The Hunger Games

 

#Bai

Bai + Yao + Dudu discussion

Please Comment in this so only we can see this. Hello.

Instead of the “Happy Ending” of Katniss and Peeta, I decided to make it more exciting. Plus this is the time when the rebellion occurs. 

 

It was time. The 100th Hunger Games. The Fourth Quarter Quell. As Jack sat in his decrepit house, located in District 3, he wondered what the twist would have been this time. “As time comes, every 25 years, there will be the Quarter Quell. As this time comes, we will have four times as many tributes: four brave young men and women, who will represent this Hunger Games.” 

Jack groaned. Four times? He had already tesseraed  3 times this year, 6 times last year and 9 times a year before that. Plus the first time your name was drawn. That made 19 times. With his friends, Fred and Julia, he hoped none would be chosen.

 

“Welcome, welcome. The time has come to select four young men and women to represent District Three for the 100th Annual Hunger Games.” proclaimed an enthusiastic Effie Trinket. Having hosted Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark 25 years ago, all districts had come and applied for her, and she was granted District Three. 

“As usual, ladies first.”

As she flicked her hand in the bowl, nearly full with tesserae, she pulled out a name. Julia trembled on the other side of the reaping ceremony, of course, there was a chance, just a minute chance, that she would be picked. “Olivia Jones.”

A girl of age 12 stumbled upon the stage. This was why the Hunger Games were cruel, girls age 12 fighting with almost adult males aged 18. 

The hand flicked again. “Emma Coolier.”

A girl of age 15 stumbled on stage, almost full of tears. 

The hand flicked again. “Ava Coolier.”

A pair of siblings, fighting against each other. Could this be even possible? And the citizens of the Capitol enjoyed it? How could this be?

Julia was about to calm down when the hand flicked one last time, and the words, ”Julia Hammond” came out. As if the whole world had ended for her. This could not be. There were hundreds, hundreds of names to choose from. Why choose Julia?

 

“And moving on to the males…”

This was the sentence Jack had been dreading. It meant that he and his friend could be chosen. If not both.

“Pluribus Bell.”

“Horace Knell.”

“Frederick Kipper.”

Being in the Hunger Games was terrible, but watching his friend fight and die was worse. There was only one more. Survive one more and they would be done, done with everything, done with the reaping. This was the last year of his reaping. Just survive this, and the Hunger Games would be over for him. “Please, don’t pick me!”

“Jack Ross.”

Yet it wasn’t over, no it wasn’t. “Tributes, please follow me…”

We each eyed each other suspiciously. We were going to the games, but I already had a plan. We were to make history. Three Tributes winning one game?

 

Dudu

A thundering shook the ground. It was funny. I hadn’t heard it approaching, even though the sound it emitted was deafening. I ran when I heard. I thought I was in immense danger like the Peacekeepers had spotted me hunting. I had not stayed long enough to get a decent haul, but it still counted. But as I took my first step into the house, I remembered. It was reaping day.

As if I didn’t have enough to worry about. I knew it was my first reaping. My name was only in the orb once—one slip out of thousands. I reassured myself with this thought. But there was still a little bubble of doubt in the back of my mind.

The temperature was cold and bitter, almost like the Hunger Games itself. The wind bit our skin, making everyone desperate for the reaping to begin. “Welcome, welcome.” Effie Trinket announced in her Capitol accent. I froze, the fear all coming back to me in an intense rush. I missed her words in my surge of fear. Then she lowered her hand into the females’ orb. Her hand waved around the bowl, like an eagle circling its prey. She snatched one out of the bowl and carefully unfolded it. The waiting was painful; the time she took was overwhelming. Then her heavily accented voice rang around the square.

I missed it. What if it was me? My mouth went dry. Time passed. I was not yet chosen, but the last tribute’s name echoed around town, I realized she had said “Julia Hammond”.

I stepped up onto the platform, my legs trembling. Effie shook my hand, and I joined the rest of the female tributes.

I shifted around in my space in the train carriage. I wasn’t ready to meet my mentor. I didn’t want to. The food was served on silver platters, steaming turrets of rich delicacies. I wasn’t hungry, though. I was sick to my stomach. What was the point of having delicious food before your death?

We pulled up to the Capitol. I had never seen anything more strange. All the people were unusual. Some people were dyed magenta. Some were tattoed all over. Some had even had gems implanted in their skin. I stepped carefully as if the ground were land-mined. Then we stopped in front of a huge skyscraper.

#Yao

I stepped out towards the large building. Marveling at the beauty, I tucked some hair behind my ears.

“FREDRICK KIPPER!” my mentor, Mr Ellis, cried out. I groaned. Old Ellis was the well, oldest person! He was so wrinkly; he could barely even see.

I sighed. The Hunger Games was a calamity, and I felt sorry for my district’s seven other tributes. I had already started conspiring how we could maybe form a pact. But there was just too much dissension. Time was precious too. We couldn’t just let it elapse away. So I rushed towards Mr Ellis, who had gotten off the train. He began scolding me.

“Kipper, you know training is imminent. Look at how skinny you are! Eat more!” he cried, stuffing a corn muffin into his mouth. He thrust a large blueberry cupcake into my mouth. I never liked cupcakes, but this one was actually pretty good. I scarfed it down. He handed me a ham sandwich, which I also ate. Then, he led me to my apartment. Oh, what can I say? The apartment was beautiful, golden lights draping from the ceiling, a wonderful flat-screen TV right in front of a giant sofa, and two bedrooms. There was also a little porch outside the apartment. Mr Ellis began frantically dialing in numbers into a phone. I sighed.

“Yes, this is Kipper’s mentor, Francis Ellis. I’d like for him to buff up at least ten pounds. Could you give me some foods I could order? Uh, huh. Yay. Great. Thanks. I’d like the stuffed turkey special, the potato salad, a tuna sandwich, two pieces of exotic eggs, and a large duck with nuts around it. A cake, too, if you’d please. Okay, bye,” Mr Ellis ordered. He looked at me.

“Mr Ellis, do you really have to order all that food?” I groaned. I hated all types of exotic and gourmet food, except for the types of plum pudding Mom made.

“Yes, Kipper. You need to be strong! Of course, the cake won’t do that. But you also need to gain some weight!” he informed me. He slid down into his easy chair. “Remember, Kipper. Training starts at 9 am tomorrow. Order whatever you like, but you better order something hot—no wretched cereal, except for the ones with fiber and true grains in it. You hear me?” he barked. I groaned.

“Yes, Mr Ellis, I hear you,” I muttered.

“Good,” he said, then toppled into a deep nap. I tossed a bunch of blankets on him, then went out onto the porch to look at the surrounding buildings. It was all very bright, and I found several people walking below the large skyscrapers. I smiled, but then began weeping for what would happen if I got killed in the Games. My father already dead, my mother and brother would perish. As I wiped away my tears, a bell rang. I quickly reached for the door, where a small servant carrying a huge amount of dishes walked in.

“Your food. Enjoy,” he muttered, then walked out and closed the door. I discovered I was ravenous and dug into the meats and vegetables. Soon, I felt full. But Mr Ellis had just awoken, and he was not happy with my food income.

“Fredrick, you call this eating? All you’ve touched is this piece of meat and one egg. EAT!” he ordered. I moaned. Digging into the food again, Mr Ellis smiled. After two forkfuls of cake and a giant piece of drumstick later, he let me off. Soon, I drifted quickly to sleep. The next day, training lay ahead of us. The tributes all met in a large room. We were to revolve from station to station. First, I was at a hand to hand combat station. I was up against a large combatant, much larger than 16, which was what I was. But I didn’t care. Once, my worst enemy and I got into a fight about who had taken who’s pocket knife, and we wrestled to the ground. He grabbed a small stick to try and whap me with, but I had a flair for disarming people.

As the older tribute and I both looked at each other, I knew he didn’t want to die or kill. But it was one or the other.

As both of us each grabbed a small weapon from a range of sticks and wooden daggers, he observed me. The whistle was blown, and he tackled me. I quickly stepped towards the side, but he was huge and tackled half of me to the ground. But that gave me an advantage. Using my free hand, I turned him around and was soon of top of him, my wooden sword to his throat. He groaned. The next station was harder. We had to practice long-range weapons. There was this boy that was really accurate with a bow. What was his name again? Jack Rose? Jark Cose?

He was from the same district as me, but we hardly spoke. Soon, it was my turn. I had four choices, a bow, a throwing axe, a spear, and a dart gun. I knew instantly want I wanted. When I was little, my friends and I would put up a large slab of wood. I’d make three lines in it, just like a dartboard. We’d take a tube or hollow stick, then put a swab of rolled up grass in it. We’d take turns shooting at the target using our mouths. I grabbed the dart gun and inserted a dart. I put the weapon to my mouth and blew as hard as I could. The dart went straight into the target, around halfway from the center. After another try, I got it straight into the center. After one more try, I got it very close to the center. On my last try, I almost split the center one but didn’t really. I grinned. Maybe my chances of dying in the Games weren’t so bad after all.

#Bai

 

@dudu + Yao. We need to use combined skill to have three tributes winning the games. As Yao wrote, he is decent at weapon fighting. I can be decent at survival. So, Dudu, what do you think your skill can be? f

 

I headed off to the food section. Those red berries over there were poisonous, but these red ones were edible. The poisonous ones, know as drapeweed, had small black dots over them. The others were just plain red. 

Then, I headed off to the spear section, which I could never beat Frederick by. We decided to be allies since we came from the same district and had different skills and probably would do better than most. Then, I had to spring from board to board without being stricken by two other men, trying to whack me off. But the worse was my mentor. District Three had only a few mentors, and I was assigned the same as Frederick, an old man named Mr Ellis. Like Frederick, I was incredibly skinny, and the second he saw me, he called the food delivery company, delivering roast duck, cinnamon pie, curry and rice with a cake that was larger and thicker than my head. 

Another girl from District Three joined our group of allies. Great at programming and other things, we could really have an advantage above the careers, this game. They did try and hire Frederick, but he didn’t want to abandon us for the games. I was back in the bedroom with Mr Ellis mentoring me about eating. “Look, you realise the Hunger Games is two main things. Eating and Training. You don’t know what the 100th arena looks like, and you have no idea if there’s food, water, there might not even be a place for you to live, which is why I’m forcing food down your stomach. If you ever get no food in the arena, you can still save up right now. And now about training. You want to learn about some weapon fighting, do you understand—swords, spears, bows – all great weapons in battle. You will need this type of training. Also, as I have seen, you are training very well in the food section. You will need that. And anyway, be friends with Frederick. I am also his mentor, and he will teach you considerable things, such as fighting. You will win this Hunger Games together.

Dudu

@ bai
idk, I think I could be good at hunting…

My room was amazing. There was a 30-53 inch plasma TV, with a sleek silver lounge chair behind it. Fairy lights were strung across the roof, lighting the whole room with its heavenly glow. There was a room separated from the whole living room, which turned out to be my bedroom. It was astounding, a giant bed with a thick and fluffy quilt. A bathroom was tucked away next to my closet, with a shower and a panel of almost one hundred buttons. They were labelled things like Lemon Conditioner, Massaging sponges, Instant Current Hairdryer, and many more. I was so surprised that I almost forgot about the whole Hunger Games event. I heard a familiar voice outside my door, and I opened it and was surprised to see Katniss Everdeen.

Was she my mentor? She smiled, not one of general happiness though. She led me down the corridor and into the Training Centre. I looked around. Everything I wanted was right there. She took me to the place where they put on all the make-up and put me down in a chair. “Wait until your stylist comes,” she said before she walked down the corridor and turned left. I was hoping that my stylist would be young and cheerful, maybe someone like Cinna. I heard footsteps and turned around to see a young woman, bright and kind. She said that she was my stylist, and she would find the perfect suit for me. She told me to close my eyes, and she would hold it out in front of me.

It was wonderful. It was more than I could hope for. It was a shiny black suit, with a high collar and knee-high boots. But it was studded with tiny light bulbs, around my wrists and neck, different colours, making patterns on my body. It was eye-catching, striking, and I loved it. It was not as uncomfortable as it looked, since there was a fluffy lining inside. I was not beautiful in it. I was not striking in it. I looked like lightning.

 

#Yao

At the moment, I was wishing I could die. There I was, holding hands with the boy Jack Ross. We were both dressed magnificently, but I wanted to get killed right there and then. So many people, applauding us. They would applaud us when we died. What was the use of liking them? I quickly went through the whole torturous process, then dismounted the carriage and went back to my apartment. There, Jack Ross stayed with me and we watched a few old movies. He found an old board game, which we played to our delight.

After that, I slept peacefully.

The next day, I awoke to Mr Ellis dragging both me and Jack out of bed.

“Skinny, again. C’mon. Up and at breakfast!” he barked. He made us each take a protein vitamin, then made us each take a rainfall shower. After twenty minutes of a painful massage, he made us get into training clothes, and then sent us down for some grub. The dining room was magnificent, a golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Large tureens of food stood before us, with thick cakes and pancakes on glass plates.

I stacked a pile of pancakes, added some fruits and cream, then grabbed a few pieces of sausage and bacon. While eating, I noticed the boy Jack watching me. He slid down in the seat next to me. He had some whole grain cereal, fried ham, and a fruit cup full of yogurt. I started into my pancakes, and as I was mashing them into a yummy pancake wasteland, he began talking to me.

“Mr Ellis sure is a food guy, huh? You think he wants to be a cook?” he asked. I snorted, and accidentally spit out a wad of strawberry. Embarrassed, I wiped the food off the large table where all of the tributes were eating.

“Oh yeah. He probably wants to be. He’s always getting us to eat more food. Have you seen the size of that duck he made us both eat last night? And the pie!” I exclaimed. Jack chuckled. He gobbled down his cereal, and started on his meats. I picked my bacon, and starting slowly eating it. He grabbed me, and did a funny imitation.

“If ywe deez not eez ywe feedz, ywe diez!” he muttered, sticking up pieces of ham into his ears. I grinned. He ate his food, and then dumped his trash into a large bin. I gobbled up my food, and then did the same.

“Remember, tributes. Five more minutes until training begins!” a Trainer yelled. I hustled to my feet. There was a loud bang as everybody clattered their dishes onto trays. As we all headed into the training area, I flashed Jack a wink and a thumbs-up. He air bumped me in return.

For two days it was like this. We trained hard. I was accurate with bows, dart guns, spears, throwing axes, and swords. I was getting good at mallets and maces, and really good at knives. But I had one weakness. I was horrible at survival. Mr Ellis had told me two hundred and forty one times to pair up with Jack, but I thought I wouldn’t need it. After all, I was good at weapons. Jack was terrible when it came to throwing sharp objects and using hand weapons. He couldn’t even hit the target. But, man, was the guy good at survival.

Today, our trainer was making us train on food and fire skills. I had a plate put in front of me. There were four berries and lots of plants and meats.

“Choose what your meal should be,” my Trainer told me.

I sighed. I had no clue what I was doing. I grabbed four plants and a meat onto my plate, plus a bottle of water from a total of four bottles.

“No! Two of the plants are poisonous, the meat is raw and had germs, and the water is salt water! Fredrick Kipper, your survival skills have a grade of D+. Next!”

I sighed. I decided to sit for a few moments. Jack was no up. He placed plants in and out, tasted water, felt meat, and then scrambled with his plate. After he was done, the Trainer didn’t find a single thing wrong except the fact that the meat he had chosen didn’t have salt.

I sighed. I was truly not going to survive.

 

After four days in the Capitol, we were finally summoned to our private training session with the Trainers and Game Makers.

I was around in the middle. When it was my turn, I looked at the weapons. I selected the dart gun. The Trainers were watching. I put one dart in, and blew. The dart went halfway to the center. They smirked and returned to a large piece of boar. I didn’t care. I took another try. This time, I made the dart sink straight into the center. A few Trainers looked at it. I realized my last go would have to be very astounding. I took one last blow. The dart sank right into the center dart. There was a sound of cutting wood, and the spectators stopped greedily eating. They murmured something, then motioned for me to go. I smiled, and left the room.

That night, Mr Ellis eagerly turned on our TV and watched the reviews. Some other kids got scores from 5-9. But then, this really huge guy from District One came onto the screen. He got a 10. The guy’s name was Albie. We would have to watch out for him. Finally, it came to Jack.

“And Jack Ross, a Tribute from District Three has a score of…10!!”

We all cheered, but then, I realized I didn’t know my score.

“And now, for Fredrick Kipper, a boy Tribute also from District Three. He has a score of…ELEVEN!!”

We all cheered and danced. Eleven had been the score the legendary Katniss Everdeen had gotten. But she had shot with her bow. I used a blow gun. The other girl on our team, Julia Hammond, came next.

“And now, for Julia Hammond, she has a score of…8!!”

We cheered, but only slightly. Eight wasn’t TOO bad, but you had to get at least a nine in the training session to have a good chance of surviving, unless you were faking it to trick other Tributes.

 

And then, the day arrived. The day for the Games.

 

#Bai

@yao. Do you realise that guns are not allowed for the games? That is why there is not a single mention of a dart gun in the Hunger Games.

I had been awaiting this day with anticipation. As the day dawned, Mr Ellis gave me one piece of information which would help me for the first hour of the Games. “Don’t run for the bloodbath. The Cornucopia. In my time, I ran for it, and left it with only a mysterious backpack and a knife through my leg. Don’t do it. I tell you, most of the 96 tributes will die at the Cornucopia. So don’t go!!”

After choking down some more cake and pudding, I was finally ready. I gave one more look to Mr Ellis, who was nodding at me as I entered the tube. I watched the other Tributes as I heard the countdown. “10, 9, 8…” Frederick was staring at Julia and I, with an ok on his fingers. We were teaming, and he was heading for the Cornucopia to get us supplies. Swords, bows and arrows, knives, spears, tridents, and supplies of food lay there. We would need it. The arena had a huge forest in the middle, with a lake on the south-east and a mountain on the south-west. A huge corn field stood in the middle of that. “3, 2, 1, go!”

We had discussed it beforehand. Any major source of food, any major place we could hide in was our headquarters. And this corn field was both. I made a run for it, and so did Julia, and with a glimpse, I viewed Frederick wearing about three backpacks, thrashing his way out of the Cornucopia. As we met towards the corn field, he panted and handed us each one backpack. Mine had a little box of medicine, some supply of food and a knife. “I mixed things around so we could all have a bit of each.” Frederick declared. And we have a problem. I killed a career on the way to get here, you know, Albie. Careers were furious. You know, their biggest weapon, killed by me. Wounded me on the arm. Good thing is, took out my tracker. But might want revenge.”

Then, there came a noise. “Shut up, Fred. We have company.” I was right.  Some District Eleven kid, thought he was being clever (you know, their work is farming, which means they thought they could occupy this space and be like Thresh, a near victor of the 74th Hunger Games) but he was not. But then Julia surprised us – her 8 in the Training Session was fake – she being at least a nine, perhaps a ten. “I’ve being hunting since I was 10.“ That was why she always provided our family and Fred’s with food. With one slice, the Tribute was no more. That night, I viewed the dead tributes. District 1, one dead. District 2, two dead. District Three, none dead. District Four, all dead. District 5, four dead. District 6, seven dead. District 7, Three Dead. District 8, all dead. District 9, Three dead. District 10, six dead. District 11, Seven Dead. District 12, all dead. That made it very close to the estimation. I laid down and slept. If I knew what would happen to me tomorrow, I wouldn’t sleep so well. 

Dudu

I was dreading the moment I stepped off my metal plate. I could see so many weapons, bow and arrow, throwing daggers, even katanas. So many of the weapons I was familiar with were so far away and could cost me a lot of pain, maybe enough to make the wounds fatal. I decided to go along with the plan, as Frederick had shown me. The gong sounded, and my feet shuffled, wondering which way to go. Then I realised I was in the middle of the bloodbath.

The sun dazzled my eyes, and I was confused about where to go. I ran in the opposite direction of the fighting, desperate to get away from the sounds of pure terror, the smell of blood and death, and the worst of all, the sight. I ran into the forest and realised that Jack was following me. We paused and then a breathless and bleeding Frederick joined us. he tossed me a bag and then handed one to Jack. I checked all the things in the bag. A pack of dried nuts, meat, and fruit. A small, pocket-sized Damascus sword. A first-aid pack. A 2-litre water skin that is bone-dry that comes with a small bottle of iodine. And I dig around for this, but I find a pack of matches. Useful, but it may give away our hiding spot. And then a leaf rustled and a twig snapped. I threw my knife in the general direction of the sound, and then I see a spray of blood and then a choking sound. I figure that I must have hit the victim in the throat and that he/she is a goner.

The day passed quickly, twilight fell, and the anthem of Panem played. The sky held the pictures of all the dead tributes that had been killed in the bloodbath. After, the seal of the Capitol showed in the sky and then faded away, leaving us with twinkling stars.

 

#Yao

I woke bright early. I was lucky. In my backpack, I found beef jerky, a dagger, an axe, canteen, and small throwing knives. I slung the pack over my shoulder, then woke my teammates.

“Julia, Jack. None of us have any serious weapons. Just daggers and knives. We need a stable weapon, each of us. So today, we’re going back to the Cornucopia. Get what we need, then get out,” I told them. But before I could finish my sentence, a spear flew past us. I quickly dodged. But I couldn’t see. Julia and Jack scrambled to their feet. We were in a small meadow, easy targets. I readied my dagger. The second bolt was an arrow, and it flew into a tree. I had seen the Tribute. He was short and a bit chubby, but he had lots of good weapons. He must have waited until everybody left the Cornucopia, then went in and took everything. It meant that if we killed this kid, we’d have tons of weapons. So I quickly slipped into a bush. Making no noise, I slowly approached the kid, who was now preparing a crossbow. With one pounce, I wrestled him to the ground. I prepared to kill him with my dagger, but the boy tumbled me over, and unsheathed his own knife. We tossed and turned, trying to get our blades into the other’s neck. He had me. I prepared for my death as the boy slowly pushed the knife toward my neck.

At that instant, something hit him, and he dropped to the ground. I saw Julia with her throwing knives at the ready. I thanked her. We all took the boy’s weapons. We split it. Fredrick got a sword, crossbow, and water purifier. Julia got a ton of throwing knives, a sword, and a club. I got a cutlass, a blow gun, and a bow. There was also a few scraps of food, and we took those. We were now ready.

As the three of us hacked our way through the forest, I suddenly kneeled, gesturing for my friends to do the same. Peeking around a bush, I saw a group of around ten Tributes. They had so many weapons. I recognized Albie. He was sharpening his gurkha knife.

“Wot do we do?” Julia asked me. Jack raised a hand, and we quieted down.

“We can attack through the trees. My biology obtaining efforts suggest that their are great shady leaves, and we will be well hidden. Let’s go!” he whispered. We slowly climbed up the tree. But Jack wasn’t too good at fitness. He almost slipped, but I caught his hand, and tugged him back up the tree. Panting, I readied my bow. Julia prepared to swing in on a vine, and slice as many as she could in a go. Jack would slowly come up from the back, taking them unaware. It was a great plan. I found fifteen arrows in a quiver, and slowly took pack the string. Aiming for Albie, I slowly raised the bow. Then, THWACK!

The bow hit him, in the stomach, and he tumbled backwards. Then, I realized there were a group of Careers in the group. Hitting us with crossbows and everything they had, which include a hail of darts and arrows, they didn’t see Julia coming in through the vines. She kicked down one, and then began dicing and throwing in her usual manner. Which was deadly. I struggled to shoot, afraid I’d shoot Julia. After the skirmish, I found Jack and Julia in the middle of the campsite, two of my arrows in two dead opponents. We counted the bodies. Four had escaped. We took only food this time, since our loads would become heavy. There were a lot of rations, and two medical kits. I plucked the arrows from the bodies, and washed them in a nearby stream. I put them back into the quiver. Using our water purifier, we filled our canteens.

After exploring, we finally made camp. That night, we were informed that fourteen more tributes had died.

When we awoke the next morning, we saw some flames coming up from a fire. There was a soup smell coming from the campsite. I shook my head. The Tributes lighting the fire were pretty stupid. Before long, we heard howls and pleads of mercy as Tributes got murdered.

I ate some crackers and canned beef, then wandered off into the forest by myself. Jack and Julia went searching for food. Suddenly, I heard a large noise. Almost like an engine. Then, I saw it. A large jet plane, dropping fire bombs into the trees. I gulped. Racing toward my friends, I informed them in frantic words about the danger that was coming up. Gathering up the meat and vegetables they found, my friends and I raced towards a large tree as the fire began to spread.

Hours later, we were all up in a huge tree as the fire began to burn rapidly. But now, the Game Makers decided to clear up the fire so that they wouldn’t ruin the fun of us Tributes actually murdering each other. More planes began spraying chemicals, slowing the fire down to a small spark. It was safe to come down. But then, a small bolt hit me in the shoulder. I cried out in pain, and ripped the bolt from my shoulder, digging out the blade with tweezers. Applying water and infection prevention drugs, I grimaced in pain. I then wrapped my wound up in bandages. But I couldn’t hold my bow anymore. It was too painful. My only option was to reach for my light sword. Then, I realized I couldn’t get down.

Pulling out a nifty grappling hook device, I shot the hook all the way to a low branch on a small tree, then swung with the handle of the device in my hands. Now, I was on the ground. Zipping back my device, I readied my sword. Where were my companions? And worst of all, where were my enemies??

#Bai

So, are we going to add a rebellion into this?

 

I was lost. In the forest, with dead bodies everywhere. Then, a parachute came down, with a compass. The note read, “This will lead you to Kipper. You, Kipper and Julia all have compasses. But they have magnets and tracking devices, so you know where each others are.”

Frederick was next to the river, and he had stopped moving. Was he still alive? Was he injured? Then, I raced towards him, and I saw him there, trying to gain some water. I heard a rustling sound, behind the bush. Was it another tribute. As I raced forward, Julia came out of the bush, thinking I was another tribute. I tried to shout, “Stop!” but she was already reaching for her knife, which hit me clean in the shoulder. I murmured, “Thanks. Next time you kill someone, please look at who you’re trying to kill.” before I was knocked out.

“And now, we have an announcement to make. In the Cornucopia, there will be somethings. These things will be things you need desperately. Well, we needed plenty of things. Body Armour, Medicine and Bandages for my shoulder, more food. “All right. There is only one career smart enough to be alive. Albie. And plenty of other tributes. Remeber the 74th Hunger Games? We have a tribute like Foxface. Smart, cunning.”I said

“Bad enough we don’t have nightlock.”Said Frederick

“Who else?”Julia replied

“One from one, Zero from two, Three from three, zero from four, two from five, allies, Three from six, allies, Two from seven, allies, One from eight, Two from nine, Three from ten, allies, Two from eleven, allies.” I quoted

“So, do we go?”Frederick asked

“Well, I suppose we could, if Frederick goes, and brings back some goodies, then I can heal, and we’ll be better.”I pondered

“Great.”Frederick nodded his head. “Let’s go.”

About an hour later, Frederick came back, panting. “I entered the cornucopia. Albie was there, and Foxface’s backpack was already gone. Taken by her. We agreed not to fight, and ran in opposite directions. Then, I encountered the two from seven. Dangerous they were. Axes and knives. Killed them both, and I have the backpack. As I expected. Body armour and medicine.”

Soon, my shoulder wasn’t that sore, and we were all wearing the light armour, save you from most arrows and sword cuts. We were ready. I knew where the base for the District Eleven Tributes were. Up in the middle of the middle cornucopia, was the tallest tree, and the Tributes from Eleven knew which berries could be eaten. We ambushed them form the bottom, then Julia threw two throwing knives, each of them hitting home. In their backpack, there was just one map, saying. “To find what you desire, go to this location.”

Just then, another knife hit me. Was it knock-out Jack week?

