Shad Marcum, 18
District One Male
The door spit him out on a pier. There's a rollercoaster roaring behind him, a ferris wheel, and several restaurants. He's been sitting on a waterside patio for hours, feet kicked up on the railing, weapons stowed in his bag. It's a decidedly vulnerable position, but right now, Shad can't bring himself to care.
Because Calista died for him. Calista fucking Abbey sacrificed herself for Shad fucking Marcum.
She died for him. Shad vaguely wonders if he's dead—because there is no reality where Calista Abbey would ever give her life for his.
And there is no reality where Shad would ever accept it.
But he's here now, and Calista isn't. Calista's gone.
Which means he needs to do something with the second chance he's been given. Calista gave her life for him—the least he can do is make sure her death is not in vain.
He doesn't know how to do that. He thought he did.
He thought a lot of things.
(He was also wrong about a lot of things. Funny how that works.)
As it turns out, winning the Hunger Games is actually hard. Who would have guessed?
Well, certainly not Shad. At least, not the Pre-Games Shad. That Shad thought the Games were simple, cut-and-dry. That he would be in and out in a few days, with a bit of red in his ledger and a crown on his head. And he would go home, where everyone would venerate him like a god, and his time in the Games would be nothing but a source of pride.
At this point, he would be proud if he manages to turn this around. This far in…he seems to be out of luck.
It doesn't bother him as much as he thought it would.
No, no. It didn't bother him. It bothers him now—it bothers him because Calista died for this. Died for him. And now it's left to him to make it count.
It's so ridiculous that Shad can't help but laugh. Three weeks ago, he couldn't wait for a chance to viciously slaughter Calista. Three weeks ago, she was planning the exact same thing.
He remembers being so mad when she volunteered. He remembers fuming because she was going to ruin his perfect Hunger Games experience.
But he knows one thing for certain—Silvera Prowess wouldn't have given him the key. Nephrite de Sapphiro wouldn't have given him the key. Raediance Vance wouldn't have given him the key. If any one of those girls had been here in Calista's place, like they were supposed to, Shad would probably be dead.
Which means he has to make it count. Which means he has to let the Pre-Games Shad get what he wants. Which means he needs to kill more tributes.
Somehow, he doesn't want to do that. It's a necessity. He knows it is. He knows that in order to get out of here with his life, he's going to have to take someone else's.
It seemed so easy before the Games started. It seemed so easy, so simple, to just pick up a weapon and jam it into someone's heart.
And he did get a kill. Maybe. He's not entirely sure who actually landed the fatal blow on the boy from Six. It could have been him. But it could have Scoria. It could have been Calista.
But that was different. Shad was different.
Now, Shad's not sure he could handle seeing the light go out of someone's eyes all because of him. He's witnessed plenty of death already. He doesn't know how he'd feel if he was the one causing it.
But—but he has to. He's a Career. It's the Final Eight. He has no other choice, no other choice but hunt, to stalk his prey, to kill his prey.
It's either him or them. And he can't let it be him.
Shad gingerly gets to his feet, careful to not jostle the cuts on his legs as he stands. They're better—they don't bother him much now, but he doesn't want to accidentally split one of the scabs. His pants have enough bloodstains on them already.
He gathers up his bag and his weapons, stowing his few remaining knives in the various pockets on his cargo shorts. The tattered bandages still wrapped around his legs are starting come off, the edges fraying and wiggling about in the wind.
As he starts down the path, he gives the water a wide berth. He doesn't want to see his reflection. He already knows what he looks like. He already knows that a hollow face stained with blood would be staring back at him, so unlike the face of Shad Marcum.
The Cornucopia comes to mind. Has it really only been two days since he was there, examining his reflection in the shiny metal? It feels like it's been an eternity.
Shad shifts his backpack strap as he walks toward what appears to be a really tall carousel. Instead of having horses to ride, like what he'd one seen back home, there's a bunch of swings, hanging several feet from the carousel's roof. There's other things near it—a small rollercoaster, jellyfish-shaped cars that climb a pole and then plunge back to the ground—and Shad takes a moment to consider the origins of this strange arena. He pauses by a bench to ponder how the hell anyone ever came up with all of this shit, and then movement catches his eye.
Up ahead, there's a small water tower. Off of the side hangs a sign that says Goofy's Sky School. But that's not the thing that catches his eye.
There's a sliver of a person peering around the back of the water tank, watching him warily. They make eye contact, and whoever the tribute is disappears from sight immediately.
Shad should probably attack. They're stuck up there, and despite having the high ground, Shad effectively has them trapped. It would be easy, even. He guesses that the tribute is one of the little kids still left, maybe one of the girls.
