Panem High School

This Is It

Finch's POV
I hear a cannon go off about a day and a half after the feast. I'm currently residing in a tree near a stream. The backpack I got contained food that will last me for roughly another day or two. It's down to four now, and I've lasted way longer than anyone thought I would, including myself. Later that day the anthem played, showing Thresh was the one who belonged to the cannon. It's just me, Cato, Katniss, and Peeta. In a few days the Gamemakers will have devised a huge finale for us. First, they'll draw us together. Second, they'll release some sort of Muttation on us. Third, they'll let whoever it is duke it out until it's over. Classic finale. I really don't want to be there for that. Whoever is in the finale always ends up with the worst scars and nightmares and that's the last thing I want to deal with. My escape comes in the form of Peeta Mellark. A few days later, Peeta must have been feeling better. I know this because I see him. Right now. Picking berries. Nightlock, to be exact. I notice his pack on the ground and quickly climb down the tree and open it. I see apples and bread and cheese. It takes all my willpower to not just take it all, but I don't. I take some cheese and climb back up my tree, where I can see Peeta still collecting berries. I resist the urge to tell him what exactly he's picking, and just watch as he finishes and begins to walk back towards the woods.
"Peeta!!" I hear Katniss call, sounding panicked. Peeta tries to locate the direction of the sound.
"Peeta!!" Katniss called again, this time drawing her bow as Peeta rustled a bush. She almost got him, but at the last moment moved her bow and the arrow soared into my tree, the thud of it hitting the tree bark going through the whole thing. Peeta jumps back, the Nightlock soaring into the air and finally resting in the foliage around him.
"What are you doing? You're suppose to be here, not running around in the woods!!" Katniss exclaimed angrily. In love my ass.
"I found some berries down by the stream." He replied, sounding confused and slightly hurt. Deadly berries. You found deadly berries, Peeta. Modified, but enough to get you out of the games all the same.
"I whistled. Why didn't you whistle back?" She needs to take a chill pill. He went, like, 8 yards.
"I didn't hear. The water's too loud, I guess." Peeta crosses over to the shaking Katniss and puts his hands on her shoulders. Still sweet. Lacking in basic nature knowledge, but sweet.
"I thought Cato got you!!" Well, he obviously didn't, but if you keep almost shouting like that you'll get us all out in a matter of minutes. Honestly!!
"No, I'm fine. Katniss?" Peeta wraps his arms around her, but she stays silent. She pushes him away.
"If two people agree on a signal, they stay in range. Because if one of them doesn't answer, they're in trouble, all right?"
"All right!!" All right!! Just get over it already!!
"All right. Because that's what happened with Rue, and she actually died." Rue. Okay, permission to be irrationally upset granted. She turns away and opens a new bottle of water from their pack. She notices some of the cheese is missing and with the two of them occupied, I realize this is my chance. I can stick it to the Capitol by getting out before their precious finale. I climb down the other side of my tree quietly as they argue and search the foliage for one of the berries. I find one just as Katniss goes over and inspects the berries Peeta still has. Good, at least she knows what she's doing. I sprint away as far as I can as a look of realization dawns on Katniss's face. I plop it in my mouth and the effect comes instantly. Now it's three.
