A/N: Thanks to richards25, charliesunshine, I-am-Cashmere-of-district-one, coaster317 and charliesunshine for reviewing!
I hate to be in this position, but I should apologise for the lack of updates in the last fortnight. Even though the summer holidays have come (no more GCSEs! :D), I've found myself more busy than any time during the year.
I have still been writing, though, mainly 'bonus' chapters for this story, which I am not yet fully happy with and will be adding at a later date.
But now onto happier news; it's time for another competition! This one will work much like the last, where you have to write a chapter about a chosen tribute. However, this time, you get to choose the victor.
The competition will be for the 69th Hunger Games, and the victor must be a Career (from District 1, 2 or 4) and must be aged sixteen or older. Other than that, it's up to you what you write.
The deadline will be the day that I post Chapter 68, in roughly four or five weeks' time. Good luck everyone!
Now, on to today's chapter, which is about a victor first mentioned in 'Mockingjay'. I hope you enjoy the chapter :)
"Another bunch of kids in a bloody mess
Another maniac killing innocents
Analysts and experts on C.N.N.
Explain away the pain on a day so grey
Without the dark the stars can't shine
I pray to hope through the hard times
But things could change to save more times.
Why oh why do they second guess?
Gun control
My my my what a bloody mess
Bless their souls."
- Colin MacDonald, 2009.
The 54th Annual Hunger Games
Lyme Fairbanks (18), District 2 Female
The Trews - Gun Control (2009)
Everything turns black for twenty seconds as the capsule transports me upwards into the arena.
I don't like the dark.
Darkness means the unknown.
In the life of a Career, unknown variables could be the difference between life and death.
Even when we return to the light, the unknown will remain. The arena will be designed to challenge us; it will make one of us into an unstoppable victor, and break the other twenty-three in more ways than one.
I've seen almost everything in arenas over the years, both from the Games that I have watched live for the last seventeen years or the endless repeats of old Games that trainees in the District 2 Training Centre have to watch and analyse.
I've seen grasslands, forests, deserts and tropical islands. I've seen desolate districts, abandoned cities, wooded valleys and arctic tundra. I've seen caves, swamps, mazes and endless warehouses. The cornucopia was filled with explosives in the 36th Games. There wasn't one in the 52nd. There's been shopping centres, cargo ships and volcanoes.
But none of the previous arenas prepared me at all for what I see as my capsule reaches the top of the cylinder and the arena becomes visible.
I can hardly see anything. I'm in a small room that has no lighting, so I can't tell what else is in the room with me.
Only the dusty, sandy floor in front of me is lit by the shafts of light that stray into the room from the archway that leads out into the rest of the arena.
Looking through the archway, I can see the dusty floor stretch out towards stone walls over fifty or sixty yards from me, with dark archways built into the wall at regular intervals. No doubt other tributes lie in wait inside there. Also, I can hear the faint cheers and chants of an audience. I have no idea where they are, but I have a feeling that I will see them soon enough.
Suddenly I feel concerned, as I realise that I can see the tributes opposite me. Assuming that we are all arranged in a circle, the cornucopia should be hindering my view, yet it is not. There's something about this that is starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
Another thing that is worrying me is the fact that (and I'm assuming it's the same for the other tributes) I have been led into the arena wearing only my underwear. I'd better find some clothes quickly, to serve as both protection and warmth for the cold nights that will no doubt lie ahead.
Suddenly the gong sounds, and the Games begin. In an instant, light fills the small room that my pedestal is in, and I see that the room is barely ten feet wide, and contains only bare stone walls, and opposite to the door lies a pile of supplies. Above the supplies is a wooden sign, which reads:
Myrmillo
Helmet, manica, sleeveless tunic, shorts and belt, greaves, sandals, gladius, shield.
Not understanding half of the sign, I looked down to find armour, clothes and weapons. There was a simple beige-coloured sleeveless tunic and shorts which I pulled on hurriedly and fitted a crude leather belt before slipping into well-worn leather sandals. On the pile beneath the clothes, I find two copper (or maybe bronze?) shin guards, which I clip around my legs. Next is an elaborate armguard, made of several plates of bronze attached together by some leather strips. I attach it to the outside of my right forearm. At the bottom of the pile is a bronze helmet, with a small image of a fish carved into the top of it. I don't like the design, but quickly slip on the helmet. It's possibly the most useful thing that I've been given.
In the corner of the room, there is a red oblong-shaped shield leaning against the wall, and behind the shield is a short sword, just over a foot long.
Holding the shield in my left hand and the sword in my right, I run out into the rest of the arena.
Suddenly the whole thing makes sense.
The arena is an arena.
I'm in arena fifty yards wide, surrounded by ten feet high stone walls, with twenty-four archways in it, where tributes are beginning to emerge from cautiously, armed in a variety of ways. The floor is hard-packed dirt and sand, and the arena is open-air, with the July sun beating down ferociously upon us. Trapped within my bronze helmet, I'm starting to think that clothes and armour were the wrong things to wish for. Within the arena, there are dozens of backpacks scattered around on the sandy ground, no doubt filled with food, medicine and other valuable supplies. Somewhere off to my right, I see a larger archway that I notice leads off to the world outside this arena.
