The Hunger Games1

(Max) I thought the Capitol was the government, not district 13

#Clara

After one short hour, we finally arrived at Capitol. It was a foreign world of extreme extravagance and perfidious people, unlike anything any of us had ever seen. The screeching and cheering of the aliens blew out my ear drums, I could only hear the faint chanting of the people and the presence of death whispering in my ear. Us tributes started to breathe heavily respiring the fumes of oil and bleach.

“This place is abhorrent.” detested Theo.

I nodded in return and gave out a disgusted look.

“Right this way children.”

All six of us looked around us to find Mark smiling deeply at us and gesturing his arm in a specific direction, I gulped and followed Mark into the crowd. Thousands of hands spread out to touch us, my eyes widened in disbelief as I felt dry, greasy hands touching my face. I shooed them off and covered my face as much as I could, when I opened my eyes back up, we were at a modern hotel with enough space to fit a whole district inside. It was made of white quartz and blue panes of glass finishing it off.

“This is where you will get your weapons based on your skill with them, you will also be assigned your place in the team based off of your personality.”

I smirked along with the others.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” asked Grace, “let’s go.”

We first met our team placer: Xavier X. Our first task was to try out all weapons available and see which was our best chance. The last test was to test us daily and analyse us for our best personalities, the results finally came out and they were good…

“Are you kids ready for the results?” asked Xavier

We all nodded hesitantly in unison.

“Well let’s do it then.” smirked Xavier, “Riya, very supportive and amazing medical experience, your place is support and your weapon is a dagger and a medical kit. Finn, extremely good at climbing trees, very athletic and can gather intel from others, your position is lookout and hunter, your weapon is a bow and arrow…”

Time slowly plodded along and my name still hadn’t appeared until the last moment:

“And lastly, James, adroit and has a clear state of mind, stays calm in the face of danger, athletic and quick thinking, I give you, your team leader. Your weapon is a samurai sword.”

____________________________________

*To both: this is the first ‘Hunger Game’, therefore, District 13 should still exists and agreed to Max, Capitol is the Government

#Max

yes, District 13 still exists, but the districts are told it’s gone because the dark days ended with it being “destroyed” and the peace treaty.

Since when did the Capitol care about our “personalities”? Sure, most of the people from our district knew Riya for her healing, Finn for his agility and so on, but still. And of course, I received a samurai sword. Wow, was I meant to be thrilled or something about this? Something that those dunces believed in district four as babies or something.

“What do you mean by a samurai sword?” I asked Xavier – what a bizarre name as well; the Capitol have some really eldritch fashions.

“Oh, you’ll see,” he flashed another smirk, revealing pale white teeth with scintillating braces. Ugh. I still couldn’t remotely understand how this would work: first, we were told that we would go into the arena without anything and now we were given “places” and “weapons” when only one person won.

We plodded along a corridor like time had before until we entered a gauzy room with flashing lights and yet another corridor, lined with weapons in cubicles on either side. Everyone grabbed their weapons – some remaining untouched – but not mine. Just like how my name was last. Eventually, we reached the samurai sword which appeared to be just a regular sword, until Xavier sliced through the air and a round thing was shot at the wall. We all stared at it in awe, having never witnessed such a thing before.

“And this is mine?” I enquired of Xavier dubiously, who nodded avariciously. “Oh, *thank you,* clown,” I muttered the last word under my breath. After admiring and gaping over my novel blade, we headed to a luxurious dinner. Previously, we had rudimentary meals with Xavier only, but that day the rest of our team was revealed, babbling about Capitol gossip at a groaning table loaded with turkey, bread, gravy and every delicacy possible. We all stuffed ourselves with every single type of fodder; there were some brown drinks as well, but I didn’t start on the queer things. That night, I slept on one of the exceptionally sparse days with a full stomach.

#Clara

I awoke to the horror of Mark Elenco’s egregious ‘smile’.

“Rise and shine… sacrificium.” The host smiled deviously, I squinted my eyes slightly trying to decipher the meaning of this made up word- I had no education so it was nearly impossible to know if this was a different language or just this duplicitous figure doubling up in edginess with made up words that I had no intention of knowing what they mean.

“And what do you mean by that?”  I asked sceptically.

“Oh no don’t worry it only uh means uh… um,” He took a few seconds to come up with a naïve excuse, “it just basically means child in your district, yes child.” I just nodded my head immensely unconvinced about his answer.

“I just want to punch that mask off of his face and know the truth, why these disgusting people choose us to fight to the death and so many of us too,” I thought, “We start to become allies in combat and then we eliminate each other, disgusting.”

Shaking off my bad thoughts, I gathered around our breakfast table for only a few minutes until it was time for training.

“Tributes! Everybody is here to report for training-it’s simple- work with your team and your weapon figure out ways to combine all of your power together for your best chance of surviving*If we wanted that*” he muttered, he cleared his throat and spoke again, “there will be obstacles throughout the forest, you cannot expect to come across anything; expect the unexpected. Off you go”

Commotion broke out as Finn and I and the rest of the team huddled together like a waddle of petrified penguins.

“I don’t think I can do this”  stated Ava

“Grace, we’re going to make it we all have family to survive for, just have hope” consoled Riya. Finn nodded appreciatively.

“You certainly are great support” complimented Helena.

Training had begun.

#Lawrence

I grabbed what looked like an extremely long stick, I thought he said sword? The stick was rather thin and didn’t appear to be sharp at all when I tried swinging it to see what kind of motion could deal the most damage to a person. It suddenly elongated and the sword was revealed. It was surprisingly sharp and suited me well. Between us, we had two archers, a healer, one axeman, and another two Katana wielders including myself. I found that the other team had two axemen and at least one archer but all the other members were hidden. One on the archers and I stayed behind with the healer and the axeman went forward to scout, with the other archer and samurai having him covered. I could see that the other archer wasn’t taking any chances and had his box drawn at all times. This allowed me to practice some moves on a tree.

Suddenly, we heard a shout from the other side followed by a scream. The axeman came running back with the others. Apparently, the axeman dropped his weapon when the enemy team attacked and the archer managed to hit one of the healers in the arm. We could still hear loud shouting and cries of pain from around 100m away. Out of the blue, another samurai leapt from a bush behind us and scratched my arm with the tip of his sword. The archer managed to spin around quickly and hit him squarely in the neck.  He screamed for 2 seconds, then stopped. This was seen by an axeman I saw who was still crouching behind another bush, a terrified look on his face,  he ran.

#Max

It all felt so weird: I thought they wanted us to kill each other *in the games*, not during training, unless the organisers had something else in mind for us. My thoughts were abruptly interrupted as an axe narrowly grazed my cheek. I glimpsed the supposedly petrified axeman cursing under his breath.

“Ya missed?” I smirked at the axeman, who was fumbling with something behind his back which I guessed was another axe. While I waited, someone else on their team flanked me from my left. Finn leapt in and shot my assailant with an arrow, which turned blunt as soon as it was released. Madness… I nodded ‘thanks’ to Finn, who nodded back curtly and started scanning the surrounding area.

“Stay more aware,” he muttered. “Cockiness makes you lose focus.” I felt stupid, I felt sheepish and I felt minor. My mind was too jumbled up to acknowledge that that probably didn’t make sense. I heard a rustle behind me. I tossed my samurai sword (why, just why) at the moving leaves, only to hear a groan and a splatter – of blood? – behind it. Following it to retrieve the weapon, I found my victim was a ninja-dressed person (WHY, JUST WHY) cowering in a warm puddle of blood. I thought these weapons didn’t do any detrimental damage of some sort. Why would the organisers do such a thing to naive children? Why can’t we play to someplace like, umm, Europe? Or was that destroyed or something? I don’t know but just why not!

After half an hour or so – which felt like years – of “stabbing other children”, as Xavier described it I discovered, adults dressed in white waddled onto the battlefield, where there were bodies strewn across the ground and I was a battleground of fear and curiosity. What was this “training?”

#Clara

We all huddled up together, counting each other thoroughly thinking we were inseparable when a loud shriek shouted into our ears, it was Riya, a little 12 year old boy had stabbed Riya in the leg with his arrow… mentally disabling her and causing her to have a break down.

“RIYA!” shouted Helena, “ RIYA NO.”

