Eve Sable, District Ten female
For the rest of my life I knew I'd get the same question from my mentees. You're a butcher, right? So that's how you won the Games? I am a butcher, but that's not how I won the Games. Actually that had nothing to do with it at all.
My Games held a lot of surprises. First off, Elver and Marley both died in the Bloodbath. Tough year for Four. Then there were the spiders, which snatched three of us the first day and another five over the course of the Games. The strangest thing for me at the start of the Games was that Cierra and Luxen both started to come at me but then both turned away after seeing who I was. It wasn't until a few days later that I put it together. It was the scars all over me- the ones I'd gotten from mishaps in the butcher shop. I knew it was just because I dropped a knife or scalded myself rendering some fat but once I thought about it, to everyone else it looked like I'd been through a dozen knife fights. I guess they thought since I was still around I must have won.
The next big surprise came over the course of weeks and so subtly that it was hardly a surprise and more of a slow realization. Every few days I kept seeing another Career in the sky. None of them had died in the first week but then over the next two they just kept trickling in. I never even heard any sounds of fighting after the first four days. Just out of nowhere there would be a cannon and half the time it would be a Career. What's killing them all? I wondered as I munched on a handful of wheat grains.
I had a few close calls of my own throughout the Games. Once a spider actually got me by the leg. It was nothing but sheer miraculous luck that I managed to grab a handful of thick wheat stalks and the spider gave up after a single tug. Then someone started a fire. I thought it was accidental at first in such a dry Arena. I only found out it was on purpose when I watched the recap and saw Tariq lighting a match. I'd hold it in my soul forever that I ran into River while I was fleeing. I didn't even know who it was and I shoved her hard when we hit each other. She landed badly and she wasn't behind me when I started running again. I never watched that part of the tape. I didn't want to know what she looked like when she was making the screams I heard. I thought I heard a tiny snap when she fell. I never ever wanted to know if that was true.
On the last day of the Games I found Cierra. We'd been the final two for four days. I couldn't imagine why the Gamemakers weren't pointing her toward me to trigger a fight. I found what I thought was a bundle of rags by tripping over it. I felt something solid in the pile as I tripped and turned to find myself face-to-face with Ciera, but she was already dead. Why wasn't there a cannon? I thought as I looked at her gaunt face. Her face…
That was how I won the Games. It seemed I was one of only a handful that discovered the grass that made up the Arena was edible. The rest just… faded away. Even the Careers, once their Cornucopia and sponsor supplies ran out. I looked into the face of what I thought was a dead body and the faint flickering of an eyelid told me things weren't over quite yet. Cierra was too weak to fight, too weak to even move, but it takes a long, long time to starve to death. But really I guess that isn't exactly how I won the Games. I won the Games by looking at her emaciated, helpless form for some time. Then I stood up and walked away. I spent two days thinking about her. For two days I thought of what I was doing by turning my back on another human being. On the third day I won the Games when I heard a cannon.