Four.
As one of the lowest scoring tributes, Yardley Hallow, had barely managed to tie scores with Pan Brown, the youngest tribute and the first to die, and yet he was one of the final seven. Yardley had known from the second he had been reaped that he'd be a likely victim. With his size, strength, and age, the fourteen-year-old farmhand's son had assumed that he'd be one of the tributes to die nameless and alone at the bloodbath.
Even at home, Yardley had been a slacker, an underachiever. Carving pictures into the slowly rotting wood, he had spent hours hiding in the crevices of his local barn. After years of practice, he had become a professional hider. If Yardley didn't want to found, he could remain in the shadows forever.
And as the cannon went off and the cornucopia illuminated the cavern, Yardley was welcomed by a considerable amount of shadows. Slinking into them, Yardley secured his fate.
He'd be safe for now.
Recognizing the night vision goggles, which were nearly identical to the ones he had used back in Eleven during the late-night harvests, was Yardley's second chance at a better fate. As soon as the careers left, he was able to take them, some food and supplies, and a good look at the map, and then he was on his way. He moved throughout the shadows undetected and surprisingly well nourished.
Yardley listened as the cannons slowly sealed the fates of eighteen other tributes. Staying in the shadows, staying safe, he was gaining hope. Every second that went by allowed him to imagine himself the victor once more. Yardley Hallow, the first fourteen-year-old, 105-pound, score-of-four victor from District 11.
He was so good at hiding, so good at surviving, maybe he wouldn't even have to kill anyone. Maybe he could just watch as other tributes tore into each other, sealing their fates and his. And so, when the Feast was announced, he painted on the best camouflage he could and returned to the Cornucopia. When he arrived, only one mask remained. It seemed too good to be true, but he went with it. Taking the mask, Yardley was surprised when no one attacked, no one even seemed to be there. Maybe, just maybe, he would win.
That was what he hoped, until he heard the thumping behind him. It sounded as if someone was carrying a large sac and was letting it hit every rock and boulder he passed. Immediately, Yardley froze, shoving himself into the wall and sliding his goggles into place. This was the closest he had come to another tribute since the games began.
This was it.
.o0o.
Crouching in the darkest shadows, Dean and Castiel had successfully cornered the careers. It was the longest Dean had gone without his headlamp, but he was confident that regardless of the disadvantage, the two careers, thair vague shadows only dimly illuminated by their own light, wouldn't be able to escape the upcoming attack. Nevertheless, Dean knew they wouldn't try. For a career, running away from an attack was essentially suicide. They hadn't been trained to escape.
Laying his hand on Castiel's shoulder, Dean sent the first signal. Slowly, the two boys rose to their feet. In a moment, Castiel would attack the form on the left, and Dean the form on the right. Dean had planned out the attack hoping that he would be the one to go after Michael. Lilith may be vicious, but she was small and comparatively weak. The death she'd give Castiel might literally be overkill, but at least he'd have a chance at avoiding it since they had the element of surprise.
Telling the boy that they were the easiest weapon for beginners, Dean had given Castiel a series of long knives.
"If you're too afraid to get close to the others, just throw them. Try not to hit me, and make sure to keep at least one with you at all times. If anyone gets close enough to you, swipe it like this. That way, it won't get stuck."
Once the boys had both risen, Castiel slid one of the knives into his hand. Making his head feel heavy and limp, his adrenaline was incredibly high. For the entirety of the Games, Castiel had done nothing more than run and hide. But now, things had changed. He could hear Caesar Flickerman now, announcing their actions to Panem.
"This is it," he'd say. "This is when tributes seal, change, or avoid their fates. Perhaps, this is the moment when a tribute determines his, or her, fate as victor."
Only, Castiel couldn't help but hope the victor his fantasy Flickerman was speaking about was Dean.
Patting Castiel on the shoulder, Dean sent the second, final signal.
Charge.
As Dean turned his light back on, the two boys collectively ran as fast as they could at the others. With the element of surprise, they both hit their targets. Dean tackled Lilith to the ground and held her down with surprising ease. She only had one mask wrapped around her arm.
