Woof fights in the third year marking the introduction of the Career tributes; the programs are still too young and too unrefined to produce solid tributes. The volunteers are picked for their cruelty, not for their skill at arms. It only adds to the horror of the dark, twisted arena the Gamemakers have thrown them into this year.
Only five die during the bloodbath because the Pack lingers on their victims, fingering wounds and gutting victims instead of going for quick kills. Woof escapes with a dull sword, his district partner and a pack filled with iodine tablets. For hours he pours over the pills, wondering what purpose they might serve.
He learns what the tablets are for when his district partner collapses after drinking from a pond. He grabs Taylor before she can fall in, but it's too late; she's already dead. Of course the water is poisoned, he thinks. He'll later learn that she was lucky: the big boy from Ten convulsed for nearly ten minutes before his heart finally stooped.
The arena is the worst of the decade, shrouded in eternal twilight and constantly raining. Mutts are everywhere. Madness is the rule, sanity the exception. Three tributes commit suicide. Their cannons are barely heard over the torrential downpour.
For reasons even he does not understand, Woof refuses to lay down and die.
Thunder booms, lightning flashes across the sky. The unending rain has picked up. A scream floats across the dark bog: a boy has stumbled right into a monstrous spider mutt with fangs as long as broadswords. Woof ignores it. He's focused on the two snarling, deranged Careers fanning out around him.
"Drop the sword," says the girl from Two in a dull voice. Her eyes have no life to them. "Surrender and we'll make it quick. We promise."
"We promise," giggles the boy from One. He does not sound sane.
For a long moment Woof considers, gnawing at his upper lip. Then he spits. "Don't think I will."
The last tribute left is Zea, from District Nine. The polite, soft-spoken girl that Woof met in training is gone; the arena has stolen her humanity, her sanity, her empathy. Her eyes are dark and dead and hungry, just like Two's. Those eyes will give him nightmares for a decade.
They circle each other as the rain pounds off their ponchos. Zea lunges with her blade, but slips on the muddy soil.
It's the last mistake she ever makes.
Most of the younger victors have mentors to see them through the dark. Districts One, Two, Four, Seven, Ten...even Nine has Garnell, glutton that he is. Woof has nobody but the ghosts of his family and the terrified servants to keep him company, though they don't even make it a full year before quitting.
He tries every vice, but eventually settles on alcohol. When his mentor Jaeherys comes to Eight for the Tour and asks him what his talent is, Woof smiles and raises a handle of vodka. "Drinking," he grins through yellowed teeth.
Their deaths never get easier. Woof doesn't drink, not ever, during the Games but they die all the same. The other mentors — even the Careers — try to help, but it's no use. District Eight breeds factory workers, not victors. One year, his girl jumps off the pedestal to spare her from a messier fate. Woof can't exactly blame her.
He finds a best friend in Byron Holstein, who won three years after him. Each keeps the other tethered to this world; without Woof there is no Byron and without Byron there is no Woof.
Perhaps not the healthiest friendship, Woof thinks, but far better than the alternative.
"Do you ever think there's a chance?" Woof asks one night. "Of our kids coming home."
"Considering your dumb ass lived, yeah, I'd say there's a chance." Byron snorts.
"I'm serious. I'm tired of losing tributes."
Byron thinks for a moment before he finally says, "There has to be. If there isn't, then I'm just a drunk who couldn't even bring back one tribute. I didn't kill all those kids just to let that be my legacy." He drains his glass. "See that you don't, either. For the sake of those kids' families if nothing else."
Woof does his best.
During the Thirty-First Games — fourteen years after he won — his boy Weaver makes it past the first two days, then a week; Woof dares to hope. The surviving tributes drop from twelve to eight, then eight to five. Weaver lives; Woof stops sleeping. The surviving Careers die in a freak accident. Woof stops eating.
The final showdown between Weaver and the last surviving tribute is so vicious that even Woof is tempted to turn away. Weaver's opponent is a damn good fighter.
But not good enough.
He doesn't save another, not for another twenty-eight years. His tributes die in the dirt, in the sand, in the water. The cold claims them and the heat claims them. Careers open their throats and skewer them with spears. Outliers clumsily bludgeon, butcher and beat them to death. Some die quick deaths, but none die good deaths.
Eventually, though, another survives. Cecilia is pulled from the arena after cheating death a thousand times and this time Woof doesn't cry. Instead he laughs. "She lived," he says to Byron, to Weaver, to anyone who will listen. "She lived! She lived!
"My girl is going to live!"
Mags is the great unifier amongst the mentors. Lyme, Finnick, Blight, Johanna, Cecilia, all the rest; the beautiful, the popular, the adored. Names whose voices hold powerful sway. Mags is the one that reaches out to them, one by one, and convinces them to go along with Coin's grand plan.
Woof, on the other hand, is old and tired. His first victor is middle-aged. His second is a mother of three. Woof himself has not been in the spotlight in decades.
Perhaps that is why he feels a little pride when he learns he is the first victor Mags contacted.
On the eve of the Third Quarter Quell, Woof visits his favorite bar for the last time. The owner greets him and hands him his favorite drink. "Fight well tomorrow, sir," he says. "And thank you for your patronage."
"Thank Byron. He's the one that found this place," Woof replies. "I'll pass your regards on to him, though. Suppose I'll be seeing him again real soon."
The man's smile is sad. "Don't be so sure, sir. Anything can happen."
Woof smiles a tired smile and throws back the vodka. "Anything at all," he says softly.
