A/N: Thanks to PrincessLyoka and coolcattime for reviewing the last chapter! The support is appreciated :)
This chapter's by PrincessLyoka. I hope that you all enjoy it :)
"Bridges burned and broken on different sides we start anew
Being chased by monsters to face head on or be consumed
Reaching out for something grasping on to nothing to lose"
- TryHardNinja, 2013.
The 96th Annual Hunger Games
Petra Darious (16), District 10 Female
TryHardNinja - Take Back the Night (2013)
The Hunger Games are like the animals. The animals are placed in the wild and expect to survive. Sometimes they'll compete and kill each other for resources to remain alive and maybe even for their own families. That is nearly exactly how the Hunger Games works. Kids are thrown into a random environment and fight others to survive. Emerging victorious means food for their families.
Except, me surviving means returning to my vicious aunt and uncle who wouldn't care if I died or not. They would take me for advantage and the food and wouldn't give any darn moment to thank me. When me and my brother were abandoned by my parents when I was four and he was seven, those bull-devils reluctantly took us in and never gave any real thought to me. My brother seemed to be the only relative who paid any real attention to me.
He actually looked ready to volunteer to protect me when I was reaped, so he could fight along side me and make sure I don't die. Before I mounted the stage, I hissed at him to freaking not to.
As I was named for, I'm pretty much rock hard strong, but also independent. Many people doubted or downed me since I'm the almost the smallest tribute, but I scored an eight by throwing knives, not much different than throwing a lasso, and I'm still alive after two weeks.
It's strange how slow the Games are going. There are still eleven tributes alive - both from One, Three, Eleven and Fourteen, plus myself and the boys from Two and Four. The Gamemakers even called a freaking feast of a bunch of loaves of bread two days ago. Only the girl from Four and the boy from Nine died. I blame myself for throwing that knife into the girl's leg, letting another tribute kill her.
The large meadow of hills and colorful flowers and serene blue skies conceal me easily as they were just tall enough to engulf me as I sleep. I'm so darn lucky to have this advantage as yesterday the pair from One walked right over me the moment I woke up. I could've died before I woke if I was any bigger.
I found them again, the pair from One. Thanking the Gamemakers for allowing the flowers to be so high, I crawled behind them, hardly making a sound. The two suspected nothing.
Night was just falling and the duo finally decided to stop. The boy tucked himself in a sleeping bag against a hill and slept with a soft snore. The girl sat against the hill, overlooking everything with watchful eyes and these weird pair of sunglasses for a while before she dozed off.
I couldn't kill them, at least not up front, so I had decided to steal all their stuff and injure them.. a little. They'd wake with nothing and injuries and probably die later on.
I had just sat up when I felt something coil around my wrist. Looking hard at it, I could tell it was a small yellow snake, like green gardner snakes. I passed it off as harmless until I felt a strong, continuous sting on my wrist. Tentatively, looked at my wrist and found the snake's fang was sunken in my wrist, allowing blood to gush out.
I covered my free hand over my mouth to muffle an incoming scream, only to find a second darn snake coiling around my wrist. These must be freaking mutts made to make tributes bleed to death.
Before that snake-mutt could bite, I pulled it off and held the head pointed away from my hands, then doing the same only more painful with the other one. Holding both the snakes in my fingers and my bleeding wrist against my chest to stun the flow, I quietly approached the two Careers and set one snake on their necks. I backed up, starting to feel stiff in the arms, and watched.
First, the Careers only stirred a little. When the snakes bit down in their necks, they woke in screams. The girl seemed to see me, but she was confused whether to stop the flow of blood from her neck or kill me. She did throw her spear at me, but because it was so haphazard it didn't anywhere get close.
Thats when I starting twitching in my arms, dropping the pair of throwing knives I readied to throw if needed. The Gamemakers weren't that screwy with their mutts and put some sort of venom in them. Backing up, I watched the Careers pulling the snakes from their necks and charge at me, but they were twitching too, only in the heads. Their giant heads jerked around so much that they both fell over, letting the venom do convulsing movements all over their bodies.
My head began spinning around too, following by my buckling legs. I was able to dig into my pack and pull out a sheet of plastic I retrieved from the bloodbath. I tied a bandage around my bleeding wrist, able to staunch the flow so I won't freaking bleed to death.
I spend part of the night twitching and watching the sky. Eventually, the twitching conked me out from exhaustion.
When I came to, it was morning. I looked at my hand, thanking for the plastic wrap because it was dry with my blood. When I uncovered it, I saw two large dots on my wrist, which were now scars and also dry red with blood.
Standing up and shaking out my limbs, I noticed the supplies on the hill I had run from. Slowly walking there, I noted the pair from One that had fallen to the ground were gone. If they had woken and departed, they would've killed me first after a great search provoked by revenge and they would've taken their stuff. I dang would've. They must've died from the bleeding neck injuries overnight and the Capitol took them away. Good, two more dead, nine remaining.
When I approached the supplies, I found the yellow snake-mutts, actually a dozen more of them, slithering around on the stuff, making pretty useless and easily beatable guards. When I set my hand over a backpack, the ones settled on it reached up and opened their heads, revealing a long array of fangs that looked pretty darn pointy.
"Hey," I said "You're quite helpful. You killed those two Careers for me last night. Maybe you can help me."
I made quick movements to snatch all the snake-mutt's tails and stuff them in the plastic wrap, tying it up in a bagged sort of way. Enough so they can't escape but can breathe too. I want them alive. They make a pretty good weapon.
As I packed up the necessary gear from the Careers' supplies, I thought of animals working together to survive and to be benefited. I saw the relationship here: the snake-mutts would get the kill they were bred for and I would get a tribute down, making me closer to victory in home and see my family happy from the survival needs I'd get them. No matter how headstrong my aunt and uncle are - minus my warm-hearted brother - I'm coming home. Win-win situations.
"My pets," I whispered to the snake-mutts as I walked away "My pretty dang deadly pets."
Petra's new plan was simple: stalk a tribute until they fall asleep. While they slept, Petra would place the snake-mutts on the tribute's neck and let the animals do the rest. Petra would then collect them and be on her way.
Luckily for the Capitol, the Games finally got a move on. On the sixteenth day, the boy from Two ran into the pair from Three and killed them off, leveling the pool of remaining tributes down to seven. That night, Petra put her plan into action with the girl from Fourteen and found it successful, reducing the numbers even further.
On day seventeen, Petra had a run in with the boy from Eleven. While they fought, Petra threw her 'pets' at the boy. While he was twitching, Petra stabbed him in the back. Then only five were left alive in the arena.
On the nineteenth day, the Gamemakers forced the remaining tributes together with a sequence of earthquakes. The boys from Fourteen, Four, and Two fell, leaving Petra and the girl from Eleven left alone to fight, whom Petra overpowered with her snakes, crowning her victor of the 96th Hunger Games.
A/N: A review for PrincessLyoka, anyone? As ever, constructive criticism is welcomed :)
P.S. The time is almost up for anyone who wants to be involved in the Fourth Quarter Quell. If anyone else is interested or has asked about it before and hasn't heard anything back from me for some unfortunate reason, please get in touch again and I'll sort out your place in the Games :)