Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
Vivaldi Perlman, 16
"What happens if we fall?" Vivaldi asked, looking at the land rushing past outside the train.
Phoenix shrugged. "Then we die like Cormac."
"Fantastic. Real comforting."
She rolled her eyes. "Our other options are sitting here and accepting our violent fate or jumping off and being shredded by the momentum."
Vivaldi closed his eyes. "In that case, I guess I choose extreme train climbing."
Phoenix actually looked excited for this, but he wanted to be sick. His head spun. He should have listened to Thorin; he never should have entered. He wasn't cut out for this!
Phoenix went first, sidling from the still open door to find foot and hand-holds along the side of the train. The wall of the canyon behind her looked barely an arm's width away from her. If she fell, she'd crack her head open on it. Or be crushed under the train's wheels.
Vivaldi swallowed his fear and followed her out. The wind caught him almost immediately, whipping through his hair and wrenching at his clothing. Out here, the noise of the wheels clattering against the track was louder, echoing in his ears.
According to Phoenix, if they could get to the front of the carriage, they might be able to unhook it from the rest of the train. Without the engine, the carriage would then just roll to a stop, and they could jump off without being at risk of violent, bloody death.
It was their best chance.
Phoenix felt her way along the side of the train as though she belonged there, like the monkeys Vivaldi had once looked at through the bars of their cage at the zoo. He felt clumsy and inferior behind her. His foot slipped beneath him, and he screamed as images of him slipping off and being crushed beneath the wheels of the great machine flashed through his mind.
Phoenix's arm snapped out, her thin fingers wrapping tightly around his forearm and holding him steady. He clung to his handholds, panting. He was useless at this. And he was still close to the door, he could always go back and let Phoenix do this. She was better at it. He was good at art.
"You good?" she shouted.
"Slipped!" he called back, finding a new ledge to rest his foot on. "I think– I don't think I can do this!"
"Go back then!"
He should. He should go back. Vivaldi glanced at the door. It looked almost as far away as the end of the carriage that they were aiming to reach. And if smaller than him, younger than him Phoenix could do this, he could do this too. Vivaldi blinked back his burning tears. He could make it.
It was hard work, and the closer they got to the front of the carriage, the faster the train seemed to be rushing, as though it didn't want them to succeed with Phoenix's insane plan.
Phoenix kept moving, graceful like a mouse, as though this was her version of painting. She reached the end of the carriage and peered round it. For a moment her expression was terribly serious, and then it brightened.
"They made it properly!" she called with delight.
Carefully, move by move, she manouvered the turn of the carriage until she disappeared. Vivaldi held his breath as he reached the turn. Could he make that? What if he fell?
"Come on!" Phoenix shouted, holding her hand out.
He took it with one of his and followed her steps in making the corner, first his right foot, adjust his left hand, left foot, left hand, and then he could carefully turn and put his back to the carriage. Phoenix released his hand.
"Why do you look like you're having fun?" he shouted.
"I always wanted to do this!"
"And what are we doing?"
She crouched down, indicating a heavy looking lever on the side of the carriage. "Grab the one on your side and pull it up! It should release the carriage!"
At least one of them knew what they were doing. Vivaldi shuffled over and reached down to grab the handle. It was stiff and heavy, and he wasn't exactly known for his brute strength, but it started to give way bit by bit.
"Hurry up!" Phoenix screamed.
Vivaldi braced himself as much as he could, hauling upwards on the lever. At last it rose up with a dreadful sounding crunch. Beside him, Phoenix released her lever. The locks holding tunnel to the front carriage separated, and their carriage screeched, lurching forward without the drag.
"Hang on!" Phoenix shouted. Vivaldi clung to his lever as the entire carriage lurched, there was a dreadful crunch from up ahead, and then they were grinding to a stop as the front section of the train compressed like a tin can. Would they still hit it? It looked that way. He shifted, turned, and jumped clear of the now slow moving carriage, clinging to the cliff. Another crash rang out as their carriage hit the pile-up, and then it was quiet.
"Phoenix?" he called, sliding to the foot of the cliff and turning to face the pile of twisted wreckage. That would have been them. He shouldn't have listened to the crazy girl.
