Author's Note
I do not own The Hunger Games.
District Six Female, Millicent Rivas, 14
The screen lit up with an image of the room she'd been in earlier, with that cruel zapping chair.
"I'm sure you're all wondering why you've been brought here."
The same voice that had been directing her through the earlier rooms. She wasn't on screen though, her voice was simply coming through the speakers.
"Six months ago, there was a deplorable attack on our beloved Capitol, which resulted in the death of numerous of our precious children."
The image on screen became something else, a graveyard, a boy being torn apart. A canyon, two teenagers falling to their deaths. A glittering forest, a boy being hunted down like the animal he was. These kids would have bayed for the death of District children. They deserved a taste of their own medicine.
"Good!" shouted a younger girl with 'DISTRICT FIVE' written across her back.
Another screen change, a girl committing suicide as black blood bubbled from her lips. Two girls attacking a trio of boys. A pair of girls erupting into flame–
"They didn't even die!" shouted a boy.
That was the rumor. The red-headed girl, Phoenix, she had survived, more was the pity. The other one, Celeste… No one seemed to know. She hadn't been pride as a survivor, but people kept speaking about her survival regardless.
"Payments must be made for what was done to our own. One life from the Districts for every life snuffed out in the Capitol."
"Oh, you bastards," muttered another boy.
"Terro!" hissed the girl with him.
"Don't you see? That's why they wanted sibling pairs! They wanted us to suffer the way their precious siblings did!"
"Yes, but don't say it so loud!"
Millie laughed. "Say it louder. Say it to everyone! They deserve to know what the Capitol's doing! They want us to suffer for something that had nothing to do with any of us–"
"Some of you were selected at random. Some met our stringent criteria. Others are here for a reason."
In a flash, there was a girl in the chair, blonde haired and looking puzzled. "I'm not a rebel," she said, and then screamed as she was zapped. "I'm not! Glory was a friend; I didn't know what they wanted to do!"
Flash and the image changed to a young boy. "I fixed what my aunt and uncle wanted me to fix; I never asked questions."
Flash and it was a girl again, platinum haired and snarling. Subtitles rolled across the screen beneath her, but Millie didn't have enough time to read them all.
And still the images kept changing. Different kids, different forced confessions. Mutters of discontent in the hall.
They were rebel sympathisers.
That was why they were all here.
District Ten Female, Aiolin Kalene, 12
Clunks echoed around the room. Above Hunter's head, a section of the wall slid back and a large metal pipe emerged. Several more appeared at regular intervals around the room.
"I won't get through that," Laika muttered anxiously.
"I might," Aiolin replied, though even for her it would be tight.
On screen, the timer had been replaced by a list typed out in neat white lettering. The floor lurched under their feet.
Water spurted from the pipe above them, a steady stream of cold liquid. They yelped curses and scuttled out the way. The floor continued to move, and Aiolin could see now that it was moving, retracting back into the walls.
"Come on," Diego muttered, hurrying closer to the screen. They followed on behind him, Aiolin keeping herself inside the protective grouping of the older kids.
In the centre of the room, beneath the screen, the floor had retracted entirely to reveal a glass layer beneath. Below that, the room was filled with water. At the bottom of the pool were backpacks, weapons, and odd bubbles of some kind of plastic. They were all different sizes, with some being transparent, allowing them to see the contents, while others were solid.
"What the heck?" muttered Laila.
"Must be a version of a bloodbath," Aiolin said. Her heart thumped. She could swim, but by no means strongly. It was something Fleur and Acantha had always been better at. "What do the instructions say?"
"Ahhh… Blah blah blah… In the water below, you will find supplies and keys for the doors around the hall. Each door requires four keys and will remain open for thirty seconds once opened. May the odds be ever in your favor."
Shouts and yells began to echo around the room as tributes tried to find a way through the glass. Aiolin glanced around. "What doors?"
District Four Male, Tristan O'Cleary, 16
Water.
It almost felt like someone was giving them the advantage from the start.
For a kid from Four, Tristan wouldn't have said swimming was his strongest skill, but at least he could swim. Unlike many of the other tributes, who were now panicking both about the water beneath them and the steady stream coming in from above. There was enough to get the floor wet, but not enough to panic over just yet, in Tristan's opinion.
Still, the girl from Eight was struggling to hold command over her unwieldy alliance, which had collapsed into shouting at each other about what to do.
"We need to get down there," said Zale.
