A/N- So here it is...the final chapter of the Games...who will we crown our Victor?


Raymond Periwinkle, District 5 POV

The boy is on his feet. Not greatly balanced, but actually on his feet. How?! What does it take to kill him? Isn't a huge, bleeding wound in his stomach enough to end his life? Well, clearly it isn't.

"I thought I killed you." I say to him, scowling.

The boy shrugs. "Obviously you didn't kill me enough. Looks like you're not the only unbeatable one here."

"Pfft." I spit. "You're nothing like me. You're lucky, that's all, not unbeatable."

"And neither are you."

I raise an eyebrow. "But I'm the closest you'll ever get. Isn't my presence enough to prove that?"

"It proves nothing." The boy says. "Because I'm still here too."

Yeah, but not for long… I take a step forwards. "Look, you're in the process of dying right now and I'm still very much alive. What do you think that tells us?" I don't give him the chance to answer. "It tells us that I'm the only one surviving this."

"You wanna bet?" The boy challenges. Of course I see it as no threat, but it's still enough to bring a snarl to my lips. He has courage, too much courage for someone in his position. I'd prefer my final victim to beg for my mercy and somehow this guy doesn't seem likely to do so, even if he is knocking on death's door already. A shame really, but I guess you can't always choose in the Hunger Games, so I'll just have to settle with a quick death for him.

"Sure, I'll bet on it." I reply with a dark smile. "Shall we play this game, then? Or are you still shuffling the deck?"

The boy shakes his head. "Nah, I'm done mixing up the cards."

Good, because you're going down… I go for the first lung, but then I suddenly notice the empty feeling in my palm. My eyes dart down to my hand where I realise that it is weapon less. Shit. I look to my belt in case I attached it to that, but it isn't there either. And then I remember; I tossed it aside when I was fighting with that girl. A low growl rumbles in the back of my throat, why did I listen to her? Why did I let her manipulate me into deeming myself weapon less?

"Got a problem?" The boy grins over to me. "I don't know if you've noticed, but you appear to be without a weapon."

I glance at him. In his right hand he wields a short sword, the one that he tried to slice my head off with, which turned out to be a pretty epic fail. It isn't a brilliant sword, it's quite small and weak looking, but it's better than my empty hand. I could easily beat him in hand-to-hand combat, but now that he sees his advantage, I doubt he'll let go of that sword however crappy it is. I need to get my scimitar back if I'm going to walk out of this with minimal damage.

I take a small step backwards, my eyes lightly scanning around for the scimitar. I spot it soon enough, lying a couple of metres to the left of the boy. I curse under my breath. Why did I have to throw it back that far? Sometimes I hate myself…no wait, that's a lie, I love myself. I just need to think things through a little more.

My foot darts out in front of the other as I take my chance to run for the weapon. But as I start to run, the grey clouds around us suddenly flash with a brilliant light and I come to a skidding halt, staring up at the sky. An uneven hole has been torn through the sheet of clouds and through it comes a bolt of white lightning. I barely have half a second to remember that the floor I'm standing on is made of metal and if lightening touches it… I immediately leap into the air, my boots leaving the platform, and watch as the lightning bolt strikes downward. I start to fall back towards the floor, gravity pulling me down. My body tenses; I'll hit the floor when the lightning is still touching it. Shit. Squeezing my eyes shut, I wait as my boots smack down on the platform.

Nothing happens.

Cautiously, I lift open my eyelids and look around. I spot the boy; he's still standing, no signs of electrocution, which must mean that the bolt didn't reach the metal. I'm relieved of course, but I curse under my breath at the Gamemakers. They did that to scare us obviously, and yeah, it worked.

Recovered from my shock, I turn my attention back to the boy. But just before I can do anything, a hissing sound meets my ears and I look around for what the Gamemakers have thrown at us this time. Probably those stupid snakes again, as I can hear a hissing sound. However, after scanning the area, I see nothing but what I saw before. Then I notice that the boy's eyes are facing to the sky above. Frowning, I raise my gaze.

At first I think that the sky is falling down because all I can see is a thick blanket of grey slowly descending towards us. But that's ridiculous, the sky can't fall down! Can it?

