Author's Note
I do not own the Hunger Games.
Thank you to Celtic, MoonlightSalsa, SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn, SongofFete, and TheAmazingJAJ for checking in!
Next chapter is the countdown, and then we're into the bloodbath!
At last the hovercraft came to a stop. Peacekeepers in white uniforms marched aboard to collect them in small groups of four, the tributes from Eleven and Twelve first and then him, Luciente, Azrayk, and the girl from Nine. They were marched into a dark hall, and that was where they were separated, led off towards different halls. He glanced over his shoulder to catch one last glimpse of Luciente doing the same, her pale eyes meeting his before she vanished through the large double doors at one end of the hall and he through another.
Less than an hour.
The hallways were dark, twisting, lit by orange strip lights, prison regulation.
In less than an hour they'd be out there.
Two of the peacekeepers kept their batons in hand. She hadn't seen any of those with the other tributes with their weapons out.
In less than an hour, they'd be out there in the arena.
He finally arrived at a shiny silver door labelled 'DISTRICT TEN MALE: HYPERION RIPLEY.' At least they'd seen fit to put his name on this one. Two of the peacekeepers stood to either side of the door while the remaining two opened it and shoved him inside.
Thirty minutes.
The door closed behind her. The room was small, dark, with a large glass tube in the right corner. Presumably that was where she would enter, when it was time. Luxuria scurried across the room to greet her, her red lips drawn in a wide smile, fussing about how exciting this all was.
Thirty minutes before they had to face their fate.
Valentino brought him a stack of clothes, his arena outfit. There was a set of black trousers, a green t-shirt, a brown jacket, a pair of brown socks, and a pair of heavy black boots, all with D10M printed on them. Lightweight, he said, made to be breathable and insulate from the cold.
"Nights could be cold, or weather could be variable."
He stripped off and began to pull them on.
Twenty five minutes and the kids they had watched be interviewed last night would start dying.
And she felt nothing. No doubt perfect prissy Bale would have had something to say about that. But they weren't pack. They were prey, created to feed to coyotes, born to die. It was the natural cycle. She and Hyperion and Nathaniel and Arielle were the ones that mattered.
Twenty minutes and they would be in the open air again, the scent of blood on their tongues.
He couldn't sit still. His heart was thumping, his stomach tying itself in knots. He had the advantage, he tried telling himself. How many of the other tributes had killed someone? Even the Careers, he doubted, had probably never tasted the blood as they drove their fist into the skull again and again and again. And yet he still worried. She was going to be out there with him, in the middle of the danger he once tried to save her from.
Fifteen minutes and they would be together again, together but not truly free because there would always be another fence, another wall.
It wouldn't be freedom out there in the arena. She knew that. It would be captivity, worse than back in District Ten with its wall. But there was freedom out there, she had seen it, felt it, dreamt it, tasted it on her tongue as she ran through the woods, the crackling leaves under her paws. There was a world beyond the Districts, beyond the crushing pressure of the Capitol, out there in the wild. She'd seen it, once, through eyes that were both hers and not hers. For most tributes the arena was captivity and death, but they were wrong. This was the way to freedom.
Ten minutes was all that remained before the world learnt who the true monsters were.
They had called them the monsters once. Paraded them in front of the District, laid bare their sins, preached how they were wrong for killing their enemy. It wasn't them that locked people up like beasts in cages. It wasn't them that beat them in the street. It wasn't them that took children of twelve from their homes and threw them into an arena of death, never to see their homes or loved ones again. Games, they called them, but what sort of game left the competitors dead? He gazed at his reflection in the mirror, listened to Valentino twitter on, traced his scars, the ones he could see and the ones he couldn't. They never knew how close they were to the truth. They never knew who the real monsters were.
Five minutes until launch, until they were free from these tiny rooms and out in the open air.
She imagined she could smell water already. That didn't seem like the kind of mistake they would make, so she was imagining things, or hoping things, or it was the little ghost girl with the sad smile in the corner. Her form shone blue and then she vanished in a burst of light, there one moment and gone the next. Like life really. Such things were fleeting, passing by in an instant, or a series of instants, flash flash flash gone. So many would be gone in only twenty minutes' time. More in a week. She wondered of Ariel back home, whether she was safe, whether she was waiting, whether she'd already seen. She was born with that spark like them, born to be wild, if only she hadn't had it beaten out of her in the town by those that didn't understand. She couldn't go where they were going though, so she would have to be all alone, a coyote without a pack, a pup without an alpha.
Four minutes and the clock was ticking down, bit by bit, until they would be sent to their fates.
Trapped. He hated being trapped. He'd been trapped for so long. He hated being trapped again now. He was born to be free, born to run, born to roam, born to hunt and howl and scream at the moon. No one was born to be trapped. He adjusted his jacket for the thousandth time.
'Remember your socks,' Valentino was saying now, still droning mindlessly on. 'So many tributes toss out their socks, but you'll only hurt your feet doing that.'
When did this end? The waiting and anticipation felt like they were almost going to be as bad as the moment.
The clock ticked down to three.
Three minutes, and they were told to enter their tubes.
It sealed closed around her and she growled softly, pressing her hands to the side. Luxuria waved.
She snarled and showed her her teeth.
Annoying bitch.
'Attention tributes! Your tubes will begin the ascent in approximately thirty seconds.
Please stand by and keep all limbs inside.'
She wondered what idiot had once managed to make that mistake.
Luxuria shouted 'good luck' as the tube went dark around her.
She closed her eyes and listened, working out where the other tributes would be.
Her eyes snapped open.
The tube began to rise.
They would be too far apart.
