constant push of the tide. Pushing against the ocean floor, I surfaced for air again. Another wave pushed me again, I could reach the sand without having to sink beneath the water.

Walking on land was infinitely easier than swimming through the water, the resistance of the water pushing against me gone. Still, I could only stagger along the beach, my legs weak and tired, until they gave out underneath me. The sand sunk into place around me, individual grains clung to every inch of my wet body. My breath was still uneven, not yet used to the constant presence of oxygen, my heart pounding as though trying to shake off each droplet of water, each was of sand clinging to my body, my eyes fixed on the sky above the forest, on the countless stars and the moon still smiling down at me.

I didn't know how long I lay there. My heartbeat stopped pounding in my ears, my breathing slowed, the water dropped from my head to the ground below but I still lay looking up at the sky. Though the tide ebbed and flowed, sand was brought in and promptly washed away again, the stars remained as constant as they'd always been, the smiling moon's expression unchanged. Only gently curling tendrils of smoke, reaching up from the jungle as though to take down the moon itself, broke my concentration away.

Bolting upright, I looked back at the jungle. Nothing immediately seemed wrong behind its deep shades of green. The jungle seemed exactly the same as it had the day of the Bloodbath, its bright flowers promising shelter and comfort, its shadows warning of hidden dangers. Whether it was a foolhardy tribute or a Gamemaker's trap, the source of the fire was obscured from my view. Somehow that didn't make me feel any better. In a regular Games, any tribute could be ignorant or arrogant enough to let a fire give away their positions; here there were only Victors. The fire had to be someone's trap. I needed to get away.

Before I could even place a toe back in the water, a shock ran through my body. The air around where my hand had once been shimmered, rippling outwards like a pebble dropped into a lake until the growing clouds of smoke blocked it from my vision. A force field. My hands began to shake as I backed away from the water's edge, where the field began. If it was a tribute who had started the fire, I could avoid them, fight them if I had to. If the Gamemakers wanted something to happen though, it was all but inevitable.

They wanted us to come out to the beach, to fight one another, and - I swallowed a lump in my throat - to kill. So that was what had to happen.

Before I could stop it, my hand reached into my bag and gripped onto the knife I retrieved from the Bloodbath. I hated how familiar it felt in my hands, but needed the security it gave me. One voice reminded me I had used a knife like this to finish off a Career and win my Games. Another taunted me, I had used that same knife to kill an ally as well. Bits of the knife's iron flashed against the moonlight, reminding me of the strength, the sharpness that still existed beneath its rust. It begged me to use it, to let me fulfill its deadly purpose.

Would I?

A flash of movement drew my attention back to the periphery of the forest. Bright ginger hair contrasted with the verdant jungle, the man's movements erratic as he ran towards the beach. For a moment, I stopped, my mind racing as I tried to figure out who this man was: a Career who could and would kill me without a second thought, or a tribute like me who was just trying to survive. He turned, as though finally noticing that I was there, and I caught a better look at his face.

Images, memories I had tried to repress for years came flossing back to me in flashes. Chocolate wrappers strewn about a carriage, a beautiful blonde girl the same age as me with her face snarled into an ugly expression, her body lying with ten others, her throat cut open, her face white as porcelain, every ounce of blood drained out. They say you never forget your first tribute.

Maybe Valentine didn't remember her as strongly as I did. Maybe he didn't even know her name beside District Twelve Female. Maybe he didn't realize what he had done in the Bloodbath, when he shoved her out of the way to grab his little backpack and she fell into the boy from District Two. He certainly didn't know Honey's family owned the candy shop in Twelve, that they used to lower prices on Reaping Day to try and comfort the kids who had to attend, that now they're closed on Reaping Day to remember their daughter.

Wasn't he as responsible for her death, and everything that ensued, as I was?

I didn't really remember what happened next, only that someone was screaming and at first it was me and then it was him. He was stronger, but I had twenty five years of rage at my disposal. The knife was too rusty to leave a clean cut, so the gash on his neck was even more jagged than the one on Honey's had been. The force field didn't expand with the tide, so I was able to wash his blood off my hands in the waves.

As I watched the crimson blood wash away from my hands, dissolving into the infinite ocean, I saw the reflection of the moon rippling against the water. Now, she only frowned. 

