Chapter 9:

Mortan Karpov, District Four, Age 17

Victor of the 84th Hunger Games

Mortan has been an anxious mess for the last week as the days continued to progress in the arena, the number of tributes remaining slowly decreasing, yet Mortan has stayed alive. There was already so much pressure on him at the start of the Games to, you know, live, but as he got further and further along, the outside pressure from Doria and her fellow victors kept pushing on him, making the anxious feeling in his stomach that something will go wrong refuse to go away. He's constantly on edge, afraid of doing anything out of line. Doria told him so many things he should and shouldn't do and in the fear of the Games, many of those things have become a jumbled mess, making him want to just shut down and do nothing.

There was just so much pressure to make sure these Games went smoothly with what is going on in the Capitol. This could be the very last year of the Hunger Games ever… All depending on the outcome of the election. President Ovidius has promised that she is going to end the Games after this year, but that depends on the country reelecting her. Except it's not the whole country, just the Capitol. It's some real bullshit that the majority of the population can't even have a say in the person running the country. But that wasn't her fault. She tried to change the law but had adversity at every point and now it's too late. Mortan is terrified for if her opponent wins…Basilius Cosima will no doubt keep the Games going, long past the point of punishment for the Second Rebellion. And current polls show that the election is going to be close…too close for comfort for all the District children that may be put at risk of going into the Hunger Games.

It all comes down to these Games, if they'll show the Capitol citizens if these are a punishment that should end or if they are 'entertainment'… Which is a lot of pressure to put on a group of kids that are already in a literal death match. If Mortan thinks about it too much right now, he knows he'll have a panic attack in the middle of the arena, just like he did several times in the Capitol when Doria tried to tell him what he should do in the arena. She had so much pressure on herself with this election, regardless if she's a victor. She's still a former rebel and all of them still remember what happened to the last group of victors that were rebellious.

At least it seems like Head Gamemaker Ovidius is also trying to work in the favor of the victors and his mother. No gimmicks, no bells and whistles… Just…a giant grassy field. They didn't even all launch together around a cornucopia, just placed randomly in the arena with a bag full of supplies. Which Mortan wasn't complaining about. He didn't want to try and fight just to get some food to eat. He didn't want to kill – even though he knows if he's going to be victor, it will have to happen. Doria made that very clear to him. Kill or be killed. You have to play dirty to win because most people won't be fair – yet he can't be too flashy with his kills so the Capitol's twisted minds don't think it's entertainment. Just quick deaths, try to make it painless.

Mortan knows what he has to do, yet can only think as far ahead as the next step. The end of the Games is still too far ahead with ten of them still left. If there was one downside to there not being a cornucopia they launched around, it would be that it is making the Games stretch on a lot longer than usual. But maybe that was their plan. Make the Games last so long that the Capitol starts growing bored just watching tributes wandering aimlessly over the vast grassy plain. How many Games so far since the rebellion have gone longer than a week, let alone two like he suspects their Games will? Mortan knows he is bored in here – when his anxiety isn't telling him that he needs to keep moving or nagging him in the back of his mind that he's at risk, even when there are no tributes in sight.

Which is why he is wandering in the middle of the night to find a new place to set up camp, somewhere that will hopefully make his anxiety calm down. He can't stop the feeling that he has to keep moving or the Gamemakers will punish him or push him towards another tribute, despite seeing no actual evidence of this. He's even wondered at times if the Gamemakers are even doing anything with these Games from the lack of evidence of their involvement.

Mortan comes to an abrupt stop when he sees the flickering of a dying fire in the distance, held in place from fear of not knowing what he should do right now. He doesn't want to make the wrong choice and mess up everything the victors and President are working towards with ending the Games. He doesn't want to kill. And yet…he really wants to get out of this arena and regardless of what is going on outside of here, there's only one way he'll get out of here.

And that's the deaths of the nine other tributes left.

That fact hasn't changed. Twenty one of them have to die in this arena and Mortan would really prefer not being one of them. He knows he should go to the fire and see if anyone is there… How boring is just a quick kill while the tribute is asleep? Surely he wouldn't be doing anything wrong there…

Yet his feet stay planted, staring at the dying fire for so long that it burns down to just a few coals that Mortan can barely see in the dark. He knows what he should do…yet he can't. He just can't bring himself to just go over to a tribute when they are asleep and unaware that their death is approaching.

And so he does something that probably would have gotten him killed by the Gamemakers in any normal year. Mortan turns and walks away from the tribute, leaving them for someone else to find. He keeps looking around anxiously as he walks away, still expecting something to stop him – those mutts from three years ago still give him nightmares sometimes. But he's allowed to walk away freely to go keep hiding from the tributes. He's going to just keep avoiding the tributes as long as possible and only kill if they attack him first, even if the nagging in his head tells him he won't get away with this.

But this is not a normal year. This is possibly the last year. As long as Mortan doesn't mess things up.

So there we have our victor of the 84th Hunger Games, Mortan Karpov! And these Games also bring about the end of a sort of era within the Hunger Games history and as you'll see next chapter, things are going to change up quite a bit. But poor Mortan will think that he did mess up and was part of the reason.

So spoiler alert (not really XD): this was not the last year of the Hunger Games. Korrina and Myron did not succeed in getting them to end, which we will touch on in Hysteria. But what do you think about their strategy for these Games?

We'll have one more update from this for 2019! So I will see you soon with the victor of the 85th Games!