AUTHOR'S NOTES: And now we reach the final two victors before the divergence. Here's Annie, the first of these two. All we know about her games is that her partner (and presumably friend) was beheaded, and that the games slowed and got boring, so the Gamemakers "accidentally" broke a dam. Further details will be elaborated on in the chapter itself, and from here we make our way to the final stretch. I'll have the bridge chapter up before Friday, and so the three-times-a-week update schedule will persist. And remember... always watch out for those wily folks from District 3.
Happy Reading!

The 70th Annual Hunger Games

Perhaps it was a contrast to the year before, or maybe it was just an attempt to mix things up, but whatever the case, there were high hopes for the 70th Annual Hunger Games as the tributes rolled into the Capitol and audiences across the country watched and rewatched the Reapings (some not by choice, considering it was mandatory).

District 4's Corrin Swenson and Annie Cresta were both volunteers, and so everyone expected them to join the career pack when the time came. Neither one seemed overly decisive about it, but it was clear that they at least had a firm alliance with one another. In fact, they both appeared to be very close friends, which may have explained their working together.

However, upon facing Ford and Laz from District 1, as well as Solomon and Jada from District 2, neither Corrin nor Annie wanted to ally with them for whatever personal reasons they might have had. Corrin was the one that was primarily against it, but Annie trusted her friend enough to support his decision as well. Instead they looked to District 3, which was a common ally of District 4 when they weren't aligned with the careers. Falco and Sofia agreed not to harm them in the opening portions of the games, which was good enough for them.

Annie actually scored a 12 in training, which made her that much more desirable by the careers to have as an ally. Her partner Corrin scored a 9, which wasn't too shabby. 10s and 11s spanned the rest of the board for Districts 1, 2, and 3; all of which were respectable at the end of the day. The arena would be where they would get to put these skills to the test and see how much more than mere numbers these training scores were. Such was the tradition over the last 70 years, and it was not about to change.

The arena was an interesting sight. Almost as if they were compensating for the previous year, the Gamemakers had designed a landscape that was flat and smooth, with natural formations in more orderly fashions rather than jagged rocks from the desert before. Even the humidity seemed to be a contrast to the year before, with ominous clouds in the sky nearly acting as portents of things to come.

However, it didn't rain much on the first couple of days more than a mere drizzle. In fact, no one even died that evening other than the 10 tributes that were killed in the bloodbath. From there, the remaining tributes and alliances scattered, with the careers remaining at the cornucopia to take advantage of the supplies that seemed fairly ample there.

Falco and Sofia didn't stick around, but they kept their word of not attacking District 4, as well as not attacking Districts 2 or 1. These careers did assault Annie and Corrin however, with Ford, Laz, Solomon, and Jada disarming them before basically pushing them around, warning them that it would get a lot worse if they didn't join up.

Naturally, neither one of them really wanted to join such abrasive tributes, let alone resist the urge to kill them; and so after more resistance, the careers up and left to give them another chance (a testament to how much they wanted Annie on their side). Annie and Corrin found another pair of weapons and continued on their way.

Apart from these deaths, however, very little happened the next couple of days until Sofia and Falco showed up. For a moment it seemed like they were going to propose an alliance to take down Solomon, Jada, Ford, and Laz, but suddenly Sofia whipped out a jagged sword and swung it with such ferocity at Corrin that his head came right off, splattering Annie with his blood.

"The career pack sends their regards." Falco spoke up as Sofia sheathed her blade. Betrayals were nothing new in the Hunger Games, but as such a powerfully-scoring tribute, Annie had not expected betrayal when there were still this many people alive. Now her best friend lay dead and decapitated in front of her, and so frozen was she that she couldn't even pick up her weapon or fight back against the District 3 pair who bumped fists as they returned presumably to the cornucopia with the news.

The careers spent several days trying to find out where Annie had disappeared to, but so vast was the ring of mountains that there was no way they could guess what part of the mountainside she had hidden herself on.

This continued for a few more days until the Gamemakers got fed up of waiting. Whether it was an accident or whether it was deliberate due to the slow pace and the lack of additional deaths, one (or more) of them triggered a massive earthquake. Chunks of the ring of mountains began to break away, and Annie was nearly crushed by one that almost grazed her side as it tumbled into the valley below. However, she also learned the terrifying way what lay beyond these mountains. Far to the north, the rumbling blew a hole in the mountain, causing the dammed up water behind it to burst through. It began to flood the arena as the remaining tributes sought high ground. Since she was perched at the foot of a sheer cliff, all Annie could do was swim as the arena began to rapidly fill up.

