Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Here we are, a very 'special' Hunger Games that I've been rather looking forward to writing. I thought long and hard as to how somebody could score as low as a one and somehow end up as the Victor… the rest, as they say, is history. Hope you readers enjoy!
"He got lucky," Katniss said. It was a statement of fact. "About the luckiest of every Victor, even Spud."
"It does kind of show Haymitch was right when he told us to run from the Cornucopia… of course, nothing like what happened could ever repeat," Peeta chuckled. "It's awful, really. So cruel, quick and pointless… but I can't hate it entirely. Not when… well…"
"The Capitol looked stupid. I understand," Katniss said, gently holding Peeta's hand.
34th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Snag Nakamura
Gender: Male
District: 7
Age: 14
Kills: 1
It was the worst birthday that Snag had ever had. Most of the time the scrawny youth from the southern areas of Seven would get a tiny jar of honey as a birthday present, perhaps with a fine strawberry if he were lucky.
On his fourteenth birthday the escort saw fit to give him a gift of her own, pulling his name from the reaping bowl and ensuring he had the status of being that year's male tribute. It was all but certain that nobody would volunteer for him. No boys had done so since Jack and even the wily thief hadn't exactly been willing to.
The citizens of Seven watched with dismay as Snag hobbled his way towards his inevitable doom at the reaping stage, his parents' distant screams and wails merely a depressing afterthought to the nasty sight they were all seeing. Snag was quite unlike the prior tributes seen in District Seven for reasons instantly clear.
He staggered unevenly on crutches, his legs mostly unable to support his weight. Lacking much in the way of money things like a walking frame or a wheelchair were merely a pipe dream for the poor boy. Cystic fibrosis was the culprit behind his slow, torturous approach to the stage.
The Peacekeepers eventually took some pity and, at some prodding from Fir, helped Snag up the stage and let him sit on one of the empty seats. Their brief display of hospitality did nothing to bring him out of the near panic attack that he had entered. Nobody with a condition like his had a chance in the Hunger Games. None! Even Gwenith, the lowest scoring Victor of all, had at least been able to run. Snag couldn't even do that.
The escort trilled out more pointless chatter, trying to hide her disappointment of having reaped a tiny girl with excessively thick glasses and a crippled boy.
Snag couldn't hide his fear. He was dead, it was as simple as that. The bloodbath was to be his demise and, even if he somehow survived it, how could be possibly outlive the career pack? What about the mutts, traps and even the tough Outliers that popped up here and there?
He was carried into the Judgement Building sobbing for his mother. His life was already over.
It was a tearful goodbye, perhaps the saddest one ever seen in District Seven. In years gone by the families of the dead tributes had the ability to at least hold onto the fact their child had a small chance of winning the Hunger Games. Snag had no such chance; he knew it, his mother knew it, his father knew it. They all knew it.
They were only given fifteen precious minutes together before the Peacekeepers dragged Mr and Mrs Nakamura away, leaving Snag all alone to think over his fate.
"If I'm doomed… really doomed… I guess now's the time to get everything out," Snag whispered, wiping away a tear and narrowing his eyes.
He politely requested a pen and notepad from a Peacekeeper who came to check on him, the woman having some pity for the boy. Generally, Peacekeepers who had become familiar with Fir were softer than the others… not that there was any real way for most people to know that.
"Scared?" she asked him.
Snag's squeak that almost led to vomiting was a pretty solid indicator that he was.
Time ticked away all too quickly. Snag was a fast writer but even so it was hard to write down his final letter to his home. There was so much he wanted to say, some of which he couldn't quite convey during his interview.
He left the notebook in the care of one of his friends who had only managed to convince the Peacekeepers to let him in with five minutes left to go.
"Let everybody see it, please," Snag had said. "Pleak, please."
"I'll do it mate," Pleak promised. "What's written in here?"
"Everything," was Snag's soft reply.
Snag was soon loaded onto the tribute train with his District partner and off to his certain death at two hundred miles an hour. With Snag already feeling a world away, his weeping parents read through his journal. They took in everything written on the pages like it were gospel.
Snag wrote of how he loved them, how he always felt guilty that his condition meant he couldn't earn his keep like other children, how he didn't want them to feel too bad forever as they couldn't have done anything to stop this… on and on it went, the weeping parents only becoming more overcome with grief with every passing second.
Snag's admission to having secretly been feeding sparrows with precious spare crusts and his pleading for forgiveness for wasting the food had them bawling.
