We are so screwed. Well, Maze thought she was being smart when she said, "Hey guys? You know what? I just had the most amazing idea! How 'bout a GMW Lucaya Hunger Games au?"

The rest of us should've said no and slapped her for being absurd. But being the idiots we are we said, "Great! Nice one! We should start writing it like, right now."

And boom. Four unfinished stories for five busy teenagers. WTF.

LUCAYA IS LIFE! We hope you like this one too!

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Chapter by Walker Watcha

Title: The Hater Games

Subtitle: The 'let's show the districts how we, the capital rule and they are under our mercy by picking 24 kids and killing 23 of them!' Games

Description: Maya Hart volunteers for tribute, for the sake of Riley. It sucks that Lucas does the same for Farkle. Maya and Lucas will have to fight for their lives in the arena, one's life resulting in the other's death. The thing is—they're not sure if they can kill each other...

Ratings: T for Tributes

Pairings/Characters: Maya H. + Lucas F.

DISCLAIMER: We don't own GMW or The Hunger Games, but we're suckers for both of them XD.

Every year, 12 girls and 12 boys are sent to fight for their lives in an artificial arena.

Horrible start for a story, huh?

The story of my life.

My name is Maya Hart. I'm from District 12, the place once was called New York to the Appalachia's. What are the districts? Well, I live in a place that once was called North America. It's much smaller than it once was, though. The global warming and natural disasters made the surface of the ocean rise, and here we are. North America had failed, and a country called Panem rose from it, which I am currently a citizen of.

Fuck that.

Panem's system is pretty easy. There's this big city called the Capitol, and frankly, the place rules the rest of the country; the twelve districts, each of them providing something for the Capitol.

I am lucky enough to be born in District 12. Noticed the sarcasm?

~.~.~

The day of the reaping has a gloomy effect on District 12. Of course, it has. One girl and one boy are about to go and die.

Sure, they can survive. But the odds are impossibly slim.

It's 5o'clock in the morning, and I ready myself for slipping out of the house. Putting on my leather jacket and boots. Grabbing the camouflaged green pouch as I try to brush my unruly blonde curls out of my face. Running out the door, I don't make even a little sound.

I'd have to hurry if I'd make it in time.

My house, a tiny thing falling apart, is at the edge of the Seam—the name you call the poorest, dirtiest part of District 12—which makes it easier for me to sneak out to hunt; the fence that stands between the forbidden woods and my house is barely 20 yards away.

I push myself through the little hole in the supposed 'electric' fence. I'm so tiny, about five feet, it doesn't even take an effort. The fence is supposed to be electric, as it has to separate the citizens of Twelve from the wild animals, but as Farkle had said, "That fence is so old, it's about as electric as we're rich."

Speaking of Farkle…I'd have to run if I won't make him annoyed.

I grab my bow and arrow, hidden carefully in waterproof bags in a nearby tree, and run deeper into the woods for our 'spot'. It's a beautiful place—a cliff near a small waterfall where you can look down into the woods, and almost always can see a slight rainbow.

I hear him before I see him.

"Ow!"

I stifle a laugh and run faster. There he is, Farkle Minkus, my partner-in-crime as well as my second best friend.

He has his finger jammed in one of his elaborate game traps.

"Happy Hunger Games!" I say, faking a happy tone as I walk toward him.

He looks around for the source of my voice, and when he detects the location, shoots me a painful smile. "And may the odds ever be in your favor." He says in a strained voice.

Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor. The comment Isadora Smackle—the girl from the Capitol that is about as the same age as me, who comes to District 12 every year to reap our tributes—says every year in the reaping in the robotic Capitol accent.

Farkle's blue eyes shine in pain when he jiggles his fingers. "Help…?" he asks me.

I frown. "You designed it, Farks."

"But you made it." He says playfully, even though his face contorts in pain.

I sigh. "Dude, you've got to be more careful with these traps you design. You design to kill."

Farkle's sandy brown hair catches the rising sun, and it almost looks blonde—golden. "Okay, I promise. Now, get me out of here?"

I help Farkle. From the looks of it, I'm pretty sure he'll get a nasty bruise from this incident.

