Titus Faust, 15 - District One Male
I'm unsure of where we're going until we pass the trains and walk into view of gleaming hovercrafts - behemoths of ships, things that I've only seen collect the bodies of tributes in the Games. Why would we be heading towards them? Aren't we going to the Capitol?
"Where are we heading?" I ask my mentor, who strides with purpose towards the hovercrafts. "Why not the trains?"
"Change of plans," replies Easton Haviland, winner of the 23rd Hunger Games, murderer of four tributes. He's best known for how he cut off half of his arm to escape an adversary from District Three - she'd later die with a quick thrust to the chest from Easton's spear. "You two are headed outside of Panem - get ready."
Let the Games begin.
Lazuli Oberyl, 18, - District One Female
I'm not sure if I like this change of plans, but I'm definitely not going to show it in front of Titus. Instead, I gave a faint laugh and stride into the hovercraft with purpose, standing in my highest pair of heels. They weren't the most tactical choice for today, but they're the most intimidating of my wardrobe. I saw Titus eye their seven inches with respect a few minutes ago.
It's gorgeous inside of the hovercraft - a beautiful rose pattern on the walls, attractive windows, and plates of food that reach up to the ceiling. My stomach begins to rumble, but I silence myself - I shouldn't eat until it's time for a proper meal. I don't want to pig out.
"Well, well, well," murmurs Titus. "It appears that we're travelling in style."
"Eat up," I reply with a smirk. I scoop up a branch of juicy, violet grapes, dew still glistening on their round sides. "I don't think they'll have food like this where we're going."
Aasim Habibi, 18 - District Two Male
My watch begins ringing, and I look down at the alarm with surprise. I almost forgot.
"Excuse me," I ask Remus, who leans against the wall with his arms bulging out of a tight, short-sleeved shirt. I'd stop and talk with him, but I have more important matters at hand. "Do you know which way points east?"
Zirconia Bell, 18 - District Two Female
Aasim's disappeared into the rooms of the hovercraft, so I sit and talk with Lisse. "Do you think we'll start right away?" I ask, unrolling a cherry bun so I can get to the centre. The cream inside is the best part, after all.
"I'd tell you if I knew - well, I do know one thing," Lisse says, her tone lowering to a whisper. "It's all hush hush, of course, but you'll be somewhere warm - the victors heard something about a tiki bar for the gamemakers during the Games."
I laugh, jotting down a mental note for later. I want any information I can get my hands on before we start. "Then it's a good thing I've worked on my beach body this year."
Martha Randall, 13 - District Three Female
The food in the hovercraft is nice - sticky buns and cake, apples and oranges, cherry and lemon meringue pie. I don't even know what a meringue is!
"We're passing over District Seven now," our mentor announces, and I wrinkle my nose. I side-eye the window, and the forest below is just as green as ever. Full of beauty, full of unknowns. Just like Grandma said before it happened.
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
Finley Ammeti, 14 - District Three Male
I don't like the noise in the hovercraft - the sound next to the windows is unbearable, a constant whir of rotating blades that fills my mind. I wriggle out of my seat and head to the other side, but the sound is the same.
"I have some ear plugs right here, if you'd like," Martha offers, holding up a pair of orange plugs. "They're custom made for every ear, or at least that's what it says on the box I took them out of."
"Thanks." I push the ear plugs in, and settle back into a leather seat with my eyes closed. The sound is half-drowned out now, enough to ignore it entirely. Maybe the Games won't be so bad after all.
Lavern La Vernet, 18 - District Four Male
"You must be Lavern," my mentor says as he extends a hand to Aloma.
"Nope," she says.
"Then… you're Lavern?" he asks, turning to me with a quizzical expression.
"Lavern La Vernet," I introduce myself, offering a hand. It was a less than auspicious introduction to my mentor, Beta Croix. I'd already had low expectations. I was a little disappointed to be getting trained by someone who wasn't even invited to the Career pack. Beta was a trained volunteer, so it wasn't a total loss. And he walked the walk and won the Games, so it would behoove me to be respectful and learn from him. But this isn't a good start.
Aloma Ma'omo, 17 - District Four Female
I'm super excited to meet Minnie Galedeep. She'd walked the same path I had and was exactly who I hoped I'd be in a few weeks.
She's a lot shorter than I expect, but she makes up for it in energy. She sits down and gets right to work.
"So you're planning to join the pack?" she asks.
"Yes, I want lots of allies," I say.
"Good," she says. I almost don't hear what she said next over all the questions buzzing in my head. What's it like in the Capitol? Have you travelled all over Panem? Did you see lots of cool things in the Arena? How long is the hovercraft ride? I peek out the window at the miles of open land unrolling under us, then guiltily look back at my mentor, who deserved my attention.
Penny Cogswheel, 16 - District Five Female
A thousand different voices are screaming in my head. They're all so loud, I can't make out a thing - my head hurts. "Can I take something for a headache?"
