Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.

Note: Another chapter, another load of carnage! Perhaps not as much as last time because, let's face it, what Chassis did is really hard to top in terms of 'WTF just happened?!' (though I will try to keep those kinds of shocks going, heheh!) but hopefully this will be an enjoyable chapter nonetheless. I certainly had no shortage of ideas given what this is based on... you'll see what I mean~.

Katniss and Peeta looked down at Dollar, both unsure what to say about the Victor they both knew not the barest of details about.

"Well, she's certainly a Career," Katniss noted. "I guess that's a start."

"She looks decently tough," Peeta said, crossing his arms. "I mean, it's to be expected but she just... I don't know, her imprinted face has a certain look to it, you know?"

"...That's a rare sentence," Katniss said with a small chuckle. "I think we both can agree we know nothing, so how about ten seconds of silence before we move on?"

"Works for me," Peeta agreed, nodding.

32nd Annual Hunger Games

Name: Dollar Dettwieller

Gender: Female

District: 1

Age: 18

Kills: 4

Dollar came from a rather unusual family.

As was the case decades ago and remains the case now, there are the wealthy elites of One and the working class families who, realistically speaking, are beyond the upper class of the most outlying of Districts. Of course, factions exist everywhere in human society and that extends to the working classes of One.

There are those who work in the ruby mines like the Statlers, Waldorfs and Hensens.

There are those who push around the carts in the garnet mines like the Mountains, the Fontaines and the Looms.

And then there are the Dettwiellers. The family that most citizens would deny knowing and especially deny living near. A family that survived the dark days fully intact and many would claim are a few beads short of a bracelet. On the surface they appear normal enough; happy parents and four excitable children, a common enough job as gem cutters in the main topaz mine and a house that isn't falling apart at the seams. Just from a glance it seems like there is no reason to avoid them.

But then one takes more than just a glance and sees that the Dettwiellers are a family of zombie survivalists.

Bizarre as it may seem to an outsider of Panem, few believe in zombies at all. Beyond movies they are just deemed as silly fantasy. Even with all kinds of horrible mutts in the arena year after year zombies remained as a particular piece of fiction viewed with contempt and a scoff of disdain.

But if you were to ask the Dettwiellers about zombies you'd be given plenty of assurance that they were real beings and that they would take over Panem one day, the only fail-safe against this being to train hard and learn the skills to fight them off.

Dollar was the eldest child of her family and the most competent zombie fighter that her clan had ever seen. Able to recite the facts at a moment's notice, competent with anything from a knife to a boomstick and beyond, in incredible shape physically and with all the signs of being a born leader... truly, she was her parents' pride and joy.

All she was really missing was even the slightest bit of social acceptance.

With her fairly scruffy look – shaggy shoulder length brunette hair, clothes often stained with mud or some remnants of trash, a fairly squashed looking nose – it was already hard for Dollar to fit in with her generally gorgeous and dirt abhorring peers, but when the zombie survival was added on it only became inevitable for Dollar to be an outcast.

She didn't give a shit, figuring it wasn't her problem if her foolish classmates wanted to become easy meat for the zombies. Less people in a group meant faster travelling and supplies lasting longer. Fewer mouths to feed and all that.

Despite her lack in popularity and, by Capitol and District One standards, physical beauty it was nonetheless a fact that Dollar was hands down the strongest female at the academy that year. It was only common sense to give the position of tribute to the most likely prospect to come home as more than a brutalised corpse.

On the night before the reaping Dollar and the Dettwieller family threw a farewell party the best way they knew how. Naturally, what better kind of party was there than a night in the zombie bunker? With emergency soup rations, the static of the battered radio and taking turns knifing the zombie dummy it was about the most grand of goodbyes Dollar could ask for.

But, party or not, that didn't mean Dollar wasn't going to be given one final rapid-fire test of her knowledge.

"Best way to kill a zombie?" Mr Dettwieller asked.

"Headshot with a shotgun a point blank. Failing that, burning them to ash," Dollar recited.

"The cure all for basic poisons?" Mrs Dettwieller prompted.

"Blue herbs, what else?" Dollar said, smirking.

"What to do if you're bitten?" Cent, Dollar's youngest sister, asked.

"Make peace with inevitable death unless the bite is on the end of a limb," Dollar said, calm and collected. "At that point amputation or an as-yet-unknown antidote is all that'll save you from turning into a monster."

Mr Dettwieller rested his hands upon Dollar's shoulders, looking his eldest daughter right in her hazel eyes.

"You're ready," he said, full serious in his tone.

To Dollar, being told she was ready was the highest honour and compliment that her father could have given her. It wasn't just a statement that she was ready for the arena. To her, it was confirmation that she was ready for the zombie apocalypse.

