Hi everyone! This is a one-shot I decided to write simply because I have nothing better to do. This is my Hunger Games first fan fiction I am actually going to post. I hope you guys like it. (:
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own the Hunger Games and any of the original characters from the series.
Johanna Mason was an odd girl. There was no denying it. Even before the games, she wasn't your typical teenager. She was sarcastic, blunt and didn't have any friends back home in District 7. When she was 15, she was reaped for the 68th Hunger Games.
From the moment her name was called out by her annoyingly cheerful escort she knew what she had to do in order to stay alive. She needed to be weak. Johanna was a tough girl. She didn't take crap from anyone. She knew that she needed to change that in order to survive. Johanna immediately decided on her strategy. She would act like a timid, quiet girl from a district not known for victors and come out victorious. She knew how to use an axe very well. That already gave her an advantage.
Her time in the Capitol leading up until her games was... Uneventful. She hated the Capitol. Despite the amazing food and the luxurious surroundings, the Capitol and many of its citizens made her sick to her stomach. Her mentor, Blight made an attempt to help her and her district partner, but even with his advice she guessed that the boy from her district wouldn't last long. She now wasn't even sure if she would.
Chariot rides were irritating. Johanna and her partner were dressed in an itchy, tacky tree costumes and didn't make much of an impression compared to the better looking tributes.
Training was seemingly pointless. To play up the weak angle she avoided axes and stuck to stations like camouflage and other survival skills. No weapons. Private training sessions were more interesting, however. She threw around a couple of axes and hit the dummies right on target. That was it. She didn't want to do anything else to improve her score. The Game makers were already drunk so it probably didn't matter. A five. That was her training score. She accepted it but still thought it was too high and wished that she didn't even bother with the axes.
Interviews were just as dreadful as she imagined. Bright lights, an annoying capitol audience, and worst of all – Caesar Flickerman. His hair, lips and eyelids and odd dark purple this year. The last thing Johanna wanted was to be interviewed by this freak, but she didn't have much of a choice. As soon as she was introduced, she tried her best to look overwhelmed and afraid. He'd ask her questions about the reaping, her time in the Capitol and she of course just gave short answers, stuttered and looked down a lot of the time. It was perfect. It may not have gotten sponsors, but the other tributes would most likely leave her alone.
"Ladies and gentlemen, let the 68th annual Hunger Games begin!" the second the gong rang out, Johanna ran towards the cornucopia grabbed two backpacks – a large one and a very tiny one – and an axe. She quickly looked around. There was a forest to one side, a lake directly in front of her, Mountains to the other side, and the forest continued behind her. She took off in the opposite direction of the cornucopia straight into the forest. She climbed up a tree so she was high enough so she could see anyone below her, but they probably wouldn't see her. When the cannons started going off, she counted 13. A high number even for the bloodbath but she shrugged it off. The less tributes alive, the better. That night, she found out all the careers were still alive and her district partner was killed. No surprise there.
Days past and more tributes began to be killed or die off. Johanna was doing fairly well. She lived off berries and other plants she found, along with the food and water she had gotten in her backpack. So far, she had killed four tributes. She wasn't proud of it, but she had to do it if she wanted to come out alive. On what she thought to be the eighth day in the arena, there were only 5 tributes left. She stayed away from the action, so in her mind, the Games were going by surprisingly fast. The girl from one, the boy from two, the boy from four, the girl from twelve and herself.
Johanna knew the Game makers would be up to something. They would start to drive the five of them together. Instead of letting that happen, Johanna took off and decided to go and spy on the careers who had set up camp in the middle of the arena by the cornucopia. After a couple of hours of travelling, she concealed herself in a bush where she could get a view on the careers. The boys were sitting against the cornucopia, eating some dried fruit while the girl from one cleaned off her knives. Suddenly, a small splashing sound is made and all careers turned towards the lake and took off in a sprint. Johanna couldn't see past the cornucopia, but the sound of ear-splitting screams confirmed her thoughts. The girl from 12 was dead.
Two days later, she heard two cannons. That meant her and one of the careers were left. Later that night found out that the two boys had died. She had no idea how, but she figured the girl probably killed them if a mutation didn't. Johanna strolled around the forest the next day, waiting for the moment she would find the girl from one. Once she got to the end of the forest, she cautiously walked towards the cornucopia when a knife came out of nowhere and made a gash on her arm. She cursed but held on tightly to her axe when the girl from one appeared. Her blonde hair was messy and Johanna could see blood in it. That worried her, and for the first time in the games, she thought that she might die. She only had one weapon and she couldn't throw it in case she missed. Winning would not be easy. She quickly picked up the knife and threw it at the girl, and it cut her cheek. Not enough damage was done. The girl wiped the blood off her face and ran after Johanna. Johanna was fast, but so was the career girl. More knives were thrown at her. The girl must have had dozens. Thankfully, Johanna was able to dodge the knives and only suffered from a few cuts although they were bleeding quite heavily. When they were deep into the forest, Johanna turned around and threw her axe straight at the girl's stomach before the girl could react or even try to throw a knife. Boom. A cannon went off after a couple of seconds and Johanna could barely believe the next thing she heard.
"We present to you, the victor of the 68th Hunger Games, District 7's Johanna Mason!"
The next couple of months are a blur. President Snow requests that she becomes a prostitute for the Capitol citizens. She refuses. Two weeks later, she finds her younger sister, her older brother and both her parents dead in the backyard of her home in Victors Village. She's devastated.
The victory tour is stupid and awkward to say the least. She gives the speeches she is required too, and can't help but feel the tiniest bit of guilt in the districts of the tributes she killed. Especially in District 1.
After her games, everyone thought Johanna was a freak. They knew her as the bitchy, sarcastic girl with a tendency to roll her eyes more often than necessary. She was always arguing with Cashmere and Enobaria, two other victors who had taken a strong disliking to Johanna. Her only friend was Finnick Odair. The victor from District 4 who always had Capitol women throwing themselves at him. She talked to Blight, one of the male victors from her district, and sometimes Haymitch Abernathy (when he's not drunk), simply because they're alike and understand each other's pain.
She hated everything about the Capitol. She didn't even know why she allowed herself to volunteer to mentor the tributes each year. Even if they won (which they never do), they'd just be as scarred and messed up as she is. As all the victors are, really.
But she's gotten used to life as a victor. No friends in her district unless you count Blight, mentoring kids each year only to see them get killed in the worst way possible, being whispered about wherever she goes, having no family.
In short, she's pretty lonely. There's no one left she loves.
Johanna mason, the snarky victor of the 68th Hunger Games.
The girl no one should have under-estimated.