Makani Lee from District 4
Victor of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Hunger Games

Hundreds of years before the Hunger Games, the land now referred to as Panem looked very different than it does today. A country called the United States, a so-called "democracy" governed the land. It was divided into fifty states, forty-eight of which comprised the main landmass of the nation.

But then the oceans swelled, the governments collapsed, and the bombs fell. Without any kind of nuclear deterrent from the west, violent wars were fought over water and arable land, rendering much of the world uninhabitable. The United States and the neighboring nations closed in on themselves, forming the nation called Panem from the ashes of the world that once was.

The loose states and territories of the United States served various functions in the new country. The state called Alaska, a giant mass of icy terrain, was technically under the Capitol's control, though it was mostly ignored and used for nothing but scientific research purposes.

Then there was Hawaii. The archipelago thousands of miles from the Panemian mainland was taken under the control of District 4 – but, unlike Alaska, it was used for industrious purposes. The islanders grew pineapples, sugar cane, coffee, bananas, and all the other crops that couldn't thrive anywhere else in Panem. These goods were loaded onto ships and carried off to the mainland of District 4, where they were packed onto trains and sent away to the glorious Capitol.

Despite living in seclusion, thousands of miles from the rest of Panem, the residents of Hawaii were not exempt from the annual reaping. A rusty old ship called The Minnow came around every June to carry the islanders away from their home. That was their annual reminder that, first and foremost, they were under the Capitol's control. They were not truly free.

Not everyone in Hawaii dreaded the reaping, though. One strapping young man, Makani Lee, had been recruited by the academy of District 4, having been noted by the Hawaiian peacekeepers for his strength and skill with weapons. He'd lived most of his teenage years at the academy, and, at age eighteen, he'd finally been selected as this year's male Hunger Games volunteer.

The night before the reaping, Makani sat on the edge of his bed, staring listlessly at the shadowed floor. This was the last time he'd go to sleep in this bed. Sure, the academy had its downfalls – strict dietary restrictions, frustrating teachers, and cramped sleeping quarters – but he'd come to consider it his second home.

If you'd told him, at age twelve, that he could feel at home anywhere besides his Hawaiian home, he wouldn't have believed you. But the tides had turned.

It was getting dark now; the light had stopped filtering through the curtains. He pulled out the box from under his bed and flicked through its contents. Every letter, every note, every special possession he wanted to protect. Makani wasn't a sentimental boy, but he liked collecting his various trinkets and treasures in one place. Like having a little slice of home under his bed.

The next morning, Makani wore a lei (a flower necklace) to the reaping. The dean of the academy disapproved at first, but Makani could not be stopped. It was part of his history, and he wanted to wear in on his special day. Even thousands of miles from his homeland, his past could not be erased.

The girl volunteer, a bronze-skinned fisher named Hook, glared disapprovingly at him as he took the stage. In a dictatorship like Panem, people were trained to be xenophobic, and she could tell at first glance that Makani came from far away. It wasn't just his dark skin, or his wavy black hair, or his flower necklace. It wasn't even his name, which sounded more foreign than anything she'd ever heard. It was the foreign way he acted. She couldn't put a finger on it.

Needless to say, Hook didn't get along well with her mentor Mags. Hook wanted to talk about murder strategy while Mags wanted to bake cookies. Mags was in her thirties now – far too young for anyone to feel old – but her face had already started to wrinkle. The past few decades had been kind to nobody.

Makani's mentor, the thirty-ish man named Ripple, wasn't much help. Makani knew from years of seeing him at the reapings that he wasn't mentally sound, but he'd never fully realized just how incapable Ripple Hart could be. He could hardly even form complete sentences. In Makani's mind, how Ripple had won the games was a mystery.

"He likes your flower necklace," Mags explained. "Why don't you give it to him for a day? Like a token of friendship."

Without his good luck charm, things went poorly. For the tribute parade, Makani and Hook were dressed as mermaids, with golden tridents and cheesy scaled outfits covering their legs. Makani was suddenly thankful for his dark complexion; nobody could see him blush from humiliation.

Once or twice, Makani thought of complaining about the outfit, but he knew somehow that wouldn't help. Hook, however, did not hesitate for a single moment to profess her hatred for the corny mermaid costume. She even denounced it in her interview.

Fortunately, Makani's interview outfit was much more flattering than the mermaid outfit. He wore a loose white dress shirt with sunglasses, giving the impression that he'd spent all day on a hot beach before unwinding under the stars.

"Tell us about Hawaii," Caesar Flickerman urged.

"It never snows there," Makani said. "Apparently, this comes as a shock to people from the mainland. I've never seen snow in my life. What does it even feel like?"

Caesar Flickerman contracted his brow in mock thought. "Well, it's cold."

"I sort of figured."

