Day 6
The sun creeps over the horizon and a barrage of parachutes rain down on the Infinity Alliance. Gabriel Rose (D6), who has been keeping watch, excitedly wakes his allies. Kai Albacore (D4) receives a bounty: his mentor has sent him Strong Healing Balm and gauze to treat his back, cheek, and hand wounds. Ocean Simpkins (D4) helps Kai apply the balm and gauze to his back before opening her own parachute to find another tub of Strong Healing Balm. She carefully applies it to her inflamed ankle and hand. Gabriel’s mentor has sent him a First Aid Kit and he uses the Burn Balm and gauze to treat his burned body.
After the alliance has sufficiently addressed their wounds, Kai begins opening the large parachutes sent from the Gamemakers. Lamb stew, a roasted whole chicken, fruit salad, warm bread buns, and… crabs! The group laughs at the last course and Kai splits the food into three even portions. They eat the food slowly over many hours, not wanting to make themselves sick. Sometime during the morning, dark clouds roll across the sky, turning the arena a bleak gray. Rain pours down onto the island and the Infinity Alliance moves into a hut to stay dry.
“For Eliana!” says Kai before cracking open the claw of one of the steamed crabs.
“For Eliana!” echo Ocean and Gabriel. The trio sit, finishing their meal and reminiscing about their fallen allies. They also talk about their families and their homes, finding they’ve all grown quite attached to one another over the past couple of weeks.
“There’s only six of us left and we’re half of that,” says Ocean sadly. The implications of her statement hang heavily in the air.
“No matter what, Infinity forever,” says Kai, throwing aside a crab shell.
“Infinity forever,” agrees Gabriel, nodding his head slowly.
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Jadette Topaz (D1) sits on a fallen tree in the outskirts of what’s left of the Jungle. After spending the night in discomfort and pain, she remembers that she still has Ashlynn’s (D8, deceased) bag. Thinking of Ashlynn’s body hanging lifeless and bloody, she has to cover her face with her hands for a few moments to keep herself from getting sick. After rifling through the bag for a few minutes she finds what she’s been looking for: Ashlynn’s leftover Strong Healing Balm. She hisses in pain as the cream makes contact with her ragged leg. The skin, torn and hanging in shreds, will definitely require a surgery of some sort if she manages to make it out of the arena alive, but the balm should be enough to keep the leg from becoming infected or gangrenous in the meantime. She also finds Athena Wright’s (D2, deceased) leftover Regular Healing Balm in the bag and uses it on her less severe stomach wound. The cut has already begun to crust over.
When it starts to rain, the water on the Jungle floor begins to rise and Jadette’s tree becomes submerged. She wades through the water and out onto the beach, half-dragging her lame leg behind her. Finn Cressy (D10) and Aster Shay (D7) sit in the sand. Aster is helping Finn wrap her arms with some gauze and branches to set the broken bones. The younger girl has cleverly used the cloth parachute that delivered the gauze to stanch her own wounds from the day before after applying a Healing Balm. The remaining two Outsiders don’t notice Jadette until she’s standing right in front of them.
“There are three people left here who want to kill all of us,” Jadette says, outstretching her hand to Finn, “we’d be stronger together. Allies?”
Finn looks to Aster, who shrugs, looking skeptically up at the District One girl. Finn takes Jadette’s hand and they shake.
“Allies.”
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The rain continues to fall heavily and steadily through the morning and into the afternoon. Finn sits under a tree with Aster sitting curled into her side. She’s hunched over with her windbreaker hood pulled up over her head to keep the paper dry as she reads her father’s letter over and over again, obsessively.
We all miss you, Finn. I love you. Come home. The words ricochet through her mind. She wants to go home, more than anything. But looking down at Aster she feels her heart constrict with pain and confusion. How can she go home? Aster is younger than she is, only 13. How can she save this child and still go home? She can’t. Aster must die in order for Finn to return to her family. The thought brings fresh tears to her eyes.
Once the Infinity Alliance is gone, Finn will quickly dispose of Jadette. They may be allies now, but Finn is still wary of the Career who sits awkwardly off to the side, uncovered by the tree in the rain. There’s no loyalty or love lost there. She is certain that Aster will not try and kill her, so she will have to find a quick and painless way to kill the younger girl. Finn knows deep down she will never be able to forgive herself, but she must win. For her father, and her siblings, and Amaury (D6, deceased). For all her fallen allies and for District 10.
Finn is beginning to read the letter again when a shooting pain begins radiating from inside of her arm. It’s intense and unyielding, a strange pulsing sensation emitting from her tracker. She barely has time to register the pain when the tracker explodes. A cannon sounds.
Aster startles at the loud and sudden noise and something sticky and wet hitting her body. Sitting up and staring at the space where Finn was sitting just a moment ago, she immediately bends over, throwing up the little bit of food she ate the previous day. Finn’s body is spread around the base of the tree, covering the trunk. Bits of flesh and blood cover Aster’s upper half; she reaches up and pulls something from her hair before doubling over again to throw up bile. Jadette watches as Aster curls into herself, covered in blood and body, and screams. She screams until her throat is raw and no sound comes out.
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The Infinity Alliance is pulled from their discussion on the importance of double-knotting your shoes by a popping sound followed by a cannon and screams. They look at one another warily. Another death brings them closer to having to split up.
“I wonder who that was,” ponders Ocean, picking at her cuticles.
“Whoever it was, it didn’t sound too pleasant,” says Gabriel grimacing. The screams continue for nearly an hour.