The book was passed on to Snag's friends at school. In it Snag thanked them for including him on activities regardless of how hard it was, for carrying him around the forest so that he could experience nature with the rest of them, for helping him study for the spelling tests he hated so much and more besides.
There were no dry eyes.
The final page of the book was reserved for a girl in his class, Paisley Wendell. Her eyes widened and she dropped the book, tears flowing down her face when she saw what had been written on the page.
"I love you. I'm sorry I never was brave enough to say it."
There were many pillows left tear stained that night in Seven.
Snag's life was ending.
Head Gamemaker Hessian Leblanc, however, felt that his life was truly starting!
After the Thirty Second Hunger Games ended with most of the Gamemakers sent through Orion's patented trusty woodchipper a power struggle for the top spot had begun. It had only gotten more and more frantic since the previous year. Bartimus Bronx had only wanted the position a single time, simply intending to make sure the Games could actually happen. True to his word he'd stepped down and gone back to his initial spot on the statistics team.
Cue pandemonium.
It had taken double dealing, backstabbing, a bit of top-tier blackmail and a few rigged voting stations but in the end Hessian had done it. He was the Head Gamemaker and, so long as his first Hunger Games were a success, he'd be guaranteed the spot for several years to come. The future looked bright to the young man.
"How's the arena coming along? All done?" he asked one of his underlings.
"It will be finished in approximately fifteen minutes," the underling replied promptly. "All that really remains is ensuring the temperature of the arena is just right. Mere heat checks, that's all."
"Perfect. Give me a visual."
On command the main monitor within the Gamemaker's control panel showed a gorgeous ariel shot of the arena. Hessian was always one to watch the mistakes of others and learn to avoid them, hence he had forgone any sort of underground arena or a city full of zombies and had instead gone for something a bit more standard. Or, as he'd insist was the case, delightfully retro. It was generally assumed he had no idea what that even meant.
All the same, few would argue about the arena's quality. The all-terrain environment was visually wonderful and sure to provide plenty of challenge for the tributes to survive in. Those that were alive after the bloodbath anyway. There were sprawling hills, rocky cliffs that stretched up to occasionally become mountains, a grand lake a mile wide and all kinds of lovely flowers scattered around – poisonous, of course – with the Cornucopia at the peak of a dangerously steep hilltop surrounded by trees.
Hessian thought it was flawless. It was all his to do with as he wished. He had absolute power and control.
The only thing he could not entirely control were the tributes. It occurred to him that the reaping recaps would be on and thus he ordered another underling to have them shown on screen.
He didn't feel disappointed. District One had a pair of absolute monsters, District Two had some powerful quarry workers covered in tattoos, District Three had a rather sneaky looking girl, District Four had a pair who seemed burly enough to pass as pirates… it was a good selection.
The only disappoints in his eyes were the druggie girl from Six whose hands rattled and shook from withdrawal symptoms that were already flaring up and, of course, the pair from Seven. As he'd later claim in an interview the next day he would have expected crappy tributes from Twelve. Not so much from Seven.
But in the end, what did it matter? He had some powerful tributes, a wonderful arena and a life of fame set in stone if he could simply make the Games enjoyable for the Capitol citizens and terrifying for the Districts to be forced to watch.
Life was good.
Mr and Mrs Nakamura sat in their humble home, their modest dinner hardly touched. How could they focus on anything, really, when their son was many miles away and set to die in under a week?
The wooden crutches propped up by the wall were a constant, a haunting reminder of what they were going to lose. And yet, the couple couldn't bring themselves to put them away.
The crutches would soon be one of the few reminders they would have of their dear son.
They'd intended to stay in for a quiet night to watch the tribute parade, but fate and the unfair rules of their dystopian home decided otherwise. Given how they were the direct family of one of the tributes they were soon forced from their home by several of the Peacekeepers to watch the parade in public at the District square. Like the family of the female tribute, Gillian, they were put on a raised platform. They were told to see it as an honour.
They knew disagreeing would only get them killed and remained silent. With Fir mentoring in the Capitol there was nobody to keep the rowdier Peacekeepers under control or, more accurately, not quite so eager for blood.
The parade began after some commentary and banter between Caesar Flickerman and a few of the most popular, high-status newscasters of the Capitol. District Seven paid absolute zero attention to the chariots of One and Two. The Sevens were a fairly prideful sort and held only contempt for the careers who willingly trained and entered the Games out of greed. They spared Three a glance, always willing to show a touch of pity for the reaped tributes.