"Here you are, dear," one of the mentors murmur. I don't remember her name, but she seems nice. Maybe she didn't murder too many people in the Games. "This pill's supposed to help you relax, but perhaps it'll work for pain too. Drink some water."
After a moment, the pain subsides, and I flash a grateful grin to my mentor. "Thanks. I owe you one."
"Try to win," she replies. "Our girls usually die in the bloodbath - they give up after the interviews."
"I can run," I offer. "I'll get away quickly."
"That's a good girl," my mentor says, her features brightening. "Would you like to go through a work out routine with me?"
Mikael Samer, 15 - District Five Male
Penny seems anxious for some reason - I can't imagine why. The landscape below our hovercraft looks really pretty, full of trees and rivers and all sorts of neat things. Maybe I'll be a poet when I'm an adult. I'd have lots of pens and paper and everything - maybe I could stay home with Mom and Dad if I did that. We're close to a nice park in the city.
"Try some food," Gaston whispers to me while we watch Penny and her mentor begin to run in place. "It's really good - I gain five pounds around this time of year from their fried chicken alone."
Chicken?
Daveth Brass, 17 - District Six Male
"I can't believe this. I'm going to the Arena. Can you believe this? I can't win the Games. I'm just a kid. This is it. I'm going to die." I slump forward and lay splatted on the table.
"I mean, yeah, with that attitude," Axle says. "If you're gonna be like that I can just go."
"No, wait!" I sit up and hold out my arms pleadingly. "Don't go! I can learn! I'll be good."
Axle sits back down. It's hard for him to fit between the bench and the table, both made for slender Capitolites and not a hulking muscleman.
"All right, it's not ever yet," he says. "Let's make a plan."
"Exactly! It's not over yet," I say. I hold a fist to my chest. "I'll learn and be the best Tribute you've ever had. When the Games come I'll be the last one standing, I swear it. And everyone better be watching when I win, because I will only be doing this once."
Makenna Ja, 18 - District Six Female
Why I gotta have Tyra? Tyra Heller is… weird. She doesn't really talk. Not 'she doesn't talk much', she just doesn't talk. She looks like a raptor always lurking on a branch sighting in on her next kill.
"So… how are you?" I ask.
Tyra looks even more like a bird with how she cocks her head in confusion. "Good?" she asks.
"Oh, good. I just thought it must be hard being a mentor," I say. All day long they have to focus on two kids they just met and are almost certainly going to die. That was a lot of worrying. But who worried about the mentors? They were people too.
Tyra smiles. "Yes. People always say 'good' when you ask them how they are. I don't think most of the time most of us mean it," she said.
That's deep, I think. Maybe I was more like Tyra than I thought.
Dafne Waldgrave, 16 - District Seven Female
I should be more worried about the life I'm leaving behind, but the hovercraft ride is oddly exhilarating. The windows are large and the smells are delectable, and for a moment I forget that I ever had responsibilities back in Seven to begin with. "Will we be going far?" I ask my mentor, who has a cup of wine in her hand. She nods her head.
"The trip's supposed to take half a day - if we're lucky. Get some sleep tonight. You'll need it."
Silas Folage, 17 - District Seven Male
I don't see a point in worrying about the Games today. Why think of something that's not in the present? Instead, I treat myself to the sweets on the table: the chocolate fudge is the best thing I think I've ever tasted, melting in my mouth the instant I pop it in.
It's a mixture of milk and butter and cocoa and sugar like I've never experienced before - is there even cocoa in Seven, or does it only come in those half-plastic chocolate bars the peacekeepers pawn off for cigars? They're far from the taste of this, though - the fudge is divine. Why did we pay so much for cigars back in Seven to trade anyway?
I won't think about that - I don't want to think about Seven right now. Instead, I'll have more of that fudge.
Baize Damask, 16 - District Eight Female
A sweet old Hispanic grandmother wheels her way across the hovercraft toward me, fussing with her wheelchair when it gets caught on the corner of a table. She settles herself at the end of my table and smiles at me.
"You must be Baize," she says, and gives me her hand. "Just call me Esther."
"Can you help me get an ally, please?" I ask. "I don't think I can win alone."
"Good idea," Esther says. "I didn't have any myself, but most non-Career winners do."
I feel like an Avox is about to come by with tea and a tray of cookies. Esther must have won somehow and I intended to learn everything I could from her, but it's just so funny to learn how to win the Hunger Games from someone old enough to be my grandmother.
"How did you win? If you don't mind talking about it," I ask.
Esther gets a faraway look in her eye. "I beat a boy's head in with a rock," she says. "But that was a long time ago. People do a lot to stay alive."
Seibold Carrington, 16 - District Eight Male
I'm on my own for this one. Mylar won because his Arena caught fire and he was the farthest away. It's up to me, a flamboyant piece of fluff who knew more about ballroom dance than mortal combat.
