Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
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District Eleven Male, Bakula Kalanit, 12
The cuffs had left black marks around his wrists, and they were raw with burns. Bakula rubbed them as he stepped through the door. It sealed closed behind him, and a smaller compartment opened in the wall.
"We have detected you are injured. Please place your arms in the tube."
"I'd rather not."
"We have detected you are injured. Please place your arms in the tube."
Bakula leant back against the wall. "I'd rather shoot myself.c
"We have detected you are injured. Please place your arms in the tube."
"No!"
A red light flashed above him. The door hissed open. A peacekeeper entered, seized him at the shoulders, and shoved his arms into the tube.
"Hey!" Bakula protested.
"Follow directions, kid."
A cold liquid sprayed his arms. Bakula gasped. The chill made the burning worse, and he grumbled and whimpered as he drew his arms back.
When he got a look at his wrists, he found the burns were still red and angry, but the wounds had gone numb. Bakula flexed his fingers. "Oh."
Another door slid open opposite the one he'd come through.
"Please enter the waiting room," said the speaker.
Bakula stepped inside.
He emerged in a round, white hall, with a tiled floor and striplights running the length of the ceiling. To his left, Saigon was emerging through another door. Bakula ran to him.
"Saigon! Are you alright? Do you know where we are?"
They weren't alone, he noticed now. Other teenagers were spilling out into the hall around them.
"I don't know," he whispered, pulling him close to his chest. "All the directions in my rooms were done by recording. Guess not everyone can get a Peacekeeper."
Bakula laughed. "I argued with the recording in the last room. Guess they send the peacekeepers out for that."
Saigon clipped him round the back of the head. "Of course you did. I should have guessed. Don't do it again; next time they might just shoot you."
Bakula rolled his eyes.
Dove staggered from the door on the right of his own, wearing the same uniform as everyone else in the room, his curly hair still damp. Bakula waved him over.
"Don't," Saigon muttered. "We can't care for them all."
"But he's nice," Bakula argued as Dove wandered over.
"And we don't know we can trust him."
District Nine Male, Wolf Willows, 18
This wasn't a prison. There weren't any guards in here with them, and nor could they go back to the cells. Plus, the girls were being put in with the boys.
No, this was something else.
Wolf just hadn't quite worked out what yet.
Wren stumbled from her room and shoved the local girl aay as she stepped over to check on her.
"I just wanted to check–" protested the kid.
Wren bared her teeth. "And I just might bite."
"Go find your little boyfriend," Wolf said, taking his sister's hand.
The girl stared up at them. "You know, a little kindness wouldn't go astray."
"And you've been kind to us, have you, babysitter?"
She opened and closed her mouth, shook her head, and turned away. "Fine. Have it your way."
"Do you think they plan on killing us all?" Wren asked, looking up at the walls around them. "A fire in here, and there'd be no escape."
Wolf shook his head. "A fire in here and there's nothing to fuel it. Unless they intend for us to be the fuel."
Wren frowned around the hall. "Then what are we here for?"
"I don't know. But we'll find out."
District One Female, Daisy Jetson-Brie, 15
She stumbled through the door into the hall beyond. There was a scattering of other teenagers emerging from their own doors, some her age, but others looking younger.
"Daisy!" Tatiana darted over and grabbed her hand. "There you are! Are you alright?"
Daisy rubbed her wrist. The machine had only given her one jolt, but it still hurt.
"Fine," she replied. "I think."
Mostly a lie, but she didn't need to burden Tatiana with that knowledge.
"This is all so weird." Tatiana glanced around them. "What do you think they want us all here for?"
"We're all players in their game!" called a boy nearby. His jacket declared him to be Player Seven, and his arms were thick with muscle.
"Who are you?" asked Daisy.
He grinned. "Alexios Macedon. This is my sister, Aelianna."
Siblings. Maybe twins, they looked roughly the same age.
"I'm Daisy. This is Tatianna." Daisy waved her hand at the others in the hall. "Do you know anything about this game we've been brought here to play?"
Alexios laughed and gave her a wink. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"That is why she asked," said Tatiana.
Daisy frowned at her. "Don't worry about it. It's fine." She turned back to Alexios. "So… Where are you two from?"
They didn't look like they were from One, but then neither did she, so she couldn't judge.
"District Two."
Daisy frowned. "District Two?"
Alexios laughed and raised an arm to flex his biceps. "Strongest in Panem, little lady."
The girl, Aelianna, flicked his ear. "Stop flirting and leave them alone. We're not here for that."
Daisy blushed. "I didn't mind…"
Aelianna was already dragging her brother away.
Tatiana shrugged. "Wanna go see who else we can talk to?"
It must be better than being on her own. Daisy nodded. "Let's go!"
District Nine Male, Jarrod Palash, 16
This didn't look like a prison. Jarrod wasn't quite sure what this was. The room was circular, with doors set into it at regular intervals. Every so often, a tribute would stumble from one of them.
"I want to know what's going on!" he grumbled, scuffing his pretty new black boots against the tiles. He wanted to scuff them up until they were ruined; he hated the look of them this way. Everything here was too clean.
"What are we doing here? Why?" He spun round, but he couldn't see any peacekeepers remaining in the hall. It looked as though the teenagers taken had been shoved in here and left to their own desires. "If some asshole is going to kidnap us all and lock us in a hall after some weird torture test, you could at least tell us what we're here for!"