We all sprinted rapidly towards her but not rapidly enough, a man in white seized Riya by the arms and flung her over their shoulders. Gritting her teeth and trying to hold back tears, Ava thrust herself through the crowd of us and began welting the man in white yet it seemed to have no effect on him whatsoever he just insidiously turned, slowly but steadily, fear leading to harm… He laid his giant hands on Ava’s head, Ava struggled and scrambled but still couldn’t get out of the grip of this menacing “doctor”- who knows what they’re going to do to the injured apart from healing them-The menace threw Ava over 6 feet across the rough grass, making her land in a bush of nettles. Her lip was bleeding, gushing with crimson liquid. We all rushed towards the poor 13 year old girl and helped her up, her face had no intention of showing fear or apprehensiveness we knew she would vow to stay strong, we were all heading back with Riya on our minds until a young boy came running up to us, worried and extremely agitated.

“THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US ALL, THIS IS NOT THE HUNGER GAMES ANYONE EXPECTS. NO ONE GOES HOME, NO ONE SURVIVES” He told us… we all stared at each other biting the insides of our mouths and gulping whilst he ran off into the distance.

Then we all had the same thought: Riya.

#Lawrence

The unmistakable face of Elenco came striding over his face just as if not smugger than our first meeting. Another two of the men in white came marching behind him while we were shoved off by more of the bodyguards, from the corner of my eyes, I could see a pair of the men beating down a brown sack with something, or someone, inside.

We were shoved away to the main building in fear of suffering the same fate as Ava. Everyone ate in silence that day, even the younger tributes. Everyone saw what happened to the boy and sat motionless. They had truly made an example out of him. Everyone had lost their appetite after the hour of ‘stabbing other children’. My blade had been taken away to be washed but I never wanted to see it again. I wanted to escape.

That night was the worst I had spent in my whole life. The thought of having to kill, to murder, would that make me a criminal? A sinner? Or most of all, would the make me a bad person?

#Max

the america bit isnt a question from me btw, just slowing down pace a bit. And men in white can = ‘peacekeepers’ or doctors, so we can use that somehow.

‘This is not the hunger games anyone expects… No one goes home… No one survives.’ The young boy’s words replayed in my head over and over that night. The hunger games was a novel idea – but a wretched one, I’ll give you that. Still, had this thing happened before?

“Not… anyone… expects,” I muttered restively. And a child inside of a sack, probably unable to breathe, was beaten the day after he told us that. It was probably him being tormented; so, was what he said true? I was racked with confusion during the several hours I lay awake, envisaging many possibilities of what could happen.

When I woke up, I was pondering and wondering about whether this kind of thing would have been allowed back when Amer-Ameri-American (is that how you spell it?) was still a thing. The teachers at school don’t talk about it much, apart from saying this one phrase: “you better work hard or your life will go down like Americap did” – and they still say it. Except it’s very likely Americap wasn’t what they called it.

That morning, I was greeted with a terrifically monstrous sight: a man in white was holding a sagging sack, with some more white men behind him. Then the boy’s limp body tumbled out. Nobody could even express an “ugh” or anything. We all ate our breakfast in silence. Once again. The piteous body was left on the ground. As if it was his grave but he wasn’t buried. Elenco appeared, pushing the men to the side, grinned menacingly and booted the corpse. Nobody dared to gasp.

“You see this?” he muttered harshly. “YOU SEE THIS? DON’T EVEN TRY TO BETRAY US!” I would’ve jumped onto the moon, but barely managed to hold my irate and surprised faculties together. “Another piece of scum…” I leapt up, glaring at him.

#Clara

“Scum is only one of the many words to call your kind…” I muttered whilst staring menacingly at the floor deciding whether to rebel or keep quiet.

“WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME BOY? ANSWER ME!” The clown bellowed, “YOU DARE TALK BACK TO ME?”

I clenched my fists and inhaled heavily through my nose:

“I said.. I said…” my daft self answered back, “ I SAID, your kind is what we call scum!”

He started snickering then it came to an end…

I stared down at my companions and nodded my head, Ava clenched her cheeks, hid her top lip and lowered her eyebrows which told us: “Really? Against them?”

All [apart from Riya] of us were stood up now, I took a swift glance behind me to see my comrades stood firmly behind me with signs of fear but still loyal.

“So now all of you want to be punished to death?” he threatened, “ you know, I actually liked you guys it’s a shame you actually had a chance, pitiful, PEACEKEEPERS! TAKE THEM.”

At the last moment our mentor stepped in- hopefully not a drunken hobo as of our first impression of him.

“Hey, hey settle down Mark lets save the killing for later okay?” he acknowledged whilst tilting his head and reaching out his hands. Mark Elenco started turning red and then abruptly gave in “UGH FINE, but remember this: I will not have mercy on you in the games, REMEMBER THAT SCUMS”

“Well that was heated” Theo said.

#Max

He stormed out of the room with a malevolent look in his eyes, almost fully confirming that he wouldn’t have any mercy on us. Someone started trembling like a fire in a forest before bursting out that apparently the hunger games officially started tomorrow.

“But I was told that we were going into the arena they’ve prepared in a couple more days!” someone else cried out incredulously.

“I was told it starts this afternoon!” another person stated. I was confused – were the organizers trying to make us panic and less prepared or something? Well, if that was their goal, they definitely achieved it; even the spoilt and “tough” ones from districts one, two and four were utterly bemused – although them being buffoons could also be a factor. As everyone was too confused to bother to be some sort of secret person, I took my first proper inspection of them in person. Most of them were particularly muscular but didn’t seem to be very cunning, except one girl from district 3 (I think) who seemed to be grinning at something she thought of. ‘In a team of six that would be very helpful to them,’ I thought nervously.

It was later that afternoon that we were told how this would all work.

“No, it doesn’t start today, but we will tell you when it starts a day before,” Mark Elenco had to furiously remind some of us repeatedly. “Nor do we have confirmation that it will tomorrow, or in a couple days’ time. Gosh, how I look forward to making your lives hell,” he muttered, although there was something in his expression that made it seem like he was a child who’d been denied ice cream. Or he’d had his arm twisted. Was he not allowed to torture us so much in the arena? I just crossed my fingers and hoped that that was it.

#Clara

We were all wide awake in our mentor’s room debating on whether to collect info off of Mark or just to endure hell’s surprise.

“What were you thinking James?” He bellowed, “You could’ve caused great harm to not only your team [including Riya], but your chances of surviving in the actual hunger games.”

He manifestly shook his head and rolled his eyes at me andthen told us to get some rest. That night I had the same lucid dream that I had always had since we came here:

Fire, lots of fire. Like the chamber of hell had emerged from the depths of the Earth.

Mark Elenco’s malevolent face with chaos shinig in his eyes. All of the “tributes” with weapons, every one of them falling to the dangers of Mark Elenco; peacekeepers rushing in with tazers and axes and until I saw myself… dead.

I awoke from the consistent nightmare to find Mark standing next to my bed with a demonic smile reaching insidiously aross his face.

“Why hello there James, if you don’t mind im just going to take you into my lab.”

He paused for a second before knocking me out with a metal bottle and calling for the peacekeepers.

“Why… why… are you… doing this?” I asked wearily.

“Aww well James you see-” he took a pause and then concluded with: “Well, you just wait and see, son.”

#Max

“Aww well James you see” you have embarrassed me and now you will die is probably what he would have said. Even if that wasn’t it, I still didn’t trust him.

“No. What is it?” I span out of his grasp.

“Scum… you dare oppose me once again?” he shook his hand violently, probably for dramatic effect while I was being watched or broadcasted and not told.

“So… tell me, is it an interview, you doing something to me or what?” I enquired of him, disregarding my mentor’s scolding of me. Despite that, I still thought about what he suggested when I told everyone else what I’d done: ‘we should collect information off Mark.’ It seemed like it was only my life which would become hell; the threat was probably to simply frighten everyone else and make things go his way or something like that.

“You don’t need to know…” he muttered.

“Xavier! C-”

“Alright, alright, I’ll tell you. It’s basically going to help you-”

“XAVIER! I NEE-”

“Why. Won’t. You. SHUT UP?” Mark yelled at me; I thought it was obvious that he was doing something else, so I made a break for Xavier room. Xavier and our mentor (who had become blackout drunk the day before, so waking him up wouldn’t be an option) seemed like the only people I could trust, apart from my “squad”, but dragging them into this probably wasn’t a good idea either. Well, I mean, Xavier wasn’t that reliable but what other choice did I have?

“XAVIERRRRRRRRRRRR! ELENCO’S TRYING TO DO SOMETHING AND I NEED YOU TO-”  I was interrupted by the phrase ‘get over here’. I briefly turned around. I was pinioned to the ground. Elenco was panting heavily.

“Forgot… to… tell… you… that…” he paused menacingly. “Xavier isn’t here.” Surely he was bluffing.