Really though, only District Seven's own tributes mattered. Sure enough they came out after the typically poorly performing District Six chariot. Gillian had been dressed up like some kind of a tree elf. The Capitol laughed and pointed as if the poor girl were an animal in a zoo. Both Gillian and her family cried.
Snag's parents could only watch, awed at what their son had been dressed to look like. Gone were the crutches and in their place was a state of the art wheelchair. But that wasn't the main highlight going on.
The highlight was how Snag had become royalty!
The crown, the glorious cape, the sceptre he held up high with his right hand and the numerous shimmering gem-like leaves covering his clothes and wheelchair stood out as grand and glorious. It seemed his stylist had turned him into some sort of Forest King. Snag was plainly terrified, but held the worst of it back to play his part. A king was calm, not crying, after all.
For a few precious seconds Mr and Mrs Nakamura thought that Snag may have a chance after all. The Capitol audience were all cheering for him, even sounding genuine.
But then one of the newscasters remarked that Snag had a ninety nine in one hundred chance of being caught and having his neck broken by Amazingness from One before taking four steps forwards.
On cue the helpless, suffocating feelings of depression and loss had the Nakamuras held firmly in their clawed clutches.
It was quickly apparent that Snag was going to be unable to do almost anything that the training centre offered. If it wasn't mental based then he was never going to be able to pull it off. Running, climbing, the gauntlet, sword fighting, wrestling and even basic kicking. It was an impossibility.
Hence, Snag wheeled himself around in his wheelchair to listen to instructors at the edible plants, first aid and water finding training stations. If his mind was all he had to work with then what was exactly what he would use.
It was hard though when, in his heart, he knew he was done for. What help was knowing how to find water when he'd never get to taste a drop before one of the smiling, deadly teenagers from One or Two would kill him in the openings seconds anyway?
Maybe he didn't give up out of refusal to be an easy victim.
Maybe he didn't give up so as to spite the Capitol who so eagerly awaited the sight of his innards.
Maybe some part of him was still foolish enough to believe he had a scrap of a chance if he was careful.
Perhaps it was instinctive desperation.
Whatever it was that kept Snag going it worked for the three days of training that he was permitted. He learnt the skills as best as he could, gave the careers no reason to specifically gun for him anymore than they already were and made sure to be friendly any time a tribute happened to come near him. Whatever kept him alive, he tried.
Hessian figured that such a pathetic scrawny whelp was never going to play a part of any description in his grand Games and told his staff to assign him a score of one. Realistically, he reminded them, Snag's score did not matter as he was quite simply done for no matter how hard he tried.
Snag felt his last flickers of hope starting to die out when he saw the one come up beside his name. His mentor, Jack, tried to think of some way to spin this into a positive. Alas, the thief had little to offer.
Fir moved from her spot beside Gillian – the girl seemed anxious, having only scored a three – and took Snag into a tender, gentle hug.
"Let it all out," she suggested. "It's easier if you let the tears falls when they gotta."
Snag cried in Fir's gentle embrace for most of the night, only being carried to bed once he'd cried himself into the realm of unconsciousness.
Fir exchanged a grim glance with Jack. She may be known as the dimwit of the Victors, but even she knew when facts were facts. Snag wasn't going to be in the arena for very long.
Hessian was going over the final checks with his staff while the tributes prepared for their interviews. Standard stuff overall, just the grunt work that had to be done no matter how unimportant it may have been.
"Is that it?" Hessian eventually asked. "Is that the final quadruple check that the grass smells alright?"
"We can officially confirm the arena is ready," one of his underlings said, saluting. "All that remains is stocking up the Cornucopia and putting the tributes into the arena tomorrow."
"Excellent. Now, make sure those weapons are sharp and painful. I want to hear those screams tomorrow," Hessian smirked, rubbing his hands together. "This is going to be amazing."
"Incoming call from the President," a different underling said.
"Put him on screen," Hessian ordered, as prompt as could be expected.
A moment later Orion appeared on the massive monitor. Despite the relatively friendly look that he sent at Hessian there was no mistaking the reality of how he'd send the man through the woodchipper if he so much as looked at him funny.
"Good evening Hessian. Excited for your debut as Head Gamemaker tomorrow?" Orion asked, softly chuckling.
