"An Oak tree is a daily reminder that great things often have small beginnings."
― Matshona Dhliwayo
Prologue 3
Sujax Torro
Victor of the 1rst Hunger Games
District 2
In a cabin far in the woods, a man busied himself with baking a large vegetarian pie. A serene melody melted together with the delicious smell of fresh-baked savory bread, creating an atmosphere of pure contentment and warmth. The sounds and the smells, the wooden wall panels and the merry crackling fire assembled this picturesque tableau. The man in question quietly hummed the tune which had survived the Dark Days and would continue living on as long as humanity persisted. The delicate sounds of melancholic violin meshed together with the hopeful flute notes, which floated evasively through the warm cabin. The man took roasted potatoes and richly sautéed carrots out of the modern-looking oven, while looking on approvingly. If anyone was to venture a look at the man in question, they would see a muscular tanned paragon of masculinity, a dark beard accentuating the man's sharp and handsome features. A mop of dark brown hair rested on his head in a way that would make whoever dared spy on the man swoon.
However, in the middle of the mountainous range surrounding the cabin, very few people ventured that far into uninhabited territory. No one would ever witness how this man would be startled momentarily by the chef-shaped cooking timer. No one would witness him laugh to himself quietly and remove a set of twenty-four identical perfectly golden cookies out of a smaller oven set in his futuristic counter made from steel. Looking around, the onlooker would notice how the thematic of steel and wood extended beyond the walls and furniture, onto the ornamental weapons that hung on the man's walls. After all, this was what the man had won with: wood and steel and power.
The man was called Sujax, the first Victor of the Hunger Games. By surveying this scene in particular, no one would ever guess that Sujax had made history by brutally destroying rebel children during the first iteration of this blood sport, popularizing it in Panem as hordes of Capitolites cheered him on. He had killed seven children, four of which had posed next to no issue. The arena that first year had predictably been a large gladiator-like pit, with nearly nowhere to run. The symbolism had not escaped Sujax at the time. After all, the immortal saying "panem et circenses", bread and entertainment, still held true. In the absence of bread, in a Panem decimated by hunger and tragedy, the games became all the more vital. Sujax had been a child-soldier, much like most of the able eighteen-year olds.
His grandfather's grandfather had lived on the land that had become District 2. Sujax had come from a line of hardheaded strong and unyielding people who would not perish or cower at the prospect of war or defense of what belonged to them. It was that conviction of his moral righteousness and aptitude for murder that had assured his place among the legends of Panem. Sujax intimately knew the misery of war, had witnessed and experienced it first-hand. When he was lifted into the arena, it was easy to channel his anger and grief at the loss of his parents, his brothers, his girlfriend and unborn child. It was even easier to laugh as the crying rebel children fell to the ground retching and pissing themselves out of fear, just before he crushed their tracheas with his hands or knocked out their teeth with the steel rebar he had picked up near his pedestal.
One effective kick to the sternum and a finishing hit with his huge mace and the boy-turned-man who had defeated his opponents went going down in history as the first Victor.
At this very moment though, Sujax the Crusher, Sujax the Unbeatable, Sujax the Just was no more, and all that was left was a happy serene man preparing a hearty supper as the moon shone through the spacious windows of his cabin deep in the woods of District 2.
Casmir Agarwal
Victor of the 2nd Hunger Games
District 11
Casmir from District 11 was a prime example of a war-child. By the end of the conflict, he barely remembered his name. He didn't even know his age, reminded of it when he was reaped at 17 and there was no one left to mourn his departure. Casmir's mother and his two little sisters died from disease, shortly before the war broke out. His father got shot down by the police years before, so there was a small mercy in the fact that he never had to see his family suffer through the Dark Days. Casmir had gotten sick himself but pulled through, though his muscles acquired a rigidity he later found out were attributed to the loss of motor neurons due to infection. He got lucky; his muscles were able to regain almost-normal strength following the acute paralytic poliomyelitis infection that killed his siblings in the years that followed. He had fallen sick first, and he credits that being the main factor in his survival. Back then, his family could still afford a home, a comfortable bed, some medicine. When his sisters fell sick, their house had been bombed into oblivion, so all they had left was to lie down in the streets and die, cradled in the arms of his mother who died a few months later.
The shit-covered streets of District 11 were the perfect breeding grounds for bacteria and pestilence of all sorts. After the previous government banned widespread vaccination of the population in order to minimize the burden on the healthcare system, cholera and poliomyelitis sprung up and ravaged the continent once more. The government had blamed it on immigration from foreign countries of course. When he was only four years old, Casmir clearly recalled people talking and looking at him as though he was one of those foreigners, coming to infect the land with his foreign illnesses. He didn't understand it, at the time.
He remembered his father being so angry, so pissed off at the suggestion that they weren't American, that generations ago their families had come from a far-away land of India, but that they had worked so hard to assimilate and that should have been enough. Had his father still been alive, Casmir wouldn't have had the heart to tell him that to the citizens of this dead country, their pledge of loyalty meant close to nothing when weighed against the color of their skin. Years later, Casmir understood the heartbreaking truth of the racism that infected the American society which shattered into dust soon-after. He realized that his father's optimism and completely blind trust in the government had been naively idealistic at best and moronic at worst.
The government didn't give a shit that Casmir's father had been loyal when the police shot him in the head even though he had no weapon on him, posed no threat. Years later, Casmir realized that his father had been shot because his skin was the wrong color, and no pledge of loyalty to America could erase that.
In the arena of the newly-formed Panem, there was no disease or racial discrimination or hate based on his sexuality. It all boiled down to survival, and Casmir would be lying if he said it didn't feel at least a little bit freeing.
He hadn't won like Sujax, a Capitol loyalist through and through. But Casmir was clear about his gratitude to a new government that gave him the opportunity to fight as himself. They loved him for it, he was the perfect example of an outer-district child who had lost everything, but hadn't been perverted by the rebellious cause.
He went in alone, combined his hard-earned knowledge of the streets to navigate an abandoned suburban town arena. He came out alone, having strangled and stabbed his way to victory. He earned four kills to his name and he regretted dreaming every night of the faces of the boys he had killed, but he didn't regret staying alive.
As the sun came up at 5:20AM, Casmir opened the window, inhaled the fresh scent of spring. His husband Quentin, was already hard at work in their garden, pulling out weeds furiously, like his life depended on it. Casmir smiled at the hardworking man and thought to himself that this life really wasn't as bad as it used to be.