Cato's POV
I hear a cannon go off in the distance and see a hovercraft pulling up a body. It's Foxface, the girl from 5 that Marvel likes so much. She's unconscious, but not bloody. I wonder how she got out. It must have something to do with Fire Girl and Lover Boy. Lover Boy has the medicine now, so knowing the type of stuff the Capitol can whip up, he's probably much better. A couple minutes later I see smoke from a fire. They must have food. I'm starving. Clove was always better at hunting, I'm too loud and impatient, not to mention since there are now only three of us the Gamemakers aren't going to make it easy on us. I debate showing up to their fire, but I know it's two against one now, and I'm not in the best shape after my fight with Thresh. I decide to just wait it out. Funny enough, I never really thought about being in the games alone before. I always assumed Clove would be here with me, maybe even Sagara or Marvel. I never thought I would be the last Career standing. I always assumed it would come down to me and either Clove or Sagara. Now that it's just me I am much more tense and feel much more vulnerable. I envy how easily Sagara often goes off and does things on her own. I don't like to do that. Especially not in the games. I may be the best one skill wise when it comes to weapons, but survival skills and strategy are out of the question. That's why I have Clove, she's the one who actually knows how to do all of that stuff. Now I'm sitting here starving and alone, with absolutely no one to talk to. I'm in the same clearing Clove and I settled in after our chase with Foxface. I have some beef strips in my pack from Marvel and water from Thresh's pack, apparently that's what he needed the most. Then there's my pack, which had body armor for me. I don't know why there's only one set when at the time Clove was still in, but I guess the Gamemakers assumed since Clove could do long distance, she was the one who didn't need it as much? Who knows? I put on the body armor a couple days ago, after treating my wounds from Thresh. I really couldn't do much about them. Thresh had some gauze and a half full tube of bacterial infection cream and I didn't have anything medical, so I did my best. As the anthem begins to play I eat the remaining beef strips and a bottle of Thresh's water. Foxface is the only one in the sky. A while after the anthem is over, I decide to sleep. The smoke from Fire Girl and Lover Boy's camp is far away and I doubt they're going to attack me, so I sleep. I wake up at around midday and yawn. My stomach instantly growls and I regret finishing off my last source of food. It seems my sponsors see my hunger though. A silver parachute attached to a Tupperware lands in front of me and I greedily rip the cover off. It's deli meat, the kind you put on sandwiches, and some cheese. I quickly shoved the meat and cheese into my mouth and finished it off in minutes. I sat there for a while, digesting. I stared at the woods around me, it's dead silent. No crickets or scurrying feet, just silence. It's eerie and unnatural and I don't like it. I stand up and walk around the clearing, giving my fatigued muscles a chance to limber up. Hours pass and still nothing has happened. I'm beginning to think the finale is just gonna be us running into each other and a brawl until one or two are left standing. That's when I hear the pounding of feet. They disrupt the peacefulness of the woods and I knew they're the Muttations for the finale. It barely takes half of a brain to figure that one out. I begin to sprint in the other direction and realize I'm heading towards the Cornucopia. I haven't been there since Clove was eliminated. I guess now is as good a time as any to go back. I curse myself as I realize I had left my weapons behind, but continue to run. I'm not sure what those things are, but I am not in the mood to find out. I risk a look back at them and see a whole pack of Wolf-Human Muttations. At least a dozen, probably more, are chasing me right now. Two stand out to me in particular. The first one has red fur, unlike any of the others, and is on the smaller side. The other one that stands out is a blonde one with green eyes. It reminds me so much of Glimmer I wanna puke. What did they do to Glimmer and Foxface? Who are the other Muttations? Why do they resemble tributes? Is there one for everyone? All three hundred and something of them? Even Rue and Clove? So many questions, so little time. In about 10 minutes I am at the Cornucopia and am still ahead of the Muttations by a decent distance, but they're closer to me than they were originally. As I run towards the Cornucopia I see Fire Girl and Lover Boy staring at me. I knew this was the finale. Fire Girl shoots an arrow at me, but it deflects off of my body armor and I keep running. My face is purple from how long I've been running. The Muttations run into the clearing and Fire Girl and Lover Boy finally see what we're up against. They join me in the sprint to the Cornucopia. I reach it first and pull myself on, ignoring the searing pain from the hot metal. I try to catch my breath as Fire Girl makes it to the Cornucopia, but Lover Boy is failing. She climbs up anyway, Lover Boy telling her to. I feel myself start to cramp up as the Muttations and Lover Boy reach the Cornucopia. Lover Boy is on, with help from Fire Girl, but I'm more preoccupied with the wolves that can stand on two feet to care.
"Can they. Climb. It?" I manage to say as I try to overcome my failing body.
