Sidney Fawkes, 16, District Two Male
He rises into the arena, and the first thing that Sidney notes is the huge, no, gigantic building in front of him. It seems to be something close to a hotel, even with a little sign and tinny music coming from inside the building. He turns away and stares at the rest of the tributes, all focusing on the cornucopia. He can see the glint of steel hidden away in the darkness of the cornucopia and, if he looks closely enough, he can see backpacks hidden in the tufts of faded grass surrounding the cornucopia. And just as he notes a rustling movement inside the cornucopia and leans in closer, the timer starts.
59…
58…
57…
He turns backwards to note the rest of the arena, and a huge… giraffe is standing placidly behind the tributes and chomping on the leaves of the largest tree he's ever seen. Is this the savanna? Have the tributes been put into the savanna for this year's games?
45…
44…
43…
Would there be lions too? Huge lions, ones to rip the tributes to shreds? And as Sidney squints into the distance, he can fancy he hears a roar in the distance.
32…
31…
30…
Okay, he has to focus on the cornucopia. He can see the girl from Seven, Adira, on the other side of the cornucopia, fixing her position and readying herself to charge into the cornucopia. Her three allies are dispersed throughout the rest of the circle, the girl from Two standing next to an apprehensive Alexis, and the girls from Four and Ten side to side, close to him. Whatever her does, Sidney cannot run into one of them. Inviting one of them to kill him would only invite them all. He has to grab something else, find something easy to carry, something that he bring into wherever he's going.
27…
26…
25…
He sees the glint of a knife pack in the grass close to him; a pack that no one else has noticed yet. He'll grab that and run into the savanna, away from the rest of the tributes and safe in solitude. It's good that Mother and Father have taught him to stay calm in situations like these. He would have never been able to focus through the buzz of terror running through most of the tributes if he hadn't been taught those breathing exercises in his training at home.
13…
12…
11…
An earth-shattering trumpet rings throughout the air, and Sidney almost jumps in the air as he sees an elephant walk past the tributes. It surprises him, but he manages to remain calm and stay on his feet. The same can't be said for the boy from Eight. He jumps into the air, surprised by the noise, and slips on his pedestal on the way down.
Boom!
The sounds rings throughout the air, and the elephant is startled enough to stampede away into the savanna, trumpeting a sound of danger. The pieces of the boy are still flying through the air, some landing on Sidney's tuxedo and dress shoes, and he almost retches as he recalls the smell of blood that he had always noted slightly on his parents when they came back in the night. It's on him now, and more will be coming soon enough. You can't stay clean during the Games.
5…
4…
3…
Oh goodness, it's starting already, they're all about to die. He takes one last deep breath and prepares to run towards the knives, not focusing on the blood. Mother and Father have taught him to overlook the messy stuff, it's just been his nervousness and fright from being in the Games that have made him so scared, so jumpy. He'll calm down now. He's going to survive. He's going to survive. He's going to survive.
And as the gong blares, he runs towards the knives and pushes his thoughts away one last time.
Ava Barkley, 15, District Ten Female
She resists the urge to scream as she runs into the boy from One, scrambling to get away from the terrified teen. But he doesn't stop, searching frantically around in the grass for a weapon, for a weapon to stab her with. She searches right along with him, finding a small knife hidden in the dust and attacking the boy with it. He doesn't stop screaming as she tackles him, skidding into the dust and slashing his neck with it. But he soon goes limp as she slices one of his jugular veins, the blood flowing out freely onto the dust. And as he pales and stills on the ground, she scrambles up and runs into the cornucopia. She needs to find an ax, she needs to find an ax if she wants to survive.
She watches as the girl from Five trips on a root and crashes into the ground, screaming as she turns around to attempt to get up and away from the bloodbath. But Alexis flies towards her before she has the chance to stand, twisting her neck with an audible snap before dropping the girl on the ground and vanishing into the cornucopia. Ava trails after her, trying to find an ax. Are they at the back? Where are they?
Adira is already there, grabbing one and nodding as she passes Ava. Ava watches her sprint back into the fray, ready to attack anyone in her path. The boy from Four hacks violently once more and vomits before being attacked viciously by Adira, his skull splitting and splattering onto the ground, his brains peeking out of his head as he falls into the dust.
Ava retches.
Ava runs out soon after, looking for somewhere to go, someplace to find the rest of her allies and wait it out until the bloodbath is over. But Adira seems to have no intention of leaving, fighting viciously with the boy from Eleven. Ava watches the two spar it out, mild cuts dripping blood onto the ground, before the boy from Eleven ducks and slashes her deeply on the arm. Adira jumps back and attempts to stab the boy back, but he vanishes into the rising sun, running straight towards the grasslands that they've been placed in. Adira doubles back and swears before going after the girl from Six, descending on her with a vengeance that even scares Ava. But Ava has no time to mourn before she feels a sharp pain in her back. She looks down and sees a spear protruding from her side, the spear having passed through her entire body. She can taste blood in her mouth as she collapses to the ground.
