Hi guys!
So I have many projects underway right now and this is a little something I was inspired to create after watching Catching Fire and falling completely in love with The Hunger Games trilogy even more. It always intrigued me what happened to the Victors we know and the ones still in the shadows, how they became the victors they are today. I began by just writing a one-shot to cure some writer's block on the very 1st games and the final Hunger Games, but then I decided why not fill in all the blanks? I don't know how often this has been done as a fanfic, I haven't read many other Hunger Games fanfics yet and am slowly working my way through some.
I hope you enjoy it!
1.
Jenessa Everton, Female, District 12.
I'm standing in a wide expanse of greenery, as I peer around me I notice the vast amounts of it stretching out before and behind me. The deafening roars pierce me from every side, they could burst my eardrums then and there, they were so excited as I look around. My eyes, which had been submerged in total darkness before as I rose up from the underground, were still trying to adjust themselves to the brightness. I have no concept of the day, time or where I was. All I know is that the sun blazing down from above is not real. It is artificial. Sitting high above in rows upon rows, there must have been thousands of them there pushing each other to get a better view of me. They were odd creatures, oddly beautiful and oddly alarming, I wasn't sure why anyone would want to change the colour of their hair or skin. They look so unreal as some held up little binoculars, one of them staring at me and then pointing when they saw that I had caught them. I was faintly aware of something counting down, it sounded like a huge gong but it was so faint against the chanting crowds I paid it little attention. The men that paraded around my home dressed in white, the invaders as we call them, who ripped me from my family and took me far away. They never spoke to me, even when I pleaded, begged and struck out at them. They were always so impassive, their only threat being the cocking of their guns. How I despise weapons. My parents had used them often, only when absolutely necessary but those times had become more and more frequent as of late. We rose up finally. We were sick, we were tired of the Capitol. Their rule over Panem and the districts we all belong to is horrible. We starve, we struggle, we die and they masquerade round without a care in the world. We had had enough.
My father led the rebellion in our District. He was one of the first to catch on to District 13's ideology. As soon as talk of an invasion of the Capitol itself spread throughout all the districts, all starting from 13, did we all began to rise up. Blood stained the dirt streets almost every night. We abolished those who favoured the Capitol, those who tried to quell our desires for our own independence. They aren't just desires, they are desperate needs and remain so to this day. We were winning. Everyone in the Districts knew it. We had driven the Capitol's forces out of the thirteen Districts they tormented daily. It was obvious, the Capitol needs us. They can't possibly flourish without us, we provide them with everything from the clothes on their backs to the food they eat. We just refused to give it to them, ate it ourselves, wore the clothes we threaded ourselves. It was a very unusual sight to behold but I loved it all the same. The Capitol bred thousands of creatures, muttations we called them. They were beings crossed from science, freaks of nature which should never have been created. Huge rabbid squirrels and wasps that stung with poisonous gases. We didn't know they were dangerous till they were unleashed on us from the giant hovercrafts that flew above our heads. They could have dropped as many as they liked however, if there was one thing we knew how to be it was resilient.
Then District 13 was gone. The Capitol had an ace up their sleeve and executed it perfectly. The bombs struck and combined with the nuclear waste the District created in a toxic mixture. You could see the explosions from my own District and the tables turned as fast as District 13 was destroyed. The ace had fundamentally altered everything. We were at a loss, my father was at a loss. They took him long ago after he tried to carry on. He infiltrated the Capitol as the original plan was with leaders from Districts 2, 4, 8 and 11. I know he's dead, I'm more than old enough to understand what happens when someone goes missing for a month. The Capitol's airforce took down the whole rebellion that night. The Capitol's positioning in the Rockies was perfection, it made the rebels easy targets. It was as if nothing had happened at all for a while. The Capitol had reclaimed its hold on us all and we knew better than to try again. The invaders in white had been created, soliders taken from District 2 who had been brainwashed into following the Capitol. They slaughtered anyone who spoke out of line, who stepped out of turn. But the murdering stopped, they stopped making examples of random citizens. The firing squads stopped every dawn and we all believed that normalcy was going to reign supreme once again. But then they took me.
They took me and another boy from my District, they pulled us onto the steps of the Justice Building. I could tell from their eyes they knew who I was. I was the daughter of the leader of District 12, the boy beside me was the son of my father's second in command. He was my friend. Our families too were taken, I don't know where too. I tried to fight them all off, I tried to use anything I could as a weapon. I injured one but they caught me again whispering excitedly as they bundled us onto a train. I don't remember much after they sedated me. I was sealed inside a dark room, with someone giving me instructions. They were dressed in a multitude of colours from head to toe, telling me about weapons and ordering me to stay alive whatever happened. The only real words that registered in my head was the words, 'If you want to live you must kill. To win you must eliminate all those weaker than you.' I didn't fully understand the man's words but I knew what he was implying. It was after all, what the Capitol had done to the rebels. Squashed their competition, bombed them till there was nothing left.
