Rose Griffin

Daughter of Demeter

I'm not proud of how I won my games, but it was necessary to get home to my Nana, I was her only family left after my dad and mom (well, my mortal mom) died in a car crash and Grampa died of cancer before I was born, dad was her only child and my mortal mom was an orphan. So dying and leaving her with no one was not an option. Anyway, back to the games.

A 12-year-old was reaped and I was 18 so I had to volunteer, she only got to camp a week before, so she had absolutely no experience with weapons, magic or the games at all and I made a 20-foot-tall apple tree grow in 10 seconds when I was 13.

The bloodbath was really gory. The Athena girls token was a bead bracelet, and during the 60 second countdown, the started throwing beads at the ground around the other tributes pedestals, detonating the landmines. She blew up both from Ares, the boy from Zeus, the Artemis girl and my cabin partner Michael before she dropped a bead and blew herself up. when the gong rang out, only 5 people ran into the cornucopia (myself included) while the others were looking at the innards, dismembered limbs and blood splattered everywhere. I got an axe, some knives and 2 packs, before getting the fuck out of there.

14 kids died in the bloodbath. After running for a good hour into the rainforest, I stopped to rest and examine my packs. I got some ambrosia, a canteen of water, a sleeping bag, crackers, dried fruit, matches and a very light rain jacket with lots of pockets, perfect for a tropical rainforest.

I slept in trees and concealed myself by growing more branches, leaves and vines from the tree. Another canon went off around 2 a.m. and I only then realised that in 1 more death, I would be in the final 8 with only 3 careers and I don't have to deal with having to kill a cabin partner, thank you Athena girl.

4 days later no one had died and Olympus was getting bored, there had been a huge storm, 2 earthquakes and a hellhound attack and we all survived, but I guess it was the 33rd Olympian games and demigods were fast learners and natural survivors, so we all knew what to do, but I knew it was just a matter of time until they just decided to force us all together. I decided I had to start fighting and stop hiding.

I went hunting at dawn, and quickly found the Hermes guy. He charged me had on with 2 swords, but we were in a rainforest full of plants and trees, that was my territory. I summoned the tree roots to trip him up, and then the vines to tie him up and lift him off the ground, he kept fighting and hacking at the vines but they grew faster than he cut. I had him hanging by his wrists 2 feet off the ground and continued to tie him up and restrain him and once he was unable to move I strolled up to him and stabbed him in the neck.

That was pretty much my tactic from then on. Rest and travel in the trees, find people, use plants to restrain them, drop down from the tree and kill them. I even killed the remaining careers by trapping and strangling them with tree roots. One time, I summoned a giant Venus fly trap that ate one guy whole. It was both gruesome and awesome at the same time.

When it came down to the finale I had 7 kills under my belt and I had only gotten a 5 in training. The last guy I had to kill was the Apollo dude, he stood out in the open next to the cornucopia with his bow loaded ready to kill me when I came through the trees. He knew who I was and what I could do, he saw me wrap the Aphrodite girl in poison-tipped-thorny vine a few days before, and barely escaped me, so he knew not to go near the trees, and I couldn't grow anything at his feet without getting closer and being out in the open, basically waving a flag that said "you can kill me if you wanna,". So we both stayed put where we had the upper hand, waiting for the other to get close enough.

He didn't know where I was, and I couldn't get close enough to kill him. We were at a stalemate. But all of a fucking sudden, there was a GIANT FUCKING HURRICANE (Fuck you Poseidon) that destroyed 11 12ths of the rainforest surrounding the cornucopia field, the FUCKING GODS had practically shown him where I was, leaving only the part of the rainforest I was in in. He thought that meant that that the gods wanted him to win, and were showing him where I was. But he didn't realise that they were just levelling the playing field because I had an entire rainforest of ways to kill him surrounding him, and he only had a measly bow and arrow.

He made the mistake of slowly walking towards my remaining part of the rainforest with his bow loaded, thinking I would have been weakened, but he was wrong, as soon as he got close enough, I summoned all of the remaining vines to stretch out and grab him, and drag him into the middle of the mini-forest and release him, I would have strangled him, but I knew that Olympus wanted a fight, and a fight they would get.

As soon as he had stood up, I jumped down from a tree, axe in my right hand and dagger in my left and said "We're doin this fairly, regular combat. No powers, agreed?". " Agreed" he replied, and the battle commenced. He was fair, and used a sword instead of a bow and arrow, because all Apollo kids are naturally gifted with those, so it kind of counted as a special ability.

I jabbed, he dodged.

He slashed, I rolled.

I swung, he deflected.

This went on for a while until I had had enough, and the pain where he slashed my shoulder was getting too bad to bear. So I broke the deal, I used my powers.

I slashed my axe upwards (like an uppercut, but with an axe in your hand) and he dodged, and took a step back. As he did, I made a tree root under his foot lift a centimetre up and tripped him.

I saw in the replay of the games that you wouldn't have even known that I did it if it hadn't been pointed out to you, it looked like he was just unlucky enough to trip at the wrong time. And was decapitated by the girl from Demeter…

That's why I'm not proud of how I won, I lied and cheated and broke a deal because I wasn't brave enough to finish a fight fair and square. And the worst part is, no one ever found out, not even my mother saw the root move, so I lived a life of lies and an undeserved victory.

Every day I think, I would rather to have died fighting, than to have won cheating.

There you go, those were my games. I'm now 23, I will never marry or have kids, I turned to alcohol, drugs and have tons and tons of sex with random guys to try and ease the guilt…. I'll tell you if it ever starts working.