Mags: District Four Tribute- 10th Hunger Games
Standing on the pedestals, surrounding the cornucopia... You don't understand how terrifying it is. Your heart is beating so fast, you feel like it's in your throat. Fear and adrenaline rush through your veins as you imagine the things you're about to endure. In the mere thirty seconds left... You could be dead in forty.
After all, only one of us makes it out, right? Being born five years before the Dark Days, I almost remember the slightly bigger amount of freedom we had. Then, the war. Hiding in the small cellar that should have held six, but held eleven during that time.
Then, my parents cried and cried... Names were collected, and suddenly the TV in our house wasn't used for decrees by the president... It's for showing the deaths of twenty-three children, all between twelve and eighteen.
I screamed and clawed when my name was picked my fourth time in the running, now fifteen. When the Games started, after the first, people began to prepare themselves- they began to prepare themselves incased they got picked. I didn't needed to as well; my family makes nets for a living.
However, things have began changing... around the time I was eight. Tributes became more brutal, coming from District's One and Two, not leaving out ours as well. I can swing a sword by now, but I didn't expect to get picked. The tributes from our three Districts are banding together more and more, hunting down the weaker ones. Not all of them, of course, but some.
The rest of the Districts are turning their backs on us and I don't like that. I haven't done anything, but because of the Capitol pitting us all against each other, we have no choice. The enemy is each other now, not the Capitol.
The puppet never turns on the puppeteer. The strings must be kept rigid and perfect... The puppets entertaining a crowd differently with surprises and drama. It's sick, the Capitol doing this.
By the time the gong rings, I've been rambling in my head too much. Jumping down, I watch tributes go from hesitant to knowing that to win- they have to kill.
The girl from six lunges at me, her punch missing. Swimming around, her foot latches around my ankle and I yell as I find myself on the ground, a pain in my back.
She grabs a blade hidden in the grass that I hadn't seen and raises the knife.
I can't die this easily... Strength I didn't know I had pushes her off my, and I let my knuckles smash her face, the cartilage in her nose crunching.
Moving quickly, I get up and whip around, my wavy blonde hair smacking me in the face. Everywhere I see the same people- blue shirts, black wind-breakers, tan shorts, and black boots. They have different hair, but the people are all same. Didn't we have feelings at some point?
Watching the boy from Three get stabbed in the heart by the District Ten girl makes me gulp and realize, there is no feeling here- not here.
I turn to my right and scoop up a pack of fruit and what looks like a silver slingshot with three sharpened spikes as rocks in a pouch and run towards the large pine forest all around us.
I know that cameras will be showing me, letting the audience know that I'm not dead... yet.
My parents, and sister... They must terrified. I want to just scream I'm okay! I miss you all so much! I'll get home as soon as I can!
However, showing softness and over-confidence hasn't worked out for a few tributes in the past nine Games.
Swallowing, I move along the forest, trudging until my legs give away, and I fall onto the dirt ground. Sighing, I pull open my pack fruit and pop a grape into my mouth, sealing up the container. I know that I have to find water, and shelter.
A quick once-up of the surroundings, I've found the trees are quite climbable. I take one branch at a time, like I learned in the training center.
I won't get sleep tonight, I'll just stay awake, wondering who out there is willing to kill and who isn't. There is no way to tell what people will survive in the woods now, and which will befriend you.
A cannon interrupts my thoughts, followed by nine more. Ten people. Not too shortly after, the sun sets and the fake stars twinkle above us, the music playing and faces staring down at us.
District One female, District Two and Three's male, none from my Home, both from five, both from eight, the boy from Ten, the girl from Eleven, and the boy from Twelve.
Fourteen of us are alive. I have to say, as horrible as it sounds, I wish more people had left in the first day. I would be closer to home.
Right now, I've never been farther.
The Next Day
I was right- I got no sleep. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't. Fear like I've never felt was all I could think of. The Gamemakers or another Tribute could go and kill me, and I wouldn't stand a chance.
Thinking of it makes my head hurt, and my throat sore from willing the tears not to spill from my eyes. I need water, though.
I won't have much of a choice when I'm dying of thirst, and I've done nothing to gain support and money from Sponsor's.
The Next Day
I went the next night, and I managed to sleep for about an hour. My head won't stop pounding, and the thoughts of cool water from the springs we have in Four makes me sigh- I have none.
Finally, I don't much of a choice. Tucking my fruit pack into a pocket that barely big enough, I pour the spikes into it as well, keeping one in sling-shot, moving at it any notice.
The forest goes on and on forever, it's just never-ending. This gives my the thought that the only water we may have in tribute's pack's.
With a gulp, I head through the pine-needled earth, ducking behind trees to rest for a bit. The only open space we had was at the Cornucopia, and that's miles back.
Rocks and ditches are arranged like a pattern around us, tons of rocks that go about five feet down, but no water scraping the edges.
I'm about to give up, when I see a person, slumped against a rock, eyes closed breathing slowly. A bag is right beside them.
Biting my lip, I think. If I go and try to steal, I might wake them up and they'll try to kill me. If I don't, I may not find another person who may or may not have something to drink with them.
The voice in my head prods me and I can't take it until I creep to the bag and flip open the top. Buried under a first-aid kit is a canteen. When I shake it, I can hear water inside.
I grin, turning and running, occasionally looking back to make sure the person hasn't awoken. After all, when they do they'll be ready to kill.
When I find another tree, and climb it, my hands shake as I open the water. Feeling the cold liquid run down my dry mouth- it's like nothing else.
Survival is the only thing in this thing. That person may not survive because I just took their water. All's fair in love and war.
All's fair in the Hunger Games.
So, these are going to be kind of like this. The same structure. The next chapter will be events in her games, and the third will be the Finale.
I'll be doing: Mags, Woof, The D6 Morplhings, Cecelia, Beetee, Wiress, Lyme, Brutus, Enobaria, Haymitch, Gloss, Cashmere, Chaff, Seeder, Finnick, Annie... I think that's it.
So, I'll be doing three per victor, and then a final chapter, so that's... 52 chapters... wow. Better get started, hahah. ;D
I hope you liked it, and I hope that you review!
Thanks for reading!
~Meghan