The Finch
My eyes fluttered open groggily; a drug induced haze was fading fast and bringing everything into focus. What I was seeing seemed surreal and foreign, a white sterile room filled with expensive looking medical equipment.
"What?" I croaked through a voice that sounded weak.
"Ah, good. You're awake." A happy, chipper voice sounded from nearby, a figure came into my line of vision, it was a doctor, a Capitol doctor.
"I won…" I said to myself, repeating the words I had said before in the frozen arena, the broken body of Shine, the girl from District One on the cold snow below me.
"Yes you did Ms. Thales." The Doctor replied with a pleased grin, "And might I say that you managed to make an otherwise boring Hunger Games most entertaining."
The man's words barely register as I pulled myself up from the bed into a sitting position, it took more effort than it should have but I managed it.
"How long have I been out?" I asked him while getting a glimpse of his name tag, 'Dr. Gray' it read.
"Just a couple days," Dr. Gray answered with a bit more professionalism, "We patched you up, most of what we have to repair was your weight loss due to starvation and dehydration." He laughed and added, "Compared to most of the Victor's I've worked on, you got out virtually unscathed by comparison."
His laugh rang hollow in my ears, because his words were a lie.
No one got out of the Hunger Games unscathed.
No one.
After another hour of rest, my Escort, Gaius Knack arrived in his latest ridiculous outfit along with my Mentor, Tessa to bring me back to District Five's suite at the Training Center.
It felt empty, the whole building felt abandoned.
But with the happy chatter my escort and prep team to fill the void, and Tessa at my side it was almost tolerable.
I glanced at the slumped figure on couch and couldn't resist commenting, "So, Zen hit the sauce early I see."
My escort and prep team fell into an awkward silence at that before forcing themselves to speak again, moving on from District Five's only surviving male Victor.
"Oh Finch," Posca, the purple skinned member of the prep team said with a sigh, "We tried to talk him out of it, but…"
"It's ok." I reassure him, "But where is…?"
"Sabine is on his way," Tessa answered, cutting me off, her dark hazel eyes filled with an understanding that the others in the room lacked, "He's just putting some last minute alterations to your Victor's crowning dress."
After that everyone else began to gossip about what fashion confection that Sabine had whipped up for me to wear.
Once they were distracted I sat down on one of the couches gratefully, Tessa following in my wake.
As soon as she sat down Tessa began to speak, "They didn't plan on telling you that Sabine hadn't bothered working on a design until you and the boy from Ten managed to torch Cornucopia."
I suppressed a sigh, "I'm not surprised," I answered honestly, "How many people do you think expected me to make it even that far in the Games?"
Tessa gave me a sly smirk, "Only the ones that knew what you were up to, Fox."
"Fox?!" I replied confused, "Where did that come from?"
Tessa just gave me a look of embarrassment, "Well Zen and myself were talking to a sponsor who overheard us using that nickname your Tribute Partner came up with… and it… well… It stuck."
I felt my jaw drop a bit before I could stop it.
"Oh no…" I groaned, knowing where this was going.
Tessa just gave a rueful sigh, her dark locks swaying with the motion, "Sorry Finch, but at this point even Caesar's calling you 'the Fox girl', or more formally, 'the Fox of the 73rd Hunger Games'."
I just groaned again, not bothering to explain that nickname hadn't been invented by my Tribute Partner, it had been something that everyone had called me all my life.
Not even escaping death for the amusement of the Capitol had been enough to get away from being 'that Fox looking girl'.
It was the company that kept me from thinking about it, kept me grounded to the world.
Even if it was just a temporary escape.
However after Sabine had arrived, with his extra jointed fingers, red colored tattoos, and pink stripped white hair and had placed me in his latest creation, after I had praised it and he and the others had departed, and Tessa began dragging Zen into his room to sleep off his latest bender.
There was nothing but me and my thoughts.
The sumptuous apartment began to feel like a prison, however escaping to the old Training Area held very little appeal.
I knew all that would be there were memories of my days training with the other Tributes, seeing the Careers trying to intimidate us, me working at the survival stations, memorizing ways to live off the land, figuring out that they were going to send us somewhere cold.
Instead as I stepped into the elevator I pushed a button I had never bothered to use before, the button for the roof.
The fresh air and the sight of the Capitol, its gleaming candy colored building and the mountains were a change.
But it didn't help much.
All I could see was Shine's dead body down below, a pool of blood staining the snow around her, I could almost see myself standing on the roof of the ruined Cornucopia, blood stained knife in hand.
I was found by an Avox about half an hour later, curled up into a ball near the door to the elevator, rocking back and forth crying as the memories continued to flash in front of me.
It was even worse when I found myself on the Victor's Throne, its straight ridged back making it agony to sit on as I watched the 73rd Hunger Games play out right in front of me.
I had kept hearing from my prep team and escort how boring the games were this year, and how I was 'the only interesting thing to happen'.
I had taken that with a grain of salt, but as I watched my own reaction to seeing the Arena for the first time, the Cornucopia in the middle of a ruined city surrounded by tundra and a partly frozen river, knowing that my plans to avoid the bloodbath were washed up due to a need for at least a coat and some supplies, all 24 tributes had dashed for it.
