Chapter 4:
Garia Solanum, District Eleven, Age 17
Victor of the 79th Hunger Games
Garia has already lost too much in her life to lose the games. The rebellion had already torn her family apart… Her mother lost in the chaos of a riot… Her father imprisoned for participating in the riots after his grief over losing his wife drove him crazy… And her younger sister…
No. As much as the loss still feels fresh and causes so much pain in her chest, Garia cannot afford to get distracted right now. Not when distraction could result in her death. And she needs to get home to her remaining family. Uriel can't take care of the twins without her helping out and earning some money in the fields. It's bad enough that they had to stop school at the age of twelve to keep them all from starving. She wasn't going to make them take out tesserae.
Garia comes to a stop as the eerie bell chime that she will never get used to sounds in the arena, indicating that yet another hour has passed. She turns her attention up to the sky, waiting for when the Gamemakers will display the map of the arena for five short seconds, allowing the tributes to see where the remaining tributes are located. It was a sick and twisted way for them to make sure the fighting never stopped and to inspire fear into the tributes. Anything to keep punishing them for the rebellion that Garia wanted to forget about more than anything.
But with the end so close, every appearance of the map matters. She's one of only three tributes left and she is so close to getting out of here. Except when the map appears, the five seconds seem to stretch on forever as she realizes that the Vivian, the girl from District Ten, is very close to her. Way too close for her comfort. She can feel her forehead start to form sweat in fear of the large girl with muscles from years of handling livestock. She's just on the opposite side of the hill Garia had been starting to walk up.
The sky turns back to the bright blue, not a single cloud to block the sun. Garia's heart starts racing as she stares up the hill covered in small sage bushes, contemplating if the girl is going to chase after her. She needs to run, put as much distance between them, yet she can't bring her feet to move. All she can think about is the girl's promise during the interviews.
'I'm going to kill every last tribute here, especially if they have ties to rebels. Those tributes I'm going to absolutely destroy.'
But Garia wasn't involved in the rebellion. She had lost two family members to it! Yet the Capitol had no problem telling the world that Garia's father had been arrested during the rebellion. It didn't matter that Garia denounced all relation to him.
Vivian still wants to kill her.
The girl runs up to the top of the hill, stopping at the top to stare down at Garia before grinning maliciously and pointing with her spear. "Finally! You're the last one of the rebel scum!"
Vivian takes a step forward and that's when Garia finally gets her feet to start moving. She races back down the hill, momentum building and her feet sliding on some of the rocks scattering the ground. She doesn't dare look back to see how far away Vivian is but the girl's evil laughter lets Garia know that the distance between them is slowly closing.
Garia searches around as she starts running through the paths between the hills, trying to find something she can use to help her kill Vivian because she refuses to get close to the girl. Getting close will almost guarantee her death and she will not let that happen.
"You're not going to get away from me!" Vivian shouts and something goes flying past Garia's face just as she turns, something that certainly would have hit her if she hadn't turned.
Garia rounds the corner around a sharp face of a hill and immediately throws herself down to the ground as she sees Alexios running towards her, bow notched and ready to shoot. He shoots just as Vivian's laughter comes around the corner, quickly turning into gurgling. Garia glances back to see the older girl collapsing to the ground, blood spilling out of her mouth and arrow sticking out of her chest.
Boom.
But the boy from Three is still running towards her so she scrambles to grab the spear Vivian's hands still grasp tightly. She rips it free as the loud footsteps get closer and without looking, she thrusts it towards her left. When she feels resistance followed by a gasp of pain, she turns to see Alexios impaled on the end of it, the spear embedded deep in his stomach. Garia lets go of the spear in shock, causing the boy to fall to the ground as he tries to reach out and grab her. He gets ahold of her foot but she kicks him away, falling over and scrambling backwards from him. Finally, he stops moving, his eyes still staring at Garia.
Boom.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the victor of the 79th Hunger Games: Garia Solanum!"
And with the announcement, Garia starts to cry. She looks up at the hovercraft that just appeared above her and shakily gets to her feet. Somehow, she did it. She's going home.
And here we have our fourth chapter introducing Garia Solanum, Victor of the 79th Games! And yeah, if you read Wayward, this might seem familiar because it's just the intro scene that we saw for her there. But hopefully that was long enough ago that this was a nice little refresher on her XD
Here we start to see how things are shifting in the Games and in the country towards rebels as more time passes between the Second Rebellion and the current time. But also there's still a large group of loyalists still present. It's been funny exploring this and how the views change with each year! Next year is going to be even different from this year. So what are your thoughts on the first victor that was labeled a 'rebel'?
Also the SYOT Alliance Forum is currently hosting the third annual SYOT Awards! We are in the voting time and have lots of great nominations, so if you're interested in voting, check out the link on my profile! :)
Next update will be in a couple days because I have a few stockpiled and I am down for some quick updates since these are short reads! So I will see you soon!