The games are beginning at the end of this chapter! Next chapter is the bloodbath and the rest of the first day, and the countdown too! I enjoyed writing this chapter, especially the little fear/rage freak out Aalgae has at the end. Oh Aalgae, you crazy, weird lunatic. Also, other note, is Aalgae a Mary Sue? Feel free to give your honest opinion, because I'm worried! Also, if she is, tell me how to improve her.

Also, chapter-name-style-change now the Games have begun.

Disclaiming time!

I do not own the Hunger Games. Please, Suzanne Collins, don't sue me!

Please?

No, what do you mean it's my fault. I put a disclaimer!

I PUT A DISCLAIMER!

I forgot chapter 14? FORGIVE ME PLEASE!

NO, NOT THE MUTTS, DON'T RELEASE THE MUTTS! I'LL CHANGE IT! I PROMISE.

*Quick Edit*

Please don't sue me… *whimper*

Rising

When I wake up, I feel something hanging over me, and for a couple of seconds I remain blissfully ignorant. Then I remember.

Today is the day I die.

I walk out the room feeling so numb, you could probably stab me and I wouldn't feel a thing.

Then again, someone's probably planning that.

I try to wipe images of my body lying bloody and torn out of my mind, but it's a lot harder than it seems. I picture a 'happy place', like I was taught in Primary school once, after I punched Justine Finch unconscious. Now there's a nice thought. I reminisce about Justine falling as I punch her, after she called me fat, ugly, spoilt and told me that if I was reaped she hoped I survived the bloodbath so I could be tortured to death instead.

Lovely girl, that Justine.

I really should stuff my face now; I have no idea when I'll be able to eat again. If I eat again. My brain corrects for me.

Kai is also quite quiet, though he seems to be full of excitement rather than worry.

"Are you going to run to the Cornucopia Aal?" He asks, positively jumping with excitement.

I've only ever seen him like this once before, and that was before the private training sessions. That means, most likely, he's nervous again.

"No idea. I'll go with the flow of the moment" I say, as sarcastically as I can manage.

Kai rolls his eyes and begins to interrogate Lyna instead, who looks thoroughly pissed by the end of breakfast. After Kai asks her whether she thinks there'll be massive Cheese Mutts, she flips, toppling the bowl of soup all over Kai.

She then storms out the room, muttering ominously, though I only hear the words 'inferior' 'death' 'long and painful' before the door slams shut. The awkwardness that follows is unbearable, so

Hydrao says gawkily "Um… Have you finished eating?"

I nod in response, though I still take 2 more loaves of bread to eat on the way to the tube that will take me to the arena, after we've been transported there in the first place. Kai shakes his head, and proceeds to stuff himself full of the remaining food.

While he does this, I allow my mind to drift, thinking of the previous games. In the first game I remember - the 26th Hunger Games when I was 9 - was not a nice year. Well, maybe it was for the Capitol, nice and violent. Just the way they like it. The arena had been awful, an overgrown garden full of nettles and deadly plants. There had been no animal mutts that year, just these plant things, like the Venus fly trap that had legs, which wandered around the maze of a greenhouse, attacking all within reach. I shudder involuntarily as I remember watching the 13 year old slowly be digested by the monster. The bloodbath hadn't been that bad though, leaving about 6 dead, and only 1 more died that day. Sadly, the deaths racked up quickly, most succumbing to the plants or the humidity of the place, though some were killed by Careers.

I glance over at Kai. He wouldn't… Would he? The Careers on TV always looked so vicious, torturing those they caught after the initial few minutes of the game. I can't believe Kai would do that, not to another human being.

But all the other tributes must have been young, innocent children at one point, and at some point they must have stopped caring about others.

I can imagine Loki or Camulos torturing a 12 year old, and probably Copia too, but Kai? No, not him. I pray that I am right, and that I never see him doing something like that.

Somehow, the image of him killing doesn't make me nervous, angry or even sad. It just makes me fill with a feeling of resignation. Of course, people have to die, and if I have to live, I'll probably kill too. Kai opens his mouth to talk, through mouthfuls of chewed up, spit covered bread.

"Um weddy choo guo." He asks

I roll my eyes "English, please"

Another huge swallow, "I'm ready to go now."

