The sun rises on the arena, reflecting off of the snow that covers every surface. There’s no fresh snow falling this morning, which is a relief. Astrid Luca (D9) opens her eyes, squinting and sighing when she realizes that the events of the prior day were not a dream. Lotus is dead. That was not part of the plan. She scrunches her nose, suddenly blindingly angry at Amber Nelson (D8). She unties the rope that’s fastened with a release knot around her waist and returns it to her pack. Throwing her sword and pitchfork down onto the ground first, she scales down the tree trunk and then readjusts the pack on her back. She picks up her weapons and then begins her trek north toward the cornucopia. 

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Amber wakes up, her knife clutched close to her chest. She’s curled up in a ball at the back of the Cornucopia. It’s warm, the metal providing insulation, and the supplies that are strewn about, while mostly useless, provide good camouflage from other tributes. Amber is still angry - at Astrid and Lotus Miller (D9, deceased) for betraying her and killing Kacey Covestand (D4, deceased) and at herself, too, for not realizing what they were planning. 

​

The sound of snow crunching beneath boots jolts Amber back to her current situation. It’s coming from somewhere outside, not too close but not far away enough for Amber to feel safe. She quickly gathers up her pack and knives and slowly, quietly makes her way to the opening of the horn, peeking out and looking for the source of the noise. Amber can’t see anyone coming, but better safe than sorry, she thinks. She moves around the corner of the Cornucopia, skirting along the edge and running north, back into the cold and snow.

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​

Bang. Bang. Bang. Malia Wells (D1) sits in the loft of the Stables, her allies asleep amongst the bales of hay and a few feet away. Bang. Bang. Bang. Malia looks around, peering over the edge of the loft to see if the sound is coming from the reindeer below. It’s not. Bang. Bang. Bang. Skye Stone (D7) and Cal Dynam (D2) wake with a start. 

​

“What is that awful noise,” Skye whines, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Cal stretches, looking around. 

 

“Not sure, it just started,” says Malia, standing as tall as she can in the loft, which has a very low ceiling. Skye and Cal stand as well, wiping hay off their jackets and snow pants. The three congregate at the small window in the loft, looking out to try and see what all the fuss is about. 

 

“Can you see anything?” Malia asks, unable to make out anything out in the snow through the tiny opening. 

​

“Kind of,” replies Skye, squinting. “It’s big and brown and has horns, I think.” 

 

“A moose?” Cal offers, turning to his allies. “I saw a picture of one at the survival station during training.” 

 

“Why does it keep running to the side of the building? It’s going to make the reindeer mad,” Skye is picking up her knives off the ground and wiping them clean with her jacket sleeve. 

 

“Feral, maybe. Or rabid,” Cal says, shrugging when Malia and Skye look at him incredulously. “What? I paid attention during training. They don’t teach a lot of survival back in Two.” 

 

“So what do we do?” Malia asks, looking more worried than before. “If a rabid animal gets in here it could infect all of the reindeer. Or worse, us.” 

​

“Ok how about this,” Skye puts down her knives. “We drop one of these bales of hay on it as a distraction. If we’re lucky either me or Malia will be able to kill it with a knife.” All three of the Divine Chaos trio agree to this plan and then take their positions. After prying the small screen covering off of the window, Cal gathers a smaller bale of hay, one of the ones he’s sure will fit through the window, and drops it right on top of the moose. It makes a startled noise and backs up, looking around confused and giving Malia and Skye enough time to take up station at the window and begin throwing their knives at it. The animal cries out, becoming angrier and angrier with every knife that lodges itself in its body. Finally, Malia manages to plant one of her knives in the moose’s head. It drops to the ground, twitching, its blood staining the pristine snow beneath it. 

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Tiberius Bournes (D10) sits on his own, tears running down his face freely. He can’t get the image of Flora Harper (D10, deceased), calling out for him to run, Dominique Amber-Citrine (D2, deceased) behind her with her swords raised, out of his head. He stifles a sob and wipes his eyes. He looks up when the beeping of a parachute alerts him to an incoming sponsor gift. Leah Delaware’s (D3) mentor has sent sterile gauze for her back wound. Tiberius watches as Ianthe Berengy (D6) helps Leah apply healing balm to her back, flinching when Leah hisses in pain at the sudden burning sensation of the balm. Ianthe wraps the gauze around Leah’s back and then looks over to where Siren Acquafredda (D4) and Ivy Hunter (D7) are sitting, both cataloging their weapons and supplies. Ianthe decides to do the same once Leah is settled. 