Farkle and I were friends since we were twelve. This was odd since Farkle was from the Merchant part of the District—the cleaner and less hungry place than the Seam—and I was from well, the Seam. We met in school during lunch, when he suddenly came to sit down with me and my best friend, Riley and had shared his lunch with us, which we eagerly had devoured. Later on, I found out that he was the mayor's son, which made him rich and well-fed in the District. It bothered me at first, but then, seeing his loving, nerdy, humble (even though he was quite a show-off with his genius brain, he never boasted his wealth) personality as time went on, I couldn't help but love him as a friend. Plus, he helped me hunt and haggle, and fed Riley well, so now, I don't resent him at all.

After we get Farkle's finger wrapped in curing leaves, we move about, obtaining game from Farkle's snares, shooting a rabbit or two, then put it in my game bag. These game, we'll sell it in the Hob, the black market of our District, later on.

We sit on a rock near the waterfall, enjoying the bakery bread Farkle's dad buys for special occasions—in this case, the reaping—and silently watch the sun ascend higher into the sky. Farkle's dad, the mayor, is a fair, hard-working man. He is the wealthiest person in District 12, but he helps the most impoverished citizens with his money rather than spending it on his family, and we all respect him for that.

"Farks," I say, chewing on the bread while looking into his blue eyes. In the Merchant part of Twelve, people usually have light hair and eyes, like Farkle. Born and raised in the Seam, my own blonde hair and blue eyes usually seem out of place. That's because my mom was a Merchant girl before she went to marry my dad in the Seam. My dad was blown into bits in a mine explosion. Why a mine? Well, as I told you, each District provides something for the Capitol. Ours provide coal. "I'm anxious."

Farkle momentarily stops eating. He knows that I'm talking about the 23 pieces of paper with Maya Hart written in careful letters.

Getting confused? Okay, fine. I'll start at the very top. The Hater Games is the event that takes place every year, since the day the Capitol blasted District 13 clean into nothingness. See, Thirteen rebelled against the Capitol. The Capitol got mad. They fought. The Capitol won. Thirteen was destroyed. The Capitol made the Hater Games to keep the rest of the Districts under its thumb, making the message clear; the Districts are obviously under the Capitol's mercy and protection, so do not fuck with the Capitol unless you want to be like Thirteen.

So, for the reminder of the damn rebellion, each District has to send two high-school-aged tributes—one girl, and one boy—to the Capitol, where they would be put in an arena that could pretty much hold anything in it and would have to fight to the death until one victor remains.

To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hater Games as a festivity, a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The whole game is broadcast live in every district, and the last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, mainly consisting of food; All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.

Now, how do you choose the tributes? Well, that's easy. Someone from the Capitol—Isadora Smackle in our case—comes each year and selects the tributes by pulling out a piece of paper with his or her name on it. This is called the reaping.

The reaping system is unfair, the poor getting the worst of it. You become eligible for the reaping the day you turn fourteen. That year, your name is entered once. At thirteen, twice. And so on and so on until you reach the age of eighteen, the final year of eligibility when your name goes into the pool five times. That's true for every citizen in all twelve districts in the entire country of Panem.

However, say you are poor and starving as we are at Twelve. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year's supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members or friends as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered 7 times because once, I had to, and for me, mom, Riley, and her family. In fact, almost every year I had to do this, except for the second year Farkle helped us out I had been saved from putting my name in 8 times. I would not allow Riley to take tessera for herself. I made her swear not to.

I am seventeen. I have 23 fucking names in my bowl, when the wealthier kids my age—even Farkle, would only have the standard four. Yes, it's unfair.

I suddenly lose my appetite. Farkle must've too, because he's setting his warm bread down on the rock, carefully, and he takes my hand in his, reassuringly. He looks straight into my eyes. "You won't." He answers to my silent question of What if?

There's nothing romantic going on between us, but we still hold on to each other's hands. It's the day of the reaping. Everyone feels a bit closer today.

We stay like that for a while, then we set up more snares for later. Then we finish the bread and take off. We'll have to be careful when we sneak out, though. Hunting is punishable by public whipping—even though the Peacekeepers in Twelve mostly turns a blind eye for us, the squirrels I hunt are to die for.

We finally part, I toward my house, and Farkle toward the Merchant section of the District.

"See you at the reaping," I manage to say grimly.

"Good luck," Farkle answers back.

"You too."

I think I hear a "You'll need it more." As he takes off.

~.~.~

The reaping is held at Abigail Adams High School—which is the only high school in District 12—at the small field.

