Die First

PART 3- THE BEGINNING

6:  GAMES

I managed to sleep surprisingly well last night, considering where I'm going today. I think it's because I don't care if I die within two seconds. As long as Achilles lives. When I open my door I see clothes folded neatly outside my room. My arena outfit. I quickly get changed into a kahki green tank top and combat pants made of a light material, strap on a belt, and next thing I know it, I'm being whisked off into some sort of air craft. They don't let us sit by our District partners, but luckily I'm sat next to Demetrius, so I have some sort of comfort of familiarity on my journey to the arena. I look around for Achilles but I can't see him, he must be sat at the other end. Two women are walking up either side of the air craft injecting what I can only assume is a tracker into the other tributes arms. When one of them comes to me, I don't flinch, I don't even look at her. We all sit in silence the whole time. 

It doesn't seem to take long to get to the arena, or at least it didn't feel like a long journey. When the air craft lands each tribute is escorted to a flight of stairs, I walk down to get to the room assigned to me. When I enter Remus is standing there waiting, "Hi Athena, are you ok?" 

"Yes, I'll be fine. It's Achilles I'm worried about."

"Why are you worried about him? He got an 11 score, he's not as skilled as you are but he's second best out of all the others, and you will be with him the whole time. Both of you will make it to the end, but Athena, but it's evident which one will win." 

"I'm worried about him because, like me he's protective, but it's different for him. I feel like my whole life I've just wanted to protect everyone I care about in the slightest, but Achilles is only protective of me, I don't know how well that will go in the arena. You know, if something even a little bit worrying happens to me I'm scared he'll go insane. And there's a lot of opertunities for that in the arena." We stand in silence before a 30 second countdown starts. "And no Remus. It's not evident which one of us will win, unless you think it will be Achilles?" He just looks down, doesn't say a word. "You are just like everyone else Remus, you don't understand me, I need to protect him." As I'm walking towards the narrow tube that will elevate me into the arena, I hear Remus Myron say one final thing to me, 

"Athena, you're about to go into the arena, I know it's difficult but you're going to need to start thinking of how YOU are going to win, not Achilles."

Remus slowly begins to leave my line of sight. It's time. Looking around, I take notes of everything and everyone around me. My podium is adjacent to Willow, the girl from 7's and Cecila, the girl from 2's , it's as though they've placed us next to the people most likely to kill us. There are rocks leading from each podium all the way to an at least 100 foot mini-mountain, with the cornucopia perched on top of it, although I'm not good with measurements so it could be a lot bigger. All I know is that this is perfect for me, I'm fast so scrambling over my path of rocks should take seconds. I'm an extremely skilled climber, I mean if I can pull myself up a pole with no form of grips in the training centre I think I can climb some rocks pretty quickly. As for Achilles, I'm not worried about him at this exact moment, he's fast too, a little more careful so it might take him a bit longer to get to the "mountain" but he'll be quick enough. The climbing is fine, he's incredibly strong, even if he ends up being the worst climber in the world, it won't matter because his strength will hoist him up with ease. However, I doubt Achilles will be bad at climbing, he's like me, when we were too young to be in the training centre the two of us would "train" with my grandfather, that's how Belcourt children "played" with their friends. We're basically unstoppable. 