Obviously, that's going to have to be my strategy. I wasn't going to be the one charging out and setting the Games on fire. I would learn camouflage and humble skills like filtering water. In fact, if I was going to win this, it probably wouldn't really be me at all. It would be the people I surrounded myself with. Starting with Mylar, oddly enough.
"Can you help me get some allies?"
Ryelie Sammons, 14 - District Nine Female
I don't want to talk to my district partner, or my mentor, or the servants in red who scurry around the hovercraft like frightened mice. Are they frightened of me?
Instead, I lock myself into a bedroom that I discover after making my way through the hovercraft - it's dark and quiet, and for a moment I relax. I could fall asleep in here, surrounded by these fluffy pillows and the soft mattress under my body.
In a moment, I do.
Keaton Huang, 12 - District Nine Male
Ryelie disappeared after an hour of eating - after looking for her and only finding locked doors, I give up. I head back to Bran, apologizing to the servants - Bran called them avoxes - when I almost fall into their tray of hot drinks along the way.
When I get back to Bran, he has a deck of cards in his hand. "What do you have those for? Do you know how to play Go Thresh?" I ask him, my eyes lighting up.
"That and more," he says with a grin. We settle down and begin to play five straight rounds of Go Thresh - I win the first four, but I let Bran win the last so he doesn't feel bad about his playing skills. I like my mentor.
Brendan Reeves, 18 - District Ten Male
"Your name is nice," I say to my district partner. We're standing next to the beverage table, sipping on alcohol and various juice mixtures as the hovercraft continues to whir through the air. "It fits with mine, for some reason - it's almost as if, together, they sound like..."
"A singer's name?" Urie replies, taking another swig of her own concoction.
"Yeah."
Urie Garcia, 15 - District Ten Female
It's quiet in here - just the way I like it. I can smell coffee in another room, and all sorts of chocolate flavours as well. They have a lot of food here.
"Where are we going?" I ask Brendan after staring through the window, watching the hills below us turn into a vast expanse of water.
"Somewhere far away," he replies, continuing to drink. He smells like alcohol. I said I was drinking alcohol as well, but I only poured apple and orange juice into my glass. I don't want to drink.
I look down into the waves below me, and watch it stretch on into the horizon. If I squint my eyes and pretend it's green, it almost looks like home.
Florian Yarrow, 15 - District Eleven Male
The hovercraft isn't so bad, although Fleur seems to think otherwise. She wanders away into a bedroom, muttering something foul to herself, while I explore the food section.
It's full of delicious things, piled with fruits and meats and baked goods. I take a stroll through the tables until I discover cookies - a few are cut-out gingerbread men, smiling at me with icing-painted eyes. Red buttons mark their chest, and I gulp.
Next to them are gingerbread women, charming little skirts painted pink and green. I grab the top cookie and take a bite - much better.
Fleur Laveau, 18 - District Eleven Female
I don't like the hovercraft - it's cramped and suffocating, nothing like home. I want to feel the air on my face, smell the trees in the orchard, listen to the wind in the fields. I hate this.
Perhaps the karma I cursed upon the workers was meant for me.
Urial Lockweed, 13 - District Twelve Male
"So, uh, how do you win the Games?" I ask my mentor Dusty.
"I don't really know," he admits. "I just got lucky."
"Sounds like neither of us knows what we're doing," I joke. Dusty doesn't seem to notice it was a joke.
"Did you do lots of cool stuff in your Games, like dress up in camouflage and sneak up on someone?" I ask.
"Mostly I just ate bats," Dusty says.
"That sounds batsolutely gross," I say. Too late I realize it's really stupid.
"Batsolutely gross indeed," Dusty nods solemnly. The disconnect between his expression and what he'd just said make me crack up. Dusty starts laughing a second later and I know at least I had a cool mentor.
Anne Fisticuff, 15 - District Twelve Female
My fist is jammed under my nose. Perfume. Spices. Smoke. Chemicals.
"You don't like the smell?" my mentor Creek asks. I shake my head.
"Come on, let's go to another room," she says. I follow. She's my mentor. I have to listen to her.
We come to a room all made of windows. It's quieter. Not as smelly.
"You seem like you've already been through the Games," Creek says. "I'd call you paranoid, but you're right."
A/N: I come back stronger than a nineties trend.
Hoping everyone is doing well! I've been working on my plans for these Games and have a lot of twists up my sleeve, but will let you all know that next chapter begins the Games. Let's get hyped!
If you're still around, please leave me a message or send a review to show you're active - I need active submitters for these Games to work, and have a twist coming at the start to ensure that the majority of tributes will be controlled by active submitters. As y'all know, you will control your tribute's vote, so please pop up somewhere to let me know you're here and ready to play. Thank you all for waiting patiently, and I wish you a far better 2020.
See you soon! - JAJ