18th Hunger Games

Winner: Woof District 8

For the first time since the beginning of the Hunger Games, the 18th Hunger Games saw a past victor being related to one of the tributes chosen in the reaping. The past victor was Stork from District 8 who won the 10th Hunger Games and 8 years later, his brother Woof was reaped and of course Stork was now too old to volunteer for him. However, District 8 was reasonably confident that they could produce another victor as Woof had the same genes and upbringing from District 8's first victor. And who would be a better mentor for him than his brother? The Capitol lapped this story up and assumed that Woof would be one of the best tributes in the arena even before the training scores were released.

By the 18th Hunger Games, every district had a mentor and the tributes relied on their mentors to help them. For the past eight years, Stork had been the sole mentor for District 8 and he had done reasonably well but hadn't managed to guide a tribute to victory. But now he had to mentor his brother and obviously he would try anything to make sure his brother came out alive. The girl from District 8 knew that Stork would favour his brother and therefore chose to try and get through the Games alone knowing that her mentor would gladly see her die in order to save his brother. This, of course, wasn't fair but when had the Hunger Games ever been fair?

Woof excelled in the training and proved that he was probably going to turn out to be a stronger tribute than Stork as Stork hadn't been very good with weapons and had preferred to use snares. However Woof was pretty decent with nearly every single weapon and he caught the eye of the Gamemakers (who gave him an 8) and, most importantly, the other tributes.

As usual the tributes from District 1 and 2 were quite strong and they had formed a group together which would turn into an alliance once the Games started. Over the past few years, District 1 and 2 had produced the majority of strong tributes but they hadn't won as many times as they wanted to, owing to the arena tripping them up or other tributes outwitting them. This year was different. Normally the four tributes from District 1 and 2 kept together as a group until one or two of them died, no one else could join their little alliances, but this year the four tributes decided to ask Woof to join in an alliance with them. This was a great opportunity for Woof as he wouldn't have to go out into the arena without anyone to help him and he would have some protection, at least for as long as the alliance stayed together. So of course he accepted- even if he hadn't wanted to, Stork would've made him join them anyway.

The arena this year was created to make sure that this years Games were short and sweet. It was the Presidents twin sons 18th birthday just after the Games and the President didn't want the Capitol to not have time to prepare for the celebrations. So the arena was almost like a desert. It was a barren land that was covered a red dust with the occasional sand dune dotted here and there; unlike most arenas, there weren't even small bushes to hide away in. If you couldn't fight you were dead.

When the gong sounded, the bloodbath went into full swing as many tributes had realised there was nowhere to hide so they might as well fight and try and get their hands on some weapons. The tributes from District 1 and 2 along with Woof got through the bloodbath with only minor injuries but with an awful lot of blood on their hands. Stork was beside himself with joy- his brother had survived the bloodbath and was part of the team that would now go and kill all the other tributes; and the girl from District 8 was dead meaning he didn't have to look out for her anymore.

Meanwhile Woof was feeling pretty pleased, to say he was in the Hunger Games, as he knew that he was protected by the alliance, for now. However the time would come when he would have try and fight the tributes from District 1 and 2 if he wanted to survive. But what Woof didn't know was that Stork was determined that Woof would stay alive.

The rest of the Game went reasonably smoothly for the Gamemakers except from an angry outburst five days into the Games from one of the Presidents sons demanding that the Gamemakers hurry the games along because he was promised a televised interview on his ideas for his upcoming party. But all the Gamemakers could say to this was that they would make sure that the alliance didn't have any problems in eliminating the other tributes until they were the only five tributes left. So the alliance was able to kill at least eleven tributes before problems arose.

Now unlike the tributes from District 1 and District 2, Woof wasn't bloodthirsty but he had to kill so he wouldn't get kicked out of the alliance. Also he felt that he had to live up to his brothers reputation and make sure he wouldn't just be known as Stork's brother. So Woof was brutal and ruthless to the other tributes and he did it quite well. He would pierce tributes throats with arrows, their hearts with blades and smash their heads in with axes. But even after all this; Woof wouldn't stand a chance against the tributes from Districts 1 and 2. He was reasonably good but they were amazing. They just about ignored Woof but he preferred it that way, he'd rather not know the people that he would have to go against in a few days time. He knew which districts they came from and that was good enough for him – he'd always struggled with names anyway. And so when all the tributes had been killed, except for the alliance, he would break away and work out what to do next then. Maybe he could kill them in their sleep - that had worked for the winner of the 14th Games so it could work for him.

Woof wasn't the only one who knew that the alliance was coming to an end; Stork knew and was determined that Woof would win, whatever it took. But Woof just was now the weakest tribute out there concerning weaponry so he would have to try and outsmart the other tributes. Or he could always get a little help.

The whole of District 8 were behind Woof, he was by far their favourite tribute that had been reaped so Stork hoped they would be willing to help him in saving his brother.

Back in the arena, Woof had just killed another tribute- a strong 18 year old boy from District 9. That was it. There was only the alliance left now. Seconds after the cannon went off, the four other tributes turned on each other and Woof hoped he would be able to just slip away. No such luck. The girl from District 2 noticed his retreat and arrows began to rain down on Woof as he tried to get away. At this rate he was bound to get hit sooner or later. But if he went back he'd be heading towards his death. No Woof had to keep running. Suddenly in amidst the chaos and flying arrows, a faint tinkling sound came from above and a silver parachute landed in front of Woof. He had been sent a gift. Arrows were still raining down, but they weren't as often as the girl from District 2 was beginning to tire. This gave Woof time to open the parachute and read the message that his brother had sent him. It was a bomb! Stork had pratically had to find a loophole for nearly every rule in the book to send Woof this but he had. District 8 had contributed using some of Storks winnings and the rest was from sponsors. Stork had anticipated that Woof would make a run for it and he hoped that the other four tributes would stay close together so they could all be killed in the same explosion. Luckily for Woof they had.

Woof didn't have time to consider whether it was cheating if he wanted to stay alive. He grabbed the bomb and chucked it as hard as he could towards the four tributes praying that it wouldn't get struck by an arrow before it got there. Time seemed to stop as the whole of Panem watched the bomb fly through the air…

Boom!

Four cannons went off one after the other.

The bomb had worked. Woof was the victor.

The Capitol weren't happy with the use of the bomb but it was a little late now and Stork had made sure that there wasn't a rule that could be used against him. So the Gamemakers made a new rule – modern weapons weren't allowed in the arena.

But it didn't matter to Stork as his brother was alive and had won his own Hunger Games.

It would be nice to say that the brothers had a happy ending after that but sadly they didn't. In the explosion Woof had suffered an internal head injury after the force of the impact but he chose not to say anything. At first it didn't affect him except for bad headaches but as the years went on, his mental health deteriorated rapidly. Stork had helped his brother to survive but had neglected the other District 8 tribute to do so. The girl's family were mad with grief and chose to blame it on Stork for not doing everything he could to help her. Once the brothers returned to District 8, the girls family invited Stork round for a drink to show there were no hard feelings. They poisoned his cup and he died within days. There were never happy endings for the survivors of the Hunger Games.