It was all she'd ever wanted.

Usually a career tribute, and many outliers for that matter, would spend their time on the tribute train doing such things as carefully watching the reaping recap and enjoying the luxurious foods on offer. But Dollar was not a typical tribute, least of all from One.

She didn't trust anybody but herself and thus she never left her room for the entire journey from One to the Capitol. She remained in hiding, traps rigged up all around the room and a knife in hand as she lightly slept under the bed. Even the quietest of mice would have failed to sneak up on her.

She arose in a nanosecond when, the next morning, the escort entered her room to demand she come out and have breakfast like a normal person.

The poor escort was left half traumatised after being suspended upside down in a rope snare and being aggressively inspected for any signs of a zombie bite. Being declared 'clean' was hardly any comfort.

"Don't cry, you're not gonna turn into a zombie," Dollar said, helping the escort get down. "I mean, you sort of live in such a zombie-like routine in the Capitol, but that's not the sort of zombie I've got my mind on."

The escort wailed and sobbed to Bronze, begging her favourite victor to please save her from Dollar. Bronze just shrugged, taking the chance for a bit of fun and agreed on the condition the escort keep his bed warm with him.

Dollar didn't pay any mind to Peridot scolding the lecherous nineteenth Victor nor the way the escort looked at her in sheer terror. No, she just powered through a full loaf of thick bread in hardly a minute.

"…We have all these amazing foods and you're choosing bread?" the male tribute, Radiant, had asked. "Try the honey glazed chicken, Dollar. It's good."

"What, and spoil myself? I should think not. When the shit hits the fan we're only going to suffer worse if we end up craving for luxury," she paused to take a big bite of a second loaf. "You can't miss what you never had."

"I guess that makes some sort of sense," Radiant admitted. "It'll make it easier to win the Hunger Games without distractions."

"Who cares about that? I've got bigger things in mind," Dollar stood up, cracking her knuckles. "I'm gonna go do pull ups. If you don't want to become one of the undead, you might want to do so as well."

Radiant just shook his head as Dollar walked away. He had no patience for the eldest child of the family that was seen to be the embarrassment of District One. He could only hope the rest of the pack would be tolerable.

Dollar, meanwhile, had already forgotten Radiant's name. Who cared about trivial details like names when there was zombie survival training to be done?

Dollar was already seen as a bit of a smear on One's reputation, even if she was their best female tribute candidate this year by far. But at the parade the academy heads began to see that maybe they should've just cut their losses and sent in somebody who wasn't quite so strange, like the girl who likes wearing crocks and socks. At least that wasn't the same degree as strange as zombies.

…Right?

As always District One's chariot was the first one out and really that was precisely when things began to go downhill. The parade often had a dud or two, true, but it was never District One that was being laughed at!

Alas, it was this time. Radiant waved to the crowd and did his best to appear grateful and strong just as a good male tribute should, but Dollar… she had another idea. One that involved a megaphone and a whole lot of shouting.

"Attention humanity, both here for this event and watching at home, your lives are in danger! Stop what you are doing and train yourselves up for the zombie outbreak!" Dollar yelled, speaking with passion and a touch of desperation. "Just one bite and, without amputation, you are done for! You must be careful, strong, agile and know proper herb mixing techniques! Please, listen to me!"

The audience did, torn between one of three reactions.

The Capitol audience laughed at what they simply thought was an original attempt at a schtick.

The Outliers and even District Two were very, very confused at this display of nonsense.

District One tried to hide their faces and one of the heads at the academy drank themselves into a week-long coma due to excessive cherry shandy consumption.

President Orion didn't really care one way or the other as he gave his usual speech. If one of the career pack wanted to be an idiot and earn the role of this year's comic relief then so be it. It didn't impact on him.

Training was a bit of a mixed bag this time around. Sure, the weapons were always used and various training stations were the sight of some decent, potentially life saving knowledge… but as with every year, the tributes themselves were the source of all the serious action and interactions and the Gamemakers couldn't control who they were. One rigged reaping was rare. Having all the tributes be rigged was a ridiculous thought.

That lack of control was what led to things such as the tiny boy from Six throwing up all over the Head Trainer's shoes after accidently swallowing a fly. The same lack of control led to the pair from Eight tripping into a rack of heavy clubs, one of which ended up falling down and damaging the foot of the angry girl from Ten.

It also led to a rather heated confrontation between Dollar and Claudia from District Two. Dollar had made it clear that she wanted to go it alone, fearing the 'inevitable failure' of being in a team. As anybody else would've expected, Claudia did not take this well.