 

Dudu

I turned around, expecting to see another tribute, but instead, I saw a body slumped over my packs. I saw a faint rise and fall of the chest, and held my knife at the ready, slowly approaching to give the killing blow. It was only when my blade was pressing into the flesh of the neck when I realized who it was. A few beads of blood were rolling onto the knife, and when I took my dagger back, there was a thin line of scarlet across the neck. I knew it wasn’t fatal, but I didn’t know what to do. It wasn’t my fault he was unconscious, but I knew if I left him to look for Kipper, the Careers would finish him. However, if I called Kipper, the forest would come alive with bloodthirsty assailants, and we would be dead. But, while I was wondering what to do, there was a rustle of leaves, and then a District Five tribute stepped out of the bushes and then held a knife up at my throat. I smiled. He was pretty stupid if he was to challenge someone with a Damascus knife. I felt his weight. It would be hard to unseat him, but I think I could if I got him at the right angle. I twisted around until he was on my hip and then I jerked my body, making him tumble off my body. He rolled backwards, landing on his feet. Impressive. But he would have to do a lot better to get me off the kill list. I grabbed one of my throwing daggers and targeted him. He was a moving target. Good. I always like a good challenge. I calculated where he would be when I was ready, then threw. It hit him square in the chest. He choked and then ended his life by pulling out the dagger and drowning in his own blood.

#Yao

Quickly, I pulled out my cutlass. Were there more tributes near us? Slowly, I dragged Jack back to a tree. His armor hadn’t blocked the blade, which had hit the tiny opening between his shoulder pads and elbow pads. The person who had hit them was good. Maybe even better than Julia. I quickly opened up a medical kit, then cleaned the wound. The knife was small, and had only penetrated the outer layer of flesh. Nothing too serious. I quickly woke Jack up, then began feeding him beef and celery soup. He slowly began getting better, and after a night’s rest, he became fresh as a flower. But he was still limping.

After that, Jack, me, and Julia were a real team. No more taking out Tributes by ourselves. We each guarded each other, and when we found a Tribute, I’d disarm him while Julia would slice him. But then, I noticed the fact that there were only ten more Tributes in the game. Us, one lone Tribute, and six Careers. I wasn’t worried a bit about the lone Tribute, but the Careers had been trained since childhood. They had weapons and supplies and skill. But we weren’t giving up.

Slowly, we approached the main camp of the Tributes. There, we found everything left from the Cornucopia piled up into one large stack. I pulled out my cutlass.

“Wait a minute,” Julia told me. “I think there’s some dynamite in the pile. If we can just pierce the large pile, we’ll be able to blow up the supplies and weapons, and also, hopefully the Careers. Who’ll do it?”

Jack gulped. Everybody knew he fumbled with weapons. He didn’t even know how to reload his crossbow. So he never fired it. Julia explained why she couldn’t do it.

“My only good spots are throwing knives and daggers. But my throwing knives aren’t made for long distance targeting. But bows and blow guns are made for that. It’s up to you, Fredrick,” she told me.

I sighed. One shot. Two at the most. I steadied my bow, then loaded an arrow into it. Carefully aiming, I pulled back the string. I aimed for five more seconds, taking a close look at the large lumpy pile of dynamite. Then, I released my hand. ZING!

The bolt flew into a flammable tank for torches, and it exploded, making its way towards other materials. The Careers quickly sat up, wielding weapons.

“Who’s there?” Albie roared. Soon, I noticed the dynamite timing string had hit the fire. Now, in just a few moments…

KABOOM!

The dynamite exploded, showering dirt and debris over the whole forest. Soon, all that remained of the camp were two surviving crates, two dead bodies, and one dazed Career. With one last shot of my bow, I killed the Career who was withering on the ground. Then, me and Julia high fived. Jack just gathered us up in a huge bear hug. I tasted the victory on my lips. Now, just three more Careers. Suddenly, while I was munching on rice, potatoes, and beef, something caught my eye. A flash of silver. Quickly, I pulled out a pair of new binoculars to search the sky. Then, I saw it. The Career, ready to kill. He quickly launched one arrow into Fredrick’s body, and it snapped in half when it hit the body armor.

The Career, realizing our heads were the only valuable targets, quickly launched another arrow. It almost hit me, but missed by two feet. Then, I grabbed my blow gun, and inserted a poison dart. I blew so hard, my lips felt wiggly. The dart streaked through the air, and then… missed. The Career chuckled a low laugh, then pulled out a crossbow. He repeatedly targeted me, seeing me as the only target, since Julia had only tiny knives, and Fredrick didn’t even pull out his crossbow.

“GO!” I yelled to my friends, ducking behind a large pile of half-burning supplies. The Career didn’t know which crate I was behind, but he just kept shooting crates. After there were just four remaining crates, I loaded my bow. Taking a deep breath, I aimed it at the tip of the Career’s head, which was showing from the the top of a tree that he was hiding in. I launched the arrow.

The arrow raced towards its target, but missed, a little to the left. But then, I heard a gurgling sound, and a thud as the Career hit the soft mushy ground. My bow had missed the head, but it had hit the person’s shoulder. I loaded another arrow, and finished the man off. Then, I silently slipped through the swampy ground. There were more Careers here. I could sense it. Suddenly, I was tackled to the ground, a girl Career slowly pushing a knife toward my throat. I slowly closed my eyes, fearing for the worst. Then, a sharp throwing star dug deep into the Career’s leg, and I finished him with a stab of my knife. There, a Tribute holding a knife stood.

Then, I quickly pulled out my cutlass. The lone Tribute. The Tribute had saved my life. But she was probably also going to end mine. And so, with one last angry charge, I rammed my sword into her belly, and then slid it out. Where were my companions?

#Bai

So yeah, rebellion, sacred hunger games of previous victors. I suppose we just re-write Catching Fire.

 

There was only one more career left. One vs Three, easy, but it wasn’t as simple as that. There was only one tribute supposed to win. Only one. If all three of us were to win the Games, we would have to somehow cheat the system. What was the poisonous berries in the arena. My mind came back to the berries form only a few days ago. Wasn’t it then I saw the black-dotted berries? Only a few days ago. It seemed like ages. Then, I saw it. Behind Julia and Frederick, was Albie. He held them both in a deadlock, and said, “I got a note. Mutts coming in a few minutes.”

I hurried up the cornucopia and so did he. I still held the crossbow. He sneered, “Let’s remember the 74th Hunger Games. Underdog Katniss Everdeen manages to shoot Cato in the head, and he falls into the mutt pit. Embarrassment for our district. Ain’t gonna happen again. You shoot me, they fall in. You’re the victor. But you’ll remember the moment your stupid old friends go down, how they helped you and you betrayed them. And you ain’t shooting me in the head, I’m covering up every part. I looked down at the mutts below.” Maybe I should kill myself. But then I had a plan. I made it as if I was about to jump down, but with a quick swing reached the nearby tree, and shot out the weapon, rising and seperating my friends from Albie, in which case Julia gave a little push and then there was only three. From three to two to one. I handed them the poisonous berry. Redlock. Katniss Everdeen had proved it was possible. A way to cheat the games. A way to escape the terror. She had done it on a smaller scale – we were ready to do it with a three-group. “Get ready. Three, two, one.”

But then came the sound of President Snow. “All three tributes, you are ordered, by I, President Coriolanus Snow, leader of Panem to stop this immediately. Else, you will be bombed to death. Do not believe all three of you will be victors. Don’t try Katniss Everdeen’s ploy.” He spat those two words like poison. We shrugged. “Stop! Stop! All three of you are proclaimed victors!” cried Cladius Templesmith, just as he had done 26 years before. An helicopter came down, and before we knew it, we were being crowned. The crown, like ice on your head. When you know that you do not believe to be crowned. It fills you, stuffs you with memories of the Games. I heard Albie’s final cry of help, before he was swallowed. None of us should have died.

It was time for the next Hunger Games, the rebellion.

dUdU

@bai: Didn’t Snow die? I’m confused.

This was a crucial moment. Nothing in life was more important than getting this moment perfect. The crown’s placement was perfect, but it brought the feeling of death, the feeling of ice that never melted. It was stone, harder than even Snow’s heart. It deleted all the happy memories in my life, all the memories I had just the smallest smile. It replaced them with a hardness I had never felt before. It was speaking to me, its coaxing voice drowning out all others. It was only when I heard screams of death did I stop listening to its beseeching pleads.

The interview was a terror. Nobody in the population of the Capitol realised that. Only the victors. Some were lucky to die, as they would never experience this. It was the worst feeling possible. One word wrong, and then you would be doomed.

Three victors. One chair. But a couch. I sat in the seat, while Jack and Frederick sat on the sofa. We were all asked questions, some directed to one or two and some for all. Then at the last question, we were all worried. It was a question that had been asked to Katniss and Peeta. One that we could not copy, as we were the opposite of being in love. What did you think when you pulled out those berries, hmm?

#Yao

I groaned silently. I looked at Jack. He looked at me. None of us had realized the true fact that we each had survived the 100th Hunger Games, a Quarter Quell. Now, it would all be just luxury, until the 125th Hunger Games began, that is. But that question stunned me. We hadn’t been really thinking anything.

“We were um…, sir, could you please make the question simpler?” I muttered.

“Oh! Um, I’m sorry, but that’s the simplest form!” he said. I sighed. Jack piped up.

“We didn’t want to die. We all wanted each other just to be alive. So we thought, if we could take the berries and kill of us at once instead of somebody remaining with the torment, we’d rather go with the poison,” I said. The man looked at me, surprised. He hadn’t expected Jack to cut in.

“Well, that’s an answer for sure. Next Question,” he said. The interview lasted for what seemed like an eternity. I didn’t even know what to say or do. But after the interview, we were put into a banquet. Sumptuous soups and rare meats littered the four tables, with people everywhere eating until they had to throw up. They’d go into a bathroom, then come back for more. I hadn’t eaten very well in months, so I attacked the table. As I was filling up in calories, Jack took a sip of a soup, and then he suddenly became nostalgic because that soup was the exact type his mama used to make him. He began stuffing himself with big swallows. Julia was more hesitant. She didn’t like the idea of people eating just to throw up, and then come back for more. But we persuaded her that once we each were full, we wouldn’t throw up. We’d just leave. So she began swallowing bread and sausage.

Once I got full, I nudged Jack. He was spooning up the last bit of a raspberry Jell-O, I began talking to him.

“Hey, Jack! Jack! Stop eating. Listen. I know how you feel a rebellion. You want it. But it’s too risky. How about we put it off, just for a few months, and when the Capitol’s getting ready for the 101th Games, how about we start it? Now, let’s start influencing in the districts, but no actual showing of our plans!”

He nodded.

“You’re correct. After this, I’ll just um, taste a little bit of that spicy spinach one…” he muttered.

Apparently, his ma liked making exotic soups. As I wandered around the dining room, I noticed Julia was missing. Where was she? I descended the stairs, and found Julia sitting in a chair, reading a book. She had a plate of cookies and a warm glass of honey and milk by her side.

“Why aren’t you upstairs?” I inquired. She shook her head. Turning the page of her book, she didn’t even move her lips. I began questioning her.

“Is there anything wrong? Do you need anything?” I asked. She became angry.

“Leave me alone!” she half-shouted. I rushed out of there, heart pounding. Julia had never shouted, never even been angry. Why was she this way? I sighed, and threw myself into the dining room.

#Bai

@dudu, no, remember we changed the outcome of the rebellion so that it didn’t happen? So now we’re going to create it ourselves. 

 

If Frederick had misunderstood why Julia was angry, I did. It was because of the pressure – the feeling of the dead lurch over you. Like when I had brutally killed all those tributes, like when things effected you. It wasn’t the wounds that changed you, it was the thought of the games – The Capitol’s flare. But then came the thought, the thought of the parties, when I will visit the families of the children I have killed…

I will have to create rebellion without actually creating it. That was tricky enough. Then, I told Frederick, “We can’t give any sign of rebellion. We will need previous victors for that. And I bet that will come out in the 125th Hunger Games.” There was no argument. 

 

25 years later. ***********************

 

It was the 25th Anniversary of the year I was picked for the Hunger Games. Of course, Julia, Frederick and I all knew what was going to happen. “Welcome, welcome. This year, not only will we have the year of previous victors, we will have twice as many tributes.” That meant that all of us, including another victor from the 121st Hunger Games. Then, My previous mentor, Mr Ellis, announced to our group. “Look. I have many other tributes protecting you three. If Katniss and Peeta didn’t destroy the Capitol, surely you can. We have Districts 4, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12 to join us in the rebellion. They will protect you like its their life. And, oh yes, I know what the arena is like. It is similar to the 75th Hunger Games. Clock arena. But I’ve heard the challenges are much more deadly so you will need to be vigilant.”

So not only was the arena much more difficult, so were the tributes. And things were going to get a lot worse. This year, at the reaping, Effie Trinket wasn’t her usual self. She was shaky and tremulous, as if she didn’t know what to do. But of course all three of us were chosen, and we were watching with great anxiety about what was to happen. I was stuck. “What’s the tactic for the arena?”

“Well, I think that we could play incredibly defensive. Remove our trackers, dump them somewhere, hide for most of the Games, when there are only a few tributes left, kill them, win the games, or at least escape them, work out how we are going to rebel, finish the rebellion, stop the Hunger Games, create peace and then live happily ever after.”

“What if someone finds us? What if we can’t remove our trackers?”

“Well, then, we kill them. If we can’t deal with our trackers, then, we fight like we used to?”

“Ok. Then, we win.”

It was a plan at least. 

dUdU

It was probably the worst plan I had heard. Ever. But possibly the only one. If we went down in the fighting, the other districts would avenge our deaths. We all crowded into the town square. Effie Trinket introduced us with the normal greeting, but something about her tone, how she stuttered on some words and her hands were shaking when she reached into the glass balls. They knew who was going to be reaped, as there was only one name in the glass. And it read Julia Hammond.

I clambered onto the stage and shook Jack and Frederick’s hands in turn. I caught the tiniest wink from both of them. Or it could have been a nervous wink. We climbed into the train carriage and sat down, too busy thinking to talk. We all knew what each other was thinking, even without telepathy. We stared at the floor, wrapped in our imaginations. We didn’t notice when we stopped, perhaps because the Capitol had invented a new way of stopping without feeling it, or maybe because we were too busy thinking.

In our quarters, we were when Effie announced that it was a “big, big day!”, only not in her usual lively and a bit annoying way, but her new nervous manner. She was so quiet that I nearly didn’t hear her and go down. She looked a frail white when we came down. Under her makeup, she would have still been a deathly white. I started to wonder how old she was, and that led to me thinking:
Who would the next person be?

Now, there were probably thousands of people like Effie, but there weren’t any like the old Effie. I was in the training centre when I realised who the next introducing person would probably be. But it wasn’t good.

 

#Yao

 

Dudu, I have no idea who the next announcer will be. So let’s just move on, alright?

 

Everything went on as usual. Food, training, private sessions.

I got an 11, Fredrick got a 10, and Julia got an 11.

Most of the Tributes were young and agile, and we knew that if we attempted head on combat, we’d last around two days. So our plan was to slip around, slowly saving on rations, picking off old Tributes every now and then. It was a temporary and pretty bad plan, but our only chance at surviving and starting the Rebellion. So, we had to follow it.

As the Tributes were slowly put onto their podiums, a familiar feeling came over me. 25 years ago, I myself as a boy had stood on this little podium, preparing for the Bloodbath. Except this time, there would be no blood for us three. Slowly, we waited for the signal. A gunshot rang out, and we raced towards the Cornucopia. Blocking my ears from the screams of pain and wrestling, I had one target. A bow with a quiver of twelve arrows, a long scimitar, and a backpack. Taking off with these objects in hand, I quickly saw a young Tribute preparing to shoot me with a spear. I did some calculations, then caught it in mid-air just as the youth threw it. I kept it, knowing I would need it later.

Soon, me, Julia, and Jack were all in the forest once again, catching our breaths. But the Games had gotten and harder since our last one. Now, Tributes learned to attack first. Soon, three lone Tributes were firing bolts at us, one even thrust a spear. Reacting quickly, I lunged for the nearest once, unsheathing my dagger and stabbing him in his fleshy neck. Wiping the blood off on his own shirt, I quickly dodged a flying knife. I raced out of the exposed area, my eyes set on the nearest enemy Tribute. She was about thirty, and she had her hands set on a mace, prepared to blow my skull open, but she never did. I took a right swipe punch at her, knocking her to the ground. Quickly, I grabbed the mace and hit her over the head with it.

Preparing to deal with the third Tribute, I pulled out my curved sword, but Julia had already saved me more killing. She had finished the Tribute with a hammer blow. Julia had managed to take body armor, a hammer, a pack of throwing knives, and a sharp sword with her. In my backpack there was a container of some meat stew, more food, even more food, and more food. The only thing there other than edibles was a canteen filled with water. My backpack was one of the best. This food could last us one week. Jack had taken a jagged dagger, a long pointy fencing sword, and what seemed like a pack of military instant food rations. We had hit the jackpot with rations, and our plan would go accordingly.

After the killings of the Tributes, the trio of us retreated to some thick trees, watching as more than a dozen faces littered the skin. Soon, I was asleep.

The next day was bright and sunny, but the first thing we heard was a yelp as another Tribute was probably stabbed to death. Pretty soon, everywhere we looked, there were always shiny silver glints of swords and other objects. We didn’t eat, not yet. Nothing happened until around late afternoon. By then, I was starving and thirsty. But I forced myself to sustain without a meal. I only had two liters of fresh clean water, and I wouldn’t waste it. Sucking water from the leaves, I suddenly realized something. Someone was below us. Taking a careful peek, I saw a band of four Tributes, all searching the Tree. They apparently had smelled all the fresh bread and meats that were with us. Slowly, one of them raised a crossbow, and I realized he was aiming straight for Jack’s exposed shoulder.

I gulped a loud gulp, and another Tribute quickly started climbing the tree, and all of the Tributes followed, daggers between their teeth and swords at the ready. Soon, one of them popped their heads over the thick leaves, and I gave him blow to the face with my fists. He cried out in pain, and fell to the ground, a snapping sound as his bones cracked. He was dead, but the other Tributes knew there was something up there. They each carried two swords, and began quickly ascending the large tree. Julia took out a knife, and she aimed it at one of the Tributes. I popped a fist into the next two Tributes who showed their face over the branches, and they cried out in pain, staggering backwards. They too reached doom. But the last Tribute actually managed to stab something, but only a branch. He ended up cutting the branch he was on, and fell to his death.

#Bai

We were fine for the moment. But we weren’t going to be fine. Someone could burn the tree, and so we got off, and headed as far away from the action as possible. There, we headed off to a forest, and had probably reached the end. We knew that if we had to escape, it would probably be here. Suddenly, I heard a “hey!”. Someone had found us, and we were forced to yet again climb up a tree. But there was the thing I dreaded worse. A Tracker-jacker nest. I remember Katniss’s look of horror as she saw it, and thought of her solution. If we could drop the nest, it would buy us some time. With a yelp, I sliced down the branch with the nest, and a few stung me. However, even with my hallucinations, I could tell that the others were dead. The next thing I heard was a scream – Julia’s as she struggled to hold on to me when I fell down, but somehow managed to toss me onto a tree nearby. 

All I could see was myself, being slowly eaten by mutts, but they were not regular mutts. They were the mutts of my friends, whom I had betrayed. I had killed them, when there were four people left. “It’s just a dream”, I reminded myself.

But the horrors were too hard to bear. Slowly, the truth blurred into view. I was still near a camp, where my two friends were staying for the moment. They had managed to create a shelter – no fire – that would mean death. But the gamemakers would give us such an easy game. Suddenly, the river near us rumbled, and a wave was launched over us, where I was sitting. Then, more tributes came to see what was happening, and the killing started.

One tribute wrestled down another, while one came for me. “Hey, bee boy. I hope you like those tracker jackers.”

He had already pulled out his knife. I rolled to a side, where his knife became lodged in a tree. It was so lodged that he couldn’t even get it out. He gave me the chance to walk up to him and thrust a knife into his stomach. Then, Frederick was unfortunately encountered with a group of three. One distracted him, while the others grabbed him and the leader pulled out a knife and was ready to kill, when the person suddenly froze and fell backwards. Everything was very strange. To the unfortunate assailant, it must have seemed like Frederick had somehow been able to kill him. To Frederick, it must have seemed that the boy had decided not to kill. Truth was, Julia threw a knife into the leader, and both of the others stepped back into my waiting knives. Both dead.

dUdU

I looked around at the bodies surrounding us. I never liked the smell of blood, but there was one thing that I disliked even more—the reek of death. The scent lingered in the air, overpowering the former fragrance of the pond lilies. I was uncomfortable at killing so casually. I knew that I killed my prey, but humans were different. I felt like a savage, but I held my ground. That didn’t work long.

I knew we were going to move, so I hurried them off for a bit. Then we moved away as the hovercraft came to retrieve the dead bodies. We were all desperately hungry, but there wasn’t enough for an adequate supply of food for a ravenous threesome. So we split it. I got an egg-sized serving of stew, and so did the others. I longed to run, get away from all the killing and death. But if you get reaped, you’re stuck in here.

I suggested that we move on, since the other tributes may have seen the hovercraft. We packed our rations and supplies and set off. I knew that the Careers were in an area that the mouth of the Cornucopia pointed to. I just didn’t know how quickly they travelled.

We were at the Cornucopia when they ambushed. They had hidden at the top of the horn when they jumped off at attacked. I was not ready for it, but I still pulled out my katana and started to fight as I did. Pretty soon, the Careers were dead, with minimal injury. I put back my katana (now covered in blood) and asked Jack how many tributes were left. He said that he didn’t know, and he would have to wait for twilight to tell. I didn’t realize how many tributes we’d killed.

#Yao

That night, an announcement came on.

“Congratulations, surviving Tributes. There are now only TEN Tributes left in the game. Four Careers, six long Tributes. To ensure a quick and decisive game, Tributes will now enter a period known as the Challenge Zone. Extreme conditions will be provided. Food and water will be scarce. Best of luck!”

After the announcement, I quickly shoved Jack awake. Julia never slept until she was sure nobody was still awake. The three of us began quickly searching the horizon. We saw three figures around four hundred meters from our tree, and I took out my bow. However, I soon noticed they were being silently stalked by a pack of four Careers. In a matter of minutes, three Tributes had been sliced into corpses. I lowered my bow. The Careers had already moved on. Julia slowly spooned up some egg. She ate one mouthful, and then saved the rest for later.

After a week, there wasn’t much progress. There was just us, and three Careers. The Career that had died had accidentally eaten a squirrel that was sick. He died.

We were still in the big old tree. The Careers were searching everywhere for us, and even left food as bait. But we didn’t fall for that trick. We still had half of our rations, and water wasn’t scarce, since we all had two liter canteens. Pretty soon, I realized we couldn’t just stay here forever. So, gathering up my courage, I spoke to Julia and Jack.

“You two! We need to go out there. I know it’s probably slim we’ll live, but we have to. In a day or so, the Gamemakers will send some sort of natural disaster. C’mon!” I told them. Jack pulled out his dagger, and Julia unsheathed her katana. I had my sword at the ready. Slowly, we approached the large camp of the Careers. Our main goal wasn’t for food. We were here to kill as many as possible. I raised my bow, and loaded an arrow. In a flash, one Career was dead. But the other two were now patrolling the camp, spears at the ready. A girl got so close I could hear her breath. I put in another arrow. Unleashing it, it hit the second Career. But my luck had run out. The Career was wearing body armor. The girl, who was also wearing body armor, had seen the arrow. She launched her spear at us, and it hit the piece of bark right next to me. I winced, and then slowly backed off. The Career came charging through.

“Who’s there? Come out!” she growled, looking around. Her long sharp machete was pointed right at Julia. But I noticed she didn’t look scared. I looked away for a second to grab my scimitar, and then realized the Career was nowhere to be found. Stepping out of the bushes, I was astonished to find Julia standing over the dead Career. Her katana had a spot of red on it.

“I killed her. Her neck isn’t isn’t protected. All it took was a small stone as a distraction and a sharp katana to her neck. Done,” she muttered, wiping the sword on a leaf.

“Where’s Jack?” I inquired.

“Isn’t he with you in the bushes?” she asked. Then, I remembered. Jack was in the bushes with me. But I hadn’t see him when I turned around to get my scimitar. He was gone. I gulped, and quickly grabbed my weapons. Stealthily creeping out into the plain, I readied my eyes. Then, I saw the worst sight possible. Jack was being held hostage, under the point of a knife, to the other Career. What were we going to do?

“Uh, could we negotiate?” I asked, slowly stepping out into sight.

“Negotiate? You drop your weapons now. Or else your little friend here is going to die!” he roared, cackling a creepy laugh.

#Bai

This is yet another discussion about Bai, Dudu and Yao

Password: . Please delete this as soon as possible. If you could put an “@bai, I’m done with this password” then I can delete it and this will e completely private. Thanks, Bai.

I can tell you, it was uncomfortable. Being held hostage with a knife a few millimetres from your heart isn’t nice at all, I can assure you. Hopefully you will never go through such a thing. But anyway, Julia and Frederick slowly dropped their weapons. If he came for them, he would have no chance, no chance at all against the two. If he kept camping around me, the two would camp too, leaving no food for me. I would die, and as he could no longer blackmail them, he would die. But what came wasn’t any of the two options. A whirlwind of sand came around. It was a sandstorm! The tribute dropped the sword holding me and placed his hands to his eyes. If I hadn’t had my quick reflexes I would have died. I rolled over to the side, narrowly dodging the knife. But by then he had recovered, and placed the knife over me again. 

“Hey look. You had better let me win the Games. Come here, and let me kill you. Or, your fella dies.”

Frederick and Julia shook their heads spontaneously, and the career stabbed the knife into my left arm. But wasn’t there something about the left arm? I whirred my memory back a few days, into the beginning of the Games. Yes, I remembered. The tracker. Now, the career had been studying closely the glowing thing that had been in my arm. I stabbed him and made a run for it. We had to escape the arena somehow. There was a force field. Of course there was. But we couldn’t get to it, no without using some method. I remembered how Katniss Everdeen had done it. She’d used the electric arrow. Of course. We needed electricity – but how? The game makers had improved the design so that there would be no lightning. But then the idea came. There had been an hydroelectric dam in District Five. Same thing here. There was a river to separate sections of the arena. They had been so fast that you couldn’t just cross it. So, the plan came. I lit the end of an arrow, which burnt a little. Then, the energy came when I tied some wire. My own design from District 3. Things came in a flash. The electricity came burning up. Julia shot the arrow as I felt a sonic wave. Things smashed, and the last thing I remembered was Frederick shouting. “Julia, get down!”

I woke to find myself in a hovercraft floating over District Three. It turned out that one of the gamemakers had been the rebellion leader and had helped us in many parts of the Games. “So, now it turns out you are the head of the rebellion. We still have some other tributes who can help you in the fighting part. It’s simple. If three tributes can win one Hunger Games – well, that’s one step beyond Katniss and Peeta, isn’t it? Well, we can finally stop this Hunger Games. I was born in District One and always hated the Capitol. My name’s James, by the way. When we get to District Fourteen, I’ll explain more. And yes, there is a District Fourteen. It was never known to the Capitol. After the great big war, some exceptionally great members of Districts were invited to Fourteen. It’s target has been Rebellion and Espionage. We knew about District Thirteen, and tried to support. Boggs was from Fourteen but managed to get himself dead. Well, life is like that sometimes. Anyway, are you all fine? No cuts and bruises which are too serious? Good. Then it’s time to get to business.”

We were led to, well, what looked like the end of Panem. “We are the only ones who know anything remotely about what used to be here. Apparently, the land here is what used to be called, the United States. Oh yes, and if you are wondering why we’re heading for after the sea shore is because our secret base is there. That is why, no one, even the Capitol has ever discovered our whereabouts. Yes, here we are.”

