Mags Flanagan, District 4 female

Day 1

I rise up from my tube and feel everything I am afraid of consume me. This is it. I swallow hard, feeling the lump in my throat gulp down to my chest. As the strong breeze blows salty air into my nostrils, I can't help but feel relieved this place might be near seawater. I'll just hide there where nobody can get me. Unless you count Jonah, my district partner. But he and I are on good terms.

When I feel the plate pushing me into open air, I grin at the sight of a vast oceanic arena. The first of a whole new class of arenas. All tribute plates are on a sandbar that rings around the Cornucopia which is on an island of moist sand. I could run to the tributes next to me, and they could run to each other.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the announcer says, "Let the Eleventh Hunger Games begin!"

I want to just jump into this water and swim away. But these plates are obviously triggered with mines. In the Cornucopia are weapons of one kind: tridents. Jonah and I manage to find each other. He's nine tributes to my left. Even from his far location, we both give each other a smile. This arena was designed just for us.

Sixty seconds later, the gong rings. I dive off my plate and begin doing a freestyle to the horn. I appear on the island, Jonah already running into the mouth. His dark face and long black dreads shimmer against the sunlight.

"Gimme one," I tell him, pointing to a trident.

He tosses it to me, and we look around for supplies. Black cubes with little cords are the only thing available. And I know what these are. Inflatable life rafts. Normally, they are bright orange, so survivors of sunken boats can be spotted. But in the arena, that's the last thing you want.

I walk back out onto the horn and see various tributes trying to swim. These wetsuits are actually buoyant, so they'll fare just fine. However, Jonah and I can swim faster. Just as we inflate our raft, Diana from District 2 appears. She must've been on the other side where I couldn't see. She's smirking and says, "Going somewhere?"

I point my trident at her and say, "Get close to me and I'll kill you."

"Feisty little girl," she says, her damp blond hair covering her cheeks, "I'm joining you guys. Best chances are with you."

"In your dreams!" I shout.

Suddenly, I hear a scream. The boy from District 10 is in the water about thirty yards away. He's panicking as he splashes in the water. Staying afloat, he looks so stupid. He thinks he's drowning when in fact drowning is more often than not a silent event. Then I see what's actually happening. He's not alone. Turns out, the boy from District 2 is hidden in the water behind him. Lithos is making the boy scream by dunking his head underwater. He eventually submerges the boy completely while laughing.

"He's a lunatic. Now you see why I want you two?" Diana says.

His laugh is so close to that of a hyena. I grimace and say, "Get in the raft."

Jonah comes back with another raft, still packaged up. After he sets it in the opened raft, we begin paddling out. But the sandbar is surrounding the horn. We'll have to drag it across, and the majority of tributes, still on their plates, will be able to attack us. No. Unlikely. We're three rich tributes with tridents. Most of the outliers will be afraid of us.

But between the two plates right across from the mouth of the horn is a gap where there is no sand. It's a slit for rafters to escape. Diana, Jonah, and I race outwards to the vast ocean. Several other sandbars are around the arena. Some just white sand. Others are filled with trees. When we turn back, we can see several tributes clumsily making their way to the island. The boy from 10 is floating in the water facedown. Two other tributes, both boys, also appear to be facedown in bloody water.

As we get further away, Jonah says, "Looks like the boy from 2 got a trident."

I'm the only one rowing with a paddle as my two allies watch like little kids on a boat as their parent sails.

Diana says, "No, that's Pendant. Can't you see his red hair?" she said, referring to the boy from 1.

"Oh yeah," Jonah says.

"Guys, help me row!" I shout.

We get to a sandbar extremely far from the Cornucopia, and by the time we lie on the sand, seven cannons fire. Our raft contains an emergency package of dried fruit, nuts, crackers, beef and fish jerky. There's even a desalination kit, meaning we will have an endless supply of potable water. I can't help but feel relieved we hit a jackpot.

"There were only ten of these in the Cornucopia," I said.

"Sucks for them," Diana says.

"Yeah, sucks for them," Jonah says.

"I feel kind of bad. Some of them are going to drink saltwater," I say, thinking about how my brother nearly died in the Pacific during the Dark Days. I was four, and so worried when his ship got destroyed by the Capitol Navy.

"But at least we'll just be one step closer to home," Jonah says.

At night, the fallen tributes are depicted in the sky.

The boy from District 3, the girl from District 5, both tributes from District 8, the girl from 9, the boy from 10 who was literally drowned in front of me, and lastly was the boy from District 12.

Day 8

"Please, don't kill me," the girl from District 1 says. I have no more sympathy for her. She's been playing that victim angle for too long.

"You killed Jonah," I said, "And you killed Diana. You think I'm that dumb?"

"Please, I didn't mean to!"

I scoff, "Sooooo when I saw you push them off the sandbar into swaths of jellyfish, you didn't mean to do that? You just thought they'd be able to outswim them while they were asleep? You didn't even give them the chance to wake up."

Ruby's entire facial expression changes and she raises an eyebrow, "You're serious? This is the Hunger Games. I don't care if it's fair or not."

"Well, then you won't care if this is fair or not," I say, throwing a net over her that I made from the ruins of our raft.

She tries to escape, but it's hopeless. Ruby's trapped, and I throw chum into the ocean to lure the sharks. They don't hesitate. That's when I toss her into the water and see her get devoured.

A cannon fires and I can hear Pendant running from behind me, "You're gonna pay for this District Four!" I turn around and we clash tridents. Just as he's about to stab me in the gut, I duck and lunge behind him, kicking him into the water as he's also shredded apart by sharks.

"Wrong," I said in response. The cannon fires and that's when I hear the words that I'd never thought I'd ever hear.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present the victor of the Eleventh Hunger Games, Mags Flanagan!"

I lift my trident into the air with my sunburnt arm, but I'm too happy to even care about the stinging pain of my charred skin.