"Vivaldi, you alright?" she shouted from the other side.
"Yeah." He drew in a deep breath, steadied himself, and nodded. "Yeah, I think so."
Apollo Gilmore, 17
They kept moving through the fog filling the arena until the fog inside his head became so bad his legs couldn't properly hold him anymore and Artemis's efforts weren't enough. She dropped him by a large stone. "Wait here."
"I don't think this is the time or place to separate," he complained.
Artemis flicked his ear. "And I don't think you're in any fit state to argue with me. Wait here, I'll see if I can find us some shelter."
"Artemis," he complained as she left him, her boots crunching through the dead black grass.
Ugh, someone would kill her out there and she'd never come back and then he'd be easy pickings for anyone and anything that might be close.
He hated being injured and having low armour.
He would kill Radiance Sterling the next time he saw him.
A dark figure found him after what felt like forever, and he yelled, grabbing at his sword. The figure sighed. "Only me, Pol."
He groaned. "Missy. You scared me."
Artemis grinned down at him. "Good. Come on, I found shelter."
Apollo grumbled as he stumbled back to his feet and she hooked her arm around him. "Tell me it's not far."
"It's not far. Few more minutes and we would have walked right into it."
Turned out she meant that literally. Her discovered 'shelter' was a small white building, almost entirely hidden by the fog, barely a five minute walk from where she'd left him.
"The door's jammed," she said, leading him around to what was clearly the entrance, marked by two great statues in the shape of griffins. "Help me with this."
Apollo tried his best to lend his strength, but the effort quickly made him dizzy, and he slid to the ground. Artemis dragged him a step away and tucked her backpack under his head while she worked on getting the door open herself. Apollo watched her, turning everything over inside his head. "You know what I think this is?" he asked, breaking the uneasy quiet between them.
"What?" she snapped.
"The Seventy Fifth!" he replied.
Artemis turned to face him. The fog was so thick now that it had started to blur her face, but he could still see her pink hair.
"What?" she asked.
"The Seventy Fifth." He waved a hand at the arena around them. Artemis's head moved side to side as she followed his indication. Apollo struggled to push himself up against the stone. "The arena. It's the arena for the Seventy Fifth."
Artemis slowed for a moment in her work to get the door open. "I… Yeah. Yeah, could be."
"Could be? How many other fog filled graveyard arenas have there been?"
"Not many," she admitted.
"The Fiftieth Quell twist, but the arena for a different one." He grinned. "Clever."
"All right." Artemis turned back to the stone door. "So what do we know about that arena?"
"Foggy during the day. It'll clear at night, but be incredibly dark. Watch out for gravestones and small ponds. Small animal mutts in the first few days, but nothing to worry about too much. Zombie mutts when we're down to the final eight, which are far more to worry about. We need to be back near the cornucopia by the time of the zombie mutts. Hopefully with my armour recharged." He grinned as an idea came to him, but that was one to be whispered, not said aloud for anyone that might be nearby. "Food and water should be relatively plentiful, so long as we can find it in this fog. This arena wasn't designed for the tributes to starve to death; the audience wanted a big show for the quell."
Artemis nodded. "Alright. Alright then, we can work with that."
They could work with that.
She turned back to trying to pry the door open. "But we still need to put finding Ares above anything else."
"We can find Ares and still play the Game."
The ones that were willing to choose roles and play them for the audience always went further, both in the simulated Games and in the real Hunger Games.
And everyone loved a good villain.
Sorcha Summerfield, 17
The building they now stood before was one of the ugliest buildings Sorcha had ever seen.
It was grey, with narrow windows covered by thick iron bars, and a heavy gate over the doors. No flags, paint, or decor existed to make it more tolerable. It simply stood there being ugly.
"Ugh," Sorcha grumbled, wrinkling her nose. This place even stank like rot and decay.
Calpurnia covered her mouth and nose with one hand. "This better be worth it, because my friends are going to lose so much faith in me for going in a building that looks like that."
"What now?" asked Marcellina.
Sorcha looked around herself. "I can't see anyone else, so we must be the first ones here. We make this our base and secure it from other players. We can stay here tonight."
"I like the plan, all except the staying in this terrible building," said Calpurnia.