We were shown our rooms. We were in the same corridor and next to each other. The rooms were plain, whitewashed rooms, with absolutely no decoration. All that was in there was a bed, a wardrobe (containing no patterned clothes except for a khaki colour with a number on it. My number was 1221.) There was also a desk, with nothing except a file and a pot with only pencils and blue coloured pens. The file read, “Addressed to Jack, part of the main section of the rebellion. Inside, read. “Our plan is to invade the Capitol during the next Hunger Games, the 126th. There, the head of District Fourteen, James, will lead a distraction, discussing the aims of the supposed ‘127th Hunger Games’ (which will not exist). At that time, a group led by the three heads of the rebellion, Julia, Frederick and Jack will lead a group of previous victors who will break down the door to the President’s palace and hold custody the President Coriolanus Snow and his relatives. Then, Frederick will be the one to slaughter the President, trying to at least lessen the crimes of him. Finally, the final Hunger Games will be of Capitol children, as the rebellion will finally be successful.”

Then, we were called down for training. We were heading into an action-packed mansion, and I have no doubt that the President will have at least placed some traps into the house. But at least this was the plan James told me. “Ok. First of all, I will split the three of you into groups. Julia and Jack, you will be leading some other victors, you will head for the main door, and enter it and surprise the President. I will be there, and of course, I would have been acting to be shocked. Then, you will secure the whole lot. Then, the group, led by you, Frederick, will climb from the sewers. Of course, you will not be separated soon enough, the President has already laid some traps in the whole Capitol, while you will need to invade it in a special manner. You will lead the rebellion, and soon, we will give the President a taste of his own medicine.”

dUdU

@bai, I’m done with this password

I didn’t know what to do. We were about to go straight into the President’s mansion. It would be suicide. Maybe not, but it was most likely that we would get killed. We would steal into the palace, dressed as servants, and Frederick would go and give him poison tea. It was a simple amateur plan, but the only one.

So we put it to action. Frederick was going to be a french merchant, but Jack and I had to stuff our handkerchiefs in our mouths to stop us laughing when we saw his french accent. So that was quickly dismissed. I was the only one able to use my everyday accent since I was supposed to be somewhere around the place. But eventually, we figured out a good story. So, the next day we went. Firstly, we walked into the palace, begging for a place. Snow eventually agreed, after many hours of pleading, begging and promising. So we went and got dressed in crisp white shirts and for the boys, black trousers, and for me, a skirt. I didn’t mention that I never wore skirts and hated them because they bunched my legs and made it hard for me to run, but they could probably tell by the grimace on my face.

We got used to the way that we lived, scurrying around the house to do chores. Snow would write down our tasks, and then we were to complete them. If we finished early, we would receive another list and would be expected to finish before 8:00. We were to sleep at 10:00 p.m. and to wake at 6:00 a.m. We would be handed our chores at 6:30, which left us with 30 minutes to do our washing and eat our breakfast. We were then to give the President a cup of tea, which we would eventually poison. If we poisoned it too soon, the others would suspect us, as we were new. So we got some hot tea, added some Botulinum toxin and gave it to Snow. He was reading a book in his study when we gave it to him. As soon as we turned around to step out, he said: “Thanks, but I don’t take poisoned tea,”

#Yao

Quickly, we found soldiers running toward us, their large, black rifles pointed directly at our bodies. Suddenly, I remembered that the three of us all had firearms and grenades, as James had given us. I pulled out a grenade, used my fingers to pull out the ring, and then threw it with all of my might. It exploded in a spray of ash and flames, and quickly, I realized this was the perfect distraction. Pulling Julia and Jack away from the President’s room, I quickly pushed open the doorway. But before I went out, I also grabbed President Snow. I took a drugged cloth and put it over his struggling mouth. He went out quickly.

Carrying President Snow was no easy feat. The man was, how do I say it without insulting him, a bit overweight. Actually, make that a lot overweight. Living for years in a palace full of gourmet food does something to a person. I struggled with the chubby man as we slowly moved along the hallways. Suddenly, I heard a noise. I cocked my gun, preparing to fire. But then, Julia peeked at the soldiers around a corner, and she murmured something to me. I gasped.

“There’s how many soldiers?” I half-yelled in surprise. Julia kicked me in the shin. But it was too late. The soldiers had perked up. The full company of 120 soldiers.

“There’s somebody here! It might be the ones who took the President!” the commanding captain roared. “Search!”

A swarm of soldiers began looking, and my heart pounded. Suddenly, I noticed a window. It was the window where, every day, somebody would place a platter of food onto a metal disk, and the person would flip a switch. A person at the bottom would grab the food, and then press the lever at the bottom to send the disk back up. In other words, this was our escape plan.

Quickly, I used a hidden knife to twist the screws off the closed window, and then climbed in. Jack squished in, and Julia piled on top of both of us. I had just enough room to pull the lever with my teeth. Whoom! In two seconds, we had zoomed up four floors all the way to the kitchen. I noticed a woman staring at us, especially at the unconscious Snow. She was halfway to a phone before I shot her. Stepping out of the cramped space, I stretched my legs and hoisted Snow onto a large cart. I pulled on some chef clothes and tossed two waiter clothes to Jack and Julia. Concealing my gun in the hidden pocket and my grenades in the collar pocket, I quickly wheeled the cart containing a large turkey on top and a large Snow on the bottom. It wasn’t hard pretending to be cooks and waiters, especially since it was the dinner rush hour. We finally got to the exit. Two guards with wrist tasers blocked our paths.

“Password?” the first asked. I gulped. Password?

“Uh, do you two have them?” I asked, fidgeting. Julia and Jack shook their heads. I was about to pull a grenade out of my pocket when a thought came to me. Snow must have them! Snow would have to write everything down in order to keep tabs, right?

Smiling at the two guards, I reached under the cart and grasped around in Snow’s baggy pockets. Finally, I came up with four pieces of scrap paper. I scanned the papers. Finally, I reached one that had “Password” written in red ink on it.

“Um…four to nine,” I read. The guards looked hesitantly at each other, but finally let me go. Ah, fresh air! We were still on Snow’s property. This was his lounging area. A forest and golf course and pool all mashed into a large piece of land. I took out the tiny radio that was hidden in my jacket.

“We’re ready,” I whispered into the radio.

“We’re coming,” James said on the other end. In two minutes, a submarine appeared from a large lake. District Fourteen and the Rebellion leaders had engineered a secret passage that allowed for spying and other things. I whipped the cover off the cart to discover President Snow was still snoring away. The driver of the submarine, a young man named Willis, helped us put Snow into a bulletproof jail cell. But just as we were about to get into the submarine, a large jet began to bombard us.

“NO!” Willis screamed, as a missile headed straight for the sub.

#Bai

I managed to pull Julia and Frederick out of the sub. Or they would have been blown into who knows where. Willis, wasn’t so lucky – there was a huge bang as the C4 destroyed the submarine. All the guards now knew where we were, and it would be tricky to get out. Rushing into the forest, I realised we were in big trouble. Every single place was booby-trapped. It was just like the Games, but much, much trickier. Snow was obviously very careful, and even now I could see thin lines of wire, which were obviously electrified. I took out my radio. “James, we have a problem. We’re currently in Snow’s forest, and everything is booby-trapped. Could you turn it off?”
“Yes, of course. I invented them myself.”

“Ok, I’ll tell you when I’m over, and then give you the signal, which is rebellion-14-turn-on. Alright?”

“Sure.”

We crossed the wires steadily, and then when a sound, “Hey! They’re in the forest!” came out I spoke into the radio, “rebellion-14-turn-on.”

Then, I saw men stepping forward, completely oblivious of what had happened, and were electrified. Us, however, were heading straight forward, directly towards the middle of the forest. The back-up plan was to wait for even more soldiers to arrive from District Fourteen. And the guards had already figured out what was going on. They started gunning at us, and we ducked behind a tree. But then I realised that they had a plan. The commander shouted, “Knives out!”

Each of the soldiers took out a sharp knife. Then, the commander shouted, “Throw!”

The lines broke, one by one. I whispered, “Climb a tree before they come. We reached for a bushy tree, and reached it carefully and covered ourselves using leaves. They came like a group of angry hornets, but by then we were completely hidden by then, and they edged further into the forest, believing we had done the same.

Soon, the unconscious men had recovered from their shock, and stumbled into a tree, which unfortunately was the tree we were in. Before I could stop Frederick, he had already taken out his gun and shot the other guards. Yet again, the commander worked out what tree we were in, the men had died pointing at our tree and ordered some men to climb the tree, and sure enough, we had to escape. I spoke into the radio, “Current position Middle tree forest, please find a pickup and fast!”

But it was too late. We were captured.

dUdU

I didn’t know what to do. I still had a pack of daggers in my sleeve, but I wouldn’t. I shouldn’t either. I could, but if I did, it would put the others in danger. I had a grenade, but I couldn’t throw it far enough with my tied hands to ensure complete safety to the three of us. I was so deeply lost in my train of thought that I didn’t realise Snow was coming out.

“Ah, prisoners. Some have escaped, you know. But you aren’t so lucky.” He looked closer at us. “Ooh, 100 points for player Colorianus Snow!” He seemed to be out of his mind. He started to dance around the green singing, “I’ve got the rebels! I’ve got the rebels! I’ve got the reb-” James himself cut him off, holding a shiny Damascus dagger up to Snow’s throat. I didn’t notice, since James had been so silent, but others, watching the President doing his mad dance around the turf, saw the ambush immediately. Instantly, they had AK-47s on James, some pointed at his throat and others at his chest and head. He let go, but they still fired at his vulnerable body.

But it didn’t work. The bullets collected on James’ torso like a shirt of chain mail. He smiled, threw a smoke bomb and disappeared. He left the guards coughing and Snow nowhere to be seen. I smiled then. I slit my ties and the others’. They looked at me, confused, but I winked at them and they seemed to know. I re-tied them, but looser, and acted like before, but giving grins to each other when the guards turned their backs. When we got to a clearing with no barbed wire, Jack checked his tracker. “James and the others are quite close. I think we should go.” I nodded, and we untied ourselves and put the rope on the guards in front of us. Then we slipped away into the shadows of the forest.

#Yao

I grinned, as the guards cleared away the smoke. They jabbed me, and demanded where that had come from.

“What? Sputter…You mean the smoke bomb or that thing? I don’t know!” I said, innocently. I was playing dumb, buying time for the soldiers. The soldier ripped his pistol out of his pocket in rage, but his lieutenant stopped him. I smirked. The soldier looked about ready to blow a grenade up in my own face. Jack played innocent guy too.

“Really! I have no idea. Hey, where’s Julia?” he said. I shrugged.

“I don’t know. She must have cut her binds,” I muttered.

The guards kept interrogating, jabbing us at times with automatic rifles. One even threatened to stab me. In two minutes, we heard a repeated series of gunfire sounds. Then, a few slices of a well aimed knife told me Julia had arrived too. After four seconds of rifles and grenades, the guards were subdued. Snow was already with James, who was setting up the public television.

In two hours, I was there, pointing a revolver at the president’s head. He was sitting still, his eyes full of determination. I cocked the gun, and put my finger around the trigger. Millions were watching, waiting for the moment. I blew Snow’s head up.

Two weeks later, we were all sitting in an underground bunker in District Fourteen. Overhead, bombers tried to eliminate the District Four and Five fighters, but they were shot down. The rebellion was going very well. We had destroyed the Capitol, but all the Districts were following our rule. The soldiers had already given up, pushed backwards, until they were almost towards the decimated ruins of the Capitol.

I was sipping a mug of hot chocolate, slowly tracking the defeated army. I smiled at our progress. Soon, we were going to be free. Suddenly, a scout appeared at my side. His face was smudged with blood and dirt, his M-16 smoking.

“Good day, General. The soldiers have activated some sort of machine that is killing our soldiers by the thousands!” the scout shouted, flustered. I stood up.

“What, Private?” I asked.

“The Capitol soldiers are pushing us back. Soon, they’ll be able to move around again!” the soldier cried, drastically. I pulled on my holster and followed the soldier. Quickly, I managed to say a hello to the colonel, and popped in a command to the captain and major.

The soldier led me to a jet, and we flew for forty minutes. Before I knew it, I was going out of the plane into an intense battle. I pulled out my pistol, holding it in front of me as four guards waved their AR-15s all over the forest.

#Bai

Had they been using some sort of decoder, some sort of messenger? Everything was so baffling, how they could just kill thousands. Then, I looked at the ground. DRAPEWEED. Of course. It was in the Games – they had always used it, I remembered learning about it in training sessions – the plant was carnivorous and would eat people who fell in it. There was a pit, about 20 feet deep, which would mean people couldn’t get out. As the people only had limited supplies, they would have been killed, slammed down. I looked at Frederick and Julia. “We have to attack.”

All the others knew what I meant. Us three were the only ones with any experience of drapeweed, how to avoid it, how to find it. James loaded us with a tracking device and a radio, and a gun with 50 clips. “We know there could be drapeweed anywhere, and how many other traps there could be, so be alert. I’ll be expecting a 12 hourly report, every day at 8’O clock. Got it?”

“Yep.”

We stepped out of the safety of District Fourteen, and ran in the direction of the Capitol.

The first challenge we reached was just outside District One – where there was a line of drapeweed sitting right outside in a line. I discussed with Julia and Frederick, “How do we get over this drapeweed?”

They pursued their lips, “Maybe we could just jump over?”
“It’s possible, but we couldn’t make it – it’s way too wide.”

“What about getting a piece of wood for a bridge?”
“Again, it’s possible, but I think it would be too overweight.”

Then, I had an idea. “What if we went under? We could dig underneath, and then work out way around district 1!”

I radioed, “Could we have spades please, just around District One?”

About five minutes later, a couple of spades dropped in Julia’s waiting hands, and we began to dig. Soon, there was a clear path under the drapeweed and we entered District One. Then, we saw the soldiers, guarding the compound, which we couldn’t pass without killing. Soon, we learned their routine. They were on a rotating system, where each two guards would take on every tenth of the section. Two, because one could fight it off while the other could radio base. Inside the compound would be a weapons cache, also giving the clue to the head. I said, “How about we smoke bomb it, and then everyone comes, run to the weapon load, and then read the clue and find the headquarters.

Then, we had rushed in, and found the clue:

“Go down for the answer:

 Castle of Snow’s namesake

Against westernmost wall

Not visible

Need tool

Olive trees nearby

No cork or pine for two meters”

 

“That’s confusing.” I said. “I suppose Snow’s castle is the mansion.”

“Yes, against the westernmost wall is where a great pile of trees are, and where he hides his cannons if someone invades.”

“Well, I guess we should dig, by not visible and need tool?”

“Hey, but that’s strange. The clues don’t narrow down it anywhere. We’ve been there, and there are no cork or pines anywhere near, and olive trees everywhere.”

Suddenly, I had an idea. “We don’t have to dig! Remember when he said, go down the page! Look at the first letter of each word. C-A-N-N-O-N. There are the secret cannons, right? Then we have to look at the cannon with olive trees nearby and no cork or pine for two meters!”

dUdU

@all

Warning: the stuff you are about to read is not 100% true.

Cannon. Right. I looked around for a cannon. But I could see multiple cannons, all far away from pine or cork trees. I tried using a spyglass. Still no use. We searched for hours, from noon to dusk, fruitlessly. I looked closer at the piece of paper again. Maybe if I looked down from the back? I looked down the back. Relelys. I was confused, but Frederick and Jack looked amazed. They later told me that Relelys was a company that made cannons. They were the top 1 illegal cannon company in Panem. Well, there was no way I would have known that.

It wasn’t hard to tell a Relelys cannon from others. They had sleek bodies, no chips or cracks in the smooth surface. There was a hole at the mouth, probably firing the cannonballs, as there was no other hole. There were only four, which surprised me, as I thought they would have bought more than that, considering the quality. But, I guess even Snow has a limited quantity of his abundant money. The cannons must be expensive since Snow would have bought more. I realised that none of the Relelys cannon was even near any cork or pine trees. Well, more than two metres.

I must have missed one. Then I knew. Did Relelys cannons have different models? They said they only knew of the one model that we found. Well, that would have been nice to know earlier. I told them to cover me. I slipped through the crowd, keeping a low profile as I weaved through the fight. They looked all the same. Luckily, the founders of Relelys were egoistic and liked to print out their company’s name on the front in big, bold, vivid colours. I slipped through the throng of people, reading out the names of cannons. Then someone whispered in my ear, “Are you looking for a Relelys, darling?”

#Yao

I heard somebody whispering to Julia, and I quickly wheeled around, holding my pistol. I fired two rounds towards the man, and Jack sent a dart flying. The man leapt out of the way, and the bullets destroyed a barrel, while the dart hit a squirrel and knocked it out cold. I knocked a punch, but the man blocked it.

“Whoa! Whoa! Stop attacking! I’m a friend. I can help you!” the man told me. I let him treat us to an eggnog each. As the man sat in the bar, slowly sipping his drink, I demanded his story. The man sighed, and put his beverage down to the table.

“I used to a Capitol soldier-” the man began. I pulled out my pistol, sliding back the cocker, and pointed the pistol to the man’s head.

“Which means you’re still a Capitol man!” I yelled, my hand tight on the trigger. The man put up his hands.

“Listen to the rest, first. I used to be in Snow’s elite bodyguard unit. Very good soldier. Was promoted to master lieutenant in two months. Snow remembered my name, requested me every time he needed a bodyguard. But then, Snow put me into an actual battle with the rebels. I got shell shock, and refused to serve Snow again. But Snow did something horrible when he learned I had retired. He killed my cousin and brother. I vow to revenge my kin,” the man said.

“Your name?” I requested.

“Jobert. Jobert Reinstein,” the man said. I put my pistol down.

“How can you help us?” I asked, my hand still on my pistol.

“You’re searching for cannons. But all of that is wrong. It was all a distraction. The real force is coming soon, a massive blitzkrieg. There’s going to be enough planes to cover the sky, enough bombs to destroy a continent, enough soldiers to fill half of Panem, enough guns for a hundred thousand firing squads. Enough artillery to bombard twenty districts. Snow has been massing it all. He’s going to strike it all at once, just like Hitler’s last attempt during the Battle of the Bulge. You have to warn your soldiers. I have seen the soldiers myself. You must warn them, before it is too late! There will be nothing standing after the army has gone through. But with all of the rebel soldiers and supplies all massed up into one, we might be able to stand a chance. Are they scattered?”

“Very scattered. We have battalions and regiments everywhere!” Julia moaned.

I dropped my glass.

“Wait. There’s a chance, if I can telephone headquarters. But I’ll need a phone booth,” I said.

“There’s a place just ten minutes from here. Five, if we run,” Jobert said.

“Then we better get going,” I replied, racing out of the bar. But as we neared the sky, we saw them. Enough planes to cover the sky. The fighter planes all had a face of Snow on them, each covered with guns, cannon, and missiles. The bomber planes were all triple engines, each one with a large bomb compartment and black machine guns bristling. We were too late. The blitzkrieg had begun.

#Bai

This was the plan. Julia and I would have to run to get to the phone booth, alerting the authorities in District Fourteen, and therefore creating a diversion to defeat them. If Frederick could use the very explosive gunpowder, then he could hold the bombers off, at least for a minute or two. Then, we could head for a supply stash, find it, and then use the weapons inside to obliterate the blitzkrieg and then win the war, well, the third one. This was the plan.

When we rushed there, there were a few soldiers, whose orders had been to stop anyone entering the area. This meant that we would have to get past them – a plan which I would never want to try again. I found a cow, just around the area. Slaughtering it with a blow gun, I cut a little piece open, and entered it. Then, next to Julia, we rode and tried to break through the barrier. No one suspected us. No one thought we were enemies, deadly, evil rebels. We sauntered behind a tree, took off our uniform, and rushed towards a phone booth. Then, I called the number District Fourteen had given us. 

“Hello. This is Jack. I would like to speak to James. This is urgent.”
“Of course. Give me a minute.”
“Hello? This is James. Jack, what’s wrong?”
“We have a major problem. We have a huge blitzkrieg coming in from the Capitol. They’re around District One. Flying towards you. And the problem is, we need you to regroup and meet at Thirteen. They don’t know our base, and therefore will attack there. The blasts will eventually hit Fourteen, and so you need to group and fight. Also, can you tell us where the stash is?”
“Of course. But I’ll give you a riddle, because I can’t let anyone over hear:

Covered in stone and sun. 

It’s home to many but also none.

Go to that place in District – KACHING!”

When the line started again, it was another voice. 

“Hello, rebels. We have worked out your base. We have killed James. And we will destroy this rebellion. And finally, kill YOU.”

He hung up.

“How was it?” Julia inquired.

“Not good. We got the information to James, and he noted it down and gave it to his assistant before he died. And we have a riddle.”
“Wait. He died?”
“Yes. And someone knows our base.”

“So what’s the riddle?”
“Covered in stone and sun. 

It’s home to many but also none.”

“That’s really strange, I mean, how can it be home to many and none.”
“That means that the people have to exist but they don’t.”

“That’s strange. I mean, it sounds like magic, but it somehow-”
“It’s a cemetery.”
“Another great thing: there’s only one major cemetery in District Eight!”
“Ok. Let’s go.”

dUdU

It would seem pretty easy to find a cemetery in a specific district, mostly if there was only one. But, mark my words, it wasn’t. And we searched everywhere. I was suddenly overcome with doubt. 

“How are you sure that it is in District Eight? I mean, did James actually say District Eight?” I asked. Jack turned around. He didn’t seem angry; instead, he was thoughtful. He considered the thought for a while.

“I’m not sure, but maybe, just maybe, I might have misheard him. It might have been the bullet sound. Oh, and before you ask how I know it was a gun, is because I recognise the sound of the bullet whistling through the air,” he said, seeing my mouth open. I scowled. 

” I was not going to ask you about the bullet, idiot. I was about to ask you the gender of the killer.” I retorted indignantly. Jack rolled his eyes. 

“It was a boy. Most murderers are boys.” I narrowed my eyes at his smug tone. Seeing my furious attitude towards him, he raised his eyebrows and started walking again. I glared at his back and started to walk. A few minutes later, he turned around. 

“Well, I officially announce that there is no cemetery in District Eight.” he declared. It was my turn to roll my eyes. 

“Hmph. I was the one to tell you my doubts,” I muttered darkly. “Stupid boys. Never letting girls take the lead,” If they heard that, they did do a flawless job of hiding it. We eventually stopped in a forest, where I could hunt and they… well they could do whatever shenanigans they do. I took down two rabbits and three squirrels. When I got back, my temper was cooler, and so was the temperature. The others had the common sense to start a fire and a camp in the trees. I chose a tree, a sturdy hazel, and let the darkness of sleep pull me in.

#Yao

As I took a bite off a squirrel, I thought carefully.

“Jack, are there any significant cemeteries, not in District Eight, maybe, but somewhere else?” I questioned. Jack thought for a moment.

“Yes. My grandfather died twenty years ago, and we had him buried at Desecres Cemetery. Now, I actually think the cemetery is a museum! It’s in District Ten,” Jack said. I took a loud munch on a piece of cracker. District Ten was ninety miles from here. I sighed. Train it was.

The next morning, Julia showed up in an elegant dress. Me and Jack were both in trousers and shirts.

“What’s with the fanciness?” I asked when she showed up.

“I scheduled our train. However, the only one left was a really fancy one. Got to make sure you fit in!” she announced. Indeed, all of the passengers waiting were dressed finely, and they were glaring in a condescending manner at our dirty clothes. I sighed. Picking up my wallet, I took Jack’s arm and led him to a store. He grumbled, but I didn’t care. We needed to seem like we blended right in. So, as Jack complained and griped about regular clothes, I made him buy a suit and a tie, and a nice black shirt for myself, along with shoes and pants to go with it. We looked like hooligans, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that we weren’t caught.

After the shopping spree, the train finally arrived. It had real steak, mashed potatoes, and vegetables. I hadn’t had steak since the Hunger Games Winner Feast. Julia was bright enough to actually use her napkin. Me and Jack, who had both been taught to scarf down meals in order to return to working, weren’t so good at manners. We got lots of stares, but nobody said anything. As I finished stuffing potato into my mouth, I wiped my hands and got down to business.

“This cemetery, does anything suspicious about it?” I asked. There had to be someplace the stash was.

“Hmm…Yes! When I was a kid, I used to play there with my friends, and there was this tiny cabin with a coffin inside. We dared each other to look inside, but none of us every did!”

“You used to play in a graveyard?” Julia asked, choking on her wine.

“What? It’s fun!” Jack retorted.

“Well then, the first place we’ll look is the coffin,” I said. Soon, the train stopped. We stepped out, and stretched out legs. There, we raced to the cemetery. However, we were in for a shock. The cemetery was under a building now. Somebody had built a three-story house on top of the graveyard! The coffin must have been taken out, but where did it go?

#Bai

 

It was impossible – Frederick with his hawk-eye view, climbed upon a tree and looked down, and there was not a single cemetery in sight. But I had an idea, eccentric as it was. “What if the cemetery was in the building?”
“Well, it could be. No other idea.”

As we entered, electric lights flickered – there were really coffins everywhere. We had gone tapping in every coffin, and finally found one that didn’t seem like it had a body – it had the stash. Guns, swords, maces, everywhere, until about a couple of dozens of soldiers entered, the first holding a Capitol flag, the others with the insignia of it on – each holding an AMP-69 assault rifle with silencers. “Peacekeepers, stop now!”

I said, “You’re making a mistake. We’re from District Ten, just came here to pray to our grandfather. Look, he’s here.”

“Wait. You’re not touching anything. Number 31 and 47, keep watching them. You had better be telling the truth here, or I’ll kill you.”

I asked the soldiers, “What’s that?”

As they turned, I lashed out a kick, and they crumpled, and Frederick reached for their guns. I took out a pistol from the stock and began firing. By then, the soldiers had realised their mistake. They took out their guns, and started firing two. We dived behind a coffin, and they advanced, but we were outnumbered – the fire wasn’t enough to take them. We were engaging from far. Soon, there were nine to three. One advanced to me, and I fired my last shot, cutting through the man. Then, I threw the pistol itself at the soldier who was advancing on Julia, and he crumpled, as she kicked his weapon and blew the remaining man apart. 

We worked quickly, filling all the coffins up with bodies, and then taking their weapons. We found yet another phone booth, and asked for James’s second in command, and hoped he would not be killed. I called, and he answered. Speaking in a rushed voice, he spoke, “This is a problem. I’m about to die. There’s a knife inches away, and it’s going to kill me. What’s up?”
“Has Fourteen gotten ready for the battle?”
“Yes. They’re going there now, but yes, I think they’re ready. Suddenly, there was a spilling sound. The line was dead, and at any time James’s second in command was going to go with it. The rebellion was not going well – but at least we were ready for the battle. But there was a problem. We couldn’t get there fast enough – there had to be some other way. But how?

dUfU

I was thinking hard. We couldn’t go by train again; it was way too slow. We couldn’t go by boat; there were no water sources close to our destination unless you counted Snow’s eccentric pools and jacuzzis. “Jack was pestering Frederick with questions.
“I can’t teleport, Jack! I’m not some genie from some stupid lamp!” he shouted after about one million questions. I was suddenly struck with an idea.
“Hey, guys, do you think you can drive a plane?” I asked. Jack frowned. Frederick blew air over his top lip, ruffling the hair at the front of his face.
“I could rewire one, like re-programming it, but it would be hard. It may take a long time. I could make it think its destination was the Capitol, but then again, it would take an unknown amount of time.” he said. “But how would that help?”
“You’ll see,” I replied mysteriously. I went hunting, this time stopping to catch a decent haul of fish. I also caught a pigeon that was flying by and a few rabbits. But then a winner came. It was a small buck, with velvety skin and fine horns. I approached it silently, careful not to disturb it, and placed a hand over its eyes. Then I drew a dagger and slit its throat. I wrapped it around my shoulders and slung my net of prey higher over my shoulder. When I went back to camp with a deer, the boys gaped. I rolled my eyes and slit its stomach, from its chest to the bottom of his front. I carefully removed the skin in one piece. I cut shapes from it, and then pushed it into the boys’ arms.
“You’ll need it. We have to go incognito to the Capitol, and we have to look rich if we turn up with a plane,” I said, wrapping a shawl around my arms. Then I put my plan into action.