"What?!" Fire Girl shouts in reply. Is she deaf or something? I'm not that far away from her. Lover Boy repeated what I said as I stared at the Muttations. I found the one of Sagara and the one of Thresh. No Clove though. No Rue either. Boy are they creepy. They look like wolves, but they can stand on their back legs easily, they have fur that has a range too large to belong to a natural species, and their eyes are human like. Not to mention, to make it even more obvious what they were doing, the Muttations have collars on them with an area number on it. Red has 5, Green has 1, and so on. They appear to be trying to eat the metal that makes the Cornucopia. They're also conversing with each other through high pitched squeals which sound like Glimmer when she spots a shoe sale. Green (a.k.a. Glimmer) is the first one to try and get onto the Cornucopia. Long story short, she tried, but was failing and Fire Girl shot her with an arrow anyway. The mutts try again and this time Lover Boy and Fire Girl manage to get caught in their grasps. The two of them get back on the Cornucopia and have no choice but to get closer to me, since I'm higher up and at a safer location. My breathing is getting back to normal, but standing is still out of the question. As Fire Girl focuses on how her arrow hit the Thresh mutt, I quickly gather my bearings and stand up. I jerk Lover Boy from Fire Girl's side and get him in a headlock. There's blood streaming out of his calf as he claws at my arms, but I'm too strong for him. Fire Girl aims one of her arrows at me and I can't help but laugh. I hope she realizes the moment she shoots me that me and Lover Boy both go down, along with her lovers angle.
"Shoot me and he goes down with me." I taunted. I stare her down, trying to think of a way out. I have come too far to lose now. I won't let myself or Clove lose to two 12s. We both deserve better. I have a triumphant smile on my face. Any moment now Lover Boy's cannon will go off before he dies from not being able to breathe and then the real fun will begin. I feel Lover Boy touch my hand with his bloody finger and as I realize what he is doing, an arrow pierces my hand and I reflexively let Lover Boy go, who slams against me as I yelp in pain. I lose my footing and down I fall to the mutts below. The impact of the ground on my back knocks the wind out of me as the mutts crowd around me. That's when I see her, Clove. Her mutt is circling the entire pack, and I hope it stays there instead of coming any closer. They charge at me and I begin to fight them off, which would have been easier if I had a spear or a sword. Wait, I do. I pulled out a knife Clove had given me in the start of the games. She must have known I would drop everything and run when it came to a fire wall or Tracker Jackers so she insisted on me keeping it on my body. I quickly pulled it out and began to stab the mutts. Marvel is gone. The mutts continue to tear apart the body armor, cutting my face which caused me to groan. A lot more than I would like to admit. I manage to get to my feet and try to make my way over to Fire Girl and Lover Boy. I kill two other mutts, Sagara and someone I don't know. I'm close to my goal, but after an hour of fighting my body gives out and a mutt tackles me to the ground. I can't get up after that and it's like a free for all with the mutts. After a while they tear through the body armor and the pain gets even worse. I just block it all out, watching the Clove mutt dart back and forth between one side of the pack to the other. I wonder why she won't attack. Maybe she will and is just looking for the best place to push through. Night comes and I'm still in the games. How much longer do they expect me to endure this pain? It's real pain, the scratches and the wounds. I'll probably bleed out before the Gamemakers play my cannon.
Clove's POV
This is horrifying. I'm sitting in the mansion along with everyone else and we're all watching Mellark and Everdeen try to combat the cold and Mellark's severe wound as Cato is being attacked by mutts. Why hasn't his cannon gone off yet? It should be over by now. I get a sickening feeling as I watched some of the escorts who are amazed by what is happening on the screen. The Capitol, that's why. The citizens must still find this interesting, so the Gamemakers are prolonging the time before his cannon goes off.
"I can't watch this." Foxface said and left the room, along with Thresh and some of the other non Career tributes who just can't stomach this. I almost can't. After a while Everdeen asks the question we're all thinking.
"Why don't they just play his cannon?" Everdeen asked.
