Way five: Be a career.

This is one of (if not) the shortest Game ever, only lasting 31 hours.

This chapter is to no one in particular.

Btw Maia,

Pharah is better than Lucio. :D

Hunter, 18

district 4 male for the 234th Hunger Games

Day 1, 24 tributes remaining

My heart was beating faster and louder. I could hear it in my head. I was nervous, my palms were sweating. I told myself it was ok to be nervous even if you are a career. The other careers were scattered around in the circle. We were with seven kids: two from one, two and four and an extra one from seven. We let her join because of her strength. But Marcus, the boy from one, was already looking at her with a sparkle of bloodthirstiness in his eyes. He knew it would be an easy kill. But he also knew it was good to keep someone around who could guard the cornucopia. I took a second look at the arena, or what I could see. The big stone mountains still circled the cornucopia like stone walls, with just one tunnel as exit. The outliers had to climb over the mountains or get out via the tunnel. Climbing would slow them down what meant I had time to pick up a bow and shoot. The large pack combined with the hard to get out bloodbath would mean a big bloodbath.

The small wind blew the dust from the ground into the air. After the countdown I leaped of my platform and ran to the weapon rack. I scooped up arrows and the longbow, it was silver and looked like the one from the academy. Satisfied I quickly ran to the outside and climbed the cornucopia. It was a few meters of the ground, but I was a good climber. In under a minute I was ready to shoot. I looked for a target and saw a girl desperately trying to climb the mountain to get away. My first arrow landed next to her waist. You just have to get a feeling of the bow I said to myself. The next arrow pinned the girl's arm to the mountain. She screamed from pain while I put a new arrow from my quilver onto my bow. The arrow landed in her neck. I looked around for another target and found a boy who was close to the edge of the mountain. He turned around and looked into my eyes. My next arrow landed in his leg and my last one in his stomach, he fell to the ground and didn't get back up again. The bloodbath was over before I had the time to pick another target. Ten cannons rang one after another.

The pack grouped up and we formed two pairs and a trio. A pair and the trio would hunt and the duo would stay back and look through the stuff. Marcus tried to steal the role of being the leader from Lana, my district partner. But Lana just spoke through his words louder.

"Hunter will join me, we will form a duo to hunt." Lana said.

I had no choice but I was fine with Lana as partner. She was one of the best tributes the academy ever had. She was confident and strong but I knew her weakness. She wanted to do things to fast. I walked away from the group because I already knew my duo and didn't feel the need to listen to the others arguing. My eyes fell on a small bow, a good knife and another quiver full of arrows. I took them all and sat down with my back to the cornucopia, waiting for the argument to finish. There were just seven outliers we had to hunt down before we could finish each other. Lana came up to me and offered me a hand to get up.

"Ready?" she asked.

I snatched a random backpack from the ground.

"Ready." I told her with a smile.

She started running and I followed her. While running her black hair went up and down. It was in a ponytail like most girl tributes had. We started jogging instead of running when we were out of the tunnel and took a right. The rest of the arena was just various hills and tiny mountains surrounding the big one in the center. The thought came to my mind that the big one was actually a volcano with the cornucopia standing in the pit. Yeah I was pretty sure it was a volcano.

"Just seven outliers left." Lana said and I understood were she was going.

"Jup." I answered.

"The pack will break up soon, even tho it's day one." She told me. I nodded in response

"Do you want to form a little alliance for after and during the break up?" She asked.

"Yes" I answered without hesitation, knowing a bow wasn't the strongest weapon in the breakup. I wasn't scared or certainly dead but it was nice to have the strongest opponent as your ally. I could take Marcus in a melee battle with just a knife, but Lana was stronger. She would destroy me close range.

While walking Lana told me about her kills in the bloodbath. She talked like a kid who was showing her drawing proudly to her mother. I laughed, some careers went in for killing. I didn't. I went into the Games for the money. Back in four I lived on the streets, my parents dumped me there as a little kid. I fished and hunted to survive so people call me Hunter. I wasn't allowed to hunt but no one completely followed the rules in district four. When I was nine I was scouted by the academy and I had trained ever since. Almost all the others on the academy didn't accept me. They thought I wasn't a real career because I wasn't rich like most of their parents. Luckily I was accepted by some kids. Lana was one of them but she was friends with the kids that hated me.

We walked over all the hills varying from green and grassy to gray and rocky. It was tiring but not tiring enough to drag me down. Lana wasn't the greatest company for most people, not being very talkative, but for me it was fine. We had walked for more than an hour when I saw water streaming down a rocky side of a hill. We started following the river hoping to spot tributes. A boy wanted to survive another day and was simply drinking some water when I saw him. I porred Lana with my elbow and pointed at him with my fat fingers. I grabbed my bow and put an arrow on the rope. After the rope was pulled back by my muscular arms the arrow flew through the air so fast it looked like a stripe. Right at the boy. The gray stripe flew through the air and stopped in the boy's shoulder where it became the arrow again. The boy dropped his bottle into the water with a scream and the water slowly carried it away. Lana rushed forward so it was impossible for me to shoot at the boy without hitting her. Irritated I waited. About twenty seconds later the boy's cannon sounded and Lana returned to me.

"Nice shot" Lana said.

"Thanks." I responded while thinking of a way to compliment her that wasn't cruel.

"Nice finish" I finally decided to say.

While pausing we heard another cannon rang. I jumped up from the logg we were sitting on. Lana laughed at me. I had never heard her laugh. It was nice but a bit hysterical.

"Now that you're standing we can move." She said with a big smile.

"Yeah, yeah lets go." I said distracted by the thought there were probably just five outliers left.

