1The events of this Hunger Games are mainly adapted from the first season on the hunger games | can you survive? roleplay Discord, which has recently ended. (Congrats to the Victor, whose name I will not disclose due to spoilers!)
This fic is for my fellow roleplayers, even if I'm officially gifting it to the Gamemakers. Thanks for the great times, even if it involves me being offline for (parts of) some of the sessions due to time zone differences.
Atalanta knew she was different. She zoned out often, almost ignoring the classes the academy taught whenever blood was shed in the past Hunger Games recaps. She didn't care that Alexandrite Frilson seduced her way to Victory, or that Chrysoprase Duke slaughtered away with a madman-like gleam in his dark, soulless eyes. She thrived during the nights, when the factory workers could slave away less vigorously, when she roamed the streets of Fragrance, the administrative centre of the District.
Even in the Luxury District, people starved to death on the edges of the city. Even in the Luxury District, kids begged for food and money in the streets. Foundation Blythe from her Designing class worked in the silk mills on her days off from school to try to make ends meet. Old Awe Sambridge who lived in the slums supposedly died of exposure two weeks ago, which unlike the outlying districts, most of the residents bought that big fat lie.
Her dark blue eyes flashed at the Reaping. She zoned out once again, it was the same old speech every year, she could practically memorize it all word-for-word after fifteen years. Of course, this was when Ren Rinkle and their sparkling amber dress (she was about 99% sure her friend's mother Diva Lazuli designed that) pulled the first name from the glass orb. After the Second Rebellion, the President had decided that volunteering should be strictly regulated and sexual segregation for Reaped tributes be abolished.
"Amaryllis Jewell!"
Now she understood why Katniss Everdeen had volunteered for her sister despite it being an almost guaranteed death sentence for outlying folks like her. She just couldn't let her sister go into the Death Games. She was twelve, too young for this. She didn't stand a chance with barely any training under her belt.
She raised her hand. Screw the regulations. "I volunteer as tribute."
Atalanta hiked onto the stage in her sapphire-speckled gown, using her entire forearm to wave twice at the audience. She flashed a toothy grin at the audience. She had to put on a show for them all, even if it mean faking. A. Smile.
"Hello to all across Panem," she greeted, "and hello, Alaska," she added, turning to the Host of the Games. Steady now. Caesar Flickerman mysteriously died after the 75th Games, which caused Alaska, the current Host, to come to power.
The crowd erupted into cheers, chants of "District One" and "Careers" filling the air. Alaska backed away and offered her a handshake cheerfully. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Miss Jewell!"
"Likewise," she replied, taking the hand and shaking it with much vigour.
"Ooh!" Alaska squealed (like a pig), retracting her hand. "So strong! Though I wouldn't expect anything less from District One." The crowd laughed. It's just a show, she reminded herself. Of course, this means I'm worth jackshit to them, don't I?
"Why, thank you," she accepted the compliment (externally). "We're a strong lot, in one aspect or all of them."
"Though that's not to say the other districts aren't strong. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses," she added, partially in an attempt to placate any enraged District 2-12 residents, but mostly because she knew it was true. District 2 and 4 both produced strong and hardy residents. District 3 was quick with their minds, and District 6 quick on their feet. Even other outliers like 12 with barely any support in the old Games were strong and resilient in their trysts at survival.
"Looks like we have a people-pleaser, folks," Alaska giggled, the crowd laughing with her. Fine, let them have that image of me. It's just a show. "Now, I could compliment your outfit all day, but anyone with eyes could put those words in my mouth," she winked, and Atalanta wondered if the Interviewer was flirting with her. Ah, well, let them have their fun. I'm probably not making it out anyway. Pawns like me are expendable. "So, I'm gonna cut straight to the point, that alright with you?"
"Sure," she answered, pleased to let this get over with - publicity was never really her thing, but when thrown into the spotlight, she had to make do with whatever she had. And volunteering for the Hunger Games always guaranteed the spotlight - she signed up for this mess, she had to deal with it.