The girl from One looks down at Ava critically before wrenching the spear out once more, causing another spasm of pain to run through her injured side. "Agh!"
The girl from One stabs her once more, this time in the arm, and Ava looks down in horror as the bone is gashed against the steel tip of the spear before cracking entirely. It feels like someone's dropped a weight on her arm and left it on, and the girl from One thinks Ava fatally injured as she trots away. Ava screams once more, looking helplessly into the sky as if it will save her from bleeding out. Only the sun looks back at her cruelly, beaming down on her wounds and seeming to magnify her pain even more.
Will her family be watching? Is she finally the center of attention, her siblings gasping in horror as she bleeds out onto the baked earth? Or are they looking away, refusing to see their sister bleed out?
Does anyone care that she's about to die?
Tears start to wet her cheeks, splashing onto the baked earth before fading into the earth. She notices a small flower below her, one that had struggled to push against the cruel ground and find its way into the sunlight.
She'll let her final tears water the flower. And maybe it's delicate beauty will survive the bloodbath. Maybe.
And as she gives one final gasp, her eyes film over and close one last time.
Davina Sterling, 18, District One Female
She walks away from the corpse of the girl from Ten, wiping some of the blood off of the spear she found and looking away. The bloodbath was still raging on, and all around her were raging teens, attacking one another in order to survive. She shudders as she sees the boy from Two attacks someone who's fighting for his knives, stabbing them over and over again in the side. That could have been Wonder or Lux. She never wants them to experience this. They don't need to lose their innocence yet.
An arrow whistles through the air and Davina ducks, letting the arrow sink into the ground beside her. She turns to face her assailant, finding the girl from Four snarling at her. "Give it your best shot, One."
Davina charges, throwing the spear at the girl and ducking when the girl aims an arrow at her face. But Four is quick, jumping away and snatching the fallen spear. She aims it at Davina carefully, making sure that Davina can't get past her without getting hurt herself. But she hasn't thought it through. She hasn't realized that there's a knife waiting at Davina's feet, just itching to be thrown at her.
Davina snatches up the knife and throws it at the girl's heart, clipping her shoulder and snatching the spear as the girl drops it. The girl shrieks in pain and wrenches the knife out, the blood staining her snow-white dress. "Agh! I'll kill you for that, One!"
Davina doesn't give her the chance to, running in the strange flesh-colored mesh that her stylist had adorned with hundreds of diamonds into the cornucopia. She'll draw the girl in and kill her off before heading into the hotel and finding something else to wear. At least the stylists had curled her hair. It wasn't getting stuck in her face, bobbing back and forth around her head as she ran into the cornucopia. The boys this year were lucky. They didn't have to run in these dresses.
The girl from Four follows Davina in, and Davina launches another knife at her, embedding itself into her arm. The girl falls to the ground and Davina pounces, pinning her down and readying the knife to slit her throat. It would be rather a merciful death; she'd seen how Maddie, the victor of the Third Games, had viciously torn apart her opponent in the finale. Davina didn't want to do that. She just wanted to go home. And that's why she misses the first time she brings the knife down, her trembling hands skinning the side of her face and gushing blood from the shallow cut. Davina swears and readies the knife again, bringing it down. But she doesn't see the girl from Seven attack her with the ax until it's almost too late.
Adira Hemlock, 17, District Seven Female
She swings the ax at the girl from One, knocking her with the butt of the ax off of her ally. The girl from Four, Grace, jumps to her feet and clutches the side of her face, letting Adira walk ahead of her and corner the girl from One. She was a sly one, the One was; she'd already killed Ava. Adira had watched it out of the corner of her eye as she attacked the girl from Six, but she hadn't been able to help her out due to the fact that the girl from Six had a sword in her hands. It had taken entirely too long to chop off her hand and stab her in the gut, but she had taken care of her.
But not soon enough.
Adira launches her axe at the girl, missing as One dodges behind a container. Adira swears as the ax embeds itself into the soft metal of the cornucopia and leaps back, grabbing a sword to her side and readying herself as the girl from One prepares to charge. Adira barely holds her back with the sword, the metal shrieking as it clashed against the spear. Adira's long, long yellow dress doesn't help the struggle, getting caught under small containers before Adira tugs it out, still desperately trying to fight the girl from One. Why is this taking so long?
