A/N: Thanks to richards25, PrincessLyoka, krikanalo, allonsydney and xx-Want-A-Sugar-Cube-xx for reviewing! All support is appreciated :)

I'm going to make the point once again that these first view victors can only be shown during the opening moments of the Games because in canon, they die at the cornucopia. I'm sure you all understand, but I'm just clarifying. There are four more chapters set at the bloodbath, and then the remainder of the Games begin :)

I hope that you all enjoy today's chapter :)


"I need to find a place to hide

You never know what could be waiting outside

The accidents that you could find

It's like some kind of suicide

So what ails you is what impales you

I feel like I've been crucified to be satisfied

I'm a victim of my symptom

I am my own worst enemy

You're a victim of your symptom

You are your own worst enemy

Know your enemy."

- Billie-Joe Armstrong, 2009.


The 75th Annual Hunger Games (The Third Quarter Quell) - Day 1, 10.00 am

Blake Carlton (60), District 6 Male (victor of the 31st Annual Hunger Games)

Green Day - Restless Heart Syndrome (2009)


I'm still struggling to comprehend my surroundings when the gong sounds, and I notice tributes flying off of their pedestals in a hurry. It's hard to work out my surroundings, as today has been the roughest yet.

It's been a week since the reaping, when I made a conscious decision to stay away from the substances. No more morphling. The Games were coming. Now they are here, and I think the withdrawal symptoms have left me worse off than the morphling itself. I can think again; my brain no longer sedated by the painkillers. Strangely, so long away from reality has numbed my sense of loss somewhat. As though some of those dreadful memories have been banished from my mind forever. They've certainly made no attempt to reappear.

My mind may be in better shape than it has been in a long time, but it still craves the liquid that left me in such a wreck of a body to begin with. Now, without my precious morphling, I feel weak all over, can barely balance, my sight is blurry and I have terrible pains.

And the Games have only just begun.

Even in good shape, I doubt I'd have ever stood a chance of winning. I'm too old. That's why I've spent the last week trying to enjoy myself rather than train seriously, and make sure that Molly, my district partner who suffers more from the effects of the morphling than I do, has enjoyed her last week of relative freedom.

We're not fools, despite what our vacant looks and wasted bodies may suggest. We've made some bad decisions in our time, but who hasn't? If our bad decision is to go through with killing another in the Hunger Games, then I don't see us at fault. It's kill or be killed. Live with the guilt or pay the ultimate price. At the time, the guilt seemed like the right thing to do. Looking back over forty years later, I'm sure that Molly and I would disagree, but at the time, getting home was our priority.

But I can no longer say that.

Our priority is to help Katniss Everdeen become victor of the Third Quarter Quell. After her display in last year's Games, she could be the one who the districts need to become the figurehead of an uprising against the Capitol. They say it's begun in some districts. Maybe more will follow if she can survive the Capitol's wrath once more.

We're old, wasted, and ultimately her competition. These Games give us a chance to give our lives for a cause while putting an end to our own misery. Of course, I'm going to try and survive. I'd be a fool not to. I need to eliminate some of the field for her, increasing her chances of survival.

If only I was actually some use.

Despite being a victor, I'm sure that I'll serve the same purpose as most of our tributes. Ones with no particular talent; the ones who are weeded out before the real fighting begins. Molly and I have lived up to our district's expectations so far, being two of the lowest scorers in training, with two fours. Considering our condition, I'd call that decent. But I'm no Brutus, and I'm sure that our chances of sponsor support in an arena with Katniss, Finnick, Cashmere, Gloss and Enobaria (some of the most popular victors of them all) are slim.

Plutarch has told me who else is supporting the cause. Three, Four and District 7. Eight, Eleven and District 12. And, of course, my very own District 6. I know who my enemies are.

I realise through my hazy vision that I've been stalling for at least thirty seconds, and there is already action at the cornucopia, which I can see forty yards away along the blue floor. Only when I step from my pedestal do I realise that I was surrounded by water. Somehow I manage to float as I flounder in the waves, and I find myself washed up on a spur of land. Standing up, I can see the cornucopia, closer than before. As I run, I can hear distorted screams through my damaged ears that are full of water from my dunk in what I presume to be lake.

Looking back towards my pedestal, I can't see a thing but the pink sky and the blue sea. I try to search the waves for Molly, who I know won't have tried to reach the cornucopia. She may have been a fighter in her day, but there's just enough sense left in her to know a losing battle when she sees one.

I've always been a little more fearless. I know that whatever I do, I'm not going to become a winner, so I don't have any fears of death. In that sense, I've mastered death. I no longer fear it. After all my suffering, I no longer care.

As I reach the cornucopia, I cast my mind back to the last time I was in the arena, when I had resigned myself to my death on that final day. When I knew that the cards were stacked against me and somehow I pulled through. I don't like to think about how I managed it, but I did. What I want from the memory was the fearlessness that a sixteen-year-old Blake could manage when staring death in the face. My body may have been wrecked, but when I'm unimpeded by the morphling, I'm the same boy who volunteered for the 31st Annual Hunger Games all those summers ago.

I'm weak and my head hurts from the bright sunlight, but I move forward fearlessly as I arrive at the island. I just have a couple of moments to scan the land for a weapon before a dark-skinned man with one arm whose name eludes me sprints past me, and I turn to watch him dive beneath the waves, escaping from danger. For now.

Turning back towards the shining golden horn that is the cornucopia, I see the reason why he was running. Chaff, I remember his name was, upon seeing his district partner Seeder bleeding out on the sand just a few metres away from me. It looks like there have already been some casualties. As I move towards the cornucopia more cautiously than before, I wonder who and what caused her to be in such a condition.

I don't have to wait long.

Suddenly Brutus' imperious figure is towering over me, having appeared from nowhere, and I know immediately that there will be no escape.

I quickly catch a glimpse of the blade as it swings towards me before there is a blinding pain, a flash of white and then nothing.


A/N: If you enjoyed this chapter, please review! Can we get to 500 with this chapter? :) I'm still welcoming constructive criticism, of course :)

P.S. We've almost finished the bloodbath chapters! :D

P.P.S. I thought I'd just quickly mention that I finished a fanfic for 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' earlier this week. I doubt anyone is interested in reading it, but if anyone is, please feel free to check it out!