Electra Wilty from District 5
Victor of the Fourth Annual Hunger Games
By the time the fourth Hunger Games rolled around, the annual death match was shaping up to be something more than merely a punishment for the districts. No, this was something more: entertainment. For President Cornelius, it wasn't enough to snatch twenty-four kids from their homes each year. He forced them to celebrate it.
This was the first year footage from the training center was broadcast live to the nation. It was also the first year with a chariot ride, the first year with an interview night, and the first year where the families of the final eight tributes were interviewed.
On interview night, the residents of Panem leaned forward in anticipation. The girl from District 1, Beauty, waltzed onto stage in a seductive pink outfit that showed far too much. She and her district partner Calix made an enormous splash. They talked about murder and blood and the live Capitol audience roared with applause. Horrifying.
District 2's tributes were nothing special. They weren't weak and starving, but they weren't vicious fighters like the District 2 tributes of the first few games. This was before being a career tribute was seen as a massive honor, of course. In future years, there would be district-wide tournaments and competitions to select the volunteers.
The male from District 4, an older kid named Fisher who made all of the women scream, was the first tribute since District 1 to make a lasting impression. The audience was practically begging for more time with him, but rules are rules, and he sauntered out of the spotlight after his three minutes were over.
Next came Electra Wilty of District 5, prancing onto the stage in a beautiful white dress that seemed to float around her lithe form. The audience sighed in veneration as she took a seat.
"Oh my, don't you look special," the master of ceremonies, Caius Flickerman, said.
Electra let out a laugh. It was a fake one, yes, but very convincing. "It's a shame my stylist won't let me keep it."
The audience sighed along with her. "What a testament to the genius of your stylist," Caius added smartly.
"Yes," Electra added. "In fact, I'd like to request a round of applause for her right now."
The audience went up in roars of pleasure. Once they were finally silent again, Electra dropped her voice to a whisper.
"Would you like to hear a secret, Caius?" she murmured.
Caius looked at the audience and then back at her, beaming. "I'd love to. It can be our secret. No one has to know."
Electra beamed widely – a fake smile even more convincing than the last one – and said, "This dress has hidden powers."
"Hidden powers? Pray tell."
She stood up and twirled left and right. The white silk dress melted into dark grey, with flashes of electricity crackling within the folds of the material. The audience exploded into noise, making thunder to match the lightning from her costume.
"Wow!" Caius boomed.
It took almost half a minute for the crowd to go silent again – even longer than last time.
"You're a very impressive girl, Electra," Caius said, smartly getting back on track. "Why don't you tell us about yourself?"
That one stumped her a little. "I… come from District 5."
"Never would have guessed," Caius laughed. It was too hilarious to feel rude.
"Yeah, I'm from 5," the thunder cloud girl continued. "I love electricity. It's fascinating."
"Tell me, Electra, how did you feel when you were reaped?"
"It felt like an electric shock."
Caius laughed. "Well, I'm glad you were reaped, because you've given us all some electrifying entertainment."
"Thank you, Caius." For a moment, her fake smile faltered. I'm glad you were reaped. What kind of statement was that?
The buzzer sounded, marking the end of Electra's interview. With one last beaming smile, she waltzed off stage, into her stylist Jessica's arms.
"I can't do it!" Electra cried out, breaking into tears as the boy from 5 walked onto the stage. "I can't hide how scared I am."
Jessica held her tight. "What are you talking about? They loved you. You looked fantastic."
Loving and looking fantastic. The Capitol's two strong suits, apparently.
Electra remembered the pair from 1, Beauty and Calix. How loud the audience cheered. "I'm doomed," she lamented.
"You are with that attitude."
"Very helpful, thanks."
Electra stumbled through the back room, trying to find the girl from 3 she'd made friends during training. Her name was Lina and, at the moment, she was the best friend Electra had. She found Lina sitting in a corner, anxiously toying with a fake pink flower.
"Hi Electra," she said softly. "You look amazing."
She ripped off her necklace. "I'm such a loser."
"If you're a loser, than I wish I could be one, too." Lina smiled a bit smugly, but with a friendly glow that made her feel a lot better.
"Don't mess this up," Jessica said. Electra liked her that way – she was straight to the point, not careless with words like everyone else from the Capitol.
"I'm well aware I shouldn't be messing things up," Electra said as she stepped onto the metal plate that would lift her into the arena.