"Are you insane?" Claudia balled her hands into fists, her knuckles turning white from the pressure. "Why do careers keep ditching the pack before the arena? First Rook, then Dragon… what possible reason could you have? Making it easy or hard for yourself? Don't even say it."

"I don't want my brains eaten when you turn into zombies," Dollar replied, shrugging. "Group survival is nice and all, but when the reality is only a single person surviving it's kind of counter-productive to work in a team. Father would back me up on this."

"…That's it? Zombies?" Claudia shook her head in disgust. "Fine, whatever. If your rational is that weak then we don't want you anyway."

"Too right," Gex agreed, rolling his eyes. "I say we just find a pair of burly outliers to replace her."

"Agreed," Radiant said, glancing around the training centre. "I think Five and Seven have decent prospects this year."

The Careers soon left Dollar by herself, the boy from Two taking a moment to flip her off as he went. Dollar didn't care, unphased as she moved to the poisons and antidotes training station.

Being the outcast didn't bother her due to that being her whole life. She was content with solitude; all it took, after all, was one member of the pack being infected to spread it amongst the mighty alliance.

She didn't show any fear at all when the buff boy from Five, the seven foot five inches girl from Seven and even the wily, cold mayor's son from Eleven were recruited to join the pack. They saw a powerful alliance, but Dollar only saw an outbreak in progress.

Dollar's social skills may have been worth hardly a one or a two, but her training was worth a ten in the eyes of the Gamemakers. The combat ability she possessed combined with her sheer survivalist nature made all of them see her as a clear frontrunner.

Of course, they would have preferred if Dollar had used her final five minutes to demonstrate further skills rather than make a plea for a hundred square mile zombie bunker and a special Peacekeeper force trained to hunt the undead.

After Dollar left it was only a moment before Head Gamemaker Loretta let out a hearty laugh.

"I think her reactions to this year's arena will be quite amusing," she said, a sadistic smirk crossing her face.

Loretta hadn't been wrong. The morning after the interview – where Caesar had been genuinely fascinated by Dollar's wild claims, having been something of a zombie movie fanboy growing up – the tributes rose up the pedestals to the arena that would be the final destination for all but one of the young souls.

No sooner had the pedestals risen into place Dollar let out a yell, her eyes widening in horror. It was only a brief yell, focus soon overtaking her as her eyes narrowed. She knew what this place was meant to be. She knew how to prepare herself for what was sure to be the most brutal Hunger Games yet.

She couldn't help but shake her head in pity at the other tributes. None of them had any idea what they were in for. They'd all failed to realise the blatantly obvious danger they were all in, all fearing each other rather than the monsters that were surely on their way.

The arena was a massive city, one in a state of disarray basked in an unforgiving night. Buildings were wrecked, cars were crashed, fire had numerous areas already ablaze and that was just the start. The entire place was a warzone to behold, like all civilisation has utterly collapsed. From the creepy park to the dead factory and even the police station that loomed close to the Cornucopia, all seemed filled with death and despair.

Dollar knew exactly what the acronym by the police station, 'R.P.D', meant and thus did not want to linger in the area for any longer than she needed to.

The gong rang, almost-but-not-quite drowning out a distant monstrous yell. Most tributes ran into the fray with only the weakest of the stragglers making a break for it into the dangerous city. Dollar was one of those who charged in and, knowing the truth of where they were, had the advantage of knowing what supplies she needed to grab.

Guns were off the table, but Dollar could still think of over two thousand killing methods with the supplies presented to her.

She sprinted halfway to the horn of plenty, easily outpacing most of the other tributes on her way to the precious bounty. Grabbing up a large backpack, a knife and a crossbow was the easy part of the opening melee. The hard part was making it back out when Claudia and the massive girl from Seven blocked off her path.

"You should've stuck with the alliance, zombie girl," Claudia said, a mace gripped in her hands.

"You've doomed yourselves," Dollar replied, firing off an arrow without hesitation.'

The girl from Seven yelled out in pain as the arrow became embedded in her foot. Dollar leapt over a stack of crates with Claudia in pursuit and shoved the small girl from Eight into the career leader's path, knocking her down like a bowling pin. By the time Claudia had gotten up and disposed of the textile girl Dollar had vanished into the city.

"Why'd you let her get away?" Radiant asked, having just decapitated the boy from Six.

"I didn't 'let her', she just got lucky," Claudia gave Radiant an annoyed glare. "We'll find her soon enough. Let's finish up here and get hunting before she can get too far away from us."

The bloodbath ended with eight tributes laying dead on the cracked concrete and several others wounded. Dollar and Claudia were among the lucky tributes that had survived the opening minutes unscathed. Some had cuts, stab wounds, nasty bruises or in the case of the girl from Seven a nasty arrow wound to the foot.

