Always a Princess

The 64th Hunger Games marked the continued recent success of District One. Cashmere LePointe, sister to the newest victor Gloss, was reaped along with an overwhelmingly dominant Career pack. The arena consisted of an endless night punctuated only by the beauty of the aurora borealis. Arena dangers consisted of murderous polar bears, moose, seals, and whales inhabited the water.

The 64th Hunger games started off with a bang in District One. The first tribute for the games, a volunteer, was Cashmere LePointe, sister to previous victor Gloss LePointe. Instantly people started speculating about possible back to back victors for District One. Many more suspected the girl was simply trying to ride on the coat tail of her brother’s success. Adding to District One’s strong pair, the other Career Districts sent a formidable pack to the Capitol.

Other tributes of note included the muscular boy Barric from Nine, Coulomb the sixteen year old volunteer from Five, and the intelligent Willow from District Eleven. Also, one could not help but note the sheer number of young tributes in these games. Most notably was the twelve year old and thirteen year old from District Seven. The Reapings complete, it was time for the parade and training to begin.

The Careers, as expected, pulled the highest scores in training. Beryl from One received the highest, a ten, redeeming himself after a rumored embarrassing tumble prior to the start of the Parade upon meeting his mentor. Cashmere also received a ten and the sponsors were reassured. District One was positioning itself for another strong showing after crowning two victors in three years. Would it be three in the last four years?

The biggest surprise? The tributes were raised into a dark arena. There was no sun in the cloudless sky. It appeared that the gamemakers were choosing to start their games in the dead of night. Before them, the shadow of the cornucopia. Its shadow loomed in front of the tributes enticing them to the feast spilling out of its mouth.

Arriving at the cornucopia first, Cashmere and the female from Two, Aurelia, had their pick of weapons. The pair quickly armed themselves and their newly arrived allies. While the majority of the Career Pack dealt with tributes brave enough to enter the fray, Cashmere took the chance to position herself atop of the cornucopia. Armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, it was easy to see how they could be easy prey from that advantage point.

However, the darkness in the arena made the task difficult. Cashmere was only capable of taking down the boy from Five, because he was dressed in a brightly colored parka. No matter, because her allies had killed six, for a total of seven dead in the bloodbath.

Most of the tributes expected that the sun would rise in the morning, but day two was just as dark as the previous. The sun had been banished from the sky once again. The newest horror? Polar bear mutts. Willow, the fan favorite from Eleven, was the first to experience the horrible strength of the bears. Day two held one more surprise, the unexpected death of the girl from Four; the first of the Career Pack to die. Even more unexpected? The girl had died at the hands of Cashmere LePointe after a fight broke out over night vision goggles obtained during the bloodbath. Most expected the Pack to fall apart, but the rest of the Pack chalked it up to foolish abandonment and knew not to challenge the pair from One again.

The next to fall were the boy from Ten, the boy from Five, and the girl from three on day four. Day three had passed relatively uneventful outside the snowstorm that had swept through and dumped a few inches of fresh powder making it easy for the Career pack to hunt down the poor boy from Ten. Wyatt, from Five, succumbed to hypothermia after falling through a patch of sea ice searching for water. The girl from Three perished from an encounter with Chevelle from District Six.

With the arena dark and quiet, days five and six pass without event leading many to believe something big was being planned for the tributes. And yet, day seven only brought the death of Ford, the male from Six. The girl from Ten had killed him as they grappled over a bottle of water she had received from her sponsors.

What the other days lacked in excitement, day eight more than made up for. By the end of the day most of Panem was stunned into silence. It would seem the gamemakers wanted the 64th Hunger Games to go out in a blaze of glory.

All day the tributes had wondered what the bright orb in the sky was. It wasn’t the sun, no, it was much to bright and only seemed to glow with intensity as the day lingered on without a canon. It was with much unease, weapons in hands, most of the tributes settled in for the evening. Only the light kept growing bigger and bigger...

The Career Pack, still very much in tact minus the girl from Four, was awoken to the startled screams of alarm from Nero, District Two’s tribute. Something was happening! What had seemed like a bright star in the sky, much brighter than the sun, was suddenly a large ball of fire and it seemed to be heading right towards the lake. The tributes hardly had time to dive behind the cornucopia before the flash wave hit them, followed by the shaking that surely was going to tear open the very bedrock underneath them.

A meteorite had struck the arena killing five tributes: Sable from Ten, Chevelle from Six, Pascal from Three, Troy from Twelve, and Lake from Four (who had been out hunting) in the debris fallout preceding the initial event.

The Games were now down to the Final Five contestants.

Considering much of the arena had been left scorched, flattened and without water the gamemakers did not need to force the tributes together for the finale. Most of Panem waited in anticipated for the Career Pack to split. Surely, with only the boy from Nine remaining it would happen any moment. Only hours later the poor boy had the misfortune of accidentally wandering into the Careers’ camp, only to be met by Nero’s sword. With that last canon, only the Pack was left.

Barric’s body had barely hit the grow when Nero’s went toppling on top of him, dead from one of Cashmere’s arrows to the back. The District One tribute had only been feigning slumber. With a single arrow, the alliance had come crashing down around them. The Finale had commenced.

For a single suspended moment, all three tributes stood there sizing each other up. Deciding which among them was the weakest prey. While most expected a free for all, the pair from One teamed up and attacked the girl from Two, but Aurelia was not a weak foe. The girl from Two put up a tremendous fight inflicting several wounds to Beryl. Cashmere however had stepped aside, mostly forgotten by the two fighting tributes. The girl appeared content to let the two tributes finish each other off assuring her an easy victory.