"I just want you to be careful, Electra. There's twenty-three others. You have to keep your head on straight. Don't get too wild if you can help it."
"Wild." That word hung in her mouth for a while. "Electricity is wild."
"And Electricity doesn't last long. It sparks and goes out." Jessica put her hands on her hips, increasingly frustrated by the girl who could not be tamed anywhere except a stage. "Be careful, please."
Her statement was scientifically incorrect, of course. Electricity lasts forever, transformed instead of destroyed. But somehow, she thought, bringing that up wouldn't help with anything.
Electra said her goodbyes to the rest of her prep team, and then it was time to enter the forest.
The arena was exactly the same one used for the last Hunger Games. It would take several years for the gamemakers to start branching out, placing the tributes in a different landscape with each new Hunger Games.
As the numbers ticked down, Electra eyed her fellow tributes, trying to identify as many as possible. There was Beauty, ready to pounce with Calix the second the games began. Fisher was nowhere to seen.
There was a flash of silver at Electra's right, and she turned to see Lina: twelve years old but braver than most, and fast enough to outrun most other tributes.
"Good luck," Lina mouthed, and the rather cynical thought crossed Electra's mind of whether it was even worth allying with this tiny girl at all.
The countdown ended, and all hell broke loose. Fisher immediately armed himself with a spear and tackled his first victim, little Thread from District 8. By the time he was dead, Beauty and Calix had entered the heat of battle. Calix grabbed a hatchet while Beauty took a bow, and suddenly the air was filled with screams.
"Electra!" Lina screamed. The tiny girl was pinned to the ground, unable to fight back as the girl from 4 slashed open her chest with her weapon.
Adrenaline replaced her blood, and without knowing what she was doing, Electra grabbed a wicked-looking dagger. The girl from 4 roared in agony as she plunged the blade into her back, and Lina wiggled free of the body, her eyes wild with panic.
"It's okay, Lina. She's dead."
They didn't stick around to pay respects. Electra took a few more knives and Lina took a pack of food and then they were off, sprinting into the forest where death loomed like the canopy of leaves.
Cold water rushed into the cave.
"When will it stop effing raining?" Electra shouted. "When? Why?"
Lina, always one to stay composed, uttered a meek, "They want to draw things out a little."
"I guess you're right." She had to give kudos to the little girl for being so observant. Two tributes died the day before. And three the day before that. The girls didn't know it, but most of the kills weren't caused by the tributes themselves – they were caused by hypothermia or starvation or infection.
A bang of thunder rolled across the forest. Electra shuddered from cold and fear. More than ever before, this arena felt like a prison. Hunger gnawed at her stomach like a vicious animal.
Lina must have heard her grumbling stomach, because she murmured, "Hungry too?"
"A little."
She cocked an eyebrow.
"Alright, more than just a little."
Lina laughed. Laughter sounded weird in the arena, like a laugh at a funeral. "Just pretend you're on stage," she advised. "Think about electricity and dresses and make-up."
"And how will that feed me?"
"It'll encourage you."
"How?"
But Electra never found out how, because lightning lit the sky and the air was filled with the noise of splintering wood. A tree creaked and groaned and then topped over, rolling down the sloped forest ground like a rolling pin.
A pair of tributes screamed. The tree flattened them like dough.
"Beauty and Calix," Lina whispered.
"What?" Electra could hardly believe it. "How can you tell?"
"Look at her token."
There it was. The body, being lifted by the hovercraft claw, was wearing a ridiculously expensive-looking diamond necklace. She'd never seen Beauty wear the necklace, but it was obvious that nobody outside of District 1 could afford such a thing.
"So who's left?" Electra asked. At first, it had been humiliating to turn to this little girl for wisdom. But her brain was like a sponge and her eyes were like cats' and there was no ignoring that Lina was a very helpful ally.
"Who's left?" Lina squeezed her eyes shut as though racking her memory. "You and I. Fisher from 4. The pair from 9, Dasher and Lady. Cassius from 2. Train from 6. Gust from 12."
Electra started at her in awe. "How can that little head hold so many words?"
"Because it's not holding any of that nonsense they fill their minds with in the Capitol."
"What goes on in their heads all day, Lina? What do they think about? What do they dream about?"
"I have no idea."