God, he doesn't want to kill a kid! If it was Scoria or Bayou or…whoever else is alive and not fourteen, maybe he'd be okay with it. Maybe he could conscience doing it. Because at least he and Scoria and Bayou volunteered for this. Even Scoria's twelve-year-old district partner volunteered for this. They chose this, they decided they wanted to fight for their lives in a game they would probably lose.
But those kids—all of those little girls that allied, they didn't ask for this. It was forced on them.
(In a way, it was forced on Shad, too. Everyone back home trains. That's just how it is, and Shad's family was no different. Shad's parents fed into his ego, convincing him beyond belief that he was the best, that no one could contest with him, and of course Shad listened. They were only telling him what he already knew—and undoubtedly, his parents wanted to have raised a Victor. There were few people in District One who didn't.)
"It's okay," he says, raising his voice to make sure the tribute can hear him. "I'm not going to hurt you."
The face returns, a dark-skinned girl that he thinks might be from Eleven. There's a plethora of emotions on her face that Shad can't identify, but he definitely recognizes distrust.
"You think I'm going to believe that?" she responds, disappearing behind the tank again.
"I'm unarmed."
"Please," she scoffs. "I'm not blind. I can see the knives hidden in your pockets."
Shad looks down to check, and sure enough, the tip of one of his blades is peeking out of the fabric of his cargo shorts. "I'm not going to use them on you."
"Then move along."
He doesn't want to hurt her. So maybe he should. Maybe he's making a mistake. Maybe he should kill her.
But he doesn't. Shad removes one of the knives and tosses it onto the ground, then turns around and walks away. "A peace offering," he says off-handedly as he goes.
It doesn't matter if the girl takes it. At least, it doesn't matter to Shad.
(Even if every part of him is screaming that he never should have given that girl a weapon and then turned his back on her. Any second now, she could run up behind him and plunge that blade into his back. And…well…if she does, Shad will deal with that.)
The girl doesn't come after him.
Wonder Hammerfort, 12
District Two Male
His hands shake as he paces back and forth, his eyes locked onto the little patches of blood stained into his skin. Above him, the enormous plastic leaves blot out the sun, secluding Wonder away from the rest of the arena. He's glad for that, glad there are no other tributes around, because he couldn't handle another fight right now, not ever—
Wonder thought he was ready to kill someone to survive. It wouldn't be the first time he had to do something he didn't want to in order to live. But this is different—this is worse. And Wonder is definitively not ready for it.
He finally stops moving, dropping to sit on the ground with his back against a fence. He doesn't mind the place the door led him to. It's small, outdoors, he can see both the entrance and the exit. There's various constantly moving pieces, like a set of spinning hot-air balloons made of trash, or large, hollow ladybugs that dance in unison. There's a theater, too, although nothing seems to go on there. He spent the morning eating through the boxes of animal crackers displayed on a cart, which he barely managed to keep down once he remembered how he got here.
What he did. Who he killed.
Wake would be disgusted.
No. No—that's not true. Wake would probably commend him. She was bloodthirsty. Even Wonder knew that.
But Wonder's not like that. He doesn't want to kill people.
At least, he didn't want to kill Afandina. He didn't deserve it. Not like Yoldan did. Not like Navarro did. They were evil, and they deserved everything they got. But Afandina probably didn't. Wonder supposes that he doesn't really know. He didn't pay most of the tributes much attention during the pre-games. He noted their alliances and who he thought might be threats but he didn't get any of their life stories.
So maybe Afandina deserved it too.
Wonder should just tell himself that. It will probably make him feel better.
After a long while, Wonder gets back to his feet, feeling the need to get the lay of the land. Specifically, the area behind him. It's mostly obscured by over-sized plants, but there's over-sized food strewn about behind the trees. He hops the fence he was leaning against. There's a sign in the foliage that reads Heimlich's Chew Chew Train.
It sounds harmless enough, so Wonder heads down the path unarmed. Not that he has any weapons beyond personalized keys—and he never wants to use those again.
He comes upon a narrow train track and leans off the platform to look for a train. When he sees none, he steps off of the platform and walks beside the track, following it around a bend.
Then there's the sound of something rumbling on the tracks behind him. Wonder pauses, listening, and hears an eccentric voice asking for help finding something to eat.
He takes a cautionary steps away from the track, creeping back the way he came through the underbrush.
There's a train of some sort on the tracks now, waiting at the loading platform. It's bright green and has a face. A face with a wide open mouth, frozen in a perpetual grin. Maybe it's supposed to be a slug? Or a caterpillar?
Wonder eyes it warily as it starts to trundle along the tracks. It doesn't seem to notice him as it opens it mouth to say something about eating vegetables and wanting desert.
Against his better judgement, Wonder follows it.
It moves slowly, seemingly taking in the sights, and Wonder walks along beside it at a safe distance. They pass various over-sized food items, like an apple or an ice cream bar. But it's when the slug goes through a half-eaten piece of cantaloupe that Wonder runs into a problem.