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Matilda Gilbert (D12) is keeping guard when the sun rises. She sits idly, admiring her fancy Capitol bow and arrows and counting the trees at the edge of the snow banks. A low growl from somewhere nearby catches her attention and she whips her head around to see a cluster of white fur and yellow eyes. Ten or so arctic wolves have set their sights on the small alliance.

​

“Wake up, psst, hey. Get up,” Matilda shakes Harvey Zea (D12) awake, as well as Chivonne Ashford (D8). They’re startled and both look around frantically until Matilda points out the pack of wolves to them. Harvey remembers something from training, that when you encounter wild wolves, it’s important to make yourself seem big and scary. He recommends they create a human pyramid with Matilda, who’s the smallest, on top. With no other ideas, the girls agree and quickly spring into action. 

​

Once Matilda is safely on top of Harvey and Chivonne’s backs, she stands up and puts her arms over her head. The wolves, who have come closer and spread out in the meantime, begin to cower a bit. All except one, who appears to be the alpha of the pack. 

​

“We are Project 32, here to show you what we do!” the three chant in unison, hoping to spook the wolves even more. “We’re strong and proud like a pack of wolves!” 

​

Chivonne can’t help but let out a little laugh, the ridiculousness of this method not lost on her. Matilda and Harvey laugh a bit, too, until the alpha wolf gives a snarl. 

​

“I forgot it’s an actual pack of wolves,” Harvey’s smile falters, eying the pack warily. “Matilda, do you have your bow and arrows?” 

​

“Yeah, I do. Should I try to get a shot off?” Matilda affirms, notching an arrow and taking aim. She feels Chivonne and Harvey nod their assent from beneath her. While their scare tactic has worked on the whole and most of the wolves have scattered to the wind, Matilda hopes she is fast enough to take out the three wolves who remain in the vicinity. She lets her first arrow fly, hitting the rightmost wolf between the eyes. It drops to the ground. As quickly as she can, she notches a second arrow and releases it, hitting the leftmost wolf in the leg. It runs off in the direction from which the wolves came. Matilda lets out a little cheer. Her excitement is short-lived, though.

​

The alpha wolf, angered at this attack on his pack and lunges forward, sinking his teeth into Harvey’s chest and latching on. He flails, toppling the pyramid and Matilda falls with a thud into the snow. Chivonne shrieks, grabbing a knife from her pocket and trying to yank the wolf off of Harvey. Harvey screams beneath the wolf, grabbing for his mattock where it lies a few feet away from him in the snow. He’s able to grab the handle and swings forward, connecting the head of the mattock with the wolf’s side. 

The wolf disengages, releasing Harvey from its grip and turning its attention to Chivonne, biting down on her arm holding the knife, causing her to drop it. Harvey, unable to move, lies in the snow while Chivonne screams, and hits the wolf in the head. Matilda, who is a bit disoriented from her fall, finally regains her senses and notches a third arrow. Once she’s sure Chivonne is not in the line of fire, she lets the arrow go and it hits the wolf in the leg. It takes two more arrows for the wolf to finally die, letting go of Chivonne’s arm.

​

“Shit,” Chivonne curses, immediately sticking her arm into the snow. Matilda runs to Harvey’s side, sitting him upright and examining his chest wound. 

​

“Oh this is bad, really bad.” Matilda mutters to herself. 

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​

Malia, Cal, and Skye walk through the snow. After snooping around the stables and the surrounding woods and coming up empty, without food or water, they decided to move further south. Cal and Skye each finished their water bottles earlier in the day and are hoping to refill them somewhere. 

“Wait, what’s that,” Skye stops dead in her tracks, looking around.

