AN. IMPORTANT. This is the most gruesome chapter in the story so far and probably in it altogether. Avoid if you do not want to see scenes of particularly gruesome description.
The 27th Annual Hunger Games.
Plutonia Moore, District 5.
Plutonia looked forward with the stolen binoculars to the forest in front of her. Good. It was wide, poorly lit, with vastl trees. If she could keep her running start going she'd be able to get away from her pursuers.
The girl from District 5 switched her saddle to the other side of her shoulders then took off the narrow path towards the very edge of the forest, already keeping far to the right side to make it as hard as possible to see her.
She'd seen exactly what the last overgrown mutts had made of her District partner and the boy from 7, from a distance. There'd been very little left of their bodies by the time the hovercraft came.
She couldn't hear the sounds of it's body behind perfectly from running so fast, but it sounded loud, powerful and hungry….and rather angry that it's prey seemed to be slipping ahead of it so fast. Interesting. Some sort of testosterone-heavy creature then; maybe a lion or gorilla, not the bear mutts she'd seen earlier.
In any case Plutonia had no intention of slipping behind to them. They were only 7 days into these Games so far and already 19 tributes had fallen to the hordes of beasts the Gamemakers had unleashed onto this safari/forest arena. Judging from the portraits shown in the sky it was now down to Plutonia, the male tributes from Districts 1 and 12, the female tribute from District 9 and one other person she couldn't put her finger on.
Panting, she slipped up as high as possible on the trees to make it difficult for the beast to reach her. If possible she could try climb to the very top and run over the top of the forest away from the mutt. Naturally there were flying mutations as well-not unlike the vulture creatures her parents told her had haunted one Games a few years before she was born-and it would take longer to get to food but she didn't fancy her odds against…hmmm. She squinted and brushed her hair out of her eyes. The creature on the ground below looked like some strange mashup of a gorilla and a mountain lion. It bared its teeth at her-she could notice blood on its fangs and wondered which tribute had fallen prey to it- and swiped at her tree a split second before Plutonia jumped over to the next one and kept climbing. She hadn't dropped anything but if she had, no time to retrieve it.
After a few minutes of climbing she reached the very top of the trees, having put a long distance between herself and the mutt, and climbed to the very top, panting and sipping water quickly. There were no mutts yet…..a small mercy that undoubtedly wouldn't last long. It was almost time for the portraits show. She'd been so pre occupied trying to avoid a bloody death she hadn't noticed if any cannons had rung out.
The national anthem of Panem rang out-Plutonia rolled her eyes deeply and implored them to move on-and the face of the male tribute from District 12 beamed onto the screen. She recalled he'd been wearing a coallish-black jacket and shuddered as she recalled seeing bits of tatter in the mutt's teeth that may well have once been part of the jacket.
She placed the satchel down and stared across the top of the forest into the plains. Out there now were several dozen mutts, roaming with no purpose but to devour and destroy the remaining tributes. Plutonia had heard a lot of screams over the last few days; the Gamemakers had assembled a truly impressive tally of creatures this year. She hadn't seen all of them but perhaps that was for the best; she'd stumbled across the remains of the Career base and noticed blood soaked into the rocks everywhere. Some of it had still been dripping from the top of the rock wall; it looked like one of them had tried to climb to safety and been pulled down, possibly breaking their neck first, by a huge creature.
Plutonia was used to a rough environment. She'd been born 10 years after the end of the Dark Days and District 5 still hadn't recovered by the time she was growing up; diseased and left over electric instabilities, remains of old bomb shells, destroyed buildings, tendons and pipelines sealing off whole areas, making great economic instability and roaming gangs. And all this was after they'd coincidentally and fortunately achieved two victors in the first few years of the Hunger Games and gained the victor's salaries. Their last victor had been 15 years ago and 5 had gone downhill. But dangerous as it was she'd never had to fear being eaten alive. Or worse, depending on the sentience of the mutt.
She narrowed her eyes and made her way over the forest onto the plains below, finding shelter in a small cave. If anything wanted to come and kill her it would have to come find her first and prove itself stronger.
Plutonia winced over and over as the sting of dehydration threatened to break her concentration. You're not going to die Plutonia, she told herself over and over. If you survived so many mutts and outlived so many already, you can make it a little bit further.
