Disclaimer: The Hunger Games and its characters are copyrighted intellectual property owned by Suzanne Collins, not by me. This is a fan fiction intended for enjoyment only.
In an alternate timeline following The Hunger Games, Katniss and Peeta were not reaped for the Quarter Quell. Life has returned to normal in Panem. The Hunger Games continue as usual. Katniss and Peeta have become tribute mentors.
This is the story of the 76th Annual Hunger Games, from the Arena entry to the twenty-third cannon, told from the perspective of District Twelve tribute Cora Walker. The Gamemakers have plenty of horrors planned for her: Personality-altering venom, flesh-eating flies, fires, earthquakes, and permanent night, to name a few. Can she survive it all while protecting Mika, the smallest, weakest tribute? Can she keep her humanity when the time comes for Mika to die?
COMPLETE.
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"Good luck, Girl Next Door," says Justinia, my stylist.
Girl Next Door is the persona they've chosen for me. Katniss was the Girl on Fire, the District Twelve girl last year was the Little Orphan Girl. Now me. It's a nice way of calling me ordinary.
The opening in the plastic tube slides shut behind me, muffling Justinia's goodbyes. She's sweet, despite the fearsome, heavy piercings that have dragged her earlobes halfway to her shoulders, but she couldn't help me much. My hair was short when I was reaped, too short to do anything with except add some highlights. I'm the only natural blonde this year. That will get me sponsors, she tells me.
Sponsors aren't on my mind right now. The many, many ways I could potentially die in the next two minutes are.
The bottom of the tube is rising. My heart is pumping furiously, as if a fist were mashing it flat with every beat.
In seconds, I'll pop out of the top into who-knows-what hellscape, and I'll have to make the most important decision of my entire life.
Head towards, or away from, the Cornucopia.
I've been agonizing. If you run, you survive the first day, almost always. Your competition is cut down by a third, maybe even half. The worst work, the culling of the weak, is done for you. And one in twelve sounds like so, so much better odds than one in twenty-four.
But I watch this show every year. I know you need supplies. I've watched people die of thirst, of cold, heat, the shock of exposure. I've watched what happens to tributes who have nothing when they're hunted down by Careers with bows and arrows, spears, tridents.
The deaths at Cornucopia usually aren't so bad. They're quick. If you're going to die in the Games, the first day is the day to do it. No torture, usually. No Gamemaker fires, no mutt bites.
When I pop out, I'll have sixty seconds to assess the landscape, the available weapons, the supplies, decide which direction to run, and who to take with me.
All I can see in my mind's eye is the year the tributes were faced with the pile of mace sticks, and only mace sticks. The full sixty seconds of dawning horror on their faces, the three weeks of agony that followed. That year stuck with me.
Please, please let this at least be an ordinary year, a year they didn't put much work into. A pile of random supplies, a varied, mostly natural landscape.
If they think too hard, they come up with stuff like acid quicksand. Slobbering mutants, flowers that shoot tumor-growing darts.
I should go for the Cornucopia. So much better to be killed by the players than the Gamemakers.
If it's a natural landscape, what kind of natural will it be? There's usually a theme. Forest, ice, desert, water, fantasyland. If it's snow you can run away from the Cornucopia, knowing there's a water source. One year it was all artificial, brightly colored blocks, like a child's playroom. One year it was a lava world. Anything but that.
Whoosh. This is it. Terror pours over me along with the rush of cool air, the kind of terror a little twelve, not a grown-up eighteen-year-old, should feel.
I'm in the Arena.
Oh, no. They've worked on this one.
Though it's the middle of the day, the sky is a deep, dark violet. No stars. An opaque, blanket-like film stretches over the whole arena, and I know instinctively that this cover will not lift. That will be one of our themes this year: permanent night.
If I don't win, I've seen the sun for the last time.