Glenn Duncan
Victor of the 3rd Hunger Games
District 10
A baby's cries rang out in the hospital. The nurses and doctors hastened to write down the time of birth, as the mother's pained gasps turned into exhausted sighs. Ophelia was born healthy, the mother and child were released from the maternal wing two days later. When they came home, the black car took a detour route to the Victor's Village, taking care to avoid unwanted attention. A tall slim man with an eye-patch stood on the porch, looking almost nervous as the car backed into the parking space. The man ran down the stairs, opened the door and practically scooped up his wife and the newborn into his scarred arms. His one eye was bright with tears and emotions.
"Glenn, we did it. We did it Glenn," the mother kept whispering into his shoulder and for the first time in a long while, Glenn was happy.
The couple entered their spacious home, secluded from the rest of the district. One new message was one their voice machine.
"One new message, 10:40AM. Give all my love to Raella, Glenn. Lend her your strength, and may the baby be born healthy and bring joy to your family. Uncle Sujax says hi!" BEEP.
The machine let out one last synthetic sound and plunged the room into comfortable silence. Raella giggled girlishly, wiping her forehead with her hand. Glenn had already put the baby into her little crib.
"Uncle Sujax, huh?"
Glenn sighed as though exasperated. "I think he was more excited about this baby than I was."
"Well it was about time," Raella offered, trailing off when she realized it had struck a nerve.
She fidgeted slightly in her seat, and Glenn approached her, wrapping his hands around her and lifting her up easily. She needed sleep and rest, that was clear. He brought her up to their bed room, taking the time to kiss her forehead and wrap soft blankets that enveloped her petite frame like a big white marshmallow.
"Sleep well babe, I'll see you when you wake up."
"Take care of the baby, Glenn. I love you," Raella murmured, already falling asleep.
Glenn went back downstairs, looking at the beautiful newborn child that was also sleeping in its crib. He couldn't believe he was a dad now. The evil part of him didn't deserve this happiness. Of all the people, Sujax had befriended him since the first day of his victory, taught him how to cope with the murder and the haunting flashbacks. He still had them, but it wasn't as bad anymore. Sujax had been there for him when his entire district had shunned him. It wasn't as blatant anymore these days, but he still felt the resentment and the shame that had come with his victory. He guessed than an eye, a metric fuckton of regrets and a disappointed district was a small price to pay…you just had to look at Pulse from two years ago to understand that. Anyway, once the Games became a permanent sort of deal, the district people stopped their judgmental bullshit fairly quickly. Some even started coming up to him on the streets, thanking him for the food that had been provided the year he won. Most of the population had still been starving, but he guessed their pride and self-righteousness was so far up their asses it took them this long to admit it.
Life was weird sometimes, Glenn thought, as he raised his hand to stroke the baby's head, then retracted it just as quickly. Babies had mushy skulls. He shouldn't touch the baby's head, it could break. Even easier than when he broke a thirteen-year old girl's neck. Easier than when he crushed the head of a seventeen-year old boy, by smashing it against a rock.
Ophelia…that was a beautiful name that held so many memories. But Glenn was strong, and he'd learnt over the years how to overcome the crippling sadness and guilt that threatened his relationship with Raella when he returned. When he was reaped, they were planning to get married, leave their rebellious ties behind and settle. Start a family.
She had gotten pregnant at 18, and three months later, he was fighting for his life in front of all of Panem. She miscarried the day he killed the District 4 girl named Ophelia. He won that day too, so he supposed it was a life for a life for a life. It was twisted, but he was grateful for the opportunity to keep on living.
Sujax had hammered that concept into his stupid brain, after he had caught him trying to drink his weight in whiskey, at a Capitol bar. That was the night Glenn had introduced Sujax to a very pissed-off Raella over the phone. She was livid, even threatening to break-up their engagement if he didn't straighten up his shit. Sujax had patiently and politely listened to her ranting. Even drunk off his ass, Glenn had been in awe at the balls required to yell so aggressively at a man that had killed seven people a mere two years ago. Glenn was so wasted he had forgotten he had killed that exact same number of people himself. When she was finished, Raella hung up, telling Sujax she would pack up her stuff and leave if Glenn didn't stop drinking that very night. She said, and he remembered that sentence word for word, "I am not going to spend the rest of my life cleaning up a mess after a pathetic excuse for a human being who can't even face his regrets head-on". Dead ass, Raella came up with inspirational savage shit like that on the fly. Glenn could barely string an intelligible sentence together and here she was, spewing poetry up his ass or some shit. He had told Sujax that much, who had clapped him hard on the back and led him out the bar.
They had a long walk that night, just the two of them. Glenn had a lot of shit explained to him, and he figured a lot of shit out himself. Ten years later and he still relied on Sujax for advice, but he was doing so much better. He made peace with what he had done and he was happy. Raella was there for him, and even though life wasn't perfect, Glenn was ready to work his ass off to make sure his daughter had a brighter future. One that didn't involve murder and alcohol abuse and regrets that threatened to drown you.
Eli Meisel
Victor of the 4th Hunger Games
District 3
"Aunt Eli, Aunt Eli, auntEliaunteliaunteliaunteliaunteli…"
A small redhead was jumping up and down, the top of her head only barely passing the low window sill of Eli's house.
"AuntEliAuntEli can we please play space-rangers again, you be the alien and I'll be the captain of the ship, weneedtogoplaynowit'sgonnabesofun…"
It was 8AM in the morning. The woman sitting in front of her computer sighed exasperatedly, closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. A huge cardboard spacesuit sat in the corner of her living room, with a child's writing all over it. It had thrusters and orange-red fire coming out of them, and it looked positively banged up from their last escapade.
"I'm coming kiddo, just give aunt Eli a second, okay?"
The little girl's jumping stopped, and Eli heard the patter of small feet distancing themselves from the window, as she undoubtedly ran to the front porch to greet Eli as quickly as possible. Kids could be so exhausting sometimes. Knowing her niece, they'd end up knee-deep in mud somewhere, battling demons and space-creatures and god knows what…she really should have changed before. She had her PJ pants, fluffy slippers and a robe on, and that's how today was going to go, apparently.
It was literally the ugliest robe in the entire universe, she'd been told on multiple occasions, and Eli noticed Pulse chuckling to himself on his porch as she opened her door and waved at him. Everyone had to stop judging her on her outfit choices. No one would be able to miss her in this get-up, with her wild red hair that she hasn't brushed in days, the eye-stabbing off-color stained pink robe and the green slippers with monster googly eyes glued on them. The shrill child's voice stabbed her right in the ear, cutting off the serene bird song that she was just starting to enjoy "WoooW AuNtELI you look so beaUUUtiful TOdayyyyy!"