The careers decided that it did not matter if they had taken a few wounds as they still had numbers and sheer power on their side.

Dollar knew better and was convinced that it'd make the tributes easy prey for the monsters that would surely make their presence known sooner or later. She spared none of her remaining fifteen opponents any thought as she made a beeline to a distant apartment complex and, after making her way to one of the highest rooms, barricaded the door with all the furniture that was readily available.

"Gotta get off the ground, gotta prepare for the hoards," Dollar muttered quiet and fast as she fiddled around with the arrows she had swiped from the Cornucopia, carefully applying gunpowder and other such components. "No guns, but this oughta do it."

Dollar kept up the intense work on her crossbow, only pausing when a groan from the darkness caught her attention. She shuddered as she glanced out of the balcony window and down at the cityscape below.

"Nothing good ever came from this place," Dollar muttered. "Those careers and the stragglers are gonna be eaten alive."

Dollar gazed at a distant billboard atop a building across the street from her hideout, shaking her head at what she saw written on it.

'Raccoon City, home of Umbrella!'

The first day was particularly quiet after the bloodbath, the only action of note being when the girl from Four tripped on a rock and fell off a bridge. Her swimming skills saved her but made her the laughing stock of Panem for the night.

When the second day came by things began to get much more intense. That was when the mutts were released into the arena and there were a lot of them. All thirsty for blood, all hungering for flesh and all with nasty, jagged teeth.

The zombies had arrived.

Dollar remained safe from them, for a time at least, in her hideout eight storeys off the ground. Few other tributes could claim the same sort of security. The careers were confronted by many zombies at midday whilst on the trail of the stout boy from Twelve. The melee that followed was bloody, savage and frantic for all involved due to how the zombies simply didn't feel pain from the swords, knives and maces the pack lugged around with them.

"…So, uh, I guess Dollar had a point?" Radiant said, awkwardly.

"Don't even go there," Claudia replied, hissing.

Numbers mattered in combat and that was why the careers managed to fight off the zombies without anybody getting bitten or otherwise maimed. The only injury came from Radiant tripping over and scraping his knee, the wound hardly phasing him for a second.

Three miles south, however, things were dire for Metallica from Five. The brash girl had been cornered by a group of six zombies. Not an issue at all for a pack like the careers, but impossible to take on for somebody all alone. She felled two of the undead freaks before one of them managed to bite her right in the neck. Her screams echoed on and on until her cannon fired.

The odd thing, however, was that the hovercraft did not come down for her corpse. Instead, just half an hour later, Metallica rose again and began to shuffle around mindlessly. All she knew was that she wanted blood and that the boy from Nine was the nearest tribute to her current location.

Infection had turned her into one of the undead. Metallica as a person was gone, but her body was still active to cause all kinds of trouble. Trouble such as eventually stumbling upon Jerrik from Nine while he slept and sinking her teeth into his shoulders at least four times. Two tributes of sixteen had joined the undead.

Dollar didn't know of this, holed up in her shelter and occasionally sniping zombies with her crossbow if they came too close to the building for her liking. With the gunpowder giving her arrows a truly explosive kick there was nothing stopping her from landing utterly lethal headshots that left small craters in the cracked tarmac.

"Common sense," she told the cameras as she felled a tenth zombie. "Why get within biting range when you can hold back and pick 'em off at a safe distance. You only have one life, so don't get reckless with it unless you have to."

By the end of the second day the zombies had forced most of the tributes to fight or flee for their lives at least once. The zombies were slow, which led to easy escapes most of the time, but excitement came about when the career pack cornered the asthmatic boy from Six. His cries were mercy were met with laughter as the pack mangled him.

He would later turn out to be a lucky one, dying before the shit truly hit the fan.

No sooner had the small boy's cannon fired an announcement was played out for all to hear. Even the zombies appeared to hold themselves back, as if to ensure that nobody was unable to miss the message.

"Greetings tributes," the voice of Head Gamemaker Loretta said, her tone crisp, sly and purely sadistic. "Congratulations on surviving to the top thirteen. By now you are all aware that the city you are in is filled with hoards of the undead, zombies as one amongst you so helpfully put it. Zombies are powerful and for the most part your current weapons won't be of the standard that you will need to take them down."

Loretta chuckled again, the sound making even one or two members of the career pack shiver discreetly.

"But there is good news. A feast will be held at the Cornucopia in twelve hours, one where your attendance is mandatory. If you do not show up… well, I think you can guess what will happen. Food, water and superior weaponry will be provided for you all. Additionally, a special advantage of sorts will be up for grabs. If you find it and use it then you will be the most big and powerful being within the arena. Good luck…"

Dollar was wary of what she had been told, knowing that even reaching the Cornucopia was not going to be a simple matter. This wasn't just a way to ensure some fights and deaths, but a way to ensure that the Games would not drag on in the same way the Ninth Games had so many years ago.