"So let's start simple, what kinds of training has a strong girl like yourself been up to back at- I mean, in the Training Centre?" She almost slipped up. No one was supposed to know Careers trained at home. Guess this is what happens with ol' Caesar dead - noobs on the show.
"Mainly knives," she put in truthfully, deciding not to broadcast her weaknesses.
"Ooh, knives," Alaska repeated. "Do you know some tricks?"
"Some," she responded, then added with a slightly cocky facade, "but I'd rather save them for the arena if possible. I'd rather not hit some poor sod in the face with a blade on a night like this." And if I did, I'd probably be executed for murder. Like I already am on my way to. Great.
Alaska giggled. "Fair enough. Now, speaking of the arena, any idea of what the Gamemakers have planned this year?"
She recalled her training session. Her knives missed a third of the time, but while on her way to pick them up and put them back in their rightful places, she heard the Gamemakers judging her muttering about a jungle temple and a non-standard Cornucopia for the year.
She managed not to smirk at the question. "Oh, even if I knew anything, the other tributes would hear, so… maybe not a good thing to broadcast to the whole country on live TV," she replied cryptically. "The thing I can give you, though…" she went on, giving a pause for suspense," is death. Lots and lots of death. Just like every other year." She internally grimaced, because she knew the things she said was true to the letter.
"Ooh! Death!" Alaska gasped dramatically. "I don't know about you, but I wasn't expecting that one, folks!" Pure lies. Everyone knows a couple dozen kids are sent to the slaughter every year, it's just that so many people are desensitized to it all from all the propaganda and schadenfreude culture. And that's not considering the starvation in the slums and other things these poor Capitolites might never learn about. Ignorant fools. The crowd burst into uproarious laughter. She laughed too, if only to keep up the facade.
The buzzer sounded to show that her Interview time was up. "You're quite a woman of mystery, Atalanta," Alaska smiled. "It's a pleasure having you!"
"Well, I'll hopefully see you without blood under my nails in a few weeks, Panem. I'm sorry to anyone who loses a child in this period of time, though… and I would like to make a public apology in advance if I'm the one to bring the blade down on them," she concluded, a little somber. "Remember me for centuries!" she ended in song, just as she left the stage. She wanted to leave a legacy behind, for all to know that the bloodthirsty Careers weren't all heartless murderers - some of them did have a heart deep down, though they may never know.
The tubes rose into the arena, and it was almost as she had expected. Almost.
The tributes were in a huge temple, with torches lining the walls, lighting the place in a fiery yellow-orange light alongside the other terracotta and teal colours. They were all fairly close to each other. Intricate designs lined the walls, and something in the distance reminded her of the Cornucopia.
"Wow, ancient ruins in a jungle?" She glanced at her allies, who weren't really that far away from her.
There are no weapons at the Cornucopia. You either make your own, or get to that damned slingshot. A bad weapon is better than no weapon.
Atalanta glanced at her allies again. She knew the peace wasn't going to last much longer.
30, 29, 28…
She took a deep breath. She had trained for the past few years for this very moment, even if she barely listened in during the classes. Oh, well. Better her than her sister.
I'm sorry if I never see you again, Amaryllis, please don't cry if I die on live TV… I chose this fate, and I reap the consequences of volunteering to be a pawn.
She cracked her knuckles. 10 seconds…
Goodbye, everyone. See you on the other side.
"This. Is. It," she murmured.
One!
The gong sounded. Exits were littered around the temple walls, leading out of the temple, and doors led further into the temple, presumably towards the joke of a Cornucopia this year. She rushed off the platform and bolted inward. Of course, just as she expected, there was no Cornucopia. Only a single podium with a sole slingshot placed on it.
One of the outliers (the girl from 10) screamed, presumably in frustration. Another girl shouted, "I have a question for the Gamemakers though: what the hell."