Grace throws her own spear at the girl from One, narrowly missing Adira before hitting the side of the girl. She screams in pain and kicks Adira away, yanking it out and clutching the bloody wound. Adira struggles back up and grabs her now-fallen ax, throwing it at the furious girl from One. The blade smashes into her face, splitting open her nose and cracking the bone. The girl screams one more time before falling to the ground, her blood mixing in with her red hair as she stills. It's over. They killed her. They killed her.
Grace nods solemnly to Adira as the two walk out of the cornucopia, avoiding the blood stained onto the hard ground beneath their feet. Their white dancing slippers are stained with sweat and blood and dust as they start to run, but they pay no attention to their appearance. The bloodbath is starting to finally wind down.
They pass by the bodies of the fallen, bowing their heads slightly in respect as they see Ava's collapsed body on the ground. Alexis is waiting to the side of the circle, the rest of the tributes having already fled into the building or into the hot savanna. "Where now?"
Grace points towards the savanna, highlighting a fleeing figure on the horizon. "The boy from Ten went that way."
Adira nods and begins to jog, the two teens following her quickly. "So be it, then. We'll get him next."
Emmett Barkley, 16, District Three Male
He runs away from the bloodbath, trailing Hallie as she sprints in her emerald dress into the hotel that they've found in front of the cornucopia. They can leave the violence, hide from the blood and gore inside of the hotel. And maybe they'll survive the first ten minutes of the Hunger Games.
Hallie opens the double doors for Emmett as he allows himself to dream of survival, and he steps into the foyer before closing the door and latching it tightly. "If we want to keep them away from us, outside of the hotel, we have to lock the door. We can't let any of them in."
Hallie follows Emmett's gaze towards the raging Adira and nods quickly, running to a huge couch and straining to move it towards the doors. "The more… furniture… we can put… in front of the… doors, the… the more effort they all… put into opening it."
Emmett helps the sweating girl by pushing the couch in front of the door, wiping his brow and struggling to catch his breath. But as he regains his breath, he walks back to the foyer and grabs another couch by the side. "One more. We need them to put all the effort they have while we escape to the upper floors."
Hallie nods and helps him to stack it on top of the other couch, almost collapsing as they heave it on top of the first, but barely managing to stay upright until they position it the right way. The two smile slightly at one another before running past the foyer and look into the dining hall. Emmett gasps and stares at the fine china dishes and the crystal glasses, all gleaming as the sun lights the room. He looks at the dazzling sight, and smells buns and food on the other side of the room. "Should we collect food?"
Hallie nods after deliberating on the matter for a second, racing ahead of him to grab a large napkin and tie it into a small bag. "We only have so much time before they find their way into the hotel, either by another entrance or by forcing the door open, but the bloodbath will last for a bit. We can manage to grab a bit of food… a weapon too. We'll need one soon enough."
Emmett follows her example and takes a napkin as well, gathering buns and a few oranges and apples that are in a large china bowl in the centre of the long table. He looks at the strawberries dotting the sides of the bowl and crams one into his mouth, blissfully tasting the juice-filled berry before walking into the kitchen and gaping. The girl from Twelve is there, poking in the freezers for something that she's looking for. Emmett gasps and she turns around, screaming in shock before reaching for a knife on the counter. Emmett reaches for one as well, and the two eye each other silently before the girl from Twelve runs, holding her knife and a container of food.
Hallie comes in with her napkin of food, and she eyes the missing knives. "Where's the second one?"
Emmett shrugs, pointing at the door. "Maybe the game makers didn't put any in."
Hallie shakes her head as they leave the kitchen, walking up the stairs to wherever they will find themselves next. "It's not that. The game makers are too detail-oriented to do that. Someone's in here with us."
Alexis Telle, 17, District Two Female
Alexis jogs with the girls, watching the savanna truly come into view. When they were in the bloodbath, they couldn't see anything other than the bodies of the other teens and a red mist clouding their vision, bading them to continue attacking, but now it was gone and they were hunting. They were hunting for prey.
She shivers in the bright sun, her mind far away from the savanna. If Roman was still alive, if he hadn't been killed, he'd be watching the games nervously, sobbing into the lap of one of the overwhelmed orphanage directors. He had no place there. He didn't deserve to be crushed by the peacekeeper, to be robbed of his innocence until he was abandoned, the peacekeeper bored with him once more.
She stabs the ground, the fury seeming to flow into the ground as the others look back in alarm. She nods and wrenches her sword out of the ground, breathing deeply and closing her eyes as she starts to walk once more. He deserved to die in that hole of the streets of broken glass. He never deserved to walk the lands of Panem when he had killed Roman. She'd never have kids when she grew up. She'd never give predators the chance to catch them in their grasp when she was looking the other way.
They start to run, the figure of the boy starting to come into view. He isn't looking their way, instead seeming to focus on finding the forcefield in the arena. Alexis grins slightly and continues to run, catching up with the other girls. He'd have no idea they were coming until they were right behind him. And when he did find out, he'd have no chance of escaping.
