Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
Phoenix Sterling, 13
"This thing is going to do what?" Vivaldi spluttered as Phoenix finished her harried explanation about what the gimmick of the trains was.
"Crash." She stood in the doorway and watched the vividly coloured outside flash by. "It's going to go faster and faster, and crash at the forcefield."
"Don't sound so calm about it!" He waved his hands, frantically pacing the small cargo carriage. "We have to stop this thing!"
Every footstep jarred through Phoenix's ears. She tensed herself, trying to shut out the sound. She needed to concentrate; she needed to think.
"How do you stop a train?" replied Cormac.
That was the question. There were ways of course, but would any of those have been programmed into the Game? She didn't know. Suddenly she wished she'd listened more all those times that Radiance babbled on about the mechanics of this thing.
"You said this was from the Eighty Eighth, how did those tributes stop it?" asked Vivaldi.
Phoenix balled her hands into fists, turning the question over and over in her head. Once again, here was something she was worse at than her siblings.
She shook her head. "They didn't. The trains just crashed."
Vivaldi went pale. "All of them?"
"All of them," she confirmed.
His eyes flashed with a sudden anger. "Then why get us onboard!"
Fear clenched inside her. He wasn't as big as her siblings, he was built like a twig, but he was still taller than her and her armour was at two.
"I didn't know they'd crash when we were at the bloodbath! I forgot the gimmick!" She raised her hands. "Why didn't you recognise it?"
Vivaldi blushed a soft pink, clashing with the smears of blue and green paint still lingering around his ears and the tips of his jaw. "I… never really got to see much of the Hunger Games."
Phoenix scoffed. "And you decided to enter a special of the simulator?"
His blush deepened to an indignant scarlet. "Don't you stand there and judge me! How old are you anyway, eleven?"
"Thirteen." She folded her arms. "I couldn't be under twelve, I wouldn't have been able to enter."
Vivaldi shook his head. "I don't need to justify myself to a thirteen year old."
"We need to get off this train." Phoenix paced the length of the carriage. "Or we need to stop it."
She knew trains. She and her siblings had lived near the train lines their entire lives. They'd been her obsession when she was small. But that was years ago and now she was under pressure.
"If we could get to the engine, it should have an emergency brake – but it might not, they could have ommited that from the programming."
This was still a video game, however vast and detailed, and she didn't know how many of the tiniest details the programmers might have included.
"And you're forgetting that we can't get to the engine anyway," muttered Cormac.
Phoenix stopped by the doors at the top of the carriage, peering out. "We could. We'd have to climb out here and work our way along the side of the train. It's wooden paneling, so there's grips to hold onto."
She'd done that once, on a real train. When it was stopped, obviously. Then the Peacekeepers had come and she had been forced to jump down and run away. Luminescence had made her swear never to do that again. And so her interest in trains had begun to die, changing to a fascination with machinery.
Vivaldi's blush gave way to a white horror. "I can't do that!"
If only one of her older siblings was here, instead of him. They would know what to do. Then she wouldn't be here struggling and panicking by herself. If only one of her older siblings was here, instead of her. Then she'd be safe and they'd know what to do to save Cormac and Vivaldi. They'd done all this before, they understood these gimmicks.
But what Phoenix understood was trains.
"Maybe we don't need to get to the engine," she said, but neither Cormac nor Vivaldi was listening.
Maybe all they needed to do was get to the front of this carriage.
Etheria Arquette, 17
The arena here was beautiful, but she had no time to stop and enjoy the simulation as the Sterling brothers continued to sprint ahead of her. The words of the announcer swirled inside her head. Had Radiance killed that girl back at the cornucopia? He hadn't, had he?
"Okay," she gasped as they ran, her acquired backpack bumping against her back, "Fill me in here. What am I missing and why are we chasing this train?"
The forest around them was breathtakingly beautiful, better art than she could ever make, consisting of golden and bronze trees with red, orange, and yellow leaves, shining fruit dangling amongst them. The grass under her feet was emerald green and sapphire blue, glowing in places where the sunlight was breaking through the foliage. Etheria couldn't see nor hear any of the other players, but the Sterlings were still running as though their lives depended on it.
"Our sister's on there!" Radiance shouted back, pushing a thin branch out of his way. It whipped back and Etheria ducked to avoid being hit in the face on its backswing.
"Iridescence can take care of herself, can't she?"
"Not Iridescence and not about that!" called Luminescence, catching himself against a tree as he stumbled. Radiance grabbed his wrist.
"Careful. We don't know how much of this is poison."
"I don't know what any of that's meant to mean!" Etheria shouted. She should, she was certain she should, but even now she wasn't good enough. And now the Sterlings were going to lose their sister just like she'd lost her brothers.
"The trains are a gimmick from the Eighty Eighth! That arena had six of them, placed around the cornucopia."
Did she remember that? Vague recollections swirled at the back of her mind. Trains – and collisions. Piles of twisted metal that the tributes took for weapons and fought on. One boy had been impaled. It took hours for him to actually die. Eight year old Etheria had sobbed her little heart out.
"And they crashed?" she asked slowly.
"You do remember!" Radiance cried, somehow sounding relieved and delighted at the same time.
"Distantly."
"The trains ran across the arena once a day, but the lines don't go anywhere! When they get to the end, they just crash into the cliffs there!"
"Small bloodbath at the cornucopia that year, but almost half the tributes died from trying to escape on the trains," said Luminescence.