I'm almost frozen to the spot I stand in, just staring as the grey air sinks lower and lower. It reaches the top of my head soon and a sheet of grey passes across my eyes like the veil of a bride. I wave a hand in front of my face, trying to clear the fog, but my hand is simply lost in the grey mist as it thickens around me. All I can do is widen my eyes in shock as the fog encases my whole body, from my head to my toes. I lift my head back up and look around, but the fog is so thick that I can barely see a few inches in front of me. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Guthrie Zython, District 8 POV

The fog is so thick that I feel nervous breathing it in. What if it is made of poison? They've done that in previous Games, but that was to get rid of a handful of tributes, so I doubt they'd use it in a final showdown. With just two of us left, the Gamemakers would surely want to leave us alone to kill each other, wouldn't they? The fog must be just an added obstacle to make the ending tenser and to even the playing field. A trained, almost Career against a plain District Eight boy is surely a predictable ending, so perhaps the Gamemakers want to give me a bigger chance of surviving. Maybe they like me…pfft, of course not. They don't like anyone. If anything, then they'd be doing this because they hate Ray, like I imagine most people do.

I tighten the grip on my sword, though my strength is greatly depleted from loss of blood. When Ray stabbed me, I had seen my life flashing before my eyes. Yes, I know that sounds cliché, but that's the best description for it. Images of my life had appeared in my mind for only seconds, before the next one came rolling in. Images of my childhood, like playing in our overgrown garden with mud striped across my cheeks and a piece of fabric tied around my forehead. Images of the first day my Mom introduced me to paint; I had painted a picture of her, dipping my short fingers into the fabric paint and spreading it on the side of a cardboard box. We weren't particularly wealthy, but neither were we poor. Compared to some of the other kids in the District, I was lucky. I had both parents alive, a roof over my head and a smile always on my face. But what have I got now? A hole in my side where blood is still slowly leaking from, a murdering conscience and the uncertainty of whether I'm going to still be alive in the next few minutes. Or even seconds.

But against all odds, I'm still standing. Maybe not at my strongest, but I'm still here. I'm still a little puzzled as to why I'm actually alive; that wound should have killed me by now, shouldn't it? Maybe again luck has been on my side and I've been granted another chance to walk out of this. Maybe the odds are in my favour… I shake away that thought. Of course they aren't, they're never in anyone's favour. If it weren't for the Games then I wouldn't in this situation! They created the odds in the first place and those odds are 1 in 24, except that isn't true because everyone doesn't have an even chance of winning. It's all a set-up, a false security that you may have a tiny chance of surviving, when in actual fact, you're going to die anyway. And because of that, I'm not going to try and kill Ray for my own survival, no I'm going to try to kill him because of what he did to Heidi.

I take a step forwards, just a small step, and look around as hard as I can. But there's no use in trying to peer through the fog because it's too thick and I'll never see anything until it's right on top of me. So for now, I'll have to use my other senses instead.

I picture in my head whereabouts Ray was standing when I last saw him. From what I can remember, I think he was about twenty paces in front and three paces to the left of where I stand now. And I'm standing roughly ten paces from the edge of the platform. Ok, so now I've near enough got my bearings, I can start finding Ray. I take a silent step to the right, carefully treading lightly on my feet to avoid making any giveaway noises that could draw Ray towards me. Freezing on the spot, I listen out for any signs of movement, but the air is deadly silent except from my very low breathing. I take another step. There's a sudden scraping sound of metal on metal as the sole of my boot hits something on the floor. I immediately tense my body, biting hard into my bottom lip as I wait for the echoing sound to fade out. The taste of blood trickles into my mouth as my teeth pierce the skin of my lip.

The sound goes and I listen out for Ray. Nothing. Cautiously, I bend down and feel around for what I kicked. My fingers rest on something cold and metallic. Ray's scimitar. A sudden wave of relief passes through me as I snatch the weapon up. I am most certainly very lucky today.

"I don't think that belongs to you." A deep voice sounds through the fog. Ray.

I don't say a word, though I really want to. I just stay where I am and search my surroundings with my eyes.