The digital clock displayed in the sky told Dollar she had just under twelve hours to make it to her goal. Knowing the way easily enough Dollar decided to get some sleep before the inevitable danger of the next day presented itself.

She and all the tributes had their minds on one particular thing – what was the special advantage?

Dollar figured she would find out when she got there. Until then, she settled down under a ragged blanket with only the groans and moans of the undead to help her drift off to sleep.

Dollar made it to the area just outside the Cornucopia with time to spare. She hid herself under the bonnet of a car that had its engine long since removed, peering out in case a zombie or a tribute were to come by.

Silence was her companion for a while, aside the cannon that boomed twenty minutes before the Feast would start. Nobody present knew it at the time, but Felicia from Four had fallen victim to the undead ganging up on her and had joined their numbers.

The audience watched as the minutes ticked by without anything happening. Some in the Capitol huffed and whined at the lack of action, while those in the Districts were glad for each minute their children lived on without attacks on their lives.

A gong rang out as the timer trickled down to zero and a table of supplies rose up from the ground. The no-gun rule was still in effect, but the weapons were clearly a step up from the norm. The swords were sharper, the knives seemed to glow, the maces had much sharper and deadly spikes than ever seen in the past and even a pair of sticks of dynamite were on display for anybody bold enough to claim them.

The career pack charged into the battle ahead of the others. They grabbed up the weapons, swiftly killing off the pair from Three without mercy.

"Alright!" Gex cheered, laughing as he stomped on the unmoving boy from Three's corpse a few times. "Just five more to go!"

"Four more," Claudia corrected as she smashed the brains of the girl from Eleven with her mace.

"There are still ten tributes. That makes it nine more," the boy from Eleven added coolly, not hesitating to quickly move in and stab Gex in the back of his neck.

As the tributes battled in groups around the Cornucopia the zombies began to amble closer from the nearby streets. Dollar charged for the food and water supplies as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Radiant passed by her, willing to let his District Partner go just the one time, but Goby from Four had no such reservations.

Dollar, too, had no reservations. Least of all reservations about driving a machete into Goby's chest. She left him to die, wanting to get out before it became too late. Already it seemed like only seven tributes were left, soon to be six due to how battered Branchette was after her duel against the short, fast cowboy from Ten.

A second gong had all the savagely brawling tributes pause for a moment. From the tail of the golden cornucopia rose a syringe resting upon a fancy magenta cushion. The advantage.

Claudia abandoned her pursuit of Larri from Eleven to instead make a charge for the syringe. Dollar watched as Larri and the boy from Five ran away in opposite directions and then at how Radiant and the boy from Ten were mounting the Cornucopia in hopes of claiming the special syringe. Dollar ran past the half-dead Branchette to try and take a shot at the tributes who were packed so closely together.

Her aim was just barely off, the arrow sailing onwards and hitting a building. The explosion was enough of a distraction for Claudia to punch Radiant off the Cornucopia and break the hand of the boy from Ten. She laughed as the cowboy ran off in agony, rolling up her sleeve.

"Alright then, time to put the odds in my favour. Permanently," Claudia let out a dark chuckle, jamming the syringe into her arm.

After a brief wince she relaxed, letting the mixture do its job to her insides.

It all went downhill after that.

Claudia let out a scream, a second scream and then a shrill third scream. Her voice quickly went from an icy feminine to a guttural growl as her body began to enter a rapid-fire metamorphopsias. Her muscles became far stronger, her skeleton began to stretch out until she stood over three meters in height and her face started to look utterly twisted and almost demonic.

"Oh shit," Dollar took a step back "Shit, shit, shit."

"What? What did she do?" Radiant asked as he stumbled closer to Dollar, his lower back throbbing from the fall he had taken.

"She just injected herself with the G Virus!" Dollar screeched. "Attacking is futile right now, run for your life!"

Dollar only had to take one look at Claudia's increasingly monstrous form to know she was right and thus fled into the darkness of the city. She only paused to send an arrow into Birchette's head as a mercy kill and to yell at Radiant to run.

Radiant did the smart thing and fled for his life. The Games had been utterly turned on their head in under an hour and he didn't want to be anywhere near the monster.

He decided to be near the zombie survivalist expert and ran in pursuit of Dollar.

The third day of the Games dragged by at a particularly slow pace, not that anybody really minded due to the insane amount of carnage from the previous day. The remaining tributes had scattered around the city of the dead, none willing to go out and explore too much.

