AUTHOR'S NOTES: After a long hiatus with this story, I finally return. Hopefully the next few chapters aren't too slow-soon we'll venture back into familiar territory, and as the Capitol learns more tricks, the games will get more exciting. Not to say that these games aren't exciting-there is a unique twist that ties the 11th and 12th Hunger Games together that might be interesting to see. But... no spoilers. The chapter is up anyways, so it shouldn't be a problem.
Happy Reading!
The 11th Annual Hunger Games
The 11th Annual Hunger Games would be seen as an oddity in the years to come, but at the moment, it was just another unassuming arena with two dozen tributes being forced to kill each other.
Two brothers from District 2, Maius and Iunius Karuha, vied for the position of male tribute for their district that year. The younger of the two, Maius, ended up reaching the stage first, and at 17, his odds of winning were fairly high.
A district away, a certain Dane Zelker was also vying for the throne from District 1. Despite that competition, he and his partner Elissa allied themselves with Maius and his partner Carmen. All of them scored high, although it seemed that the career pack would go unthreatened this year. Swords and axes were the career pack's specialty this year, with Dane and Elissa specializing in the former, and Maius and Carmen specializing in the latter.
They were mostly right regarding their 'invincibility', for there were no other prominent alliances that year, not even from Districts 11 and 12, both of whom seemed to have produced tributes on the smaller and weaker side than usual.
When the bloodbath came, however, all four of them sans the boy from District 11 managed to escape alive and unhurt (the aforementioned boy was injured, but alive), although given the rocky nature of the arena, the career tributes were fairly certain that these outliers would not last long.
Unlike several of the older rocky arenas, this one had plenty of water, and little creeks flowing at the bottom of the steep, cramped canyons and the narrow valleys. The tributes did not suspect that there would be any flooding this time. All of the good stuff and food were in these crevices, while the "overworld" was barren and desolate.
It rained a few times in the arena, particularly during days 3 and 4, and then again on days 7 and 8, but the day/night cycle of the arena seemed otherwise normal, unlike the year before.
By day 9, only Elissa had been killed from the career pack, and there were only three other tributes left: Marty Jimson from District 12, Sagittaria Silverhand from District 6, and Celia Northwood from District 7.
Unlike Maius, however, Carmen and Dane did not have any other siblings vying for a chance at the Hunger Games, and so while the oddity of the 11th Annual Hunger Games was still widely remembered for years afterwards, it was not inherently odd by itself—only when compared to the 12th Annual Hunger Games did it really stick out.
Whatever the case, Maius and Carmen wound up splitting up from Dane to go after Marty—but in truth, they were simply giving the District 1 boy the slip. Later that night, Carmen slipped back the direction they came, and she put an end to the career boy in his sleep. When she met back up with Maius, she found him standing over the corpse of the District 12 boy Marty, which meant that only Sagittaria, Celia, and the District 2 pair remained in the games.
As day 13 continued on, more clouds filled the sky and rain began to fall. It was fairly steady, but Maius and Carmen were now fully convinced that there would be no flooding, given that they were walking at the bottom of one of the narrow canyons, following a stream so that they could hopefully find the remaining two tributes.
They camped by the side of a large lake, which appeared to be where the rivers and streams all led, for the rocky canyons seemed to all be north of them at this point. A shimmer on the opposite coast of the lake was a subtle indicator that the forcefield was nearby, although none of the tributes knew that—to them it almost seemed like a gas of sorts, and so was something to not get too close to.
The final showdown wound up being fairly generic, as most of the games had been. Maius and Carmen had no trouble taking down Celia and Sagittaria, before they turned on each other. Axe clashed against axe as sparks flew from striking steel. However, as time wore on, Maius began to overpower Carmen, before finally cutting her down and being crowned the victor.
Maius was not terribly traumatized like many other victors before him, although he was a bit weirded out after watching the 12th Annual Hunger Games the following year. On the other hand, it did not stop him from relishing his victory—being the 2nd victor from District 2, and the 11th victor of the Hunger Games. To him, the Hunger Games were simply business—he did not revel in his murders like some bloodthirsty tributes might have; he simply did what he had to in order to survive and, by extension, to win. Such a mindset became particularly common in District 2 after his victory, and Maius was more than happy to simply embrace it…
VICTORS BY YEAR:
1HG: Fukaya Kerezaki (#1, District 5)
2HG: Lucy Takamatzu (#1, District 11)
3HG: Naseru Litzak (#1, District 3)
4HG: Naisha Szasz (#1, District 2)
5HG: Jade Prima (#1, District 1)
6HG: Cedar Hardin (#1, District 7)
7HG: Susan Jackman (#2, District 5)
8HG: Malcolm Reed (#1, District 6)
9HG: Mags Cohen (#1, District 4)
10HG: Faren Dragmire (#2, District 1)
11HG: Maius Karuha (#2, District 2)