Marcellina nodded. "Isn't there… somewhere else we can go?"
Calpurnia flicked a lock of platinum hair from her face. "Like, literally anywhere else?"
Luminita sighed. "Do you see any other buildings near here?"
Sorcha looked around, but there was nothing else in this field and the terrible, ugly building. And for all it pained her, sometimes playing the Game meant… slumming it. She nodded at her sister, as strange as that felt. "There isn't anywhere else. This is it, at least for today."
Calpurnia sighed and shook her head. "Fine. But it better not be too dirty in there."
Sorcha hoped so too, but by the look of this disgusting building, it was going to be just as filthy inside as it was outside. Sometimes the programmers put too much detail into the Game.
"Let's find a way in and somewhere to sleep. Then tomorrow we need to start hunting." Sorcha shifted her sword in her hand. She had a good sized alliance, and they'd all survived the bloodbath. It was time to show Luminita just what she'd been scorning.
Marcellina shivered and went a terrible shade of white, putting her hand nervously in the air.
"What now?" grumbled Sorcha.
"I– Uh… By hunting…"
Sorcha sighed. "Yes, I mean hunting down other players. This is the Hunger Games arena."
"But we could actually be killing people, if that woman was telling the truth…" Marcellina shuddered. "I thought this was meant to be fun, but I don't want to actually kill anyone."
Sorcha groaned, tapping her sword. "You've seen the real Hunger Games, right?"
"Well… Yeah…" Marcellina stammered.
"And you know what happens to weak tributes in the arena?"
Marcellina's e eyes glittered with tears. "Yes."
"Good." Sorcha glanced at Luminta. "We need to secure our position. Set traps, make sure the building is ours."
"If it's safe here, we should stay put," Luminita countered.
Sorcha scowled. "We need to fight!"
"Um," Marcellina ventured, holding her hands out. "Maybe we could stop arguing for a moment and get into the building first?"
Luminita looked with her and conceded, pushover that she was. Sorcha took hold of the grate over the doors and pulled back on it, forcing it open. "Come on then. Let's see what filth this place has inside."
Iridescence Sterling, 17
There was something wrong with her.
There had to be something wrong with her.
Ares Gilmore certainly wasn't having all the issues she was. In fact, from what she could see, he was moving normally, if a little sporadically, through the beautiful trees around them.
"Do you feel sick?" Iridescence asked. It was the first thing either of them had said, other than brief warnings of environmental dangers, since they fled the bloodbath.
He glanced at her. "No. Do you?"
Iridescence rubbed her head. "A bit."
Ares Gilmore slowed slightly to give her a proper look over, lingering on her shoulders. "You take a hit in the bloodbath?"
She touched her armour nodes. "I don't think so."
"Dunno then." He frowned, looking at the arena around them. "You haven't gotten yourself poisoned already, have you?"
Nausea lurched in Iridescence's stomach. "I- don't think so. We haven't stopped to eat or drink anything, and I haven't got any cuts or scratches to get anything into me."
He shrugged. "Was a question that needed asking."
She nodded, frowning at the way it made her vision spin and blur. "Good call."
A splitting boom filled the air. She raised a hand to call Ares to a stop. "Canons."
They wouldn't know who was dead – wouldn't know if any of their siblings had made it – until the evening, when their faces would be shown in the sky. But they would know how many had fallen.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Eleven.
Twelve.
Thirteen.
Silence.
They stood for a while, listening to see if any more would sound, but none came.
Thirteen.
What were the odds that none of their siblings were among that count?
It had to be low. There were seven of them – and two of them were here, together, living and breathing in what had to be the strangest alliance Iridescence had ever joined.
"I counted thirteen," Ares said at last.
"Yeah. I counted thirteen," she agreed.
He rubbed his hands against his legs. "Do you think..?"
"I don't know," she replied. She should have said something comforting, shouldn't she, but she could find nothing.
Thirteen players were out.
Thirteen players were dead.
Because…
By the way Iridescence felt right now, she believed what the announcer had said during the bloodbath.
They could be hurt.
They could get thirsty, hungry.
And they could die.
"Let's find somewhere to make camp," she said. "I can't go much further."