Before I can go to it, I run into the centre of the sand, searching for a decent backpack. As I was one of the first tributes to leave the starting room, I have no opposition as I reach a large backpack. As I pick it up, I realise that it has next to no weight, so I assume it to be nearly empty. Dropping the backpack, I set my eyes on another slightly smaller one and head straight for it.
En route to my new target, I watch as I see the girl from District 7 being killed by a helmeted boy who clumsily swings two swords.
Only now do I properly become aware of the crowds, who roar as the small girl collapses, her blood seeping into the sand around her. Looking up above the walls that enclose us, I notice hundreds and thousands of people watching us in tiered seating, cheering on the killers. They all seem to be wearing very old-styled, simple clothes, and chanting in a strange language that I can't comprehend. Scanning round the crowd, I notice a section where there is a small balcony jutting out ten feet towards the arena, where three important-looking men look down over us in important-looking red military uniforms, unmoving. All three men are recognisable by sight. The first is Head Gamemaker Tacitius Lowe, the second is his young assistant Ludovic Fawkes. Despite the nameplate written in elaborate font beneath him reading Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus, I knew the man in the centre of the balcony to Panem's President, Coriolanus Snow, although he looks to be aged around forty, which is clearly a trick by the Gamemakers, considering the fact that he has been ruling Panem for twenty-seven years.
Reverting my attention to the arena, I grab the backpack that I had been searching for, which feels heavy enough to be full of decent supplies. I look up to find a tribute in front of me, the girl from District 12, wearing nothing more than a sand-coloured tunic and armed with a reflex bow. As she raises her bow to aim, I see that her face is a picture of pure hatred. It only takes me a moment to realise that I have nowhere to go.
Suddenly she lets that arrow fly, and it goes way over my head. Relieved, I turn to follow the arrow's flight path, and I begin to realise that the girl was never aiming for me. The arrow flies towards the President's balcony where it flies into the crowd after passing between Fawkes and Snow. I look on shocked as Snow raises an eyebrow before frowning as the arrow flies past him, his snake-like eyes settling coldly on his assailant. Slowly he holds his right arm out in front of him before giving a signal; his thumb facing down.
It all happened almost at once. Two Peacekeepers ran out into the middle of the arena amongst the fighting, forced the girl to her knees and shot her twice in the back of the head. They left with the body almost instantly.
All the tributes, including myself, had been shocked by what had happened, especially those who didn't see the girl from Twelve shoot at Snow. Their momentary lapse allowed me to attempt to escape from the horrid arena.
As I near the arched gateway that led out of the arena, I notice a tribute next to me; the boy from District 4, armed with a trident and net, and a dagger tucked through his belt.
"Allies?" he asks.
I haven't thought about the other Careers so far today, and I've managed alright on my own, so my decision is quick.
"No."
Before the boy can do anything, I drive my sword through his chest until the tip protrudes from his back. I pull out my blade and let the boy fall, screaming in pain.
I don't turn back to look at his dying figure until I am out onto the streets.
The arena for the 54th Annual Hunger Games was modelled on the ancient city of Rome in the 2nd century AD, with the cornucopia being replaced by the arena of Rome's largest amphitheatre, the Colosseum.
All the tributes were equipped with weapons and armour that would have been given to various types of gladiator, such dimacheri (two swords), retiarii (trident and net), myrmillones (sword and shield) and sagittarii (reflex bow). Supplies had been distributed within the arena of the Colosseum, not within a cornucopia and so the fight was much more open, as every tribute had to face the bloodbath in order to escape to the rest of Rome. Fourteen died within the first hour at the Colosseum, including four of the Careers.
The remaining ten took another week to be reduced to six, due to the fact that the city of Rome had been recreated along with a population, and it was difficult to find each other once tributes mingled with the Roman crowds.
Many headed into the lower boroughs of the city, where they were mobbed by criminal gangs in dark alleyways in the middle of the night or had their supplies stolen by day. One tribute drowned when he took to the river Tiber to escape the night gangs.
After all the tributes separated from each other among the urban sprawl of the city, the Gamemakers used their favourite weapon; fire. After causing fires to rage through the wooden buildings of lower Rome, the three tributes who survived the fire took to the land around the imperial residences on Paletine Hill, where Lyme of District 2 killed the final other tribute, the boy from District 1 (of gladiatorial class thraex - moderately armed, curved sword and shield) to win the 54th Annual Hunger Games.
A/N: That took a long time to write...
I've always seen the Panem society as having parallels with ancient Roman culture, so a gladiatorial arena seemed like a good idea when I started writing this. However, my strong interest in ancient Roman society led me to make sure everything was historically accurate :/
After all the research this took, I suppose I should mention that this is meant to be Rome under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (who ruled 161-180 AD).
Oh well, it was fun to write for the first five hours...
Anyway, if you enjoyed the chapter, then please review! Can we get past 250 with this chapter?
P.S. I'll try to get the next chapter out with the next two days, not twelve like this one :)