She laughed, just as the other tributes guessed loudly that it could be a trap. She ran back and swooped back around, ready to take any action, whether the weapon be a booby trap or not. Just as she swerved toward the exit, a part of the ceiling collapsed, nearly impaling her. Oh, to hell with it. I might not even get out of here alive anyway. She darted back to the podium, and grabbed the slingshot moments before the girl from 10 lunged towards it (though held back by a boy that she assumed was her ally).
She picked up a chunk of rock from the ground. "Stand or I'll shoot!" she shouted slightly shakily, loading up the slingshot. They didn't know that she could barely shoot to save her life, and so she couldn't show.
A few of the tributes stood still or backed away. A girl with narrowed eyes - girl from 12 - hissed while backing away, "Go ahead and shoot me. I don't care."
"Try it, bitch," that girl from 10 sneered, glaring daggers at her.
She shot the rock in a random direction and decided to start running, just as she realized the chamber was falling apart. Means I gotta get outta here before I get crushed to dust.
The rock hit the girl's ally-boy in the arm (Five?), drawing blood but not a fatal wound. "I AM SO SORRY," she shouted without a sign of being sorry at all, at the invisible cameras where her classmates were probably watching the live-streamed Bloodbath. "FIRST BLOOD, ARE YOU PROUD?" she added indignantly, on the verge of being hysterical.
This was when she bolted for the outer tunnels towards what she assumed would be daylight.
By the time she reached the tunnels, she caught her allies in the midst of chaos. Rocks were falling by the dozen, as though they were about to collapse. "What the hell is going on here?"
She dodged the rocks by stepping forward instead of left and pocketed some, then threw a couple in a random direction, hoping it could hit someone. After all, her purpose in these Games was to kill, kill, kill. She stuck with her friends the next time and chose left.
"What the frick is going on?" she asked, then she saw daylight. She rushed towards it. It's a jungle. Water, animals and plants for food, trees for shelter and fire.
Many days and several fights later, Atalanta thought she had seen the weirdest shit in the world. From her District partner, Irene, being thrown into the lake to feed a giant piranha (damn that girl from 10!), to Neo from Four seducing the ocean into giving them water (and then the sand too because somehow the Gamemakers thought it was a good idea to put up with his flirtations - the editors better edit those scenes out because kids should not be exposed to this nonsense - to the guy from 2, Salad, accidentally eating nightshade berries in the brambles because he's just that dumb.
Eventually, the Gamemakers thought it a good idea to make hot rain fall from the skies, and she and her allies managed to reach a temple for shelter with minimal tripping and slipping. Just before crossing the threshold, though, Chala (girl from 7, got a 12 as her score) asked, "Throw a stone?"
Oh, of course, this thing could be booby trapped, like the brambles closing in and the canopy with the damn jabberjays.
She dropped a stone. It hung on the edge of the entrance before toppling over and falling. About three seconds later, they heard it hit the bottom. "Okay, so, a fall," she pointed out, though it was rather obvious.
"Oh… that sounds painful," Neo commented.
"Oof," Chala added.
"Can we climb down and get the treasure?" she asked hopefully, unconsciously quoting a play she studied as a child.
"Who said there was treasure?" Neo countered. There has to be something up with this place - more traps, but probably treasure too. The Gamemakers won't have this thing lying around just for shelter. They want their entertainment. It wouldn't be entertainment without a reward for taking risks.
However, there were some stairs leading downward, each of them spaced widely apart like miniature cliffs. It reminded her of the temple in one of the adventure stories, she read as a child - what was it called again? Oh, right, Order Up. She wondered if this temple was based on the one from the book, or if Capitolites even read that series. She then wondered, though she knew it was wishful thinking, if there was a portal in the temple to take them out of this world, like in the book.
"Stairs? Do we take 'em, lads?" Chala asked, gesturing toward the stairs.
"Mmm, not sure," Neo replied.
"I'm not gonna be test subject here," Atalanta commented. She knew it wasn't a good idea to take the risk, then she asked, "Can we be sure the stairs are safe?" walking closer to the edge.