"We don't have any keys," replied Tristan.
"I think the keys are down there," murmured Arika.
Zale scowled at her. "How'd you reach that conclusion?"
Arika pointed above them at outlines in the walls. They were twelve feet above the doors they'd come in through, but almost identical in appearance. "The doors are up there."
Tristan frowned. "So we, what, climb up to those doors and come out somewhere down there?"
Arika shook her head. "I think those are the doors out of this hall. Think about it. The water's rising."
Alexios, the boy from Two, frowned. "So you think, what? That we go down there, get keys, climb up, open a door, and climb out?"
"No. They're putting more water in. Eventually, we'll be able to just swim to the doors up there."
"Well," Tristan said with a grin, "I guess we best go get supplies and those keys before the water gets too deep."
District Three Male, Andrew Preston Howard, 16
Water continued to rush down from above, slicking the floor beneath Andrew's feet. He kept to the edge of the room, squinting at the supplies beneath him.
If he didn't go down, he'd have nothing. He'd have to hope for sponsors or whatever he could find in this arena.
But if he did, he might drown. He'd never been in water deeper than the bath before. Never even seen water deeper than the bath.
The more pressing problem, right now, might be how he got down. He'd never break through this glass, but it didn't look like there was another option.
The other tributes had scattered across the hall and were patting the walls and stamping against the glass floor in some attempt to find a way through. On the far side from him, what he supposed was the career pack were talking animatedly and making hand gestures at the walls above. Andrew looked up and found what looked like doorways above him. That was where he needed to be then. He'd need to find a few taller allies to help him climb up.
The edge of the white floor passed underneath him. Not long now then before it was all glass.
Something else shifted and spun beneath him. Andrew lost his balance and crashed to the glass floor.
Then he was falling further, as the glass gave way beneath his legs. He yelled and flailed in some attempt to catch his balance, but his legs were already submerged in the water.
Scrambling against the glass to keep his head above the water, Andrew found he'd fallen through a new opening in the glass, leading into the tank below.
Swimming wasn't his thing, but maybe being the first in could bring this to his advantage.
District Eight Female, Nadine Stitcher, 16
A pool had opened right behind her, and Nadine was begrudgingly thankful for Meredith catching her arm before she could go crashing back into it. Her boots skidded on the wet floor underfoot.
"Try not to panic! No one get too far!" Meredith was saying, holding her arms out as though to gather them all like little kids. "Remember, we're working together! We don't need to fight over supplies, so we'll just wait until we can reach a door!"
One of the younger brats, a boy with District Three on his jacket, thrust his hand up. "The lady said we needed keys for the doors. How do we get keys?"
Meredith froze and looked at the girl from Twelve. "I… don't know."
Behind them, several of the tributes from Four plunged into the water, swimming down towards the supplies below. They made it look so easy!
"Does that mean we're trapped?" asked another girl, her voice sharp with fear. Usually Nadine liked hearing that tone, she'd be the one causing it, but now it only made her uneasy.
"We won't be trapped, there will be a way out," declared one of the girls from One. "The Capitol always leaves a way out. We just have to find it."
"I hate to agree with her," said the boy from her District, casting her a scowl. "But she's right. There'll be a way to get out somewhere here."
"What if it's on the ceiling?" asked one of the boys from Twelve.
"It won't be on the ceiling," said Meredith.
"But we need to find keys–"
"Everything else is down there," said the boy from Three. "It stands to reason that if we need keys, they'll be down there too."
Those gathered in their group exchanged looks, muttering nervously.
"Right," said the girl from Twelve, stepping forward. "Can anyone swim?"
Surprisingly, the other girl from her District, a tiny blonde thing, raised her hand, along with the girls from One.
"Then it looks like you're going to have to be our main link here. Swim down, grab what you can, and bring it back up here for us. Focus on the bubbles, if we're after keys, they might be hidden inside."
"I don't like swimming," muttered the smaller Twelve girl.
"Don't think you've got much of a choice, Sally. It's not fair to put this all on two people when we've got a third that can help."
The girl looked unhappy, but sat down to begin removing her boots. Nadine peered down into the water below. She wanted one of those knives, or a nice big backpack. But she'd never get down there to them, she'd either drown or end up being drowned by one of the career-bred kids.
No. She'd let the District One girls do the work here and grab supplies once they were out of the water.