Eli smiled at that. She could look like she literally crawled out of a trash can and Jessie would always still treat her like she's the coolest single person in the entire universe. Perks of having nieces, clearly. Being worshipped even when you looked like shit.
"Alright, suit up Captain, we're going on an adventure," Eli said overly-cheerfully as she scooped up the girl in her arms and brought her inside so they could begin their adventure.
"Is Kira working today again?" Eli asked as the small child before her struggled to tie her space shoes. The woman made a mental note that she had to repair those later when they got back.
"Yeah mom's still working, and dad's off to work as well, and Yola's at school, you know how it goes, so I thought it was the perfect day to come to you, I'm always so happy to see you aunt Eli, you're my favorite person," Jessie trailed on and on as she completely forgot about her shoes.
Jessie needed to learn how to do that on her own though, she was already four and a half and tying shoes was a life skill everyone needed to master. Nothing in this world was given to you on a silver platter, so Eli wouldn't help the girl until she at least succeeded one knot. Jessie had a lot of things to learn still…
Kira was working too hard, Eli thought. Now that they had all this money, she didn't understand why her sister felt the need to break her back working an industrial job when Eli clearly had offered to give her money on multiple occasions. The fact of the matter was that it had been almost nine years since Eli had won, she lived nicely in the Victor's village and two years ago, Eli even managed to bring back Pulse. Things were looking up and Kira was still stressed to hell and back. In Eli's humble opinion, her sister had to take it easy.
Jessie just finished tying her shoes. Finally. Her eyes turned questioningly to Eli's for approval.
"I'm happy to see you've been successful in your tying shoes mission, Captain, let's go now before the weather turns to shit," Eli whispered conspiratorially and winked as Jessie giggled, clearly very amused at the swear word.
"Yeah, let's go before it goes to SHIT," Jessie agreed, beaming up at her aunt.
Eli was just the coolest, wasn't she?
Kira certainly wouldn't think so, once she came for supper and Jessie started repeating the bad words Eli might accidentally have taught her but hey…they had a whole day ahead of them before that argument happened.
Sometime later, when Eli and Jessie came back to cook supper, they were covered in dirt and had yet another adventure under their belt. Jessie had decapitated all the flowers on Mrs. Shultz' lawn, so that was pretty much an all-round win. Pulse was still on his porch, and Jessie waved at him cheerfully as they passed him on the way to Eli's house. He's really not as grumpy as he likes to think he is, Eli thought as Pulse's entire face lit up at Jessie's attention. His eyes quickly followed the mud tracks on Eli's robe, so many questions in his eyes as he raised his eyebrows. What the hell did you guys do? Eli just nodded at him. Don't ask.
They made cookies and alphabet pasta, and when Jessie's brother came back from school to help them out, Jessie ran up to him and led him to Eli's living room, to show off the new features she added to her space suit. That was a typical supper at Eli's house, Kira and Noa sitting at the front of the table, Jessie and Yolando sitting next to Eli, regaling her with stories of their day, interrupting each other in their haste to gain her approval and praise. More often than not, the evening ended with both children clinging to Eli's arms or clambering up on her lap and convincing Kira to let them stay over for the night. They loved Eli so much. That thought alone made Eli smile and helped her get through the worst days.
Again, Eli didn't understand why Kira didn't officially just move in with her family into the Victor's Village, since Eli had the house to herself. Her parents she understood, but Kira? She knew Kira didn't want to burden her, but for fuck's sake she practically offered it every Christmas and they were already sleeping over 3 days a week because Noa's roof kept on leaking…
Eli liked Noa, but god was Kira's husband kind of a dumbass sometimes. Their parents certainly thought so, especially in the beginning. Eli didn't like to brag, but she's pretty sure that her fighting for her life and almost getting eviscerated by that one bitch from District 5 during the final fight made her parents realize how important family was. They did get better, reconciling with Kira and finally accepting Noa. And to pay her back for all her good selfless deeds, good old Kira never failed to joke that Eli was single from the womb, single to the tomb. At least now they could joke about this kind of stuff again…
At some point, when Jessie had been born, Eli had asked Kira point-blank if she was afraid of her being near her kids. Her sister had actually burst into tears and they both spent the night talking, reconnecting and admitting all the things that had been kept under the surface ever since Eli came back. It had taken five years, but they finally had that talk.
Eli's games had been very violent and awful, there was no denying that. Contrarily to some of her fellow victors, Eli didn't mind talking about them. She had come to terms with the things she's done because in the end it had been worth it.
It was simple: it started when Eli volunteered for her older sister.
She was now something of a legend among the outer districts. She was a polarizing Victor, sure, but the Capitol loved her. She was the first female Victor and the first volunteer that had gone in, not for the glory nor the prestige. She had gone in because her older sister had been reaped and Kira was ready to get married and that's what family was for, goddamnit. And she had survived, hasn't she? She was whole and yeah, some days she wanted to jump off a cliff, but her family was there to make sure that didn't happen.
Both their parents had been tenured university professors at a prestigious school before the Dark Days put all their lives on hold. Their dad was a revered scientist who had a hand in building weapons during the war, their mother a major figure in writing political theories. These people were well known across the country and well liked, and Eli was still of the opinion that Kira getting reaped was a fucking mistake. It wasn't fair, and Kira was in love and just about the only happy person in all of District 3, and what the fuck was that all about? Eli knew that her sister would die in there, because she had witnessed the horrors of the war and still lacked the pragmatism with which Eli and her parents viewed the world. And again, Eli didn't want to brag but she was just so much smarter than Kira, so much more determined to live selfishly. She had a vision her sister lacked and that's why she survived. In a way, the Games were made for a theatrical and dramatic asshole like her.
The whole volunteering thing…that had been a first, in Panem history. After she got back, for the longest time, Eli attributed the awkwardness to Kira being scared of what she had been capable of doing to the other tributes, which caused a rift between the two sisters. They had been as thick as thieves before Eli left. Her overly-rational brain couldn't really find another explanation.
Now though, Eli knew it had nothing to do with this, and everything to do with the immeasurable debt Kira felt like she owed Eli. She didn't regret what had happened though, and she wished that Kira didn't either.