The cannons start to ring in the air, and the girls wait and count them all. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine cannons shatter the silence of the day, and the girls nod solemnly before continuing to jog. Only fifteen left. Only fourteen more need to die before one of them can go home.
A giraffe came into view, and the girls paused to stare in wonder at the beautiful, orange spotted creature. It stretched its neck to observe the girls before slowly turning back, munching on the leaves at the top of the huge tree it was eating from. A zebra passed by the girls, then another, and they all gasped in delight as a whole herd of them rushed towards whatever river they were surely heading to. Oh, they were beautiful! The savanna was beautiful!
Adira points at the boy from Ten and continues to run, the zebras and giraffes finally forgotten by the girls. They sprint towards him, getting closer every second. He still doesn't look back, walking forward and tapping the ground ahead of him with a stick. He's blissfully unaware that the girls are coming for him.
They reach him soon and he gasps as Grace leaps ahead of him, prodding him with a spear. Alexis can't resist a tiny grin as the boy stumbles away, waving his stick wildly as he tries to get away from the trio. "Stay away! I'm not going out with a fight."
Adira soon tires of the game, leaping towards the boy so as to make him fall. He does, crashing back and hitting his head on a rock. The rock doesn't stop him though, as he continues to breathe heavily and look fearfully at the three girls. Alexis can see the way he clenches his stick and the anger in his eyes, knowing that he was close to stabbing one of them in the leg with it. She needed to end it now.
Her sword came down towards the boy, crashing into the side of the dirt. The boy closed his eyes and clenched his mouth before opening them slowly, realizing that he wasn't dead. Alexis laughed and reached a hand out to him, helping the nervous farmboy back up to his feet. "We're allying with you, idiot. Now, get off of your rear and grab this knife. We've got work to do."
And the bloodbath is finished! Wasn't it wonderful? Wasn't it wild? Wasn't it sad? Wasn't it scary? Well, here's a list of the dead before the obituaries, just to inform you of our very tragic deaths. RIP to those dead, and I'm sorry if your tribute was killed. Those unnamed will remain thus, but named characters here will get their names as well as position.
24th: District Eight Male, fell off of pedestal.
23rd: Benny Rhines, District One Male, killed by Ava Barkley.
22nd: District Five Female, killed by Alexis Telle.
21st: District Four Male, killed by Adira Hemlock.
20th: Ava Barkley, District Ten Female, killed by Davina Sterling.
19th: District Six Female, killed by Adira Hemlock.
18th: District Eleven Female, killed by District Five Male.
17th: District Nine Male, killed by Leif Freyson.
16th: Davina Sterling, District One Female, killed by Adira Hemlock and Grace Oceanus.
Ava - Iridescenteverdeen, thanks so much for this great character. Ava's spunk and good nature was great in this story, but in the end, she just lost out due to her carelessness in the bloodbath. I really enjoyed her as a character, and she definitely helped to spur on some plots, such as interactions with Ashira, Joel, and the Triple (now quadruple) alliance. I hope you enjoyed her in the story, and best of luck to Emmett!
Davina - Jailynne, Davina could have potentially won it all if she didn't kill Ava. she was a great character who knew what she wanted and how she was going to get it, an early version of a career without being too career-ish. However, the way she was a bit cold to others alienated her from forming alliances, but her kind nature combined with her fierce spirit was so nice to write. I hope you enjoyed her journey, and best wishes for reading the rest of this little story!
And we're done the bloodbath. Now we're into the games, meaning that we get to see more of the characters, as well as SPONSORING! HOORAY! Get ready to sponsor guys, and here are the points now.
Sponsor points.
RoadieMcRoadface: 45 Points
Iridescenteverdeen: 20 Points
Goldie031: 55 Points
LongingForRomeo: 35 Points
Jailynne: 10 Points
Sponsor System
Small food item (Apples, crackers, etc.): 40 Points
Large food item (Anything!): 60 Points
Medicine (Poison cure, fever medicine, aspirin, etc.): 55 Points
First Aid (Bandages, healing cream, etc.): 70 Points
Small Weapons (Knives, poison, etc.): 70 Points
Large Weapons (Sword, spear, etc.): 100 Points
If you want to sponsor your tribute or another something but don't have the points for it, you can go back and review chapters you haven't ;) As well as that, I'll allow my stories 'Cruel World' and 'Mockingjay' to count for five sponsor points for one review per chapter. If you do other stories, try to do more than a few words and express your true opinion, and you'll be just fine! And if you don't want to do that, no worries and just keep reviewing for those points! If you do have the points for something that you want to give your tribute, however, pm me the item you want to send and I'll give it to them in a future chapter :) Until next time, TheAmazingJAJ