​

“What’s what?” Malia asks, also looking around. Beep. Beep. Two parachutes land in the snow nearby and Skye goes to retrieve them. It’s gauze, one for her and one for Cal. Although Cal’s face wound has mostly healed, he wraps his cheek regardless to prevent the wound from opening up again. Skye is grateful for the gauze because her hand, still a bit worse for wear, has been bleeding on and off all day. 

The trio continues walking south when they hear ragged breathing heading toward them. Standing on guard, they are ready to attack when Amber appears in front of them. She’s been running away from the Cornucopia, so worried about who was behind her that she didn’t bother to look ahead. 

​

Amber stops short when she sees Cal, Malia, and Skye. Her knife is still in her hand and acting purely out of fear, without thinking, she throws the knife. It lands in Skye’s stomach and she drops to the ground, bleeding profusely. 

​

Shocked, Malia and Cal spring into action. They pounce, Cal armed with his sword and Malia with her knives. Amber tries to reach into her pack and grab another knife, but unfortunately, she isn’t fast enough. Cal sinks the blade of his knife into her gut, all the way to the hilt, and the tip protrudes from Amber’s back. A cannon sounds. Cal removes his blade and Amber falls to the ground, her eyes still open wide with fear.

Cal and Malia turn their attention to Skye, then. She’s still lying in the snow, bleeding from her middle, and her eyes have glossed over. Her breathing is shallow and blood trickles from the corner of her mouth.

​

“One strip of gauze isn’t going to fix a wound like that,” Malia says sadly, looking down at their ally. She and Cal stay by Skye’s side until her cannon sounds. Malia drops to her knees and closes Skye’s eyes. Cal and Malia return to the loft where they started their day as a trio. 

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Tesla Watt (D5) is keeping watch, taking care of Posi Rio’s (D5) wounds from the bloodbath. She applies the healing balm from Posi’s pack to his chest and then rips out the inner layer of his jacket to reapply as a bandage. Posi holds Bess in his hand, avoiding eye contact with Rhys Bullock (D11) and Aisly-Parca Sullivan (D11) who sit a few yards away eating meat jerky. 

​

“And… done,” announces Tesla, knotting the makeshift bandage around Posi’s midsection and giving him a thumbs up. He gives her a small smile and then reaches behind her for a bow that sits loose on top of a wrapped box. 

​

“A gift for you! The gift of friendship!” Posi smiles cheekily at Tesla as he plops the bow onto his freshly bandaged wound. She smiles back and helps him put his shirt and what remains of his jacket on over top of the dressing. Posi returns Bess to his pocket. 

​

“We should probably move,” suggests Rhys, looking around nervously. “Someone could burst in here any minute and break up this cute get together of ours.” Tesla, Posi, and Aisly nod in agreement and the four pack up their weapons and supplies and walk through a hallway, lit with candles and strung with holly and ribbons. Tesla leads the group, throwing rocks every few feet to check for wire traps, and Rhys, who is the tallest of the group, checks above doorways for anything nefarious. A few well-decorated hallways later and the alliance finds themselves in a Work Room with rows and rows of benches, some unoccupied and others… not. A few dozen small, pointy-looking men sit at some of the workbenches. Their tri-colored hats and fuzzy, collared shirts make them look almost comical, but when they descend from their stools and begin hammering at the four tributes’ ankles, they are suddenly and decidedly not funny at all. 

​

“Ouch,” says Aisly, pushing one of the elves away from her. Posi is rather unbothered, picking up the elves as they approach him and setting them up on high shelves. They screech unhappily at this relocation. Posi and Rhys wander the Work Room, pocketing small things that could be useful. Rhys takes some pine needles, rubber bands, sticks, and glue, and Posi takes only a small sewing kit and a tiny cardboard box. Tesla, extremely annoyed by the elves attacking her ankles, begins throwing her stones at their heads. Aisly continues her pushing tactic, and when the elves begin to use nails rather than just hammers, she yelps in pain. 

​

Rhys is fed up with the elves and, like Tesla, begins hurting them back. He kicks a few over and steps on others, seemingly unperturbed by the sickening crack of their spines beneath his boots. 

