A/N: Thanks to mangesboy01, I-am-Cashmere-the-victor and charliesunshine for reviewing!

I've got a relatively free week ahead of me, so for a few days I'm aiming to update this story daily. I hope that you enjoy today's chapter :)


"See the rivers filled with rain

I wish it could be blue again."

- Ian Broudie, 1994.


The 47th Annual Hunger Games

Ellis Rutherford (18), District 6 Male

The Lightning Seeds - Perfect (1994)


I can still remember my home. District 6.

I never thought of it as much. The forgotten district of Panem. No real industry, just transport. That's what we specialise in.

As a young child, I may have complained about my poor district, but as a young adult I realise that it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

I spent too many days in my youth loitering around the back of the train sheds by the large station with my so-called friends. I could have been out in the nicer half of the district, in the fields near the district boundary. But I did nothing to enjoy my childhood. I wasted it.

In hindsight, I was a foolish child. I wasted my younger years, when I was free of responsibility, free of cause for concern. As an adult, I have to worry about a job, and having to earn to support a family. And as a teenager, I have to worry about the Hunger Games.

Most boys at school told me not to worry about the Games, and so I didn't. I did nothing to help prepare myself for the arena. Suddenly it is too late, and now the only thing that I can do well is worry.

I won't be able to escape the arena by cowering away. Sooner or later, I will have to confront my fears.

I suppose it helps that I'm not scared of dying. Death doesn't bother me at all; I have little to return to in District 6. I don't want to sound like I'm giving up (I'm sure that when the time comes, I'll fight for my life), but I'm sure that most of the tributes in the arena with me (and there are still another fourteen alive out there) have more determination to return home.

If I could reverse time and try again at my life, I would. I could have had a perfect childhood, but I wasted it. I should have tried harder at school. Hung around with the right kids. I should have cared enough about the future to plan ahead for it.

But I did none of these things, and it feels as though the Games are here to knock some sense into me. It's as though they are a very brutal wake-up call, bringing me back to reality, after coasting towards decline during my teenage years.

I understand that life gives you no second chances. But if I win these Games, I have made a promise to myself to try to make the most of what life I still have ahead of me.

But before that can happen, there are another fourteen tributes stuck on this colossal ship with me. I am deep within the hold, keeping to the shadows on the lowest levels, near the engine rooms, which are so unbelievably hot that no tribute can venture there. Safe with this knowledge, I know that nobody can approach me from behind through the engine rooms. I have enough food down here to last me at least a week without returning above deck to scavenge food, and if anyone comes for me, I'll be ready for them.

I know that my only weapon, a spear, isn't perfectly adapted to the close quarters combat that I will surely be experiencing, but I'm hoping to be able to use pre-emotive strikes to take down tributes until I can scavenge a better weapon.

It might not be a very good plan, but at the moment it's all that I've got.

But in comparison to the rest of my wasted youth, this barely-formed plan is everything to me.


The 47th Games were set on a large ship, drifting in the ocean, with no land in sight. Being a limited in space, the first eight tributes were whittled down quickly before several tributes found corners to escape to within the depths of the ship. This actually ended up benefitting them, as nearly all of the tributes who continued to hunt around the ship ended up killing each other off.

Eventually, after two weeks, only seven tributes remained, and of those six had hidden themselves in the depths of the ship, including Ellis of District 6. at this stage, the Gamemakers decided to scuttle the ship, leaving the tributes to try to survive on the sinking ship. One tribute died within the ship as it sank, and three more drowned despite initially escaping the sinking ship. Three tributes managed to reach lifeboats, which they used to survive. One tribute, the boy from District 3, drifted too far from the shipwreck in his lifeboat, distancing himself from the supplies. He died of dehydration on the sixteenth day of the Games.

The other two tributes who reached the lifeboats, the boys from Six and Nine, stayed close enough to each other to attempt combat once they became the final two. However, Ellis of District 6 was the only tribute with a ranged weapon, which he used to kill the boy from District 9 without endangering himself, making him the victor of the 47th Annual Hunger Games.


A/N: If you enjoyed the chapter, please review! As ever, constructive criticism is welcomed :)

We're almost at the Second Quarter Quell, which means that the oneshot-writing competition is almost over! If anyone still has oneshots that they want to enter, please PM me as soon as possible. I expect the competition deadline to be Thursday or Friday this week. If anyone is still looking for details about the competition, details are in the author's notes for Chapter 37 of this story. Good luck everyone, and may the best author win!