#Yao

While Dudu and Jack munched happily on meat, I was furiously trying to fix the wiring in the plan. Sweat formed on my brow, and I wiped my forehead. It wasn’t working. Whoever had bought this plane was putting some serious security measures. I had fixed all of the wires, except for one. The owner had placed a padlock on it. Without that wire, I could never make the plane fly. Suddenly, I had an idea. Stepping toward Jack, I grabbed the thin piece of meat in his hands.

“Hey! That was a good piece of meat!” Jack groaned. I ate the meat, and was left with two bones, both skinny and sharp. I plunged the bones into the padlock, and after twisting it around for a while, I managed to jam the mechanism. I pulled the lock from the wire until it finally let go. I threw the padlock out the window, and connected the wires. The engine roared to life.

I grabbed a drumstick and ate a large bite.

“Fasten your seatbelts!” I told Julia and Jack. I clicked the auto-fly button on the control panel, and typed in the destination. We were headed for the Capitol.

It was a long flight, and a boring one too. Julia whittled a piece of wood into a wooden knife with her real knife. Jack found some army rations in the backseat of the seat in front of him, and ate those. He tossed a bar of chocolate to me. I was the one that was the most lucky. I found a tiny pop-out screen embedded in the panel, and I also found a CD for a horror movie. Using the spare headphones I had scavenged, I managed to waste two hours of the flight away. After the movie was done, I found some magazines about weapons, and I actually learned something about the guns and knives I had.

We were still flying after I took a nap. The destination screen estimated around one more hour of flying at a moderate speed. I gathered my weapons. For my two assault rifles, (M-4A1 and MP5), I simply slung them around my shoulder. My pistols (Glock, Luger, Colt 1911) were easy to hide.

As the plane slowly descended, I pulled out my Glock.

I couldn’t see through the misty windows. But suddenly, someone banged down our door. They saw me, my Resistance badge clear on my shoulders. I fired off as many shots as could from my Glock. It jammed. I was about to pull out my MP5 when I noticed the tiny speck of black on the floor of the plan. A tear gas canisters.

Mustering all of my courage I threw myself onto to the tear gas, and was about to throw it away. But I soon realized this wasn’t a tear gas canister. This was a stun grenade. A loud flash and bang was emitted from the grenade. I was blinded by the light, and the force of the bang knocked me out. The last thing I felt was blood trickling from my nose, and rough hands grabbing my weapons and pulling me up.

I awoke to find myself in what seemed like a jail cell. It was small, but had no toilet or sink. There was just a cot on the floor. There was also a hole in the floor in the corner, which I guessed was for going to the bathroom. I waited for somebody to come. Soon, I fell asleep. I was awoke in the middle of the night. Voices called out, and I was dragged to a bigger room. There, I was handcuffed to a chair. I struggled, and a voice called out, surprising me.

“It’s best if you don’t pull, Mr Kipper. The cuffs hurt very much if you attempt to struggle,” a woman’s voice said.

A tall white-haired lady dressed in a uniform approached me. She sat down on the chair facing me. By now, I had realized this was an interrogation room.

“How do you know my name?” I growled.

“That was quite easy. Your badge is on your shoulder, you understand. It’s not common we get three generals all together,” the woman said, chuckling. She opened a folder and took out some papers.

“Where are my friends?” I asked.

“Not to worry,” the lady said mysteriously. She began shining a flashlight into my eyes. I closed my eyes a tiny bit. The light glared at me.

“Mr Kipper, we know you have the Resistance positions. Where are the troops? We had at least a thousand battalions fighting our forces just a month ago. We have met no resistance, except for a few Resistance platoons. Where are the troops?” the woman asked. I tried to look as innocent as possible.

“Mrs…” I began.

“Call me lieutenant,” the lady told me.

“Alright, Mrs Lieutenant. I honestly have no idea. The army seniors just won’t tell me!” I said.

Lieutenant narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t play tricks on me, Kipper. You ARE the army senior,” she said. “Now, for the second time, where are the troops?”

This went on for hours. As dawn was breaking, Lieutenant decided she had enough.

“Kipper, if you don’t tell me where your troops are, we’ll have to do something to your friends,” she said. I gulped, my face blank. By now, I realized that “do something” in Lieutenant’s mental vocabulary basically meant “kill in the most painful way”.

I couldn’t do that to Julia and Jack! But just as I was about to blurt out that the soldiers were all in District Fourteen planning a defensive and then a counterattack, I realized something. If I told this woman the plans, one million soldiers would die. Would I rather kill my two friends or my one million comrades?

#Bai

We were locked up in a cell – until Julia came up with a plan to escape. We would have to use our concealed knives, tucked inside the secret pockets in our clothes. The walls weren’t that hard – we could easily incapacitate a guard or even dig through. I told Julia, “Get down and pretend you’re sick.”

I screamed at the nearby guard, “Help! She’s sick!”

The guard opened the door, and I thrust the knife into his chest. He groaned, falling to the ground, and I went outside and picked our guns, then we went to the interrogation room, and killed the lieutenant mid-sentence, then unchained Frederick and continued our journey to District Fourteen. We were just able to see a couple of fighter jets racing towards District Thirteen and into Fourteen. Entering Frederick’s plane – which luckily had not been stolen – we raced through the skies, shooting as many of the 80 planes flying. Then, we hit one – I could hear the tearing of titanium and the plane crashing down – until the soldiers noticed us and flew us into Thirteen. There, we began fighting, each of us sending hails of bullets at each other. Julia finally got the interference working – meaning we could hear the radio people were speaking in. “74, head off to the plane’s left. 59, go to the right.”

Just like that – we managed to escape many surprise attacks, and soon there were many planes falling to the ground – we were down to 5 on 1. The problem was, we were still very much outnumbered, but we fought on hard and strong.

We narrowly dodged 72, and 5 and 52 crashed after we dodged from their attack on us. That left 72, 69 and 12. We took shots at them, which they dodged. Forming a loop around us, we swerved and shot at them, their shells crashing. Soon, they were falling through the air. Suddenly, more planes emerged. What were we to do?

dUfU

I looked at the planes in the air. I then looked over to Jack. He was looking up into the air with a grimace of pain on his face. I looked at the remains of our plane and thought. I looked around absently and saw a forest. Even if it were one of Snow’s customized forests, it would do. I nudged Jack and cocked my head towards the forest.
“Tell Frederick to come,” I said, already halfway to the forest. I scaled a tree and inhaled the crisp air. When I reached the ground, The boys were kindling a fire, coaxing a small blue flame to life. I shot a chicken with the last arrow from the weapon stash and caught a rabbit. A few minutes passed by, and I went back to the fire and cooked my haul. I climbed a horse chestnut tree, a rabbit haunch and a skinned squirrel clutched in between my teeth. I sat in the fork of a branch, firmly belted in while I watched the sunset. As the last bite of squirrel disappeared, I swung down. The boys were in their sleeping bags, a patchwork of various animals’ skin. I extinguished the fire and took out my sleeping bag. Before sliding into the furry sleeping bag, I warmed it over the ashen coals. I climbed up into the tree branches and watched the stars form different geometric shapes in the sky. And then when the boys’ snores drifted around the clearing, I slid into my sleeping bag, rested my head on the grass-stuffed pillow and closed my eyes.

#Yao

I woke up with an abrupt start. Something was wrong. Quietly, I nudged Jack awake. Julia was already awake. Slowly, I brought out my SKS rifle. Aiming through the add-on scope, I spotted something. My eyes rested on the giant moving figure closing in on us. A TT-450. In all of my years as a general for the rebels, I knew one thing. The best way to deal with a TT-450 was to leave it alone and pray it would go away if it didn’t sense anything. The moving machine was a giant tank with legs. Thick armor made it invulnerable to missiles or rockets. It had a total of six gun turrets, two by the sides, on on top and on the bottom, and another two on the sides of the giant legs. The cannons could knock down a helicopter or even a jet with one blast.

There were packs of missiles surrounding the killing machine, along with a flamethrower in the front. It had a total of six crew. Before the war got serious, the Capitol army sent in TT-350s. Those machines were pathetic. Only one gun turret, with a feeble 20mm cannon. Two missiles surrounded the entire machine, only they were tiny and often ineffective. The machine didn’t have any armor, and there were only two crewmates. Plus, the height was just over eight feet. But once the Capitol realized they were just wasting resources, they got serious.

Pretty soon, the TT-450 turned on its headlights. It wasn’t scared of being caught. Oh no. Nothing could stop it. Wait. There was one thing that could stop it. Once, we had managed to catch a TT-450 out of fuel. Its crewmates didn’t have any weapons, so we managed to bring them in. But we noticed that the TT-450 had one weakness. It’s fuel tanks were the parts that barely had any armor. So, the only way to defeat a TT-450 was to blow it up by sending a projectile into the fuel tank part. But that was quite hard, as most TT-450s barely every showed their back. It was always their front. But I had a plan.

“Hey, Jack, do you still have that RPG?” I asked. RPG stood for Rocket Propelled Grenade, was a very good weapon when used against armored units.

Jack nodded, but sadly looked at the weapon.

“There’s just one shell left,” he said. I sighed. I couldn’t miss. Slowly, I loaded the shell into the weapon, I locked my eyes on the machine, and my finger tightened around the trigger. I pulled it.

KABOOM!

As the rocket launched straight for the fuel packs, I felt triumphant.

The TT-450 exploded into tiny bits. I smiled. But suddenly, I heard something. A mechanical whirring sound. It was another TT-450. But that was impossible! I looked out again, and truly realized what I had done. This wasn’t good. I had just seen one TT-450. But there were 24 following him, an entire battalion. No more RPG shells meant…we were doomed.

#Bai

We ran. Through the woods, and into a place where there was a tree which had many branches. It was easy to attack this by climbing on the tree – and eventually threatening the machines to crash. With a few seconds to spare, we climbed, and looked at each of the flamethrowers, eventually being a threat. They looked at us. “You must surrender, or get obliterated. Which do you want?”
They formed a circle around us, which they had been trained to do. We didn’t make any action, because the plan was simple. The commander continued, “In the case that you do not surrender, we must attack. Fly towards them and obliterate them!”

We ducked, and the sound of missiles exploding the tree was unbearable, and we inched down the tree, slowly, carefully, but a huge blast of missiles exterminated all others, and we could safely fall. We rushed towards any trains that would take us to District Eleven, for Twelve was currently under the guard of Capitol Soldiers. There was one – and soon we were on the train, with just three packets of noodles to last the night. 

I asked the train server to dish us up with extra rations, but she refused.

“Come on! We need some to last the night!”
“I’m extremely sorry, sir, but you cannot have this many rations.”

“Fifty pounds?”

“No, sir.”
“One hundred pounds?”
“Um,…”

She was stuck in between greed and her duty. Eventually, however, she refused. We would have to find a way to gain extra rations – our true stock contained only a few day’s worth of bread and meat. The journey soon ended, but stealing food was incredibly tricky. While the stewardess was showing one’s way out, we entered the restricted area to be filled with Capitol food.  Large tureens of food stood before us, with thick cakes and pancakes on glass plates.

I stacked a pile of pancakes, added some fruits and cream, then grabbed a few pieces of sausage and bacon. While eating, I noticed the boy Jack watching me. He slid down in the seat next to me. He had some whole grain cereal, fried ham, and a fruit cup full of yogurt. We took everything, but soon a group of footsteps came into the room. It was the stewardess, followed by the security guard at the station.
“The food’s been taken!” the security guard cried as he entered the room.
“It must have been that idiotic District Three looking person. He tried to bribe me to give him some food, so he did. But I didn’t listen. And now everything’s taken.”
“Wait. I only came in after everyone had left, which means they must have left. Quick! Let’s go!”

dUfU

(sorry i just copy and paste my name each time, so i don’t bother with changing it.)

As soon as the police/security guard and the tale-telling stewardess stepped out of the door, I jumped up. The boys, their bags full of food, quickly followed. I walked over to the door lightly, in case anyone would hear. I stood at the door. I asked Jack for an apple. He handed a small one to me, his brow creased in suspicion. When Jack let go of it, I hurled it out of the door. It landed with a soft thud. I ran to the back of the train carriage, pushing the boys back as I did so. The ground immediately exploded, shaking the train carriage, but only slightly.
“It’s mined,” I heard Frederick whisper to nobody in particular. I looked at the ground after all the black smoke had cleared, and the ashes hanging in the air had drifted away. It was covered in shards of glass and small piles of rubble. I covered my mouth and nose with a handkerchief sprayed with alcohol. Boy, it was strong, but I had been near countless drunk men stumbling down from the pub, and that was far worse than clean and sanitary alcohol. I still have nightmares about drunkards spilling out of numerous pubs.

I crept out gingerly, avoiding any shards of glass and rocks. My boots were leather, of course, but the glass is sharp. I picked up a small stone that reminded me of a rock cake. It was roughly the size of a snowball and resembled a lump of metal. I threw it at a small bare patch in the ground. I then ran, adrenaline rushing through every square inch in my body. I wasn’t far enough, though. It blew up, and I was pushed forward by the force of the bomb. I stumbled forward. I and I landed on a small patch of pavement, and everything went black.

#Yao

I rose to my feet, quickly pulling out my M1 carbine. I slowly aimed across the remains of the burning train. I saw the white helmet of a Capitol Soldier, his obliterating rifle still in his hand. With the other hand, he held a field phone. I fired, and nearly hit his hand. He suddenly brought himself to a crouch, raising his gun. However, he found it was jammed, so attached his laser bayonet and charged at me. My gun wasn’t very effective when it came to long range shooting, so I waited until the soldier got within 50 yards of me. I fired twice. Both of my shots went into his forehead, and he dropped to the ground. I put my M-1 Carbine next to my SKS, and took out my Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR).

Jack had woken up from his stunned state, and I gave him my pistol. Julia was bristling with knives, so I didn’t even need to hand over my pocket knife. Slowly, we advanced on the ruins. There seemed to be no survivors. But surely, the Capitol Army had been planning a surprise attack. They put bombs on this part of the track, not even caring about the innocent passengers. But wait. How did the Capitol Army know we were here? After all, we never told anyone.

And then, the answer hit my head like a tranquilizer dart. Of course! The Capitol must have someone on the inside. Somebody on the train, dressed in civilian clothes, who recognized the three of us and told the Capitol. But we didn’t see any soldiers. That was a surprise. I thought that there would be a platoon of soldiers, all waving their bayonets. But so far, we had just seen one soldier.

I explained my thinking to Jack and Julia. Jack was particularly interested in the fact that he was on a field phone.

“Wait, I have it. That soldier wasn’t part of an assault group, he was a scout. The Capitol Army sent him to scout the area, because-” Jack began.

“-they want to bomb us with an UAV!” Julia finished.

“That explains why the scout was on a field phone! He was giving our coordinates!” I said.

“But the question is, did the soldier already give our coordinates, or was he shot by Fredrick before he could do so?” Julia asked.

We all stared at the field phone. I picked up the receiver, and put my ear to the end. A voice was speaking.

“Specialist Corman? I see you have been idle for some time, so I will repeat the message. We have confirmed the coordinates with the drone. It will be flying off from the nearest airfield near you in exactly sixteen minutes and forty six seconds. Good day.”

I groaned. Soon, the UAV would be flying towards us. It would be carrying bombs and missiles. Even if we sprinted for it, we wouldn’t get past three miles. The UAV would probably do a bombing run, bombing and destroying every inch of land for miles. We were doomed. Then, I got an idea.

I picked up the receiver and phoned the headquarters once again.

“Hello, soldier. Please state your rank and name,” the person said.

“Specialist Corman speaking,” I told him.

“Ah! Corman, we were just talking. The drone is on its way!”

“No, reverse the drone. The three I were telling you were about? Those were just some civilians. I let them go. I’m afraid I left in the middle of our conversation. I was inspecting three dead bodies. They were the three. They’re dead. Apparently, the bomb killed them,” I said.

“Corman, you have given us a lot of trouble. But seeing you as a good soldier and scout, I tell headquarters without denouncing you. Good day.”

I put down the receiver.

Me and Jack high-fived, and I did so too with Julia. We were going to live! Not only was the drone now on its way back home, the Capitol Army would think we were dead and leave us alone! That was a definite win-win. But we still had to take down the Capitol Army. With this, I had a plan.

I told Julia and Jack.

“You see, years ago, when we were just captains in the army, I began a lengthy project. I was creating the first mass-destruction rocket. But then, I was just a captain. Progress was slow at first, but slowly, I advanced through the ranks. When I became senior general, I had a quarter of the whole army working on that rocket. I finished it, and decided to use it whenever we needed it. So, I left it there. I have an old map telling me where to find it. We can aim it at District Thirteen and Fourteen, where the soldiers are!” I told them. Julia was on board that instant, but Jack wasn’t so sure.

“We’ll be killing all those innocent civilians!” he protested.

“Jack, this is for our country. If we don’t save it, the soldiers and civilians will all die,” I told him gently. Finally, Jack agreed. I estimated that we needed four days to travel there. It was in a piece of land that had once been bombed, so nobody even cared about it anymore. It wasn’t even part of a district. The Capitol soldiers wouldn’t be there.

After packing our stuff, we began traveling. First, we took a helicopter ride from a nearby friendly rebel army base. Next, we got off at a bus stop and took a long and stuffy ride, until we arrived at the halfway point. We were all tired, but we needed to keep going. Now, there was a huge piece of water between us and the rocket. I had built it on an island, to make sure it was isolated.

We took a boat ride from a captain who was off-duty. He was extremely nice and explained that since he wasn’t doing anything for the next two days, he’d give us a ride for free, if we didn’t bother him and had our own food. We agreed.

Soon, we had arrived at the rocket base.

#Bai

We had arrived at the rocket station and got ready to fire. However, we didn’t know the exact coordinates of the Capitol soldiers, which would therefore mean we couldn’t program the rocket to hit the soldiers, we would have to send a scout. Heading forward, the distance to District Fourteen and back, is around about 100km. Therefore, we can assume if the soldiers are in District Twelve, which we can assume, because we were told by the leader, and therefore the distance should be around 80km. But they are less organised, and probably will tarry to make sure that they have the proper equipment. In that case, our maximum speed should be around 25km everyday, max. Their speed will be 10km everyday. We should be able to calculate their position from their position by their speeds.
We rushed through the forest, which was now what was growing upon District Thirteen. However, now, there was another group of soldiers, around a platoon of thirty, just for any suspicious behaviour. This was because, although Frederick had given an appropriate reason for the absence of the scout, the army general wasn’t convinced.  We took our places, and started taking down soldiers. They weren’t expecting this, and about fifteen men had died before they retaliated. Even if we were outnumbered, the platoon, well, the remainder of the platoon grew into dismay – they believed us to be dead and did not have significant training. About five ran for me, and I gunned three of them down. Despite the rest pinning me to a tree, Frederick beat them on the head with his steel Browning Automatic Rifle, and they collapsed. Soon, we were mostly uninjured, except for a cut on my knee, which stung like the dickens.
Soon, we were on our way again, and the next major barrier was a wide river. This was known as the largest canal in the whole of Panem, created to stop fights coming on. It started from about District 12, and led to the sea, just nearing the entrance of District Fourteen. There were rarely any bridges known on the canal, except one major leading on the verge of District Thirteen. Luckily, at the time, there water was not very deep but it was still unwadable. Therefore, we had to find a way across, but then, second time lucky, there was a bridge. It was very rickety, and it was getting dark. It could only hold two people. And the sound of rats and infected animals made us not want to be there when it happened. There was only one lantern, and Frederick could walk across in one minute. Julia could walk across in two, but I could only walk across in five, because of my knee. The sun would drop in exactly 8 minutes. This was the plan.  
Frederick would walk across with Julia, taking only two minutes. Then, Frederick would come back for me, taking exactly one minute. Then we would walk together, taking five minutes. In total, this would be 8 minutes exactly! Then, we continued our search for the Capitol soldiers’ coordinates.

dUfU

I looked at Jack’s leg. Then I looked at his face. It was a mask of pain, as even the strongest person could not endure a cut that deep without grimacing at least once. I looked in my bag and saw the first-aid kit way back from the Games. It had a few pills, a pack of five plasters, an ice-pack and a small roll of bandages. It also came with a scalpel and some sewing scissors. We then stopped for sleeping and food. I went out and killed a bird, two rabbits, a squirrel and three fish. When I went back, Jack was on guard, and Frederick was sleeping. I coaxed a fire out of a few pieces of green wood I had found on my hunt and then roasted the meat. I left the rabbit, a squirrel, a bird and a fish. I tossed Jack a squirrel haunch and half a fish, along with a chunk of tender squirrel flesh. Frederick had eaten last night’s leftovers, so he wasn’t hungry. I ate the leftover squirrel and the rest of the fish. I cut a strip of bandage and gave it to Jack. He took it and wrapped it around his cut.
“I think it’s Frederick’s watch now. I’m pretty sure it’s been more than my shift. Wake him for me, will you?” I nodded and attempted to wake Frederick. He only turned around and yawned. I filled a small beaker with stream water and headed back to camp. Jack had dozed off, so I shook him. He yawned and went to his bed. I dumped the water on Frederick’s face, and he woke with a start. I cocked my head at the empty watch post.
“It’s your turn now. Jack’s gone to bed since he took more than his turn,” I said. He yawned and headed to the tree stump that we called ‘watch post’. I warmed my sleeping bag over the coals, as I always do. Then I settled down and fell asleep.

I woke up to Frederick’s shaking. I yawned and went to the tree stump. It was a few hours past midnight, I judged, from the position of the moon. I stretched and watched the stars twinkle in the sky. But then I saw something that meant sure death.

#Yao

I was a bit mad at Julia for having to drop freezing water on me while I was dreaming about luscious steaks and potatoes and vegetables. As I kneeled at the trunk of a tree, I raised my binoculars just to surveil the land, but what I saw in the sky was a horror. A giant plane with four large engines was towering above us. Julia had already seen it, and she waking Jack up.

“What is it?” Julia asked. Julia may have been an expert at knives, and Jack with his survival skills, but I was the one that was an expert at airplanes.

“A P-29 Nighthawk. It’s uses include bombing, stealth, and…” I became quiet.

“What?” Jack pushed.

“It’s also used as a paratrooper plane,” I muttered sadly.

“Which means-” Julia began.

“Two platoons of soldiers will be dropping out of that thing in a minute!” Jack cried. I loaded my BAR, and Jack pulled out his M-1 Garand. Julia took out a knife and a grenade. I aimed my BAR at the thing, and Jack was just about to fire when I pushed his gun aside.

“We can’t alert them where we are. We’ll get them once the P-29 leaves. After all, it still has a bunch of bombs!” I told him. Slowly, we watched as little figure after little figure jumped out of the giant plane. The machine gun turrets turned around and around, trying to find any resistance in the sky. As each figure got closer to the earth, we saw large parachutes opening up in the sky. After four minutes of waiting in anticipation, a figure finally landed on the ground, pretty far from us. Then, another person landed, and then another. Soon, both platoons were in the forest, their guns flashing in the moonlight.

We waited silently, until I heard the pitt-pattering of feet approaching our position. I turned off the safety of my gun, and motioned for Jack and Julia to climb separate trees. I hid behind a bunch of bushes, a grenade lingering in my hands. Slowly, the lieutenants led their soldiers in double file into our position. Suddenly, one of them motioned to one of the lieutenants, and pointed to a dead fire still smoking. Oh no. Julia must have remembered to blow out the fire, but she had forgotten to pour water on it. We had been discovered. Realizing that they were in need of close quarters combat, the soldiers ditched their rifles and grabbed bayonets and maces and grenades and handguns. They moved quickly through the position, lifting branches and searching logs. It was only a matter of minutes before we were discovered.

I made my mind think and a plan formulated into action. I grabbed a flash-bang grenade, and slowly waited for the men to gather together in order to make a kill circle. Then, I pulled the ring. Sprinting forward from my hiding spot, I yelled and charged, until I was in throwing distance of the circle. I threw my grenade, and put my hands over my ears. thunderous bang and blinding flash made half of the 70 men immobilized and unable to fight. Those that were only shocked grabbed their rifles and aimed at me, shooting. But I zig-zagged, and it was hard to aim for long at me.

Finally, I had reached my bush. The soldiers didn’t see where I went, but they were determined to find me. Julia and Jack were already about to escape, and I grabbed another grenade to cover our escape. This one was a tear gas grenade, and I threw it right at the soldier in front of me. He was just about to reach down and throw it back when the irritating gas burst into his eyes and nostrils, and he staggered back, coughing and vomiting at the same time. To make sure nobody saw us going, I also launched a smoke grenade. As the soldiers coughed and struggled to see, the three of us were already on our way. We had to escape this forest. Then, I noticed the soldiers following us. The numbers had dwindled to just 17 men, as most of the men were still coughing and temporarily blinded.

I heard bullets sink into the ground beside me, and I ran faster.

“Should we split up?” Jack yelled.

“No! There’s too many of them! They’ll just send soldiers in each of our directions! Stick together, and we might survive!” I told him. Suddenly, I saw an abandoned truck lying at the side street of the road. Quickly, I motioned for them to go to the truck.

Jack got into the drivers seat, and Julia went into the passenger seat. Since my gun was the only one that had a bipod, I went to the back. Laying down the bipod, I fired into the ranks of soldiers. Four of them fell down, but the rest suddenly stopped and scurried to find cover. Reloading, I laid down cover fire for Jack to start the truck. Fortunately, knowing how to hack into a car and making it run without the key was a survival skill, and Jack had done it in two minutes flat. I fired one last 20-round burst into the trees, and reloaded while the car lurched to life.

I sat in the storage space, and aimed my rifle at anything that moved. But soon, I realized a bunch of squirrels wouldn’t hurt us. Maybe they were quite tricky to hunt, (unless you were Julia), but they still couldn’t do anything to us. Soon, the night turned into morning, and morning into afternoon, and afternoon into night, and night into morning, and morning into afternoon…

We traveled like this until we stopped at a stream to drink. Suddenly, four fireteams sprang out of the bushes, their uniforms camouflaged. We hadn’t seen them, so the only weapons I had were my pistol and knife, along with two lethal grenades. Julia only had her pocket dagger, and Jack had a stick.

We were three ragged travelers against fourteen well trained and automatic-rifle-supplied soldiers.

In other words, we were doomed.

#Bai

We still had the truck. The engine was running, as I had hotwired it. If they somehow blundered, I could leap in and be gone in a minute. “This is Delta One Three. Corman lied. We have them.” the leader spoke into his radio. Then I remembered – Frederick still had his stun grenades – if he could throw one, when they were gone, we could leap in and be gone in an instant.
“All right. You three. Turn around and walk with us. If any of you tries anything, we’ll blitz all of you. Understand?”
I nodded, but turned to Frederick and mouthed grenade. He understood at once and reached into his pocket.
“Hey! What are you doing?” shouted the leader.
“Oh. Just getting my handkerchief. Got a bit of a cough.”
They relaxed. That was their blunder. Because just a second later a stun grenade had been thrown at them, exploding at their feet, knocking around 10 off their feet. The other seven regrouped quickly and started running towards us, but by then we had used the same technique as earlier, Frederick at the back, shooting everyone. He took down two in an instant, but then the others began shooting at Frederick – but their attempts fell in vain as they hit the license plate. But we were still at a loss – with now only one lethal grenade, a gun, a knife and a sturdy stick. We continued our drive forward, and then we had the greatest surprise. A stock of even more guns, food and stun grenades were stashed up on a ground, but remembering the 74th Hunger Games, I told the others, “It’s mined. We have to set it off.”
Throwing a stone at the ground around, it set a chain reaction across the area around, cutting down trees in the vicinity. Then, stepping forward carefully, we retrieved the food, which meant we had supplies for days and days. Also, that gave us about 100 clips each and a polished BAR. But then became a much larger surprise. The Capitol army.
We could try and take them down, but it would be useless. An army of over 1000 vs a group of three. Our best chance would either to go back to the rocket launcher, or we could follow them, and blitz them with our army of 1000. Both methods were extremely risky, but soon we still decided to keep following them. After all, we couldn’t still work out their coordinates and we might not have actually made it back to the launcher anyway. We would have to follow them.

dUfU

It was risky. But our only choice. I quickly ran through the plan. There were still bits that I didn’t understand, but I would have to stick with it. I mean, where would we get a high-powered techno tank? Oh, right, we would steal one. Boy, do the Capitol have expensive weapons. I wondered how we would steal the high-powered techno tank. I sorted the possibilities from impossible to most likely. The ‘most likely’ was surprisingly easy. I would go in as bait, distracting the soldiers while the others stole it. I got a bit carried away while thinking of scenarios. One of my ‘impossible’ plans were “fly in with a plane, drop some bombs, raid the food and then get what we needed. Impossible. Where would we get a bombing plane? Stealing is not an option, as everyone would see us if we stole a bombing plane. Buying one is even more unlikely, as I don’t even know the name of a single plane, and I know that we’d have to be made of money to buy one. I was sorting through my thoughts when Frederick interrupted. 