"Always, sir," Hessian replied, saluting. "We're ready to begin. Just a matter of filling up the Cornucopia and that's always a one hour job, tops."
"Good, good. Now, I want you to ensure these Games go off well, alright? I don't need to remind you of what became of your predecessors," Orion's voice became chilling. "No cave-ins, no out of control mutts… just make it flashy, bloody and terrifying for those District vermin to watch. But most of all, make it explosive as you do all of that. This is a show after all. Give us a Games to remember!"
"Oh, you can count on me," Hessian promised, saluting.
"Is that so? Tell you what then… owing to how poorly a few of the past several Games have gone… if you can make these Games full of explosive terror and excitement as you assure then I will instate you as the Head Gamemaker for a full decade at bare minimum. Nobody will be able to touch your position. Can you pull it off?"
Hessian's eyes glowered with pure, selfish greed.
"I won't let you down," Hessian vowed, all kinds of nasty ideas entering his head.
"Good. See to it that you don't," Orion raised a glass up in toast. "To Panem, the Capitol and twenty three glorious cannons."
Hessian toasted Orion in return and the call ended. All was silent for a minute as he plotted what his next course of action would be.
Orion should have said nothing. But you know what they say, one often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
"You!" Hessian barked to one of his underlings. "Slight change of plan."
"Will it put us behind? We have barely over sixteen hours to get ready," the underling replied, nervously.
"It'll be simple," Hessian assured the woman. "Orion wants explosive? We give him explosive. I always thought that I could do a one-weapon-only Games better than the farce of the Ninth Games. Gather everybody up, I want them all to hear the plan."
Hessian had his audience hardly a minute later and detailed his plan to his staff. With the order given the swords, spears and serrated knives were all tossed out and replaced with hundred upon hundreds of a specific weapon never before seen in the Hunger Games…
Mr and Mrs Nakamura were once again forced into public eye to watch the interviews. As was always the case the Sevens booed the Ones and Twos until the Peacekeepers fired off warning shots. They remained silent after that, but not all of them hid their disgusted glares sent at the screens.
The interviews dragged on and on before District Seven arrived. The shaky girl from Six, Honda, left the stage howling from the painful withdrawal of the morphing she was so dependent on and, to the relief of the crowd, the incredibly lanky boy from Six came on after her.
His attempt at beat boxing went down as one of the ten worst Hunger Games interviews of all time.
Gillian's interview had District Seven filled with sympathy and her family sobbing. The girl barely spoke above a whisper, hiccupped tearfully every few moments and was so pale faced that it was almost like she had became albino.
She left the stage to scattered, quiet applause from the more polite Capitolites within the audience. That, of course, was when Snag was called onto the stage. He wheeled himself over beside Caesar and for a moment all was silent.
"I'm gonna die," Snag said, quietly. "You ever think about what you'd say if it was your final few hours on earth Caesar?"
"Honestly, I sometimes do," Caesar admitted. "I like to think that I'd have the time to recite one of my favoured poems or perhaps a chapter of my in-progress autobiography."
"I wish I had time to write some kind of an autobiography," Snag said, sinking down a little in his wheelchair. "I don't have much time for anything anymore. It's just… Caesar, let's not joke around. I'm done for. I can't walk… cystic fibrosis, y'know? Best I can do is try to last a full minute."
"Are you giving up, Snag?" Caesar asked, looking sympathetic. "We've had shock victors before. Like Gwenith, she-."
"-Could walk. I can't do that," Snag sighed, blinking away tears and wiping his eyes. "On the off chance anybody wanted to sponsor me… don't. Send it to Gillian, she's got a chance to go home. She runs a bake sale every two months at school, actually. Don't you want to keep that tradition going?"
That was how Snag's interview went. He accepted his own fate, reluctantly and with great depression of course, and used his interview to try and shift the odds into the favour of his District partner. The audience applauded Snag as he left the stage to try and make the most of what was likely to be his final night alive.
His District saluted him, the square silent aside from the crying of both families. Snag was doomed and even with his attempt to help Gillian everybody knew it was not going to be Seven's year by any means.
Neither tribute was going to be in the arena for long.
Mr and Mrs Nakamura did not sleep that night. It was impossible to do so when their only son was likely to meet his gruesome fate the next morning. They stayed up late, tears flowing down their faces as they recalled every single memory they had of their son. They wanted morning to never arrive.
