15th Hunger Games

Winner: Shey District 5

Up until now, the victors of the Hunger Games had nearly all been strong or quick and the ones that hadn't had all had a new-found talent with weapons. Yes not all of the victors had been favourites to win and some had been underestimated by the Capitol, but they all stood a chance once they had proved themselves to be capable of surviving. But this year was different. This year there was even doubt over whether the victor should be allowed to compete at all.

The reaping went ahead as normal and there was a variety of tributes picked this year, but the boys generally looked much stronger than the girls as nearly all the girls this year were under 15; apart from this the Capitol was satisfied with the tributes until they replayed the reapings that night. Something wasn't right in District 5.

When Shey's name was called out, she took her place quietly and let the escort do all the talking. Then she was taken to the station and that was the last anyone saw of her at the reapings. However when the reapings were replayed that night in the Capitol, quite a few people noticed that Shey was being prompted into doing things by the boy tribute and she was prompted to go on stage by the other girls when her name was called. It was revealed that Shey was deaf. She hadn't told anyone as her family was poor and she needed to work and get money for them and the Capitol wouldn't let her work if they found out she couldn't hear anything. So when her name was called out the rest of District 5 tried to help her keep her secret so her family wouldn't get in trouble for sending her to work.

The Capitol was in disarray. Should they let her compete? Should they punish her family? Would she be able to get through the training, the interview and the Games themselves? Whatever the Gamemakers did would be all over the media so they had to be careful not to upset the Capitol. It was decided that they would let her compete and that would be punishment enough for her family- she would probably die anyway. So Shey spent her time in training working in silence, no one tried to be friends with her or communicate with her at all. During the interview, Shey came on with the boy from District 5 who knew her reasonably well, and he helped her get through the interview. The Capitol weren't too sure if they loved her or hated her but she had definitely made an impression.

The arena this year was a huge reservoir with a dam at the end of it. The dam could be used as a strategic point if there was a tribute daring enough to try and climb it. The Cornucopia was situated in the middle of the reservoir so you would have to be able to swim if you wanted to do anything during these Games. Any food and water would come from the reservoir and there was barely any dry land in the whole arena.

When the gong sounded the tributes set off and the prediction that this year the girls were weaker than the boys came true, nearly all the tributes that died in the bloodbath were girls. However Shey survived as no on seemed to take any notice of her and she swam away to the dam. Hours passed and Shey kept swimming away from the Cornucopia determined to reach the dam. She was alone- there were no alliances this year and no one had offered the hand of friendship. It took Shey 4 hours to reach the dam as she had stopped to catch some fish and she wasn't a particularly strong swimmer. But she made it and now intended to climb the dam.

Meanwhile many of the other tributes had also had the same idea to try and reach the dam so after the bloodbath, quite a few of the other tributes set off after Shey to climb the dam themselves. It was so tall that if you had the right weapons, you could just pick everyone off. Everyone wanted to get to the top first.

But the dam was hard to climb, it was much steeper than any of the tributes had anticipated and with no real footholes it was nearly impossible. One by one, they began to drop off deciding that they'd have better look on ground; of course some tributes did fall to their deaths which encouraged many to stop trying. But one tribute managed to make it to the top. That tribute was Shey.

It had taken Shey hours to do it but she had managed to get to the top of the dam. Now she was able to see all the other tributes and kill any that were still climbing the wall. She had picked up an spear from the Cornucopia on the way out so she could potentially kill anyone that got to the top. However Shey didn't do any of those things- she didn't seem concerned about the threat of other tributes at all. Instead she walked back and forth for hours seemingly looking for something.

By now it was the third day of the Games and the Capitol had chosen their favourites out of the stronger tributes that were left, predictably from District 1 and 2. Everyone had forgotten about Shey and only two other tributes had made the top at the wall, only to take part in a three-way battle including Shey, in which the other two tributes had fallen to their deaths. Although she had proven to be handy with a spear, Shey still continued to search for something along the top of the dam and it was on the third day when she found it.

The dam held back a torrential amount of water which would easily fill the arena and drown any tributes but the Capitol weren't intending to use it as a killing machine; they wanted the tributes to climb up it and kill each other. To make it fair to all the tributes, the dam was built differently to the ones in District 5 so the District 5 tributes wouldn't know anything about the dam. At first Shey only wanted to get to the top so she could see the rest of the tributes but when she got to the top she found that she could use the actual dam to her advantage. Shey realised that whilst the dam was completely different to the one she worked with, it might have the same design flaw- a chink in the dam's armour that could destroy it. So of course Shey decided to try and find it. Once she found the miniscule opening on the side of the dam she stuck her spear in it and tried to dig the spear right into the dam where she could hopefully break it. She worked for hours, digging the spear into the heart of the dam and eventually, in the middle of the day, a distance rumbling told her she had done her job. Shey hoped that if she ran right to the edge of the dam, that the explosion of water coming through would not destroy the whole thing. She reached the very edge and crouched there, waiting…

Boom!

The dam broke away in the centre letting thousands of gallons of water rush through onto the remaining tributes hunting in the reservoir. They didn't stand a chance.

Within five minutes a half-drowned Shey was crowned the victor.

The Capitol were quite pleased with this outcome. The public loved the idea that Shey, who might not have even competed, had won the Games. The Capitol also knew to fix the design flaw in the dam in District 5, just in case anyone had the smart idea to destroy it. Most importantly, in the rebellion against the Capitol 60 years later, the rebels in District 5 came up with the idea to bomb the dam from Shey, who by then was nearly 80. She lived to see the Capitol be overthrown and got to know that she had a part in it.

Authors Note: Hi I know that in the book, the bombing of the dam in District 5 was never actually mentioned but I thought I'd include it anyway even though I'm trying to base this story more on the books than the films. xxx