#Clara

Mark started snickering, cackling and trying to catch his breath almost weirdly at the same time.

“Xavier isn’t here,” He started to slowly uncover his glistening white pearls and inflated his chest and then deflated it, going back and forth in a laughing sort of impression except no sound was made, “No one to save you, no one to run to, you’re stuck here whether you like it or not.”

“What did you do to him… WHAT DID YOU DO!?”

“Well, I think that soon enough you’ll find out the answer to your ignorant question.”

I started breathing heavily and forced Mark off of me, he crashed into the metal frame of my bed, letting out a blood curdling screech; it sounded like a pterodactyl being impaled. Theo came barging into my room to witness Mark [the one we don’t want to anger] bleeding from his back.

“James! What’s going on here?” said Theo with a sense that he didn’t actually want to know.

“We… err… we were just… umm-”

“Cut the slack Elenco, what are you really going to do to us apart from making us fight to the death, where’s your fun in that?”

He started ‘laughing’ menacingly, it was like a hyena’s laugh, a hyena from hell.

#Max

Wdym by “[the one we don’t want to anger]”?

ㅤ“Well? Spit it out,” Theo glared at him. We needed as much information as possible – unless he was misleading us, then our entire team would need to gather information ourselves. But how could we tell whether whatever he said was true or not?

ㅤ“Oh no… I’m cornered by two twelve-year-olds or something… whatever shall I do… guess I’ll just-” Mark started.

ㅤ“Hurry up,” Theo snarled, vexed at how mocking Mark was being.

ㅤ“I’m getting to it,” Mark smirked at him, “except that you shouldn’t be rushing me like that, honey; [I’ll admit, I gagged a bit at that part] what would all your lovely helpers think of you two forcing me to give answers?” I postulated a bit on what the smug Elenco had just stated: what did he mean by ‘helpers?’ As far as I knew, we were on our own, apart from our team and mentors. Were there more people on our team who we didn’t know about? Elenco was conspicuously revelling in my confusion – and Theo’s too, it seemed. Then again, they might not exist.

ㅤ“How do we know that there are these ‘helpers,’ as you call it?” I enquired of him.

ㅤ“Well, what reason do I have to lie in the last few weeks of your life?” he responded; we still have a few weeks of training? Seemed like absolutely everything he said had to be taken with a massive grain of salt. Besides, perhaps I did have a chance in the Hunger Games; I’d be able to see my family again. I clung onto that thought throughout this whole event.

ㅤ“Anything else you want to say?” I blurted out daftly. Mark raised his eyebrow.

ㅤ“Does it look like it?”

ㅤㅤI left the room feeling miserable – I had ruined the whole thing, we could perhaps have used some more data, whether false or not. Along the way, I met Xavier.

ㅤ“Oh, so Mark was lying…” I muttered.

ㅤ“About what?” Xavier asked somewhat imperatively.

ㅤ“About you being here then threatening us with something about helpers…”

ㅤ“He told you about the sponsors?”

ㅤ“Sponsors?” I gaped at him. Well it seemed at least that part was true.

ㅤ“I’ll explain to you in a bit,” he replied, snickering a bit. “I’m a bit busy at the moment.” He left me, wondering what on earth would happen once more.

#Clara

I tossed and turned in my sheets and what cruelty and naïve excuse of a bed they gave us, and then I remembered it was only minute hours away from the hunger games, now turning into minutes to mere seconds. I couldn’t sleep just all the words of Mark Elenco whirling around my head: Sacrificia. The small boy taken away from the ‘peace-keepers’: THEY’RE GOING TO KILL US ALL, THIS IS NOT THE HUNGER GAMES ANYONE EXPECTS. NO ONE GOES HOME, NO ONE SURVIVES.

I was a battle ground of fear and curiosity, in my own dream or what you would call a living nightmare. The reason for this, my dream was that I was in the hunger games, constant fear, constant screams; death lurked around every corner of the forest hunting down it’s next victim tearing poor children apart and cutting them off one at a time. The forest was Hell… literally. Fire was burning, children were screaming and nothing was calm there. I kept on hearing voices whispering lightly in my head, until they got louder and louder and louder to the point I couldn’t hear myself think. Awoken by a horn, I was greeted by all the tributes looking both anxious and petrified.

“What’s going on? Is there something wrong?” I asked.

“James.. we don’t know how to tell you this but uhm.. Riya hasn’t shown up, on the day of the hunger games.”

I swiftly arose from my bed and looked Theo dead in the eyes:

“What… did… you… say…?”

They repeated and I was exasperated.

“All of you listen here, I am your captain, and we will rebel against these demons.. DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID?” I exclaimed.

“YES CAPTAIN!” They all cheered.

“For Riya” I stated.

“For Riya.” They copied.

#Max

ㅤㅤSuddenly, Elenco burst in through the door to our dormitory, accompanied by an armed peacekeeper who was dragging a Riya. Scanning her face and body, I couldn’t find much difference, unless you count a rounder belly. I suppose that that would be useful if we were starved or something; especially with six mouths to feed. Only then did I gasp awkwardly, later than everyone else.

ㅤ“So… what did you all agree to?” he whispered ominously. He made a hand gesture behind his back, which we found out was to order the peacekeeper to jam a gun into Riya’s neck. As she stumbled forward, I noticed her hands tied behind her back by invisible rope or some late extravagant technology for only the rich’s convenience. “A rebellion, eh? Well guess what – shut it down now or she goes.” It didn’t even sound like an exclamation. Just a statement. A very calm statement. ‘He really doesn’t care about whether we die or not, does he?’ I thought, dumbfounded, and wondering whether he’d just been listening to our conversation ever since he’d taken Riya and… fed her?

ㅤ“Alright, you win,” I replied stoically.

ㅤ“Oh, and it’s the so-called leader who’s talking back,” he teased me. “Well, know this: one more sign of this returning and you all [he held the side of his hand up to the right of his neck]. Understood?” his voice thundered throughout the dormitory as he uttered the last word.

ㅤ“Understood…” we all chanted like schoolchildren greeting a teacher together.

ㅤ“Good.” With that, the peacekeeper thrust Riya back at us, turned around with Mark and faced Xavier.

ㅤ“So… what were you doing?” Xavier now asked Elenco, before striding away with him, Elenco babbling away to defend himself. Ironic.

(starting again)

for anyone reading Max and Lawrence are now writing as ‘Luke’ and Clara and Emily are writing as ‘Katherine’

#Max

ㅤㅤI, Luke, woke up to many children yelling and crying. It generally wasn’t uncommon when mine ‘accidents’ happened here, in district twelve, except today was the day of the first-ever Hunger Games. My younger sister, Holly, was one of those bawling her eyes out, but I couldn’t blame her – I was exceptionally nervous myself. I spent the rest of that morning complimenting and trying to soothe Holly, telling her that there was nothing to worry about as the hypocrite I was.

ㅤㅤEventually, the morning shifted into the afternoon and I started getting me and Holly ready for the event. We weren’t exactly the richest of people, but I did manage to fish out a plain white shirt that wasn’t that threadbare, as well as a fancy dress for my sister. Judging by the sun’s position, the “reaping” was due to start in a couple of hours. About a week before, it’d been briefly explained by President Champ (although that probably wasn’t his actual name) that the reaping was going to pick two contenders – one boy and one girl – from a container with all the possible contestants’ names.to compete in the Hunger Games, a battle to the death for money, unlimited bread and a golden house. However, only people from twelve to eighteen had to participate, with at least one entry. Every entry granted a family extra bread for a year. Just bread. Nothing else. Not even oil, electricity or even grain. Helpful.

ㅤㅤLying in bed for hours, unable to fall asleep, I waited until the time came. On my way downstairs, I met my mother and father, who were both giving me a slight smile before both squeezing me with an “I love you very much, just know that” from my mother and a simple “good luck” from my father. I gave a watery smile back, stated my farewells (the reaping would be broadcasted on television and everybody was forced to watch it) and started going towards the district square with my dear sibling. My luck in the next hour could either change my life forever or save me for a year from probable death.

#Clara

I, Katherine, stood awake in the blinding darkness and deafening silence (that was partly NOT true) part of this was caused by the screaming and crying and consoling of parents and children; “It’s going to be ok darling” for example or “Mummy I don’t want to go!” and they would eventually bawl their eyes out and dawdle towards the reaping. I however was not that all too worried, my thought process was made up of only little, rusty, run-down cogs trying to churn and turn the sense into my rotting brain. My thought process was-well-a little far off when calculating: “There are hundreds of names in there, I can’t possibly be picked, it’s more or less impossible!”