Hydrao looks nervously at the door Lyna just vanished through, but decides against getting her. Either because he doesn't think that we need to say goodbye to her, or because he really, really, doesn't want to confront her. I can't hold it against him; I'd probably do the same thing too.

He confirms my belief when he says "You'll be OK without Lyna right?"

Without waiting for an answer he stands up and walks out the room.

Kai raises an eyebrow "I'm assuming that's the cue for us to leave."

I shrug, and stand up, and we walk out the door of floor 4, to take the lifts back down. Before the door closes, I turn to face the room. Goodbye obscenely blue room. I say silently. Thanks for being actually rather comfortable. Hope the next person to use my room likes the colour blue.

Then I turn around and follow Kai into the lifts for what will be the last time.

I'm on a Hovercraft.

We learnt about them in school. They tried to explain to us how they worked but no-one listened or paid any attention at all.

We weren't clever; we were from 4! Not 3 or one of the other clever Districts. We had people who wanted to go to the games to win and bring District 4 (and themselves) glory. How were idiots like that supposed to understand electromagnetism or the science behind levitation without the usage of blown air, superheated air, or magic? Seriously, when the teacher asked me how the Hovercraft worked, I told her it used elves blood. She didn't know how to take a joke. 1 month later and I was still in detention.

The worst bit was that Nymph understood it all perfectly and tried to explain to me, and I still didn't get it, even though Marlin kept rolling his eyes every time I said.

"But that doesn't explain how…"

I wish I could see them now, one more time before I die. I wish I had told Marlin how I feel,

I wish I had had my first kiss,

I wish I hadn't been so stupid all the way through school and above all,

I wish I hadn't been chosen for these games.

But I was, and I'm sitting next to Kai as the hovercraft rises through the air. I have the sudden urge to kiss him. Not because I feel any romantic attachment to him, on the contrary, I find him way too short, but I don't want to die like this, without having a kiss. I'm 17 for crying out loud! I'm getting… No, I would be getting married in a few years.

Now I'm never going to experience any of that. Not only has the Capitol robbed me of my life, it has also robbed me of my future.

A woman comes over, holding what looks like a massive needle; I really hope she's not going to stab that in my arm.

"This won't hurt" she tells me, pointing the needle at my right arm.

I consider telling her where I think she should shove the needle, but decide against it, and hold out my arm. Surprisingly, it doesn't hurt, sliding through my skin like a knife through butter. She presses the end of the needle and it makes a small 'bleep'. She withdraws it, and it makes a double 'bleep' and she moves over to Kai beside me. I look down at my arm, and to my surprise, see nothing but my slightly grey tinged skin, unblemished.

I look up and ask the woman "What was that?"

She misunderstands my question, and instead of telling me how she managed to stab me in the bloody arm without leaving a mark, she tells me what the injection was.

"Tracker, we don't want to lose you in the Arena!" she says cheerfully

I shiver, imagining a small, metal instrument floating around my body, getting stuck in my arteries. I try to push those images out of my head; I don't need any other gory thoughts getting stuck in my head right now.

When we land, we are escorted to our respective rooms by peacekeepers, though I think everyone is too nervous or excited to do anything. The excited ones would be Kai, Copia and the two ogres.

The two ogres' real names are Loki and Camulos, but I think 'ogres' suits them better. Dull, muscly and violent, they seem to live to serve Copia, who seems to be pretending to date both of them at once. I look over at her now, and see that she is hanging off one of the two, who is grinning dimly. The other one is standing several feet away, watching with a stupid smile on his face, like he doesn't even understand what's going on, that Copia is cheating on him before his very eyes! Copia now nibbles his ear, and I look away, disgusted. I'm not sure if it's worse that she's cheating, or that she seems to be eating her boyfriends whole!

I walk away, and Kai catches my expression, and mimes passionately kissing an imaginary woman. I laugh out loud, and give him a smile. He waves to me, and I wave back. I am just about to enter my room when I realise I haven't said goodbye. I turn round and call to Kai's retreating back.

The last thing I say to him is "Do you promise not to kill me?"

Kai turns round, grins and shouts back to me "Practice what you preach, and I'll see what I can do!"