It’s early when Claudius Templesmith’s voice reverberates through the arena to announce the daily feast. Ocean once again abstains from going, but Gabriel and Kai decide to go after re-dressing their wounds.
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Jadette watches Aster rock back and forth, her eyes blank and her expression unreadable. She managed to drag the girl down to the water to wash her off earlier, but she’s catatonic, likely the result of losing Finn in such a grisly way. Between her mangled leg and Aster’s state, Jadette knows going to the Feast would be foolish.
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Only Kai and Gabriel show up to the Cornucopia Island. Claudius Templesmith’s projection smiles and greets them.
“Welcome, tributes. You’ll notice that today’s feast is starting a little earlier than usual. That’s because you have 12 hours to complete this task! There are two people on the island who have not yet taken us up on our generosity. While we believe in the power of being able to choose, sometimes we make the wrong choices and must suffer the consequences. Today’s immunity challenge is to locate either Ocean Simpkins or Aster Shay and kill them. The person who gets the kill will be granted immunity for the next 24 hours. You’ll only have 12 hours to complete this challenge, and immunity will not be granted if they both survive or are killed outside of the 12 hour time frame. Good luck!”
And with that, Claudius’s projection disappears. Kai and Gabriel stand and stare at one another, dumbfounded by the task.
“Well, we aren’t killing Ocean,” states Kai. “And I don’t love the idea of killing a 13 year old.”
“It’s either us or her,” Gabriel counters, pulling his stakes out of his bag. “We don’t even know where she is, though.”
The boys sit on the Cornucopia Island until the sun sets. It’s only been a few hours but they know time is of the essence; if they don’t kill Aster, she might win the immunity.
“There’s some bread left, do you want it?” asks Kai, pulling a cold roll from his pack. He goes to take a bite but Gabriel smacks it out of his hand.
“Wait, that’s it! Do you remember where you and Ocean found those poisonous flowers a couple days ago?” asks Gabriel, picking up the roll and inspecting it.
“Yeah, but I think the tsunami wiped them out,” Kai responds, standing. Gabriel follows Kai up the beach and as luck would have it, they spot Jadette and Aster. Aster is still catatonic and Jadette is trying, to no avail, to coax some leaves into her mouth.
“Let’s hope they stay put,” mumbles Gabriel.
Sure enough, the bush of purple flowers is gone, but a few stray blooms lay floating in the water on the Jungle floor. Kai scoops up a handful and squeezes the leaf of one. The clear, slightly viscous sap drips out and he sets to work poisoning the cold bread roll and then pocketing the rest of the flowers.
The boys walk back to their camp where Ocean is camouflaged with seaweed and mud. She starts when they return.
“What happened? You’ve been gone for hours!” she cries, hugging them both.
“The feast… we have to kill Aster. We have a plan but we’re going to need the parachutes from this morning,” explains Kai, rummaging through their packs. He pulls out a parachute and a container and sets to work, carefully and neatly placing the poisoned roll inside the container and then handing it off to Gabriel who reattaches the parachute and secures the latch.
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When the Infinity boys have returned to where they last saw Jadette and Aster, they find that the former has fallen asleep. The latter is still curled into the fetal position with her head buried in her arms. Gabriel gets as close to the pair as possible before dropping the parachute in the sand in front of them. He and Kai then hide behind a nearby tree to wait for one of them to notice the “gift”, hoping that it’s before the 12 hour window has passed.
Luckily for them, it’s not long before the rain starts back up. It’s accompanied by booming thunder and some too-close-for-comfort lightning. A clap of thunder jolts Jadette awake and when she sees the parachute, she scoops it up and cracks it open.
“Aster, look what we got! This is a sign, you need to eat,” she pushes the roll toward the younger girl. “Even our mentors think so. You threw everything up earlier.”
Aster lifts her head from her arms and eyes the bread suspiciously. She reaches out and tentatively breaks off a piece. Aster says nothing as she pops the bread into her mouth and then folds into herself again.
“I’m just trying to help you,” Jadette grumbles before breaking off another piece from the roll. She’s about to put it in her mouth when Aster falls over, convulsing and foaming from the mouth. She makes no noise, just lies on the ground and shakes, her eyes wide open and staring up at the rain clouds and lighting. Jadette immediately drops the bread and looks around but Kai and Gabriel are long gone, having taken off as soon as Aster swallowed the bread.
Jadette begins to gather her supplies and weapons while Aster lies in the sand, dying slowly. She picks up Aster’s axe and bags as well, figuring she won’t need them anymore, and then walks further down the beach. Aster’s cannon fires.
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Back at the Infinity Alliance camp, the trio waits for an announcement from Claudius Templesmith. They have no way of knowing if their poisoning Aster will count or if it’s even still within the 12 hours they were given. They’ve almost given up hope when the announcement comes through.
“After some deliberation by the Gamemakers, we would like to congratulate Gabriel Rose of District 6 for being today’s Feast victor. It was his idea that ultimately completed the task, so he has gained 24 hours of immunity!”
Gabriel gives a sigh of relief and Kai pats him on the back.
Only four tributes remain.
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END OF DAY 6 —
Jadette Topaz (D1): alive
Kai Albacore (D4): alive, part of the Infinity Alliance
Ocean Simpkins (D4): alive, part of the Infinity Alliance
Gabriel Rose (D6): alive, part of the Infinity Alliance, gained 24 hours of IMMUNITY (safe from Day 6 voting)
Aster Shay (D7): deceased, 5th place
Finn Cressy (D10): deceased, 6th place - VOTED OFF