That was her first mistake. Someone tried to shove her off the edge of the cliff. She dodged the blow and got down the first step. "Can you not try to kill me? I know it's the Hunger Games but still."
"What do you mean? I tripped," Chala voiced out behind her. Lies. Lies and lies again. I knew someone was going to try and backstab me at some point. I didn't expect this early. She grasped at her pockets, knowing that the edible red berries were on one side and the poisonous, dark nightshade berries were in the other, and so was her woven vial of nightshade extract she planned on sneaking into the water supply later on. She rolled her eyes. "Okay, where do we go from here?"
Footsteps pattered, and Dark's - the boy from 7's - voice rang out, "You guys left me at the clearing!"
"Oh shit, Dark, I'm so sorry!" apologized Chala.
And that was when she felt the kick to her side.
"ABIGAIL-!"
"ABI, WHAT ARE YOU DOING-"
"CHALA STARTED IT-" Abi (girl from 4, likely got into a budding relationship with Irene after a training accident before the Games) tried to justify.
She whooshed through the air on her unexpected, swift way down. A loud crunch. Her leg felt weird… and hurt so, so much.
"Oh shit-" she heard Chala's voice reverbrating down from the top.
"You guys pushed me off!" she shouted from the bottom of the pit. The only light was from the entryway from where they had come into the temple.
A soft thunk. Neo groaning in pain from… something.
Abi looked over the edge. "Oh, that looks kinda nasty." No shit, Sherlock, I just fell like a few stories, I'd be surprised if I got down here unscathed-!
Dark sighed from above, "Abigail, WTF?"
"Why-" Neo asked (she could feel him wincing in pain), "-DID YOU DO THAT?!"
"I THOUGHT THIS WAS THE PLAN?" Abi shouted. And this was the moment Atalanta's brain short-circuited, even if she expected it in her subconscious.
"WHAT PLAN?" she and Dark shouted at the same time, as though synchronized.
"WE NEVER TALKED ABOUT A PLAN!" Neo added.
"I- fuck! I was going to tell you at the lake and you ignored me, SO I DIDN'T- SHIT," Abi answered.
Neo tried to descend again, but she assumed he probably didn't make it again. "GOD DAMN IT!"
"SHUSH, ATALANTA!" Abi shouted at her. "Chala, you know what I mean, right?"
She grimaced in pain from down in the pit. "I honestly don't care, this alliance is supposed to be a democracy!" She then turned to where she assumed the cameras were. "SPONSORS? DO WE HAVE MEDICAL SUPPLIES? EVEN IF THIS IS KIND OF INDOORS."
This was when Neo collapsed right next to her, falling on his side, hitting both his shoulder and his hip hard against the floor.
"OWW- FUCK!"
"Oh shit, Neo-!"
Someone sighed. Probably Dark.
"ATALANTA, I DIDN'T HURT YOU, DON'T ATTACK ME-!" She didn't bother, of course, the man had done nothing wrong to her (other than perhaps exposing the entire country's population to the most absurd seduction tactics in the arena), but instead shouted back up top, "YOU GUYS UP THERE, STOP STANDING AROUND LIKE LEMONS; GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE!"
"THROW US A VINE OR SOMETHING- JESUS, FUCK, MY HIP!" Neo added, and she asked herself if it was really a bad thing after all, with his seduction thing probably scarring the minds of the children of Panem for eternity.
"OH MY GOD, THIS IS A MESS-!" Chala shouted.
"Let's go," Atalanta heard Dark say from above.
"Go where?"
"Go?"
"Down there?"
"Wherever, we all are gonna go," Dark elaborated, and she smiled a bit at his team spirit. He's going to be on the wrong side of a betrayal, with trust like his, but for now, I guess that's a good thing for him. Might win him a sponsor or two for sportsmanship.
"THROW US A VINE!" Neo repeated.
"We shouldn't leave Neo!" cried Abi. And so I don't matter to you? First you yeet me off a cliff, now you want to leave me down here?
"HURRY, PLEASE!" Neo, once again, shouted.
