DAY FIVE OF THE GAMES:
Fuse Zapa's POV:
I groan in frustration as my device still won't work; I'd been working on the hunk of junk for days but nothing. It wouldn't be too much for them to send me the required components surely but despite my ranting and raging they won't send me a thing.
"Piece of crap" I mutter as I toss the cables and wire on the floor. How was I supposed to smart my way to victory with tools like this, "Some food would be nice then" I ask the sky, but still nothing. Ugh knowing my luck no-one was even watching me back in the capitol. If Gadge hadn't already gone home with Pexey then she'd be too depressed to help me and Flash was probably drunk right now. How any tribute is expected to win with subpar mentors I'll never know.
Maybe a new strategy is needed; one where I win this thing without my device. But what? I'm used to using my brain to design and create and now I have nothing to create how am I suppose to use it to destroy. My tactic so far seemed to be working in that no-one had found me here in this shed, crushed into the smallest space possible I was invisible to all who may walk into my hiding place. But I knew that being hidden wouldn't get me to the victory podium. At some point I would have to stand up to my competition and they would be bigger than me and ... and I'd probably end up dead.
I rummage through my bag and pull out a length of rope, I'd dismissed it before as useless. But what if? What if I were to? There's a rafter on the roof of this building and I'd learnt the right knots in training...
No it's a stupid idea. I want to live, I want to win, I want to go home. But how?
Salton Darter's POV:
"It's such a shame Odysseus couldn't be here" I say to Kal who just continues to vacantly smile at me as she sips from her glass of pink champagne. I can see she's bored but I need to keep her attention as she's a prolific sponsor and just one check from her would feed Troy for three days. I'd invited her and around two hundred other guests to my party tonight, in order to get Troy into the final eight and then home.
Unfortunately only around fifty had bothered to show up and most of them had now left.
"We should really be off now" Haledon says as he steps over to me holding his wife's hand tightly; she is swaying slightly "Kal weren't you going to share a cab with us?"
"Of course" Kal smiles as she downs the last half of her glass, "It was a pleasure Salt" she says as she passes me her empty glass and flounces out of the room. I look around at my remaining guest, two old men are laughing on a couch as they share a drink, paid for by District Four. Beside them a similar aged lady dozes, the small puppy sat on her lap growls at me. There is also a large man beside the buffet table and a group of three men and one woman dancing in the centre of the room, the sad remnants of my entourage.
Of course it's all parties and friends and 'what can I get you now Salt?' when you've just been pulled from the arena. But no-one tells victors what happens next, how they all move on to the next hot thing; the kids from District Eleven or one of One or Two's latest victors. So here I stand looking as my last hope to gain sponsorship money falls over drunk in the middle of this dingy little night club I've paid for out of our Districts own money.
I feel like a failure.
Marena would laugh at me if I'd told her of my plans, but I'd just arranged it through Roxanna and left her none the wiser back at the centre. I can picture her now shouting at the screen as if her yells could actually influence his behaviour. I guess tonight pretty much shows us the kind of mentors we are, the one actually interested in the games and the one who just wants the sponsorships. As I make small talk with the man at the buffet the three older people from the couches leave without a goodbye and one of the dancer's tumbles to the floor.
Eventually I'm left alone as the man at the buffet leave, followed quickly by the four dancers who move on to take this party to the next stage, not even bothering to invite me. Finally I take my leave too and head back to the centre.
"Any luck tonight?" Rox asks as I wander into the fourth floor living area, she's laying on a couch watching as Troy sits in the darkness of one of the smaller sheds closer to the forest.
"It was appalling" I sigh "Don't even think I made our costs back"
"Bummer" she sighs, not really getting it. I'll be in deep crap with the others if I get home with no victors and a loss of funds, Rox meanwhile will just keep sitting around in the capitol watching TV.
I join her and an Avox brings me a large glass of amber liquid which I down and order a second; "Actually love just bring the bottle" I shout as she leaves the room.
"You shouldn't drink so much" Rox tells me, I don't justify her with an answer. On the screen Troy falls asleep, his trident gripped in his hand.
The Avox brings me a bottle and then leaves with a small bow, I don't bother with a glass and begin to slug from the bottle, Rox rolls her eyes.
"I'm going to leave now" she sighs "Shall I tell Marena you're back as I'm passing the viewing room?"
"No" I grunt "Let her think I still have a social life"
She just shakes her head as she enters the elevator "Just don't drink too much" she sighs as she leaves me alone. Deciding that she doesn't know what it feels like to have the blood of another child on her hands and never will, that I don't care what she thinks and take another slug.
"To you kid" I say toasting the screen where the boy sleeps "May you never know what it's like to be forgotten." On my screen Troy snores.
I finish the rest of my bottle and drop it on the floor, before I know it I've closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep as I lay on the soft couch. As I sleep, I dream of victor parties and friends now gone, I dream of women who once loved me and family I had once. I dream sweet dreams and in my dreams I'm happy for once.
I'm woken up by a cannon.
Sitting up with a start I look at the TV, still focused on Troy. Or at least what remains of him, stood above his now headless form is the girl from District Six. She breaths deeply in quick gasps the blooded axe still in her hands. I don't know where it came from or how she didn't wake him, I liked Troy and now Troy is dead.
The feed cuts out and Troy's pre-games picture of a grinning boy floats in the black screen the District Four symbol bellow. I sit there watching, speechless and still a little bit drunk for what feels like hours before the screen goes blank. An option menu shows eight images of the remaining tributes, asking me to pick one to watch now.
Eight left.
I pick the girl from Six, Bianca is her name. I'd barely noticed she was still alive, Six never really make it far into the games. On her feed she takes Troy's bag and trident before running back towards the forest where she sinks to the floor.
"Killian, Killian" she gasps "Killian, I don't believe I just did that. Are you angry? Are you proud? I might come home to you now."
I turn the screen off, not caring anymore. I keep trying to bond with these tributes, learn their weaknesses and strengths before watching them die. They all just die, one after another and I can't stop it, because I'm asleep, because I'm drunk. I laugh and judge Marena for training the kids but what I do is worse, I tell myself I don't care but I do, I bond with them and I love them.
Fuck that, fuck the system, fuck the games. It makes me sick.
The elevator doors slide open, revealing an angry looking Marena "So you saw it" she shouts "How the useless boy slept through his death."
"Yes" I lie sombrely "he didn't stand a chance"
"If he'd trained with me he's know to sleep with one eye open" she says storming into the room "he wouldn't have been caught out like that and he'd have killed her instead."
"Then there would be another dead seventeen year old girl" I respond "and Troy will have killed two young women. How would he have lived with that out here? Like you, obsessing over the games every year or like me drinking till I collapse?!" I pick up my empty bottle and throw it against a wall where it shatters "Is that the life you wanted for that boy?!" I scream.
"It's better than death" she shouts back.
"I doubt it" I cry in response "I seriously fucking doubt it".
Dead: Troy Caspian D4.
Remaining Tributes: Alexandria Santos D1, Amethyst Swift D2, Fuse Zapa D3, Baelfire Jones D5, Bianca Marin D6, Arya Goren D9, Clarisse Longhorn D10 & Choke Harefield D12.
A/N: Only a short one this time as I'm planning on the final eight interviews being a long chapter. I've also got rid of the kill list as I'm finding it redundant now as so many have been killed by the Gamemakers and I keep losing track.