This actually wound up being what saved her. While some of the careers could swim a little bit, no one swam as proficiently as the tributes from District 4. No one really trained for it apart from them because water-based arenas that required swimming were relatively rare. Thus, despite their high stamina, not even the resilient Solomon, Ford, Laz, or Jada were able to keep up as Annie treaded water. Sofia and Falco were also long gone at this point.

Struggling to stay afloat as her stamina gradually depleted, Annie listened for the cannons to go off one by one as the other tributes drowned. Right as she thought she was about to go under and lose it (for the water was also not calm, which meant Annie couldn't simply try to float on the waves), she heard the announcement that the games had ended, with her name showing up as the winner of the victor's title. Her swimming abilities had just saved her life, and because of them, Annie was now the 6th victor from District 4, and the 70th victor of the Hunger Games.

Seeing her best friend get decapitated by someone she thought she could at least sort of trust though, had had devastatingly traumatic effects on her, and the flooding arena surely didn't help either. Annie was a very unstable woman after that, often covering her eyes or ears as if drowning out the noises of the flooding or of the tributes screams as they were washed away. Sometimes she laughed at nothing; sometimes she screamed endlessly, and other times she simply gazed silently into the horizon. She wasn't insane like a lot of people thought; just very unstable like so many victors before her—a norm that was becoming increasingly more and more common as the years went by…

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)
20HG: Muscida Lee (#2, District 4)
21HG: Kada Lahka (#4, District 2)
22HG: Gleam DiFronzo (#4, District 1)
23HG: Ivette Coronado (#3, District 5)
24HG: Olivia Thurman (#1, District 9)
25HG: Laurel Fox (#1, District 12)
26HG: Daron Armstrong (#5, District 2)
27HG: Cobalt Evans (#5, District 1)
28HG: Lyme Golding (#6, District 2)
29HG: Ash LosDias (#3, District 7)
30HG: Challis Worth (#2, District 8)
31HG: Beetee Latier (#3, District 3)
32HG: Fletch Crossley (#4, District 5)
33HG: Seeder Howell (#3, District 11)
34HG: Price Emerson (#6, District 1)
35HG: Leto Irizari (#7, District 2)
36HG: Jackson Kjelle (#5, District 5)
37HG: Zerviah Hawke (#3, District 6)
38HG: Wiress Plummer (#4, District 3)
39HG: Nephi Lott (#3, District 4)
40HG: Miriam Luxio (#7, District 1)
41HG: Marcelina Kovac (#6, District 5)
42HG: Niles Lincoln (#8, District 2)
43HG: Blight McKay (#4, District 7)
44HG: Sagittaria Svenja (#4, District 11)
45HG: Dezna Meraxa (#4, District 6)
46HG: Alice DeSiete (#3, District 8)
47HG: Aurum Zianja (#8, District 1)
48HG: Layla Aranai (#9, District 2)
49HG: Chip Sangster (#5, District 3)
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)
51HG: Derrick James (#7, District 5)
52HG: Chaff Mitchell (#5, District 11)
53HG: Brutus Gunn (#10, District 2)
54HG: Tiffany Waxler (#2, District 10)
55HG: Zak Dreggite (#4, District 4)
56HG: Zoroka Chandaki (#9, District 1)
57HG: Cecelia Sanchez (#4, District 8)
58HG: Meili Meisha (#5, District 6)
59HG: Zhin Lyautey (#6, District 3)
60HG: Lucas Drazen (#10, District 1)
61HG: Kara Petersen (#5, District 7)
62HG: Enobaria Taos (#11, District 2)
63HG: Gloss Zianja (#11, District 1)
64HG: Cashmere Zianja (#12, District 1)
65HG: Finnick Odair (#5, District 4)
66HG: Elroy Trujillo (#12, District 2)
67HG: Varric Svenja (#6, District 11)
68HG: Carver Tabris (#2, District 9)
69HG: Bethany Shanza (#8, District 5)
70HG: Annie Cresta (#6, District 4)