Train from District 6 was the next tribute to die, killed mercilessly when Cassius from 2 found his hiding place in the undergrowth. Cassius wasn't a career, but he was desperate to go home as soon as possible, and he was willing to take any means necessary, including murder.
Dasher and Lady went soon after that. Diarrhea. Before the rainstorm, they hadn't had a single drop of water in days, and suddenly ingesting so much filthy fluid was too much for their bodies to handle.
Two weeks into the games, nearly half of the forest was completely flooded. This forced the remaining tributes together.
"I'm worried about Cassius and Fisher," Lina said one morning as she and Electra traipsed through the woods. "They could… they could…"
They could easily kill both of us, Electra thought, but that didn't need to be said out loud. True terror was coursing through her body now, torturing her like an electric shock.
Keep smiling, Electra, she scolded herself internally as she knelt beside a berry bush. Just imagine you're on stage. Put on that stupid fake smile and pretend you're having the time of your life. You shouldn't have beaten yourself up so much about your interview. You were amazing. You've been amazing so far. You're going to win.
She hammered those words into her brain until it was painful to repeat them any longer. If she repeated them enough times, she could make them the truth. That's what she hoped, anyway.
"This arena is like a big stage," she noted softly.
Lina nodded. "And it's coming to the grand finale."
Two seconds later, there was a sword protruding from Lina's gut. She fell to her knees, lifeless, revealing her attacker: the ravenous Fisher from 4. A horrified Electra turned to face the attacker, a torrent of emotions pounding in her brain.
I don't need to be stronger than you, Electra mused in a sudden moment of clarity. I just have to be smarter.
"How did you do it?" Caius Flickerman asked.
"Very well," Electra responded, pulling the audience into a chorus of laughter.
"Oh, you have to give us more than that," Caius said, grinning. "What exactly was going through your mind when Fisher died?"
Electra took a deep breath, ready to give a long response. "Well… throughout the games, I sort of noticed that lightning always struck the area with the most tributes. Where the pair from 1 were travelling together – with Lina and I nearby – that was where the lightning struck. And so I thought – you know – maybe if I could draw Fisher somewhere near other tributes, I could make the lightning strike there."
"Clever, clever. Please tell us more, Victor," Caius begged.
"That boy from District 2, Cassius – I'd seen him earlier that day. While I was searching for food with… with Lina. That's how I knew where he was. And with so many of us in one place…"
"The lightning struck."
"Yes, Caius, the lightning struck. But before that, I had an idea. I made them follow me into the floodwater. Then I climbed a tree, and I was out of the water but they were soaking wet. And the lightning struck the wet ground, and the water, and, and…"
"Seafood."
"Yes, Caius, seafood."
Caius cheers suddenly, his pink hair swiveling around his heart-shaped face. "And what an electrifying way, Miss Electra, to win the Hunger Games!"
Electra's voice never cracked, never broke. Not when she talked about Lina. Not when she talked about the tributes that died at her hands. She really was a fantastic actress. On stage, in the mayhem of a live audience, she felt truly at home.
"But the games weren't over yet," Caius remembered. "After you stunt with the lightning, there was still one other tribute left – Gust from 12."
Electra let out an unnoticeable whimper. She'd been secretly praying he wouldn't bring that up.
"Yes, Caius. I climbed down from the tree, and I found him within a few hours. And I took my dagger and I…"
"You claimed victory," Caius exclaimed, completing her sentence for her.
"Sure."
After that, he mouth tasted much more sour.
Like the other victors, Electra was a forever changed girl. She grew to be terrified of electricity, the memories of the games haunting her so deeply that a spark of power sent her heart racing. She was quite a popular actress in the Capitol, and she loved her job, but the fame was little compensation for the terrible things the Capitol had made her do.
To her, District 5 was always where she belonged. After fancy Capitol interviews and movie premiers, she was always ready to return to the land of dams and power plants that she called home.
List of Victors
District 1 (1 Victor): Luxor Dodge (1st)
District 2 (1 Victor): Tyrell Crowley (3rd)
District 3 (0 Victors):
District 4 (0 Victors):
District 5 (1 Victor): Electra Wilty (4th)
District 6 (0 Victors):
District 7 (1 Victor): Rowan Dobson (2nd)
District 8 (0 Victors):
District 9 (0 Victors):
District 10 (0 Victors):
District 11 (0 Victors):
District 12 (0 Victors):