​

“What are you doing!” Posi finally speaks to Rhys, his face colored with disbelief. “They’re just little creatures.” 

​

“They’re attacking us.” says Rhys in a bored voice. “It’s only going to get worse.” 

​

“We’re in their house, we’re the pests.” Posi argues. 

​

“Listen, kid,” Rhys interrupts. “If we let them live, they’ll just keep hurting us. And I, for one, do not enjoy having my ankles broken.” Crack. Another elf is crushed beneath his boot and Posi grimaces. 

​

“Aisly watch out!” Tesla screams. She’s been scanning the room for traps, throwing stones absentmindedly at the elves. Aisly has been swarmed by the elves and she can’t push them away fast enough. She backs up and it’s then that Tesla sees a thin wire running from the beams of the ceiling to the ground. Aisly steps backward onto the trigger and Tesla reaches out to try and pull her forward, but it’s too late. The wire snaps back and upward, slicing through Aisly’s stomach. In her haste to grab Aisly, Tesla’s hand is sliced by the wire as well and she screams in pain, looking down at where her middle and pointer finger used to be. A cannon sounds and Tesla looks down in shock at Aisly’s body. She retches. 

​

“We need to go, now!” Rhys commands, grabbing Posi and searching for more traps. Tesla, crying and clutching at her hand, backs up as well and the three remaining allies walk out of the Work Room, kicking and crushing elves as they go. 

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​

Ivy, Ianthe, and Siren spend the majority of the afternoon searching for food and water by the Frozen Lake. Leah, who has an empty thermos from her pack, is trying to find a way to melt the ice from around the lake to keep as drinking water. Tiberius sits by the side of the lake as well, peering down into the dark. Except, it’s not all dark. Leah notices this as well. 

​

“What’s that?” she looks down at the glowing orbs that appear below the layer of ice on the lake. They’re moving and they’re all different sizes. She puts her face closer to the surface of the lake and squints, trying to see better. She can’t figure out what the glowing is and scurries off the lake as fast as she can, pointing it out to her allies.

​

“That seems like bad news,” says Ianthe, eying the lake with nervousness. 

​

“They teach us in District Four that anything glowing in the ocean is probably bad news,” adds Siren, plucking a lone berry off a bush and inspecting it.

​

Ivy nods in agreement, but Tiberius, always curious, walks out onto the lake and looks as well. He bends down and presses his ear to the ice, hoping he will be able to hear something. He can’t. 

​

“Tiberius, get off of there!” Ivy yells, imploring the boy to come away from the lake with them. 

​

Maybe not that bad! He signs to them, knowing none of them can really understand. Tiberius stands and takes a rocks from his pocket, throwing it at the icy surface of the lake. The rock breaks the surface and a crack spiders out from the small hole. Tiberius stands there, looking  at the hole and nothing  happens for one, two, almost three minutes. And then a hand emerges, only not a human hand. It’s scaly and bumpy and grey and inhuman. 

​

Tiberius tries to scream and run but he doesn’t make a sound. He turns, moving  as fast as he can away from the hand that is now an arm and a body. It’s disturbing. Ivy screams when she sees it, and Ianthe nearly throws up. Siren, though, has seen something similar before. 

​

“It looks like an anglerfish, only, it has a human body,” she whispers, running forward. The muttation has fully emerged from the icy water of the lake. It’s fast, fast enough to catch up to Tiberius and grab him with its slimy, cold hand. With a head resembling an anglerfish, complete with the dorsal spine and glowing lure, and a human body with webbed hands and feet, it’s a gnarly sight. Tiberius tries to scream again as the mutt sinks its sharp teeth into his leg, dragging him to the ground. It seems like the mutt is going to drag the boy back into the hole from which it came when Siren, stirred to action, runs out onto the ice and uses her trident to skewer the mutt. She grabs Tiberius by the arm and pulls him behind her and off of the frozen lake. 