My eyes are staring at the haul of weapons in front of me now. There are swords, knives, maces, arrows. I understand exactly what that man meant as I look around at the other children positioned around the weapons in a ring, the only thing between us was the weapons and it seemed pretty obvious what the Capitol wanted from us now. They couldn't be serious. We're children. Most of them are anyway. I must be one of the oldest here, some looked no older than twelve, but I knew what we all had in common. We were the children of the leaders from every District. Some I knew, some I have played with while our parents discussed battle plans. Then the roaring became deafening as my eyes connected with a boy of my age whose face was twisted between grim understanding and horror. Other looked shocked, but even as this display officially began none of us dared to move. None of us wanted to approach the barbaric instruments before us. Every weapon was designed to cause pain, to shed blood. The younger, tributes they seemed to call us, looked confused and scared. I thought of my father and as I did so I took a deep breath and decided to be brave. I took the first step off the plate and onto the soft grass below, the crowd silenced at once wondering what I was going to do. But the sounds of crying caught my attention and I saw one of the youngest girls crying, hiding her face from view in her black jacket and I find myself walking over to her. I don't know what I can say to her, I don't know what I can do to save any of them. I take her hand which causes her to look up at me in surprise, her big blue eyes were wide in fear but I just smile gently, reassuring her with my eyes. The two of us looked up at the citizens of the Capitol who were bearing down on us like starving vultures, ready and raring to see us spill each other's blood. But it was not going to happen, as the boy from my District stepped over to me and took my other hand shaking his head. The others, confused or not follow suit, till we were all standing in a line, hands held looking up at the President in his little box with rage, anger and desperation shining in our eyes. We are not going to destroy each other in this way. The President of the Capitol held eye contact only with me, I'm sure my bottom lip is quivering and my face is contorting into a snarl as I shake my head slowly, and giving us all a look of bored surprise he raises his right am. I wonder what it meant as the Capitol start throwing things at us for being so thoroughly unentertaining. The men in white begin to rise up from the tubes we had exited from and still we stand firm. Children, between the ages of twelve and eighteen who are standing up to the Capitol silently avenging the loss of our families. I can see it in the calculating President's eyes that there is no one left in Panem who I love. The men in white begin to walk towards us, the one nearest to me speaks.
"You must follow the rules, tributes." He warned dangerously cocking his gun.
"We are rebels, not tributes." I spit back my voice equally deadly. Then girl next to me quiveres and I tightened my grip on her hand. The man steps even closer to me, he stinks of some foul odour and before I can help myself, my father flashes before my eyes. I give him the hardest shove I possibly can, putting all of my seventeen year old strength into it. He topples back and the first gunshot goes off. I paused at once and looked down waiting to see the bullet wound, the blood spewing forth but there was none. There were screams from behind me and I turn. The little girl whose hand I had been holding just minutes before was dead, her face obscured by the tall grass. The children around begin crying or were just stoic as the man in white climbes to his feet and smirks at me, I too was screaming now. Tears are falling from my eyes and I can't stop them. Another gun shot rings out and a boy drops to the ground, the man in white had snuck up from behind and shot him in the back of the head. The other children run at once in all directions but there is nowhere to run. Some make for the pile of weapons and pick them up before staring at them at a complete loss at how to use them. More gunshots rain as the Capitol watching above ooh and awww at the barbaric display before them, some began pointing to the running tributes below them making notes on paper and some handing over money to others. I stare at the man in white I just pushed over, his gun has fallen to the floor and I seize it on the spur of the moment. The man in white laughes at me shaking his head and wagging a finger at me, I hiss at him. More gunshots are ringing in my ears and turning briefly I see the boy from my District fall with a smack to the floor, his eyes wide and blank, the mace still in his hand. I scream so loudly my throat burns and I bite my tongue so blood coats my mouth as I fire. The peacekeeper falls, his face caught between shock and menace, he seemes to be swearing his revenge on me as he collapses and the gun shots echo across the arena like torrential rain. I duck instinctively and shut my eyes trying to make myself as small as possible as the crowd scream it's approval, my fellow rebel tributes scream as they die and I cover my ears with my hands, the gun useless and out of bullets.
