Nykon Adrion
District Three
Victor of the 23rd Annual Hunger Games
"I'll come back to haunt you; Memories will taunt you."
Weak. Pathetic. Undeserving.
I was never supposed to win they said. Never supposed to make it past the bloodbath even. As a 14 year old, I was never supposed to make it as far as I did. But I overcame.
I overcame the odds of a lifetime to win. But did I really win anything? I may have come out of that wretched arena with my hands free of blood, but I am still plagued with the scars of which the Games gave me. All the death that surrounded me; and all the death I am forced to see every year as I watch two of my fellow citizens die, unable to help them.
I am taken back to reality as a pair of long, slender fingers snap themselves in front of me. I look to see the source of the hands, and see the young face of our recent victor, Dakota.
"You were daydreaming again Nyk," he says. Nyk is in the affectionate name he has pegged me with, and ever since he has come out of the arena two years ago he has never called me anything else. Dakota is one of the few reasons I stay grounded to this Earth, and don't float away with the breeze to who knows where.
"Not daydreaming Dakota," I say. "Just thinking."
He tilts his head ever so slightly to the right. "And what exactly was it that you were thinking about?"
"Nothing important Dakota," I reply. He doesn't need to know the misfortune that I deal with. I don't need to bring him down with me. Unlike most victors, he isn't corrupted and for that I admire him, and am proud to call him my friend. "Where's Nova?"
"She said she would be here at around this time, so I'm sure she'll arrive soon."
Nova is our third and final victor. She was the first from District Three to win, and I admire her. The woman has grown fairly old, heading into her early forties and she has retired from mentoring. I wish I could retire, but I can't. I have to keep mentoring until one more person from District Three is able to bring home the victors crown, and who knows how long that will take. Our victories have been…quite far apart from each other, so I fear for how long it will take us to get another victor.
Nova is like a mother to me, and Dakota is like the son I would never want to have myself. Our dynamic here is astounding and leaps and bounds ahead of how other district mentors interact. I'm proud to be a victor for my District, and I'm proud to stand up every year with my fellow mentors from my district and show the Capitol they cannot always win.
"Are you staying here tonight Dakota?" I ask quietly. He turns his head and smiles at me, before opening his mouth to respond.
"I might as well. I'm sure both of us could use the pleasant company," he says. I smile back and get up from my seat, going to get myself a glass of water as I await the arrival of Nova.
Dakota sleeps over at my home in the Victor's Village often, in the room next to mine. My house is far too large for only myself and my older sister, so it's always nice to have the extra company to fill the room. It's an added bonus to have someone there that can understand what's going on when you wake up screaming from the nightmares.
As I fill the clear glass to the brink with water, I walk back to the old antique of a table and sit down in the just as old wooden chair. I take a sip of the water and stare at the grand clank hanging on the wall of my kitchen, wondering what is taking Nova so long to arrive here.
I can hear the front door to my house open quickly, and then shut as quickly as it opened. I know it is Nova because only my fellow victors, my sister, and I have keys to my house. I can tell by the length of time it takes her to get to the kitchen that she probably hung her coat and hat up on my coat rack, and then took her shoes off before making her way here.
"Sorry, I was caught up with Devon," Nova says as she strides over to one of the remaining two chairs at the table. Devon is Nova's only son, and the only one she plans on having since she knows the chances of him getting reaped are very high.
"It's fine," says Dakota and both him and I smile at Nova. We recognize that Nova has a lot on her plate and I understand that she can't be here on time.
"Now for the matter at hand," says Nova. She pulls out a folder from the bag that she has brought in, and places the vanilla colored folder on the table in between the three of us. She carefully opens it up with her tiny hands, and takes out many papers and hands some to Dakota and then to myself. "These are trends in the arenas that I have discovered. I managed to write all of this down and keep it safe in my house away from the prying eyes of people that come over to inspect our houses every so often. If the Gamemakers continue with the current trends and we can identify the trend, then maybe we can give our tributes that much more of an advantage going into the arena."