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​

After going to the Cornucopia and sorting through the leftovers from the bloodbath, Astrid is disappointed. There are no good weapons or supplies left, just some junky sheets of plastic and scraps. She’s perched back into her tree, secured with rope, when a parachute arrives from her mentor. In it is a large loaf of warm bread. Astrid smiles, grateful for the warm food in the cold arena, and breaks the loaf in half, putting part of it away for later. She savors the yeasty deliciousness, which reminders her so much of home, and closes her eyes, inhaling the comforting scent of the bread. Today has proven to be uneventful which could be either good or bad, depending on who you’re asking. 

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​

Rhys, Tesla, and Posi sit in the Cornucopia. Like Amber, they’ve figured out that it’s a warm place to stay. Tesla keeps packed snow on her hand while Posi sets some basic traps around the mouth of the horn to keep out enemies. He’s already set his sights on the countdown clock from the bloodbath and plans to climb on top of the horn later to retrieve it. Rhys sits quietly, looking forward and not speaking with the others. He’s unsure what to feel now that Aisly is dead. 

​

A parachute floats down for Posi and inside is a pair of binoculars. He smiles as he adds them to his pack before going out into the snow to climb the cornucopia. After some rattling and banging and general disruption, he returns, a triumphant smile on his face and a large, rectangular-shaped thing with wires protruding from it in his hands. Posi sits down next to Tesla and sets Bess in the tiny box he took from the workshop.

​

“Your new home!” he whispers excitedly to her. Then he begins tinkering with the clock. 

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​

Matilda sits, tanning the hides of the wolves killed earlier. She’s helped Chivonne treat her arm a bit with some snow, but she’ll definitely need something more. Harvey is another story - he’s lying unconscious by the fire that  Matilda started. It’s dangerous to have one, seeing as it’s getting dark and smoke could be a dead giveaway to their location, but Matilda used the sheet of plastic and some sticks to try and create a shield over the fire, dissipating some of the smoke. There’s plenty of wolf meat for the group to eat over the coming days, but both Harvey and Matilda will need to refill their now-empty water bottles. Chivonne lies with her head propped on Matilda’s shoulder, hoping that tomorrow will be kinder. 

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​

That night, Ivy and Siren sleep while Tiberius, Leah, and Ianthe keep watch. After finding a new place to set up camp, further from the frozen lake, Ivy, Leah, Ianthe, and Siren melted some snow into their bottles and canteens to drink later. Ianthe helped Tiberius with his leg, packing snow on it, but he’ll need something stronger and soon. As they sit together that night, Tiberius teaches Ianthe some basic sign language, things that could be useful in an emergency. He writes  the word “food” in the snow and then shows her the signs, doing the same for “care”, “enemy”, and “water”. Ianthe pays very close attention. After that, she tells him and Leah some stories from her home in District Six.

​

“And then, he gave me so much money I was able to buy fresh fruit for my family! It  was amazing, more than we’d ever had before!” she explains, finishing her story about the time  she fixed the big clock on the mayor’s house. Tiberius and Leah smile. No threats appear that night to disturb them. 

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END OF DAY 2 STANDINGS

​

Malia Wells (D1): alive, part of Divine Chaos

Cal Dynam (D2): alive, part of Divine Chaos

Leah Delaware (D3): alive, part of the Sugarcube Alliance

Siren Acquafredda (D4): alive, part of the Sugarcube Alliance

Tesla Watt (D5): alive, part of Team TRAP, moderately injured (middle and pointer finger 

severed from right hand) 

Posi Rio (D5): alive, part of Team TRAP

Ianthe Berengy (D6): alive, part of the Sugarcube Alliance

Skye Stone (D7): deceased, 16th place

Ivy Hunter (D7): alive, part of the Sugarcube Alliance

Chivonne Ashford (D8): alive, part of Project 32, moderately injured (arm mauled by a wolf) 

Amber Nelson (D8): deceased, 17th place

Astrid Luca (D9): alive

Tiberius Bournes (D10): alive, part of the Sugarcube Alliance, moderately injured (left leg bitten 

by anglerfish muttation) 

Rhys Bullock (D11): alive, part of Team TRAP

Aisly-Parca Sullivan (D11): deceased, 15th place

Harvey Zea (D12): alive, part of Project 32, severely injured (chest mauled by a wolf) 

Matilda Gilbert (D12): alive, part of Project 32