13th Hunger Games
Winner: Alby District 10
As this was the 13th Hunger Games there was unrest in the Capitol as many did worry that this year's Games would be a disaster. 13 was an unlucky number in the Capitol – District 13 had been obliterated and no one liked to mention it so the number 13 was considered bad by even the least superstitious people in the Capitol. The Gamemakers knew that everyone was worried so decided to introduce something new to take everyone's mind off it. Why not have some specially designed animals in the arena to liven up the deaths a little? That meant that not all the deaths would be the same and it would be good entertainment for the Capitol to see the tributes running around, scared of theses created animals. Some of the Gamemakers wanted to create these killing machines straight away and put them in the next Games but the more experienced Gamemakers decided to wait. They'd experienced what would happen if they jumped in with a new idea without giving it enough thought. No, the best thing to do would be to create an animal that would give the tributes a fright and would attack if it was angered or annoyed, put them in the Games and see what happens. If they were a success, the idea could be used again and again and then maybe in a few years they could move onto killing machines. These new creatures were to be called mutts and they were kept secret from everyone to make it that more exciting when they were released.
Meanwhile the famine was over in the districts so the tributes this year were much healthier than last year. As usual, the tributes from Districts 1 and 2 were the tallest and the strongest, except for the boy tribute from District 10 who was 18 and was easily the strongest tribute there. His name was Alby and everyone was intimidated by him, except the girl from District 10 who knew what he was really like. Alby was one of the most gentlest people you could meet. He was very quiet and barely said anything during the interview but the Captiol loved him as he had shown his strength by getting a 9 in the individual evaluation which was highest score this year.
To accommodate the mutts, this years arena was fields with a small wood on one side. After the many arguments and sleepless nights, the Gamemakers decided on the mutts to resemble bulls. The bulls wouldn't go looking for tributes to kill but they would attack anything that got to close. They would be released after the bloodbath, one for each remaining tribute. The Gamemakers made sure that if the tributes stayed out of the way, the bulls wouldn't attack. They were only there to scare the tributes.
The 13th Hunger Games started off like every other Hunger Games. The gong went off and the bloodbath began between the strongest tributes over the Cornucopia. Everyone expected Alby to take a main part in this but he just ran to the Cornucopia, grabbed what he needed, which included an axe, and took off into the fields killing only one tribute who got in his way. After a few hours the bloodbath was over, the remaining tributes were settling in and no one in the Capitol suspected anything out of the ordinary. The Capitol watched anxiously, positive something was going to go wrong. To settle the nerves, the Gamemakers decided to release the mutts, 17 mutts for the remaining 17 tributes.
It was a huge surprise for everyone to see 17 bulls appear out of thin air before wandering off to graze in the fields. The Capitol was shocked- where had these animals come from? The tributes, some of which had never seen an animal that big before, were petrified. They not only had other tributes to worry about but now these creatures as well. Would they attack the tributes? Were they food? The tributes completely forgot about each other as they went to investigate these creatures.
There were many deaths over the next few days. Some tributes tried to kill the mutts for food and ended up being killed themselves. Some weren't bothered by the bulls and simply ignored them but were attacked when they got too close. The boy from District 6, having never seen an animal this big, tried to get on one and charge down the other tributes. He died before he even got on the bulls back. When the mutts had been released, there had been one mutt for every tribute. But as each tributes died, the mutt stayed so by the beginning of the third day, the tributes were greatly outnumbered.
Alby had stayed far away from the mutts. District 10 worked with animals so he knew what normal bulls were like and chose not to get involved with these specially created ones. This was probably the best tactic and he was pretty sure the girl from District 10 would've done the same if she hadn't been killed in the bloodbath. Alby was normally quite gentle so spent the first few days of the Games avoiding both mutts and tributes. However as the days went on, the number of tributes decreased meaning that there were now 2 mutts for every tribute and it was nearly impossible to avoid confrontation with the bulls as Alby found out. It was the night of the 5th day and he was trying to sleep in an empty field when he heard two of the mutts wander in through the gate. The mutts were now blocking the exit and he was only 20 metres away from them. If they saw him they would attack. Alby was going to die. But instead of just waiting there he got up and slowly walked towards them. He had seen the boy from District 6 die whilst trying to ride one of the bulls and it had given him an idea. He had worked with animals all his life and knew what they were like so maybe he would stand a better chance of taming them. He walked slowly over to the nearest bull which stamped its feet but didn't attack. Singing softly to calm the animals, Alby reached the bull and softly stroked its back. The bull completely forgot about attacking and allowed Alby to stroke it. This attracted the attention of the other bull and soon both were happily being stroked by Alby.
Alby continued to gain the trust of the mutts for the rest of the night and by morning, he was confident that he could get them to go and seek out the other tributes to attack them. He was right. The bulls went off to find the other tributes with Alby not far behind to encourage them and if he saw any other mutts as they went along, he would tame them too. In a matter of days, the bulls had killed everyone else and Alby was the victor.
The Gamemakers were in despair. They had made the mutts to kind and had allowed them to be used as a weapon by one of the tributes. The Capitol had still found it interesting and entertaining but the mutts had failed the Gamemakers. There weren't supposed to be killing machines but they weren't supposed to be tameable! Some suggested scrapping the idea of mutts completely but it had been a good idea. Maybe if the mutts were killing machines, then tributes wouldn't be able to get close enough to tame them. So the idea of killing machine mutts was born.