District Ten Male, Callum Tanner, 15
Why did the first part have to be water? Swimming was one of his weakest skills! Put a knife in his hand, and he'd cut down these rebels that slaughtered the family he never knew, but all the knives were at the bottom of this tank of water.
Callum swore.
The other tributes from Ten had gathered against one wall, muttering frantically to each other and gesturing at the tank of water. Those from Four had dived in, along with the pair from Two and another girl with her hair shaven short. Another girl, who might be from Seven, had gone in by herself, while three from the large alliance in the center were only just entering the water.
Looked like he didn't have much of a choice if he wanted to be armed and avoid being left behind. Already water was splashing around his ankles; he'd be swimming one way or the other anyway. He might as well get something out of it.
Callum made his way over to one of the openings in the glass. One of the girls had taken her boots off, and he momentarily considered doing the same. His boots would only weigh him down when he was already a weak swimmer. He'd decided against that. If he dropped them, or lost them, he'd not get another pair. And facing the arena without boots would be unwise.
Fuck, why did it have to be water? It had put him off to a bad start, and would be making him look like he was weak to those watching.
"I'm better than this," he muttered, sitting on the glass and dangling his legs through the hole. "I can do this."
The murderer's sister was hesitating at the edge of the glass, while Hunter was climbing into it. Traitor. Rebel. They'd said as much on the hovercraft.
Callum would make sure he'd never surface.
District Nine Female, Wren Willows, 18
Water.
Wren hated water.
Fire purified and destroyed, but water killed that. And it was wet.
"I hate swimming," she grumbled.
Wolf grimaced. "I do too."
Of course he understood. They were the same.
"I hate all these people too."
There were too many here. She'd been pushed around, poked and prodded through the arrival rooms, and now they were in this busy hall with far too many people and voices. The sound jarred straight through her.
Wolf squeezed her hand. "I know. I do too."
"Why us? We aren't rebels."
Those shown on the big screen had all been rebels, confessing their crimes to the Capitol. Wren didn't understand how it mattered. She didn't like the Capitol, but she didn't like the rebels either. They should just all leave each other alone.
"Because…" Wolf sighed, his face twisting into a terrible grimace. "Because they don't like us."
"Well, I don't like them!"
"I know."
And they'd never hurt anyone, not really. Their grandfather died of natural causes. The Barric brothers attacked them. Their mother had fallen when they pushed her. None of them would just leave them alone!
"But that's why they chose us. Because we don't listen to their rules. They're scared of us."
Wren bounced on her heels as the whispers around them grew louder. "I want to see them all burn."
And when everything was ashes, the world might be quiet and she'd feel better.
District Seven Female, Adrianna Orita, 17
Oh, she could see where this was going. The water underfoot was currently no deeper than a puddle, but it was still pouring in from the pipes above them and streaming down the walls. The doors the tributes had entered through had all sealed shut, and from what she remembered (not that she'd been paying much attention), been mostly sealed on the inside.
Eventually, all this water was going to start building up.
"Any ideas?" asked Terro.
She scanned the hall around them. Falcon and Phoebe had wandered off to be by themselves, which she was fine with. They were strange, those two. Most likely she'd have to find more allies for herself and Terro from among the outer District tributes. She didn't want to risk the Macedon twins.
"I'm thinking."
"Think faster!"
"Can you swim?"
"A little."
She gestured at the supplies suspended at the bottom of the tank. "That far?"
Terro grimaced. "I don't know."
Admittedly, she hadn't swum that far in years either. Not since she moved to Seven. They didn't have access to a pool. But she could swim; she'd have to rely on that. Adrianna kicked off her boots, tied them together by the laces, and handed them to him. After a moment of thought longer, she stripped off her jacket and shirt, leaving her in her leggings and bra.
Terro turned an interesting shade of red. "Is it necessary to take all your clothes off?"
"No." Adrianna leant against him, forcing herself onto her toes to reach his ear. "But the audience enjoys a show."
They'd been taught that, too, as soon as they were old enough to learn it. If you could put on a show for the Capitol, you should. Sponsors and support came to those they liked best, after all.
"You're going to be insufferable about this all, aren't you?"
Adrianna laughed, pulling him over to the nearest hole in the glass. "Wait here. I'll see what I can grab."
Terro grumbled. "I don't need you to look out for me."
She grinned. "When we need to climb, you can take it."
Though she was better at climbing now than how she had been. She almost never fell anymore.
He grunted. "Just do whatever you're doing quickly, Two."
Adrianna laughed and dove through the hole into the water below.