In the end, it WAS worth it, no matter how much Kira beat herself up about it. Did Eli manipulate and murder five kids to get where she was? Absolutely. And she'd do it again, because it meant that Yolando and Jessie were born and got the chance to be educated and happy and full of food every day. And Eli got to roleplay as an evil alien and get to act out her own death multiple times a day, so that was fun too.
Suhndit Laghari
Victor of the 5th Hunger Games
District 7
Suhndit kind of wanted to hang herself again.
She contemplated calling Eli, but ultimately decided against it. She couldn't handle the energy that would exude from the other end of the line at this very moment. She still remembered how inspirational Eli had looked on stage, how she had played everyone and planned and schemed until no one was left. Before Eli, testosterone-pumped muscle dudes had dominated the field and Eli flipped that concept on its ass and won against all odds.
Suhndit recalled seeing Eli and being inspired by the strong feminist icon the woman would become by winning the Games. She had foolishly hoped, before the regrets and the trauma threatened to drown her, that she would be a similar kind of symbol to the other girls who struggled with their identity, with their powerlessness.
Suhndit attributed her drive in her own Games to the inspiration that Eli brought the previous year. While the District 3 Victor had engineered some drama worthy of a Capitol soap-opera with the District 5 girl which kept them both relevant until the final showdown, Suhndit knew from the moment that she stepped onto the train that she'd have to win some other way. She didn't have a guidebook, so she improvised and adapted. The arena had played out in her favor. There were trees. Lots of trees and lots of weapons. She made friends with most of the other tributes. She was also a crowd-favorite, known for her frankness, her brutal honesty, her savage come-backs and easy-going nature. It helped that she was beautiful and eighteen, and most of the Capitol was practically drooling over her.
In the arena, she had allied herself with the District 2 and District 10 girls, against all odds. All news channels broadcasting the 5th Hunger Games were mesmerized by the alliance. The girls were all strong and healthy, well-versed in combat, ready to fight off any threat that came their way.
It was funny too, because the guys that year had exuded that hyper-straight toxic masculinity that Suhndit joked they could smell from a mile away. On the sixth day, the trio actually went toe-to-toe with the District 1-2-4 all-male alliance. They emerged victorious, successfully eliminating the District 4 boy and injuring the other two who decided to run away like cowards, to nurse their wounded pride. They dominated, making their rankings shoot up sky-high and Suhndit had felt invincible.
That night, as Suhndit kept watch, the District 10 girl approached her. It had been Suhndit's first kiss. Hours later, it became her first heartbreak, as their alliance went and broke up as agreed-upon, since all three girls had earned themselves a spot in the final 8.
Sometimes it was brains and luck that won you the Games. In Suhndit's case, it was simply the fact that she fought best, ending the Games in a spectacular way by injuring and then beheading her former allies that had teamed up on her. She killed the District 10 girl last, crying over her corpse as her victory was announced.
When she landed in the Capitol, she wasn't expecting the swarming hordes of journalists, the lack of privacy, the constant groping. It was too much, she hated it. On the last day before departing back to District 7, one prominent newscaster approached her for a photoshoot. She was tired, but he genuinely seemed nice and friendly, so she accepted the request. As she put her arm around his shoulders, he leaned down and told her he really enjoyed "that lesbian shit she had going on" and Suhndit almost threw up in her mouth.
She was reduced to just that. Somehow, she had played the Games on her terms and still got saddled with this kind of bullshit baggage she never asked for.
Suhndit came back and after a year, she worked up the courage to ask out her best friend Aleyah, who she married soon-after. Some people thought they moved too fast, but at this point Suhndit didn't care. Now that she was a Victor, she could afford the expensive artificial in-vitro fertilization techniques, so within the year, she got pregnant. Life was getting back to normal, and Suhndit almost moved on from the absolute horror she had lived through the year before. And then the Capitol called, Suhndit left on a business trip, and when she came back, Aleyah didn't recognize her friend-turned-partner. Suhndit started going out, partying, drinking. She refused Aleyah's attempts to discuss what happened, pushing her wife away as she tried to understand what had caused this momentous change in Suhndit's behavior. She had always been so full of life, love and determination. She became cold, abusive, a shell of her former self. When Aleyah had to rush their son to the hospital after the small boy injected potentially-lethal amounts of cocaine which Suhndit left on her nightstand, that was it.
From then on, Aleyah refused to let Suhndit see her son, and that's when shit officially went from bad to awful. The worst part was that six years later, she honestly didn't care anymore. It had stung back then, horribly, but she had had time to get over it. She didn't even remember her son's face.
She drank, she smoked, she gambled…life was a blur now. Why did she break so easily when the others seemed to be taking their victory in stride? She didn't know what had made her so brittle, but she definitely didn't think she could do another year of this bullshit. She needed another victor to help her out.
Jasmyn Abioye Desloncourt
Victor of the 6th Hunger Games
District 1
The strobe lights flickered, the electronic music pounded so as to reverberate in your rib cage and shook in the depths of your core. The thumping and swaying bodies of dancers melted together in a kaleidoscope of colors. Sipping expensive cocktails, a stunning pair sat at the bar, observing the dancing crowd with curiosity. The man stroked the woman's leg absentmindedly with a hand whose fourth finger was occupied by a small band of gold. An identical one resided on the woman's hand, drowned out by a huge array of other extravagant rings and bracelets on her dark glistening skin.
"Think …for me…I'll never …break your heart…" a synthetic female voice sang as the beat sped up. Vintage was eyeing one particular dancer, a man in his twenties who was swaying his hips to the rhythm of the music. The dancer looked rich and drunk, and the Victor named Vintage was mesmerized.
Vintage kissed Jasmyn on the neck, only once, stood up and joined the festivities, drink in hand, throwing his head back and laughing boyishly as a throng of people surrounded him instantly. He was a famous Victor, probably the most beautiful and the most outrageously cruel if the reruns had any say in that matter. He was so achingly beautiful…
Sipping her drink, Jasmyn looked at Vintage across the bar, taking in hungrily every detail of her husband's movements. He was confident, slowly reaching up and pumping his fist in the air and the tempo changed once again. His smile was wide and carefree, and she couldn't help but love him with all her might. She knew deep down in her heart that she had lost a part of the man she fell in love with shortly before her Games…but she couldn't blame him for what he did during his own "trial by fire". After all, he did it to get back to her, he was her success story and a day didn't go by that she didn't pray in thanks for the miracle she was blessed with. No one had succeeded in bringing back a tribute the year after their own victory, not even Sujax. So what if Vintage came back a little damaged, a little unhinged? Some people lost limbs, and no one immediately jumped on their case. No, she cannot blame him for the horrors he inflicted upon the children he had competed with. After all, each Games were different, and Jasmyn would never fault any of her fellow Victors for anything they've done to survive. Vintage had killed seven tributes, of which the most memorable kills had been the pair from District 2, which Athena, a younger District 2 Victor, took special care to never let Jasmyn forget. As though it had been her own hands that had carved up the faces of Athena's predecessors before ending their suffering. Vintage's skills with knives were unparalleled among the trained tributes, and so was his creativity when it came to inflicting pain. That year, the Games came with an additional warning label prior to airing footage of Vintage's systemic and indiscriminate destruction of the tributes that fell prey to his depravity. Torture and death were plentiful, and he was the executioner. It wasn't his fault though, Jasmyn had put such pressure upon him to survive.