It's supposed to be a football field. But I don't think anyone in District 12 has the leisure to play football. We usually spend our free time trying not to starve.

There's no one at home when I arrive. Of course. Mom had probably gone to her tiny section in the Hob, where she does a small business of curing people. She's perhaps haggling Gammy Hart—the old lady who buys my game all the time I simply decided that she was family—for plants.

Now, I ready myself for the reaping.

People always put on their best fancy clothing at the reaping, but I think grooming myself is good enough. I go and take a bath, scrubbing the filth off me. I would look neater, and get distracted less while hunting if I wear my wild, curly hair up, but I hate putting on some kind of fancy hairdo, so I just leave it like that.

I put on skinny black jeans, which fits my legs, thin from hunger, but toned from hunting, perfectly. Then, I put on an old but clean simple white shirt. I wear my leathers on top of it.

I look at the one dirty mirror set up against the wall. Blonde hair falling above my ribs. Cold blue-gray eyes that can hold menace, but also love. Clothes defiantly not fancy or formal, but clean and suited for me.

As I leave, something catches my eyes. It's a flicker of gold on the kitchen table. I'm sure it's just the sunlight playing tricks on my eyes, but when I get closer, I see that it's some kind of a pin.

I pick it up carefully. It's as if someone fashioned a small golden bird and then attached a ring around it. The bird is connected to the ring only by its wingtips. I suddenly recognize it. A Mockingjay.

They're the funny birds and something of a finger in the face to the Capitol. During the rebellion, the Capitol bred a series of genetically altered animals as weapons. The common term for them was mutations, or sometimes mutts for short. One was a particular bird called a jabberjay that could memorize and repeat human conversations. They were homing birds, exclusively male, that were released into regions where the Capitol's enemies were known to be hiding. After the birds gathered words, they'd fly back to centers to be recorded. It took people a while to realize what was going on in the districts, how private conversations were being transmitted. Then, of course, the rebels fed the Capitol endless lies, and the joke was on it. So the centers were shut down, and the birds were abandoned to die off in the wild.

Only they didn't die off. Instead, the jabbberjays mated with female mockingbirds, creating a whole new species that could replicate both bird whistles and human melodies. They had lost the ability to enunciate words but could still mimic a range of human vocal sounds. And they could recreate songs. Not just a few notes, but whole songs with multiple verses, if you had the patience to sing them and if they liked your voice.

A note is attached to the pin, and I detach it from the pin to read it.

Babygirl,

Your reaping gift from Gammy and me.

Love you, stay safe.

~XO mom

Emotions whirl inside my head as I read the note once again. Reaping gift? We don't do gifts. But still, this pin would've coast a fortune, even if Gammy had owned it. Also, stay safe? That was pretty ironic since the odds weren't really in my favor. 23 entries for a seventeen-year-old should probably be a record or something.

Still, I feel grateful for my mom. She's trying really hard to make up for the lost time she hadn't stayed with me during the depression of my father's death.

Someday, I'm planning to forgive her.

I pin the Mockingjay pin on my leather jacket and head out to Riley's. I'd promised her earlier that I would meet her before going off to Abigail Adams for the reaping.

~.~.~

Riley, my best friend, and the person I love the most in the world is waiting for me already, fidgety and sweaty. Riley always acts like this in reaping days. I can blame her; she doesn't stand a chance if she gets reaped. However, when I approach her, I find out that the thought of getting herself reaped wasn't the source of her nervousness.

"Peaches!" She squeals, her big, expressive brown eyes dancing at the sight of me. We've been friends since I was six, and she's closer than family to me. Riley's lanky form runs toward me, and she grasps me in a bear hug.

"Ouch! Go easy hug!" I chuckle.

Riley looks at me. "Oh my god! Peaches! You look beautiful!"

"You too, Honey," I say.

Riley Matthews is a lanky sixteen with large brown eyes and a big goofy smile. She has brown hair that goes down to her shoulders. She's always happy and positive, despite how her life is shitty. That's why I love her. That's why I need her. That's why I won't let her take any tessera. I don't want to break her happy, lovely bubble.

Riley grips my arm. Her hands are sweaty. "Maya," she says quietly, looking at me with worried brown eyes. "I'm worried. About you. What if…?"

I roll my eyes playfully, even though my heart squeezes in terror at the thought of being reaped. I hold Riley's hand. "Don't worry Honey. It's just 23 slips in thousands. I won't."