He can't quite fit between the caterpillar and the cantaloupe. When he tries, he bumps into the slug, and the whole train shudders to a halt.
Brow furrowing, Wonder shoves himself the rest of the way through the cantaloupe and heads for the front of the slug. It's silent again, face frozen back into an unsettling open-mouthed grin, but Wonder swears its eyes are following him.
He steps onto the track and stares it down, wondering how it make it move again. But at the same time, he supposes it doesn't matter. He can just keep following the track and leave the creepy slug behind.
Still, there's one thing he wants to try. Maybe if he touches the slug again, it will start moving. It's worth a shot. After all, what's the worst that could happen?
(Wonder reminds himself that this is the Hunger Games. There are probably many terrible things that the slug could do to him. But it doesn't look very threatening. If anything, it looks mechanical. Like an automaton. Then again—so did the barbershop quartet, and Wonder doesn't want to think about how that turned out.)
So he reaches out a hand and taps the slug between the eyes. For a moment, nothing happens. Wonder begins to retract his hand.
And then the slug snaps forward, sudden razor sharp teeth sinking into Wonder's wrist, and rips his arm clean off of his shoulder.
Wonder stares in horror as the slug chews up his flesh and spits out his fingernails. Then his gaze wanders to the blood dripping from his shoulder, tattered skin and meat where an arm used to be, and then he starts screaming.
The slug says, "Oh! Too crunchy."
Adrenaline keeps the pain at bay as he turns tail and tries to run. He only makes it a few feet before his feet catch on the rungs of the track and tumbles to the ground. His shoulder slams into the metal track and he screams again, vision whiting out as he writhes, agony blocking out his senses. For a long moment, all he knows is pain, he can't think, he can't breathe—
Slowly, the pain ebbs from a flood to a leak. The world pulses with each breath he takes.
And all the while, the slug advances, rolling down the track with a horrifically bloodstained face.
Wonder scrambles back, trying to get back to his feet, but blood loss makes him light-headed. He's back on the ground when his vision clears, so he crawls instead. He crawls as fast as his one remaining hand can propel him, kicking his feet as he goes in an attempt to deter the slug from biting again.
It doesn't work.
The caterpillar's teeth dig into his right foot and it pulls. Wonder latches his remaining hand onto the tracks, yanking on his feet as hard as he can. He feels blood spray onto the back of his legs but it doesn't stop him.
He can't let it stop him. What does it matter that his arm is gone? Tributes have won in worse condition.
Right? Right? This isn't over. It can't be.
The slug slurps his foot fully into its mouth, chomping down on his ankle. Wonder screams in pain again and pulls harder, finally succeeding in freeing his leg from the monster's mouth.
More blood pours from his now footless ankle and Wonder drops back against the track, grip slackening.
The slug takes the opportunity, trundling forward, bloodstained mouth opened wide, teeth glistening.
Wonder's eyes roll into the back of his head. Maybe it's a blessing.
Bayou Hacksom, 18
District Four Male
The sun has started to go down by the time Bayou comes upon the river. It's far from the weirdest thing he's encountered in his search for Scoria—the enormous, talking car that he stayed a safe distance away from probably takes the cake—but it is the most familiar. It reminds him of what he expected the arena would be like; wooded, mountainous.
He pauses on the path, looking up at the mountains the river runs through, considering how best to get up there. It wouldn't surprise him if Scoria was up there somewhere. All of those trees would make it a good place to camp out.
The mountain's tallest peak forms the head of a bear. Bayou squints at it, knowing that that is not naturally occurring, and then continues down the path to look for a better way in. He rounds a bend which the river runs parallel to pathway and stops to watch the water run.
After a minute or so, a round raft comes plunging down the incline, spraying him with water. By the time Bayou has cleared the water from his eyes, the raft has disappeared from view, although it's quickly replaced by another one.
So it's not just a river. Just like that mansion wasn't just a mansion, and that mountain wasn't just a mountain.
Bayou leans hard on the fence in front of him, holding onto the railing with a death grip. He squeezes his eyes shut, trying to ignore the sounds pounding against his skull. It's too quiet here, nothing but distant music and ambient bird noises that come from nowhere. Bayou presses the palms of his hands into his eyes and takes a deep breath. He's fine. He's fine. He can handle this. He's been handling it.
Another raft careens down the drop, but Bayou is drenched enough already that he barely notices.
Slowly, he removes his hands and jams them into his pockets. It's not warm enough today to be this wet, and a shiver runs down Bayou's spine.
He'd been doing so good. He hadn't even thought about the girl from Three since the announcement came two days ago. There had been too much going on, too many other things to occupy his thoughts, but now Bayou is alone. There is no pressing need to find a key, to find a door, to save himself and Scoria.
So all that's left is to find her.
The arena can't be very big. He swears he's already seen half of it in one day's search. There's only so many places Scoria could be.