Larri was content to hide in the police station's basement while the boy from Ten chose the further out hospital. The boy from Five wandered the park aimlessly, no destination in his mind. Dollar and Radiant remained out of sight in an old clocktower, the former trying to teach the latter a lifetime of zombie survival skills in just one day.

The monster that used to be Claudia was on a rampage as it destroyed cars, zombies, buildings and anything it came across that wasn't unbreakable. It was unknown if Claudia was even a person anymore, if even a spec of who she used to be was still inside the monster that roamed around with a rocker launcher in hand.

Her cannon hadn't fired, so it remained possible that she could pull off a victory.

The same was not true of Larri who was found by the Claudia Monster that night, swiftly torn apart before he could do anything more than land a trio of sword slashes to the monster's chest. Not one slash was even a quarter of the way to being fatal.

Miles away the Ones exchanged grimaces as the cannon boomed throughout the arena.

"Think it was the Claudia Mutt?" Radiant asked, hopeful.

"Unlikely. It would take extreme injury to kill such a beast, way beyond what our shitty weapons can do. Even my crossbow would probably stun her at best. It'd take over a dozen explosive arrows for some real damage."

"So we're doomed?" Radiant let out a frustrated yell. "Can they even allow a monster to win? Claudia isn't human!"

"Maybe they can reverse it? They may have had the antidote for the zombie apocalypse all along," Dollar frowned thoughtfully, peering out of the window. "Just a moment."

Dollar fired off several arrows one after another, felling several zombies. The last arrow was accompanied with the boom of a cannon.

"Who was that?" Radiant asked.

"Boy from Ten. He'd been bitten, I could see the blood on his shoulder," Dollar sighed to herself. "Honestly, I did the guy a favour. If you get bit your only hope is that it's somewhere you can amputate. He'd have turned before long."

"That's horrible," Radiant muttered. "This city is easily a bottom five arena, Dollar."

"Mmmm, I'd say Racoon City is more of a top twenty," Dollar replied.

"Wait, Racoon City? You know this place?" Radiant turned to Dollar, staring into her eyes. "Tell me everything."

"Not much to tell. Just an ancient video game that father had me and my sisters play as part of our zombie survival training," Dollar shrugged, indifferent. "If we're been specific this is the map of the third game, though perhaps a bit expanded. We're lucky they haven't unleashed a Gravedigger."

"…I don't want to know what that is," Radiant shuddered, his face paling. "Is there anything in this city we can use to kill that monster? If the Claudia mutt is dead then one of us is sure to win. The only other tribute left is Zolter and he can't take us both on."

"Uh… just a 'sec," Dollar got up and began to pace around the clocktower. "Think, think, think…"

Ten minutes of dreary near-silence passed before Dollar snapped her fingers.

"It's a longshot and I'm not even sure if the Gamemakers added it, but past the park is an old factory. It has a rail cannon, so…" Dollar gave Radiant a cheeky smirk. "Fancy an adventure beyond the park trainee?"

"…Trainee?" Radiant repeated.

"I mean, you're not a zombie expert. Just being realistic," Dollar replied, snickering. "C'mon, let's go."

Day three became day four with just as many tributes still alive. The factory was a fair distance away from the Ones, a journey made all the longer due to the increasingly high number of zombies roaming around. Between Radiant's sword and Dollar's crossbow they were able to make decent headway towards their goal.

Of course, the Gamemakers didn't want anything to be easy and so Loretta ordered her staff to unleash one of the nastiest mutts the Hunger Games would ever see.

The Ones heard it before they saw it, the ground beneath them rumbling violently. Dollar knew all too well what was going on while Radiant's lack of knowledge had him close to a panic attack.

"What is that?" Radiant hissed.

"The Gravedigger," Dollar replied. "We'd be better off trying to avoid it."

No sooner had Dollar said this the monster arrived. The park ground was left upturned and broken as the behemoth worm burst from the ground and loomed down at its prey. Its maw, filled with hundreds of razor-sharp teeth, was all Radiant could look at.

"Oh God…" Radiant took a step back, looking revolted.

"Run! Now!" Dollar yelled.

Both tributes ran in opposite directions and barely avoided the Gravedigger as it surged forth to the ground they'd stood upon only seconds prior. The pair of tributes climbed for their lives up opposite sides of the newly formed pit, both reaching the top only to be faced with different hazards.

Dollar was faced with over three dozen zombies, all thirsty for her blood.

Radiant was faced with the monster that had once been Claudia.

"Games…" the monster slurred, its voice merely a nasty growl.

Dollar had taken down ten zombies and gotten over halfway through the hoard before trouble reared its ugly head. Right as the Claudia mutt tore off Radiant's right arm and threw him down to the Gravedigger's pit a zombie snuck up behind Dollar.

