The Destruction Games

Chapter One: Holly Short

DISCLAIMER: I, quite obviously, do not own the idea of the Hunger Games, Artemis Fowl, Sherlock Torchwood, or any characters that appear in here that are from any of those books/TV shows. The plotline is mainly based off THG plotline, though there are some plots that are similar to stuff that appears in Torchwood, AF or Sherlock, and furthermore, some that I've made up. I don't believe you have to have read all of them to enjoy this.

NOTES: This is written in first person, but in past tense, unlike THG. Just to let you all know.

I blearily woke up, feeling around the bed for Prim. She wasn't there. She must've been having bad dreams and gone to sleep with mother. I opened my eyes to look across the room at the other bed. Prim was there, curled into a foetal position against mother. Of course she'd been having bad dreams. It was the day of the reaping.

I quietly got out from beneath the thin, scratchy blanket and slipped my feet into my black hunting boots. Soft leather met my feet, previously moulded from constant use. I put on trousers and a shirt, stood up, and walked through the doorway to the kitchen. On the table was Prim's reaping present for me, beneath a wooden bowl to keep out rats and other pests. It was soft, fresh goat's cheese, wrapped in basil leaves. I slipped it into my pocket and went outside.

I lived in District 12. Basically, there were twelve districts and the Capitol. Each district was assigned something to make or harvest, and most of the things they did went to the Capitol. Generally, the closer you were to the Capitol, the richer district you were seen as. District 12 was the very last district, and the poorest. We mined coal, and then it was sent in huge containers to the Capitol. The seam was kind of the dregs of district 12, on the edge of it. It was also the closest to the mines, where my father worked. Before he died.

The meadow was the small, run down field at the very edge of the Seam. We lived near the edge anyway, so I only had to pass a few more houses to get to it. On the other side of the meadow was a high, barbed wire fence. It was supposed to be electrified 24 hours a day, to keep away wild dogs and other horrors. It barely every was though, in the seam we were lucky to even get two or three hours of electricity in the evening, but the fence had still served its purpose of keeping unwanted things away. Still, I listened for the quiet hum that meant it was on, but my ears were met with nothing but the gentle swish of weeds in the wind. I pushed past a sickly shrub to reveal a metre long weakness in the fence. This wasn't the only one, but it was by far the closest one to our home, so I almost always used this one.

I crawled under, and jogged the proper cover of the trees. I breathed a sigh of relief. The forest was one of the few places in district 12 where you could be more open with your words and expressions. Of course, if you got caught in here, you would be executed, and most people barely ever ventured out in to the woods anyway. Most were afraid of rabid and venomous animals, and few had more than a dagger to defend themselves, let alone hunt. District 12. Where you can starve in safety, I thought.

I was lucky. My father had taught me how to find food and hunt, and he had fashioned quality bows from some trees. I walked to a hollow in a tree, and took out the bow. It was carefully wrapped in waterproofed cloth, and beautifully carved. I had a couple of other bows hidden in other places around the woods, in case this one was ever discovered. My father could have made good money selling these, but he never did. Hunting was too important, and if he was caught he would be publicly executed for inciting rebellion. The peacekeepers turned a blind eye towards our hunting, as they wanted fresh meat as much as anyone else. In fact, some of them were among our best customers.

I keep walking through the forest, and soon I heard a yell.
"Hey! Shortie!" Freya appeared, jumping off a rock and walking towards me. The joke, Shortie, had a double meaning, as my name was Holly Short, and I was also at least a foot shorter than Freya.
"Hey! Caught anything yet?" I replied, grinning. She held up a loaf of bread, with an arrow through it.
"This one was just waiting to be caught."

We shared the bread and the goat's cheese between ourselves. I sat on a small rock while she sat on the ground next to me, so our heads were almost at the same height. I was an elf, you see. I wasn't the only type of non-human intelligent species. There were also sprites, centaurs, dwarfs, gnomes, fish elves and _. They were called the People, or fairies. At the beginning of the rebellion, over 75 years ago, humans had no idea the People existed. They lived underground, and with high tech equipment, humans weren't able to find them at all. That was, until the rebellion.

Bombs were everywhere, and the fairies had no choice but to come up from underground, to try and neutralise the damage done to the Earth. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. The Capitol quickly captured hoards of the species of People, and tested on them until they managed to create a toxin that made them age similarly to humans, and got rid of the majority of their magical powers. It was diffused through the air, and fairies reverted back to whatever amount of years there age would be if they were human, and there was barely any magic running through their veins. One fairy, an elf, still had most of her magic but would never be able to replenish it when she ran out, managed to destroy most of the Capitol's labs before they could kill her. Her name was Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police reconnaissance, my namesake.