At long last I've finished another SYOT of one-shots! Now we move onward to Back to Normal!
Hax Banyon, District Seven
Work harder, not smarter.
When Krunk came at me in the Bloodbath I could have tried to get around him or lured him closer to someone else. Instead I picked up a rock and threw it at him like a discus. My aim wasn't great but my force was. It hit him in the hip so hard he stumbled and fell. Troy was on him like lightning and he was dead before I could run outside the ring of platforms. Lanie waved at me from the edge of the tall grass and I ran after her as she disappeared ahead of me.
It was Lanie that got us through the spiders. She set one off the second day as we were fleeing the Careers and only escaped with her life by some fast footwork. I said we should go around but Lanie ripped up a handful of grass and twisted it into a little bundle. She threw it and one throw at a time we figured out which areas were safe and which had spiders. I would have tried to fight one and gotten myself killed if Lanie hadn't been there.
Work harder, not smarter.
We ate meat for the first time in a week because I kept following one of the buffalo mutts. I didn't have to outsmart it or trap it. One weird quirk about humans was that we could just walk and walk and walk. No animal, not even a horse, could walk as far as a human. I kept walking after the buffalo as it kept skittishly advancing ahead of me. I walked and walked and eventually the buffalo died. Simple as that- the buffalo started to heave, then it started to slobber, then it just toppled over sideways. Heart attack or something. Lanie said we should dry the meat so it stayed preserved. We had more than we'd ever need before the Games ran out.
I was strong but not smart. Lanie was smart but not strong. The Careers were both. If they ever found us they'd kill us both. They didn't wind up finding us. They just found Lanie. I didn't know until the Games were over what happened to her. She just went out one day to "use the bathroom" and didn't come back. The Careers must not have known we were allied because they didn't come looking for me, or maybe they just didn't find me. I waited all day for Lanie and I only moved when I saw her in the sky. It was Olivine who did it. I found that out when I watched the recap. She shot her from so far away Lanie couldn't even see her. Seemed unfair that a Career with so many advantages would make a sneak attack like that. I guess that's why they always win.
Fight smarter, not harder.
Elver and I were the only ones left. He was still uninjured when he finally found me. A lot of people had gotten torn up in the fire. That was actually what took out the other two Tributes still with us. Then it was just me and Elver. He didn't even have a weapon anymore. The fire was so hot he'd thrown it away. But the fire was gone now. Now it was just a Career and a kid who didn't want to die.
Elver was a Career. He was strong. But he wasn't as strong as I was. He'd trained for fights and with weapons and to kill but all of that was a choice. He didn't know what it was like for someone whose livelihood depended on muscles and work. I didn't have toned muscles or an athletic plan or a perfect physique. I had strength. Tear up a stump, carry a pile of planks, cut down a redwood tree strength.
If Elver had had a weapon things would have been different. But he didn't have a weapon and instead of stabbing he was grappling. We pushed against each other and I discovered how very easy it was to throw someone who wasn't used to an opponent so strong he could throw an adult man. And I learned how very much more fragile a man was than a tree. If you break off a branch from a tree the tree carries on like nothing happened. If you crush a man's throat there's no getting past it.
I never thought I would be the one to win the Hunger Games. Lanie, maybe, not not me. But sometimes it's not a matter of being smarter or better. It's just a matter of being stronger.