“Okay, so what’s your plan, Julia?” I looked at him, surprised. He raised his eyebrows and made circled in the air with his hands. I understood.

“You mean the plan for the high-powered techno tank?” he pointed at me with both hands, clicked his tongue and winked. 

“Well, the best plan I can think of is I go in like bait, and you two steal the tank.” He considered this and nodded slowly. 

“Okay, but Jack has an injured leg, so he can’t help me, as his leg would impede our getaway, and his wound would make him vulnerable as bait. I thought for a moment and came up with a solution.

“What if he’s lookout?” I said. Frederick laughed. 

“You’ll be lucky if you can convince him. He’ll never do it.” I frowned. What were we to do with him?

#Yao

“Nope! No way. Not in a million years! I’m not doing it.” Jack told us. I frowned.

“Jack, it’s the only way! You be the person acting as a wealthy businessperson. You can explain to the guards you have a military detail. They’ll escort you, and while they’re doing that, me and Julia will sneak into the area and get a giant tank! Then, you’ll make an excuse about having to go to the bathroom, and then sneak out! They’ll be left with scratching heads!” I told him.

“Please, Jack. That’s the only way!” Julia begged with him. Finally, Jack agreed.

We arrived at the Capitol Army’s weapons depot in on time at all, and after a quick snack of rolls and fruit, we activated the plan. We gave Jack a long coat, followed by a top hat, glasses, and a black suitcase. He already had the battle scars and the height and the boots to match his appearance.

Walking heavily and slowly to match his looks, Jack approached the door.

“Halt!” the two guards at the door cried out. They pointed their electronic spears at Jack. He didn’t even sweat.

“Hello. My name is Mr. Swarter. I am a secret arms dealer. I have come to propose the Capitol Army a deal. If they give me a brand new Jeep and three of their top weapons, and enough food to last a platoon for a month, I will give you plans for a top-secret weapon. It is…a nuclear missile,” Jack said in his deepest voice. The two guards looked at each other, trying not to laugh. One of them couldn’t stifle a tiny giggle.

“I said, I have come to propose a deal!!” Jack roared. The two guards immediately stopped laughing and looked timid.

“Of course, sir. Colonel Lewis will see you immediately,” one of the guards said. I smiled.

“C’mon Julia!” I motioned for her to follow me. Suddenly, we were discovered by two guards.

“And what are you two doing here?” he inquired in a heavy, cold voice.

“Uh…” I began, but Julia had pulled out two knives. She threw them at the soldiers, who ducked. Then, I pulled out my BAR and rammed the wooden stock right into the first soldier’s head. The second managed to get up in time, and grabbed his knife. He tried to plunge it into my neck, but missed, and I disarmed him quickly before knocking him out.

Slowly, we dragged their bodies into a bush, before breaking the door. We quietly entered. Soon, we were in the storage locker. Inside was a giant tank. Suddenly, the door swung open, and Jack along with the colonel entered.

“Mr Swarter, pick a Jeep. We will supply you with army rations and give you three obliterator guns. Please, choose one,” Colonel Lewis said. Jack did not notice us, and walked over to a really fancy looking Jeep with four machine guns.

“I’ll pick this one,” he told Lewis.

“Alright. That one’s our brightest one. You had better have a good deal!” Colonel Lewis warned. A giant sack of army rations full of beef, potatoes, gravy, rice, and chocolate was dumped into the truck’s storage room, and three obliterating guns were put into the Jeep. Slowly, I could see sweat forming on Jack’s face.

Suddenly, I took out my last flash-bang grenade. Biting off the pin, I threw it, hard into Colonel Lewis’s face. His teeth were knocked out, and the explosion was so great he fell back. He was out for good. The rest of the men frantically tried to grab their pistols, but Jack quietly slipped a knife out of an officer’s pouch, and proceeded to stab everybody. He was the only one not panicking. After two minutes, Jack emerged with a bloody knife.

The tank, which was unlocked, was easy to break into. Jack drove, and me and Julia moved the three guns and the food into the truck. Then, I became the gunner while she became the loader. We traveled quickly, and rammed the gates of the military base. Several soldiers had heard the loud bang of the grenade, and we heard small arms fire ping at the sides of the tank. It was no harm. Soon, we rolled off into the forest.

It was long while later that we became hungry. We each ate a can of military rations, then spread out our coats to make makeshift beds. Soon, we we were all fast asleep. Morning came very quickly, and I was still tired, but Julia told me we had to keep moving. In a short while, we had reached a small village. I didn’t know what district we were in, so I stayed in the tank. But when the people saw the Capitol logo, they yelled at us and threw eggs. I immediately ran out of the tank and told them we were actually Resistance in a stolen tank. Then, one of the local boys offered me some paint in order to pain over the Capitol logo.

The village people were nice and prosperous. They gave us food and drink, and offered us shelter. After two days, we told them we needed to get moving. They were sad to let us leave, but agreed. We tried giving them some money, but they declined. They were happy to help.

Another week passed in the cramped tank. We had so many armor-piercing shells but nobody to shoot at. Then, we saw something. A helmet. We immediately stopped. The helmet was far off in the distance, but on look into binoculars told me this was a Capitol recon platoon. They were each armed with light sniper rifles, and Julia managed to kill them all with only the secondary arms, which was two machine guns. and a 20mm cannon.

But then, we saw the target we had been looking for. The bulk of the Capitol Army, or, in other words, the battalion we had been following led us straight to the Iron Division headquarters. We were going to do a heck lot of fighting.

Bai

The rest was very simple, despite the fact it seemed complicated. All we needed to do was to meet up with our army and then fight. The at least positive thing was that they didn’t know we were here, and therefore they would focus on the main target – the Capitol army. How out what we were doing – therefore meaning that we would probably find ourselves pretty much DEAD. However, as we followed on with the army, I told Frederick, “The tank can’t go on anymore, it’s going to sink in the river. Nearest bridge is 50km away, and not talking about bridges which can fit our tank.”
It was true. The river was huge, and we couldn’t cross it. Wading across, I walked through and there were a platoon of Capitol soldiers, stationed in groups of  17. A group came marching, and we immediately dispersed. However, we knew what to do – it had been part of our training in District Fourteen. If we fired at once all together, the enemy would be confused. With a bang, three soldiers suddenly collapsed, as if an invisible sword was struck upon them. However, they retaliated by swiping bullets across the heathers, hedges, and every available surface. However, this gave us an even larger advantage, as we could fire bullets without detection. Soon, alever, the problem was, a soldier had already confessed to the general that we were still alive, and would send scouts to workl the soldiers were dead, but my leg (the same one) had chipped a bullet and now was bleeding droplets onto the ground. My friends were miraculously fine, and continued our journey to follow the army.

At first, everything was confusing, how we were to attack the army, but for now we just followed the army, and from behind, we could shoot them. Because the route to District Fourteen was surrounded by trees, it was easy to gun them down. At the Capitol’s point of view, their men started falling down, and one row was dead before they stopped, and the general gave an order. Immediately, the soldiers formed a circle around their general, and took out their BARs. These men were high level trained soldiers, and they knew what they were doing. As mostly only BAR’s were used, and their range is around 60 to 100 metres, they began searching in that range. However, we were using machine guns. When there were no people found in a circle in that range, they began shooting everywhere, trees, leaves, bushes. However, they were not so naive, and decided to watch out for any bullets. Soon, we were almost found, and ran for our lives. What were we going to do next?

dUfU

I stopped, panting. Drops of perspiration were trickling down Jack’s forehead, soaking into the ground when it reached surface level.
“We can’t go on like this,” he said, stopping intermittently for deep breaths. “Our legs aren’t made of cardiac muscle, and I think we’ve already used up all our runner’s high,” I nodded in agreement, almost collapsing with the effort. Frederick was lying on the ground, inhaling extravagantly to restore his oxygen. I looked behind us and saw a small platoon of men running towards us. I caught hold of the boys’ arms and started to drag them towards a giant oak. I dropped to the ground and started breathing. In this time, Frederick had picked himself off the ground. Then he began to lead us towards a clearing.

When he reached it, he started to gather wood. He made a small fire and began to leave. Jack and I followed him, trusting him to lead us to the correct place. He stopped beside a stream and motioned for us to come and wash and drink. I filled all the vessels I had and purified them. I drank the last of my old water and started to bathe my wounds. I bandaged any that were too big and left any that were smaller than my hand. I took out some old meat and started a small fire. I cooked the food and packaged some, leaving each of us to eat something whilst walking. We abandoned the still smoking fire to lead the men to the wrong co-ordinate. Then we packed and headed in the opposite direction.

As night fell, we picked a small clearing to sleep in. We had dinner, all of the leftover victuals from earlier, and chose a tree each. I chose a small pine tree with a fork and settled down. In a few seconds, we were out completely.

#Yao

I slowly fell asleep, but I was awoken at early morning by Julia. She handed me my BAR and my knife and handguns.

“I heard something in the distant,” she said, and slowly loaded her dart gun. Soon, I could feel the rumbling of heavy artillery, mobile tracks, and light, heavy, and medium tanks. The footsteps of a hundred battalions could be heard, and it sounded like thunder. Jack readied his shotgun. The roar of planes and bombers could be felt, and it looked like an angry bee swarm had filled the sky. A swarm with cannons and machine guns and bombs and rockets, that is.

Julia got ready to go knife-berserker on the first company she saw, but I stopped her.

“There’s too many of them. They could kills us all with one tank. We’ll have to do this the guerilla way,” I told her. We each climbed down our tree, and went up the three that were closest to a squad of recons. Julia dangled down, and slit the throat of the first one, dragging the limp corpse up to her tree and slinging him over a branch.

“Hey, where’d Hatel go?” a soldier asked, and then immediately stopped when the saw the blood drops. Then, he saw fresh blood dripping from the tree and immediately shot four three-round bursts into the leaves. Luckily, Julia was not hit.

However, I got nervous. Quickly, I shot the soldier in the head. The other soldiers all stood in a circle, suddenly alert. They raised their guns, and aimed at anything that could move. With a full-auto burst, I managed to kill of the soldiers. But other platoons had become aware.

One of the soldiers must have called in drone attacks, because the next thing we knew, we heard missiles hitting our position. I got a shard of sharp bark in my shoulder, and it hurt like a snake bite. But we weren’t seriously injured. Pretty soon, we heard soldiers charge towards us, about to ascend the tree. But quick blasts from our weapons got rid of them all. Soon, we realized that there was a small fort about three miles from our location.

“We need to get there, and try to make a stronghold until the remainder of the Rebel Forces manage to get us rescued,” I told Julia and Jack. Slowly, we descended our trees. There was a fire section waiting for us, and we quickly shot them all. It was easy to get their guns. Their assault rifles were the best of the entire nation. Attaching a bayonet onto my gun, I quickly charged through the tall grass, headed in the direction of the fort. It turned out there had been a recon fireteam sent to scout us, and I stabbed one in the stomach. The other one attempted to kick me, but I blocked his leg with the butt of my rifle, and tripped him.

I wheeled around just in time to see another soldier attempting to stab me, and I shot him. The soldier on the ground had dislocated his shoulder, but he still managed to pull the pin on a grenade, attempting to signal to the rest of his platoon. I smothered the smoke with a cloth, and shot the man. The last man had apparently run off to report his encounter, and I swiftly shot full-auto at his fleeing body. I emptied out my entire magazine just to kill the man.

The fort was very tiny, but it fit all three of us. It turned out the fort wasn’t too old, most likely a Rebel stronghold, and it only had bullet holes through the concrete walls. There were also food rations, and abandoned guns. Plus, we found two heavy machine guns, which we mounted. The fort was small, but it would be where we took our last stand. I wasn’t going to let the fort be taken without an entire regiment getting killed.

That morning, I prepared for the drone of airplanes and missiles. But none came.

“Why isn’t the army sending bombs?” I asked Jack. He pulled out his map, and studied it for a while before replying.

“I estimate we’re along the border with Merico. It’s not a big nation, but it had villages. Just a few miles beyond our fort, there are Mericon homes and people. If the army sends planes, they might as well be trying to start a war with Merico. And don’t get me started on how Merico is sided with Pareic, Lares, and Obodoe.”

I nodded. The army would have to charge our fort in order to obtain it. We were eating breakfast when the first battle cry erupted. Roars soon within hearing distance, and it seemed like they were sending a company after us. I shoveled the last remaining bit of porridge, sausage, and egg into my mouth before taking a swig of canned juice and milk. Julia and Jack would operate the two machine guns, and I would rain down shells from the three 75mm artillery cannons we had found. Soon, the company got within firing distance, and I let off the first explosive. It hit it’s target, the explosion rocking the ground. I fired off the second one, and it missed. The third one was the most effective, taking out the line of mortars.

I could hear Julia and Jack blazing away with the guns, the front few lines of soldiers falling. I reloaded each gun, and fired again. This time, however, I was met with light artillery fire, the 37 mm shells crashing near the fort. One even hit the roof, but it didn’t explode.

I fired again and again, and stopped only when the guns became hot as fire. I could hear Julia and Jack still firing, but it seemed like they were running low on ammunition, as they only fired bursts of four. I knew we had to do something. The company had been decimated, but it sounded like four battalions were heading our way. We needed ammunition, and fast.

I had memorized the map, and I knew that there was an ammunition depot around four hundred meters from here, but that meant going in Merico. There were border guards everywhere. But I got an idea.

Later at night, when the firing had finally stopped, I ate a quick lunch of mackerel, kongbap, and tomato soup. I quietly snuck out of the fort, and went prone, slowly crawling through the itchy grass. There was a guard right next to me, and I quickly tackled him to the ground, covering his mouth and stabbing him in the eye. I placed his dead body in the grass, covered it with weeds and plants, then moved on. I made my way, inch by inch, meter by meter, and soon arrived at the storage place. I got the smart idea to borrow a truck, and dressed in a Mericon border patrol uniform, dragged 50 75mm shells onto the truck, two additional artillery guns, one more heavy machine gun, and several belts of ammunition. I turned the light off, and made the engine very quiet. However, one guard noticed me, but when he tried to ask me for the code, I dragged him into the car, and stabbed him. I felt as guilty as a criminal for killing all those innocent guards, but it had to be done for the common good. After I crossed the border, I drove full-speed towards the fort.

Julia and Jack were having a conversation when I got back.

“I don’t think he made it. You know what Mericons do to those who cross the border illegally,” Julia said, lowering her head.

“I should have warned him. But he had made up his mind!” Jack said.

“Both of you, I’m here,” I cried, kicking open the metal door.

“Fredrick!” they both yelled, and hugged me. I handed them the ammunition, and the additional gun. I also gave them one artillery gun with twenty shells, and then dragged the other one and the remaining explosives up to the roof.

The next morning, I didn’t even have time to finish my waffles and ham. I ate my breakfast as I worked on firing the weapons, dripping maple syrup all over the cannons. This time, the loud marching of an entire brigade could be felt, and I loaded all four cannons. Julia and Jack burst out with bullets once the first soldiers appeared. But was strange was that the soldiers were all on horseback, charging at full speed toward us.

I fired each cannon, and reloaded. Julia and Jack handed me the fifth cannon, which I had given them. They told me they couldn’t fire three machine guns and a cannon at the same time. As men fell from their horses, I could see the commander himself leading the charge. I fired four times at his horse, and he was finally downed when the last shell hit him. Soon, the men decided to retreat after losing more than half of their man. None of them had even got within firing range of their carbines. We celebrated by eating two rations each. I got pork sandwiches with cheese and crisps, along with corn dogs and meatloaf. We also each got a small salad, which I was happy to discovery was a fruit salad.

#Bai

We may have won the battle, but the war had not been won, at least yet. Now, the Capitol army couldn’t charge us, as we would blow them apart. However, they would instead rush the very close town of Mericon to try and hit District Fourteen. We had to get to another fort and obliterate them first. We couldn’t reach them in the town of Mericon, as they had taken a huge head start, and so the idea was to meet them at Pariac, so we could kill them before they slaughtered Fourteen. That was because the main army had been taken to District One.
Taking all our resources (we decided to abandon the machine guns as they were too hard to carry) we rushed to the town. Sneaking in at night meant the guards were easy too lazy to look or asleep – which meant we could stealthily sneak into the village and raid a house. When we arrived, the first house we arrived at we smashed open the door, and stabbed both people living in the house so they couldn’t cause us any trouble. Rushing onto the roof, we decided to bring up the people’s blankets (which were not very pleasant to sleep in as they were bloodstained) and perched like a bird, watching if they would come sometime or later. In that case, we took shifts as who would sleep and who would guard. I was taking my first watch, so I glanced forward and backwards at the village. Suddenly, I heard a bang and blood, rivers of blood through the village. The Capitol soldiers had killed all the guards, and were trying to storm the village. As they rushed through the village, we shot them down.
“Wait. Who just killed Andy?”
“Roof! A bullet came from the roof and grazed him. Let’s go. Door’s open, anyway.”
This was definitely not pleasant. Soon, around 20 soldiers would be speeding up and trying to obliterate us, whereas another 20 would shoot from the floor. In that case, Frederick and I would run down to the attic and ambush them, whereas Julia would try and kill those shooting from the bottom. I started climbing down the stairs from the attic to the second floor, when Frederick kept his gun at the door. I rushed downstairs and shot a soldier and then rushed back up and climbed the stairs. As I entered, I felt a bullet graze my leg. Blood rushed through my leg, dropping on the floor. Well, I was lucky Frederick hadn’t put his full aim, or my brain would be on the floor. “Frederick! That’s the second time you’ve attacked me! You have to stop.”
“Sorry! Anyway, they’re right there.”
He pointed at the stairs. Despite the pain, and the grimace on my face, I began to shoot. Soon, there would be no more soldiers terrorising villages, but there was another problem. “This is Delta One Three. Three main rebels assaulting soldiers. Meet District Fourteen immediately, ETA 5 days. Repeat, rendezvous District Fourteen ETA 5 days.”
In that case, we would have to reach there before I did. Because of my leg, that was no easy matter, due to the fact I had no bandage and the blood was not clotting. Limping up onto the roof, I found Julia, unharmed, and her gun smoking. “What happened to your leg?”
“I shot him. By accident.” Frederick added.
“We need to get to Fourteen before they do. The platoon Delta One Three reported that the even larger army would come straight to Fourteen. We’ve got to report it. And please give me something for my leg.” I said, a frown hard on my face.
Taking off the Capitol Soldiers’ shirts, I sprayed the wound with some alcohol from their medical kit and wrapped it with a bandage directly after pulling out the bullet. Frederick spoke to their radio. “This is the rebels. Immediately report to District Fourteen. Soldiers in One are retreating as we just slaughtered the team Delta One Three. They will be taking hovercraft. Please Regroup immediately, over.”
“Frederick, we are still fighting. We cannot just leave, or they will kill us all.”
“Has your scout heard anything?”
“Yes. They said they were packing away in just one hour, which means they are leaving by hovercraft. The pilot is called Jerry, and is coming straight from Thirteen.”
“Ok. Thanks.”
Now, we had to locate this Jerry in less than an hour. How was it even possible?

dUfU

It was most certainly impossible. We had a wounded person, and we were supposed to find a hovercraft with half an army vowing for our blood. And all within an hour. Impossible. I thought and looked at the sky, wishing all my heart that this Jerry and his hovercraft would appear out of thin air and pick us up. But this isn’t a fairytale, and since we’re not in a fairytale, life is more complicated than you think. 

“Right, so how are we supposed to find this Jerry person in such harsh conditions?” asked Frederick. I had almost forgotten that he existed, much less that he was standing beside me. I turned around and sighed. 

“Well it’s pretty much-” And then I was cut off.

“Impossible.” The boys chorused. I sighed, exasperated, and sat down on a nearby log. I watched my breath form little wisps of smoke before floating away. 

I stretched and stood up. I was then struck with an idea. District 14 had given us a radio, hadn’t they? I asked Frederick if he still had the radio. He handed me the radio, and I sat down again, scrutinizing the radio. I asked Frederick if the person holding the radio was on the plane. He rolled his eyes.

“Everyone in Fourteen boarded the plane/hovercraft. So yes, basically.” he replied. I sighed exasperatedly again and sat down on the upturned log. I got out a knife and started picking away at a particular part of the radio. Once I had picked away an adequate amount, I slotted my dagger back and started trying to extract a chip from the small rectangular body. After a few minutes of fruitless picking, I asked Frederick to try. He took it out in less than a minute and had gathered the data from the small chip. 

“Right, let’s go to Paris,” he said.

#Yao

I had a small pack on my bag, including my weapons, and my rations. It wasn’t much, but it was I had left in the world. As the three of us quietly snuck out of the house, I took one last look at the Mericon couple we had so brutally stabbed, and felt a tiny bit guilty. They had been living normal lives, probably expecting their first child from the way the woman’s stomach was bulging. And now, we had put an end to all of that. Julia would call me soft, but I still thought we had done something wrong.

As we went prone and moved feet by feet, I felt the tingly of hairs on my back. Paris was more than ten miles away, and the Capitol army would probably have a division every two miles. We could never compete with them in all-out warfare.

As we crawled slowly but surely through thick vines and bushes, I could feel a lingering fear that we were going to get caught. But we had nothing to lose, so I pushed on. As the last shimmers of darkness disappeared over the horizon, Julia finally let us get some rest. I wanted to hit the sack the minute I shimmied up a tree, but she forced me to open a ration and eat some food first. For some reason, despite having crawled one mile, I wasn’t all that hungry, actually. But I knew I had to eat, so I forcefully shoveled bite after bite of calorie-rich edibles into my mouth, almost throwing up at one point. After we had all finished out rations, we buried them and them went to sleep.

If I had two words to describe my sleep, it would be beautiful and relaxing. I didn’t even dream of anything, which I never thought could be possible. Four hours later, just as noon was approaching, Julia woke me up.

“No, let me sleep!” I grumbled, as she shook me.

“We have to figure out what we’re going to do!” she argued, and finally got me awake and sitting. Jack, on the other hand, was a bit hard to wake up. He was in a very deep sleep, with dreams about rich feasts, comfortable beds, and all the sleep one could afford. I had to pour cold water onto him just to omit a sleepy “huh?’ from him. Finally, after kicking him, multiple times, he finally awoke.

“Okay, what’s the plan?” I asked, straightening my messed-up hair.

“Yay. You had to wake me up while I was eating turkey, almond, and lettuce sandwiches. This had better be good!” Jack crossed his arms. I stifled a chuckle.

“I don’t have one,” Julia said concisely. The look of bemusement on my face turned to irritation, then to anger. Jack was already quite angry, and now, he was fuming.

“You had to wake me up just to say you have no plan?!” Jack and me both roared. I knew I was overreacting, but when I fall asleep, I like to sleep at least seven hours and twenty-four minutes. Jack must have loved to sleep, because he was very angry.

“Calm down! I told you we had to discuss our plan, and we are. Just that, well, we’re going to discuss what our plan will be,” Julia admitted. I began to calm down, and eventually, Jack did so too.

“There are brigades and regiments out looking for us, so we have to be on the lookout. I think we should kill any battle groups that are less than a company,” Jack offered.

“No, we can’t risk it. Remember, we have documents in our pockets that we can’t destroy. If we’re captured, they’ll be found. If we’re shot, they’ll also be found. We can’t let that happen. We must make sure the documents are safe, or else the last remnants of the Rebel Army will be put down,” I said.

“Platoon,” Jack said, and we agreed. Soon, we were on our way again, crawling without a word through thick vegetation. I had a bad feeling, but suddenly, we heard voices. I froze, my FAMAS rifle instantly in my hands. Slowly, I aimed through the iron sights, and watched a group of Capitol soldiers march through a marsh, their modified MP5 guns slung over their shoulders. There were about thirty of them, and I motioned for Julia to operate two artillery pieces, while Jack joined me with his M60 machine gun and 250-round belt of ammunition.

I silently motioned for him to open fire. The ground shook as the heavy machine gun lit up like a dragon’s fire. He fired in automatic, and after half of the soldiers were gone, I began firing, emptying out my entire 25-round magazine. The soldiers were gone in a flash, but as we were reloading, we saw three large tanks coming our way, their machine guns blazing. As the top of the grass were snipped, I panicked.

“Julia, fire the guns!” I cried, and she fired the first cannon, destroying it. Just as she was about to demolish the second one, two well-aimed bazooka shots were placed into the two tanks, and they erupted in flames. There was no time to think about where the shots had come from. Ten survivors poured out from the tanks, and they immediately hid behind deep foliage, firing bursts from their pistols and submachine guns. Julia let out another deafening boom, and the shell exploded near the soldiers, killing all but one, whom I promptly shot with my dart gun.

Finally, I emerged from my hiding place, as so did the mysterious ones who had shot from a bazooka. I gasped when I saw the Rebel insignia. They were just like us! I immediately put my weapon on safe, and raced to greet them.

“Hello! I’m Fredrick, this is Jack, and this is Julia!” I introduced.

“Howdy! My name’s Prepsor, but lots of people call me Preppy. This is Joseph, this is Lotter, and this is Rotter!” a Rebel soldier said.

“Wait. You don’t happen to be General Fredrick, do you?” Preppy asked.

“I sure am,” I said grinning.

“Captain Preppy, sir!” he saluted me.

I smiled.

“At ease, soldier,” I told him.

“Where are you headed?” Jack inquired.

“Paris! There’s a cargo plane supposed to be taking us to the last pieces of the Rebworel Army,” Lotter said.

#Bai

It was just great. I mean, despite having been woken up while dreaming about turkey, almond and lettuce sandwiches (which are delicious by the way), we had a plan. Lotter could bring us to Paris, then we could deal with Jerry, destroy half of the remaining Capitol army, then destroy the remaining half by raiding forests around the Capitol which Frederick expected the remaining army to be. We had faced a lot of turbulence on the way, but finally we located what we were looking for – a fort on the verges of District 1. Therefore, we found a plane, like the devil itself. It crept through the air and shot through to the Capitol – and the idea was for it to pick up everybody before us shooting it down into smithereens. Now, we switched into camouflage mode and began to relax. As my eyes began to droop, I began dreaming of sandwiches instead.
Suddenly, a jolt leapt through me. “Wake up! We’re here!” came the blurred view of Frederick from the seat in front of me.
“All right, all right. Have they boarded?”
“Yes. Ok, let’s go watch then.”
Pushing myself off the seat, I joined Julia watching the boarding. Our plane was hidden in the ocean (as it was a sea plane) and began watching what was going on. As the commanders shouted platoons like Alpha Two Five, they would board. Half the Capitol army, all gone. This would be fun…
As the final commander boarded the plane, the propellers whirred and they were off. Julia managed to pull in one powerful explosive through the cannons. We only had two of these power cannons, but the only problem was that if we missed, I think that they would find out that they were after us, they would fire against us too. Julia took a breath. Pushing the cannon into the gun, Lotter pressed the button.

