Narrator's POV
The conference room had been quiet and dismal for some time. Dust sheltered shelves, dry spider corpses filled drawers, and dingy, loose cobwebs stuffed themselves into tight corners. When Cirrus Mediker, Panem's most valuable gamemaker, died days before the reaping last year due to unforeseen circumstances, he hadn't yet laid out his plan for the 149th hunger games. In recent years, Cirrus brought Panem "The Dark Games," "An explosive untruth," and "The year of the Wolf" games. Although Cirrus was 67, no gamemaker was prepared to jump in, and from what we know, Cirris was also an apprentice to another head gamemaker. The President, Mr. Jonah Sanita, knew that no one could replace nor even come close to achieving what Cirrus had, so he canceled the hunger games for that year, in hopes of training a new head gamemaker and letting the districts be free for one year. That year, capital citizens stayed home in remembrance of the great Cirrus Mediker, and the districts danced to dawn in celebration.
The conference room is where the games were discussed, planned, and played out. No one had entered since the 148th hunger games. This room was desolate for two years until Monet Silverstein walked in.
Her aura brought light to the room. Colors all around the room seemed to brighten. The dust floating throughout the air became frightened and flew away. A few screens flickered back to life and voices filled the air. The conference room reclaimed its natural order, with a somewhat beauty of chaos.
All gamemakers delightfully took their seats in an a somewhat disorganized fashion. The gamemakers were very eager to chat. If you were to only hear the audio from the conference room on that particular day, you would assume it was some type of family reunion. While this was distracting, all the men eventually took their seats, but continued the chatter. When a table of well-groomed men in white suits and bowties with varying coloration and patterns surrounded her, Monet finally approached one side of the table and smacked her fist against the table. It managed to quiet the weakest or grab the attention of those not currently speaking. This time, Monet cleared her voice until everyone had their bodies turned towards the vibrant woman, who surprisingly wasn't a huge conversation topic. There had never been a head gamemaker who was a woman. After a mostly-woman team of gamemakers put together the 135th, the games where literally every tribute died on the first day due to either being killed in the cornucopia or drowned in the water surrounding it because there was no land, the capital has been a bit reluctant about hiring women. But Monet was different. She had that extra sizzle, the pizzazz, and the passion that let her win out over everyone else. Amongst a crowd, she is likely the first item to catch your eye due to the fact that she is notorious for dressing similar to or wearing more outrageous than Effie Trinket. Today, she was dressed in a long, silk-like, neon green dress with a bedazzled bust. Her hair had an ombre pattern, fading from pink to blue. Her earrings were always the most notable part of her outfit. In this meeting, Monet had on a pair of forest-green diamonds in the shape of a sword. There was a small, speckled feather gently gripping beneath the weapons.
So what. She has a good personality. She has a sense of style. What would make her worth succeeding the great Cirrus Mediker? Monet can think on her feet, an ability you'll see expressed during this meeting.
"Ahem." Forced Monet. The hoarse cough had little effect.
"I said ahem! Please, if you want to be professional, you will save your reunions for later. We have two weeks until the reaping, and if we don't get down to business we'll all be dead. Understand?"
"Why should we trust someone like you? You look like an attention-seeking, kiss-up, whore to me." Blurted one "confident" man in the front.
Monet took a moment to swallow her pride and bite her tongue. The men began laughing when Monet replied, "Because I have the balls to do this job, unlike all of you."
The gamemakers would have liked to make fun of the man this was originally directed to, but it was a burn to all of them, and this was one burn from one hell of a fire.
"Okay. Since you trust me now, let me start. We, all of us alive and breathing in the room, are responsible for the outcome of the 150th hunger games. Listen to me when I tell you this has got to be the greatest hunger games anyone can remember. We are not only hosting a quarter quell, but there was no hunger games last year. The districts are happy, but the capital and a few higher districts are angry. Order must be restored, and people must continued to be shocked. The notes say that this quarter quell is supposed to be played in teams. Three districts to a team, four teams total, if one team is left standing they win, but then we say "Psych did you think we would let 6 people win? Go kill each other!" To me, this sounds too cliche. Since you guys seem quiet, I'll tell you my idea. So tomorrow, we send peacekeepers to every door in Panem. They ask for all children who are going to the reaping. Those kids Then write the name of another reaping-aged child they care who is of the opposite gender on that piece of paper. We record the names each child wrote and the name of the child who wrote it on a tablet in some sort of database. When the reaping comes, we will still pick one boy and one girl, but when they are picked or they volunteer, When they are surely chosen, the child's name they wrote will be announced, and that child will come up to compete in the hunger games as well. There will be two boys and two girls from each district, making a total of forty-eight tributes. There will only be one winner. No one can volunteer for the tribute who is coming because there name was written down. If someone volunteers and they are another person's tribute on paper, a random name will be chosen to fill the spot. Sound good?"
A quiet, slow, sarcastic applause turns into a fit of whooping, hollering, cheering, and at the same time, nothing at all. Monet
smirks at the ground, and then composes herself. "Okay, I think we are all on the same page. There are 18 of you, and I will split
you up into three groups. See where the tables divide? Anyone in your table is on your team. This team-" Monet points slightly to
her right. " you guys secure pen and paper supplies necessary for each district. This group-" now pointing slightly left, "you will go
alert the peacekeepers and the president of what is going on and what needs to be done. Let the president know he is not to
inform the public of this at all. Escorts will do so at the reaping. Finally, anyone left, you guys go help with the team designing the
arena and anyone who needs your help. Now let's get out there and show The Capital what we're made of!"
