Trigger Warning: Substance abuse. This time it's the male morphling.


Royss Cardinal, District 6

"I'll drive that stake through the centre of my heart

Lonely vampire

Inhaling its fire

I'm chasing the dragon too far."

Sufjan Stevens, No Shade in the Shadow of the Cross


Erisychthon Knott was flat broke.

It had been twenty-four years since his older brother, Hercules, had lost his job as head gamemaker - and his life. It had cast the whole family into disgrace. Who knew that a fourteen-year-old girl with zero direct kills winning the games could cause so much outrage?

Before that time, Erisychthon had been able to beg his family for the money he needed to maintain his two biggest vices - drinking and gambling. But now his family had a lot less patience for him. One by one, they cut him off. The bills piled up.

When it became clear to the numerous landlords, bookies and barmen that Erisychthon has no chance of paying up, their gentle warnings became threats.

Soon, Erisychthon lay awake at night, fearing for his kneecaps.

The day after the reaping, he sprung into action. He sold as many belongings as he could and managed to earn just over sixty-thousand denarii but that wasn't enough.

He needed six-million.

So he decided to get the money he needed the only way he knew how. He was going to bet on the Hunger Games.

Erisychthon searched the betting shops for odds of around one-hundred to one. But there was only one bet with the right odds for him.

The bet was that a tribute from District 6 would kill Charon Regatti.

In another, less desperate time, Erisychthon would've laughed at a bet like that. Erisychthon had always disliked District 6. It was a girl from District 6 who had caused his family's misfortune. The boy from Six this year, a kid named Royss Cardinal, was particularly bad. He was a living skeleton wrapped in yellowy, morphling-stained skin. The girl - Enginie Maserati - was even worse. She'd declared on the reaping stage that she was a pacifist.

As for Charon, the boy from Two was the favourite to win. He was tall, handsome and absolutely vicious. He was the kind of tribute that Erisychthon usually bet on to win, not to die.

But Erisychthon had no choice but to put sixty thousand denarii on his death at the hands of a tribute from Six, plus an extra thousand for him to live off once he'd paid off his debts. He had a little left over, that he'd need to be careful with. It would be all he'd have to live off until one of the Sixes killed Charon.

It was hard for Erisychthon to watch the parade. Charon looked powerful and intimidating in his suit of golden armour. The Sixes wore ugly, metallic costumes. Royss was shaking from withdrawal already. In training, Charon scored a ten, Enginie scored a four and Royss scored a two. In the interviews, neither tribute from Six showed any sign of being able to kill the suave, confident Elite. Enginie was just extremely, irritatingly nice. Royss was awkward and stuttering like he was suffering from hypothermia.

Erisychthon watched the bloodbath at a bar, having sold his own TV. The arena was a gloomy graveyard, in the grounds of a large, sinister-looking building. Erisychthon let out a sigh of relief as Royss ran away from the fight the moment the gong sounded. Enginie wasn't so lucky. She ran straight in to protect the twelve-year old from Eight, which resulted in Charon stabbing them both with a single thrust of his sword.

Erisychthon heard a sigh of disappointment as Enginie died and turned to see who else had been supporting District 6. Sitting next to him was a woman with coral-pink hair and silver flowers on her cheeks.

"Rooting for Six?" He asked.

"I was planning to sponsor her," the woman said. "The nice ones always get me."

"I was hoping she'd do well," Erisychthon muttered. "I was hoping for both the Sixes, really."

"Well, Royss is still alive," the woman said, brightly. "It would be so inspirational if he won, overcoming difficulties like that. Maybe I'll sponsor him instead."

"Yeah, that's why I sponsored him," Erisychthon feigned a sympathetic expression. "Poor little guy deserves a break."

It wasn't a complete and utter lie. A portion of the money that gamblers bet on a tribute sometimes went towards their sponsor fund. Erisychthon wasn't sure how much Royss would get from his bet but it would certainly be enough to get him drugs in the arena.

The pink-haired woman turned out to be Fulvia Cardew, President Snow's youngest niece. She knew her way around a political campaign and she seemed to have a fondness for an underdog. She started campaigning to win more sponsors for Royss. Erisychthon helped her wherever he could. He was aware that the more sponsors that Royss got, the more likely he'd be to kill Charon.

Meanwhile, Charon and the other Elites hunted inside the large, stone building. Many tributes died brutally in the light of those massive, stained-glass windows. Meanwhile, the tributes hiding outside fell victim to a series of ghoulish mutts - gargoyles, zombies and a particularly deadly vampire.

Royss was a dark horse due to his sudden surge in popularity. The gamemakers' mutts left him alone. He kept a stash of sponsor-bought morphling in a mausoleum so he wouldn't get too sick from withdrawal. Apart from that, he didn't really do much. He stripped naked and started covering his skin with dust.

It was only when sponsors started to send in body paint that Erisychthon realised what Royss was. His weapon was camouflage, just like Lua Toyota's.

Soon, Royss took his place on an empty pedestal. From a distance, he looked good but, under close scrutiny, his disguise as a statue didn't quite work. Statues were meant to look like classical beauties, not skinny addicts.

Then Royss received the cloak and the scythe.

The moment Royss donned his cloak - a ragged, rock-grey garment - he looked twice as menacing as he did before. Freezing on his pedestal, his scythe lifted high, he became the Grim Reaper.

The Elite alliance fell apart when they reached the top eight. Erisychthon almost fainted with relief when he saw that Charon was the only survivor of that battle. The odds of him being killed by Royss were steadily increasing. The only problem was that Royss' odds of surviving another day were dropping like a stone. The other two tributes were Charon - the handsome, skilled favourite to win - and the girl from Five - a pretty and plucky underdog. Even though Fulvia's campaign and Royss' bizarre strategy had earned him a few fans, most viewers were growing bored of him.

Erisychthon held his breath as the vampire mutt landed softly on Royss' pedestal. It sunk its teeth into the boy's neck... and jerked back, suddenly.

Erisychthon watched as the deadliest mutt in the arena was reduced to a quivering heap on the ground, leaving Royss with nothing worse than two shallow puncture marks on his neck. Fulvia bought a round of drinks for all the Royss supporters as they tried to figure out how he'd managed to kill the vampire. Soon the answer became clear. Despite the mutt's fearsome exterior, its insides were very delicate and couldn't withstand the morphling in Royss' bloodstream.

Royss had two more pieces of excellent luck that day. The first was that the girl from Five tripped over a fallen statue and landed in a grave full of quicksand. She suffocated to death.

The second was that Charon assumed that the cannon was a sign of Royss' death. He searched the arena for the wrong opponent. He saw the grim reaper statue seconds too late.

Erisychthon Knott could barely contain his joy as Royss Cardinal leapt down from his pedestal, scythe raised, and brought the wrath of the Grim Reaper upon Charon Regatti. He rushed out the door and off to the nearest betting shop. He was going to make so much money.

What an inspirational Hunger Games!


So that's the story of the male morphling. I had a lot of fun creating Royss' arena. A graveyard with a vampire mutt isn't the most original of ideas (I added a gothic cathedral just for variety) but it was absolutely perfect for Royss. He managed to pull off one of the coolest final kills in Hunger Games history. It's not the coolest (I think there's no way we can deny Beetee his title) but it's in the top five.