We walked some more and my legs were starting to hurt. We hadn't had much luck when it came to finding outliers. I started thinking of home, I pictured the lake I washed myself in every day. I saw the blue water and the desire to swim in their grew. When I swam I felt free, I felt like I could fly. My beautiful fantasies ended when Lana spotted another tribute. We dropped into the bushes and I span an arrow. I fired it left to the tribute where it landed in a rock and Lana snuck to the right. The outlier, probably a girl, ran to the right and I fired another arrow, this time I tried to hit. The arrow just missed the girl by a few centimeters. Lana jumped out from behind the tree where the girl wanted to go to. Before Lana could strike my first arrow already cut through the girl's throat. The cannon sounded. Four left I thought.

We arrived at the cornucopia when the sun was just above the horizon. The girl from two, whose name I forgot, had stayed back in camp with Cassy, the district seven female. I wondered why Cassy hadn't ran away. She would be the first and an easy target in the breakup of the career pack. I wondered if she wasn't smart enough. The girl from two ran to Lana shouting angrily about stupid things. I walked away sloughing with my shoes through the layer of dust and climbed the cornucopia again. I laid down and within seconds my thoughts were far away from the argument I had just ran away from.

Another cannon rang that night.

Lana Pufferfish, 18

district 4 female

day 2, 10 tributes remaining

I went through my enemies one by one:

Marcus wasn't a huge problem.

Hunter was only a problem on range.

Cassy wasn't a problem.

James, from two, was a problem, he was strong and had a melee weapon.

The girl from two was no big deal.

Claire, the girl from one, was a good fighter and would be interesting.

I came to the conclusion it wouldn't be hard. The fights would be predictable, the only unpredictable one being Hunter.

I woke up expecting to see no more Cassy but she was still there. I knew that would be her death. I thought of a plan, if we, Hunter and I, went out to hunt we had to come back through the tunnel what was a major disadvantage. If we stayed back the others might not be able to kill the remaining three tributes quick enough to what I liked. Then I thought of a better plan, we would go out to hunt and come back over the mountain.

"Hunter and me will hunt together again. Claire and Cassy will stay here while Marcus, James and you, I pointed to the girl will hunt."

They looked at me irritated by being bossed around. I didn't care. This strategy would be game winning. We went out, running this time. Hunter followed a few meters behind me carrying his bow. He was a weird boy, being from the streets AND picking the bow as weapon. No career liked bows as only weapon. You could only fight from a big range. If someone chose the bow he would also certainly pick a sword or axe. Hunter just used knives. This was the reason people underestimated him, bows and knives. But I knew better. After training with him for years I knew the boy was a master at knife fighting. He was able to dual most sword users.

The group had agreed that we would go back to the river and the trio would go back to the lake they had found. When we arrived at the river, an hour later than expected, we followed down the river. After quite some time I saw a boy in a tree at the opposite side of the river. I wasn't going to wait on Hunter's arrows this time and rushed forward. I ran straight through the water and climbed the tree extremely fast. The boy sat on a thick branch and looked at me scared for his life. I closed the distance between us and noticed that my sword was in my belt so I couldn't get it out without getting beaten up. The boy punched me in the face. I screamed and grabbed his arms with all my strength. I pushed him of the branch and he made a two meter drop to the ground. I grabbed my sword and dropped out of the tree with the blade of my sword down. The cannon sounded and I retrieved my sword out of the bloody corpse. I turned around and met the blue eyes of Hunter. He was cool. He had black somewhat long hair and a serious face. He was tall and had a muscular build.

We walked for another hour when three cannons sounded. Three.. that was one career and all outliers. Hunter turned around and started running back to the cornucopia. I followed him and told him about my plan almost out of breath. He thought it was a good plan and we ran to the mountain, on the opposite side than the tunnel. My breath was heavy from the running and climbing when we arrived at the edge. But I was extremely happy! My chances on winning the Games were extremely high. A connon rang. I started running down the mountainside and saw Marcus, James and Claire fighting next to them was the body of Cassy. I looked over my shoulder to see Hunter following me down the mountainside. With my sword ready I rushed into the battle. James was wielding an axe, Marcus a mace and Claire a sword. An arrow landed in James's leg, Hunter knew who the strongest opponent was. Marcus landed his mace on James's head. James fell to the ground. I stabbed at Claire and made a cut in her arm. She swung back but I dodged. By swinging she let her guard down and Marcus took the opportunity to strike. The mace landed on her cheekbone and I heard it crack. An arrow flew past my head. I jumped from surprise that he betrayed me. But I quickly recovered and finished Claire. Her cannon rang. Marcus walked to me holding his mace in his right hand. James tried to get up and with his last strength he threw his axe, that landed in Marcus's back who wasn't suspecting a thing. Arrows flew around my head and one hit me in the leg. I stabbed Marcus in his stomach so the blood streamed out. I took a knife from my belt and threw it at James but missed. Hunter dropped down from the mountainside and pulled out a knife. I was hurt on my head but tried to neglect it. Hunter ran to James, who was still on the ground, with the knife. James suddenly grabbed a knife from his pocket and stabbed Hunter in the stomach. Hunter collapsed but quickly recovered and punched James in the face. Hard.

He pulled down James's head and cut through his throat. I just recovered and sprinted to Hunter, who was still kneeling next to James. He stood up with his back turned to me and his hands covering the wound. I saw his blood dripping on the floor.

"I'm sorry it has to end like this." I whispered loud enough for him to hear. I knew he was hurt.

I approached him and swung my sword to his head. Suddenly he turned around, ducked to avoid my blade and with one swing he slashed through my throat.

"Jonathan Seaweed you are the winner of the 234th Hunger Games!"

"I prefer Hunter. Jonathan sucks." Hunter told the announcer.

Lazy me lol.

Just made a 2 day Games.

Well this is how Hunter got enough money to buy his pool. He likes swimming.

Any suggestions for next chapter?