And there he was now, surviving, thriving, having the time of his life. The life he had truly yearned for and committed the most heinous acts to finally achieve. Sanity was a small price to pay to be sipping margaritas and becoming the most desired human being of Panem, Jasmyn thought grimly. There he was, dancing like the boy she had fallen in love with as they trained together, fought each other, injured each other and improved upon one another's skills. Whether it be with an opponent or with a partner, he's always dancing, Jasmyn realized.
Another beat change. Vintage opened his eyes and looked directly at her. She smiled at him and everything disappeared, her face lighting up with love, shoving her concerns into a dark corner of her mind. He smiled back, carefree and happy, beckoning her to join him on the dance floor. Perhaps she'd oblige a little later, but she was content looking at him for the time being, memorizing every curve and line of his beautiful cruel body that she had saved by selling her own.
Vintage Desloncourt
Victor of the 7th Hunger Games
District 1
He wanted to kiss and fuck and kill every person in the room. Most of all Jasmyn, though. She was always the person he wanted to be with the most, even at his worst.
As always, she was watching him, and he was watching her. He knew a part of her was afraid of him now. Had been afraid of him for the past six years. Some days he wanted to shake her and scream at her and make her understand that he had always been like this, he had always had this utterly fucked up part of his brain that fought to be unleashed. The Games had unlocked his true potential, contrarily to her. Not that she hadn't been completely gorgeous during hers…she was a fan favorite, a puppeteer to the other tributes that truly fell head over heels to oblige. She had only killed three people, but god, Vintage smiled at the memory. She had been so beautiful doing it. But she hadn't enjoyed the Games as much as he has…no, her true skill had been in mobilizing the district, seeking advice from Sujax to implement a training system to rival District 2's. Vintage still didn't know how the fuck she actually got Sujax to help, but Jasmyn was good with people like that. Vintage hadn't been an official trainee, not really, since he had only trained for the shits and giggles, and also to be with Jasmyn who at the time had been obsessed with getting out of her shithole of a home. He knew Jasmyn was getting antsy at the thought that the Academy hadn't produced an official victor yet, but he was okay with it. Who the fuck cares, in the end?
He looked at her now, sipping her cocktail, her body elegantly draped with an expensive material they both would have killed themselves for prior to their victory. She had used that body quite efficiently during her Games, he recalled, luring in stupid assholes just like him. She had allied with her district partner, the pair from District 2 and the District 9 boy that had shown promise during training. The rest was history as the Career pack lay waste to the other tributes. Her only three kills came on the very last day, when she singlehandedly slew a broad-shouldered and determined Karina from District 7, the boy from District 2 and finally the boy from District 9, who had been in love with her since day 1. She danced for about 20 minutes that day, trotting back to the aircraft that picked her up with only one scratch on her torso inflicted by the dying finalist, as a futile attempt to get back at her for her manipulative ways. It wasn't anything personal, she had said during her interview, as the crowd took her in hungrily. They all wanted her, Vintage had realized. It made sense, he wanted her too, and he didn't mind sharing. As long as she loved him the most, he was fine with pretty much anything.
She had told him once, apprehension written all over her face, that in order to secure his victory she had had to pay a rich couple a visit. He remembers childishly how she had raised her eyebrows suggestively at the words "visit" and he couldn't help but giggle like a fucking five-year old. He had then laughed and told her he couldn't care less, because it was true, he didn't really care what she did as long as they were together. If he didn't know better, Vintage would have thought her features flashed with something resembling hurt, before returning to normal. She let out a sigh, and smiled at him, a smile that lit up his whole world and he still remembers the kiss she planted on the top of his head before he stood up to leave, to shake off the awkwardness of their conversation.
Where Jasmyn was merciful and efficient, Vintage liked to draw things out. That's just how it worked in their relationship too. He wouldn't ever let her forget though that she had been the one who had convinced him to volunteer, to be worthy of her love, in a way. Not that he didn't appreciate the incentive, he truly and wholeheartedly believed that that had been the best thing to happen to him, but she definitely didn't. There were days when she regretted deeply for making him take the plunge, and those days he derived a perverse pleasure from antagonizing her about it, showing just enough of his crazy side, the side that had surfaced during his Games, to make her upset. And then he'd apologize, and they'd make up and all was well with the world. They were both killers, they were worth each other and that's all he cared about as the music changed. Jasmyn, as though a lithe panther on a prowl, slid up to him and they melted into each other with the sway of the music and lights.
In their case, their fates were so intertwined that it didn't matter who came first and who came second. It might as well have been him who pulled her through fire and flames to get her back, he loved her so much. They were meant to be together and there was nothing that would stop them now.
Athena
Victor of the 8th Hunger Games
District 2
A lone figure cut the still air with elegant kicks, punches, flips and fatal spear maneuvers. The gym mat was sprayed with droplets of sweat and something else that could be discerned as blood if someone bothered to take a closer look.
Athena. That had been the name Sujax had given her, once he had chosen her as the destined volunteer. That was the name she had proudly presented on stage, desperately repeated when the scorching heat threatened to make her lose her mind. The name she heard chanted back at her when she came beaming onto the interview stage to be crowned as the newest Victor of the Hunger Games.
She had wanted to make Sujax proud, she had wanted to exterminate the rebels that still roamed Panem, that prospered while her parents rolled in their graves. Contrarily to Sujax who had been old enough to make a difference in the war, turn the tides in the Capitol's favor, she had unfortunately been born a couple of years too late. As a result, she had spent the war aimlessly patrolling the bombed streets, scavenging for food, killing the other homeless children and people who posed a threated. She had been 12 when the war ended. She remembered feeling so much older.