In a minute, it'd be theirs.
Castiel, however, was barely able to make an impression on Michael. Instantly, he regretted running forward. Michael reacted by swinging his arm forward, nearly knocking Castiel unconscious with the multitude of masks he also had wrapped tightly around his beefy forearm.
Perhaps this was the moment Michael would seal his fate as victor.
Across the cavern from her inescapable spot, Lilith's terrifying aura had dissolved. Instead of fighting back with the tact and intensity that was expected from a career, she simply clawed at Dean's arms to no avail and squealed like a scared piglet.
At that moment, Dean didn't have the time to absorb or consider what this complete change in persona meant, he just attacked. Intentionally clouding his mind with images of Lilith slicing into Yumi's screaming form, Dean ended her with a single slice of his sword.
Ending the moment, a cannon went off.
Dean turned to see how Castiel's attack had fared.
.o0o.
Sam didn't have a plan, he had a target. Life could no longer be defined by goals and forethought, just action. Right now, the only action he could muster was the force it took to drag himself forward, drag himself toward the other tribute.
And it hurt.
When his brother, Adam, competed six years ago, a younger Sam had watched him endure pain. The tribute stationed next to him managed to, or planned to, step off of the pedestal before the games began. Adam Wesson began the game by being impaled by a projectile mix of bone and flesh.
In his recently injured state, the then sixteen-year-old didn't manage to get any survival gear, and very slowly succumbed to thirst and hunger. Water was rich in that Game's swamp setting, so his thirst was quenched, but there was absolutely no food beyond what was offered in the cornucopia. As Adam was slowly immobilized by the hunger, his wounds festered as his skin struggled to heal around the bone.
His brother's misfortunes cumulating, pre-teen Sam saw Adam lay down for the very last time. It had just been for a quick rest, but then the bugs surfaced. The most interesting aspect of the 45th Annual Hunger Games was the bugs. In certain areas, nighttime meant nothing more than the anthem, the faces of the dead, and a few hours of darkness, but in others it meant hell. Certain areas were rigged with poisonous, carnivorous, vicious bugs that would tear through anyone who was misfortunate enough to fall in their paths.
Ever so slowly, they tore through Adam.
He was one of the last tributes to die, that was what everyone always told Sam. That was what was muttered by the following year's escort before he pulled the meaningless cards from the large glass bowl.
Knowing his name was only listed once, Sam stood in the pews with the other boys his age. He could tell that every other boy was hoping that his name wasn't called, but Sam was different. Under his breath, Sam prayed that his name would be the one, that he would get to be with his brother again.
That was the first kind of pain Sam had experienced, and this was the second. Physical pain bled into every sense, and his mind simply could not ignore it. Not only was his skin on fire, but his mind was determined to fix it even though he knew it wasn't possible. He couldn't move, he couldn't think, and yet he continued to.
He moved toward Yardley.
After a few minutes of disorganized stalking, Sam began to suspect that Yardley had simply vanished. He knew that he had been making far too much noise, but he had no idea how Yardley had managed to avoid him in such a small space. He hadn't heard the boy start to run, so he still had to be close.
He was hiding, Sam knew it.
In what seemed like the far off distance, a cannon went off. Sam knew another was about to sound.
.o0o.
When Dean had started training, he was enrolled with seven other boys and eight girls his age, all of whom were hopeful that they'd be the best, that they'd be the tribute-turned-victor. The first few months of training were the most intense. Regardless of the task, whether it was fire starting or animal trapping, everyone was struggling to be the best.
Dean would go home every day, sliced and beaten. Refusing to acknowledge his son in such a weak, insignificant state, his father would simply scoff at him. Dean didn't get the chance to tell him that every other boy went home significantly more demolished than he did, his father didn't seem to care.
Looking back, his father probably knew.
During the second week of training, Dean began to feel its effects. He felt like a small yet powerful part of a greater machine, like the pristine trigger of a quality rifle. That was what training was for, to take away his humanity.
