Title: Trenches
Written For Caesar's Palace Claw Machine Challenge (Sour Candy - words: bellicose, drag, addiction)
697 words of actual story
Hunger Games
Pairing(s): None
Short Story
Dagan Hartfield and Silo McIlroy sit in the hurriedly dug trench, hands wrapped tightly around their rifles. They peer over the edge of the trench like many of the others, looking around at the empty, muddy plain around them. The field had once been a barley field, but the rebels had razed it in rebellion several months ago, when District 13 led the charge against the oppressive Capitol. Things seemed to be going swell at that point. District 13 had claimed all of the other Districts excepting 1, 2, and 4, who remained loyal to the Capitol instead. The tide was turning; the revolution was in full swing.
Five months later: Districts 3, 5, and 12 have dropped to the Capitol, while 6, 8, and 9 itself are days away from surrendering. Only 7, 10, and 13 remain independent, really, and Districts 7 and 10 are only still with a majority of their population because they are the biggest Districts, and their people and rebels are spread thin, so it is hard to kill and capture them. Even District 13 is caving. The rebellion is failing, falling face first into the mud.
Of course, Dagan Hartfield and Silo McIlroy don't know this. In fact, they've been lied to, told that 3, 5, and 12 are still under rebel control, that 6 and 8 are flourishing in battle, that if they'd just shoot their goddamn rifles a little better, District 9 would be flourishing, too.
They don't hear the far off rumbles of the hovercraft that are gliding over the town of Flourbrooke seven miles away. Even Dagan, who has the sharpest eyesight in the entire company, cannot see the smoke rising from the razed village as all two hundred and sixteen of its residents are either slaughtered or captured. They don't hear the pleading screams or the crackling of the flames as the wooden huts collapse and the fire spreads to the village's small barley and wheat fields. Dagan cannot see, either, that the hovercraft fleet is now changing directions, leaving behind over two hundred corpses. Dagan cannot see that the hovercraft fleet is heading straight towards them, with revolutionary cloaking devices turned on. They are nearly invisible. The trench won't even see the attack until it's literally in their faces, burning and spitting and consuming them, blasting them to smithereens.
Dagan, age 17, watches with discontent as his 39 year old "battle buddy", Silo, takes a drag from his cigarette. Silo lets the smoke pour out of his mouth in a slow stream, watching as it fades, intermixing with the smoke in the air from the war.
"You know those things can kill you," Dagan whispers as he adjusts the strap of his rifle.
"You know you could learn to shut up while a man's enjoying his last cigarette," Silo hisses back.
"The last?"
"Well, Surley's got another pack, so surely I can get some from him."
"Surley died in the last attack, jackass."
"Oh yeah. Did anyone grab his pack?"
"I did," a fellow smoking addict, Wheaton Chamberlain, speaks up from several feet away. Dagan shoots him a disgusted, pissed off look, and Wheaton shuts up.
"Well, give me one when ya gotta moment. This one's going out and I don't have anymore matches. I'll need to chainsmoke."
"You're disgusting."
"You wanna pick a fight, boy? This old 'addict' can handle himself against a scrawny 17 year old chap like you."
Dagan began to speak up in his defense, but then they all noticed a strange shimmer in the air. The hovercrafts had arrived, and the lead one had broken through its cloaking device to extend its firing cannons. Wheaton Chamberlain quickly set off the alarm, but it was too late. The bombs had already been fired, and the trench was consumed in moments, every single one of the seventy four freedom fighters inside it torched to death in milliseconds. There was enough fire to light a thousand of Silo McIlroy's cigarettes. Sadly for him, he was just a lumpy pile of ash on the muddy trench floor.