I wish I had gone through that a bit better…

The hunger games’ presence had almost arrived, to obliterate the souls of the unfortunate. It was a game of death or maybe if you’re lucky, life. Satan juggles the die, your die in the perilous hunger games, it is the Satan’s luck, not yours. All I could think about was the perpetual (in me and my family’s eyes) load of bread and a golden house- just… wow, it was everything a mere peasant in this district could ask for. Hours turned into minutes and minutes turned into scanty seconds. My parents hugged me good luck and squeezed the carp gliding through my intestines, to bolting through the depths of my intestines.

Wandering through the dusty streets of district 12, I finally caught a large glimpse of a gathering of people, if not, skeletons. They all had pale skin and barely any fat hiding amongst them, the wind slapped against their bones, but they dared not to flinch.

A gangling woman trotted onto stage and, by all means, she had at least a kilogram of makeup piled on top of her. It was almost guaranteed that you wouldn’t recognize her one bit if she took that horror off of her face. She had a bright pink blush that clashed surprisingly-not so surprising actually-with the white foundation that smudged onto her hair, yes, she looked like a clown. A squeaky voice fanned away my thoughts immediately and announced the first annual hunger games.

“Welcome, welcome children, to the first annual hunger games! Exciting right?” The crowd stayed silent, only apprehensive looks comforted the silence.

“My name is Terry Winkley, and I will be your host for this year’s hunger games!”

#Emily

Silence answered.

The intensity thickened the atmosphere, so seemingly thick that a knife could cut through it – that is, if someone dared to move even a muscle among the muted flock of absolutely petrified children. My age of sixteen fixed my tight spot (which was half-occupied by others) nearer the front of the horde, while the younger ones were cowering helplessly at the back, subtly staying as far from the podium where the unnaturally tinted lady towered as they possibly could.

“Come on, at least give a cheer would you?” boomed the so-called ‘Terry Winkley’ (this common name did not suit her abnormal appearance, in fact, it strayed as far from it as it could).

A heartless and scattered ‘whoo’ spread around the square of District 12 before abruptly halting, stopping as quickly as it started.

“Thank you, thank you,” the now discouraged woman muttered into her microphone, quieter than before, and although I couldn’t see any apparent reason for her to be thanking us, the sound of her voice carried itself out to us, as clear as the azure sky above us.

“‘Suppose I’ll give you inexperienced youngsters a rundown on the rules,” Here, Terry paused, as if she was purposely flooding more tension in the mix before continuing, “of what we are going to do, and – most of you know about this already – the Hunger Games.”

I flinched, trying to disguise it as a soundless cough, but gave up as a few others mimicked exactly what I did, without glancing my way, or even realizing that I existed.

“The Capitol demands for two a boy and a girl – they will be chosen soon right here from these two bowls – ” she gestured towards a pair of identically extremely evil-looking bowls, “and they will battle with twenty-two others from the foreign districts in the Capitol’s arena. Every one of you will at least have your name once in this bowl but that would mean there are thousands of slips in here. Nothing to worry about!”

I surveyed her face, which was near impossible from the makeup she wore, but could see her lips twitching up at the sides. So it was amusing now, huh. Not sure about that.

#Lawrence

It was difficult enough already to not rush onto the platform in a rage and strangle the jester where she stood, but there was nothing we could do. The peacekeeper uniforms made in District eight were of a strange plastic-y fabric that was self-healing, assuming anyone could possibly break through the tough suits. It would be suicidal to even step out of line by the width of a fingernail, we would be flogged until the floor was stained red, then killed. If that wasn’t bad enough, we could even possibly end up like district thirteen, a radiated wasteland, covered in mountains of debris. The Capitol has enough power to destroy all 12 districts if they wanted in less than 3 minutes, and a small rebellion would be more than sufficient of a reason to do so. As I was enjoying a daydream about (surprise, surprise) beating the caviar out of ‘oh missus Terry Winkley’, a Peacekeeper slapped me across the back of my head and violently gave a gesture toward the dancing clown. I wanted to slap him back, so hard the very flesh on his cheek would peel off the bone, and all the teeth on that side of his face would go flying through the air, but the deathly glare burning through my face told me otherwise.

When I looked up, The ‘oh missus Terry Winkley'(aka Stupid Makeup Woman) was circling her hand over the boy’s bowl, the hand was a pair of fangs, waiting to attack, catch, and kill its prey. The little pieces of paper seemed to be shrinking away from that horrible, oily, glove. Even though it obviously wouldn’t help in the slightest, I felt the need to shrink away from her. The prospect of a Stupid Makeup Woman waving her hands around in a bowl full of pieces of paper scared me much more than it should have. The time came. The tiny fingers snatched a piece of paper, ripping it from the bowl. I was finding it hard to breathe. A cold sweat began to develop on my skin. She began to peel the piece of tape off, the fate of me and my life lay in her hands, helpless. I was shivering from the fear, I was drowning in the fear. She began to unfold the piece of paper, the story of my life unfolding, fate could save me for a year, or cast me into the pit of forgotten things, it all depended on what was on the paper. I nearly cried, it was too much, my sanity was cracking. “Luke…” I shattered. That was my first name. “Ho…” My surname was Hope. How ironic, since there really was none left. Time stopped, so this is what my destiny was to be.

“pe.”

#Max

ㅤㅤI didn’t dare move; of course, it had to be me, of course, it did. Out of the thousands of slips, there were at most five containing my name. At least it wasn’t Holly (although I could imagine her hollering in the crowd another time, amongst the many sighs of relief): sending her into the hunger games would practically be letting her commit suicide. I felt a gun jabbed in my back, as I stumbled forward into the open. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of pairs of eyes drove into my back, which was spotlighted by the golden goddess. ‘Thanks, sun,’ I thought bitterly, before traipsing up the stairs reluctantly. A peacekeeper suddenly appeared by my side and started dragging me to the centre of the stage – because “I was being too slow”, apparently.

ㅤ“And our second brave contestant,” Terry’s voice thundered, pausing every word for – now – ineffective dramatic effect, while I was fuming about how she was calling the one person with awful luck ‘brave’, “will be… Katherine, um, without a surname?” I wanted to slap my forehead, but it turned out there was only one Katherine, who stepped forward with a despairing expression upon her face. The seemingly small crowd (from where I was, at least) erupted with sighs and was buried under everyone’s left hand showing three fingers towards Katherine and me. We made the same salute in response as Terry cleared her throat and announced that the rules would be announced within a day. Great: I didn’t even know how I would die. More paranoia about that then, I guess. Sighing, I was led away by a peacekeeper with Katherine, Terry trailing behind, unable to even say my final goodbyes to my family. I hope they just know how much I’ll miss them…

#Clara

The peacekeepers were surprisingly strong, which I don’t blame them for as it actually could be quite useful for small, despairing children fighting the men in white trying to get back to their families, cruelty in the Capitol’s form. I was trying to walk alongside the giant but he was almost dragging me by my arm across the cold, dusty, dilapidated brick floor. Now, I had to keep in mind that this as the first hunger games and I had no idea or an outline of what was going to happen, it was just the capitol’s form of ‘entertainment’ . I could only think of my family, especially my mother, she cared and loved for me with all the adoration and love that could hold in her heart, it was all the love you could’ve ever needed as a no one in district 12.

“Luke Hope…” I thought, “Sounds trusting.”

I always thought I was quite a strong girl but, as I say that, I start to feel glass conceal my eyes, cloudy glass and then sniffles started to join the party. Luke stared back at me giving me a look of: It’ll be ok, we can do it. I heard screaming behind me it sounded awfully like my mum.

“NO! You can’t take her!” she bellowed, “No stop!” her throat had to have been torn apart by now, I saw her fighting through the crowd, her face red with adamance. I could’ve sworn in this next moment, I would never be able to erase the memory, nor could I forgive the peacekeepers. A thick baton crossed paths with her head and immediately she was on the hard floor and no mercy conflicted with the- so called- peacekeepers, they kicked and whipped her until she was only so close to falling into the bony hands of the reaper.

“MUM!” I shouted wishing I had never been alive, “No…. mum.” I couldn’t do anything at this point, I had to win this, for my mum. Luke stared in shock at me and the peacekeepers and mouthed “I’m sorry”, I couldn’t say anything, I was numb, I was falling into a dark abyss with no hope to be found or discovered. I just stared in a pool of tears and nothing else could be felt. Both of us were greeted with a (no longer sore and bruised arm from the devilish grip of the peacekeeper) large, luxurious train, it was beautiful.

#Emily

The revolting thought of the burly peacekeepers harming my mother haunted me the whole process of entering the glamorous train with Luke, and leave my mind it did not, could not, or would not. 