And yet, when Dean sat down for a very short water break, a glimmer of hope sat by his side. Benny Lafitte, a nearly friendly, borderline old looking boy, chugged his own water without regard for anything. After a few minutes of surprisingly unforced conversation, Dean had made his very first friend.
Together, they practiced nearly every day. Dean helped Benny with technical weaponry and fighting, and Benny helped Dean learn how to truly understand battle strategy. As a team, they dominated the training center. Knowing that no attack could bring them down, everyone feared them.
But they were both boys.
In District 2, training starts with those sixteen boys and girls, each of their names up for reaping for the very first time. Each year, the weakest tributes are asked to leave. Not only does this symbolize the process of the real Hunger Games, but it ensures that only the strongest boy and girl will become tribute.
At the end of the first year, everyone knew who'd leave. A hay-haired girl from a surrounding town constantly refused to try any sharp weapon and a bulky boy who didn't seem like he was losing his baby fat any time soon were in line for elimination. And yet, when Dean arrived at training, Benny stood beside the hay-haired girl.
No one knew why Benny had been the one to leave, no one except for Dean. Benny had been a threat, a reason to wake up each day other than his training, and his father could see it. From that moment on, Dean never doubted that he was going to be the tribute. His final reason to avoid becoming the machine, the trigger, was gone.
Dean trained alone.
Nevertheless, when Dean looked over and saw Michael's hands around Castiel's neck, the last thing he wanted to be was alone. Dean didn't want to be a cold, functional trigger, he wanted to be that boy's friend.
With one emotionally driven and tactless swipe, Dean felt as his sword plunged into Michael's hip. Michael, in a fit of panic, bellowed at the top of his lungs and released Castiel. He had probably never actually been hit by a blow like this one before, he was unprepared.
The next few seconds passed so quickly that Dean barely understood what happened. Limp and nearly lifeless, Castiel fell to the floor. Michael began to run as blood poured down his side and the series of masks slid to the dark floor. Dean heard one clatter to the ground, intermixed with the sounds of Michael's feet against the cold stone floor.
Without thinking, Dean's feet joined the clatter.
.o0o.
Yardley watched as the tall tribute stumbled around the cave, his face contorted in pain. Somewhere in his mind, he hoped that the boy would just stumble past him, that maybe the toxic chemical would build up, and he could put the mask on himself and live another day.
But that wasn't what the Gamemakers had in mind.
Louder than the anthem had ever been, an earsplitting alarm shook the caves. A dusting of rock rained onto the ground, quickly filling Yardley's lungs and producing a thick, gravelly cough. Fear shook through Yardley with the cough.
He wouldn't be able to hide now.
To make matters worse, the walls of the cave began to fall away, just as they always did with the nightly announcements. However, instead of showing the Capitol's seal, the dusty gravel fell away to expose a never-ending lightboard of bright, frightening red.
Yardley felt even more overexposed.
He watched as Sam turned toward him, but he closed his eyes just before Sam lunged at him. The older tribute's skin felt like fraying leather as it pressed against his own.
"Attention tributes!" the voice shouted over the alarm. Yardley attempted to scream out of fright and panic, but Sam's hands were wrapped around his neck.
"The chemical levels in the arena are off the charts and rising! Only a handful of tributes have managed to acquire their masks, and in the coming minutes you will need them! May the odds be ever in your favor!"
Sam smashed Yardley's skull into the still-red wall the second the voice faded away. Yardley continued to shout, but he was drowned out by the screaming alarm. The caves had gone fuzzy through his now unnecessary night vision goggles, and Yardley could tell he was disoriented.
This was the end.
His thoughts were muddled. Instead of focusing on the hands on his throat, or the pain shooting through the bleeding wound on the back of his head, or the image of the red, demonic form before him, Yardley thought of home. He wondered if his father was watching him now. He wondered if he was proud that he had made it this far, that he was eighteenth tribute to die. More than anything, Yardley hoped that his father was proud of him.
And, in his last seconds, Yardley hoped that Sam's father would be proud of him, too.