AUTHOR'S NOTE: And thus we conclude Part I of this story as the 91st Annual Hunger Games kick off. Someone dies, and thus someone else is already a murderer. The following chapter will cover the rest of the bloodbath as the pandemonium dies down, and we get into the nit and grit of the games from there. Happy reading.

CHAPTER 14: Countdown to Death

Wes groaned as he heard someone calling to wake him up. He knew who it was, and while he was able to dismiss the fact that she was likely just following protocol rather than sounding super enthusiastic about it the way she had been the last several days, he was still a bit grumpy. No one; rich or poor, male or female, young or old, good or evil, enjoyed being woken up. In most cases it was just a necessary evil. This was probably the most evil of the necessary evils.

Junichi departed once she noticed Wes was up, and probably went next door to go wake up Ava. As Wes rubbed his eyes and stretched, he noticed that a pile of clothes was set out for him—clearly the uniform for the arena this year. It was fairly simple, as most of them were, simply consisting of dark pants and a jacket that appeared to be water-resistant but also lightweight; and then study boots and a T-shirt. He pulled it all on, figuring that the only thing to differentiate the tributes' outfits (apart from their sizes, which the Capitol clearly had information on), was that Wes' outfit had two bands around the bicep areas of his T-shirt and jacket that bore the number 12.

He stepped out and sat down to eat some breakfast. Obviously his team was fairly quiet, even when Ava came out, dressed almost identically to Wes, except her clothes were obviously smaller to accommodate her smaller frame.

"Don't hold back," Vigo warned as the two tributes ate. He could continue eating after they were gone and being transported to the arena. He, Junichi, and the stylists would be able to eat more while they watched the games. Wes and Ava would not be so fortunate.
"Anything you can do, do it. Everything that happens once you get into that arena is just a means to an end. There is no one judging you. They aren't going to care how you win—just THAT you win."

Ava gave Vigo a look of understanding which Wes also mimicked.

"I'm rooting for you." Junichi said softly; the escort lady had always been fairly down-to-earth, but this time she sounded genuinely humble and concerned. Wes remembered that she had briefly mentioned that she had lost a child of her own, and so perhaps that was why she sympathized a bit more with them. She was easily the most popular Capitol citizen back in District 12, which was part of why the Capitol allowed her to stay there—it gave them good publicity if its citizens and the citizens of one of Panem's districts were able to foster some sort of relationship.

Soon, however, breakfast came to an end, and it was just a few minutes of tense waiting before there was a knock at their door. No one answered it, because a moment later, a pair of Peacekeepers appeared. Ava and Wes both looked a little startled, but then realized what they were there for. They were just here to ensure that the tributes arrived at the hovercraft without incident. Surely there had been one or two years when a kid probably tried to make a run for it.

As they got up to leave, Amadeus and Celine both did the same, but took a different route. Wes turned to Ava and gave her a brief hug.

"Let's try and meet up," he suggested, "If nothing else, I want to try and make amends for how I've been acting over the last few days. I love you, Ava."
"I love you too, Wes. We can maybe talk more on the trip to the arena."
With a nod, the two siblings followed the Peacekeepers, who escorted them to the hovercraft without event. There were 24 seats, but they were divided into two rows across from each other—boys to the left, and girls to the right. Ava and Wes sat across from each other, with Wes finding himself seated between Florence and Volta, while Ava found herself next to Candie and Alice. She glanced towards the end of the row and saw Chel at the far end, seated next to Ginger. It was unusually silent as the tributes fastened themselves in, and Peacekeepers came around instructing them to hold up their arms. Iris, who was the first tribute approached, held out her arm. The peacekeeper pushed her sleeve up a little before jabbing something into her arm—the trackers. As bad as these sounded, they were more so that the Gamemakers would know where to focus the cameras. There were forcefields around the boundaries of the arena that would prevent escape, or would fry tributes on the spot if they were misfortunate enough to walk into it.

Soon every tribute's right arm was equipped with a tiny tracker. It didn't hurt at all, or even draw any blood, and so it was rather eventless after that.

Wes wasn't sure how long the trip had lasted, but eventually, he could tell that the hovercraft was landing and coming to a stop. Most of the other tributes seemed rather calm about it. Some of the lower-scoring ones seemed a bit nervous, while the careers and other higher-scoring tributes seemed pumped and ready to go. Ava, whom Wes was watching with curious interest, remained calm and stoic, not betraying even a hint of emotion on her face about how she felt. Soon the craft came to a stop, and the tributes were filed out one by down into an underground chamber where they were each taken to separate rooms. Wes noticed that there was a glass tube on one side of his little room, and that waiting for him there was none other than Amadeus. Perhaps Celine was with Ava.

"I can't keep you for long," the purple-haired stylist warned, "but I do want to give you this. Celine has the one for Ava."
He handed Wes the orange bracelet that had the sun pattern on it. In another room in these same catacombs, Ava was being handed the same purple, moon-patterned bracelet that his mother had given her before the train.

"Do good out there," he took Wes' hand, "we're all rooting for you."
Wes shuddered slightly, but embraced Amadeus for a moment before walking towards the tube, which closed around him. There was no turning back now. A few moments later, presumably after every tribute was in place, the tubes began to rise, and Wes found himself squinting as the brightness of the arena set in around them.

In front of him was the cornucopia that graced the center of their semicircle. Glancing around and he realized that they were on a large plateau, surrounded by a circular valley, with incredible mountain vistas each way he looked. To his left was Cress from '4, and to his right was Magnolia from '7. He saw Ava towards the far right of the semicircle, with Zaffre on her left and Roy on her right.

Moments later, there was a voice, and it shook Wes to the core.

"Sixty… Fifty-Nine… Fifty-Eight…"

This was it—the countdown to the end of potentially his life, Ava's life, or the lives of any of the other 22 children that graced the semicircle around the large golden cornucopia. He glanced around and saw plenty of supplies and backpacks, and he tried to gauge what would be the most useful for him. Of course, weapons were everywhere, because if there was one thing that the cornucopia would always have (and sometimes only have) it was weapons. He briefly thought back to Katniss' games 16 years ago, where the cornucopia had only been supplied with weapons. Luckily that was not so this time.

"Nineteen… Eighteen… Seventeen…"

Ava's eyes met with Chel's briefly, and the taller girl nodded. He glanced over at Wes, who had not noticed, and tried to get his attention without moving too much. If she slipped, they'd be scraping her off of Roy and Zaffre, as well as a large area of land.

Wes saw Ava and gave her a reassuring nod. They would make it out of this bloodbath together, and then they would figure out what to do from there. They could still be a team. They had been a team all their lives; the little brother-sister pair that had been nigh-inseparable since Ava was brought into this world. Now, here they were with a clock counting down the seconds that some of these children had left to live, before the final, heart-pounding words were heard.

"Three… Two… One…"

A loud gong-like noise sounded through the air, and the landmines around the pedestals had deactivated. Most tributes wasted no time.

Wes noticed Ava sprint forward. She had always been a swift little thing. What surprised him even more was that she instantly got into a fight with a boy from District 9 over a fancy-looking dagger with a lion's head on the hilt, and a red velvet handle. It surprised him even further that Ava struck the boy with a left hook, causing him to relinquish his grip on the dagger, which she instantly plunged into his chest. His sister was now a murderer.

However, there was no time to dwell on that. Briefly surveying the surrounding area for no more than a split-second, he chose his course and zigzagged straight towards the cornucopia.

The 91st Annual Hunger Games had begun.