I look through the papers that she has handed Dakota and I and I'm in awe at how much information she has managed to put on these papers. Everything ranging from temperature changes to how thick the soil was. It's amazing that Nova could even remember half of this stuff.
"Maybe this year, with this new found information, we can finally bring someone home," Dakota says. He has a slightly hopeful look in his eyes now, and I'm glad he has some form of hope.
After all, hope is the only thing stronger than fear.
It never hurts to have hope. I always had hope in my games. Even as I stared helpless with my fourteen year old eyes as my brother was ripped to shreds in front of me in the arena…
"And I will try to love you; It's not like I'm above you."
A/N: So that was the second part of the prologue! This was the writing of me, Acereader55, so I really hope you liked it! Now let's get down to business.
A quick big thank you to Olive for letting Fin and I use her format!
This song has an artist that every chapter, there will be a chapter named after a song and inside the chapter, lyrics will be posted that we feel fits the chapter.
Artist: Bastille.
Song: Haunt.
Fin and I have selected the twenty four tributes that we would like to be having in this story. It was very hard to choose the tributes as a lot of them were very good and we could have written for them all if we were given the chance, but we can only choose twenty four to take on this journey with us. We were given fifty five brilliant submissions, but here are the twenty four that will be taking this journey with us:
District One Female: Tharia Carmine, 18, Cashmere67
District One Male: Ralliath Ankina, 18, little miss innocent lair
District Two Female: Cascade Farlane, 16, mangesboy01
District Two Male: Colton Channing, 18, nevergoneforever
District Three Female: Sigma Snowden, 16, nineisgood
District Three Male: Lionel Harper, 16, DueceExMachina
District Four Female: Kaede Leomaris, 18, Chaos In Her Wake
District Four Male: Cobalt Kelby, 18, LokiThisIsMadness
District Five Female: Penelope "Penny" Winnow, 15, katsparkle13
District Five Male: Creighton Scyllan, 15, bobothebear
District Six Female: Amera Colette, 18, Jakey121
District Six Male: Jordan Levine, 16, .Real
District Seven Female: Alivia Mercado, 15, District11-Olive
District Seven Male: Nico Delvin, 14, hey-Finn
District Eight Female: Aedre Moidart, 16, TheLunarLioness
District Eight Male: Fuller Cambric, 15, TallTalesInk
District Nine Female: Crescent Avior, 15, Remus98
District Nine Male: Mycroft Koup, 16, littletimmy223
District Ten Female: Ingrid Nelson, 15, Pike and Olive's Adventures
District Ten Male: Duncan Harris, 18, munamana
District Eleven Female: Eden Admont, 17, walk off the moon
District Eleven Male: Jericho Haverfield, 17, jacob1106
District Twelve Female: Acelynn Keldite, 13, aranwen
District Twelve Male: Teagan Riley, 18, Burning Stars
A couple of tributes had their ages changed up or down a year, and we did have to move some tributes around from their preferred district. We intend to PM everyone fully explaining our reasoning behind some of the changes we made.
A big thank you to the people that submitted these wonderful tributes! These tributes will all be the reasons why this story will be fun to write and, hopefully, fun to read.
As for the people who didn't get into the story, I apologize sincerely. There was some stiff competition, and we chose these tributes based on what we thought we make this story the best. That doesn't mean your tributes were bad, they just didn't work with Fin and I and our plans for the story. We plan to PM both the people who made and it and those who didn't make it explaining our choices and other information.
The blog is now up with the profiles of all our lovely tributes. At the end of every chapter, a question (or maybe even two if we're feeling a little wild) will be asked at the end of the chapter so Fin and I can get a grasp on what you guys are really thinking.
Questions:
What did you think of the District Three Mentors?
Any early favorites based on the blog posts? Any tributes you don't like from the blog posts?
The next chapter after this will be the Reaping Chapter! It will not be in the POV of the tributes just yet. That will be the chapter after the reapings. We hope to update the Reapings Chapter within a week's time.
For now, thanks for reading this chapter and don't forget to drop by a review!
-Ace and Fin