He then walks away. I enter the room, and let the door to my room slams shut and I turn around, hoping for a couple of minutes silence and planning before I enter the Games. I turn around in time to see the one person I really don't want to spend my final minutes with…

Stuck in a room for what could possibly be the last 10 minutes of my life, with Junia Ketta, otherwise known as the worst stylist in the universe…

What did I do to get sent to this hell?

Or more precisely, what am I going to do?

I stare aimlessly at the wall behind Junia's head, determined not to talk to her. She stands by the door, still not entering. She still remembers the last time we met, and the puke related insults we shared. Well, when I say shared…

I wonder whether, considering my new found image, she feels she had a lucky escape.

I sort of wish she was right, and I spend 5 of the last 10 minutes of my life happily picturing Junia dying from drowning in her own puke.

This only keeps my mind off what's going to happen for a short period of time, and I realise I should probably be thinking tactics now, I don't even know if I'm going to run for the Cornucopia at the moment!

"Come over here" I only just hear the small voice coming from the door.

Junia.

I come over, to see the clothes I will wear in the games. Thin, drabs of clothes, a long (blue), cotton tank top is laid out on the top. That will provide no protection for my arms, and I doubt cotton is good body armour either. I realise that it is not all blue, thankfully, blue isn't the best protective material. I assume 12 will get black, and 2 will get brown, though the other District's colours I do not know.

Along the edges are green patches, which don't appear to be sown on, or joined in any way. I rip off my top, not caring that Junia is in the room, and pull the tank top over my head. It's baggy, so it's probably going to be hot in the Arena.

Hopefully an island. With lots of clear, blue ocean.

Beneath the top is a pair of black shorts, also cotton, which should reach around half-way between my hips and my knees. I scowl. I hate shorts, especially the stupidly short ones. I never wear anything less than knee high!

The shoes are last, and these I like. Thick trainers, with nice squishy soles. When I put them on, I can imagine jumping high, out the Arena and to safety. Flying high in the air. I once again get the vivid image of Kai smiling. I shake my head, I still can't remember where that image came from, and if I think of it, it'll just drive me crazy.

There are still some things left on the table, including a hair tie (not that I need it! My hair's too short to tie up! That's probably a positive, as I won't have to worry about it blowing in my face and obscuring my vision. As well as this, it means one less part of my body which someone chasing me can reach out and grab.)

I take the hair tie anyway, and attempt to tie my hair up. The result is a ponytail around 1 inch long, containing about a third of my hair, while the rest is still hanging by my ears. I might be able to make a trap out of it, or flick someone with it from a distance!

Once again my memory takes me back to school, and flicking elastic bands at the teacher while she wasn't looking. A great wave of sadness overcomes me, and I've heard enough from the crazed old man who sits by the pier to know that what I am currently experiencing is nostalgia. And here I was thinking you couldn't experience nostalgia unless you were at least 60 years old! I smile ruefully and turn to Junia, I should apologise really for shouting all those insults.

I turn to the door and say "Junia I…"

I look around. Where the hell has she got to? I whirl around, checking she's not hiding in a corner somewhere. She's not though, and she's definitely not in the room any more.

The door slams beside me, and I realise that Junia must have left the room.

The bastard. I think, furiously. And I was going to apologise to her! I was right to call her those things! Leaving me here alone! I kick the table the clothes were on, hard. I feel a smirk cross my face as a splintering sound wrenches through the air.

I need to calm down; I don't want to be making stupid decisions while in the Arena. In the Arena, stupid decisions tend to be the last decision you ever make.

Taking deep, calming breaths, I close my eyes and try to think of an idyllic place, a nice river, lazily bobbing past the river bank where ducks are happily chirping as a fish flies by, flapping it's fins lazily in the…

Kill. Me. Now.

I open my eyes and to my surprise see the table before me splintered more; my subconscious must have been so pissed off at the cheesiness of my daydream that it subconsciously lashed out.

Oh well, if my subconscious decides the best thing for me to do in my last few minutes is to kick a table, who am I to disagree?

I draw my leg back and slam it into the table leg, hard. It groans under the strain, beginning to crack.

THAT'S RIGHT! TRY TO SEND ME TO. MY. DEATH?

I punctuate each word with a kick, and with a final death cry, the table leg snaps, collapsing into a pile on the floor.