The other careers this year were steadfast classics: archers from District 1 and swordsmen from District 2. He'd hardly walked ten steps off the stage when he was confronted by Jasper from 1.

"I don't like you, kid," Jasper barked.

"Kid? You're hardly a year older than me."

"All I'm saying is that you'd better follow my commands. I'm the leader of this pack, remember?"

He crossed his arms and looked straight at Jasper's face. "And you think I'm challenging you?"

"You made them all laugh."

"So did Syrah," he said, referring to the girl from 1. "And Mason and Tiberia."

Makani broke away from the argument soon after that. No use making Jasper even more angry.

As Makani entered the arena for the first time, he thought of Mags and Ripple. Neither of them was a particularly helpful mentor, but Makani figured he'd better take their advice to heart anyway. After all, they were the only two District 4 residents who'd ever entered the games and lived to tell the tale.

The pedestal clicked into place, and a powerful gust of wind nearly blew Makani off his feet. He surveyed the landscape, and a small spread over his face.

Water.

The cornucopia was at the center of a lake, connected to each pedestal by a thin strip of land. The strips were like spokes of a wagon wheel, letting every tribute reach the cornucopia without stepping into the water. Beyond the lake, an enormous mountain range domination the terrain.

As he watched the roaring grey water, a ridiculous thought crossed his mind. Last week, Mags had given him a lecture on water: how it was the source of all life, how the human body is naturally at peace with it. The water is just like the living soul, she'd said. It roars and evaporates, but it never goes away. It only transforms. Water has memory, Makani.

The horn rang, and he sprang forward, racing toward the horn. In that moment, he thought, the water did seem to reflect his inner mind.

I'm a fighter, he had to remind himself.

Fighters aren't like dreamers. They don't make connections between life and the water.

Makani was a fast runner, almost impossibly fast. He was the first tribute to reach the horn, having crossed the stellar distance in less than half a minute. As he feverishly hunted for a sword, Syrah from 1 picked up the cornucopia's only bow. She started firing just as Makani grabbed a weapon of his own, tugging a rapier-like weapon out from a cluster of seashells.

By the time the bloodbath was over, ten tributes were dead. All six careers had made at least one kill. Makani took the rare moment of silence to wipe the blood off his blade; he'd stabbed the girls from 10 and 12, skewering them through their chests like a shish kebab.

Jasper from 1, the self-proclaimed pack leader, was the dictionary definition of a "control freak". He insisted on assigning everybody's roles: Mason and Makani would sort the weapons, Tiberia and Hook would organize the food rations, and Syrah would identify the dead bodies.

"What are you going to do while we're working our asses off?" Hook asked, more than just a little bitterness tinging her voice.

"Get to work, Hook!"

Tiberia eyed him with disdain. Jasper was clearly an unpopular leader.

Makani went to work along with Mason from 2. Unlike the other careers, who hated his Hawaiian heritage, Mason was relatively respectful. By the time they'd finished sorting the weapons, they'd exchanged dozens of stories about their lives. Makani recounted harvesting pineapple groves, chopping sugarcane, and diving into the water to collect seaweed for dinner.

"Hey, what's the water like in this arena anyway?" Mason suddenly asked.

"I mean, it can't be warm," Makani said.

He was right. He dipped a hand in the water and recoiled slightly; it was terribly chilly, even for an experienced swimmer like himself. It was hard to believe that any tribute could have escaped by swimming through that water. They'd have frozen to death or gone insane from the cold. Then again, adrenaline can empower the body to do incredible things. Makani knew that from his academy training.

Mason laughed. "Hey, Tiberia? Found anything cool?"

She poked her head out of the cornucopia. "Only a fucking raft!"

It was an incredible kindness of the gamemakers. The raft, made of a thin silvery material, could easily fit six large tributes. Looks like the careers wouldn't have to swim through the icy water after all.

"If only they'd given us a pump," Tiberia lamented.

Syrah had been chosen to inflate the raft by mouth, and not because she was the most popular.

Another one of Mags' proverbs rang through his mind: a boat is a deeply beautiful symbol, Makani. It is refuge from the hardships of this life. Our savior from the cold. Or something like that. Mags' words could get a little airheaded at times.

Makani shook the memory out of his mind. He reminded himself that he was a fighter.

Fighters aren't like dreamers. They don't make metaphors between life and inflatable rafts.

The next week passed without much chaos. Jasper's overbearing personality was certainly annoying, and every other career silently agreed to kill him first as soon as things started getting messy.

The raft, while very buoyant, was hard to control in a place with such high winds. Nevertheless, they reached the edge of the lake in a matter of hours. Even Jasper admitted that he was too exhausted to continue. They settled down in the overgrown valley between two large mountains and went to bed.

