Therese Dartmill's midnight blue six-inch heels clicked and clacked all the way down the long stone corridor. Her dark blue bag containing files and notes was slung over her shoulder as she made her way towards the Gamemaking laboratory. It wouldn't be long until the Reapings, only a few weeks, and the Arena wasn't done. It was five days after her meeting with the President, and work slowly progressed, but it still would hard to set the Arena up to recent standards in time.

She reached her destination in no time. The laboratory was a large, dome-shaped room about the size of a large house. There were rows and rows of computers and a 3D projector was currently blank in the middle of the room. There was a platform off to the side, about ten by ten feet(three by three meters) that would transport some Gamemakers into the Arena itself to make sure everything was working properly.

"Good morning, Talbot," Dartmill said in greeting to a Gamemaker. The blonde man smiled.

"Good morning." Charlie Talbot was young and new to the job, but unlike other rookie Gamemakers he wasn't at all nervous, even with President Alder.

"How's your assignment coming along?"

"Excellently. The model and programming for the creatures is completed, and we've even made a few test copies. Would you like to see them?"

Dartmill nodded. Talbot stood from his computer and led the way over to the platform. He used a gleaming golden key to unlock the door and then held it open for Dartmill, who thanked him and stepped inside. He followed and shut the door behind him. He pushed down on a few buttons- in a specific order, another security precaution- and the platform began to rise.

As soon as they were above the room, there was no source of light except for a dim light shining down from the ceiling of the lift.

"It's a bit dark, isn't it?" Talbot sighed. "I'll get an engineer to fix it immediately after we get back down."

The platform was moving sideways along the ground now, almost like a train, but it was just underground and much smaller. Soon a bright light from ahead began to get larger and larger in Dartmill's view until the platform slowed to a stop in a small grey, empty room.

"Here we are," Talbot said, opening the door to the platform and stepping off with Dartmill. A bald head poked out from the top of a staircase.

"Oh, hello there," said Wicken. He was an engineer who was currently setting up the weather system for the Arena. "Here to see the creatures, are we? I'll show you to them."

Wicken led them over to a blank wall where there was a little slot. He swiped a plastic card along it and a door swung open.

It was a very large room, with a glass walled cage containing dark figures taking up much of the space. There were also a dozen tubes along one wall. Dartmill approached the cage, but leapt back when one of the figures hurled itself at her.

"Yes, they're a little hostile," Wicken said. "We don't have a way to control them, really. But we can examine them by hitting this button. It fills the cage with a special gas that knocks them out for a while. Would you like to see?"

At Dartmill's command, Wicken pressed down on a yellow button on the wall. At first nothing happened, but the figure pounding on the wall slowed down until it was barely poking the glass and then collapsed backwards, unmoving, as did the other five creatures.

"We've still got to be careful, though," Talbot said as Wicken opened the door. "Griffin and Dmitri were both sent to the hospital because they were unaware that the monsters were beginning to stir."

Dartmill knelt down next to the figure that had been pounding the glass. It was the form of a human, but its skin was a strange green-grey and hung loosely from its bony body. It was bald, and its eyes were pure darkness. Its fingers were curled into a deathly choking motion. It wore a torn old white t-shirt and a leather jacket over that, which was even more torn. Its jeans were just a complete wreck; one leg was shredded so badly the calf part had fallen off completely, and the other had a gap running down the entire thing, making it look like it would fall off any minute.

The others were in no better shape. They wore different clothes, and two were female, but apart from that they were the exact same.

"Excellent work," Dartmill said. "And what are the tubes for?"

"They will transport them into the Arena, some near the tributes, some waiting to ambush them away from the others. The fun thing is, though-" Wicken laughed evilly before continuing. "The tributes will have five minutes to get out of their starting spots before the mutations are sent up, exactly where they were. Oh, I can only imagine their faces when they find out what's in store for them."

"It is, after all, a classic game of survival, just as the Hunger Games were meant to be," Dartmill said. She herself let out a cackle. "But this time, the tributes are all allies. Oh yes, it will be interesting. Tributes against zombies... I can't wait."

A/N: And cue the surprised gasps.

Yes, that's right, folks, that is the twist they were talking about! The tributes aren't fighting each other, they're fighting the zombies! Bet you weren't expecting that. Surprise.

So yeah. There are most of the tribute spots still open and I have a grand total of 0 mentors and stylists. I hope to have all the spots filled by December 1, the one month marker for the story, so please sent in some tributes, mentors, and stylists and tell all your friends too as well.

Näkemiin!(That's Finnish for goodbye)

~Erik