Stupid Hunger Games. Stupid rules. Stupid names. Stupid peacekeepers. Stupid Capitol. These words shifted into a chant in my spinning head, leaving poor old me in a daze so effective that I had an urge to just sit down somewhere – anywhere – to recollect my thoughts and piece them back. Unfortunately, I couldn’t, due to some tribute jobs that I had to take care of, including taking my body measurements and settling in my apartment. 

Soon, I was told sometime after, I was to be introduced to my opponents, adviser and trainers. Only then, when the said time came, was the worry shoved out and replaced by names; names that passed in and out of my ears so rapidly and gracefully that it could represent my young cat, Des, leaping and sprinting playfully, role-playing as the mighty king of the household (with the contents of 5 people: me, my beloved mother and three sisters, Penelope, Jill, and Bella).

“I’m Derek, and is this Katherine?” A low voice, tinged with an Asian accent, registered by my brainless, well, brain, stopped my ongoing flood of flashbacks and stole my attention.

“Yes, I, uh, am Katherine, and h…hello Derek,” a meek reply, or was it a question? escaped from my lips, my voice working in short bursts.

“From District 12, I believe?” His expression was focused and had a hint of amusement, and, staring questioningly and intently at me with seemingly no intention to glance any other attention, added, “I’m from District 2. Tribute.”

Well, that explains a lot, his healthy body shape; pink, unfaltering glow on his chiseled face, and clean clothes. The reason behind this was, unsurprisingly, some districts had better luck and friendship with the Capitol, and so had better care and businesses than other districts. Our district, District 12, was one of the poorer districts and so as a result, had not as much of a supply of nurses or funds. Opening my mouth to squeeze out a reply, I was interrupted by a booming voice:

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome, welcome. Thanks for joining us here today. First, let’s have a feast, shall we?” 

I smiled. I could do with some food. As I was going to turn to Derek to tell him this, I realized something. He had disappeared from my view. Already. Oh well.

#Lawrence

I didn’t know whether I enjoyed the food or not, it was the best I had ever tasted, but that was what my tongue was telling me. I couldn’t really relax, but it might have been the mouth-party that was going on in my mouth. I had hardly ever eaten anything other than bread and the only other thing was the special ‘margarine birthday bread’ I had every other birthday. There has been this myth passes down for all the time Panem existed that long, long, long ago, the world was much larger, more than 15 times larger than the whole of Panem. None of us can imagine that. They say that the whole world was incredibly rich, huge companies sold cars, so shiny you needed sunglasses to look at it, some had hundreds of these. Some could afford huge mansions, bigger than a thousand of our shacks stacked together, and have feasts every night. Sometimes, I would lie in bed and dream of the past world. I didn’t have to dream now. It was right in front of me, whole roast turkey, huge fried chicken drumsticks, caviar-stuffed sushi. Everything was completely new. I only knew what it was from the signs by the huge trays and plates, the size of doors and tables. Before me, was a colossal wild boar, the size of a bull, surrounded by stuffed geese. Almost all the dishes were meat-based. It was the first time I had tried meat. I tasted like a bomb of flavor, spicy, salty explosions filling my mouth. After an hour, the meat had somehow been finished. I felt like I was going to explode. I didn’t even have time to talk. It was too good. I thought that was the end of it, but no.

Servants swiftly flooded in, placing trays of blue liquid on the little space between the plates. The little labels on the trays said it would make us feel less full, so that we could eat more. I tried it, and the ‘being less full’ began.

#Clara

I awoke from my beauty sleep only to see the haunting, eerie, sinister ‘smile’ of Derek.

“Rise and shine, young one” Still staring down and directly into my emerald eyes.

“Erm… G… Good M..M… Morning, Derek” I reluctantly said shakily.

He just stood there in silence for a VERY long, awkward moment.

“Right! Well, I best be on my way and… um have a lovely day! Not…” He muttered silently  yet I could still vaguely hear him. That was awkward, what to do now?  These words shifted around my head like a merry-go-round on its highest speed, only to abruptly stop and form a mental labyrinth for me to go through. What happened last night? This question was the minotaur chasing me to fulfil its hunger and never to rest. Until at this moment, it had caught up to me, these words cutting through me, thicker than a knife.

I traced back in my memories and remembered how I lay awake that night remembering my family, until I heard a creak in the floorboards and immediately after that, thunderous, ear-piercing clanks across the carpet. Then, silence it was the only thing keeping me accompanied, deafening silence. Muffled screams of:

“HELP! SOMEONE PLEASE!”

Wishing I had never done so, I slid open my luxurious door to see a (man?) silhouette of a deformed figure wearing a black gas mask and dragging Luke into his room. This was the scariest moment of my life, a floorboard near me creaked, and the figure immediately twisted his neck almost 180 degrees and pitch-black eyes crushed my soul. I dashed into my bed, praying I wouldn’t be found by this… thing. The door creaked open and the figure insidiously moved closer to me, it leaned down and said:

“I know you’re awake, and there will soon be no escape…” These words chanted inside of me and I figured that they sounded awfully like Derek, and he was leaning over me in the exact same position as the figure. We need to get out of here… It’s not safe

Just as I was heading to my door, Luke slouched on the threshold of my door and asked: “You okay?” I nodded, feigning being comfortable. Luke seemed different, not mentally but physically. He was extremely pale, had bags under his eyes and a small lake of crimson liquid flowing down the side of his head, he must of felt so he quickly sprinted off and just left me in the my labyrinth of thoughts. What did the figure say to him?

#Emily

I couldn’t handle it; the solution I could think of was to go to sleep and to catch up on some rest… except I couldn’t. Not after Luke had been terrorized and Derek somehow slipped into my room, so I just sat there, my body as bored as ever, my brain as confused as ever, and I, as useless as ever.

Sometime later (my self couldn’t agree on how long), a sharp knock sounded at the door, just as the millions of golden arrows shot through the locked window (looks like the idiotic Capitol people actually thought of the tributes trying to escape). Precisely three seconds of silence after the tapping at the door, an echo from nowhere sounded: “WAKE UP WE ARE LEAVING THE TRAIN IN A HUNDRED AND TWENTY MINUTES!”

The rowdy echo repeated over and over again until I finally realized that I was meant to wake up because we were leaving the train in a hundred and twenty minutes. Obviously, if my instincts were this slow, I’d be killed before the Hunger Games even commenced. Well actually that wasn’t possible since it was a crime to harm a tribute before the games started so I suppose that couldn’t be a valid theory and anyways-

“OI! KATHERINE! MOVE IT!” 

Oh yes. 

I wiped my face with the towel, which was as soft as a rose petal, leaped out of the prison cell, and right away was captured again by a few peacekeepers, who roughly guided me to the luxurious but not spacious lobby and grunted every time I made a sudden movement that could mean I was trying to escape; I had already dismissed the thought of trying to break out earlier since I knew it was an impossibly high risk. A stout man (who disturbingly resembled my school teacher) stood in the middle of the room and opened his mouth to say, “Welcome. My name is Geran Jeran. We will now depart the train since we have arrived at the training center. Please keep between the peacekeepers when stepping off and entering the building since they will escort you there. Thank you.”

Us tributes did exactly as he commanded us to do and soon enough, we were in a cozy room with a dozen people perched on chairs staring at us all. Geran Jeran must’ve sensed our confusion as he hastily stated, “These are your mentors. They will be guiding you through the process of preparing for the Games, especially training.”

Hopefully, District 12’s mentor was good-natured. Spoiler: she was not.

#Lawrence

She stood out like a sore thumb, wait, no.

She stood out like a bloodhound in a group of labradoodle puppies. The second I entered, I noticed her, and I’m pretty sure everyone else did too. And I thought the other mentors looked bad enough. With the glares they shot at us, it was hard not to flinch and retreat a few steps. The amount of fear a single look could create was frightening, and that was for the kindest-looking mentor. Not saying any of the mentors even looked halfway to the same dimension as ‘acceptable’

Now back to that female dragon. The second we came in, she was already wondering which of us we should eat first. A girl that looked to be the youngest began to wail, screeching about how she wanted to go home. The tears came out like a fountain, but not for long. A peacekeeper took out a bag, and another hauled the girl over his shoulder before dumping the girl in. After being satisfied with the knot, he opened a solid metal door behind him and lobbed the writhing heap in before closing the door and locking it.