On Day 3, the mutts began to pour out of the wilderness. A giant bird, maybe a condor, swooped out of the sky, nearly snatching Mason off his feet. Mason collapsed to his knees, roaring with pain as blood leaked from the gashes on his chest.

Five minutes later, Hook was dead. Despite their best efforts to keep the condor at bay, its feathers were nearly impenetrable. It grabbed the girl from 4 and carried her into the sky. Makani's stomach shriveled with horror: not only was Mason bleeding heavily, his very own district partner was on death's door.

"Holy shit," Syrah muttered as the bird began gnawing away at Hook's flesh. "Jasper, how many arrows do you have left?"

Jasper didn't respond. He just stared blankly at the bird.

"Jasper! What are you doing?"

He grunted. He lowered his bow. "There's no use. Just let her die."

Syrah ran her spear nervously through her fingers. She suddenly noticed Mason writhing in the ground, moaning quietly with pain. Makani was kneeling at his side, hastily wrapping his wounds.

Makani felt strong fingers grab the back of his neck. "Don't help him!" Jasper cried out.

"What the hell?"

"Let him die!"

"WHAT?"

In that instant, all hell broke loose. Tiberia lifted her weapon – a lithe little axe – and brought it down into Jasper's head, nearly cleaving his skull completely in half. His cannon fired immediately, and Tiberia yanked the weapon out of his head. Syrah screamed with horror; clearly, she did not take kindly to her very own district partner being killed this early on.

Makani was too busy helping Mason to pay attention to their argument.

"Am I going to die?" Mason asked.

"No, you're not." Invisible fingers tugged at Makani's heart. He'd killed tributes before, sure. But this was different. Mason was an ally. A friend.

"No, you're not," Mason mocked. "Tell me the truth, dude."

"You're… you're going to die, Mason."

Makani gulped, trying not to cry. "Mags says that our souls go back to the water, when we die."

"That woman belongs in an insane asylum."

"Maybe. Or maybe she understands something about the world that we don't."

A flame was blown out deep in Mason's eyes. A cannon fired, and the foggy breaths stopped leaving his mouth.

By this point, Syrah and Tiberia had stopped arguing. They just watched with confusion as Makani gathered a pile of pink blossoms, laying them carefully around Mason's neck like jewelry.

"A lei," he explained sorrowfully. "For goodbye."

"You have got to be kidding me," Tiberia muttered.

Two weeks into the games, the first landslide occurred.

Through the night, faint rumbles warned that something terrible was coming. Makani thought back to volcanic eruptions he'd seen – they had those in Hawaii – and the rumbling that foretold any kind of seismic activity.

The careers were traipsing quietly through the undergrowth when Tiberia stopped dead in her tracks.

"I feel something," she murmured ominously.

"What?" Syrah cried out.

"Stand still. It's not just me."

Makani could feel it too. A deep, terrifying tremble, as though a thousand miles below their feet a giant creature was stirring.

"Earthquake!" Makani screamed.

They sprinted for cover, Makani's mind running wild with panic as the rumble grew louder and louder. Ten meters from his feet, the ground split open, like a giant had cut into the earth with a sharp weapon. A deer mutt fell into the crevice just before it closed back up, crushing the creature instantly.

Rocks tumbled down, clouds of ash rose, and the earth shook more and more fiercely every moment. Syrah panicked and abandoned her allies, running towards a small cave in the mountainside. She'd gone less than ten strides when a giant boulder flattened her like a rolling pin. Boom!

"In here!" Tiberia yelled, gesturing towards a rare flat space in the foothills.

"Are you crazy?" Makani barked. "We'll get crushed if we stay here!"

"Do you have a better idea?"

He didn't. They lunged into the grassy clearing and collapsed to the ground. Turns out, this was a good place to hide during the earthquake. In such an empty space, the odds of being hit by a falling object were bar none. Even if something rolled down a nearby mountain, they'd have time to escape.

From their safe haven, they watched the landslide in all its terrifying glory. The largest mountain in the arena collapsed like wet sand, its entire face sliding into the valley in a matter of seconds.

Boom! Boom!

Five tributes left.

"Who have we killed?" Tiberia asked. "After the bloodbath, I mean."

"Day 4, we got the pair from 7. A few days later Jasper took down that guy from 5. After that…"

It was hard to remember all the kills they'd made. Makani himself had taken three lives – that, he knew for sure. Everything else was a formless swath of mutts and tremors and mountain expeditions.

"So yeah, five tributes left," Makani said at last. "We can't really know who until the death recap."

Later that evening, he showed Tiberia how to make a flower necklace. She was a natural.

"What's it like in Hawaii?" she asked as she laid her chosen blossoms into two piles.

"Caesar Flickerman asked me that," Makani laughed. "We don't do much fishing, surprisingly."

"Are there peacekeepers there?"

"A few of them."

