A/N: Thanks to RealFiction, ThatHufflepuff, Charliesunshine, richards25, nevergone4ever and Oxenstierna D. Yuki-Rin for reviewing the last chapter!

I hope you enjoy today's chapter :)


"Some might say we will find a brighter day."

- Liam Gallagher, 1995.


The 60th Annual Hunger Games

Alexander Neville (18), District 9 Male

Oasis - Some Might Say (1995)


I guess I should hate being reaped for the Games, but I guess it depends how you look at it.

Many people (including myself) would have having to fight for their lives, but in comparison to many of the people of District 9, I have little to fight for. My family have always been the poorest of the poor in our district, and now the Games offer me an escape. Now I will never have to go back to the poverty-filled life that I had. I'll either earn my family - myself, my mother and my two younger sisters - a life of relative wealthiness and good fortune in Victor's Village, or I will die trying.

I'm not only fighting for my own family, though. During the past year, the many poverty-stricken families of District 9 have managed to battle through the hardships with the help of the aid that Holly Thorpe's victory in the Games had given our district. Unless I win again this year, that support will end, and many of my district's people will fall into the vice-like grip of poverty once again.

I am my district's only hope

My district partner, who was aged just fourteen, died on the first day. She was killed in the bloodbath by the Careers, and was one of the eight faces in the sky on that first night. Without her, all of my district's hopes are left with me.

Despite how much pressure there is for me to succeed, I know that if I ever want to win the Games, now is as good a time as ever.

I grew up watching the Games in the forties, with large open, natural arenas dominated by the Careers. Lately the more inventive, man-made arenas created by the Gamemakers have led to a change in momentum in recent years, with only a third of victors since the Quell being Careers. This year's arena is no exception.

The Games started in a large, tarmac-covered area, with tall brick-built buildings on all sides. I avoided the cornucopia bloodbath as I didn't want to end up either outnumbered or in a fight with someone who was more physically capable or better equipped than myself.

Being one of the first to escape into the buildings, I was one of the first tributes to fully comprehend the arena.

The arena is a giant hospital.

Just like last year's school arena, the layout of the building has led to stealth being one of the key factors in the Games. However, after last year's Games, the Careers have become more wary and, as of the first ten days of the Games, three of them still remain; both from Two and the girl from District 4.

However, unlike last year's arena, there are an abundance of makeshift weapons to be found in the hospital, from scalpels and bone knives in the operating theatres to needles in the wards.

Food and water aren't an issue, and neither is shelter. The hospital has several large catering kitchens, with enough food to feed twenty-four tributes for months. As the kitchens are located in various buildings, it's impossible for the Careers to guard them all, so food and water is always readily available. As for shelter, there are hundreds of beds in the wards around the hospital, so I'll never be struggling to find a good place to spend the night.

We'll never be short of medical assistance, either. There's so much equipment here, the sky's the limit when it comes to medical aid.

Despite how easy life has been so far in the arena, I am yet to come across another tribute. Whenever I do, I know what is expected of me. My only problem are the mental barriers set up inside my mind. It is wrong to kill.

But that is what I need to do if I want to return home to my family, and there's nothing I can do to prevent the inevitable.


The 60th Games were anticlimactic to the Capitol audience.

By the eleventh day, seven tributes remained when the Gamemakers made their only interference of the Games. Calling a feast at the cornucopia the Gamemakers hoped to end a dull Games quickly. All the tributes were too well supplied; nobody wanted to make the first move.

The feast was a catastrophe for the Gamemakers. No tributes turned up; nobody was prepared to take the risk of going out in the open at the centre of the arena.

With their trump card already played, the Gamemakers were resigned to watching the Games unfold. It was six more days until the next kill, when Alexander Neville of District 9 killed the sixteen-year-old girl from District 6. It was his only kill of the Games.

The surviving three Careers made their alliance last for a record-breaking twenty-four days before tension within the ranks finally caused the boy from District 2 to turn on his allies. He died, as did his district partner when the girl from District 4 turned on her later on the same day.

It took another five days of nothing happening for the Gamemakers to finally lose their patience on day twenty-nine, causing a controlled demolition of the entire building, with four tributes still alive.

Only one tribute escaped the building in time, Alexander Neville of District 9, but even then the Games were not over. One tribute, the girl from District 4, lived on inside the rubble. The Gamemakers were entirely powerless as Panem watched the girl slowly starve.

Eventually, after a record thirty-four days in the arena, Alexander Neville of District 9 returned home as the victor of the 60th Annual Hunger Games.


A/N: Well, that was different...

If you enjoyed today's chapter, please review! Can we get over 300 with this chapter? :)

P.S. I know that quite a few of you have been asking, so I'm going to mention that, from next chapter onwards, there will be a long run of know victors from the original series, starting with... Well, you'll just have to wait to find out ;)