A few murmurs of agreement went up from others in the room. One girl, a pretty blonde, her face red with anger, scowled up at the wall. "What he said! I demand to know why I'm here!"
"Nadine," muttered a taller girl, reaching for her arm.
The blonde girl shoved her away. "Don't touch me, you creep!"
"I just don't think losing your temper is helping–"
"It makes me feel better!" she shouted.
Jarrod laughed. "Agreed!" He kicked the wall. "Come on! What do you want from us?"
"You do understand this might be what they want?" asked a painfully thin girl labelled at Player Nineteen.
Jarrod scowled. "What's that meant to mean?"
The girl shrugged. "All the Peacekeepers would tell us is that we're here to play a game. Maybe this is what they find fun." She waved a hand at the kids in the hall. "Locking us all up together and watching us fight."
"Do you want to fight?"
She raised her hands. "No, no. I'd just like to point out that it might be better for us all in the long run if we didn't do what they want us to."
"I'll fight," said a boy suddenly. Tall and blonde, with sharp blue eyes. He drew his fist back and punched Jarrod in the face.
He fell, and the boy fell on him, raining down more blows. The girl sighed. "Atlas! Atlas! Stop! What are you doing?"
"Thrashing this fool! I thought he said he was gonna fight!"
There was a madness in the boy's eyes. Jarrod drove his knees into his stomach to form space between them and rolled out from under him.
"What are you, a coward?"
"Don't be a coward," drawled a girl with long brown hair.
"I'm not a coward–" Jarrod spat.
"Attention tributes!" boomed the woman from his preparation rooms. "You will be given your instructions on the viewing screen in precisely five minutes."
A black screen lowered from the ceiling, displaying a five minute timer.
"Please stand by and await your directions."
"Bullshit," Jarrod muttered.
District Seven Female, Adrianna Orita, 17
Terro loomed over most of the other tributes, including the Macedon twins. It might have been commercial were this any other situation.
Those in the hall seemed to be taking one of two sides: one which was following the order given and waiting for further instructions to be given, and a second, smaller group which was screaming abuse at the speakers demanding an explanation or to be released.
Adrianna stayed between both, keeping close to Terro, while she tried to get a read on the situation. She and Terro came from Seven, but the Macedons must have been taken from Two, and there was a plain looking girl with the same sallow skin and dark eyes that she'd seen on many tributes from Twelve. The loud and proud brunette sounded like she might be from Ten, while the three siblings were clearly from Eleven.
"I'd bet there's kids from all over Panem here," she whispered to Terro.
"You wanna bet on what for?"
"Nothing good."
At home in Two, Adrianna had trained for the Hunger Games, as all her friends had. It was what her father expected of her. But in Seven, they'd been terrified of the Games. The people there had no time to train for the Games, when not at work they still needed time to eat and sleep. There was no time to teach their children how to protect themselves. Nothing the Capitol did was a good thing in the long run, she'd seen that well enough.
The timer hit ten seconds. One girl raised her fingers to her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. "Anyone who wants to listen to these instructions best come and see!"
That, more than anything, quietened the hall, and they all crowded round to look up at the screen.
The timer hit zero and an image appeared on screen. Blonde, stern and composed, wearing a white pantsuit. President Elrich.
Whispers rippled through those gathered.
"Greetings, tributes."
Tributes. Well, that was a bad sign.
"As you should all be aware of, six months ago, there was an incident in a popular game simulator in the Capitol, which resulted in the death of many of our children. Because of that, you have all been selected for a very special version of the Hunger Games."
And there they were. Gotcha.
"The Hunger Games?" asked one of the maybe-Eleven girls.
"Are we meant to be killing each other?"
"I don't want to be in the arena!"
"As the victims of the attack were from across the Capitol, tributes were chosen from across Panem regardless of District, gender, or age."
That explained the oddities with the groups of tributes.
"This arena will be different from most that tributes will encounter. Rather than one open land, you will encounter a series of challenges, with breaks along the way. Any tribute that can make it to the end will be allowed to live."
District Eight Female, Meredith Singer, 18
"But that means we could all live," whispered a little girl close to her. "We can all get through this alive."
She could see her babies again.
Meredith straightened. She needed to hold it together. This was the Capitol, many of these challenges would surely be traps, and if they all started fighting amongst each other, more of them would die.
"The timer on each screen of the waiting rooms will tell you the time remaining before the next challenge. Good luck, tributes, and may the odds be with you!"
The feed turned black.
For a moment there was silence. Then:
"We're all going to die," whispered a girl who looked no older than ten. "We're all going to die!"
"We're going to die?" asked a boy, turning to her. "Lili, is that true? We're going to die? I don't want to die!" He flung his arms around her. "I don't want you to die!"
One boy, tall and muscular, standing above most of the other tributes and taking up much of their space as well of his own, roared with laughter. "This is punishment for you rebel scum! This is how you get what you deserve!"
"Shut the fuck up!" screamed a short girl, her face red from anger. She looked little older than Adalaide, though wasn't anywhere near as placid as her. "Who deserves this? No one deserves this!"
He shoved his way over to her, looming over her. "Have rebel sympathies, do you?"
"Sympathies? I've been a rebel longer than you've been walking!"
"Filth like you needs stamping out." He drew back a fist. The girl raised hers.
"Enough!" Meredith stepped between them. "If we stand here arguing and fighting among ourselves here, we'll all die in this arena. If we work together, we're in with a chance. Nobody has to die."