Andreas Amandiel, 18
THirteen canons.
Thirteen competitors gone.
Thirteen Capitol teenagers truly dead, if that announcer was to be believed.
And thirty five of them left.
Marquis was quiet, staring up towards the sky, though the fog blocked them from seeing anything beyond a hand held out. "Do you think it's true? What she said about us playing for real?"
"We'll find out, one way or another," Andreas replied, keeping the fear from his voice. Now wasn't the time to let on that this hadn't been part of the plan. He played this barbaric Game for a taste of thrill, not because he actually wanted to engage with the Hunger Games. He still had the smallest sliver of hope inside him that he might find someone here that shared his view of the world, that might understand.
He never had, of course. He just kept on being disappointed. But sometimes he told himself to try. The Capitol needed to change, to develop, and while he hoped he could start it, he'd still need allies. Others that believed in the dream. He couldn't do it alone.
"I don't want to die," said Marquis.
Andreas laughed. "I don't think anyone has ever wanted to die."
"So what happens if we do? I-if this is real, and we- we die?"
"Then they don't get to win the Game." Andreas squinted through the fog around them. They needed to find a clear area if they wanted to set up a camp, to stop any other players quite literally stumbling over them while blind - but plenty of others would be looking for exactly the same thing.
"But could you do it?" Marquis cast him a wide eyed, alarmed look. "Actually kill someone?"
He would do whatever it took to survive. He'd received high placements before, but this time he needed more than that. He needed to win. Because if that woman had been telling the truth, the other choice was death, and that was unacceptable.
But he couldn't exactly tell Marquis that. He needed Marquis to stay on his side; he needed his support.
"If we have to," Andreas said at last. "But only then."
He should still be able to turn people against each other, right? His old strategy should work, at least against some alliances.
"This is crazy," Marquis muttered, and their conversation quietened for ten minutes as they continued to walk. At last, something appeared in the darkness, a grey stone shape looming up.
"Is that a building?" Marquis asked.
"Looks like something," Andreas replied.
Right now, it looked like shelter for the night.
Then tomorrow…
Tomorrow it was time to start the sabotage.
Silverie Erilea Amarendajae, 14
So many dead.
But so many still in the Game.
More than a normal Game would usually start with. Some part of Silverie was glad that they hadn't got close to any of the other players. Only Emeria, and she was here with them.
"It could be harder to stay hidden with so many players in the arena," Emeria said.
Silverie looked at the arena around them. "The arena looks pretty big."
That had been something that startled them, when they first started playing. Some arenas were huge and sprawling, with places for the tributes that had completed in them during the real Hunger Games to hide, while others were much smaller, intended to force all the trivium closer together. Perhaps the Gamekeepers had had a dull year the year before, or there hadn't been enough deaths close together, or they wanted to design a more artsy, challenging arena rather than something massive that spread out.
"We could keep going. It looks like there's trees that way." They pointed off to the right, where colourful trees were highlighted against the setting sun.
Emeria sighed heavily. "That looks like a long walk, and we don't know for sure it'll be any better than that place." She pointed out the building ahead. "I think we should just stay there for tonight. We can always just stay outside."
"Those others are poking around it," Silverie said.
"That looks like a big building, we should be able to avoid them. Or–" Emeria looked at them.
Silverie scowled. "No."
"There are forty eight players in this Game, a bigger alliance–"
"Would be more people to stab us in the back."
Emeria would never do that to Silverie and Silverie would never do that to Emeria, but they didn't have that guarantee from strangers they didn't know. And if it was true, if people were dying during this Game, then they couldn't take that risk.
"Alright." Emeria shook her head. "Alright, fine. But that means we'll have to move in the morning, I don't like being so close to that other group."
"Agreed."
Emeria took Silverie's hand, locking their fingers together. Their heart thumped, the cold breeze bringing the scent of grass and plants to them.
They were going to be a target for many other bigger tributes that wanted an easy kill, wanted to remove one more obstacle from their road to victory.
But unlike most, at least they had an ally they could rely on.
It's been a while, so let's play submitter check-in time! Another fairly easy one, I'll ask for any thoughts on what we've seen of the arena so far.