We're on a well-lit dais of flat concrete, with a six-foot drop behind us. The Cornucopia glows in the center, lit by a circle of high-powered lamps like the ones in real sports stadiums. I squint into its belly, and, oh, no, it's all one thing. That can't be good.
My vision clears.
The center of the Cornucopia is filled with stacks and stacks of water bottles.
At least it's not maces.
That's it. Fifteen seconds gone, and the decision is made. I'll have to go in. We'll all have to. You can't even make an attempt at winning without water.
My heart is thrashing around in the pit of my stomach.
I'm going to fight at Cornucopia.
I can do it. I'm not the weakest. Not by half.
Forty-five seconds remain.
Other than water, supplies are arranged strategically around the Cornucopia. Furthest out, closest to us, is a thin circle of weapons.
The weapons are themed. They all look old, like caveman old. Spears, clubs, atlatls. Flint knives. A bow and arrow. No swords, no tridents, no polished metal.
Closest to me are a primitive club and a leather-bound pack of crude blades. A wooden shield.
A second circle, closer in: Camping supplies. Modern. Food, tents, first-aid kits. These will be the real life-savers.
Thirty seconds left.
I try to look out further into the dark purple landscape, but the combination of the distant darkness and the bright lights ahead of me make it impossible. I read confusion and hesitation in the eyes of the other tributes. They can't see what's out there, either.
Twenty seconds left to examine my competition.
To my right, ten yards away, the girl from Five. Loma. Reed-boned, with clear, darting eyes and her mouth pinched shut as she examines her predicament. She won't hurt me today. She's a thinker, not a fighter.
To my left… damn it.
Jax. The District One Career boy. Layers of heavy muscle, a face like a classical statue, curly brown hair that made the Capitol girls love him. He's the one to beat this year.
But Jax isn't looking at me. He's looking to his own left, where the District Two girl stands: Jewel, a hideous ogre with biceps as big as his own. They've placed a spear unfairly close to her platform.
Though they are both Careers, I know Jax and Jewel hate each other. They won't be allies.
I look for my potential allies, and for the most important person here, who I need to team up with but who can't be called an ally, really.
I find my friends first. A few down from me: Soren, my partner from District Twelve. I like him, though I didn't know him before the reaping. Quiet and practical, always calm. A little grim. Straight black hair, smooth, caramel-colored skin.
We've talked a little, and I don't know what to make of him. I can't even tell if he's scared. But he's a District Twelve like me. We're good people. I'll be his ally if he'll let me.
Almost on the other side of the circle, next to each other, are the boy and girl from Six. Pec and Dista. Brother and sister, one year apart, matching dark brown skin, matching short noses and dreadlocks. Like me, they scored sevens in the training sessions. They, like me and Soren, are among the few non-Careers who stand a chance of surviving the first day. Most of the others scored five or below.
The four of us would make natural allies, if I didn't have my handicap.
And there he is: My handicap. My ticket out of here. He's between two Careers.
Mika. The male twelve-year-old from District Eleven. Small for his age, in body and mind. Pale, freckled, cute. Helpless – he scored a two.
I held his hand afterwards while he cried about it. He's so scared. His district partner, a seventeen-year-old bitch named Chetty, abandoned him on the first training day, and I've befriended him.
Decided to protect him.
It's a strategy. Gain favor from the Capitol sponsors by becoming the protector of the weakest of the bunch. My mentor, Katniss, even agreed to it. The babysitting thing fits with my wholesome "Girl Next Door" image.
But that's not the only reason I'm going to do it. I want to. I want to have someone other than myself to be responsible for, so I can justify the horrible crimes I'm about to commit – attempt to commit – on grounds other than total selfishness.
Mika is rattling in his circle. Terrified. He's been terrified since the reaping. I told him beforehand to stay still and wait for me. If I ran, to follow me.
His big gray eyes seek me out. I nod. Yes, I'm on your side. You're not alone.
I can help him. I'm the only one who will try.
I turn from him and focus on the club, the weapon nearest me.
The gong sounds.