This action scared what was left of that excessive feast out of another girl and a horrible smell filled the room. ‘Geran Jeran’ took out a tiny glass bottle from his pocket and sprayed it once, before continuing. “Your mentor will be responsible for your training for the Hunger Games and will be overseeing your progress over the next three months. They have organized your timetables which will be on the doors of your rooms. you will all be expected to memorize it by tonight, and training starts tomorrow. Your mentors will escort you into your dorms shortly, any questions?”

The last question was asked in almost a sarcastic way, like he was trying to say ‘the only reason I’m here is that I’m being paid to say this so you better not waste my time or else’ as if he was daring us to speak. We all got the message. I was looking at a young man who seemed to be the least petrifying, but immediately turn when I saw the dragon approaching. I was going to ask what I had done wrong when I realized she was my mentor.

#Max

                The next day, training started immediately; our mentor (in her “brief introduction”, I was already heavily rebuked for asking what her name was and told we must address her as “ma’am” or “madam” at all times) led us to a centre – somewhere in this gargantuan Capitol hotel, or whatever place we were staying in. It seemed to simply be a centre, first created with no intention of becoming the dank, miserable place it was. All the other districts’ tributes were filing in, some of the brawnier tributes with smirks smeared on their smug faces. Somebody from the Capitol stood on a pedestal which was lifted above us, whilst they cleared their throat and started addressing everyone from a microphone she had produced from behind her back.

“Welcome to the training centre,” she simply smiled, seeming to indicate coyness but there was something vicious about her tone, nevertheless. “Very soon, only one or two of you will be alive, but if there are two of you, the only possibility of you both winning will be whether you’re from the same district or not. You are forbidden to fight with the other tributes before the hunger games officially start. [I wondered whether she had a memorised a script for her – her monotone voice made her seem like a zombie spouting random nonsense]. Most of you will die of natural causes – mainly infection and dehydration, so don’t be so quick to grab a weapon without supplies. Good luck.” With that, she ambled off inside some hidden passageway above us and disappeared, only the sound of footsteps as evidence of her being here.

I took in my surroundings (it seemed to have transformed as I paid attention – at least, let’s say I did – to the monologue: now, there were two stations like at some sort of holiday activity camp, except now they each had a hologram above them showing “COMPULSORY, HUNTING” and “COMPULSORY, SURVIVAL”. It didn’t seem likely that they could teach these things, but it turned out that they were tests of our skills; a group of Capitol members and gamekeepers were unveiled from behind a black curtain, casually lounging in some chairs, nearby a roast turkey and more food. Great. More pressure was exactly what I needed.

#Clara

Shuffles pranced around the room and an evil, smug face stood firm in front of the crowd of unfortunate people.

“Hello! Of course, you should know me, and if you don’t… Where have you been all this time?! I am Tyro, the greatest warrior to see the face of the Earth.”

“Erm, I think it’s supposed to be: ‘To walk the face of Earth’.”

“SHUT UP, SCUM! YOU DON’T GET TO TALK, I’M COMING AFTER YOU FIRST, I’LL RIP YOU APART, I’LL RIP ALL OF YOU APART!”

He started scanning the crowd of meek mice and scowling at every single one of us, until I, Katherine, unpredictably scowled back. Tyro’s eyes ignited with the fires from hell and powered through the crowd, trampling everyone. He grabbed onto the front of my shirt and almost lifted me up totally from the ground.

“You’re gonna regret that, brat.” He muttered, lowered his head and stared up at me with his squinting eyes. He spat at me and jumped back onto his ‘stage’.

“All of you are dead, I’m telling you that… DEAD!”

The whole crowd flinched and stared at Tyro in terror as he stumbled out of the room. I stared anxiously at Luke, I couldn’t say anything, I was paralyzed, the whole room was. Reluctantly, I waddled over to the bow and arrow and nodded at Luke, he came up and picked up the large sword, smiled at the crowd and consoled them:

“Don’t worry, he’s not, erm, that strong.” He started, I quickly gestured for him to stop.

“There’s many of us and one of him, train like your, um, life, erm, depends on it?” He again (definitely) failed to console the small children. I sucked in my lips, lifted up my eyelids more and slowly craned my neck at him and shook my head.

“Everyone! Just don’t worry about him and let’s get to training!”

Training had begun.

#Emily

To be honest, I would consider myself adequately athletic, but that was compared to my classmates in sprinting and archery; I was pretty sure I had no chance of surviving in that arena with all these muscular teenagers. It was one of those things that seem more daunting the closer you inspect – gradually your hope and confidence melts from your slim-to-naught chance of victory. ‘May the odds be ever in your favour’ they’d say. And my odds? Barely have any.

Turns out there are different stations where you work on your skills; it also turns out that I’m terrible at everything, especially when you put me next to someone from those richer districts, who’d spend half their time flexing their muscles in plain sight of their mentors. Luke, on the other hand, was doing fine, comprehending everything perfectly and his body obeying his commands – something my own muscles could not seem to understand.

I’m certain that Snaik-Blud (aptly named for our mentor) would love to whack me with her electric cane for my poor performances, but it can’t be that bad since I’m sure I would’ve won a golden buzzer or something on America’s Got Talent with these skills.

After visiting half of hell, I finally seemed worthy of something! Guess what it was: Rope knotting. All those knitting and crafting at home seemed to have paid off, but to what? Rope knotting? I mean, why not have a useful skill? As I silently filed a complaint to myself, of all people, Derek came rushing in, an occupied expression fixed on his pale face, fumbled on some rough ropes, gave up, and darted away, without facing me at all. I suppose that was a good thing, so I’m not mad, but still, what was that person thinking about?

#Max

“What was that about?” I scurried over and asked Katherine, bemused. “That boy just came in and panicked with the ropes or something.”

“Not sure,” my companion replied, “but he’s called Derek, and he’s from district two.”

“District two, huh…” I mused. “Peacekeepers are trained there, right?” Replied to with a nod. “Maybe the Capitol are plo-”

“OI!” I heard some ‘fancy’ voice boom at us, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING LOITERING OVER THERE?” We both knew better than to reply, so we apologised and continued knotting ropes. What use could this even have? I mean, sure, dying from natural causes sounded reasonable, but would making knots be any help? Turns out Katherine was much better at it than me, though, so hopefully it would come in handy.

Lunchtime arrived, with it some simple sandwiches and an inviting hard, cold marble floor to sit on. Honestly, I was becoming sick of all the rich food every day and was about to tuck in before I realised that Derek was missing. Nobody else seemed to notice him, apart from one girl – possibly his district partner, except she didn’t seem to be brawny or anything anyone would expect from districts one, two and four’s tributes. For the rest of that lunch, I sat, pondering and wondering about what had happened to Derek – Katherine also seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, although she might have just been thinking about the training. Awkwardly, the last five minutes were completely silent, so I decided to try and make some small talk to make a possibility of some allies, before Derek crashed through the doors and landed on the floor, prostrate, with a bleeding nose (although that was probably from the impact). What had happened to him?

#Emily

The chatter immediately ceased. A few peacekeepers – four in total – sprung into action and harshly grabbed him by the arms; understandably, he didn’t bother to struggle against them. After Derek was dragged away, a wave of questions swept into not only mine, but Luke’s mind, which did not enlighten my day, or probably anyone’s, in fact. The wall of silence had already shattered, and as I glanced around the rowdy room, a short, chestnut-colour haired girl sitting slumped alone caught my attention. I squeezed out a smile but she didn’t move. Instead, she just continued this staring contest-like thing. Instinctively, I picked up my fancy tray of nauseating food, and stepped towards her basically empty table, not breaking my gaze when doing so. I could hear the pat-pat-pat of footsteps behind me, which I guessed to be Luke’s. When I stopped at the girl’s table, she made a puzzled expression and in a low tone asked, “What are you doing? Don’t think that I’m not afraid to report you.”

“It’s fine, Phoebe, it’s fine.” A deep voice spoke.

I started. 

Turns out it wasn’t Luke behind me ( I could just about perceive him busy discussing whatever he was discussing with some other tributes) but Derek instead. Seems like he has been released already. 

“What are you- who- what?” I spluttered, choking on my words.

“Hello, Katherine. Nice to meet you again,” Derek smiled while I composed myself, “If I may ask, why are you here, with your nice little friend left behind?”

I explained that I thought this “Phoebe” was looking at me and Derek replied with an invitation to finish my food with him and the girl, which I accepted on the condition that they let Luke join me as well. With the four of us sat down (I and Luke were next to each other and Phoebe and Derek were facing us), we made our introductions, where I learnt that Phoebe was the girl tribute from District 2 and that Derek was apparently late to lunch because he was lost, although I wasn’t convinced about that last bit. The most interesting bit about the lunchtime, however, was me and Derek’s short conversation about ‘how he was lost’, and that was when I sensed that something was most definitely wrong.

