AUTHOR'S NOTES: Similar to the delay upon finishing "The 74th Annual Hunger Games", this delay was in part due to the binge of "The 93rd Annual Hunger Games". Either way, here is another chapter, this one inspired by a childhood game that most of us have hopefully played.
Happy Reading!
The 19th Annual Hunger Games
Every now and again, there is a game that transcends time and space, lasting through cataclysms big and small. Often times it is the utter simplicity of the game in question that helps to keep its rules preserved and intact through the ages. The 19th Annual Hunger Games was a reminder of this.
The obstacle courses at the Capitol's training center were usually just used for speed and dexterity testing, although a few of the tributes found them particularly enjoyable—especially kids from the urban districts. The pair from District 6 in particular, Charles Vance and Zeruda Mežkiel, found them to be rather entertaining. Both of them remained fairly aloof and distant from the others, making it clear that they had minimal interest in any alliances.
Occasionally they were joined by a kid or two from District 3 or District 8, but they only started garnering attention after Rafe Terrn, the District 2 boy and leader of this year's career pack, began eyeing them, mostly just to wonder what on earth they were up to climbing all over these obstacle courses and walls all the time.
When it was time for the games to start, the others regretted not doing more of the same. The arena of the 19th Annual Hunger Games was a grim a sadistic reminder of the childhood game where 'the floor is lava', only taken to a literal extreme. Apart from a small, rocky plateau that housed the pedestals and the cornucopia, most of the ground WAS in fact lava, creating a red and black, hostile landscape littered with rocks, dead trees, and various steaming lakes and springs. It certainly explained why the light clothing the tributes had been dressed in seemed to do so well at keeping them cool.
"Looks like things are about to heat up!" Zeruda chanted from her pedestal as the countdown began. A couple of other tributes couldn't help but snicker, while most of them just groaned. She would be the first to go, for sure.
Rafe and his partner Saria Kokri teamed up with District 1's Lola Moss and Cedric Darouth and fought for control of the cornucopia, only to realize that once again it was devoid of too many food supplies. Naturally, this meant that they would have to trek out into these lava fields to find out what the Capitol was going to give them to subsist upon.
Rafe and his group managed to discover food and water on top of some of the higher rocks after the bloodbath had ended, and 10 tributes had lost their lives. Up here it was slightly cooler, oddly enough, perhaps from the distance away from the lava. The odd berry bushes that they found and partook of were like nothing that they had ever seen or tasted.
"Maybe it's some genetically engineered plant?" Saria suggested, "it tastes good and fills you up. I don't think we can argue with that unless one of us wants to be eating lava.
Over the next few days, this career pack realized two things: that instead of controlling the cornucopia, they just had to control these bushes whenever they found them; and that those District 6 kids were particularly nimble. Still, even speed and dexterity did not stop the careers, and soon Charles found himself on the end of a spear, but not before he had done something that caused the three surviving careers to stop and think.
Charles had been armed with a small, cylindrical object. As they hopped from rock to rock to avoid the lava in pursuit of him, he had tossed it into the lava, where seconds later it blew Cedric sky high.
"They're digging up the mines!" Lola exclaimed, "it doesn't take a genius to realize…"
"But how did he set it off like that…" Saria paused, "unless… unless it's just the heat from the lava?
Fortunately for the remaining three, they were able to dispatch the District 3 pair by the 5th day of the games, and they learned that they had not been armed with any other mines.
It was when the Capitol invited the tributes to a feast at sundown three days later that the real danger appeared. Zeruda was one of the 7 tributes left, reminding the others that games where deadly traps were all around them were games that went by fast and dangerously. She had helped Charles dig up the remainder of the mines, and she had migrated towards the career's perch—a tall narrow plateau—early in the afternoon before the feast proper.
She took her bag, loaded with about 18-10 of those deactivated mines, and tossed it into the lava at the base of this tall rock structure before running manically the opposite direction. The heat would take over, for it did not discern activated explosives or deactivated ones. The heat ingited them causing an enormous explosion that did not kill any of the careers atop that rock, but did cause the massive rock structure to shatter and sink right into the lava—claiming the lives of the three tributes perched atop it.
Three of the four remaining tributes went to the feast that night, with one of them—a boy from District 9—killing the boy from District 10 before running off. The boy from District 5 never showed up, and so Zeruda snatched up his supplies as well as the supplies intended for the careers that she had slain earlier, and lived like a queen at the cornucopia until two days later.
Something had gone off in the arena that had caused the lava levels to rise in some places, effectively forcing the other tributes back to the cornucopia, where Zeruda had been waiting to ambush them. Almost as if that was what was expected at this point, she successfully took out both of them, and ended the games. The little girl that had been aloofly hopping around the obstacle courses had just become the 2nd victor from District 6, and the 19th victor of the Hunger Games overall.
Still—she had paid her price, and seeing all of these tributes die by heat or explosions had taken its toll on her. She was very aversive to hot climates afterwards, and like many in her districts, fell into Morphling use shortly after her games, letting it ease the pains and memories of her games.
Surprisingly, Zeruda did end up having two children—but she was never around when they decided to play "the floor is lava"…
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)
12HG: Iunius Karuha (#3, District 2)
13HG: Hilda White (#1, District 10)
14HG: Minali Otoyome (#2, District 3)
15HG: Willow James (#3, District 1)
16HG: Lark Chandnea (#2, District 11)
17HG: Woof Casino (#1, District 8)
18HG: Leah Holden (#2, District 7)
19HG: Zeruda Mezkiel (#2, District 6)