Magnolia in May

The Fallen: Pre-Finale

11th Place: Arland Keaton, D5 - killed by Elias Jacobs, D1

10th Place: Nessarose McQuillen, D9 - killed by Malia Augustine, D12

9th Place: Kyera Magnolia, D7 - killed by Elias Jacobs, D1

8th Place: Sloane Oleksei, D3 - killed by Rafaele Cipriani, D6

7th Place: Lizzie Nicholson, D6 - killed by North Kaledon, D2

The sounds of familiar voices screaming for help ripped Arland, Kyera, and Nessa out of their deep sleeping. The voice that had tugged at Nessa’s mind was that of her fifteen-year-old sister, Natalie. Her screams for help filled her head. She tried to block out the ear-piercing shouts, but to no avail.

It must have cost Willow a lot of money to send her this taser. I wonder if they give any sort of discount to families of tributes. It would be nice if they did, but I don’t think anyone can describe anything related to the games as nice. It just doesn’t seem right. 

Pachenko's face appears next and, once again, mixed emotions fill me.  He was a jerk to me, made me cry, but he then showed a sweeter side.  I remember how he had asked me to sing him a lullaby, something I actually never ended up doing.  I wonder what would have happened had I actually gone to his suite that night.

Kyera is outside for a bit, and I begin to think that something could be wrong. I snatch up my axe, gripping it fiercely as I head over to the window. I peer out it, spotting Kyera clutching a note to her heart, tears running down her face. A breathe a sigh of relief knowing that she isn’t physically injured, and head away from the window, giving Kyera some privacy. 

She reenters the cabin a few moments later, parachute in hand. I wait for her to show it to me. I don’t want to overstep my boundaries, she seems a bit emotional right now. 

"This should be useful," I smile weakly, taking the note and stuffing it in my pocket.  "It was from my sister," I explain, hoping that would be enough for my alliance to understand why I took so long to return from outside

I’m lost in thought, but the sound of a beeping parachute pulls me out of the labyrinth. I don’t think Artemis would send me something so soon again. After all, he did just send me an antidote, and that must have cost him quite a bit of money. 

Before I could get a word in, the familiar beeping of a parachute sounds in the distance.  I figure it was probably for Nessa again since so far she's the only one confirmed with a sponsor.  Arland and I must not have been as lucky.

"I'll get it," I offer with a smile, pushing myself off the ground and heading outside to retrieve the parachute.  Looking at the note, I realize that it wasn't for Nessa but rather me.  Willow's words touched deeply and my eyes begin to well up.  Taking a deep breath, I press the note against my heart and a tear trickles down my face.  When I've regain my composure, I head back inside to unravel the parachute.  A small taser appears and I hold it up, inspecting it.

A lone parachute finds it’s way down to Kyera.  Inside is a small taser and a note.

"I think that’s a good idea. We should leave if anyone else comes here or we get attacked again, but if no one else is here, then I wouldn’t bother," I added. If no one else was here and the Gamemakers didn’t send us any more mutts to fend off, we were fine here on our own.

"All clean," I smile as I hand it to Nessa.

I nodded, taking a sip of the water as she handed it to me. “Thank you,” I repeated, looking towards Kyera. I was surprised we’d made it this far, but was grateful that we had. I was only thirteen more canons away from home, but it seemed painfully far away.

I glance at Nessa at Arland's question.  "We haven't really decided what to do yet," I say, biting my lip.  We probably should have a plan but we just escaped with our lives from tracker jackers.

Grabbing a throwing knife, I turn one of the mutts over, careful not to touch it with my hands. “The venom sac is right here,” I tell her after inspecting the tail end of the creature for a few moments, recalling my medical training in the Capitol. 

I take out the syringe that contained the antidote before I used it, plunging the thin needle into the venom sac. I pull on the plunger, extracting the green-colored venom into the empty syringe. 

I watch Nessa extract the venom from the first tracker jacker.  After her instruction, I nod and take her syringe.  Just as Nessa had done earlier, I carefully extract the venom from the next tracker jacker.

She returns safely, and I help pack up our now clean items. I’ll take them back out when Arland comes to. Hopefully that will be quite soon. If he’s out for too long that could mean there’s a problem at hand. I doubt it, though.

"You probably didn’t hear it, but two cannons went off when you were unconscious. That leaves twelve tributes left in the arena," I tell Kyera. I can’t help but wonder if they were attacked by other tributes or if they experienced something similar to us upon waking up. I think the latter is likely. The gamemakers probably decided to send something after everyone. 

I wonder what she hallucinated, but I know not to ask. If it was bad enough that she threw a knife, I doubt that it’s something she wants to talk about. 

Two more cannons?  Wow, I think.  That means half of us are already gone and it's only day two.  I hope that would mean that the Gamemakers are willing to let things slow down a bit, giving Nessa, Arland, and I a few more days to live and to hopefully return home.

I manage a smile. “What are friends for?” I say. If I hadn’t treated them, I probably would go down as one of the worst allies to have ever existed in the history of the games. 

Kyera begins to eat up, which is good. I’m glad that she still has an appetite, because it’s important to keep up one’s strength in the arena. I scoop the soup into my mouth, the warmth from it coursing through my body. 

I see Kyera look over to the knife she threw at the wall. I walk over to it, wrenching it out of the wood. It’s wedged in there pretty deep, but I’m able to get it out nonetheless. “Nice throw,” I comment as I hand her the knife.

The warmth of the soup fills me up and soon I'm finished with my meal.  "Thanks for cooking, Nessa," I say with a smile.  "I can clean up," I offer, taking our bowls and utensils out to the river to rinse them out.

When I head back in, I tell her that so far the coast seems clear with no immediate dangers from other tributes or mutts.  "Let's hope it stays that way for a while longer," I add.  "Or at least until we're all healed," I grimace, a slight pain lingering where the tracker jacker had stung me.  The swelling had just begun to die down and it seems like it might take a while before it'll be completely gone.