Since then though, District 2 has done well. In the Games, they had gotten so close. They had gotten closer than any other district, and yet they were still stuck with two fucking victors when they deserved so many more. Athena had really tried her best to bring back a District 2 child back home, she had been so ready the year after her own victory. And then the arena collapsed within the first few minutes and buried Aella and Baxtor, her handpicked volunteers, her friends, under a couple of tons of rubble. She hadn't even been allowed to cry about it. Aella had been her friend.
They told her that because of this horrible mistake, the Gamemakers had been executed, but she knew that shit-filled snotty rat of a human being Quill Daemeon still filled the Head Gamemaker position. She would never say it out loud, but this kind of nepotism is exactly why their country had gone to shit in the first place. She had no family, no money to her name and she clawed her way to fame and fortune all the same. She wasn't exactly proud of all the things she had done, but she had secured her future fair and square. Athena would never dare breathe a word of discontent towards the President, bless him, but the Head Gamemaker fucking killed Aella with his negligence and she hadn't even been allowed to mourn.
The spear zipped through the air furiously, slicing and stabbing as Athena went through the motions of the hypnotic dance of death that she had taught herself. She hadn't actually gotten the opportunity to use it within her Games, not on someone alive at least. She had practiced with the one stupid decrepit bush she had found in the wasteland that had been her arena. She proceeded to kill her the tributes she encountered in knife or close-quarters combat. It was less aesthetic, but three days in under the scorching sun and there wasn't much left out there that she cared about except for victory. She was good, she remembered that much. Sujax had told her how good she was, or he wouldn't have sent her in, otherwise. She hadn't been the first trainee from District 2 to go into the Games, but she was the first fruitful attempt, the first success story and she knew deep in her heart that District 2 was unstoppable now. If the Gamemakers gave them a chance and didn't topple the arena on top of them, for fuck's sake.
She felt it though, this would be their year once again. She'd make Sujax proud by bringing back a child. Contrarily to Sujax who got along well with Jasmyn and Vintage, the District 1 Victors, Athena held her distance. She knew they weren't ever going to be friends, so why bother pretending? Jasmyn, after all, had siked Vintage on the District 2 tributes. Athena was convinced that was the only reason why Sujax's golden children had fallen so early into Vintage's Games. It could have been her, if Sujax had decided to send her in that year. She would have been the one tortured beyond recognition by that piece of shit of a human being. So sue her for thinking it, but Jasmyn would always remain the fucking bitch that stabbed her friends in the back and Athena just couldn't stand by that.
In Athena's games, she had allied herself with her district partner and the two District 1 trainees. They were four hunters, poised, beautiful and dangerous, ready to roam the arena and raze it to the ground until one of them remained standing. And that's exactly what they did, until the very end. Until Ronan's mind and spirits broke and they had to finish him off as a team. No hard feelings there, Athena knew it had to be done. He had been an orphan, just like her, picked up off the streets by Sujax and shaped into a boy that could crush skulls while smirking effortlessly. He had gone absolutely berserk, mad from exhaustion, heatstroke and hunger, fatally wounding Yereena. She had been a crowd favorite, Yereena…Athena always fondly remembered the ally that had supported her in the arena the most. That didn't prevent the savage fight that had ensued between Athena and Yereena's district partner Paulo. No doubt, Jasmyn had been so sure that she had another victor on her hands, that the thought of having robbed her of that put a smile on Athena's face. Athena had always been more savage, more unhinged than the district 1 tributes, and maybe that was the key to success after all. Not control, not manipulation but pure unyielding force behind an undying desire to win it all.
Athena's kill count was higher than Sujax's, but she knew she wouldn't be alive without his guidance, his love and support. She just couldn't wait to produce her own Victor and finally put to rest the fire within her, replacing it with the resolve and quiet pride she saw reflected back at her whenever she looked Sujax in the eye.
Turner 'Momo' Monkland
Victor of the 9th Hunger Games
District 9
Momo. That was the eponymous nickname the entire country had given him. It was also the only word he could say. His real name had once been Turner Monkland, but pretty much everyone had forgotten that tidbit of information. His mother remembered how confused he had looked, when the Peacekeepers pushed him towards the stage after a minute of silence and confusion. He had looked so harmless then, a six-foot giant looming over his small district partner, but looking all the more scared and absolutely utterly confused. His interview had been heartbreaking, as he repeated Momo into the microphone as the crowd laughed and ridiculed him. His mother still recalled that day once in a while, with absolute despair and derision. Her father, Momo's grandfather, had died that day too. It was just too much to handle. All she was left with was one question ricocheting in her skull as she buried her father. Why couldn't her boy die with dignity? Why didn't they afford him that one kindness?
At least she had consoled herself in the fact that her son would finally find peace, since the Careers had seemed so obsessed with hunting him down during their interview. They had likened him to a mammoth to hunt, and he didn't even understand what they meant because he didn't have a single fucking evil bone in his body. She prayed that his death be swift and peaceful…he already looked so perpetually scared, any time she caught a glimpse of him onscreen. During that week leading up to the Games, she had been so angry, so horrified at the way the media portrayed her son. Didn't they understand what an incredible special boy he was, who take care of animals better than anyone she'd ever seen.
To Panem, he was just Momo, a crippled 18-year old boy who ended up surviving a situation where literally all the odds were stacked up against him. He had survived due to a mistake, for which dozens of people had paid with their life.
When the suspended glass ceiling above the extravagant gigantic crystal bridge had started collapsing just as the gong rang, the tributes had been showered with sharp deadly shards. At least ten casualties were granted to the fatal injuries sustained from the rain of stalactite-like spears that careened towards the screaming and confused contestants. And then the entire structure caved in, and Momo as well as the remaining tributes were buried underneath twenty-eight thousand tons of glass, mortar and cement. Twenty-three canons rang quasi-simultaneously, and a twenty-fourth one wasn't far away when a rescue team dug up Momo.
Had it been literally any other tribute, even twelve-year old Miruna from District 6 who had cried and sobbed the entire time, perhaps the situation would have been a little bit less of a shitshow. Or maybe it was planned to end that way, a spoke in someone's wheel, a scheme that had cost so fucking much. Nevermind that Momo lost an arm and had his spine broken, constrained to an existence of pain and confusion and misunderstanding. Nevermind that he wet his bed every night and his mother almost regretted that the debris hadn't crushed him alongside the other tributes from the 9th Games.
Sometimes there was really not much else to say.