Then they drag me up and stand me up a few inches away from a boy who looks to be about eighteen, the oldest out of us all. I stared at him as the remaining peacekeepers surround us both, forming a tight circle and more were flooding the arena from the underground tubes. All their guns are trained on us. The boy is holding a lethal blade in his hand and is shaking all over but his eyes hold a feral, determined, steely glimmer in them I hadn't seen in any other here. He is gripping his weapon tightly with both hands so his knuckles are turning white and he looks upon me with his teeth gritting together. I am aware my mouth is bleeding and I wipe it but a peacekeeper grabs my arms and pointed to the weapons. I shake my head again but when I see the boy opposite me tighten his grip I take a smallish knife and they all seem happy. The crowd is screaming our names, how they know them I have no idea and the boy advances on me. I stare at him wondering what on earth he is doing.
"I don't want to hurt you. But I have no choice, they will kill me if I don't." He begs raising his blade a little.
"You don't have to do this. We can still show them they can't control us, why would you want to live like this?"
"I don't, but I must live. I'm not ready to die."
"Neither was that little girl." I shriek back at him, there are chuckles from around and my grip tightens on my knife too.
"It's better than not living at all." He whispers more to reassure himself than anyone else and then his pupils widen, they seem to engulf his eyes as he attacks. He swings and I dodge to the side at once, a cry tearing from my lips at his betrayal and I deflect his next blow. His strikes are wild, he swings the sword about with no real skill but I too am terrified for my life. I try to run but he grabs my leg and pulls me down. I kick out viciously and he stumbles to the grass below as well and tries to climb on top of me. I attempt to kick him again but it doesn't work. We are near the mass of weapons as I struggle to get away from him, his eyes bore down into mine shining with ferocity and ruefulness. "I'll make it painless." He whispers and my eyes widen as he raises his arm with the blade. I have no problem dying, I want to die proud like my father did, not under some snivelling coward who would betray our very philosophies the second a gun was pointed at him. It is this thought that convinces me to stab my knife into his upper arm. He howls in agony as my hand finds a quiver of arrows closes to me and he swings again, the blade cutting into my side and I cry out too as blood begins to dribble down my sticky side. He raises his arms again, pulling my knife out, deciding to end me with my own knife instead, I try to run once more but he seizes my neck with his arms enveloping me ready to plunge my own knife into my back. I writhe and lash out like a snake, landing a good elbow to his ribs effectively knocking the wind out of him and wheel back round to face him. He lifts his arms to strike once again and stops. His eyes slowly begin to dim, begin to lose the animalistic qualities they had possessed a minute before as he slowly sinks to the ground. I watch him do it not understanding what could have made him falter as he starts to fall on me, his weight going to crush me underneath him. His blood is coating the grass making the whole arena smell of thick blood as I try to release my right hand from whatever it is holding and bring with it a bleeding arrow. I looked down at the arrow as the wound it had made in the boy's stomach grows larger and larger, it seems to engulf him like a black hole as he finally falls to the earth. I drop the arrow seeing the blood on my fingertips and instantly go to wipe them on my trousers. I scream as I look at the twenty three bodies lying all around me and the peacekeepers are nodding, giving me looks of admiration. I start at the dead boy at my feet, the realisation that I had just killed washing over me as high above the Capitol screams it's favour and a canon booms in the distance. I stand there as the peacekeeper advances on me then and I pick up the murderous arrow in defence. They aim with their guns to blow me to pieces when a resounding voice echoes over the whole arena.
"No don't kill her." It instructs and the peacekeepers halt at once. "Let us have..." He pauses to find the right word and the tension is insurmountable, "A victor of these games. Someone to admire and look up to." His voice is calm yet malicious and I hate it. "This girl here has proven herself. She has overcome everything in order to win and she should be commended for her efforts." My eyes widen and I shake my head in horror whimpering, wanting nothing more than to crouch over and wretch on the grassy floor as the President gives me my title. I would rather die than wear it with honour. "She is the winner of the first annual Hunger Games."
2.
Herb Saunters, Male, District 2.