★SEQUOIA "MADAME" CARLISLE★

Dropped Out

★CADETTE LANCE★ 

There is never a fixed period of time Cadette Lance remembers- her mind meanders, slipping from one decade to the next and back to the previous; the trickle of recollections gushes and dries up with the seasons, sometimes churning with emotion and sometimes dulled, far away. Sometimes they escape her grasp within seconds, while others linger, determined to be acknowledged. She does not control the ebb and flow, nor orchestrate the precision of her memory. But she no longer expects to, either.

There is a tendril of memory replaying inside her this night. It is vague and teasing, a fragment of a puzzle too complex for a mind as decrepit as hers to solve. Staring up at the dense canopy, faint splotches of starlight peering through the leaves, she attempts to will her eyes shut once more. Sleep, Cadette. As desperate as she is to uncover the hint, it can wait. The soft snores of the boy around the other side of the tree- barely audible with all of the other chirps and crickets consuming the busy forest- remind her of his warning that there may not be another moment to sleep with the incessant trials they've already faced. But as soon as her eyelids cloak her sight in black, they dart right open again, staring into the treetops where she's convinced her foes stare her down from.

It is another reason why she feels such a need to discover what she can almost, almost place a finger on- she needs to remember. She can't shake the feeling that until she does, the birds of prey will watch, planning their return. They have left enough of a mark already, she thinks, but the fear remains lodged within her.

Fright. It is what she remembers, what lingers from a time long gone- but it is a different fright all the same. While her wariness of the winged creatures is constant and situated amongst other thoughts, the fear she remembers is more sudden; it comes in flashes of pure and utter panic, consuming every other emotion.

But it is over just as soon as it begins.

She shifts onto her side, attempting to curl up against the massive tree root she's nestled herself against, but her motion is cut short. Pain shoots from her hip into every cell of her aching body, and her breath catches in her throat as the sharp flare of resistance catches her off guard. Struggling to avoid letting out the cry she knows will surely wake the boy resting on the opposite side of the tree, she bites down on her bottom lip, squeezing until she feels the tang of leaked blood on her tongue.

The bruises had taken a bit to form. From her tumble on the beach and various other incidents of knocking against things just too hard, every limb has been stained black and blue, weak and damaged. The purple welts from the carnivorous birds only worsened the matter- though the boy had wrapped large jungle leaves around them and applied some sort of pain reliever he'd found at the bloodbath, she can barely move a muscle without retaliation. Old bones had already protested; additional pain is yet another bother weighing her down.

She shuts her eyes again, hopelessly commanding exhaustion to take the reins. Trying to push the world away, she pretends the mossy forest floor is a gently worn mattress, and the rough bark she rests her head on is the flawlessly fluffed pillow of her fantasies. For a moment, she relaxes.

For a moment, there is peace.

The stench tickles her nostrils right before she slips into the realm of unconsciousness, but she pays little mind to it, for it comes with little pungence at first. She allows the confusion to settle itself in the back of her mind, fatigue finally stepping in.

She does not feel rested when she wakes. The first thing she notices is the odor infecting the air, scalding her lungs as she inhales. Muddled mind working in mysterious ways, she realizes she knows the smell, remembers it. Yet it is too thick- too concentrated. It had been light, airy, barely noticeable. But it is the same smell, she's sure. Smoke.

"Cadette, wake up!" Bleary-eyed, she turns to the voice, barely audible above a continuous roar coming from a source her brain hasn't processed enough to identify yet. A pair of creased eyebrows stare down at her, and she recognizes her companion. Lips compressed, she watches him anxiously glance off into the distance for a moment, and follows his gaze with her own eyes.

A blast of color greets her, and she has to blink a few times to dry her eyes and see clearly into the mingling reds and oranges devouring the thick trees in the distance. She watches a branch fall, sparks exploding upon impact with the flaming ground, catching on the next limb.

She remembers fire. From where, she's not sure- perhaps the memory that continues to bug her- but she knows it's in there somewhere. She remembers its unmistakable heat, its unmistakable hunger, its unmistakable peril.

"Help me up," she croaks, attempting to raise her voice to an audible volume. The boy loops an arm beneath her, pulling her up as swiftly as he can while still maintaining a degree of gentleness on her fragile bones. Gritting her teeth, she tries to push the pain away and focus on the urgency of the situation. She rocks onto her feet, steadying herself.