Riley doesn't look convinced but squeezes my hand anyway. "Yeah. Good luck."

"You too," I say with a smile. "Now let's get going, huh?"

~.~.~

Attendance is mandatory unless you're in danger of dying. If you are, the peacekeepers are going to see if you are. If not, you're going to die anyway.

The field makes one feel claustrophobic with all District 12's population—eight thousand people—in one place.

People file in silently and sign in. The reaping is an excellent opportunity for the Capitol to keep tabs on the population as well. Fourteen-through-eighteen-year olds are herded to roped areas marked off by ages, the oldest in the front, the young ones, toward the back. Family members line up around the perimeter, holding tightly to one another's hands. I can see Topanga, Riley's mom, hugging Auggie, her brother, fiercely, as watching her first child disappear in the crowd. Her dad, Cory, looks grim, holding on to Topanga's shoulder.

The camera crews, perched like buzzards on rooftops, only add to the grim effect.

When I crane my neck—fuck it, even that's not enough—when I stand on my tip-toes and jump up and down a little, I can see Farkle at the boy's side of the line. He is wearing a dark blue suit which is a rarity in Twelve but also looks very handsome on him. He catches my eyes and sends me a wink and a small smile.

Beside him, tall and fit, is Lucas Friar, the baker's son. Throwing around dough all day must have done him plenty of good because he's all muscles—also a rarity in Twelve. He too is from the Merchant section. Dark blonde hair, chiseled jaw, gorgeous sea-foam green eyes. I can hear girls whispering about him in school every so often because of his princely good looks and his gentle personality. Riley also gushes about him. I know Lucas only by Farkle, though. Lucas is his best man, and they often do homework together or go hang out. They're really close, and somewhere along the lines, Riley became Lucas' excellent friend, too. But I never really got close to him. Sure, small waving in the hallways, nods of acknowledgment, occasional "How'd ya doing?" did take place, but to face it; we were never friends. I couldn't bring myself to be one. Every time I look at him, I see a red marking on his cheek, his hair matted on his forehead by the rain, rain soaking his shirt, plastering onto his torso—and the bread. Two pieces of bread that flew to my feet. Two loaves that I'd eagerly brought home, one for me, one for Riley. Two breads that had given me hope.

The clock strikes two o'clock, and the reaping starts.

Mayor Minkus, Farkle's dad, stands up to the podium, eyeing the empty chair wearily beside Isadora Smackle, who—by the way—is smiling professionally in an ever-same manner.

He speaks some balderdash, and I can't help but dozing off a bit. These formal occasions, however gravely they are, are just nonsense. They show us the video clip they show every year that the Capitol is powerful and shit.

It's finally time for the picking of the tributes.

That's the exact moment Shawn Hunter decides to arrive.

He's a middle-aged, blue-eyed man with hair shaped into an elaborate M. He's the only living victor of District 12, which had exactly two. Shawn is drunk. Very. The crowd watches as he decides to give Isadora Smackle a big hug, which she manages to fend off by stepping on his toes.

The mayor looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. He quickly tries to pull the attention back to the reaping by introducing Isadora Smackle.

Isadora gains her posture. She walks up to the center of the stage, where two big glass bowls that have the slips of paper with our names written. One has a bluish tint—for the boys, the other pinkish—the girls.

Isadora speaks in her Capitol accent, which makes her look—with her black, thick glasses and long black hair—and sound like a robot. "Good afternoon, District 12. I'm happy to be here." That's a lie, and everyone knows it. Isadora's probably itching to get to another district, a better fed one with the chances of tributes actually winning exists. "So, now, it's time for the picking of the tributes." She looks up and addresses the cameras. "Happy 74th Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor."

Then she is saying "Ladies first!" and her hand dives in the pinkish bowl, and oh, suddenly I'm thinking about the 23 pieces of paper written Maya Hart. My stomach knots up, and I feel sick. Please, don't let it be me…I pray as I watch Isadora chose a piece of paper and smooths it out with her gloved hand. Please don't let it be me…I'll be good, I promise. I'll never drown Riley's cat again. I'll milk her goat even! So please, please, don't let it be me…

Isadora Smackle clears her throat and reads the girl's name loud and clear into the microphone.

It's not me.

It's Riley Matthews.