It went like this:

“Hi Derek.” (that was me)

“Hi.” (that was him)

“So why were you late?”

“As I said, I was lost-”

“But why the rush?”

“Well, you know, I was kind of, like, scared ‘cause I didn’t wanna be uh late.”

“What about the map of the building you were given? It’s supposed to be on you at all times.”

“I lost it.” 

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Then what’s that sticking out your pocket?”

“Oh. Oh- bloody hell. Wait until I get my hands on him.”

#Lawrence

There were quite a few stations, but one I was by far the worst at was survival. In the real Hunger Games we would face off in a forest, there would be many bushes covered in berries that could save your life or berries that could kill you from a single touch. What was worst, was that these berries looked exactly the same. For example,  there would be blue berries called guess what, blueberries, and also some other berries called Lapis nightshade that looked EXACTLY THE SAME. The plant had evolved to look like a blueberry bush, and have animals eat the berries and die, so the decomposing bodies would give them most of their nutrients. The roots would come rising up like a Kraken’s tentacles and grab the body and pull it down to feast on, that way any other prey wouldn’t be startled by the dead bodies around the plant. I had to read stuff like this for hours into the night. These couple of sentences are literally a summary of an entire chapter of one of the many books I had to read. He gave us a pair of VR headsets with graphics so good that I could see the individual hairs on my hand. multispeaker headsets accurately simulated the exact direction sound was coming from, and even a thing in front of my nose for smell simulation. We even had to wear these suits so simulate pain, hunger and many other things, and a thing in our mouths to simulate taste. I died every 30 minutes due to getting hungry and choosing the wrong things to eat, drink, dying from wild animals, I even shot myself with an arrow trying to kill a bird. Luckily, Kath was a GOD at suvival. She one hit every threat and chose perfectly which things to eat. She survived the entire time we were at the training station. I asked her how after, but she just shrugged and said “dunno”. If we win it’s probably because of her. Right after, we noticed Derek had once again, disappeared for Dinner.

#Max

As I nibbled onto the glop on my tray we were provided with, I listened to Katherine and Derek’s conversation; something was definitely up with Derek, (which Katherine had probably realised as well). I tried to peep over my tray, but Derek’s lower body was just out of my sight – I was left to simply wonder what could be in his pocket. Was Katherine trying to expose it to me or did she not know what was in Derek’s pocket? Who was “he”? Was Derek bluffing? Derek’s countenance darkened and the interrogation had officially ended. I simply couldn’t swallow another bite of the stuff I had, so I pushed it to the side and thought. Katherine and Phoebe started conversing again to fill in the silence – something about life in district two and twelve or something. I did, however, pick up that some of the citizens in district two were forced to hide things from the public, should they make it onto television or any other way.

Lunch ended, as everyone stood up – yet, Derek remained seated, immersed in whatever he was pondering and wondering about. Peculiarly, he eventually stood up and ambled off, to where he’d come from, bursting through the doors. This time, he was completely unnoticed – even Phoebe was still chatting away with Katherine. Why was Derek going back to the place he’d been fleeing from? My thoughts turned to the trays being sucked into the roof by a probable invisible Capitol invention; unless it was normal for roofs to collect stuff.

“Ok, everyone, you can continue training at the different stations we’ve already had today until all of you finish using them: then we’ll decide whether you get to have a break, or you start tomorrow’s stations,” a gamekeeper announced, smirking nastily. All I could think about was: ‘there are more stations? Help me. Help.’

#Clara

Scurrying over like a pack of deseased rats, Luke and I gathered around our stations and immediately got to work and didn’t dare to get up to mischief. I was almost finished with every station, I had saved the worst until last; climbing, I hopped onto the neon frame and begin pulling myself upwards, to the side and back again in a great endeavour. I could only just hear a faint and very vague conversation only behind me on the other climbing frame.

“Well oh well, look who it is” Tyro mocked.

“My pleasure,” the man said.

“Get lost, Loki,” Tyro’s thick-head told him,” no one wants you and your big brain here.”

Tyro and his puffed-up chest turned around as Loki deviously smirked.

“Y’know Tyro, you shouldn’t be so judgy so quickly, I did know your mum before you.”

Tyro darted his fiery eyes into Loki’s cunning eyes.

“DON’T TALK ABOUT MY MOTHER!”

Tyro threw his colossal arm at Loki, but was barely stopped by a Derek.

“Ah, ah, ah, save it for the games.” He said briefly and winked at Loki, with the same devious smirk.

Tyro started hyperventilating and coul.’t even speak English

“I’LL GET YOU FOR THIS!”

“Oh will you know?” Loki mocked.

I was staring in awe at Loki, wondering how he could stay so calm, ‘I need to learn from him, I need to learn everything about everyone, now’ I thought. Surprisingly, the peacekeeper’s allowed me to go back to my room, where I wrote several facts, strengths and weaknesses about almost every single threat in the Hunger games:

Name: Loki

Distric: 3, Technology

Personality: Strategic, cunning, devious, adroit

Strength: staying calm yet alert in intense moments

Weakness: Unknown

Potential ally or enemy?: Unknown, You do not want to be his enemy!

Name: Tyro

District: 7, Lumber

Personality: Arrogant, babaric, agressive, thick-headed, rash

Strength: Physically strong

Weakness: Easy to agitate and manipulate

Potential ally or enemy?: Enemy!

As I just finished scribbling down Tyro’s profile; Luke wandered in, sweating and panting. Startled, I subconsciously crumpled up the piece of paper and tried to ruffle it under my pillow.

“What’s that, Katherine?” Luke curiously asked.

“Oh it’s you, thank god, I thought you were that dreadful Derek. Come here, look at this.”

To survive this bloodbath, we need allies; it’s up to us to find them.

#Clara

Fortunately, I had a good night’s sleep in this appalling reality and, thankfully, no Derek was to be found. I swiftly recalled my allies list and frantically rummaged under my pillow, the lump in my throat cleared after I had felt the rough, crumpled piece of paper. My companion ruptured my thoughts by giving the exact words of:

“Katherine! It’s interview day, it’s all prepared but… who’s our stylist?”

I entered my thoughts and couldn’t remember if there even was a personal stylist for each district; right on cue, a south-eastern-looking woman who was smothered in foundation and scarlet red lipstick burst through the doors and (I think) took off the hinges of the door and (probably) engraved the dusty walls with the door handles judging by the cracking sounds and the cracks in the walls.

She stood with her arms at both sides of her and her hands in a position as if someone was about to kiss them, she wore large black sunglasses even though it was extremely dim inside our room and a lustrous, glossy, golden robe with a cherry blossom on it.

She inhaled sharply and stared at the room,

“Euh vhat a mess, disgustang.” She spoke in a thick French accent probably just for show.

“And you are?” I asked.

“Ashlie Peacock, your pleasure.” She gave a cold smirk and I repaid her with an inhospitable scowl.

“So, why are you here again?” Luke questioned.

“Why I’m here to design your outfits for the catwalk, you’re lucky to have me, you know I’m quite very famous, won over 30 fashion contests and I have 12 signature collections of my own…”

While she was vaunting over by the door, we both exchanged looks of pity to each other.

“She really does love her own voice, doesn’t she? Oh, I have 10 million signature collections” I mocked.

“Ok very funny Katherine, let’s just hope our outfits will not be made of butterflies or anything that she thinks is stylish.”

“… and I’ve been awarded with 8, 24 karat gold statues of me for best designer in the world. I’m amazing. RIGHT!”

Me and Luke were jolted up in the air 1 metre from her screechy, “posh” and abrupt speech.

“Are you two ready to get fitted? Right, oh yes, I don’t care, now come along.”

She repetitively clapped her hands and gestured us to come with her, in only a split second, we were out of the building and in front of a building clearly labelled as:

The Peacock.

#Max

Upon entering “the Peacock”, Katherine and I were informed that the Peacock herself wouldn’t be showing us our outfits, or ‘patching us up’ for the catwalk. ‘Oh, so now our stylist is also lazy,’ I thought ambivalently – I suppose I didn’t really know how I felt at all. I met the person who would apparently fix me up, as Katherine was taken to another room. Suddenly, while I was facing another direction, the person (who I named Holly, not because she seemed like my dear little sister, at first at least, but because I missed home) plunged a syringe into my arm painlessly, as I heard a metallic ring from inside.

“What did you just do?” I asked dubiously.

“Inserted a tracker so we can see where you are in the arena,” Holly muttered unsettlingly nonchalantly.