Mags Lyons
Victor of the 10th Hunger Games
District 4
Perhaps, Mags' strength lay in the fact that while most of the other victors burned bright and fell out of favor just as quickly, Mags held that special slow burn that made her legendary beyond her victory. She found out early-on that the districts glorified their victors, listened to them and sought their advice. Decades into the future, she would use that to her advantage and would be seen as the paragon of wisdom, counselling dozens of lost or depressed victors who lacked a purpose in life. She would be a symbol of justice, generosity and kindness. After the announced twist of the 3rd Quarter Quell, her volunteering and subsequent death would be lamented by the people of District 4, collectively mourning the loss of their grandmother who had fought tooth and nail to distance the district from its humble and desolate beginnings.
At this point in time though, she was just a young woman with an iron resolve and grand ideas, gutting fish with her mother and sisters on the docks and waiting on her father and brothers to come back with new bounty from the sea. She had no idea what kind future life had in store for her and on a pleasant summer morning like this. She didn't particularly care, either.
Her win came right after the biggest Games flop in Panem history, after all. She was a breath of fresh air after very tense and arguably dangerous times, when the Games were an uncertainty once again. Would the public enjoy them after the past year's debacle? Mags volunteering dispelled the Gamemakers' doubts and once again elevated the Hunger Games to prime entertainment that the Capitol invested their money, time and hearts in. Mags made sure to create a reputation that would carry her through thick and thin, establishing herself as a mediator, a friendly face to anyone who needed it. She was pleasant and cordial with Capitolites, earning their respect and favor. She was loyal and kind with her fellow District citizens, who practically worshipped the ground she walked on. For all intents and purposes, her caution paired with her ability to find common ground with almost anyone guaranteed her long-lived influence in District 4 from the very beginning.
Everyone in District 4 knew Mags, and she didn't think it relevant to bring up her Games any more than necessary. That was reserved for her frequent Capitol business visits, but now was a time to do what she loved best: work at the edge of the ocean while daydreaming and humming an old folk's song as the waves crashed and churned in the distance. Running after her youngest sister and scaring her with a still-jerking fish while her other sisters laughed wasn't half-bad either.
Pulse Bohacz
Victor of the 11th Hunger Games
District 3
Mr. Roomi's basement hid many secrets, people used to joke. The biggest of them all, a boy, now eighteen years old, who you'd never guess would be the kind of guy to butcher four people within five days. A Victor.
But as it stood, on a sunny spring afternoon, this boy was hunched over an electronic device in the dark lit room, furiously unscrewing the seemingly endless bolts that held the device shut. This boy was Pulse. Believe it or not, that was his real name. Surely, he was even less impressed with it than anyone else but…c'est la vie, as they say.
So this boy, this Victor…what was he doing in an old man's basement, fixing decades-old equipment? The truth of the matter is that Mr. Roomi was the designated creepy old guy in town who was mostly left to his own devices, and Pulse appreciated the alienation from the rest of his rotten district while actually doing something useful for the older man. Fixing outdated pieces of electrical equipment was Pulse's whole get-up, after all. It was what had helped him survive the 11th Games.
Working like this was a double-edged sword…it kept the memories at bay, to an extent. But some days, they would come flooding his mind, making his hands work quicker, fueled by the anger and fear.
He remembered being almost relieved when his name was finally called at the Reaping, when he stumbled out of the fifteen-year olds' section, sweat running down his face as he struggled to push back the stereotypically large glasses further up his nose. After all, he had calculated the statistical probability of his name being pulled from the Reaping Bowl. Needless to say, the odds were not in his favour, after the unreasonable amount of tesserae he took for his siblings. The worst part is it wasn't even out of love or duty. It was because his parents were too stupid to use fucking protection every time they got an itch they couldn't scratch. He just happened to be the first of their many mistakes. Fucking finally, a part of him wanted to shout. The other part of him was terrified and realized that he really really didn't want to die.
He had worked part-time in the cooler system of one of the giant power plants in the poor sectors of the district. He was a really smart kid with piss-poor vision and an absolute disregard for personal safety. He also had a special knack for tinkering with electricity and wiring, which wasn't to be underestimated, as all of Panem had learned quite quickly. His games were the shortest to date, excluding Sujax's. They were fairly anti-climactic too, and Pulse was too smart to think that he was the Victor the Capitol would have preferred. Knowing them, he was sure they were rooting for Gharna, the District 5 girl. Well fuck them, he didn't actually care what they thought, he just wanted to be left alone.
As a result of his battle with his last opponent, Pulse had sustained such extensive and debilitating injuries to his bowels that after his victory, the doctors that fixed him up were barely able to patch him back up. With half his intestines ripped to shreds by the District 5 girl's serrated sword, it wasn't surprising.
She was a nut-job, that crazy bitch, and he was glad she was dead. Because of her, he was missing about 20 inches of intestine, give or take, couldn't eat most of the things like before. He was a cripple now. A fucking cripple, with a colostomy bag attached to his fucking intestines, who was stuck eating shit-tasting soup for the rest of his fucking miserable life. And the funniest part was that Capitol stylists actually dared to try and make it look fucking fashionable, for fuck's sake. He was going to be shitting out of his stomach into a plastic bag for the rest of his life, and they bejeweled it like it was some fucking joke.
He couldn't walk straight either anymore, stuck in a perpetually hunched-over state. He guessed that's why he and Mr. Roomi got along so well. That's what the wheelchair was for, but still…it depressed the shit out of him and Eli so he at least attempted to take short walks for her sake.
He liked his mentor. He thought Eli was funny and pretty and intelligent. He had quite a bit of a crush on her, and spending his days with her was the shit, compared to spending it inside the walls of his house with all his dumb siblings perpetually running around and screaming all the damn time. She was kind of the only good thing about District 3, in his opinion.
But he couldn't stand being exposed like this, to her, to the rest of the world. He wished so desperately for someone to figure out a way to make him like he was before. For a while, he had deluded himself into believing that after winning, everything would become miraculously perfect. The sad part of the matter is that even after he won, he still found he couldn't stand his family, his neighbors and his pathetic existence. And to add to that, now he had a shit-pouch attached to his belly and a nice creepy hunch, if he didn't want to feel like fainting from the pain. No miracle surgery to alleviate his suffering, it seemed. Or, a paranoid corner of his mind would constantly remind him, he must have pissed the big guys off enough for them to deny him the care he required. As far as conspiracy theories went…it wasn't the craziest idea with the whole totalitarian vibe he was getting from the government.