All of a sudden, a spotlight came out of nowhere, showing a large podium in the pit, not far from where they both fell. On it were a pouch full of darts (probably poisoned to top it off), a blowgun, a sword, a sai, and some food. I knew there had to be something down here for us.
"Okay, let's not kill each other, okay?! This has to be a trap," Neo deduced.
Despite Abi probably in trouble and shouting to Chala for help, Atalanta's focus was on the food. "GAMEMAKERS, IF YOU DO ANYTHING, I SWEAR TO THE CAPITOL-!"
"Throw a rock!" Neo suggested. And so she yeeted another stone and turned to see the District 7 tributes trying to help Abi, who was holding onto one of the steps for dear life.
"Y'all gonna leave us down here? The fuck do we do now. Ow…" she muttered as the pain in her leg flared up again. Thankfully, the stone didn't trigger any pressure-activated traps in the vicinity of the podium.
"It looks safe?" Chala said, squinting a bit in the darkness.
"I guess so… still, I'd be wary…" Neo responded from behind her, and she agreed, since pressure-activated traps were not the only trap type out there.
"Slowly, slooowly approach?" Neo suggested. Atalanta managed to grab the supplies on the podium, but air was whooshing behind her, and was that an axe coming at her head and an exhale onto her neck from behind and- "I'M SORRY!"
"WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING!" Dark shouted. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?"
"WHAT SORRY?" she shouted, and then the pain hit her.
"I'M JUST DOING WHAT CHARITY IS DOING!" Neo screamed from behind her.
"CHAL-!" Dark condemned.
She had managed to duck slightly, but her eyes widened at the betrayal. Chala's axe sliced her ear and Neo's spear (it had to be) was digging into the base of her neck and blood was flowing from her wound and she knew it had to be fatal, it was the neck-
Atalanta wanted to say something about betrayal, but she couldn't bring herself to. She was going to die. At the hands of her own friends.
I should have poisoned the water when I had the chance-!
Chala gave a sad smile and a shrug, hand back on the handle of her bloodstained axe (my blood…). Neo scrambled his words together, voice thick with the local patois of his origins in District 4, "I'm sorry, I-I had to-!" He looked at Chala and something in his eyes seemed to dawn in realization.
Her thoughts were blurring together, but Chala's just twelve, she's Amaryllis' age, I trusted her, and now she…
"If you win, t-tell District 1 I'm sorry…"
"I'm so sorry, Atalanta," Neo repeated.
"It had to be done…" she whispered. Someone had to betray each other at some point. Guess Chala had beat her to the punch.
"We'll let your district know you died with honour," Chala promised, and how could she say something like this so calmly, she's like, 12, and she stabbed me in the back (well, literally speaking, it was Neo, but still) like it's no big deal-!
"You both murdered her…" Dark murmured from behind.
"DARK, NOBODY ASKED FOR YOUR INPUT, PLEASE-!" Neo sniffled. But what Dark said was right. Both of them had (tried to) kill her (and so did Abi, though she was suddenly nowhere to be found), but all of them were pawns of the Capitol. She realized it long ago. She couldn't entirely blame them. Born to kill, bred to die, but didn't they all bleed just the same? All of them children, forced into combat, worthless to the Capitol, really.
Neo, you're a good guy, you might be an extreme omnesexual, but you have a good heart, and I guess so does Chala? Dark is too nice to survive - he's not the Victor the Capitol wants, however I may like him.
Ah, the Capitol's wants. It's all about the Capitol, isn't it?
"And another one bites the dust…" Another pawn bites the dust, ultimately worthless to the Capitol. At least she was free from the Games now - the Capitol couldn't control her anymore, where she would be going. With these thoughts, her vision went black before she could even hear her own cannon boom above the temple.
The 'climb down and get the treasure' line was from an adapted play version of Treasure Island I performed in when I was in Primary 5 (5th grade). If you can get all my other references, I'm giving you a gold star in the replies.
Anyway, I really hope you enjoyed this!