"You can do it," the boy nods encouragingly. She spares a small smile as she takes a step, leaning heavily against his shoulder, though she knows that his heart is probably beating just as fast as her own is. Every muscle within her wants to backlash, collapse under the pressure, but she forces another step away from the blaze. Fresh beads of sweat break out on her forehead as she hisses, hip pleading with her to just stop.

But she can't stop. Not when the boy has lingered so long to aid her- she can't die on him now, or doom him herself. Such kindness cannot be wasted upon her.

Back down the path he'd carved out to the beach she proceeds, one foot in front of the other. Time passes- though perhaps it seems like more to her because of the repetitive, strenuous exercise. The forest looks the same in every direction. "Keep going," the boy urges her on.

Something stirs in the leaves ahead of them, and she pauses as a figure drags themselves from the bushes. "Help me, please," a man cries out, dragging a scalded leg towards them. She stares, wide-eyed, at the blackened flesh, charred beyond recognition; his wetsuit suffers from a gaping hole.

"Keep going," the boy whispers. "We can't help him."

She takes another step. Then another. The man's cries for help echo in her mind long after they leave him behind, her aided hobble fast enough to evade the flames. She glances back once, only to see his outstretched hand consumed by the blaze.

As fast as she might be for an old woman, the flames gain distance all too quickly, and she feels the searing heat on her back after a while, when her pace slows from fatigue. She dares not twist her neck to see how close they are to burning, opting to watch her companion instead. His glances back are all too telltale.

"When it gets too close," she shouts, in between a hacking fit of coughs. "You run."

He shakes his head adamantly, face flustered with the bristling hot. "Let me carry you."

She nods, pausing to briefly catch her breath. The boy places a hand on her back and another on the bend in her knees- thankfully, in areas with no wounds. Then, he lifts with a grunt of effort, and before she knows it, they're off, speeding away from the flames she hadn't realized were quite so dangerously close. She watches the path fly by beneath his feet as he dashes away from the fire at a speed she can't fathom nearing in the rest of her lifetime. Trees begin to shallow out with time as the sprint makes up for all their lost distance, and she observes the jungle slowly transform into the stretch of sand where she'd first fallen, and had been helped up. Labored pants escape her carrier's mouth as drops of sweat bead across his forehead, but still, he does not give up.

She doesn't know if she'll ever understand why he tries so hard, why he hadn't just left her on the sand at the very beginning.

As they reach the center of the beach, just outside the shack she'd noticed all the supplies were located in, his hand purposefully slips from beneath her knee, and he helps her steady herself on her own two feet. Isolation- no forest fire can touch them in a sea of sand. Scanning the horizon for adversaries, she ducks into the shelter, taking a deep breath as her back whines in protest. The boy follows her, then crouches on the floor in the center of the structure, eyes hardly straying to the leftover weapons not yet looted. Eyebrows furrowing, she watches him burrow through the thin layer of sand until his hand clasps a small handle, which he wrenches into the air, revealing a hidden cellar below.

"Come on," he grins, waving her over. "We'll be safe down here."

Gingerly taking a step forward, she lowers herself onto the first step, then the second. The boy scurries around to follow her in the descent. "Be careful," he calls. "If you need help, I'm right behind you."

Be careful, she thinks. Be careful...

A little girl leans against the kitchen table, arm outstretched into the air. Her eyes glint, reflecting the flame she is so captivated by. It dances with each minuscule gust of wind that flutters through the open curtains, flickers with a life unlike any other. Her fingers are almost there... she can almost touch it... just a little further...

Sudden panic slams into a mother as she turns to face her child once more. Covering the distance to the table in leaps and bounds, she reaches out for the little girl, heart pounding wildly in her chest as she predicts the tears that are to come, the pain curiosity will bring. "Luscie, no!"

The girl withdraws her arm, casting a disappointed glance to her mother, who lets out a sigh of relief. "Be careful, Luscie. Fire hurts if you touch it, no matter how pretty it looks." Wrapping an arm around her pouting daughter, she swiftly licks her finger, then clasps it around the candle's flame.

It fizzles out, and the faint scent of smoke simmers in the air.