He had to remind himself that death was so much worse. He had done so many bad things to live, he couldn't give up now. He had stopped the hearts of three children, two of them younger than him. Pulse hadn't even had the heart to laugh, when the interviewer made a pun out of it. He had also stabbed a fourth one, but no one remembers him for that kill, which ironically is the one that fucked him up the most. And for what? Maybe it was for the talks with Eli. Maybe it was for him to finally accomplish something monumental and achieve a peak stage in his nihilistic thought process.
On Eli's porch, they had a habit of going on and on about life, death and everything in between until either of them ran out of things to say. Eli swinging on her bright blue rocking chair and him sitting next to her on his wheelchair he still used sometimes, a blanket draped over him like he was some ancient grandpa. Pulse knew Eli pitied him and didn't have the heart to tell him to fuck off, considering the fact he was her only surviving tribute-turned-Victor. But it was okay for now, especially when the sun was warming his body and his siblings' yells were far away that he could ignore them and focus instead on Eli's newest outrageous ideas.
Triss Tsui
Victor of the 12th Hunger Games
District 5
If Triss got a coin for every time someone asked him "Isn't Triss a girl's name?", he'd be even richer than he was with all of his winnings, his mother's earnings combined. Didn't stop him from winning though.
They were really close, Triss and his mom. She had really freaked out when he got reaped, that much he remembered. He was a lanky seventeen-year old at the time, with big dreams of becoming a surgeon. He had such steady hands, back then.
Either way, it was her shrieks that had snapped him out of his daze, and he had walked mechanically to the stage, all pretenses dropped. He was fucking horrified. He had always been a jokester at school, the kind of guy that had really good grades but pretended to be an absolute moron for attention. There wasn't a single joke in his repertoire that he could force out of his mouth in that moment.
At the interviews, he was charming and at training, he had managed to make some decent allies. He went into the Games with a rag-tag team of tributes who were determined to help each other survive the Bloodbath, at the very least.
Miraculously, no one from their 5-person squad died that first day. Triss was the designated healer, Ruko and Petrova from District 7 were the fighters, Suni from District 6 and Romi from District 3 were the brains behind their traps and overall plans of attack. They were all on the older side, the Careers weren't particularly impressive that year and things just…worked out for a while.
For those first few days, they were left alone, and they actually had fun. Triss employed what was now known as the Eli maneuver, and provided entertainment galore. He told stories, regaled his friends and the Capitol public with embarrassing anecdotes, he joked around. Everyone liked Triss, but no one had expected him to get as far as the Final 8. When Suni and Romi died from poisoning, the group finally imploded. Ruko and Petrova blamed Triss, who denied it. The audience was privy to the fact that it had been Suni's district partner, who had been following the alliance for the entirety of the Games, that planted the poison.
Unfortunately for Triss, the pair from District 7 did not have that kind of omniscient information. They cut Triss' Achille's tendons and left him to die. He didn't, dragging himself through dirt and sand to safety. Somehow, Ruko had agreed to leave him with the bare minimum supplies. Absolute moron if you asked Triss, but some shit is only explained by pure human stupidity and hormones.
Triss was found by his district partner Anova in the middle of the night, burning up from fever. His hands were no longer steady, his whole body shaking like a leaf. His district partner was a small girl, only fourteen and skinny as a reed, but she helped him and fed him, despite Triss refusing the take her into his alliance in the first place. That was the one thing he was truly sorry about, but she had survived that far so she was worth more by herself, it seemed. He knew his time was limited, as the infection in his ankles spread and took hold of the circulatory system in his feet. He had very little time. He felt the poison approaching his heart, and maybe he was hallucinating but he knew the way sepsis killed people and he knew he was getting there. He had to win this, he was so close. Apart from them, only the pair from 7 was left now, having eliminated all the other competition quickly and efficiently. They were the true hunters of his Games. As Triss and Anova hid, they concocted a plan to poison the District 7 tributes, his former allies and now his greatest obstacle. His mother, a highly reputable doctor in District 5, amassed the necessary funds to send Triss a tiny vial of cyanide, enough to kill three people. And just like that, the Games were over.
In his interviews, Triss liked to say that District 5 would have won regardless of the outcome of his plan. He had just been lucky enough for his district partner to screw up sufficiently to be killed off before the other two succumbed to the poison, leaving him as the sole survivor.
The tradeoff was that he lost both his legs below the knee to infection.
It was alright though. He was working on prosthetics now. He had offered to help Pulse out, whenever he finished his own mechanical legs. Pulse had refused right away, but then had contacted him again, apologizing and offering to meet up to discuss potential plans of action. That was fine.
Triss had the least amount of kills under his belt from all the victors thus far, and perhaps one of the most lasting and glaring injuries, but Triss had always been an optimist and he knew this was a challenge he could overcome. The only thing was that even now, a year later, his hands wouldn't stop shaking. His signature, previously so clean and sleek was now messy, a ghost of a tremor turning the elegant scribbles into a mess of lines. He saw the effect magnified ten-fold when people thrust their magazines, their receipts, their fake breasts or their bald heads down at him to sign. Adaptation was a part of life, he thought, and he had plenty of time to fix this too.
Now, he had all the time in the world.
Hundreds of miles separating them, these Victors went about their day in the best way they knew how. These twelve people, all different in their own right, united only in their shared spilling of blood and survival, were preparing for another child to join their ranks shortly. Some hopeful, others despairing, others not feeling anything at all anymore.
The 13th Games were coming.
Notes:
Wow, this chapter took a long turn, didn't it? With 11K+ words, I am truly baffled at how much I adored writing this chapter. I really hope whoever is reading this enjoyed my take on the first 12 victors! This really sets up the scene for the kind of atmosphere the 13th Games are going to play out in, and I'm hoping you liked it!
Summary of the Hunger Games Victors:
1rst: Sujax Torro, D2
2nd: Casmir Agarwal, D11
3rd: Glenn Duncan, D10
4th: Eli Meisel, D3
5th: Suhndit Laghari, D7
6th: Jasmyn Abioye Desloncourt, D1
7th: Vintage Deslongcourt, D1
8th: Athena, D2
9th: Turner 'Momo' Monkland, D9
10th: Mags Lyons, D4
11th: Pulse Bohacz, D3
12th: Triss Tsui, D5
Which Victor was your favorite? Which one did you hate the most? You can answer those questions by directly shooting me a PM or through review…either way, I'll love you for it!
Peace and love.