They didn't know it, but Snag did the same many miles away in the Capitol. He searched the deepest parts of his mind for all the good memories he had of his short lifetime. He only regretted being too shy to approach Paisley and perhaps make more happy memories.
Morning came and all the Nakamura family wept as the minutes ticked down to the opening bloodbath of the Games.
The tributes were launched into the arena and Panem as a nation got their first look at the gorgeous all terrain arena. It was beautiful, just as it had been when shown to Hessian several days prior. The sun was shining, the flowers were practically glowing, the water was clear, the grass was crisp and everything about the arena seemed to ooze power.
That was when the tributes and audience alike got a good look at the Cornucopia and the supplies piled up within and around it. There were the usual items like backpacks, stacks of blankets, a few sleeping bags, bottles of water, loafs of bread and even some tubs of fruit and vegetables.
But there was not a single tradition weapon to be seen. No swords. No spears. No axes. Not even a single, tiny dagger. The second of the four one-weapon-only Games in the history of Panem had only one type of weapon available.
Hand grenades.
The explosives were piled all around. There were easily over a thousand of them littered around the clearing. The careers looked confused, but soon shrugged it off. The outliers, meanwhile, were all the more unnerved. A few growls set off by the Gamemakers to add some atmosphere had screams ringing out, several tributes now too afraid to flee into the woods without a weapon. They assumed monsters awaited them.
Snag, towards the left of the semi-circle of pedestals right between the boy from Five and the girl from Nine, simply let out a depressed sigh. Knives or hand grenades, the end result was the same for him.
But if he was going to die, he'd die like a man… or at least as close to one as he possibly could.
Seeing that his pedestal had ramps attached to the sides to allow for his wheelchair to properly dismount towards the ground gave Snag an idea. The steep hill he and the others had been launched onto made his idea all the more obvious.
As the timer ticked downwards Snag carefully turned his wheelchair around on the spot so that he was facing in the direction of the forest that awaited him and the other tributes at the base of the hill. Live or die, he at least wanted to make it past the tree line.
The gong soon rang out and the tributes made a charge for the array of supplies scattered around the golden horn of plenty. Some stuck to the outer edges, others ran right to the heart of the action and Snag, all alone, sent his wheelchair down the ramp as he began his hasty retreat.
For several moments Snag faintly smiled as he rocketed down the hill. His wheelchair was perfectly balanced, the thick tires clearly made for this sort of action. It was almost like some kind of a roller coaster, like the ones he'd read about that existed in a time long before Panem.
A deafening explosion blasted behind him. It was like a roar of a fearsome dragon, the noise leaving Snag's ears hurting badly and the force of the explosion sending his wheelchair into the air.
It came to a crash past the tree line and Snag was sent flying from the seat. He lay in a crumpled heap, dazed and confused by what had just happened. With shaking arms Snag forced himself to turn over onto his side and look back towards the Cornucopia.
His eyes widened as he took in the insanity.
The top of the hill had become a black crater with fire burning hot and smouldering ash raining from above. The smell of crispy, burnt flesh hit Snag's nose and almost caused him to vomit then and there.
There were so many bodies, all of them charred and mangled beyond recognition.
Snag didn't put the pieces together right away, but in retrospect the accident was quite obvious. An accident that only happened due to Orion's offer to Hessian making greed override the Head Gamemaker's common sense.
What happened had not even taken half a minute. Honda had charged into the fray and grabbed one of the hand grenades. She'd tried to use it on the boy from One who came near her, only for her withdrawal to make her hands shake badly. Dropping the grenade had been all it took, really.
One explosive was effective. But over a thousand at once was outright lethal! Sixteen of the tributes had been vaporised in an instant as the chain reaction went off. Most of the others were badly injured, screaming and crying as they tumbled down the steep hill until they landed in painful heaps. The boy from Eleven met his end right after this.
Hessian was dragged kicked and screaming from the Gamemaker control room, his execution ordered to be carried out right away and made as painful as possible. His cries and begs went completely ignored.
The Capitol and the Districts watched in sheer confusion, bewilderment and horror at what had just happened. Was anybody in any state to even fight in the Games anymore?
The cameras showed the pair from Three moaning in agony, too hurt to know what was going on anymore. The boy from Five hobbled around as he entered the north area of the forest, the left half of his face horrifically scorched and crispy. The girl from Eight was passed out from the impact but, despite her arms being useless from the elbowa down, was somehow alive. The girl from Nine whimpered pitifully as she squirmed around helplessly in a clump of tall grass – she wouldn't last long. The girl from Twelve screamed like a madwoman, clutching the mangled stump where her left arm had once been, already starting to enter a fit of madness from the carnage.