It was very much the same as the year before none of us would move, we didn't want to and we didn't know what to do even if we had gone for the weapons. Instead of the grass I had seen last year, when they forced us to watch in the square, the terrain is cracked earth, dry and parched as if it hasn't drunk water in years. It feels firm underneath my feet and I can feel the energy radiating off me but I have nowhere that I want to put it. We all just stand there looking at each other as the crowds cheers began to die as the Hunger Games, I think they call them, began. None of us will move, we all just shake our heads. Some of us are children they couldn't find for the first games, such as the boy from the Rebel Leader of District 1 and the girl from 6. Some of us are impertinent children like me who assaulted the Peacekeepers in the streets who were rounded up, and others were just simply unfortunate. There is talk between the Districts of the Capitol making a list of rules, a guidelines for these games which we will all have no choice but to follow. I don't understand why they are calling us tributes but it doesn't matter. We all know what they want from us, a good show. A good display of kills, the gorier and bloodier the better. We don't join hands. We're not that strong, we know what will happen if we defy the Capitol but we don't want to kill each other. But then the Peacekeepers rise out of the tubes when we don't move a muscle and they train their guns on us, one of the tributes from District 8 is dead at once. We run, some of us grab weapons and try to fight off the looming peacekeepers and they too are shot, blown to pieces while I'm one of the few who run towards the corners of the arena and I thrust my hands up to the multicoloured Capitol citizens, some who take a couple of pictures of me as I beg for them to help me and some begin to actually sympathise and whisper to their fellows. But the peacekeepers have slaughtered over two thirds of us now and the few of us who are left are shoved towards the pile of weapons and forced to fight. I only have to kill one of them, the other three have picked each other off and I am running for my life, weaving in and out of the peacekeepers who have stowed their guns away and are now watching us eagerly, occasionally shouting for the tribute behind me to finish me off. I snatch a broad sword from the pile of weapons and I turn round and slash at the tribute. I don't care anymore, I just want it to be over. The blade slices through his throat and decapitates him where he stands. I drop the sword in horror as I see the severed ligaments and tendons gushing hot scarlet blood and I dissolve into tears. It's not manly but I don't care and all around me is the sound of applause. I know I'm the second victor of the Hunger Games before the President even announces it and I cry out a blood curdling scream and seize the nearest knife to me and go to stab myself in the stomach, my sanity is slowly leaving me but the peacekeepers wrestle the blade out of my hands and I cry out again as they drag me away, my tears mingling with the blood from the tribute I just murdered in order to win.
3.
Gig Norton, Male, District 3.
I find it oddly curious and bizarrely fitting that as I stare up at the Capitol screaming my name, I have won. I am from District 3 and I am the victor of the 3rd Hunger Games. The name has caught on well and I am rather proud of my accomplishment even though a part of me screams how barbaric it is. I only won because my District is Technology and they put a taser in the pile of weapons, no one knew how to use any of the weapons with the few who chose to fight wielding their weapons with no real skill at all. But the taser was sneaky and I could get in close and shock them, charging the volts up till they were fried before my eyes. I cried when I ended the first one, but I had watched them kill all those tributes weaker than themselves, the Districts who hadn't gone grovelling to the Capitol hoping they might be spared from two of their children participating in the games. A treaty had been constructed where each District's children between the ages of 12 and 18 would be 'reaped' as in chosen by random to compete in the games. Some of the Districts who are friendlier with the Capitol thought they might be exempt, but they were not. Others like 7, 8 and most importantly 12 tried to revolt and were punished severely. I don't know why 12 was complaining when the first ever victor had come from that District, even if she did kill herself a week later. I hated the children from 1, 2 and 4 who were the only ones left besides me. I killed the girl from 4 without thinking about it and then I targeted the others. I was so angry at them for being the first to start the bloodbath as I had nicknamed it, the peacekeepers haven't fired one single bullet. They just lean against the sides watching the violence. They come from District 2, they are bred there like a factory and I taser the boy and girl tributes from their District with no regret at all. There was just me and the boy from 4 left. The boy was no match for my taser however and as I pushed the device to it's full limit the crowd showered me with praise. I basked in their delighted shouts as they chanted my name and the taser, my saviour and lifeline is still clenched in my hand.
4.
Juniper Barder, Female, District 11.