So, he just has to find her. It can't be too hard.
A cannon fires. Bayou flinches.
He sinks to the ground, sitting with his back against the fence, and stares across the path. There's nothing to see.
Another raft comes by. Water drips from the back of Bayou's hair.
He doesn't fear the cannon belongs to Scoria. She's too skilled for that.
(Of course, the anxiety buzzing in his chest won't go away until the Anthem, when he'll know for certain whether Scoria is still out there. The thought doesn't stop some part of him from positing that he's truly alone now. Now there's no one to look for, no one to find, because Scoria's probably dead—)
Bayou puts his head in his hands and pretends that he's anywhere but here.
If he pretends hard enough, he can almost believe that the sloshing of the river behind him is just the gentle sound of the ocean. He can almost believe that hard cobblestones beneath him are a beach, that he's sitting there watching the sunset. Maybe Marjorie is there, or Etienne.
He can pretend, but he's not really there.
The sloshing comes from a river, and the ground is hard, and the air does not smell like the sea.
In the distance, he swears he can hear the girl from Three screaming, the echoing sounds of bones snapping and blood spraying.
Bayou jams his hands over his ears, but the sounds are all in his head. How could they be anywhere else?
He doesn't know how much longer he can take this. The guilt, the regret, the feeling of phantom blood staining his hands.
And it's only going to get worse. Because if he wants to win the Hunger Games, undoubtedly he will have to kill again.
That might just break him.
He leans his head back against the fence, wetting it with lukewarm water, and wishes he had never volunteered for the Hunger Games.
It was all he wanted for so long. To prove himself capable of winning, to prove all of the Backwater trainees capable of winning. To show District Four that he has what it takes, that they were wrong for making fun of him, that he could be the best. It was a childhood pipe dream turned into a nightmare he can't escape from. And he thought he wanted it. He thought he was ready.
But now all he sees is that he signed up for a death match to make a point. And sure, he's made it this far—there's only seven of them left. Only six people still have to die.
The odds aren't bad. Just a one out of seven chance to not be the one who ends up dead. And who is he still fighting against? An injured Career. A batshit obsessive outlier. And a trio of eighth graders.
When he puts it like that, it doesn't sound so bad.
But there is still the matter of Scoria.
Bayou knows that if it came down to the two of them, Scoria would not hesitate to kill him. It wouldn't be the first time Scoria killed one of her friends.
And Bayou knows that if it came down to a showdown between the two of them, he would not be able to win. He may be good, but he's not that good. There's a good chance that that is what's going to happen. It wouldn't surprise him if there was a Career face-off after all.
He doesn't want to imagine it. He doesn't want to imagine any of this.
Because there's another possibility in there, too—it could come down to him and those three fourteen-year-olds. And he could win that fight easy, but does he want to? Killing the girl from Three was bad enough. How could he ever live with the deaths of four of them on his conscience?
It doesn't matter. For all he knows, none of this will ever come to pass. For all he knows, he'll be dead in ten minutes.
Thinking about it is getting him nowhere. Bayou gets to his feet, water trickling down his back and walks off into the night to search for Scoria.
A/N: I'm single-handedly going to ruin all of your favorite Disney movies.
Fun fact: this chapter's name is both a pun and a reference to the closed attraction at Epcot in Florida, the Wonders Of Life Pavilion.
Anyways, a bug's land actually doesn't exist anymore in California Adventure. It closed in 2018 to make way for Avengers Campus, but I found a bug's land easier to utilize in this story. Besides, I've been to a bug's land, but I've never been to Avengers Campus. Also, it wasn't like I could have Doctor Strange eat Wonder alive or something.
EULOGIES:
Eighth Place – Wonder Hammerfort, District Two Male. Eaten alive by Heimlich the caterpillar.
When I first received Wonder all of the way back in 2019, I was very excited by him. However, Wonder quickly became a victim of me taking three years to write this story. In the Games, Wonder had no allies, and no particular bloodlust that would lead to him seeking out conflict, so I just kind of let him go. I left him in hiding for too long and skipped over him for POVs because I honestly just forgot about him. It was a product of going months between writing chapters, and Wonder suffered for it. In fact, he was originally supposed to go all of the way to the Final Three before I decided to kill him off here. It is in no way Wonder's fault—he's a great character. I just didn't write him as well (or as often) as I should have. RIP.
ALLIANCES:
BFFs (Baby's First Friend): Scoria (D2F), Bayou (D4M)
Going Soft (Good For Him): Shad (D1M)
Not Fuck, For Once: Sterne (D5M)
Betrayee: Ainsley (D9F)
Betrayer: Ashe (D11F)
Very Sad Lesbian: Ishtar (D12F)
Anyways, based off of my "update schedule" as of late, I guess you can expect the next chapter in February.
-Amanda