There was a boom. Uh… Failed. And the worst happened.

The plane turned around, guns already pointed at us. Then, the fight began.

We were outnumbered greatly, but we had three double-victors of the Hunger Games. Taking out my M-60 machine gun, we began shooting at the opposition. Bangs erupted through the plane, with men shouting “Help!”. I saw people with machine guns, tearing through windows of planes. But the largest hit had yet to come. Julia placed in the second missile and pressed the button…
And it hit.

We began falling, falling, falling. Then everything went black.

dUfU

When I opened my eyes, all I could see was darkness. I was then struck by a blinding pain, as if someone was stabbing me, once, twice, even thrice. Then I opened my eyes again. Everything was blurred, but I could make out a person. Then I blacked out again. When I was fully conscious, I saw Jack and Frederick still lying down, unconscious. Huh. I had always assumed that they would. But they were bigger than me, about forty or thirty kilograms heavier than me, and about a foot taller. I could not make out our surroundings, so I felt around for the walls. I held onto the jutting rocky walls, fearing that I would collapse. I felt partially blind, having to feel around for the walls, but I did not know that it would be useless having the ability to see, as we were completely enveloped in darkness.

Jack was the first one to come around. When he awoke, I was still par-blind. I had, however, managed to find some food. We had some army rations and some old meat, but that was not even a day’s food supplies for a trio. By now, I had overcome my blindness, but Jack still had the painful hours of the inability to see. At least the boys were suffering it together. I found a small mountain stream running from in-between two large rocks. I treated the water and filled all our canisters. I took a few sips after what seemed to be thirty minutes. I found a mountain goat and judging by its size, it was probably a male goat. At least we had something to eat. After I shot a few rabbits (I don’t know where they came from), Frederick and Jack had overcome their blindness.
“Right, whilst we eat, we should work out where we are,” said Fredrick, as he took a bite out of the goat. I only then realized that that was the only question I could not answer

#Yao

I munched on some fried goat, still sitting impatiently as Julia began working out the odds and ends of where we were.

“After we fired the second cannon, I’m pretty sure the enemy plane hit us,” Julia said.

“So we still don’t know if we destroyed half of the Capitol Army?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

“For now, yes,” Julia said, sighing. I cleaned my FAMAS rifle, my M-15 carbine, and all of my pistols and knives. Jack, nibbling on rabbit, soon became tired. He fell into a deep sleep, and I listed to him in a sleep-talking dream. He had moved on from turkey sandwiches, and was now salivating while sleeping about steak and mashed potatoes and pie and green beans. That got me thinking. I had always loved steak, but had never had the money to afford it. I still preferred Julia’s game. She was a good cook.

Julia had a SCAR battle rifle, the first firearm she had ever owned. She had so many blades, she needed a bandolier just to keep them all. I drifted off to sleep pretty soon.

I was running, running for my life. The Capitol Army had killed Preppy, Joseph, Lotter, and Rotter. They had destroyed us all, except me. But the ground was slowly falling, falling. My guns were all jammed. I wanted to yell, “STOP IT!”, but I had no voice. Gray pictures with x’s all over them were displayed to me, each of a dead rebel soldier. They were all young and cheerful, and I, Fredrick, had killed them. I stopped from the guilt, and that was the last terrible mistake I made. I fell forever into darkness.

“AGHH!” I yelled, waking up. It was early morning. I had had a terrible nightmare. I assured myself that it had been just a figment of my imagination, that I wasn’t really falling into a black hole. But I probably had killed all those young soldiers. I was full of guilt.

“Oh, I can smell you, delicious cake,” I heard Jack say, his whole body moving in such a way that it gave the impression he was dreaming about swimming in cake. I rolled my eyes, and smacked him hard with the butt of my P-226 hand pistol. A white flash of pain crossed his face, and he awoke suddenly, trying to regain sense. After two seconds of massaging his shoulder where I had hit him, he saw me, standing over him, and he also saw my pistol, the butt facing him. He put the two together and got this: a fiery temper.

“Why’d you hit me?!” he cried indignantly, pushing me.

“I was trying to get you awake from dreaming about a cake swimming pool!” I told him. He suddenly turned beet red.

“You knew I was dreaming about that?” he asked.

“Oh, I just guessed! Oh well, then I guess I’m wrong about you dreaming about sandwiches, cupcakes, pastries, marshmallows, candy, chocolate, steak, meatloaf, meat pies, pies, marshmallows, syrup, pancakes, fish, bread,” I said, sarcastically. He turned even redder. Finally, Julia returned from hunting. She had managed to get six eggs and slices of a pig. She fried it, and managed to cook us a primitive version of eggs and bacon.

After eating and eating, the three of us finally began trekking through the wooded area. Everywhere we went, there were more and more wild game, and when I saw a fat turkey just wandering around, I aimed with my pistol, and shot at him. I used my Glock-17, which was capable of full auto. After emptying the magazine, I counted two bullet holes in the turkey and fifteen in the ground. Either I was terrible at aiming, the turkey was smart and fast, or my gun had too much recoil. Anyways, Julia skinned the bird and cooked it. We had it for lunch.

After walking for many hours, my feet got sore, and I wanted to rest. Julia was about to say no, but then she agreed when she finally let herself acknowledge the pain her arms and legs were going through.

“Ah, what a beautiful day!” I said to myself, and lay in the bed of grass, sleeping the afternoon away. I was awoken at around five, for two reasons. One, I was hungry. Two, I had heard a Capitol Army tank platoon.

The five tanks rumbled by, six soldiers sitting on each tank. In total, we were up against five 90mm tanks, 25 tank crew, and 30 enlisted men. Not to forget, the tank crew did indeed have sidearms. So, fighting them would be impossible.

I quickly crawled over to Julia and Jack, and woke them up.

“We can try throwing a couple of grenades, and then attacking them,” Julia offered.

“Wait, I have a better plan. We’re in a big tract of land, full of grass. Grass that can burn. If we somehow manage to light the fire ablaze, we’ll draw the soldiers to a better position,” Jack said.

“Where?” I asked.

“The lake,” he told me. “Their weapons, unlike ours, require laser energy in order to function. Water destroys the energy, so if we somehow get them to the lake, we can fire on them without them being able to defend themselves!”

“Brilliant!” I said, clapping him on the back. So, using a cigar lighter, we managed to light the fire, and pretty soon, the formation broke apart. The tank crews ran out of their vehicles, and some soldiers even got burned to a crisp. Julia added the plan of throwing in some gunfire and smoke grenades, so we did just that. We managed to kill half the soldiers. The rest ran towards the water, and jumped in. We instantly burst out with out guns. I had just emptied my FAMAS rifle when the soldiers all died.

We couldn’t take the tanks, since they were too big, and we couldn’t drive them all. So, we lit the gasoline chambers up in flames, and in seconds, the whole thing exploded. We took only the food supplies and two portable machine guns, with a bazooka.

#Bai

I had assumed half of the Capitol army had been destroyed. But that wasn’t the case. At least, there were still about ¾ of the soldiers left, and we would have to find some smart tactics if we wanted to obliterate them quickly. Here were the plans we discussed.
Plan 1: The first idea was to use a bomb when all of them were in the same place. Discussing this was the most important part.
“Well, I suppose we could bomb them all if they were in one place.”
“But they’re clever – they have people surrounded around us at the same time. They have different methods. Eventually like we tried, they’ll attack back and hit us.”
“We need to use bait of some kind. Imagine if we had the General – and when they come, we’ll blitz them.”
“How will we get to the General?”
The answer was no. Very slow and extremely unlikely to work.

Plan 2: The second idea would be for everyone to split up and lead part of the rebels, then just rush each group and hope to obliterate them all at all. It was possible, but again, very risky.
“The problem with the approach is that we don’t know how many men they have. We only know the structure – which means if we rush them it would be very likely to fail.”
“But we can roughly estimate the number of men. There were about 2000 on each side first. Then, about a quarter of men fell from battle. Therefore, there would be roughly 1500 men on each side which we can divide into three groups of 500 men – each led by us.”
“Another problem. If one group falls, we cannot immediately support each other. Thus, we will be individually weaker, and will pull off such a powerful attack.”
Another no. 

Plan 3: Work as we are working now, and put every soldier on stand-by. Personally, this was the tactic which was most likely to succeed – creating the most amount of firepower required. Again a debate, but the results would be different.
“Yes. So this is a very interesting approach to the war, as it involves us. We’ve been very successful so far, and my guess is that it will continue this way.”
All right. Let’s do it.”
The plan was ready.

 

I reckoned that they would now be heading into the woods, as they needed to be more careful if they wanted to win the war. So, we would be taking that dangerous route. While I worked out where we were going, Julia plotted where people were going to be on the map.
About a quarter of the remaining Capitol soldiers were in District One – that much we knew because we had seen them. Then, another quarter were on the verges of Thirteen, waiting on standby for commands to rush Fourteen or nearby villages. Another eighth was dotted around the Capitol itself, which was heavily guarded and included the army general itself. Finally, the location of the other ⅜ were separated and their location was unknown.
Then, I had finished mapping everything out. I believed there was a platoon marching straight through the forest separating District 1 and District 7. We would target them immediately, and soon would eventually march to District 10, which was many miles away.
After my feet were weary, we finally arrived at the beginning of the forest. As soon as we entered, a sign read, “All Capitol soldiers, help yourself to this stash.”
Looking at the surroundings, I had seen many trees which just had a tiny slit in them. I told my friends, “These have knives in them. They would cut you up indeed. We have to take them out.” It was simple, Julia with her stash of knives just flicked them and shreds of wood began falling out. Then, we had knives, with a purplish colour stained on them. As I was an expert on survival, I knew that this was nightlook, which was what Katniss and Peeta had used to try and cheat the system of the Hunger Games. We retrieved the food, and soon began a merry meal.
It was nighttime, and us three were sitting up on a tree, each as tired as a businessman who has been working 10 hours non-stop but none of us were able to sleep. And for good reason, too. The reason was because there were Capitol soldiers on the loose, and that was what was happening now. A voice cried, “Commander, the food’s gone! And there’s no bodies! The knives have gone!”
The gruff voice of the commander replied, “Search up those trees-”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. Julia’s hand was raised and a knife was in the body.”
“Of course, commander. I will do so right now.”
Now, it was a dangerous time. A platoon of armed men with torches. But we still had an advantage. It was pitch-black. But it wouldn’t be long until they found out the truth about the commander – despite that there still was a chance.
Frederick held my feet, and I dangled half a foot from the tree. With one of Julia’s knives, I reached down and pushed it into the other person’s head and pulled him up. The torch was switched on. I reached down and stabbed another and brought the body up. The torch swept around the trees. I killed another. The torch came to us. “This is Capitol soldiers. Come down right now!”
I placed my first foot on the first branch, then took out my BAR from my other pocket and shot the remaining 15 soldiers just as my BAR ran out.
“Well, that was lucky. We better keep walking.”
I wouldn’t have gone so hastily if I knew what was going to happen next.

dUfU

The next set of events were not so fortunate. I got a burn mark on my leg, and the congealed blood from a past wound had gathered upon my trouser leg. Gashes on my chest had opened up whilst climbing. Jack had bruises on his face, and his arms were covered with lacerations and burns. Frederick had sprained an ankle and had a burn across his back where his shirt had caught fire. So, in a shorter version, it wasn’t looking good. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of us dropped down dead.

If we met a Capitol army, we’d be dead. But fate was merciful and let us pass, unscathed. I guess we’d suffered enough already. I could barely walk, and Frederick was on the brink of collapsing. Jack, although he was in a better condition, was still in a terrible state. We finally broke at a clearing in a forest. Luckily, there was a small cave nearby, with a small stream running around it. There was a small hole in the roof, presumably worn away by water, but other than that, it was excellent. After digging around in our packs, we put together a small but otherwise decent pile of wood. The boys lit a match from my matchbox and started a fire, surrounding it with the pebbles that they had made the effort to get, whilst I fashioned a spit out of a few dead twigs. We moved the fire over to the corner with the hole in the roof, which we later renamed ‘the Holey corner”, so that the hole acted as a chimney, and started cooking some old meat. When we were satiated, we lay down our sleeping materials.

At dawn, we awoke, and we were healthy enough to purify some water, we warmed some water over the fire and washed. Judging by the squeals coming from Jack, we hadn’t waited for long enough for the water to actually warm. So when it was frederick’s turn, we warmed it until small wisps of smoke began to rise from it. We mixed it with a little cold water, and it was fine. We used some towels we had stolen from the Capitol and slowly started to dry. I still wasn’t well enough to take down my usual haul, but I could, perhaps, take down a rabbit or two. So that was what I did for about half the day, and succeeded on making four ragged kills. Still, it was better than nothing.

#Yao

I was on the verge of starvation. Julia hadn’t found much worthy game, and I was more used to biting on a bone than actual meat. Slowly, my stomach became smaller and smaller. I was almost collapsing whenever I held my FAMAS rifle. But suddenly, when I was out searching for food, I discovered a large lake. I saw one big fat juicy fish and I was sold, I held up my rifle, and shot full auto into the lake, scattering the place full of discarded bullets. I felt bad for the poor fishes, but I was so hungry. When I brought back nineteen gigantic fish, Julia shot me an astonished look. I showed her my two emptied out magazines and she closed her wide-open mouth.

That night, we had a feast. I ate seven fried fish on a stick, Jack ate six boiled ones, and Julia had six grilled ones. We had berries for breakfast, but we didn’t overdo it. We knew what happened to a starving person if he feasted on sumptuous foods. He would get sick, vomit, or…worse. So, we went to bed on a 89.4% full stomach. No matter how much I wanted to eat to my full potential, I forbid myself from doing so and dying.

I was awoken very early. For some reason, the ground shook like thunder. I grabbed my M1 carbine, put my Beretta 9mm pistol in my other hand, slung my FAMAS over my shoulder, put my bayonets and blades into scabbards, holstered all of my pistols, put bandoliers around my neck, attached rations, and put my helmet over my head. Tying my bandana around my legs, I put eye black around my eyes. When I showed myself to Julia and Jack, they laughed and told me it was just the weather. But I knew the rumbling was of something else. And I was confirmed when we saw the silhouettes of thousands of shock troopers entering the forest with grenades, submachine guns, bayonets, and other scary weapons. Smoke surrounded them.

I instantly began firing, downing men after men. Julia swiftly killed many with her knives, using the smoke to her advantage. Slowly, the force became smaller and smaller. Jack used his shotgun to spray pellets into the oncoming horde, and I used my captured bazooka and Gatling gun to propel the soldiers back. I hated to admit it, but this might be a fight we couldn’t win. Just as I killed the last remaining soldiers that I could see, I felt somebody sneaking up on mean, and was just on time to bayonet the guts out of a Capitol soldier that had somehow found his way to the back of my body. Then, I found myself fending off so many soldiers I lost count of the many times I was almost killed. Slowly, I began feeling shots and bayonets getting slightly closer to my body then I would enjoy. I was just about to abandon post when what seemed to be a heavy machine gun rang out in loud automatic fire. I immediately ran for cover, and hid in a bush while the soldiers were obliterated.

I couldn’t see where the firing was coming from, but I knew it had saved my life. Then, I saw Jack and Julia emerging from the bushes, each carrying two M60 portable machine guns. I smiled, and knew they had captured some loot from the dead soldiers. I was handed two Bren guns, and victoriously waved them around. But the fight was not over. More soldiers were certainly still on the loose. But we had a hill, a very high defending position that might ensure victory. Soon, I saw a large group of soldiers gathering at the foot of the hill, preparing to charge. I gulped, and set up the machine guns. Because we couldn’t waste ammunition, I waited until the soldiers actually got halfway up the hill, but not so near so that they could throw in grenades. I put my eye to the iron sights, and began firing in bursts of two or three. As the soldiers neared our position, I began firing in full auto. After loading in another magazine, I had to wait a while for the Bren guns to cool, and shot using my carbine.

After my carbine got a bulge in its barrel, I turned back to the Bren. As round after round was fired into the incoming mass of men, I began aiming for the helmets and not the bodies. Just when we thought we were done, three whole battalions that had been hiding underneath the hill as reserves suddenly came screaming towards us. We didn’t have enough bullets or guns to kill them all, but we couldn’t just let the Capitol soldiers capture us! So, we gave them hell.

We shot until every single part of the gun was burning and twitching, and then we turned to our pistols. When all of our guns were unusable, and only about ninety soldiers remained, we used grenades, but there were still quite a lot when we were done throwing. So, we let the soldiers take the position, while we dug in and hid. We wanted the Capitol soldiers to think the defensive position was empty, and just when they turned their backs, unleash three smoke grenades and kill them all using knives and rifle ends. The plan didn’t work so well.

You see, shock trooper are taught to make sure every enemy is disoriented before attacking. So, they tossed in two flash-bang grenades and one smoke. Our dug-in positions, however, muffled most of the noise. But then, we noticed the Capitol soldiers were searching the position. Another aspect of their training was to always neutralize any booby traps. So, we instantly realized that if we didn’t toss in the grenades now, we would be found. But while we were all thinking that, some soldier had found us. He instantly raised his rifle, and I was about to grab him and strangle him to death when Julia piped up.

“Hey, ever heard of gentleman?” she asked, and kicked him hard in the crotch, then unleashed a field of fire from her machine gun. I gawked at her, and realized she had packed two belts of ammunition just in case. Soon, all of the soldiers were lying on the ground, their guns free for us to grab.

#Bai

So, we took all their guns and headed to attack more armies. There probably were still more soldiers, as I believed, marching on protocol to try and find us. Of course, they were experts on traps and attacking methods, and we would need to be careful to win all of our battles.
After passing through the forest for the second time, after exhaustion, I was beginning to have to drag my leg – it had been wounded terribly in the last few days. The first was in the Hunger Games, when Frederick threw a knife into it. The second time was recently, when I climbed up into the attic and shot me again. The final time was just now after the battle – after being stabbed for the second time. Finally, the sun began to set – and it was time for us to watch over any soldiers. Perching in an extremely bushy tree, Frederick took on first duty. I fell asleep the second my head hit the leaves.
***
Later, I woke to a violent shaking of Frederick. Some soldiers were patrolling just underneath us – and we couldn’t give a single sign we were there. I took out the looted guns, and fired a shot into the sky. As they were staring and wondering who had hit the shot, bullets and knives were flying through the air and had hit their targets. Taking out 17 men in about thirty seconds. After the sun had risen, we had a surprise. Finishing off the fish, I saw 5 platoons of men – presumably coming by radio after discovering their people dead. Facing a platoon was one thing, but five? Really, it was a simple matter. We would memorise their positions, and after throwing about 3 smoke bombs from trees, would shoot them to death. However, they seemed to have many magazines, as they kept firing at nearby trees and other branches. Unfortunately for me, the bullet had grazed my knee again. Well, just another award to add to my gallery. But the plan seemed to be working – in the end we only needed one smoke bomb, as the bullet and exploded the smoke bomb, scattering smoke everywhere. Then, we shot them all, and covering our noses and mouths, grabbed their guns and left the battle scene. We continued walking, and finally reached District 3, our hometown where we had been reaped. But now it was completely swarming with Capitol soldiers, in fact, it seemed District 3 was its now military base. If we took out all of these soldiers, a lot of the army would be gone, therefore, we needed to destroy it.
We asked Fourteen for back-up. Julia called, “Please send a bomb outside District Three. And extra supplies.”
So what we needed to do was dig a foundation under District Three, plant the bomb, set it alight and everything would be blown asunder.

dUfU

It would take days of heavy digging, plus the fact that we had a wounded person who needed extra care. But, in a frenzy of revenge, we didn’t think of it. Only when we started the heavy work, we realized we couldn’t keep on this schedule. Jack could only do half of the work Frederick or I could do. So, we couldn’t do it in time. Turns out that what District 14 meant by ‘extra supplies’ was actually heavy diggers and food. Well, that solved that.

In less than a few days, the foundation was done. They had even added stone on the passage so that if we were to run out, we would have a clean getaway. No doubt, someone would have to run out to save themselves. Frederick and I raced (Jack was not included, as undoubtedly he would be last), and I won. Frederick gave me the bomb, and I ran. I placed it under District 3, and I ran back out. There was a hovercraft waiting, and We boarded it. Moments later, it exploded. Nobody said a word, but everyone knew what they were thinking. It was funny, as we never agreed on something so quickly. We immediately started laughing, but it was the type of bittersweet laughing, where we never meant it. We inwardly knew that we were not alright. We were all wrong, and we knew it.

There was never such a fake moment in our lives. Even when I was nearly dead and pretended I was excellent, it was not as false as this. We would be fine on our own, but it was all wrong, the fact that there was no more District Three. My vision blurred, and I was on the brink of breaking down. I took three trembling breaths and looked at Frederick. He had his head down, and he was fiddling with his fingers. Even at such an angle, I could see his eyes were watering. We had made it wrong, and now we had to righten it.

 

#Yao

I felt very sad and indignant that we had blown up District Three. True, we might have taken so many regiments with us, but still, a lot of innocent civilians had perished. But we had no time to think about that, for at that instant, thunderous footsteps could be heard. It appeared that the remaining soldiers had discovered us and trying to charge our position. I quickly motioned for Jack and Julia to follow me, and we slipped into an abandoned automobile. Jack frantically tried to turn the car on, but nothing happened.

“The thing’s broken,” he said, through clenched teeth as he tried to alleviate the pain on his injured leg.

“We’re going to have to fight for it,” Julia said miserably. I was already opening my window, shooting at the remnants of soldiers. Julia and Jack joined in, both firing their assault rifles at the incoming horde. I licked the red hot barrel of my gun, as I prepared to load in another magazine. Slowly, I could tell the soldiers were becoming smaller. They seemed to no longer be charging, but hiding in ditches and throwing grenades every once in a while. Soon, just when I thought we were done fighting, I saw something that chilled my bones. Reinforcements for the Capitol Army had come! And from the looks of it, the entire remaining army had come for us. There were thousands of soldiers charging up from the south, at least five whole battalions coming from the north, seven regiments and four tank platoons coming in from the west. One whole brigade of storm troopers were charging from the east, and if all that wasn’t enough, forty specially-designed robots were helping the army. I immediately began firing, tossing grenades, and firing some more. But there were just too many soldiers for us all to kill in one sitting.

Soon, the soldiers realized that we weren’t retreating, and charged at a sprint. The tanks were firing and the shells were exploding dangerously close, and so, I realized we needed help.

“I’m going to get help!” I yelled to my companions, and left them all of my weapons except for a switchblade knife, flashlight, G36 rifle, and and a Colt 1911 pistol. I quickly ran for the woods, where I believed only a couple of soldiers were resting. I ran for short distances at a time, hiding behind bushes whenever soldiers approached. Soon, I got tired of just letting soldiers go, and so, the first soldier I saw, I stabbed and then hid the corpse behind a bush and slowly went on my way. Pretty soon, I got hungry, and what perfect timing, for I had stumbled on a group of soldiers eating dinner. I shot them all with blasts of my G36, and stuffed myself with stale bread, over-baked beans, and undercooked sausages. I didn’t care if I got food poisoning from those sausages. I was just so famished.

I quickly took a scan of the camp, and smiled when I found a map in a captain’s pocket. The captain was smiling and joking with his men, unaware that I was putting a silencer onto my assault gun and preparing to shoot him. I raked fire all over the campsite, making the men all cry out and drop their silverware. After emptying my magazine, I reloaded and quickly scanned the campsite.

I was just about to leave when I heard a clinking noise. Suddenly, I realize there were two robots in the camp, and I hadn’t destroyed them yet. The first one had two bullet holes in its legs, and the second had one in its broken eye. The first one unsheathed a large silver saber, and pulled out a blaster the size of a car. The second had miniguns attached to its arms, and those popped out, along with two very fearsome twisted blades. I gulped, a large bulge forming in my throat.

I ran.

I ran so fast, I couldn’t even think clearly. I only looked at the map, and ran the five miles all the way to the nearest army base.

Unfortunately for me, when I got to the army base, I realized it was a Capitol Army base. But never mind, I saw a neat row of controllable robots with cockpits just waiting for me to drive. I killed the first guard I saw, put on his clothes, then ran all the way to the biggest bot I could find. I quickly climbed in the driver’s seat, started the robot, and quickly moved out of the camp, despite many soldiers yelling at me to stop. I quickly turned on all weapons. The robot hands were replaced by axes, powerful blaster shotguns were activated on the wrist, and rocket launchers popped out of my shoulders. I quickly stepped into battle, the two robots still traveling to find me. At first, they waved, because they thought I was a friend. But after I bashed their skulls in with my axes, they realized there were wrong.

I quickly fired my guns right into their legs to disable them, then I began a fierce onslaught of ax-swings. Each time a robot managed to get itself up from the ground, I would either launch a large blaster shotgun shell at him, or chop off another thick slab of machine with my axes. Dancing this way and that, I subdued each robot many times. Soon, the robots were getting up much slower than they were going down. And so, while they were on the ground, I shot them fatally, and they exploded.

I quickly traveled to where Julia and Jack were, and they looked up at the towering robot, and I waved to them, showing I was a friend.

“C’mon, abandon post,” I said, and they understood. Both of them held on to the robot legs and I moved far away from the car, where we had taken our last stand. The soldiers took potshots at us while we tried to move along, but it did nothing.

#Bai

 

Yes. The truth was, we couldn’t just defeat all the soldiers in one sitting. Progress had to be made slowly but surely – and we would defeat the Capitol army. The truth was, we were still in hot water; the army knew we were nearby and would of course, that was bound to happen. If they killed us, our attacks would run out of steam – it would be like in Watership Down – the battle of Efrafa – but without Bigwig or Hazel – all the other rabbits against General Woundwort and his men – there would be no chance at all.
Instead, we decided to wander into the forests for another time as the trees provided great hiding places for us if they decided to rush us all – we could just take cover. Or, if they came in short bursts, we could deal with them at a time. In fact, they didn’t do any, they reported back to the General in the Capitol. If we could in fact reach the Capitol and somehow kill “General Woundwort” we would have a huge advantage in the war, just like they would have a huge advantage if we were somehow killed. We called for a hovercraft to send us there.
“So what’s the plan?”
“It seems very simple. In the Capitol, there is a huge fortress. There is one loophole, which is a hole in the wall on the South-East side. Unfortunately, it is currently surrounded by guards. So, Jack will pretend to be a weapons seller, of 20 grenades for 50 BARs. We have a name, Mr. Grevovich, and we have his ID too. When the guards have been distracted, Julia and I will enter using the loophole. Then, we’ll climb onto the second floor, and then kill two guards and take their uniforms, and after waiting until nightfall, when the General is bound to go to bed, we’ll stab him, as we have the fingerprints of the lieutenant.”
At around 5 O’clock in the evening, I walked over to the palace. The soldiers immediately took out their guns, but I added with a Capitol accent, “Mr. Grevovich. Weapons seller. Now, show me your BARs! I have 20 grenades to trade, and if you don’t, I’ll have you personally fired from rule of the general!”
“Of course, sir. Now, we need to have an ID.” From the corner of my eye, I already saw Julia and Frederick enter using the hole.
I passed over Mr. Grevovich’s ID, and said, “Quick, now.”
Without almost a glance, the guards passed back the ID, and allowed me into their weapon’s room. Handing 20 grenades, I knew that they had actually been defected, and would blow up as soon as someone pulled off the safety belt. It was marked with a drop of red on the top of the grenade. I took the 20 BAR’s and left. At 10 O’clock exactly, Julia and Frederick came out. They related their story immediately, “So after you did all the distracting, we found a female and male guard on the second floor. We shot them, and piled the bodies on the roof. Putting on their uniform, we stationed ourselves outside the bedroom of the General, each wearing gloves and holding the dagger. We waited until we saw the General had gone to sleep, entered and killed him, leaving the dagger in his body. Leaping out of the fortress, we met you here.”
The battle was over, but not the war. By morning, when a platoon of soldiers passed by, they were all talking about “General dead” and “Lieutenant blamed”. We shot them all, and with the 50 BAR’s, we sent 44 back to District Fourteen.
The next time we faced another battle was three platoons. But they all were in chaos, with no proper training for a long time. Hiding in trees, when we revealed ourselves, we had killed about 14 already. And this time they made a circle, and many soldiers shot their own men, and soon we had cleared everything up.
It seemed things were looking up after all.

dUfU

At least we had a slim chance of survival. Better than none at all. It felt like the world was spinning. I could see a thin sliver of hope lighting up the distance.