Snag, completely unharmed aside from a bleeding ear and a small bruise on his chest, starting to drag himself along through the mighty forest as best as he could.
As the seventeen cannons fired to mark the end of the bloodbath the betting odds were adjusted. Snag's odds rose from a pitifully awful 145-1 to a shocking 3-1. The best odds in the Games!
After that it was all too easy for the sponsor funds to arrive for a bottle of water, a freshly baked pizza and a sharp knife to be sent down to him. After the disastrous opening it had been decided that bending the initial hand-grenades-only twist to send in a single knife wasn't going to be an issue to anybody.
In the square of District Seven all eyes slowly turned to look at Mr and Mrs Nakamura. In the space of just a few minutes they had gone from crying in grief for their surely doomed son to being in a state of silenced wonder. They could only stare at the screens, watching their young son dragging himself along through the forest.
"It's a miracle…" Mr Nakamura whispered.
Mrs Nakamura shushed her husband, quick to remind him that Gillian's family were howling in despair. Their little girl had been taken out in the initial explosion, dead before she even knew it.
"Maybe not a miracle exactly," Mr Nakamura conceded. "But, dear, Snag's alive… he's alive. He could come home…"
"He will," Mrs Nakamura whispered, starting to believe the words she was saying. "He will."
Orion fumed, the Capitolites whined over the Games being so short and the Districts – those who weren't crying over the deceased, that is – laughed at their tyrannical government. But whatever the reactions were to what Panem's social media would go on to dub as #GrenadeGate, there was still a victor to be crowded and tributes to die.
As anybody could have guessed it did not really take long for it to happen after the initial carnage occurred.
Of the seven survivors, only five managed to get into the forest at all. Neither the girl from Nine nor the girl from Twelve made it, their wounds being far too severe. From there the girl from Eight passed away from her own horrible wounds during the first night.
The boy from Five staggered around insanely, Snag hid under a large patch of clovers and the pair from Three whimpered, joining hands as the reaper gently approached them one step at a time.
By midday the pair from Three had finally died, leaving just Snag and the boy from Five. This boy, a bulky lad by the name of Ramirez, was still able to walk around. Snag could never match this, but the fact Ramirez had started going mad made the betting organisers claim it could go either way at all.
It was completely even split with both tributes being designated 5-1 odds in the looming brawl.
They began fighting as soon as they met, mainly because Ramirez had tripped over Snag without knowing he'd even been there. The final battle began, all cameras showing their duel off to the nation.
Perhaps duel was too strong of a word. Panem watched as the boys wrestled and fought on the ground, both trying to gain some kind of an advantage over their opponent in the desperate struggle. Snag was weaker than Ramirez, but unlike the boy from Five he didn't have a scorched face and other wounds distracting him from the fight. It was a finale that could have ended up going in any way at all.
District Five yelled desperately. District Seven pleaded and shouted. The boys kept on struggling, trying to quickly eliminate their opponent. This moment did not arrive for over ten minutes.
Eventually Ramirez sent Snag reeling with a hard punch only to collapse himself right afterwards. With a nasty black eye Snag dragged himself over to his fallen, exhausted foe and let out a single, quiet sigh.
"Sorry buddy."
Snag fumbled with his knife and stabbed it down into Ramirez's chest. Not long after that the cannon fired, leaving the nation with the most unlikely of Victors.
Snag lay on his back on the forest floor, wheezing and gasping from the intense duel he'd just won. Tears welled up in his eyes as the trumpets rang out, the world around him starting to grow blurry. Despite how shaken he felt from killing a fellow human and from all the grim memories associated with the explosion he couldn't help but let out a weak, relieved laugh.
He was going home.
In those days Capitol technology had not reached the point where they could simply cure something like cystic fibrosis overnight. That wouldn't be until around the time of the Sixty Eighth Games. Until then, it'd likely be a long time before Snag was going to be able to walk around on his own.
Until then the Capitol gave him perhaps the best, most fancy wheelchair they'd ever built in all the years of their tyrannical regime being in power. Snag was able to get around with ease for the after-Games events such as the victory party and the final interview.
None of that crap mattered to the youth from Seven. Not when his family were waiting for him back home in his District.