Through luck and my small frame I was able to avoid the slaughter, which actually claimed a Career, the boy from One, while I snagged a coat and a backpack before running off for the ruins, not pushing my luck any further.
However as the games progressed I could see why things would have been boring, most of the Tributes that didn't die at the Bloodbath died of Hypothermia.
And then we reached my first kill.
It was the second night and I had heard something in the house I had just snuck into, on the throne I gripped the handles as I slipped quietly to the source of the noise, I found Meeka, the girl from 11 half-frozen to death on the floor, her body turning blue.
I saw myself nearly run until I realized that she had lost her grip on the dagger she had managed to get, and my eyes narrowed.
I tried to make it quick, I and the rest of Panem watched as I grabbed the dagger, kicked her onto her back, and cut her throat, covering her mouth to hold back the noises she was making.
It became a blur until the next clip involving me was being caught by Cleaver a few days later, the boy from District Ten, everyone could see the fear in my eyes as his huge frame seemed to dominate the screen, until I proved fast on my feet by making him an offer.
"We both know that you can kill me." I told him, keeping my voice from shaking with the fear that I felt down to my very bowels.
As he moved in closer I held up my hand, "But can you possibly win against the Careers?"
Cleaver stopped in mid-stride, "And how can you help me? You can't even help yourself."
I managed a very sly grin, "I can help you destroy their supplies. Even up the playing field. Since otherwise it'll guarantee them the victory."
Then I got to watch myself plot with Cleaver, I had stolen stuff from Cornucopia before and I knew where all the traps where, and when the guard was at its weakest.
We then waited until the Careers went hunting and left just one guard, and approached Cornucopia from different angles, Cleaver hid himself behind a convenient mound of rubble while I attracted Timon, the boy from Two with some noise.
He then knocked out Timon, but didn't kill him since it would set off the cannon and alert the others, and dragged him to the pile of goodies inside the building, I disabled a couple of traps before we helped ourselves to supplies and then we found a can of gasoline.
Since I lit the match, the kill counted as mine.
However as we departed Cornucopia, I had a small black vial hidden in my coat pocket for later.
After that we both got our first sponsors, dried fruit and jerky with some multivitamins to give an extra boost.
Then the Careers began to struggle, and struggle badly.
The boy and girl from Four tried to ice fish at the river, but the ice broke, sending them both to watery graves. Then the girl from Two got frostbite on her feet and several infections and died a hard death.
After that Panem got to watch my third kill, as the latest Career death graced the force field I quietly poisoned Cleaver's canteen and then made a show of wanting to do a toast of just having one more career and two more tributes to deal with.
The big idiot took a swig, and then a couple of minutes later was convulsing on the ground, blood pouring out of every orifice.
I waited until he was too weak to hurt me, then I stabbed and stabbed until the cannon went off, but even as I swiped what I could and ran I was crying.
But even as Shine killed the remaining tributes, I found myself alone, alone and waiting for my chance to deal with her.
I went back to Cornucopia and found the building itself was intact, but charred, and as soon as the boy from seven's picture appeared, everyone saw me grin.
It was time.
The Gamemakers began to screw with the environment in a big way, herding Shine back towards Cornucopia, everyone watched me wait and climb about halfway up the building until I could hear her coming and made as much noise as I could, trying to get her there faster.
As soon as I saw a shadow I bolted up like a monkey, I could see Shine's pretty face twisted into a animalistic snarl when she spotted me, her sword gleaming in her hand.
But she didn't realize what I did, that when she began to climb up the building she'd be vulnerable.
I made a show of being scared until her fingers found purchase on the roof.
And then my dagger sliced through those fingers, blood squirted onto the burnt stone and onto my boots, without anything to grip with Shine fell back down to the snowy earth with a scream and a sickening crunch.
Her neck had snapped on impact, twisting it into an unnatural angle, her jet black hair splayed out onto the freshly red stained snow, her eyes empty and devoid of life.
A life that I had taken, to live, to win…
As President Snow crowned me with the Victor's crown on my head, I could swear that I smelled blood on his breath as he quietly congratulated me, his promise of speaking to me in private sounded like a threat.
But I had to push it aside as the next step came, my final interview with Caesar Flickerman.
He was still wearing that red makeup, it looked like blood.
Meeka's blood.
Timon's blood.
Cleaver's blood.
Shine's blood…
As Caesar oohed and awwed over me, what a delightful surprise at such a tenacious Victor, and from District Five no less! I forced myself to be more open and honest this go around.
"Well," I replied to his latest question with a sly grin, "I have to admit that I did underplay what I could do. Just a little."
Caesar laughed, his teeth flashing in the bright lights, "Ahhh! Just like Johanna I see! Well now that's a tricky tactic to pull off, but clearly someone as sly as the Fox of the Arena didn't find it to be any trouble at all."
As I fed into this, and had the audience lapping it up, and I wondered when it would end so I could just go home and try to forget.
If that was even possible.
Author's Notes: This is my very first attempt at a Hunger Games' fanfic, the updates might not be very regular but I do have a plan for this fic. If you haven't already figured it out, this is a slight AU in which Finch Thales (AKA 'Foxface') was Reaped for the 73rd Hunger Games and won.