The zombie that had once been Metallica took a nasty bite into Dollar's left hand. Painful as it was and terrified as it made Dollar feel it didn't prevent her from sending the zombie back with a knife to the eye and firing off an explosive arrow right at the Claudia mutt.

The mutt wasn't overly hurt by the arrow, but was knocked down into the pit. From there it was left to the Gravedigger's mercy.

As Dollar continued to desperately fight off the zombies she and most of the audience didn't even notice as Zolter, by now largely forgotten by the crowd, made a run from the bush he'd been hiding in and off towards the factory at the far side of the park.

By the time Dollar was able to make her own charge for the factory a cannon had fired and her left hand was nothing more than a bloody stump.

As Dollar herself had said, amputation was the only thing to spare one from becoming a zombie. Not that it made it any less agonising to live through.

The fifth day rolled around with little activity of the tributes that were still somehow alive in the city of the dead. Zolter hid himself inside a sort of item box in a quiet room off to the side of the factory while Dollar took a power nap and stumbled along lamely through a corridor flooded with ankle deep water.

Neither tribute was up for a battle, even with both knowing the finale loomed close. They assumed it was just each other left alive.

They were wrong.

The Gamemakers allowed them a break from the mayhem until the evening of the fifth day of the Games. That was when something worse than the zombies came out to play and drive the last tributes down to the lowest part of the disused factory.

Hunters.

The betas went after Dollar and the Gammas went after Zolter. Neither tried to fight them and instead ran for their lives. Dollar ran past a stack of flammable barrels and suddenly it was as if instinct took over. All the years of training came back to her and led her to fire an arrow at the barrels.

None of the hunters were alive to give her any trouble after the explosion, all of them left as scorched and mangled gore upon the factory floor. With relief and pain in her eyes Dollar kept up her hasty retreat.

She arrived at the depths of the factory a few seconds before a cannon boomed, the Gammas having devoured Zolter. Her sigh of relief trailed away into silence when the trumpets did not ring.

There was still one other tribute left.

"Who could it be?" Dollar began to pace and count on her one remaining hand. "Ok… dead, dead, dead… probably dead… saw them die… aw, shit, really?"

Dollar recalled only hearing one cannon during the mayhem at the park, one specifically for Radiant. Having been indoors at the time of the anthem she hadn't realised Claudia's face was not in the anthem of the dead.

"Ok, so on one hand that monster is still alive…" Dollar glanced around the room, her eyes lighting up when she saw a particularly massive electric cannon set up. "On the other hand, well… no, I guess on my same hand as I only have one… I have that rail cannon now."

Dollar worked fast as a growling sound entered her ears and began getting closer with each passing second. She'd pushed two of the three batteries into the massive charging system when the monster finally showed up.

"Damn, that Gravedigger didn't go easy on ya," Dollar muttered, grimacing at the mangled form that used to be the girl from Two.

The Claudia Mutt made a noise hardly even resembling a sound as it began to approach Dollar. One shot of the crossbow sent it stumbling backwards, its balance long since broken.

The only downside was that it had fallen against a particularly toxic looking puddle by the wall. Dollar could only watch in horror, rooted to the spot in terror, as her beastly opponent absorbed the contents of the puddle.

Dollar opened fire with more arrows but at this point nothing was able to stop the further mutation of the monster. It grew bigger, it became far more toxic, tentacles sprouted out, its face morphed into looking long and half melted, two new limbs grew in to replace the mangled ones and four new, evil eyes appeared upon the monster's face.

All six eyes stared at Dollar.

"…How can this thing be a contender to win?" Dollar muttered. "What happens if I die? That creature going on tour or something?"

One deafening roar cut Dollar off and had her fleeing as the beast spat a shower of acid from its gaping maw. The acid began to eat away at the metal floor while the monster started to crawl its way after Dollar, easily withstanding her few remaining arrows. All they accomplished was taking out one of its eyes and lightly scorching the beast's face.

"This would be easier… if I had two hands…" Dollar flinched, beginning to feel lightheaded from the terror that mixed with the pain of her wounds.

An explosion from within the monster popped several of its tentacles off, though it hardly seemed to notice. Dollar didn't stop to wonder what this was, instead leaping to the side of the monster's attempt to crush her under its mass of tentacles and limping her way to the third battery. By the time the massive beast turned around the battery had finally been shoved into place.

"Battery… connected… executing quick charge programme… preparing to… fire…" droned the CPU system's voice programme.

The cannon began to rumble, gathering all the power and energy it needed to let off what was sure to be a lethal blast. The beats reacted with a roar and spewing acid upon the cannon. The acid began to eat away at it, much to Dollar's horror.