"You know why." Mellark replies bitterly. It goes on for hours, and soon enough me, Marvel, Glimmer, Sagara, Brutus, Enobaria, Haymitch, Finnick, Johanna, Gloss, Hawthorne, Cashmere, and most of the escorts are the only ones left watching. Glimmer and Marvel aren't as good at hiding their emotions as the rest of us, besides the escorts who are excited. Glimmer has her hands over her mouth and Marvel's anger at Cato has turned into fear. Mellark (who looks terrible) and Everdeen discuss what to do about Cato as the sun rises, I didn't even notice how much time had passed. They finally decide to shoot Everdeen's final arrow at him. She took it out of Mellark's tourniquet and loads her bow, aiming at Cato who isn't visible to the audience. I assume she hit her target, because seconds later his cannon goes off. The mutts go into a hole in the ground and a hovercraft comes by and picks up Cato, who is massively disfigured, but not Mellark and Everdeen.
"Aren't they the Victors?" Glimmer asked. No trumpets sound or anything. What is going on here? Everdeen and Mellark get off the Cornucopia and go by the lake.
"Greetings to the final contestants of the 74th Hunger Games. The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favor." Claudius Templesmith announced. Of course. All of the escorts gasped. Everdeen and Mellark argue about who should lose, both of them saying the other should win. Everdeen then poured berries into both of their hands and after a kiss they said on three.
"It's Nightlock." Enobaria said. As the berries just go into their mouths, the trumpets blare.
"Stop!! Stop!! Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to present the victors of the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark!! I give you the tributes of Area 12!!" Claudius Templesmith announced. They spit the berries out of their mouths and wash their mouths in the lake water. They hug each other as they wait for the hovercraft. The hovercraft appears and the show ends with Everdeen and Mellark getting onto the hovercraft.
"Snow's not gonna like that." Johanna remarked. Shortly afterwards we were pushed out of the mansion and sent back to the Training Center. We waited patiently in our rooms, not allowed to go anywhere else. They moved Valda, Artemis, and Hero into my room and Victor and Cato will also be sharing the same room, when Cato is released from the hospital. The four of us stare at each other, not sure what to do. Artemis is in my grade, but Valda and Hero are seniors. I use this time to catch up on sleep, since I didn't get a wink last night. This is the first time I'll be sleeping without any medication, so I'm not quite sure what will happen. At first, it's fine. Then, it isn't. It's sort of like the Tracker Jacker hallucinations, except most of the things I see happened in real life. I watch Thresh hit me with the rock as Everdeen watched on with a slight smirk on her face. After the two run off, Cato appears, but not the way he did in the real thing. His face and body are mangled and he collapses beside me.
"Clove, where were you? Why didn't you come for me?" Cato asked. I tried to speak, but failed as my vision became fuzzy.
"This is all your fault. All your fault." Cato spat and suddenly I couldn't breathe. Cato was suffocating me like he was doing to Mellark. I couldn't breathe. I tried to move my arms but they didn't react. Before I could die, the scene changed to the boy from 10 with the limp. This time it was just me, no Cato. Instead of impaling the boy's vest with knives, I was stabbing his face. Cuts and blood everywhere. I couldn't stop. I tried to shout to myself that I was actually killing the boy from 10, but I couldn't talk. His cannon went off, but I still wouldn't let off. When I finally did, it was obvious he was dead.
"You killed him." My vision shifted to Marvel, who was standing beside me.
"I knew you were unhinged and bloodthirsty, but I never thought you'd actually kill a guy. You're a murderer." Marvel spat. I jolted up, gasping for air and staring at the faces of Artemis and Valda, Hero still on her new bed.
"W-What happened?" I asked.
"You were having nightmares, screaming in your sleep. I get them too, we all do, but none of us were in the arena as long as you." Valda explained.
"I can't even imagine how bad yours are." Artemis stated.
"You have no idea." I said.
Author's Note
Hi readers!! I just wanted to let you know that I will let you know when this book is coming to an end. There will be a second book, but even though the games are over, this book is only a little over halfway there. Thanks for reading and I plan on updating as quickly as possible, considering it's summer and I only have a dance camp and two theater camps.
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