It’s your chance, I thought, grab it.

I reached forward and tried to grasp it as if it were a real and tangible thing. But, unfortunately, it was an abstract noun, a mere presence. I shook my head and blinked. The world was still there, and I had my feet planted on firm ground. Well, almost. I straightened myself and sighed. Small puffs of exhaled breath condensate drifted into the air and left us gazing after its trail.

We had been hiding under a root of a tree, picking off soldiers one by one. I was crouching under the part where the tuber snaked into the ground. I pressed my hands onto the cold bark as light snow began to fall. I blew warm air onto my pale hands. The boys were sleeping in a small cave the gnarled roots of the tree formed. They had a small fire in a hole, letting the few wisps of smoke rise out of a tiny gap. My face was nearly a mask of frost, and I could stand it no longer. I nudged Jack awake. He dragged himself to the mouth of the den and started his long hours of the bitter cold and howling wind.

A shaking of my shoulders awoke me. A half-asleep Frederick was standing above me. I yawned and started vigil. I rubbed my tired eyes and stretched. Not too far, as there were healing wounds on my chest and arms, but just far enough to tighten my muscles. I hunched my shoulders and sighed. I smiled, despite the problem we were facing. And then began my shift.

#Yao

It felt luxurious to slip back into my warm blanket after taking a shift in the freezing cold and wind. But when it seemed like a second after I had dropped down, Julia was shaking me awake. I slowly mumbled something, took out my M-1 Carbine, then slid a cold 15-round magazine into the gun. I slid back the bolt, then clumsily followed Julia out of the cave. Just as I was leaving, I knocked my gun’s barrel onto the mass that was Jack, who groggily tried to punch me, and stumbled, fell, and then fell asleep again on the cold floor. Unfortunately, the ice was too much for him, and he made himself get up in order to not freeze to death.

Soon, I realized the sight that befell us. The entire Capitol Army, around 20,000 remaining soldiers, were marching in ten straight files with winter jackets and white clothes that camouflaged them. Flying overhead were about eight ten-fighter plane formations, and twenty remaining bombers. Nine tanks, two tank-destroyers, and six soldier-transporters with tracks. The robots had all died from the extreme ice. This was all that remained of the Capitol Army.

Just then, a series of flashes appeared, and the soldiers quickly realized they were under a surprise attack. Soldiers fell left and right, but nobody could find out who was firing at who. Soldiers returned fire, and Jack had the brilliant idea to pull out a bazooka he had with him. Loading in a shell, he blasted straight targets at the armored-vehicles. Soldiers panicked, and I picked them off one by one with my scoped Springfield 1903 rifle. Soon, the leader of the group, a very young colonel, called for a stand-and fight, which was the wrong thing to do. The entire force was stretched very thin, so it was easy to pop soldiers and then reload before the next batch came.

After, ten minutes of pure hell for the soldiers, the colonel was shot, and everything became chaos. It turned out the second-in command, a lieutenant colonel, was wounded and need surgery. That left a major in control, and he wisely chose to retreat. But once the front half of the force began turning around to run, they ran into the second half, which didn’t realize they were retreating. That allowed fifty more soldiers to be killed, and Jack aimed two straight shots for the last two remaining vehicles.

The Capitol Army was staggering, wounded and dead piled in large dumps. I smiled as I realized he had killed at least 150 and wounded 300 more. But the question was, who were the hidden Resistance fighters. Just as I thought that, I took a few steps, and realized I was falling down.

It had been camouflaged cleverly by leaves and dirt. But under it, there was a hole, and I had fallen. I heard Julia calling my name.

It was a few seconds before I hit soft hay. It felt good, and I almost wanted to fall asleep. But just at that moment, I felt Julia’s body fall onto mine, and I almost broke a bone. I slowly crawled off of the hay onto the cold floor, as I realized what was coming.

“OOF!” Julia cried as Jack hit her. After brushing ourselves off, I turned on the flashlight attached to my FAMAS gun. I could see a tunnel, leading to who-knows where, but I could also spot something else. A Rebel flag. We were in the tunnels of a Resistance group.

Shining my light everywhere, I noticed there were two tunnels. One read BARRACKS, another, HQ, and the last, WEAPONS DEPOT. So, naturally, we went into the barracks. We found little doors, probably leading to rooms where soldiers slept. Suddenly, I felt a cold barrel on my chest. I froze. Somebody was behind us and they were prepared to shoot. When I turned around and kicked the person in their chest, I noticed they were not Rebels. They were Capitol Army special forces, trained to infiltrate enemy tunnels. There was another soldier with the man, a woman, and Julia proceeded to disarm her, then kicking her in the head.

I quickly turned off my light, then slowly led the way through the tunnels. It appeared that the Capitol Army had discovered the tunnels, and was now clearing them out.

I saw a section of soldiers, and shot them all with my rifle. Then, we decided to split up in order to gain more kills. I was walking around, trying to find more soldiers to shoot, when I quickly ran into somebody. It was a Rebel lieutenant, and his pistol was drawn. I rammed him hard, knocking his firearm to the ground, but he quickly retaliated by pushing me to the ground, drawing his dagger and trying to plunge it into my neck. But I rolled, and quickly took out my own weapon and killed him.

#Bai

@yao, it’s beginning to get confusing – aren’t we on the rebel’s side?

My mind was still on sleep as I raced aimlessly through the tunnels until I reached a corner with a long alleyway down, and a group of Capitol soldiers were standing outside. “This is Major. We have lost the three, although people have claimed to have seen them. What do we do?”
“This is lieutenant – you simply must retreat. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
After turning off the radio, the soldiers turned again and was about to announce the leave when I shot him in the head. Picking up the radio, I spoke once again to the lieutenant, “Sir, we have found the three. Should we bring them to you?”
“Of course. I have already sent a hovercraft.”
It was vital that I stick with Julia and Frederick, and I found them both in a tunnel – waiting for enemy soldiers and after quickly telling them the news, a platoon of soldiers came into the corridor from one side, and another platoon from the other simultaneously. Both were shocked, and began firing – but some foolish soldiers rushed forward, in which Frederick shot them, which gave us a shield, and unfortunately, they even shot each other. It wasn’t before long, as each of them had soldiers patrolling corridors, that they had found us and streamed towards us like hornets. Jumping out of the exit and launching smoke grenades, we leapt onto the hovercraft.
What the lieutenant did not know was that he had been tricked – but after all, he had been shot in battle and was probably losing his senses but even so, his decision of only placing one pilot was foolish – before long, we had shot the pilot and Julia was controlling the hovercraft. It wasn’t before long that we had arrived – and a platoon of soldiers were guarding outside. Fortunately for us, they were both young and inexperienced and they were all dead with their keys gone. Our first challenge was, of course, how to manage to kill the lieutenant without being found out. Here were a series of plans we debated.

Plan 1:
Someone (me of course) stay just outside of the Capitol and distract the guards, giving Julia and Frederick a chance to kill the lieutenant (this was the way in which we killed the general.
“Reasonable approach, slightly risky if you get killed.”
“I could hide in a building, try and shoot at the window and get all the guards out.”
“What if they don’t come out?”
It was reasonable of course, but the chances of failure were a bit too high.

Plan 2 (the only other method):
Fight together as a group, go in, take out all the guards and ultimately kill the lieutenant – providing a chance to win the war.
“I think this is the best method.”
“Yes, we’ll go in grenade-BAR-take weapons-Go.”

The question was really, would we make it?

dUfU

It wouldn’t take much logical deduction to figure out the answer. Probably not. It was most likely, as, in Plan 1, we would be pretty much dead. I polished my blades, a habit that I had when I was nervous. But, in the last few weeks, I was nervous so often that my blades were all gleaming like lethal mirrors. As I got to the letter ‘B’ on a weapon brand, I wondered if we could ever end up with… an everyday life. It was hard being reaped, but harder still for the ones being reaped before the Quarter Quell.

I sighed. Frederick had been through the gun brands and names, but I could only use and name one. An AK-47. That was tough, as we only had two. I quickly fashioned a target out of ivy and dead leaf mulch and threw my knives at it. Every one of my knives hit home. I made a crack in the middle of the target and threw my knife at it. It struck the crack, widening it slightly but still keeping the target intact. I made multiple cracks, each mentally giving it a score. I threw Knifeno.1, and it hit the bullseye.

Hours after throwing knives and sharpening them, we got on with the plan. We hid behind trees, creeping to the next one as the guard shift swapped. I stole over to the nearest tree and signalled the boys over. They leapt from their tree onto mine and shot down the first guard. It must have seemed like the guard had gotten tired and decided to doze for a while to anyone watching. Good. I jumped out of the tree and onto the ground. I crept in, signalling for the boys to follow. Now, the problem was, where was the lieutenant?

#Yao

First of all, Bai, I messed up and wrote Rebel. I meant Capitol. 

I slung my M1 carbine and FAMAS onto my back, pulled out my Uzi and a knife, and charged for the enemy positions, determined to locate the lieutenant. Jack bravely followed, attaching a bayonet to his gun and running alongside me. Julia laid down covering fire from two M249 light machine guns. As I felt bullets barging towards me, I knew what was coming.

“Down here!” I cried to Jack, pulling him towards a small hole in the ground, as a thunderous boom sounded the sounds of battle. A 37 mm anti-tank gun had been brought to the battlegrounds, and apart from being a defense against lightly-armored tanks, it was also used to blow infantry to parts. As I waited for many minutes, praying a stray shell wouldn’t hit near our position, I suddenly heard a yelp from Jack.

A piece of shrapnel and found its way to his arm, and it seemed I would need morphine, tweezers, and bandages, plus a tourniquet if the wound bled, which it was, right now. I didn’t have anything except some old dirt rags that I had used to wrap some rations. I sighed.

“Hold on, this is going to hurt,” I said, and slowly wrestled the piece of shrapnel loose from Jack’s arm. He seemed ready to cry. I quickly applied pressure to the wound, using some of my rags to fashion a tight tourniquet. I then cleaned the shrapnel off, quickly poured some water from my canteen onto the wound, and then bandaged it up. Jack was in great pain, but he held on, and didn’t faint.

“Hey, you got yourself a little war trophy,” I joked, holding up the dusted off shrapnel piece. We chuckled, but then I was reminded we were still trying to stay alive when a shell crashed down right between us. Thank goodness it was a dud, for if it hadn’t, Jack wouldn’t have just one wound anymore. But still, none of us dared touched it. And from the shape of the shell, it wasn’t an antitank anymore. The Capitol soldiers had just called up some friendly tanks, each firing an 100mm armor-piercing shell. But from the looks of it, the tanks weren’t advancing, so for the next two hours, me and Jack played run for your lives-clear the hole.

First, we had to run for the nearest hiding spot, advancing around five meters per minute. Then, after around half an hour of running, we ran into some holes and discovered that one of them had a Capitol machine gun crew in it, and another was operating a 75mm howitzer. I quickly did a few bursts of three rounds and then rammed myself hard into the commanding sergeant. Jack pulled out two bowie knives, yelled “banzai!” and then slashed and diced through the soldiers.

The staff sergeant’s cap was knocked to the ground, and he had his hand to his holster in no time. But I quickly made sure he couldn’t even touch his sidearm or boot dagger, so he began smacking me repeatedly with his riding crop. I instantly deflected his blows with my hand, and tried to whack him with my rifle butt, but couldn’t reach it without letting my grip off of the enemy and allowing him to get his pistol. But just as I was contemplating my decision, the sergeant quickly pulled his hand away with such force I tumbled and knocked the machine gun onto its side. As the sergeant aimed for my head, I felt certain life was over for me. But then, I heard a blade slice through flesh and the sergeant crumpled the ground, his sidearm clattering to the ground. It was Julia, standing triumphantly over the dead body.

She had her AK-47 held up with both hands, a bloody bayonet attached to it. When Jack was finished going knife madness with everybody, he scolded Julia loudly, like she was a four-year-old who had just once again refused to listen to his/her mother/father.

“You were supposed to cover us! And by the way, where are those M249s?” Jack asked.

“Oh. I ditched them. I like my AK-47 better, even if it is heavier than a knife,” she replied.

“JULIA! Those were our best guns!” I was now telling her off also.

“No, they aren’t. Remember those M2 Browning machine guns?” she asked.

“They got jammed up with water. I had to explode it so the Capitol soldiers wouldn’t get it and use the spare parts,” Jack said, a hint of accusation still in his voice.

“Um, what about the M60s?” she asked.

“Tossed those out when we ran out of the right ammunition for them. I had to shoot it into pieces,” I told her, eyeing the now beginning to look guilty Julia.

“What about the Bren? Or…or the FG-42? Or even even the bazooka?” she asked, now beginning to sweat.

“Technically, in this era of modern weapons, the Bren is considered an oldie, but anyways, the last magazine wouldn’t fit into the gun for some reason. We had to bury it. For the FG-42, when we picked it up, we realized the gun didn’t have a proper mechanism, but forgot to tell you. It’s practically useless. I can’t cover anything with a bazooka, but just so you know, I only had two rounds left so I decided to save it,” Jack said.

This was bad. We were in front of a large horde of army, not to mention a tank company, and we didn’t even have any heavy weapons to defend ourselves if we were charged, which always happened.

#Bai

Could we actually make it, with Julia’s terrible blunder? Would this be the first battle where we actually lost and died? The shrapnel still dug into my arm. Rushing for our lives, we realised the only method to not die was just to run for it. Of course, we would have to dig if we wanted to assassinate the lieutenant and then enter the house the other way, but for now, we just ran. Fortunately, I had prepared for such a scenario. There was a tree and we hopped in via an entrance using a twig. However, the back-up trap was an hole, but one so deep that nobody could actually see the bottom – several knives. When the soldiers had finally come to where we were, they were in the pit of doom, and we had begun my back-up plans.

We re-entered the ground level to see the tank, and it was empty as everyone had abandoned it. Riding it back to the entrance of the fort, the guards didn’t even pay us any attention before they were stripped off their uniform with their BARs gone. Marching back into the fort with their clothes on, we murmured the guard outside the lieutenant’s room that we needed a quick word with him. After marching into the room and saluting to the lieutenant, we said to him. “The three has been located. They are currently in District One, where the majority of our soldiers are. We must immediately kill them.”
“Of course. And no false reports. I have already had enough.”
Julia stabbed him from the back as Frederick tranquilized the door guard, placing the knife in it. Pressing the emergency button which was labeled, “Help immediately!”, we leapt out of the window onto the ledge. Maneuvering ourselves onto the Capitol storage base, with lots and lots of weapons, we entered.

Fully loaded with our new weapons, we continued into the forest. However, as we entered the forest we saw many men, Capitol ones. Frederick made my mind think and a plan formulated into action. I grabbed a flash-bang grenade, and slowly waited for the men to gather together in order to make a kill circle. Then, Julia pulled the ring. Sprinting forward from my hiding spot, I yelled and charged, until I was in throwing distance of the circle. I threw my grenade, and put my hands over my ears. A thunderous bang and blinding flash made half of the 70 men immobilized and unable to fight. Those that were only shocked grabbed their rifles and aimed at me, shooting. But Julia zig-zagged, and it was hard to aim for long.

Finally, I had reached my bush. The soldiers didn’t see where I went, but they were determined to find me. Julia and Frederick were already about to escape, and I grabbed another grenade to cover our escape. This one was a tear gas grenade, and I threw it right at the soldier in front of me. He was just about to reach down and throw it back when the irritating gas burst into his eyes and nostrils, and he staggered back, coughing and vomiting at the same time. To make sure nobody saw us going, I also launched a smoke grenade. As the soldiers coughed and struggled to see, the three of us were already on our way. We had to escape this forest. Then, I noticed the soldiers following us. The numbers had dwindled to just 17 men, as most of the men were still coughing and temporarily blinded.

dUfU

My nose stung from the acrid smell. My eyes watered from the smoke. But I ran, nevertheless. I ran until my legs ached from over-exertion. Then we stopped, dead. We collapsed. We had nowhere to rest, nowhere to hide, let alone sleep, make a fire and do all the essentials. We were lost, clueless. We wandered around for a while. I managed to find the carcass of a rotten deer, but we had the sense not to touch it. I managed to salvage a few better pieces, but it was nothing much. I also managed to catch a scrawny rabbit, but, again, it was nothing much. 

I sat down on a nearby root. Sleeping was vital, but there was nowhere to sleep. We would have to risk it to survive. I saw Jack slumped across a root, asleep. Idiot! Someone might see him. I signalled to Frederick for him to help me roll Jack into a small crevice in a rock. Well, tried to. Frederick was asleep. Typical. I heaved Jack into the crack and dealt with Frederick. Slightly more of a challenge. Jack was more manageable, for his lithe build and thinner features defined him as in the class of a slightly more lightweight and fast. Frederick, however, with his stockier build and height, was not easy. I dragged him over to Jack and sat with my back to an extensive rock. Soon after, I drifted into intermittent snatches of sleep.

When I woke up, my body was stiff. My muscles were screaming with pain and exhaustion. It was agony to lift a finger even higher than an inch. I rubbed my body with a soothing oil I found by digging around in the medical pack. I shook the boys into wakefulness and wandered around as I did the day before. Then, we found the Capitol. A smouldering ruin.

 

#Yao

The Capitol was destroyed, and hopefully, most of its army. But still, we knew that there were still around 10 brigades left. That roughly meant 30,000, or 1/4 of the Capitol Army, was still out on the loose. But as I knew it would be tempting to steal some food from buildings that weren’t a burning mess, I knew better. Booby traps would be very easy to find, just as easy as debris.

There are three types of the most basic booby traps. The first one is the tripwire. This one is generally popular among troops with grenades. There are wires at such a level that the human eye does not detect them unless a team of scouts is sent into a booby-trapped area. Generally, these traps are located in buildings, since the explosion can cause a cave-in, which makes it all the more deadly. The second is a pit. This can either be camouflaged or in plain sight. Generally, this contraption utilizes an enemy falling in. Deadly creatures or even sharpened stakes can be put at the bottom. Sometimes, all that happens in the soldier twists his/her ankle, but that still delays the troops. The last is a big wooden log attached to a string. This one is launched when a soldiers steps on a wire or activates it somehow. The log hits a line of troops, and this is usually followed by an ambush.

The last one proved to be the one that hit us. Apparently, Jack spotted a fresh basket of fruit, and he reached for it, only to step on a wire. A large log rammed right into Julia, and she toppled right onto me. We both fell down, and Jack suddenly realized that, but when he stepped towards us, he felt tear gas right to his face. He was sick and crying at the same time. Suddenly, gunfire rained down from a platoon of troops, engulfing us in smoke. First of all, although 40 men doesn’t seem like a lot, a platoon has 4 heavy machine guns, which means that they were able to surround us, a machine gun in the north, east, south, and west. Plus two grenades per person, which means around 80 grenades being tossed at us.

I instantly grabbed Julia, who was rubbing her head, and grabbed my M1 carbine. Holding the light gun in my right hand and a Mauser C96 pistol in the other, I aimed and fired, charging up to the first machine gun crew. The machine gunner was pouring huge amounts of bullets right towards me, but lucky for me, his gun jammed, which meant he had a knife to protect himself. He was easy to kill, but the assistant machine gunner was armed like any other soldier. He had an assault rifle, and sidearms. But with four shots from my carbine, I managed to subdue him. Soldiers poured onto me, but once I managed to get my hands on a M1917 machine gun, I took it off of its tripod and downright wrecked the soldiers by pouring firepower into their onslaught. While I was doing this, Jack was treating Julia with all of his herb knowledge. Apparently, she was in a big wreck, and so was Jack, who had swollen eyes and puffy cheeks.

Soon, the machine gun ran out of ammunition, its 250-round belt had been depleted. There was still the commander to be dealt with, and it seemed like four more soldiers were still left. Lobbing a grenade right into them, I blasted them to pieces, shooting all of the corpses with pistols just to make sure they were dead. Julia was now fully functional, and Jack could walk, which was good. Suddenly, I spotted a half-track slowly making its way towards us, followed by five troop carriers. Now, the Capitol version of half-tracks and troop carriers are quite different than regular, so I shall explain them.

The half-track has two driver seats in the front, where there is no armor, one for a military driver, and one for the commanding captain. The captain will usually command one half-track and three troop carriers, so a major would be riding in the seat. In the back, a 45mm howitzer stood, with two machine guns as support. Thirty troops would be cramped into small seats, weapons would be on a rack, all ready for grabbing. A ramp is in the back and sides, so it’s very easy to get off of.  A troop carrier is the most awkward. It makes troops stand, but it carries a large quantity. This looks like a giant hexagon covered in armor plates. It has six rows, each housing seven soldiers. In the front, the commanders, scouts, and engineers stand, and all of the troops are assembled in the back. It has no heavy arms, but there are holes where soldiers can stick guns through and fire into light infantry. All of the rows each have a siding door on the left. This meant that we were up against 240 soldiers. We were done for.

#Bai

According to Frederick, yes. It was 240 soldiers. But we had dealt with so many – surely we could deal with them? Among the vans, I could see many weaknesses. They were just about 200 metres away, enough time for us to set a trap. Besides, they hadn’t really noticed us yet. Really, we still had a chance, however minute it was. So, Frederick launched a grenade which blitzed the front of the van into pieces, killing all of the drivers. Then, the soldiers began jumping off for dear life as the van exploded and smashed into a nearby tree. Now, there were only 85 left, the equivalent of 5 platoons.
Then, they started shooting randomly everywhere, after they did not know where we were, so we made our way to a nearby fort.  The army would have to charge our fort in order to obtain it. We were eating breakfast when the first battle cry erupted. Roars soon within hearing distance, and it seemed like they were sending a company after us. I shovelled the last remaining bit of porridge, sausage, and egg into my mouth before taking a swig of canned juice and milk. Julia and Jack would operate the two machine guns, and I would rain down shells from the three 75mm artillery cannons we had found. Soon, the company got within firing distance, and I let off the first explosive. It hit its target, the explosion rocking the ground. I fired off the second one, and it missed. The third one was the most effective, taking out the line of mortars.

I could hear Julia and Frederick blazing away with the guns, the front few lines of soldiers falling. I reloaded each gun and fired again. This time, however, I was met with light artillery fire, the 37 mm shells crashing near the fort. One even hit the roof, but it didn’t explode.

I fired again and again and stopped only when the guns became hot as fire. I could hear Julia and Frederick still firing, but it seemed like they were running low on ammunition, as they only fired bursts of four. I knew we had to do something. The company had been decimated, but it sounded like four battalions were heading our way. We needed ammunition, and fast.

Quietly, I nudged Frederick awake. Julia was already awake. Slowly, I brought out my rifle. Aiming through the add-on scope, I spotted something. My eyes rested on the giant moving figure closing in on us. In all of my years as a general for the rebels, I knew one thing. The best way to deal with an enemy plane was to leave it alone and pray it would go away if it didn’t sense anything. The moving machine was a giant tank with legs. Thick armour made it invulnerable to missiles or rockets. It had a total of six guns, two by the sides, one on top and on the bottom, and another two on the sides of the giant legs. The cannons could knock down a helicopter or even a jet with one blast. What were we to do?

dUfU

I blinked open an eye. Everything was tinted red as if I was wearing glasses with red-tinted lenses, and it was slightly blurry. I shook my head, and my eyes recovered. The boys ran. I was a little late to adjust to the situation, but then I felt a hand pull me backwards. Unsurprisingly, I wasn’t expecting it, and I stumbled. And then I saw it. A vast war tank with six guns. One blast from the guns was immediate death. The thick exterior of the tank would deflect any bullets sent at it, possibly even reflecting their damage onto whoever fired.

I fell onto the cold dirt. I saw Jack leaning over me.
“Gee, you really wanted to get hit by the tank, didn’t you?” he asked sarcastically. I scowled at him. Suddenly, Frederick’s head popped up from between two rocks. His face was grazed, showing that he had probably jumped face down into the crevice. Judging by the look on Jack’s face (A mixture of surprise and amusement), he had deduced the same thing. He stifled a snort of laughter. Frederick glared at him, and I burst out laughing. It seemed like today would be a fun day.

It turned out that my light-hearted predictions were miserably wrong. Jack had an argument with Frederick and somehow managed to drag me, who had done nothing wrong, into it as well. So, in other words, we quarrelled for the whole day. In the end, Jack won the argument and then Frederick had a grudge against him for the next few days. Finally, Jack saved him from stepping into a pit, and Frederick had to apologize to him for being a jerk. Then, they got into an argument about who had eaten the most canned beef. Again, they dragged the entirely innocent Julia into the argument. Turns out, Jack’s debating skills were of a better quality than Frederick’s, meaning that Jack won the argument again. How were we supposed to be a team when we argued over the most stupid of things?

#Yao

I squabbled with Jack over wasting our food rations. I told him he had eaten four cans of beef, two cans of potatoes, one can of fruit cocktail, and three cans of peas. He told me that I had eaten four jumbo cans of sponge cake, but that was different. We could live without cake, we needed vitamins from beef, vegetables, and fruit! In the end, we made Julia decide, and I glared at her as if she were to disagree with me, I would hit her upside down with my M1 Carbine. But in the end, Jack bribed Julia with her childhood favorite: tenderly roasted roast beef with salty syrup drizzled all over it.

However, the tank was getting closer. Soon, I could stare down its 76.2mm cannon. Because 105mm and 125 mm guns were reserved for heavy and medium tanks, this one must have been a light tank. That meant it had as many as three .30 caliber machine guns in the hull and turret and one .5o on the turret. I could see that the soldier who was manning the .50 was shooting from a small space, all four sides plated with heavy armor. I could see him aiming through his iron sights. Suddenly, Julia produced a Mosin Nagant rifle.

“You know, a lot of Soviet women used this in WW2 as snipers. It’s why I trust this gun,” Julia said, an obvious advocator of feminism. She inserted one round into the weapon and then aimed through the scope. She frowned.

“What’s the matter?” I questioned.

“I can’t find a spot to shoot him,” she replied, adjusting her sights.

“Seems like knife girl can only shoot the enemy’s gun,” Jack teased. At first, Julia brought her rifle up to smack him, but then, an idea dawned on her, and she lowered the gun.

“Wait a minute, you’re a genius, Jack!” she cried, slapping him on the back. I looked from one to the other, dumbfounded.

“I-I am?” Jack murmured, his face contorted in confusion.

“Yes! I’ll shoot my bullet into the barrel of his gun. It’ll explode!” Julia cried happily.

“Oh, right, right, I totally am a genius,” Jack said, nodding along dumbly. I rolled my eyes.

Julia aimed her gun, and then, like a princess of all snipers, she managed to shoot her single bullet right into the .50 gun, just as the soldier was about to fire on our position. The result: one exploded and damaged .50 M2 machine gun, a rusted and falling apart armor (it was padded on the inside), and a scorched and dead soldier missing most of his body parts lying in a heap on the ground. Plus, the explosion had triggered the fuel tank, which essentially meant that the whole tank had exploded one time for every fuel tank (there were 6), and then caught on fire. The turret just fell right off. There were supposed to be four members inside the tank, but two had died in the explosions, one caught on fire and was now lying face-flat on the ground, and the fourth was smoked out, but he had lost so much air that he was no heaving and quite harmless. I carried him to a resting place near us, and disarmed him. He had a dagger and a pistol. Soon, the man was able to breath after a few minutes of passing out, and he reluctantly let us bound him and take him as a POW (Prisoner of War).