7: DAY ONE 

A minute countdown starts and I get myself in position to run, I know I'll be the first person at the cornucopia, there's no way I won't be. When the countdown stops everyone runs. I'm ahead by far but I don't look back, I don't look around for Achilles, I need to focus. I quickly climb the rocks to get to the cornucopia and I sling a backpack of supplies over my shoulder, take a sword for me, and a spear for Achilles. The next person to arrive up here, is Achilles. He takes the spear and grabs another backpack so we have enough supplies. We take an axe and put it in Achilles' bag, axes come in useful, great for chopping down wood for a fire, although I'm not sure how cold the nights will be here so we may not need to, but even more great for killing. Another benefit of taking the axe is that the District 7 boy, Matthias, won't get it. He seems tougher than you'd expect someone from 7 to be, so it's best he doesn't get a weapon he's comfortable with. Finally tributes start to come up, Achilles and I agreed that we would each kill at least 3 tributes and then we would leave, 3 is a good amount, not loads of people killed who aren't even threats, but enough for sponsors to be impressed. I stab the girl from 9, then put her out of her misery. The boy from 10 is trying to escape with some supplies and a large knife, I tackle him to the ground and kill him. Then a girl bumps in to me, I can't imagine how terrifying that would be, crashing into someone with a 12 score. I look at her face, it's Willow, the girl from 7, theres only one sword, which I have, so I pick up a large knife, hand it to her and tell her to run. If I see her again I won't be able to let her go. My final kill at the Cornucopia is the boy from 6, he runs at me with a knife of some sort, tries and fails to kill me, resulting in his death. I nod to Achilles and he inconspicuously motions me over, he's surrounded by the District 2's and 4's, I quickly run over, pushing in between Demetrius and Oceania, grab Achilles and kill the girl blocking my path, I thought it was Cecilia, but it was the girl from 5, she must have been recruited into their little "alliance".  After that the District 2's and 4's don't come after us, which is good, there's no point killing my only "threats" right away, that will grow boring. We climb down the rocks and walk around the arena. We are in some sort of rainforest place, but it's not that warm, the temperature is actually comfortable, which I'd asumme isn't normal for an arena. Achilles and I end up climbing up one of the highest trees and use netting from our supply packs to create a comfortable place to rest later. We decide the best idea is for one of us to stay here with our resources and for the other to go hunting for food, water, or I suppose, other tributes. Achilles goes first, he comes back after thirty minutes to an hour, with some fish, water, and the news that he killed the boy from 8 and the girl from 11, to make up for the fact he didn't kill anyone at the cornucopia. It's my turn to go, and I decide to climb to the top of the tree first and survey the arena. There's a swamp up north, a beautiful waterfall (too good to be true I'd say) on the east, and the rest is just the same rainforest me and Achilles have seen. I decide the rainforest is probably the best place to find food, fruit maybe? The swamp is the best place to find the weaker of the tributes that are left, and the waterfall will be a good place for hiding at a later point in the game, I have a feeling it's not going to be quite as beautiful as it looks. If there's one thing I know about the Hunger Games, it's that the Capitol aren't going to give us a gorgeous sanctuary for an arena. There has to be a catch. I slip down the tree and begin to walk, sword in hand, axe in my belt. You never know when you might need to attack from a distance, and I can't exactly throw a sword. As I'm walking around, carefully observing I notice fruit up in the trees, recognisable fruit, not suspicious berries I have no clue about. The fruit is positioned in a procarius position, well at least it would be for others. The tree they are perched on is at a slant, meaning most tributes would avoid it. It's got hardly any branches, or dips to grip on to, but I know if my weight is balanced correctly, the tree won't fall, and if I create enough friction, my feet will grip. It's easy enough for me. I considered for a moment just cutting the tree down, but this tree is abnormally wide, tall and my axe is no where near big enough to do any form of damage to it. So I climb, retrieve the fruit, and start searching for whatever else there is to find. That's when I see movement coming from the trees on my right, I peer through and see a beautiful spring, filled with fresh water, it's surrounded by trees making it the perfect place to settle down. Once I kill whoever is in here, Achilles and I might find it in our best interest to relocate here. When I push past the leaves to see who is there, I sigh when I see who my next kill is going to be, it's Willow. How stupid can she be? I told her to stay away from me and she decided to stay by a large, clean water supply, really? "Wheres Matthias, Willow. I thought he'd made it clear to stick by him, and I thought I'd made it clear to keep away from me. You know I have no problem killing you." She starts to cry, accepting her inevitable fate from someone she obviously slightly trusted, there's a look of betrayal on her face. 

"He left to try and find more food, apparently this won't be enough. He told me I'd be safe here, but I saw Achilles walk past and I knew if you came you wouldn't miss the water. You don't miss anything, do you? Anyway, you've already let me live once, there's no way you would kill a friend, Athena." More tears are forming in her eyes by the second, she genuinely believes I care about her enough not to kill her, I'm not even overly fond of the girl. I just wanted to give her a chance, that's all, yet I can't help but feel guilty. 

"Willow, you know I told you I would kill you if it came to it, we aren't friends, we have talked twice. If I didn't have Achilles or my sister, Glimmer to worry about, I might give you another chance, since I think you could have one at winning. But I do have them, trust me Willow, killing you would be the least of my problems." I'm being harsh, but I can't say I feel guilty, I've made my intentions clear from the start. And like I told her, we have barely even spoke. I hope the whole, "I trusted you, I thought we were friends" thing is just an act. If not, Willow Heron is the most naive person in Panem.  I swap my sword for the axe in my belt, letting her know that I am more capable than she ever would be, hoping she would let it go and realise I was never her friend. Killing someone who trusts me is not something I wan't to have to do, that's why I'm not making alliances. I'm hoping me using the weapon she was never good enough with in her District to kill her will snap her out of this trusting, loving, idiotic trance she's in. As I approach her a look of horror overcomes the once trusting expression Willow was wearing, she tries to run but I quickly throw the axe into her back, walk up to her, and kill her from behind. If she genuinley trusted me, the betrayal would have been shattering enough, let alone having to look into my emotionless eyes as I did it. I take some rope and knives Willow and Matthias had collected, and wait around for an hour, seeing if he would return. But he doesn't, so I grab some water and head back to Achilles, seeing as it will be getting dark in maybe an hour or two.