Snag returned home five days after the final cannon had boomed. He felt broken from the traumatising experience and knew all too well his survival was a pure freak accident. He was never meant to win. He had been meant to die.
Seeing the cheering crowd through the window as the train pulled into Seven made Snag decide he was never going to apologise for getting lucky and staying alive.
District Seven cheered and applauded for their newest victor as he was wheeled off of the train. His family and friends flocked him for several long, wonderful minutes. All of them telling him they loved him, had missed him, had never given up on him. Snag knew at least a few had, understandably in his opinion, given up on him but couldn't get the word out due to Mrs Nakamura's vice-like grip on him.
And then she walked up.
The crowd went silent as Snag saw Paisley Wendell slowly approaching him. His family and friends backed away for a moment so that he could wheel himself over to the girl he'd had a crush on for the past three years. For a moment neither of them spoke.
"…Hi Paisley," Snag said, awkwardness and nerves making his voice crack. "It's good to, um… see you…"
"It's good to see you too, Snag," Paisley blushed, covering her face. "Welcome home."
A few moments passed before Paisley leaned over to give Snag a kiss on the cheek.
"Um… ice cream on Friday?" she suggested, blushing from all the cheers of the crowd.
"I'd like that," Snag agreed, blushing even moreso. "I'll be there."
Embarrassed as he was Snag felt an emotion he'd never truly felt before in his life. One that was inevitable to feel after surviving the Hunger Games, becoming rich, getting a date with the girl he liked and being assured by the Capitol that one day he would be able to walk.
Happiness.
Orion watched all of this on his TV in his mansion's living room. He fumed and snarled, utterly disgusted that the helpless bug had been the one to make it home. Two dozen other rooms of the fancy mansion had been trashed in his latest rampage of fury, only a fine beer from his personal assistant Snow calming him down even slightly.
"Thank you Snow," Orion said, finishing the drink. "This decade is going badly. Those little rats keep laughing at me. At the Capitol! Sure, the Thirty Third Games went alright… but other than that? Three awful Games they'll never let us forget. We need to make the next Games painful."
"I couldn't agree more," Snow replied. "Shall I start spreading the word for new Gamemakers to join the team?"
"Yes, do it. In fact, while you're at it, see if you can dig up any dirt on those scum who have intent to challenge my position. A little blackmail might hold them off until we can make a great Games happen and get the citizens to forget about this," Orion exhaled, utterly ticked. "One of your contacts must have something right?"
"I believe so. I'll ring him now and see what he has to say. Back shortly, sir," Snow bowed, leaving the room.
Snow left Orion to his drink and moved through the president's manor until he came to the kitchen. Seeing it was empty he quickly moved himself into one of the pantries and started a call.
"Hey man, need something?" Bronze asked from the other side. A few moans sounded out distantly. "Kinda in the middle of something here. Three somethings, actually. Heheh."
"I only need you for half a minute, if that," Snow assured his partner in crime. "I think it's time that Orion was given an early retirement. Get people whispering, get them unhappy. Do that and before long I'll be able to give you anything you want."
"Done and done."
Snow soon hung up, a smirk crossing his face. This wasn't a smug smirk or even a sadistic smirk.
This was a smirk of pure evil.
"Snag will go down in legends for many, many years," Peeta said. "They say we all get forgotten one day, but Snag… I'm not so sure."
"Either way he sure made his mark on history. I think what happened there ws what my mother would call a happy accident," Katniss replied. "I hope Snag was one of those who survived."
After a moment of respectful silence the pair from Twelve resumed their walk down the ever so long street. They soon came to the next face on the ground. The imprinted face showed a goofy, almost ditzy looking girl with her eyes crossed to form a silly face. This, her long ponytail and a beanie hat gave her a fairly stand-out look.
"Librae Ogilvy," Peeta said, reading the name written below the face.
I think we can all agree that the Games we just saw were particularly explosive, huh? …Ok, I'll let myself out. T_T Regardless, I had fun writing that and hopefully you guys liked reading the carnage as it played out? I've seen plenty of stories where weak tributes win and stories where those aged twelve win. Thing is, I've never seen a tale where a tribute of any sort scores a one and wins. It just doesn't seem to happen. So, enter Snag! Perhaps a bit on the loopy side, but I think this made for a fun tale and ideally Snag himself was a fun character, or at least one to root for? 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), Snag Nakamura (34th 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), Seeder Howell (33rd Games)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)