A/N: Thanks to Oxenstierna D. Yuki-Rin, ArtistatHeart, District4girl, nevergone4ever, ThatHufflepuff, RealFiction and richards25 for reviewing! As ever, I appreciate your support :)

On another positive note; we've passed TWENTY THOUSAND VIEWS, which is just massive, so thanks again to everyone who's taken the time to read, review, follow and favourite this story so far. We've still got quite a few chapters to go, too :)

I would also like to point out that while I may be away from my computer for a couple of weeks, I'll still be posting chapters. It's difficult to do on an iPod, but I've done it before, and I'll do it again :)

Anyway, on to today's chapter, featuring the one and only Finnick Odair, the youngest victor of all time.

I hope you enjoy it :)


"I've called you so many times today

And I guess it's all true what their girlfriends say

That you don't ever want to see me again

That your brother's gonna kill me and he's six feet ten."

- Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, 1978.


The 65th Annual Hunger Games

Finnick Odair (14), District 4 Male

The Police - Can't Stand Losing You (1978)


I wake in the branches of an oak tree, and I'm not surprised to see a shiny silver parachute hanging in the tree above me. Smiling, I reach up and free the small capsule from the tangled sheets of fabric that delivered it to me. Opening the capsule, I see a small tin pot. I unscrew the lid and think some sort of thick cream inside. It's definitely medicine of some sort. Antiseptic cream, I guess.

I take some of the cream out and rub it on my injured knee. It feels like it's been doused in icy water.

Perfect.

Hopefully some of the swelling will disappear soon. The wound is still fresh, but as long as I can avoid infection, I should be fine. The cream appears to have some sort of painkiller in it, as I find it easily and relatively pain-free to clamber down the tree to the ground. I pull down my sleeping bag with me, and stuff it into my backpack. I reach back into the branches of the tree to pull down my bow and four arrows that I scavenged from the body of the boy from District 7 yesterday. My first kill in the arena, and it was on the seventh day.

Right from the beginning, I never wanted to join the Career Alliance. I pretended that I would, of course, hanging about with the other Careers in training, making sure to use my good looks to my advantage, winning sponsors and impressing my supposed allies. But I was never trained as a Career, and I don't want to become one. I've never really been trained, but for a few afternoons at home with my best friend, down at the beach.

It wasn't even proper training. But we both knew that if either of us were reaped, we at least needed to know something that would be of use to us in the arena.

That's why, when it came to the reaping, I volunteered for him. I knew more. I was stronger, taller, fitter. I stood a better chance of surviving that he did. The trained Careers weren't going to volunteer for him, of course. Even trained Careers don't stand a very good chance of survival. In my district, they only volunteer for absolute no-hopers; those aged twelve and thirteen. A small fourteen-year-old might have stood a chance in the eyes of the Careers, but in my eyes, a 1% chance of survival sounded like a death sentence. Maybe my chances weren't much better at the time, but they were still an improvement. So I volunteered.

Now, eight days into the 65th Annual Hunger Games, I'm certain that I made the right decision.

I was the first to the cornucopia that Sunday morning when the Games began, one week after I volunteered myself at the reaping. I'd become popular. A combination of my looks (which won over the female half of the population) and my training score of nine (which won over the male half) had put me miles ahead of any other tribute in the race for sponsors.

Having been the first to arrive at the cornucopia, I was also the first to leave, having grabbed a large backpack full of supplies. I'd abandoned my so-called allies before they even knew what had happened.

That rucksack gave me everything - plentiful food and water, a sleeping bag, a thick coat, medicine, matches, absolutely everything - but a weapon. For a while, it looked as though my plan had backfired. I was alone and weaponless in the arena.

But I realised that I had everything I needed to survive. I would be able to sit out the storm. As long as the Capitol audience still loved me, I figured it'd only be matter of time before the sponsors sent me a weapon.

By the seventh day, with only eight tributes left alive, I was still weaponless. In an arena made exclusively of deciduous woodland, it was easy to stay hidden. I moved every morning to avoid becoming complacent in one place, and it was yesterday morning when my luck finally ran out.

I don't want to remember the details, but let's just say that killing another person isn't all that the Careers build it up to be. I can't help but think about the atrocious things I had to do, and the expression on the face of the boy from District 7 just before his cannon fired. He may have injured me, but somehow I made it out alive.

Not only did I make it out alive, but I made it out with his weapon, too.

Now, as I start my walk to relocate this morning, I move with more confidence. I can protect myself now. That doesn't mean that I'm going to go out hunting tributes the way the Capitol audience might expect me to, but I'm no ordinary Career. Well, I'm not really a Career at all. But yesterday I showed my brutal side, a side I didn't even know I had, and I'm sure that the sponsors will think even more highly of me than ever before.

It's mid-morning when I get the next parachute.

I've lost track of how many parachutes I've had - it's well into double figures - but something about this one seems different. The package beneath is larger than most and shaped irregularly. I watch it drift down from the sky and land with a thud at my feet. I unwrap it from the silky fabric of the parachute eagerly, and then stand up to admire what lies at my feet.

It's a trident.

No, it's not a trident.

It's my trident.

I'm almost certain of it immediately, just from judging its length and looking at the various knocks on it from years of use. It's not a perfect gift, like those from the Capitol, but one of the rare times that the districts fetch up enough money to offer something for their tribute themselves.

I pick up the trident, its silver metal flashing in the summer sun. Just the way that it's weighted feels familiar. I don't need to check the bottom for my initials, but I still do.

I hold the base of the trident into the sun and read the three letters on the bottom, roughly carved into the base by a ten-year-old Finnick Odair with his best friend's carving knife. I can still see the mistakes I made, and where my friend had to help me out. He was always more dexterous than I was, and he had to do the whole 'O' for me.

F.R.O.

I smile as I read the initials, a reminder of the home I had before the Games. Of those who stuck with me throughout my childhood, and who still stick with me to this day by sending me this trident.

I know that only one person could have sent this to me. I find it slightly ironic that after I volunteered to save him at the reaping, he's saved me by providing me with the tools that will get me home.

Thank you, Ludo.


The 65th Games lasted ten days. When Finnick Odair received his trident on the morning of the eighth day, there were still seven tributes alive. All five Careers were still alive (although their alliance had split) along with Finnick and the thirteen-year-old girl from District 3.

Along with his new trident, Finnick managed to craft himself a net to use from vines he found on a tree by a lake that afternoon. From then, it took two days for the Games to end.

In a relatively small arena, Finnick hunted down the Careers one by one, killing them all with his new weapon. The final fight was short and anticlimactic compared to those that had gone before, and Finnick ended the Games with an easy kill, at the expense of the girl from District 3, crowning Finnick Odair of District 4 the victor of the 65th Annual Hunger Games.

During the 65th Games, Finnick set an all-time record as the youngest victor ever, at fourteen years and two months old, eleven months younger than the previous record-setter, Cashmere Adlington of District 1.

The 65th Games also saw the most expensive sponsor gift of any Hunger Games in Finnick's trident, which was delivered to him from District 4 for an extortionate price.


A/N: If you enjoyed today's chapter, please review! As ever, I'll welcome any constructive criticism :)

Personally, I think that chapter has set me up quite nicely for tomorrow's chapter, which I've been waiting for nearly five months to write :)

P.S. There's one day left for the competition, so if anyone else is hoping to enter, you'd better do so quickly! ;)