The arena is a maze, there are hedges everywhere and as I run through them at flying speeds I lose the tribute behind me. I have heard them screaming and I don't care about any of them, I just want this all to end, I just want to be back with my family in the trees. Although I am happy that I can run and hide unlike the other years, I can collect my thoughts and the hedges mean I can't see as much of the Capitol watching us. I can only see the top few rows. I hear footsteps approaching and I panic wheeling around, I have no weapons at all. They are all placed at the centre of the maze on some kind of horn which marks the centre and I haven't found it yet. I'm beginning to doubt I will now. I don't know how many tributes are left which is horrible because I don't know when it will be over. The footsteps are getting nearer and I look at a patch of hedge near me, it's slightly uneven and I bury myself into it hoping it will be some form of concealment from the tribute hunting me. I press my face into the dirt, it's my only choice. Find those weapons and kill everyone, become a killer, or to try and find somewhere to hide. It's the first time there has ever been anywhere to hide. There are no peacekeepers this year at all. There was no need to entice anyone towards the weapons, some of the children from the slightly wealthier Districts have begun training for the games anyway getting their hands on some weapons and I can bet that some are actually rather lethal now. They went for those weapons straight away. From the few bodies I've tripped over, the wounds are rather clean as if it's been a quick in and out style kill. I pray that the tribute will not notice me, I'm flat out on the ground, thanking my smallish frame and to my absolute luck as the tribute moves on. I hear her scream however and watch as she thumps to the ground her head bludgeoned in and a boy runs past with his District partner and I hear something as the canon sounds above marking the girl's death, it makes my blood chill. The two are laughing over their kill.
5.
Shimmer Carlton, Female, District 1.
I was reaped and I am ready. I've been waiting for this, I am eighteen one of the eldest and now the older you are, the more likely you are to be in the Hunger Games. I am lucky I've been training with my brothers. Thats what happens when your the only girl among four brothers, you have to be tough in order to live with yourself. But this time the arena is more high tech than I have seen it on my television back home. I can't see or hear the capitol and I've heard there is a forcefield ever since that boy a few years ago tried to claw at some of the public to get their help. The boy from two years ago who had coined the phrase 'bloodbath' for opening part of the games where tributes battle to gain control of the weapons was right. It was gory but as I speared a tribute through the heart, one more down was my thinking strategy, I flicked my hair back and caught a camera in a nearby tree. I lowered my spear when I realised I was the only tribute left by the horn, as the others had all fled into the trees surrounding the arena. I looked at the camera and thought of the masses of people watching me in the Capitol and back home. If I won then I would not only get to go home, but the Capitol will endorse me. All the victors are beginning to get compensated for their valour or something and they are building sites in all the Districts called the Victors Village, giant mansions where the victors can live in peace. I belong in the Victor's Village. I walk over towards the camera and stroke my hair out of my eyes pouting a little, it worked with the boys back home when I wanted something, maybe it would work here in the Capitol too. They love fashion, popularity and expensive things, in those ways we are very much alike. I blow a kiss to the camera and wink before picking up my spear again and tossing a sentence back over my shoulder, "eighteen down and five to go." I sat in the horn marking it as my own territory for the final five tribute to see, daring them to attack me with my mass of weapons. No one comes near me and night falls, the games have never lasted this long before and I'm getting rather hungry. My stomach rumbles and I hear a sweet, plinking sound echo from just outside the horn and see a parachute winding its way towards me. I open it up and see a message from someone in the Capitol.
We Like What We See.
Inside the parachute is a canister of water and some soup, the Capitol have read my mind.
6.
Sweep Pierce, Male, District 5.
Tears are falling down my dirty, scratched cheeks as I run towards the nearest tree and begin to scale it, but I fall down and don't have the strength to try again yet. There are more items at the giant horn this time, they have put some backpacks around now and it's even more tempting but I'm not stupid enough to go for it like some of the others were. I grabbed a backpack on the outskirts and as I rest by the base of the tree I open it up. There is some rope, a small knife and most importantly a bottle for water and some dried fruit. The last games went on for a couple of days and most of the tributes ended up dying from lack of water, all apart from the girl from 1 who received the first ever parachute of the Hunger Games. I saw her sex appeal and it caught the Capitol's eye at once, they loved her and went so far as to spend their wealth on her. She had plenty of water where the others had none. There were a lot of 'boring' deaths as they called it, not enough bloodshed. They are making sure it doesn't happen again. The arena is much bigger than I can ever remember it being, there is a lake this time, there is a forrest, there is an wide open field and a river too. I don't want to have to kill anyone, they can't all have grabbed backpacks. Surely there are enough other tributes out there ready to kill, they can pick the others off. What if I can climb this tree? I've never climbed a tree before in my life, but I've never killed before either. There might be few things I learn for the first time today.
Keep reading and reviewing, I'll keep posting the Chapters regardless however since they are all finished so this will definitely be wrapped up.
If you have time I'd love for you to check out the very successful 'As Sweet as Surprises" - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory fanfic.
I have had something huge in the works for ages but am holding off on posting chapters because I want it to be completed before I begin. Far easier to update when it's already written. It's something far darker than anything I've written before and I'd love if you had some guesses as to what it could be. That's all I'm saying for now, I might post a clue at the end of this story.
xoxo