“Where are you from, soldier?” I asked, leading him  to a building where we would rest and keep watch on him. Fraternizing was frowned on, but I was the general, and besides, I needed to make this prisoner feel comfortable and not try to kill any of us.

“I dunno,” he said with a thick Southern accent.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” I asked, eyeing him. He looked down to his shuffling feet. I suddenly noticed a boot dagger, and quickly pulled it loose of his leg.

“I mean, I reckon I was born someplace around there,” he said, gesturing to the east, “but I don’t know nuthing about me past. Some couple found me in a barrel of oranges, took me in. Gave me a home. But they told me I had to go to school. Being 14, I thought I was old enough to work in the fields, but they argued with me. Ran away from that house. Been traveling ever since. Got older too. Hell, 14 turned damn ripe into 16, and 16 to 20. On me 21st birthday, Capitol Army found me drifting around an army base, robbing sleeping soldiers of their puckets. I volunteered for a tank driver. Always thought there were no difference with a tractor. But there is, ain’t there?” he asked, rocking slowly, remembering.

“I guess so. How did you escape so many different attacks?” Julia asked in awe.

“Awe, shucks. Yes’m, I survived those attacks all right. I was lucky. At first, they didn’t want nobody to be tank crew. All wanted ’em to be damned foot soldiers. Started out with 2nd Division, ended up transferring to 1st, then part of military police for a while, finally, they agreed to let me be a gunner. Big difference, but hey, I gots armor,” he said.

“You’re illiterate, aren’t you?” Jack asked, as if in an accusing tone.

“Sure I am. Most Capitol soldiers are. Up until I was 22 and I saw some guys writing letters, heck, I never even knew what a damn pencil was! Never realized reading could be so important. While I was just starting in the 2nd, I was a scout, but I couldn’t write nothing on that piece of paper, nor could I adjust the scope of my sniper rifle (all scouts are given scope rifles) ‘cuz I don’t know numbers. Guess serves me right. Engineer didn’t work, I couldn’t read any of the instructions or letters describing the problems with military equipment. I was promoted to sergeant just so I would be able to had a submachine gun with iron sights, not optics,” he told us.

I took all of this information in eagerly.

#Bai

The plan was for Frederick to disguise as a weapons dealer and a tactical master from the town of Merico – he would try and find out the plans
We arrived at the Capitol Army’s weapons depot on time at all, and after a quick snack of rolls and fruit, we activated the plan. We gave Jack a long coat, followed by a top hat, glasses, and a black suitcase. He already had the battle scars and the height and the boots to match his appearance.

Walking heavily and slowly to match his looks, Frederick approached the door.

“Halt!” the two guards at the door cried out. They pointed their electronic spears at Jack. He didn’t even sweat.

“Hello. My name is Mr. Swarter. I am a secret arms dealer. I have come to propose the Capitol Army a deal. If they give me a brand new Jeep and three of their top weapons, and enough food to last a platoon for a month, I will give you plans for a top-secret weapon. It is…a nuclear missile,” Jack said in his deepest voice. The two guards looked at each other, trying not to laugh. One of them couldn’t stifle a tiny giggle.
“I said, I have come to propose a deal!!” Jack roared. The two guards immediately stopped laughing and looked timid.
“Of course, sir.  The Colonel will see you immediately,” one of the guards said. I smiled.
“C’mon Julia!” I motioned for her to follow me. Suddenly, we were discovered by two guards.
“And what are you two doing here?” he inquired in a heavy, cold voice.
Slowly, we dragged their bodies into a bush, before breaking the door. We quietly entered. Soon, we were in the storage locker. Inside was a giant tank. Suddenly, the door swung open, and Frederick along with the colonel entered.

“Mr Swarter, pick a Jeep. We will supply you with army rations and give you three obliterator guns. Please, choose one,” Colonel  said. Frederick did not notice us, and walked over to a really fancy looking Jeep with four machine guns. 

After leaving the compound, Frederick told us their plan. They were going for a blitzkrieg onto District Fourteen; there would be no overriding the command. They would be gaining on us in 48 hours. Jack had woken up from his stunned state, and I gave him my pistol. Julia was bristling with knives, so I didn’t even need to hand over my pocket knife. Slowly, we advanced on the ruins. There seemed to be no survivors. But surely, the Capitol Army had been planning a surprise attack. They put bombs on this part of the track, not even caring about the innocent passengers. But wait. How did the Capitol Army know we were here? After all, we never told anyone.

And then, the answer hit my head like a tranquilizer dart. Of course! The Capitol must have someone on the inside. Somebody on the train, dressed in civilian clothes, who recognized the three of us and told the Capitol. But we didn’t see any soldiers. That was a surprise. I thought that there would be a platoon of soldiers, all waving their bayonets. But so far, we had just seen one soldier.

I explained my thinking to Jack and Julia. Jack was particularly interested in the fact that he was on a field phone.

“Wait, I have it. That soldier wasn’t part of an assault group, he was a scout. The Capitol Army sent him to scout the area, because-” Jack began.

“-they want to bomb us with an UAV!” Julia finished.

dUfU

It struck me like a bullet entering my body.
“We only met that scout half an hour ago.” I said, doing a mental calculation, “Which means the UAV will arrive at about 4:00,” I said. I saw Jack’s eyes widen.
“That means we’ve got to scram,” he exclaimed. I rolled my eyes and started navigating through lots of thorn bushes and masses of nettles. I stopped to pick a few nettles, bundling them and shoving them into a crack between two cans of victuals. I stopped, again, to pick a dock leaf, as angry baby-pink bumps were forming on my hands.

I unhooked a thorn from my hair. Even in its battered braid, tiny strands of brown hair were left behind, fluttering about like slender ribbons. I swear if I had stayed in there, I would be bald, every last hair plucked from my scalp. I ran a hand through my hair. It was undoubtedly thinner, although I still had a fair amount of hair left. I sighed and headed over to the boys. Although they had no missing hair, a considerable amount of their clothes were bared to the last thread. Well, life can’t spoil us too much, I guess.

I found that they were in a deep conversation. Fine hunters they would be. If they fell into a conversation as loud as this, they would scare all the prey in a ten-metre radius. I loaded a gun and pressed it to Frederick’s temple, careful to put the safety catch on. I could see his pupils dilate in fear. Then I saw the shrink as they realised that it was only me. I took the gun away and flicked the safety catch off. I selected a blade from my delicately arranged knives and tossed it from hand to hand.

#Yao

At first, when Jack chose to ditch our prisoner and shoot him with his .45 Colt, I wanted to argue and maybe even run away with him, but when I objected my opinion about the Geneva Convention, he responded with alacrity.

“Technically, since neither side declared war, it’s not an official conflict, and so, doesn’t comply with the whole damn convention,” he told me, waving the matter off.

“But-but-but…” I stammered, but Jack was already pulling his pistol out of the holster. Julia averted her eyes, but I was a man, an army general who had fought in multiple campaigns on enemy territory. I was not going to get torrid over this. And so, I watched as the prisoner was told his fate. He nodded along, clearly very calm.

“Why are you like this?” I asked him.

“Because even if I live, nobody will remember me. I am better off dead,” he said, bravely. Jack pulled the trigger, but his pistol jammed, and cursing, he was forced to lick the bolt until it was clean of rubbish. Soon, the pistol worked again, and he fired one shot into the air just to test it. He shot the prisoner, and then discarded the weapon. He probably never wanted to see it every again. I didn’t, either.

Soon, we were trekking through harsh land, looking as far as the human eye could go. We were desolate travelers, deemed doomed, but yet we used our machetes to conquer our surroundings. Julia used her two machetes as a hacking machine, spinning around and round to chop foliage out of our path. I was pretty tall, so the heavy machete felt a perfect tool in my hands, and unlike Julia, who chopped off piece by piece, I hacked entire branches straight off. Jack was terrible at it. He had guzzled our rations till it was no more, and so, he was forced to pout in the truck while biting off beef jerky, driving every few minutes when he forced a small trail out of the leaves. One time, we were taking a long to chop off this particularly stubborn branch, and so, Jack, out of rage, let loose gunfire from one of the machine guns, and ended up completely destroying the path. We were forced to take a detour.

Soon, we realized the UAV must have lost us and went back home, because we still hadn’t heard any suspicious noises like explosions or bombs being dropped. However, we soon realized that a formation of planes were flying over our heads, and they seemed to be on a mission. However, for some strange reason, one of the planes crashed into another, and that plane wobbled around and swerved every which way, destroying another plane. This problem seemed to be ubiquitous, because soon, seven planes were crashing down right on the zenith, and I felt a sort of bad feeling about this. Sure, we were experienced soldiers with four heavy machine guns and a Jeep, but there were 9 crew members in each plane, so…63 men, each with a basic rifle.

“We got to hunt them down,” Julia said, a killing glint in her eyes.

“Are you crazy? 63 men! And let’s not discuss what happens if they manage to salvage the liquidator machine guns from their planes. That’s 49 machine guns, Julia. And we haven’t even gotten to what happens if one of their planes has a 30mm cannon!” he told us.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m siding with Jack, Jul,” I told her.

“Come on, you bunch of weasly wimps!” Julia cried, the famous catchphrase of Wanda from Magic School Bus (1990s).

“Um, what did you just say?” Jack asked, completely baffled and confused.

“We defeated, oh, let me think, 3/4 of the entire Capitol Army! That’s more than one million soldiers! Not to count the 400 tanks, 5,000 aircraft, and multiple carriers. We’re at the brink of succeeding, and we’re just about to give up? Oh no, you’re not. You, Fredrick, you charged into Capitol territory just to grab a robot so we wouldn’t be defeated. Or the time you, Jack, rushed in banzai style and began stabbing everybody in that machine gun crew, even with a wounded arm! Or maybe even the times when I blew up that tanks and saved both of your damn heads! I’m not giving up, and I’ll slice every damned pilot in sight if I have to. Now, who’s with me?” she cried, raising her AK-47. Me and Jack both glanced at each other. This didn’t look good. Julia frowned.

“Well, if you two are going to stand there like idiots, I’ll go kill a few pilots,” she said, starting the truck.

Soon, we were all on the truck, me and Jack glancing at each other, wondering if we had made the right decision. After a few moments, we saw the soldiers, dismantling the heavy guns and grabbing them, loading in chains of bullets, then setting fire to their planes. Soon, we began killing them, firing our machine guns until bodies dropped and blood flowed like river. I grabbed a long sword, put a pistol in my hands, took off all of my equipment unless you count the M-1 carbine, and then saddled up on the horse. Yes, when I had went into disguise as a secret arms dealer, I had also received a horse. Now, I was ready to be horseyguy. Pulling the sword out of its scabbard, I looked right towards my target, and rode my horse into all of the ruckus, slicing and dicing. I charged at enemy pilots, chopping off their rifle’s barrel and then shooting them at point-blank range. When my rifle went out of ammunition, I ripped the magazine from the gun, put it in my mouth, then reloaded, and spat out the empty mag. I knocked enemy soldiers out by using the handle of my saber, and then chopped off their heads with one swift motion.

We were winning.

#Bai

We were winning. At least that was, in some ways, good. But the real problem came, when we were captured. First of all, we were in a covert place – just in a river outside District One. No one knew we were there, except District Fourteen. Now that was strange. Second of all, when we were captured, the torturer seemed to know all of our plans. From the straightforward plans for us to stay ahead to our backup plans of reinforcement, everything was known. There was definitely a mole.
He asked, “Right, first of all, I know all your plans. You were going to rush forward and take out most of our army and assassinate our general? Well, you’ve done a great job at that. Now, I know around one third of the troops are in District Fourteen. So where are the others.”
“I’m very sorry, Mr…”
“Mr. Rusczyk.”
“Well, Mr. Rusczyk, I do not know. The heads just won’t tell me.”
“Don’t lie. I know you know. And I say you tell me now, or your friends shall suffer.”
Julia and Frederick shot Mr. Rusczyk. Quickly, we found soldiers running toward us, their large, black rifles pointed directly at our bodies. Suddenly, I remembered that the three of us all had firearms and grenades, as James had given us. I pulled out a grenade, used my fingers to pull out the ring, and then threw it with all of my might. It exploded in a spray of ash and flames, and quickly, I realized this was the perfect distraction. Pulling Julia and Jack away from the President’s room, I quickly pushed open the doorway. But before I went out, I also grabbed Mr. Rusczyk. I took a drugged cloth and put it over his struggling mouth. He went out quickly.

Suddenly, I heard a noise. I cocked my gun, preparing to fire. But then, Julia peeked at the soldiers around a corner, and she murmured something to me. I gasped.“There’s how many soldiers?” I half-yelled in surprise. Julia kicked me in the shin. But it was too late. The soldiers had perked up. The full company of 120 soldiers.

 

“There’s somebody here! It might be the ones who took Mr. Rusczyk!” the commanding captain roared. “Search now or you will be punished!”

 

A swarm of soldiers began looking, and my heart pounded. Suddenly, I noticed a window. It was the window where, every day, somebody would place a platter of food onto a metal disk, and the person would flip a switch. A person at the bottom would grab the food, and then press the lever at the bottom to send the disk backup. In other words, this was our escape plan.

 

Quickly, I used a hidden knife to twist the screws off the closed window, and then climbed in. Jack squished in, and Julia piled on top of both of us. I had just enough room to pull the lever with my teeth. Whoom! In two seconds, we had zoomed up four floors all the way to the kitchen. I noticed a woman staring at us, especially at the unconscious Snow. She was halfway to a phone before I shot her. It wasn’t hard pretending to be cooks and waiters, especially since it was the dinner rush hour. We finally got to the exit. Two guards with wrist tasers blocked our paths.
“Password?” the first asked. I gulped. Password?
“Uh, do you two have them?” I asked, fidgeting. Julia and Frederick shook their heads. I was about to pull a grenade out of my pocket when a thought came to me. Smiling at the two guards, I reached under the cart and grasped around in  baggy pockets. Finally, I came up with four pieces of scrap paper. I scanned the papers. Finally, I reached one that had “Password” written in red ink on it.
“Um…491” I read. The guards looked hesitant at each other, but finally let me go.

dUfU

I ran out, enjoying the unrestricted liberty of the outside. Frederick took off the long coat and started bathing in the shallow water of a nearby stream. After all the effort to remove the numerous layers of dirt and grime, Jack decided that it was a good idea to have a mud fight. In the end, we all decided to have a bath. I took an area that Snow customised to be a mini Nigeria Falls. Jack took the original stream that Frederick was previously using. Frederick took the mouth of Jack’s stream. I took care to remove all the patches of mud on me, including the one on the nape of my neck.

I stepped back, expecting to slam into a cold stone wall. I fell backwards, grazing my back. I found a small cave, and the sheet of water tumbling down at the cave’s mouth was completely opaque. I looked around, gazing with awe at the slick rocks around me. I emerged from the water, only to face an awed Jack. He ran into the waterfall and ran back out. Frederick, in turn, tried it and found the cave. I washed off the grit from my back and started hunting.

I hauled a rabbit into the cave. I had caught three fish: salmon, tuna and a pike, a squirrel and my rabbit. I skinned the furry animals and slid the rabbit onto a spit. I cooked it until golden and added a sprinkled chive onto it. I packed most of it into a small tub that I had stolen from a train. I left a haunch for each of us and a small boned chunk. I finished my food in a matter of minutes and filled my water skin with the waterfall water. Fortunately, the water was fresh, so we didn’t have to waste our surprisingly much iodine. We really had a chance of survival.

#Yao

I felt really good, swimming in the cool pool, feeling the hot sun shining on my skin. Ahh. If only I had enough time to feel that, for in a flash, I caught something suspicious. Someone was setting up a rather peculiar machine on the roof, and it didn’t look very good. It certainly didn’t seem about to dish out the cookies and cream. I felt a sudden pain in my side, and slowly lost all sense of where I was. Floating, just floating.

Soon, I woke, to the sound of Jack screaming my name. Apparently, a sniper system involving the best sniper in the Capitol Army and a giant tranquilizer dart gun didn’t go hand-in-hand in peace. I had been shot, and because of that, I was also very tired. The dart had a special fluid in it called tryptophan, which is also found commonly in turkeys. Apparently, it was supposed to make you lethargic and sleepy, which was why I always dropped dead after a healthy serving of my ma’s Turkey Sunday. This was often a distraction before an attack. Which, as usual, came.

Two fighter jets bristling with cannons, rockets, and bombs appeared out of thin air, probably launched from a nearby air base. It fired round after round of automatic fire, and projectiles exploded again and again in our direction. I ran along, but slowly felt a deep wave of drowsiness hitting me like a shock wave. I was slowly drifting off. Soon, I dropped to the ground, snoring loudly.

“What do we do?” was the last thing I heard, then an explosion, and followed by darkness.

I woke in a leaf hammock, rubbing my sore arm. I found some rabbit on a bark plate, which I devoured, and then sat up. Julia! She had just hunted, which meant she would be nearby. And Jack, too. I found them both around the fire arguing about what they should do next.

“We should leave him and hope for the best. You know how hard it is to carry him. He’s heavier and taller than both of us. Plus, he’s banged up pretty bad. Black eye, broken arm. He’s lost a lot of blood from the explosion that nearly killed him. That makeshift bandage you made, useless. We’re even doing him a favor. He’ll die in peace, lying in a hammock, not with forty bullet holes through him somewhere in a field,” Jack said. Julia scoffed.

“Yeah right. Unless the Capitol Army finds him and tortures him to death. Besides, we need him. He’s the best weapons expert in the whole group. Without him, our guns would be dead meat without being cleaned properly. Besides, since he’s so big, he’s the only one we can use as a disguise for our little schemes. And it just wouldn’t be right, he’s our friend after all,” she said.

“First of all, Julia, you make a lot of sense, and second of all, Jack, well, let’s say I hate you,” I said, making them both jump. I went over and socked Jack.

“Ouch!” Jack said, rubbing the spot where I hit him. It satisfied me. Soon, I got over it and began trekking along with them. Because I was taller and my stride was longer, I was able to keep up with them despite so many injuries. Every two minutes, I would give Jack the dirty eye. Me and Julia both used the silent treatment on him. Finally, he gave up and yelled in annoyance and frustration.

“AHH!” he cried, and we tackled him, covering his mouth. Unfortunately, we heard machetes swinging and and rifles cocking. Someone had heard us, and they didn’t seem friendly. Julia took out a long gunto sword. I pulled out an M16, then swung in a 20-round mag. Jack looked around, and took out an axe. Slowly, the figure(s) became closer and closer to us. Two barrels protruded out of the long grasses. I chucked a grenade, stood back, and waited for the explosion. It rocked the floor, and a bloody rifle flew up into the air, a whole arm still clinging to it, the stock blown clean off. I heard groans of pain, and I knew we had done damage. Suddenly, a man appeared, his rifle aimed at me. I shot him four times, then shot all of the others that came in hordes. Once, I had to duck down to avoid a flying grenade that missed and blew up a rabbit.

Soon, I could tell, the battle was about to be won instantly. I emancipated myself from my gun, and rushed forward, pulling out a scope. Aiming it, I slowly adjusted the tone bit by bit, and soon, I was able to use the temperature settings to find the remaining humans. They were hiding behind various rocks, loading their rifles and attaching bayonets. I bewailed their attempts at conquering us. Bayonets were no match. Soon, as they charged out, firing and running, I managed to kill every single soldier in sight, with ten bullets left in my magazine. However, when I approached the corpses, something big jumped up at me, and I drew back, pulling out my pistol, about to fire, but Julia rescued it. It was a dog! A stinky one, too, turned out it was living the vagabond life, no flamboyancy at all. But it’s bad looks didn’t detract from its fluffy fur or whines when Julia dropped him to get him some meat to eat. Apparently, he had been the dog scout in the Capitol soldier’s fireteam, which we had just killed.

“I’m keeping him,” Julia announced.

“WHAT?” Jack asked, astonished.

“Julia, get your thoughts straight. A dog!” I shouted, trying to recover from shock.

“Well, I never told you had to take care of him. His rations will come from mine. Besides, I have the perfect name! How about…Clawdius?”

Me and Jack both sighed loud and annoyed breaths of air. Julia was in dog heaven, and there was no way she was coming back to Earth. After all…we could use a guard dog every once in a while.

#Bai

Ok, I hoped you liked the tsa; I figured out the mistake on question 8, so yeah.

That night, I finally slept peacefully in ages. At least the guard dog did that. The next day, we were back on the move – searching for more Capitol soldiers to obliterate. And so, we decided to go to the Capitol, where new soldiers were trained and ready to slaughter, and thus it would destroy the stream of soldiers. However, security was tight – there would be no plans to pretend to be a weapon’s dealer, so instead, we would have to act as a teacher. They were currently learning how to instantaneously kill, which Frederick was the best at, so he would go in for the disguise. The plan was settled.

Part 1: Take out the instructor and use his car

This could be a little tricky, but we all knew what to do. The instructor had a strange habit; he would always leave his car on the exact same parking spot, with his keys in his left pocket. As he was walking in, I began talking to him. “Hey, so you’re the instructor of this place, right?”
“Yes. Get out of my way, I am going on to teach.”
“So, you’re teaching them how to instantaneously kill, right?”
“Yes. I am seriously late! Move out of the way.”
“Of course, now, if you will feel in your left pocket, your keys are missing.”
“What in the devil’s name…!”
A kick to the chest and he was unconscious and Julia delivered a shot to his head with a rifle. So far so good, except that the shot was loud, ricocheting over the walls. Guards rushed out, shocked.
This time it was Frederick shouting, “What in the devil’s name did you do that for, Julia?”
Still, it was no time before they were minced meat.

Part 2: Get a bomb in the place 

Now, the only person with true access to the building was Frederick, and after placing on the instructor’s clothes, began shouting, “Help! Help! Guards are dead! Someone is trying to invade!”
Students streamed out, each with a gun in their hands.
“Look at this! Someone killed the guards. Now go back, I will teach you quick kill with these dead bodies.”
“But master…”
“How did this…”
“What on earth…”
It gave us time to rush into the building, but we were seen again. “Look! They are entering!”
Guns were loaded at once, the crack was like a huge cannon coming towards us. I screamed at Julia, “Drop it and run! Place your hands on your head!”
We ran for our lives; a bullet later smashed into the bomb, detonating it and now the building and the men were sawdust. 

Part 3: Escape

By now, we were kind of trapped. Dust from the concrete was still in the air, but trained enemy lines, guns ready. But they didn’t know our secret weapon – the dog. The dog rushed forward, tearing into the lines and grabbed the leader. They were all stunned, and yet they could not shoot, in fear of hitting the leader. That gave us the time to pull out our guns and shoot nearly all of them to pieces. But then a bullet came at my leg, and darkness.

The only thing that told me I was alive was the pain in my leg and the soreness in my joints. We had won the battle actually and Julia and Frederick had dragged me here. Frederick was saying, “He tried to abandon me last time, so let’s abandon him this time, should we.”
“Thank you very much,” I replied, “Now if you would help me up?” 

dUfU

“If I remember properly,we actually took you along, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, Mr Smartypants,” I said to Frederick before turning to Jack. I offered him a hand, and he took it gratefully. Frederick snorted, but I took no notice. I elbowed him in the ribs, and then we carried on walking. I stroked the dog, who was trotting alongside us, tail erect. We stopped at a riverside, and I bathed the dog. It turned out that, under all the mud streaks on his fur, he was an Alaskan Malamute.

We walked along the countrysides seeing the landscapes change and rural forming into urban. In the winter, when heavy snow was prone, we would pile onto a piece of giant driftwood, and the dog would do the rest. We would feed and care for him if he returned the care by guarding us. He did a good job as well. With his sharp fangs and vast size, not many would risk their lives to kill us.

I lay down on a large, flat rock. The sun had warmed it, and it was the perfect place to relax. Well, until a 40-kilo hound used you as a bed. I could hear Jack snorting in the distance. Well, I would like to know how he would like it if an enormous dog came and sat on him. I threw the canine, still in a quiet mode, at his face, and he collapsed.
“Oof, he’s heavy,” he said, gently manoeuvring the husky off his abdomen. I burst into peals of laughter, and he chased after me. I led him towards a shallow stream and veered sharply to the left, leaving Jack to fall into the water. I watched him floundering in the water before dragging himself out and checking himself before continuing the vie for my blood.

#Yao

I watched as Julia playfully tried to kill Jack. Well, maybe it was until the giant husky rushed in and decided he was tired of having nobody to sleep on and plopped himself right onto my body. I groaned, and tried to lift him off, and unlike Jack or Julia, because of my size, actually succeeded in doing so. I felt the wind slowly being extracted from my system. I wheezed in and out giant breaths of air, trying to stop Clawdius from jumping on me and licking me all over my face.

“Clawdy…get…off!” I cried, and jabbed my rifle butt into his giant neck. He didn’t even wince. He just went on wagging his tail. I tired of this game and decided to practice my target shooting. I brought my M-16 and my M1 carbine. Setting up a series of paper targets, I shot until the barrels of my guns turned red. I even got to try out my new shotgun, an Ithaca 37. It blew up an entire branch of tree. I could feel myself becoming hungry, so I decided to wash my face from all of the powder and get ready for dinner. Julia was still trying to shimmy up a tree to save herself from Jack. Oh well.

Just as I was splashing around in the river around two hundred meters from the camp, I was bent down, trying to dry my face when I felt a hard kick with a boot come to my back, and I thought it was a playful Jack or Julia at first, but the voice refuted all of my thoughts.

“Just what do we have ere?” a loud, booming man asked, and I could see a double-barreled shotgun pointed at my face. There were three more with him. They each held shotguns, but they all had pump-action ones.

“Uh…” I began. Should I tell them the truth, that I was a Rebel, or should I lie and say I was team Capitol the whole way?

“Another one of ’em Rebels? Shoot him,” the leader with the double barreled shotgun said, aiming his gun. I instantly spoke up.

“A damn Rebel? No I ain’t a Rebel. I’m Private Humprey sir, of the 7th Division!” I said, saluting him.

“The 7th? Wasn’t that parachute division decimated months ago? Three damn generals killed them!”

“Oh yes. I managed to escape and has been running from the Rebels ever since. Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Lieutenant General Whorse, this is Colonel Baton, here is General Robert, and last is Major General Baron. We, unfortunately, are the last remnants of the Capitol Army, with out horses and ten escorts. But we have a plan. We have heard that the generals are hiding in these woods. We plan to kill them, and then, we will regain our great nation,” the general said. I nodded along like I was real sad, but instead, I was bursting with fireworks of joy. They were the last soldiers!

If we could kill them, we’d really win. But how? I needed to inform Julia and Jack without making it seem a bit suspicious. So, I decided to formulate a very ingenious plan.

“Hold on, I forgot my gun,” I said, which was true, and went off in search of my two companions. I found them still trying to kill each other.

I forced them to stop and cooperate.

“What’s with the pushing?” Jack asked, as I shoved him into order.

“I am going to sound insane…” I began, but Julia interrupted.

“You already are,” she murmured, and I punched her.

“Listen, I have found the remaining fourteen soldiers and four horses of the Capitol Army. If we can manage to kill them, we will win this war!” I said, and they both hushed at the thought.

“Let’s do it,” Jack said, and he grabbed his L85 gun. I nodded, and brought them to a good ambush spot.

I then approached the men, who had been waiting for me.

“Hey fellas, it’s time,” I said vaguely. While they shot each other pensive looks, I tossed two grenades. In four minutes, they were nothing but ashes, and we had enough time to kill the other ten soldiers.

The other soldiers, apparently ignorant of the explosions from the grenades, were still sitting around a fire, eating boiled soup with onions and potatoes. I stabbed one, then shot two with my pistol. Julia finished with a loud burst from her AK-47. It was that easy.

Two days later, we had put on all of our necessary gear, and saddled up three of the horses. We were ready to start a new future, and that future involved cleaning up a country full of destruction and wreckage, trying to establish a 20 million people population from just a few million, and making sure there were no more tensions. But as they say, there’s always a silver lining in every cloud. We were ready to take on whatever life threw at us, even if it was a grenade.