"Stealing isn't a nice thing, you know." Ray continues. I turn my head sharply from side to side, but I can't figure out where his voice is coming from. It's like his voice is bouncing off the walls of fog, bounce, bounce, bounce.

Where are you? I think to myself, narrowing my eyes and sweeping them around. Where are you hiding, Ray?

"Why don't you just put my scimitar on the floor so that I can retrieve it?" Ray says in a patronizing tone. "You can't keep something that isn't yours."

I keep hold of the weapon, my palms are sweating madly against the handle, so much that it could easily slip from my grip.

"Come on now, put it down." Ray says. "Don't make me force you into returning it. This can be easily resolved, then we can fight fairly. You like playing fair, don't you?"

Not when you're involved, I think, you wouldn't know fair if it slapped you across the face.

"Don't be shy, just put the weapon down and take a step back from it." Ray's voice comes again and I look desperately around for him. But the fog is still too thick to see through. "Don't be a spoilsport."

There. I see it. A slight movement in the fog, just a tiny tremble in the grey blanket where condensation from Ray's voice mixes in with the mist. I throw the scimitar hard, fast.

Just seconds later I hear a cry of pain, followed by the thumping sound of a body collapsing to the floor. I race forwards to where Ray must be and as I go, the fog begins to lift and the air becomes clearer again. As it rises, the veil of grey is pulled from Ray and I see him on the floor, on his knees, clutching at his stomach where the scimitar is buried in him. Perfect shot.

Ray's head lifts when he hears me approaching. His voice trembles as he speaks. "How did you…"

"How did I know where you were?" I ask. He nods. "Let's just say it isn't very wise to talk when the air is cold. Have you never seen your breath in the winter?"

Ray curses quietly.

"Yeah, should have thought of that one." I say, crouching to his level. "Now, this may hurt." I take the scimitar in my hands and yank it out from his torso. Ray bellows in pain and presses his fists to the gaping hole in his body. His body begins to shake and his skin grows paler. He opens his mouth to speak, but all that comes out is a hoarse whisper.

"Fuck….you…"

"I could say the same to you, but it wouldn't be enough." I say bitterly. "In fact, nothing will ever be enough to make up for what you did to Heidi."

Ray looks up to me, his eyes narrowing.

"And yes, I know I too have killed." I pause. "I killed Tal. But that wasn't in cold blood. That was to save another's life. Another who deserved to live and should still be alive now. But when you killed, it wasn't for the better, was it? It wasn't even in self-defence. No, you killed for the fun of it. You took an innocent girl's life for a thrill and that makes me very angry."

Ray can't even open his mouth anymore, not even to whisper.

"As I've said, nothing I do will ever be enough to make it up to Heidi." I say. "The only thing that is close enough to justice is to show karma to her killer. And you do not want to meet karma, she's a bitch."

I raise the scimitar and close my eyes as I thrust it towards Ray. I keep my eyes squeezed tightly shut until I hear the canon fire, then I let go of the weapon and turn away to avoid seeing what I have just done. That is one mental image I would rather not engrave into my already messed-up mind.

I take a shaky breath as I realise what has just happened. I've just killed Ray. I've just won the—

An agonising pain explodes in my side and I cry out, my hands clutching my wound. I'd completely forgotten about it. But it hadn't forgotten about me.

I sink to the floor, pain taking over my entire body. I feel a weakness growing inside, like all the blood has emptied from my veins.

And then…

…then nothing.


A/N- And that is it. Congratulations to Guthrie Zython, the victor of the 500th Hunger Games! Raymond did try, but in the end it was his over-confidence and lack of practical thinking that cost him his life.

So, how was that? Did you expect that turn-out and are you happy that Guthrie is our victor? Did he deserve it, or should the title have gone to Ray instead?

Please let me know what you thought of this, I'd really like to hear your opinions on the ending! Thank you ever so much for all the readers and reviewers, you have really made this worthwhile writing! I'm not going to launch into a farewell speech just yet, you'll be pleased to know, as there are still three more chapters left in this story! They will be fairly short, but will wrap up this whole story as Guthrie returns from the Games. Please keep reading to see the ending! But until the next update, congratulations Guthrie Zython!

Thanks, FireflyLlama xxx