“Why not just do it before we go in?” I demanded. “Now I have this weird contraption in my arm that’s going to be disturbing me.”

“We… we didn’t think of that,” Holly seemed either upset or frustrated with me. With my good judgement, I decided to shut my mouth; after all, I wasn’t going to push the Capitol to the end of their tether when they could kill me with no hassle or worry. Apart from that one inconvenience I perhaps caused, Holly seemed rather efficient and made little fuss over me, as I wondered what was happening to Katherine. In a nutshell, Holly respected me, and I respected her as she did whatever she was doing to my body (her hands were too quick for me to observe).

“Thank you for not making my job as much hassle as it would normally be,” Holly beamed at me as if she’d completely forgotten my impertinence at the start. “I believe Ashlie will give you your outfit soon, once Katherine and you are both done.” Ah yes, the peacock again.

{(backup writing for above idk)

#Clara

All about ‘The Peacock’ was the perfume of fresh linen cloth and the fine spray that came as boldly as lavender perfume and cologne. I was dazzled by the fresh, oak wood interior and how sharp all the workers and guests dressed; every inch of their body vaunted: perfection.

“Katherine? Katherine? KATHERINE!” Ashlie screeched, frantically waving her hands in front of my face, “You’re drooling dear, not surprised, I designed this place myself.” I swiftly wiped the drool onto my shoulder and scowled at Ashlie whilst she gave a subtle (not really) flick of her hair.

“Right, I must be off to get you… fixed.” She reluctantly stated, “That’s a generous understatement.” She muttered under her breath. She tapped my shoulder and must have just remembered my drooling, based off of the stuck-up and disgusted expression on her face, she started gagging but just trotted away in her ten-metre high, high heels.

Me and Luke started giggling until we were pulled away into separate rooms. A long yellow measure tape was placed all across my body, but what was the most alarming, was a syringe which was swiftly injected into me. I squinted my eyes at her suspiciously, she must’ve noticed.

“It’s a tracker.” She said swiftly and idly.

She huffed and informed me that Ashlie will give us our outfits in a short moment.

#Max

Suddenly, an alarm sounded. The same voice that had ‘welcomed’ us when we started training spoke again.

“Attention, everyone, Derek, the male tribute from district 2, has gone missing. Please return to your rooms.” Katherine burst out from a nearby room, asking what was going on – apparently, she’d been told we were getting our costumes soon. Well, this did seem like the sort of thing that the Capitol would set up, but were they sentimental enough as to not waste their own precious time preparing for their entertainment?

Upon returning to our mansions of rooms, I watched Snek-Blud (or whatever our mentor’s nickname was) pacing around our room, panic dancing on her face.

“What’s going on?” I ambled down some stairs, watching her clenched fist around something with some sort of weapon with a blade.

“Who are you?” She faced me, the (toy?) kunai touching the bridge of my nose. “Oh it’s you again…” the kunai retreated into her fat fist again.

“Why do you have that?”

“Too many questions.” she waved my question away. “Now, about your first question, I have no clue. And about your second question, you should have no clue. Makes sense?”

“Yes,” I mumbled as if I had any choice of what to respond.” Katherine slammed the door open, and with her came a very similar question to mine (or ‘what is going on’).

Eventually, with all questions still unanswered, the conversations ended, and we all sat on a settee in silence. Hadn’t we been talking to Derek only yesterday? And wouldn’t the Capitol have noticed Derek was missing while we were all being ‘prepared’ for our outfits. Something was up, and I just knew instinctively that the Capitol probably had something to do with this.

#Clara

The fit yet (somehow) fat mentor weaved her greasy sausage finger around her kunai, she opened her mouth to speak, but only a creaking noise from the back of her throat arrived to fill in for her words, me and Luke stared at her, she looked lost, apprehension dawning on her, eyes widening, abrupt and heavy breathing.

The clatter of her kunai broke the deafening silence, nothing was said, the menacing woman inside had broken out of her shell to reveal a scared, lost, whimpering puppy.

She collapsed.

Luke and I exchanged fretting looks and swiftly bent down to help her, after turning her around (in a large effort) we discovered a minute syringe digging into her flesh. We immediately darted are gazes behind us, a shadow, fleeing from the scene.

My immediate instinct was to chase after the culprit, I did exactly that.

Luke was reluctant, indecisive, dancing back and forth on the rickety floorboards, I rolled my eyes and scampered away after the shadow figure. Only mere moments later, a set if swift footsteps followed after me, clack clack clack

I halted to a stop, Luke abruptly headbutting me in the process.

“Where did he go?” I questioned.

“I-have-no-idea.” Luke panted.

Thwack!

Silence…

Darkness…

#Emily

(note: Snek-Blud, District 12’s trainer, is apparently dead now)

“But that can’t be… you’ve got to…”

“Yes, but… it’s not safe… you know who it is…”

“Don’t you dare bring up… no… don’t appreciate…”

“I can tell.”

Voices, voices I knew belonged to Tyro and Loki flooded into my head. Was I in reality yet? I had to be. I pushed down on the hard earth and sat up. Or tried to, at least. My arms were tired and my energy had depleted… or maybe my core strength had weakened… I didn’t know.

My vision unblurred and I took in my surroundings. I was in my room still, but I was alone; the conversation I thought I had heard several seconds ago started melting away, leaving hurriedly as if it would face fatal punishment if it lasted any longer. I lay on the snow-white, marble floor, my eyes trailing the painting of a sea dragon on the ceiling, grasping onto the last fragments of the words heard in my unconsciousness. 

Gradually, over the period of a few minutes my strength slipped back into my muscles, and I stood up once again, puzzled at what had happened since… since I was pushed over. And then I remembered.

Questions surrounded me, sneering at my ignorance. Where did Snek-Blud go? Is Luke alright? Am I alright? Yes, I think I was fine, unharmed from severe injuries. What do I do now? I slumped onto my bed, which was adorned with gold on the frame, when a spontaneous noise sounded directly beneath it. Startled, I fled out of the room into the empty hallway, slammed shut the door, turned to unlock the lock of Luke’s room, failed, and spun on my heels to face Derek, who was exiting my room behind me.

“What the hell are you doi-“

“The Games is in 5 days, right?” He interrupted, his tone hushed.

“Yes, but why-“

“Okay, so I will have to hide in your bedroom for the remaining days until the games. Do not give me away.” With that, he strolled back into my room, leaving me behind, speechless.

“Luke’s in the medical room by the way,” Derek added.

#Max

                I finally woke up again, my already clouded thoughts still blurring even more, if that was possible. In some… medical room that seemed like one that Madame Pomfrey from Parry Hotter ran. Oh well, maybe the Capitol had copied every place from books in our school reading list. Anyways, as I gathered my awakening faculties together, I wondered what the conversation I’d briefly heard was about. At that exact moment, Katherine anxiously ambled in.

“Did Derek come in here?” she immediately started an interrogation.

“No…?” I retorted, nonplussed. “I just woke up, and don’t you find Derek creepy or something?”

“Yes, I do, and I just woke up in my room and he told me he had to keep me locked away until the hunger games began or something.”

“Well, I don’t remember anything apart from something was not safe…”

“Because you clearly didn’t hear Derek then!” she gave me the ‘evil eye’, as we called it at school. I didn’t know why she did that; did she expect me to be smart?

“Ok… and I just woke up.” Sighing, she plopped herself onto a neighboring bed, as the matron or whatever she was called eyed us suspiciously but seemed to just dismiss the fact two tributes were just randomly in the medical room, apart from me but she probably didn’t know why I was here either, however I was transported from my room. I noticed a camera in a corner of the room, which was facing me and Katherine, but it was flickering irregularly, so hopefully it wasn’t working properly…

#Clara

I stared up at the bland, dilapidated ceiling, my thoughts… blank.

“Hey Luke, I need to speak to you.”

Luke lazily eyed me and responded with a simple: “Hm?”

“Don’t you think its strange, Derek wants to hide in my room? Don’t you think its strange? He could hide in any other room, but he decides me… a girl.”

“I dunno, maybe he trusts you.”

“Yes but, this place is swarmed with cameras and, won’t they find out Derek isn’t in his room…? He’s their main man, the…the person who is paid attention to the most, by capitol.”

“Well, wait you actually have a point…”

Luke stared into my soul, eyes narrowing.

“Does…does that mean… Derek is a mole?” Luke stuttered.

Everything dawned in on us, who knocked us out? Why was Derek always watching us? Him being beaten up for, what reason? All the questions formed a labyrinth, me and Luke had to get out of this hellhole, now.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I guess we at least tried.