She looked round, gasping as the width of the arena became evident. It was almost like the Gamemakers were increasing the temperatures deliberately; and if that were the case she'd really better hurry out of the hotter areas, to the forests….where the mutts would undoubtedly be waiting.
She panted, wiped the sweat out of her face and tried focusing on the distant horizon, far away from the sweltering heat. There was part of the forest…away from the 'savannah', she thought it was called. Once she took a step to it she'd be closer to going back home; closer to being able to make new inventions, to writing and her friends on the streets of 5, and they could even invent new games based on what she'd survived in the arena…..ok, maybe she was delirious now.
Still, like every other victor Plutonia was a survivor, and incorporating whatever was necessary to survive into her life was what she did.
However, the universe wasn't done playing tricks on her yet.
Just before reaching the edge of the savannah she squinted, thinking her eyes were playing a trick on her…..then she frowned, eyes widening in shock.
It was a large pile of mutt bodies, blood seeping out of them. Next to them, the dead bodies of the female tribute from 9 and boy from 1, fresh blood pouring out of their throats.
Plutonia peered over, frowning and suddenly dropped to her knees and threw up when she took a closer look.
Both the dead tributes' faces had been completely mutilated. Whoever had killed them, and Plutonia was pretty sure not even mutts were this single minded, had done whatever they could to remove the 'human element' from their prey; the skin and flesh of their faces had been chipped away until there was nothing left of the human face on either body; just raw, red material and cartilage here and there.
Plutonia only just had time to duck before the girl from District 8's sword swung over her head, where it would have knocked it clean off her body. She took off sprinting far faster than she had from the mutt, trying to head back to the forest away from this madwoman who must have experienced a major trauma. She couldn't die. Not like this.
The girl from 8 was just as fast a runner, though, and caught up with Plutonia pretty fast where she swung again, and again, and again, with the sword. Plutonia's eyes widened with horror as she saw the amount of blood covering the other tribute. What exactly had happened in the Games? How many tributes had even fallen to the mutts? Had…had the Gamemakers released some of the mutts into the arena to give the tributes a more dignified death than they otherwise would have experienced?
Plutonia tried catching the eyes of the girl from District 8 and tried to guess what had happened to her. She thought she remembered the girl panicking at the bloodbath, maybe being chased by one of the Careers off into the distant savannah. There were flecks of spit at her lips…maybe it was dehydration? Or some sort of poisoned water tainting her mind?
It wasn't quite relevant at the moment, as Plutonia ducked under the sword blow again and caught the girl from 8 with a vicious jab to the nose. Still, probably nothing would stop her except the final step.
Plutonia had really hoped she wouldn't have to do this directly at all in the Games but she guessed no one got exactly what they wanted in here. She raised an eyebrow and saw the hovercraft was coming in to retrieve the two dead tributes, including the boy from 1 who'd had a powerful longsword that might make the difference…
Plutonia sprinted over to the bodies-the hovercraft now only a few metres away-and desperately poked through the bodies, trying to find the lost weapon…there!
The girl from 8 was back again and this time she kicked Plutonia as hard as possible in the kneecap to try and disable her. The older girl fell back on the savannah floor in absolute agony, clutching it. Probably too late for sponsors now.
The other tribute tackled her to the desert floor and wrestled Plutonia, back forth between life and death. The girl from 5 was almost ready to give up until she caught a final glimpse of the deformed, destroyed faces of the dead tributes in the hovercraft.
In a moment of both panic and clarity Plutonia reached over, pinned the other girl to the ground and buried the longsword in the middle of her throat.
As she listened to the dying gurgles of the only person she would ever kill Plutonia Moore listened to the howl of the desert wind and waited for the victor's hovercraft to arrive and patch up her wounds.
She began to cry.
AN. Well my friends, there had to be at least one chapter in the story that just got more and more miserable and it ended up being this one. I've always thought it was unlikely Titus was the only tribute to 'break bad' so dramatically in the arena and in the girl from District 8 we see someone else who fell into a similar fate. As for the gruesome stuff, well I did warn you.
We might see some more of Plutonia in the future where her story could either take an upwards swing from here [wouldn't be hard] or maybe even get worse? She won, but at the same time after these particular events, you can't really call that winning. You'll see. Sorry for the gap, hope to be back sooner…so until next time, Red Sting out.
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