AUTHOR'S NOTES: With each passing games, the Capitol learns what it should and should not do in order to provide a great show. In some cases, it's just a matter of mixing things up, which is why they've realized that changing the arena designs might be a good idea.
Happy reading!

The 3rd Annual Hunger Games

More organization began to take form by the time the 3rd Annual Hunger Games rolled around. By this point, District 1 had taken after the example of its similarly wealthy neighbor, District 2, and they had a small training academy to attempt to produce more competent tributes. Thus, the career tribute pool expanded from just District 2 to Districts 1 and 2. The strategies and tricks that modern careers know had not yet been defined, but the foundations had been laid, and this element of Hunger Games culture was rooting itself in rather firmly. "Career Tributes" were almost certainly here to stay.

The Hunger Games were still far too new for other tributes to really consider them much more of a threat than any other strong tribute or alliance however. If there was anyone that could serve as a thorn in District 1 or 2's side, it was District 12 and District 11, with their cunning survival skills, and the latter having already produced a victor, who could then mentor her tributes for years to come and try to give them tricks and strategies to help them survive for even longer.

But also, there was District 3 to worry about. What they lacked in physical prowess, they made up for in smarts and cunning. The last couple of years, they had not fared so well, but the pair this year seemed particularly promising, if their high training scores and skills at trap-building were anything to go by. Much like the previous year, there weren't any particularly noteworthy scores like 11s or 12s, but even seeing 9s and 10s at a time like this was considered pretty impressive. The tributes from District 2 that trained in their little academies did perform better than their "untrained" counterparts, and their comrades from District 1 nearly matched their scores this year as well. However, the scores were just numbers, and time would tell whether that translated to something threatening in the arena or not. The landscape of the arena also played an important part, of course. If it favored a tribute who specialized in that landscape, it would undoubtedly give them an edge they wouldn't normally have.

Deciding to part from the tree theme this year, the Gamemakers created a desert-esque arena with small canyons and dry riverbeds. The 12 tributes that survived the bloodbath started to be a bit skeptical about water and where it would come from, since there was no sign of it as they searched far and wide. The first night ended eventlessly, although deep into the darkness of the night, clouds gathered, and rain happened. This was a nice reprieve from the dryness of the morning, and so every tribute filled whatever container they had with this glorious water. They soon caught on that this happened every day. The morning and afternoon would be hot and dry, and the nights would be cool and wet, with monsoonal rains that nearly made the riverbeds into actual rivers again.

However, after a couple days of Hunger Games hide and seek, the Gamemakers twisted things up again. On the 5th night, the rains were torrential, and they flooded the canyons and riverbeds fully. Nearly half a dozen tributes that had set up camp at the bottom of those riverbeds and canyons were wiped out by the torrential floodwaters that congregated there. The survivors were one of the kids from District 11, the four "career tributes", who had all teamed up together and killed most of the tributes themselves, and the District 3 pair, who were elusively hiding in the arena somewhere.

Tallulah Wiley and Naseru Litzak had situated themselves in one of the larger "canyons", with an elaborate contraption set in place almost like a dam. The rains at night were so heavy that it began filling the area behind their "dam" like a lake. It was only a matter before it broke. Naseru and Tallulah had the high ground.

The next couple of days passed, before three cannons were fired: The girl from District 11 had died, taking two of the careers with her. It just left Lucius Dexter from District 1, and the girl from District 2. Naseru and Tallulah felt pretty confident that if they camped out at their trap, that they would be able to stop the careers once they wandered in.

They were only half right. Lucius served as a distraction just long enough to get District 3's attention, while that District 2 girl knifed Tallulah where she sat. Her body plunged into the canyon, and it was in this moment that Naseru knew what had to be done. Spinning around, he threw his partner's killer in with her, to Lucius' surprise, and then he unleashed the river on them. He shot a rock at just the right place, causing the wall to fall apart and unleashing a wall of water on the remaining two career tributes, and thus ending the games. There was a moment where he gazed down at what he had done, a bit shaken that he had just ended their lives so swiftly. Either way, Naseru Litzak had become the 1st victor from District 3—and the 3rd victor of the Hunger Games.

Naseru was always wary of water after that. Even when it rained in the district, he would retreat inside his Victor's Mansion and watch it from the windows of the upper floor, as if fearing that there would be a flash flood or something. He did not retreat and become a hermit, but he was still a slightly elusive fellow. He had occasional nightmare about his friends or family getting shot from the balcony of his house and falling into torrential rivers below, only to wake up in a cold sweat as he realized it was just a dream. The Games had certainly taken their toll on him just as well…

VICTORS BY YEAR:
1HG: Fukaya Kerezaki (#1, District 5)
2HG: Lucy Takamatzu (#1, District 11)
3HG: Naseru Litzak (#1, District 3)