Tiberia just watched him with her eyes squinted.

"What?" he demanded.

"We've heard awful things about Hawaii," Tiberia sighed. "At the academy. They tell us it's part of the Dark Lands that somehow came under Panem's control. That the islanders are all savages."

"What?"

"That you're cannibals. That District 4 only tolerates you because the Capitol… well…"

She trailed off suddenly. She was saying too much.

Makani thought back to all the reapings he'd been to. Now that she mentioned it, the islanders were treated with suspicion whenever they visited the District 4 mainland.

"Tiberia…" he cautioned.

She just stared at him with wide eyes.

"Why are you still looking at me like that?"

The spear flew out of nowhere, landing in her chest with a hollow sound. She slunk to the ground, her cannon firing loudly. Makani turned around just as the pair from 5 leaped out of the shadows: the strongest outliers in these games, the kids who'd banded together from Day 1 to show everyone what District 5 was really made of.

They were hard fighters. There was no denying that. The boy had another spear, lofted overhead, while the girl wielded a deadly-looking dagger in each hand.

"Oh, fuck you!" the girl roared as Makani swung his rapier into the boy's chest. Makani was already drenched in blood: the boy from 5 had scraped him up pretty badly. Something told him that the girl wasn't going down without a fight either.

It was a long fight. In the end, though, the girl from 5 couldn't match Makani's strength. BOOM! She collapsed like a paper doll, Makani's rapier lodged deep into her chest.

Surprisingly enough, the games didn't end for another week. Judging from Ripple's notes (which were apparently co-authored by Mags) the only other tribute was a fan favorite in the Capitol. It turned out to be the girl from 7, who was armed with an axe and was ready to kill the boy from District 4 or die trying.

Her fate was the latter. Despite her skill, Makani overpowered her in the end. Just for good measure, he killed her with her own hatchet, snatching the weapon out of her fingers and renting her chest open.

There it was: the chorus of trumpets, the voice of Caesar Flickerman.

"Ladies and gentlemen – the victor of the twenty-sixth annual Hunger Games, Makani Lee from District 4!"

When Makani returned to the Capitol, his family was waiting for him. Not only were they overjoyed to see their son escape the Hunger Games safe and sound, they were proud of him for showing the nation that people from other parts of the world were not savages.

"We all celebrated!" his mother gushed. "Everyone from the island. We rode the Minnow to the mainland for parcel day."

Before long, it was time to move into the Victor's Village. Makani's family was apprehensive to leave behind their island home, but Makani couldn't have been more excited to stay on the mainland. After all, he'd spent most of his life there already. Hawaii itself was just a distant memory, the place where he'd lived his tropical childhood.

The day they moved into the Village, Mags appeared at Makani's door with a bowl of nuts.

"A token of friendship," Mags explained. "For you."

He took the bowl, smiling warmly. "Thanks, Mags. Any words of advice for me today?"

"Sit back and relax," she said.

Makani laughed. "You can say that again."

That evening, he opened up the windows, savoring the salty smell of the coast. There was a flowery scent alongside the smell the ocean, and the smell of summer rain. This place was paradise.

He popped a nut into his mouth and thought of Mags. Maybe fighters could be dreamers too.

List of Victors

District 1 (4 Victors): Luxor Dodge (1st), Citrine Whitacre (9th), Peridot Partridge (18th), Vintner Aphelion (23rd)

District 2 (4 Victors): Tyrell Crowley (3rd), Lancaster Percy (6th), Ajax Mathers (15th), Maximus Decimus (21st)

District 3 (2 Victors): Lumen Orlaith (12th), Cobalt Thindrel (19th)

District 4 (3 Victors): Mags Flanagan (11th), Ripple Hart (16th), Makani Lee (26th)

District 5 (2 Victors): Electra Wilty (4th), Fumer Griffin (25th)

District 6 (1 Victor): Jaguar Stratton (7th)

District 7 (3 Victors): Rowan Dobson (2nd), Willow Merrick (13th), Ebony Merrick (14th)

District 8 (2 Victors): Georgio Bronte (8th), Burton Flax (22nd)

District 9 (1 Victor): Izzy Mayfleet (17th)

District 10 (1 Victor): Argus Collymore (24th)

District 11 (2 Victors): Bluebell Singer (5th), Crow Kensington (20th)

District 12 (1 Victor): Canary Roselock (10th)

A/N: Another chapter! I was experiencing a bit of writer's block at the beginning, but I powered through once the games themselves started. And I do really like how this chapter turned out! Hawaii has always been one of my favorite places, and I like to imagine that it stayed under the control of Panem when the world flooded and all the governments collapsed. At the same time, I decided to use this chapter to give District 4 its first trained career victor. Hope he was a good one!

P.S. I promise there'll be a female victor next chapter. I know it's been a while since we had one.