"No, no, no!" Dollar muttered. "Only gonna have one shot… shit, can't mess this up… hey! Ugly! Over here!"

The Claudia mutt turned right as Dollar threw a knife at it, the blade sticking into its cheek. Slowly, the beast began to close in on Dollar with vicious, hungry eyes.

"Five…"

The beast let out some acidic drool, further mangling the floor.

"Four…"

The beast seemed to smirk as it noticed Dollar was cornered against the wall just beyond the cannon.

"Three…"

Dollar grimaced as the beast reared back its tentacles and gargled acid within its maw.

"Two…"

The beast stared down at Dollar, almost right into her soul.

"One…"

The beast moved right in front of the canon and was a second away from landing an agonising killing blow.

"FIRE!"

The rail cannon activated, the immensely powerful blast hitting the Claudia mutt at point blank range and tearing into the monster's flesh. Searing and incredibly mutilated from the blast, the mutt was sent flying and came down with a mighty crash at the far side of the room. It twitched, missing several of its limps and much of its mid-section destroyed or at the very least horrifically wounded.

As it lay dying Dollar limped over, picking up a fallen pipe on the way over.

"Maybe you're not a zombie, but I think I know what'll kill you all the same," Dollar said, raising up the pipe.

Six strikes of the metal object were inflicted onto the beast's face until it finally, finally went silent. What was left of its foot gave a last twitch and then, for the first time since the Games began, the arena was completely silent.

The cannon boomed.

Trumpets sounded.

A door opened to reveal an elevator that would take Dollar up to the hovercraft on the roof.

As Dollar staggered her way towards the hovercraft that would take her home she paused, turning to the cameras she knew were all watching her.

"This is why we need a national security plan for the zombie apocalypse! You think this shit was bad? Imagine this but it's everywhere in Panem, not just an arena," Dollar shuddered, raising up her stump. "I lost my hand and I was ready for this. Imagine what'd happen if it happened to people who were not trained."

Despite her reputation as a nutjob never really going away Dollar became rather respected overall after her Games came to an end. She fought hard and gave the Capitol some of the finest battles they had ever seen. It seemed nobody aside the families of the dead and the poorer Districts hated Dollar particularly much.

What Dollar had not known was that the Claudia Mutt was meant to be disposed of by the Gravedigger, but had been able to escape from it and, from that point, had gone rouge. Out of control by the Gamemakers, the human-turned-monster posed a severe problem. What if it had killed Dollar and won? Detonating its tracker had done nothing and if not for the Gamemakers adding the rail cannon for the sake of a truly authentic adaptation of the source material they'd have been left with a mutated beast as their victor.

As with the previous year Orion's trusty woodchipper received plenty of usage for all involved in the planning of the 'G virus syringe' while Loretta was hanged over a period of forty torturous minutes for the blunder.

Dollar was threatened to keep her mouth shut on just how close things were to going awfully wrong and to act as though she'd been in complete control of the situation all along. Dollar was more than willing to do so, only asking for one thing in return.

A zombie fighting sub-branch of the Peacekeeper force to protect the nation from the threat of the undead.

Orion granted the request, feeling he'd lose nothing by doing so.

After their ten second silence was over Katniss and Peeta moved further down the street until they came to the next face on the ground. A girl with firm eyes and frizzy hair cut short looked back at them.

"Seeder," Peeta said, a sad sort of smile on his face. "She seemed so nice when we met her."

"She was an ally I had really wanted. Shame it never turned out that way," Katniss paused for a moment. "Shame that a lot of things turned out the way they did."

And that was Dollar, quite the departure from a typical D1F if I do say so myself! I like to keep each Victor unique, of course, and especially so for careers due to how it can be pretty easy for them to fall into a mould of being a 'basic brute' at times. I figured why not break some stereotypes and have Dollar be from the fanciest District but also be a scruffy, weird and somewhat crazy zombie fearing nutjob. I think things turned out alright, though maybe I went too hard with the Resident Evil references? In any case, thirty two down and now another canon Victor looms. Stay tuned for more!

Stats

District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games), Crown Martins (24th Games), Dollar Dettwieller (32nd Games)

District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games), Rook Valiant (17th Games), Boulder Atherston (20th Games), Vercingetorix Carnby (25th Games), Dragon Batofel (27th Games)

District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games)

District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games), Tide Luther (23rd Games)

District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games), Crimson Flanders (29th Games)

District 6: Chassis Macalister (31st Games)

District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games)

District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games), Paige Murphy (30th Games)

District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games), Teff Withers (28th Games)

District 10: Stallion March (26th Games)

District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Games)

District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)