I look at it, panting slowly. I remember something. I am the only person, tribute to ever use this room, so this table will remain broken forever. I smile as I imagine the tour guide coming round, showing the Capitol idiots this room, telling them about the half-crazy girl from 4, who smashed the room up before she left and smeared her face with blood in the opening ceremonies.

Well, I think better make an effort if the precious people at the Capitol are going to see this.

I grab the lamp from the side, and hold it by the ornate crystal bottom. With all the force I can muster, I swing it hard at the tube that I will use to enter the games. As I suspected, not glass but plastic. The tube isn't glass. The lamp, however, is and it shatters loudly, cascading shards all over the floor. I laugh, looking at the destruction I have caused. A voice from the speaker overhead informs me I have 3 minutes of life left.

Better go quicker then, won't I?

I look around wildly, for something else to break. I grab the chair Junia sat on and slam it into the wall, scraping off some of the blue paint, and leaving a 2 inch wide scar on the wall where the leg hit. I try again, harder now, and delight in the sound of the 'crack' which accompanies the chair leg flying off and spinning to the other side of the room with a clatter.

The room's too bare; they don't want tributes taking anything extra with them, though I could probably take a shard of the glass with me. I decide against it. If the Gamemakers decide it's wrong, they'll just kill me in the most evil way they can think of. Which tends to be pretty evil.

Now nothing is left for me to destroy, but at least I don't feel angry any more.

I feel full of adrenaline.

"1 minute. Tributes please enter the tube." The intercom drones.

I look at it, and for one second, I think about just running, out and away, not going to the games. But it's a stupid idea; they'll just catch me, where can I run to? I'm only the most famous tribute in this game!

"30 seconds. Please escort the remaining tributes to the tube for evacuation."

That makes me sound like some sort of diarrhoea, 'evacuate'. I edge one step closer to the tube, nervous to enter, in case it just gases me to death. But that's a stupid thought, there's no fun in gassing the tributes to death, we all know the Capitol could kill us all in an instant if they really wanted to,

"15 seconds. If you do not enter the tube within 5 seconds, peacekeepers will be sent to your room"

Ah. That was probably a message to me; I look up and see a small security camera. I give it a cheery wave and walk over to the tube and stand in it.

"10 seconds, please stand back from the edge of the doors."

Yeah, don't want us getting hurt, do you? Don't want us to ruin your fun, do you?

The doors begin to slide shut, and I feel my heart doing a kind of mad drumroll against my ribs, throwing itself bodily against my chest, in a pitiful attempt to escape this prison of a body. My brain seems to be shutting down, if anything. I can feel time slowing down around me. 10 seconds? That announcement was ages ago. Maybe, maybe they've stopped the games, maybe I can go…

That's when the tube slowly starts to rise. So slowly, I'm sure they're doing it on purpose, to raise the tension levels and make us even more stressed then we already are. I hear the intercom counting down, a second a minute. I clutch my wrist, frantically turning the seaweed bracelet that is my token in the vain hope that it will save me.

5

It can't be 5 seconds since the doors closed? That was years ago! I grew up in those 5 seconds, grew more mature. Too old, I'm too old for the games now! Please!

4

Maybe they picked the wrong name! Maybe it was Nymph, it was Nymph, they chose her brother didn't they? Maybe the Capitol wanted them together, and I was picked by accident! That's what happened! I need to tell someone.

3

It wasn't me, It wasn't me. It wasn't me.It wasn't me.IT WASN'T ME!

2

They must know? They have to know! They're going to come and save me now, they are going to save me and send someone else, I can't be in the games, I can't, the doors are stopping my escape and I can see the ground fall slowly. No, no, no, no, no, no…

1

The earth is level with my hips now, and I'm too blinded by the sun to properly look around and take in my surroundings. Don't fall off, Don't fall off. My brain replies madly. Despite my anger and fear, I don't want to die that way, falling off a plinth into a bed of explosives.

0

Cladius Templesmith's booming voice rings through the Arena, making my blood turn to ice in my veins.

"LET THE 34TH HUNGER GAMES BEGIN!"

The light has gone now, and I begin to squint around my surroundings as he shouts those words.

The first thing I see is straight in front of me, behind the Cornucopia.

I smile.

That makes things easier.