Etheria felt her pounding heart skip a beat. "And Iridescence–"
"Phoenix."
"Phoenix? I thought your sister was called Iridescence?"
Had she got something so simple wrong? This was what happened when she didn't have her notebook to keep track of details. How could she have missed something as obvious as their sister's name, especially when it seemed to her like they all three matched?
"Our triplet sister. Phoenix is our younger sister."
A horrible fear crept over Etheria. "Oh."
It really would be like Eulicles then. They'd lose their younger sister - and was this somehow her fault? Had she showed them during the bloodbath? Was she holding them back now?
"And she- She got on one."
Luminescence grinned back at her. "Bingo."
New thoughts spun and twisted inside her as a new idea burst into her head. "Wait– No– She entered with you, why wasn't she allied with you?"
Luminescence glanced at her, and there was thick, heavy guilt in his icy eyes. "It was… part of our plan. It's complicated."
He felt responsible. Did he feel it was his place to protect her? Erehorn had been that way, once.
"How old is she?" Etheria asked quietly.
"Thirteen," Luminescence replied.
Younger than them then. Possibly the youngest in the Game – how old was the young boy she'd met in the foyer?
"Alright." She peered ahead of them through the beautiful trees. "I'll help you. But what's the plan?"
"Find the train first."
"Then what?"
"Then we figure out how to get Phoenix off the train."
Which meant he didn't know. Did she know? How could they stop a train?
"This isn't much of a plan."
"I'm winging it!" he snapped, and she flinched at the bitter anger in his voice.
"I- sorry, I'm just trying to help. What about an obstacle on the track?"
"What?"
"An obstacle. On the train tracks. Would that stop the train?"
Radiance shook his head. "Not if they're like the ones near home. It'd just plough straight through."
"It'd have to be a big obstacle," said Luminescence.
Etheria looked about them. "Then it's a good thing we're surrounded by big obstacles."
Vivaldi Perlman, 16
He wanted to get off. Not just off this train – he wanted off this thing as well – but off this entire Game. What had he done to deserve this? He was a good person, wasn't he? He'd never been horrid to his parents, even when they pushed and pushed. He'd done everything they wanted of him, studied hard, practised for hours on end with his violin. He'd never hurt anyone. He'd started to find happiness. Thorin had brought him that, he'd shown him all the many other things that life could have. There was more to life than studying and playing the violin and performing. He'd been enjoying himself.
But then he'd had to want to show Thorin how capable he was. How independent. That he could succeed at the Game.
And how he was going to die with some stranger thirteen year old in a train crash.
Vivaldi wanted to get off.
His mind was still racing, his mind spinning.
What could he do?
He was an artist, a musician, but none of that would help him here. Could he have something in the backpack he'd grabbed?
"You can't just jump!" Phoenix was protesting, her voice shrill with panic. "We're going too fast, you'd break all your bones!"
Vivaldi swung his bag from his back and stuck a hand inside to dig through it. Food, a canteen of water, a length of rope. Nothing that would stop a runaway train.
"Maybe not." Cormac said, touching the nodes of his armour. "I'm still at full power. The jump might bring me to zero, but I could survive it."
Phoenix's young features scrunched up with anger. "That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of!"
Vivaldi glanced at his own shoulders. Seven nodes still lit. Was that enough?
He followed Cormac back to the door. They'd gained speed since they boarded, and the train was rushing through the landscape fast enough to make him feel motion sick. The cliffs at either side were slowly getting higher around them. If they were going to jump off, it would have to be soon. Otherwise the cliffs would be too high around them for them to make it.
"Could we grab the cliffs?" he asked.
Phoenix glanced at him. "What?"
"The cliffs. We're close enough. Could we grab them?"
She shook her head. "We'd risk having our arms ripped off by the momentum."
"You really think it's such a bad idea to jump?" he asked. Science had never been his strong point. He was a musician, an artist. What did he know about momentum, other than fighting it was bad?
Phoenix rolled her eyes. "You… might make it with seven armour points. Though we are going quite fast now. I don't know if the armour will protect you from having your head ripped off."
Vivaldi shuddered. Oh, yes. That would be bad. And- that was funny wording, wasn't it?
He glanced at Phoenix's shoulders.
Two.
Only two of her armour nodes were lit.
"Oh," he said softly.
Phoenix turned red, a terrible contrast with her hair, and looked away. "The boy with the fans."
The one he'd rescued her from. He must have got some strikes in despite Vivaldi's efforts.
Which meant Cormac could jump.
He could jump.
But for her it would be suicide.
"Alright. What's the plan you were trying to say earlier?"
"I'm jumping," said Cormac, and positioned himself in the doorway.
"Good luck," said Phoenix.
And then he was gone.
Vivaldi held himself back for a moment, but he had to see, had to know what he was up against, so he jumped forward to the door and looked out.
He caught a glimpse of Cormac, clinging to the side of the cliff for a moment.
And then a dreadful second later he fell, slipping down and tumbling beneath the train.
The machine surged on, one bump, two.
Cormac screamed.
Then nothing.
The silence between him and Phoenix only grew louder. Vivaldi turned to her, but the words escaped him, choking inside him.
Phoenix only steadied herself as the train passed over a bump. "Well. That answers that question."
They couldn't jump. And the train wouldn't stop. They were going to die.
Then Phoenix grinned, as though this was the greatest fun ever to her. "So. You want to listen to what I have to say now?"