The 200th Annual Hunger Games - The Ultimate Games

27 Corpses

Antonius Murphy POV

"How many are here?"

"27."

I nodded at Dravius, strolling down the length of the long, brightly lit wall. Lining the walls were large transparent tubes, the top and bottom connected to the floor and roof by pipes. The air was chilly and bit at my nose, but I continued to stroll down the aisle, my gaze not focused on the door at the end of the hall, but the tubes – or rather – what was inside them.

All the tributes who had been killed in the 3 bloodbaths had already been sent home to be buried by their family and friends, but due to the resurrection twist we had been holding onto the corpses of those who died after the initial slaughter fest. And because they would surely decay without some kind of treatment, we had resorted to cryopreservation. Once we had the names of those to be resurrected, we would be unfreezing them, putting them back together, and shipping the rest of the bodies home.

As I walked down the aisle, I regarded the tributes frozen inside the tubes with a cold detachment. I barely saw them as people. I saw 24 kids every single year, and I'd grown incredibly detached to them. Although onstage I had to act like I cared about these children. Ugh. And now, we had to keep 27 corpses in the Training Centre basement.

My eyes fell upon Piper Canturbury, her eyes bloodshot and wide and her mouth open in a silent scream that had lasted for months now. Eve Smith's face was contorted into one of complete terror, her spine severely snapped out of place with some of the spinal disks poking out from her skin. Ramona McCarthy looked almost peaceful, if you ignored the huge, gaping wound buried in her chest. Emmett Payne was now nothing more than a pile of mangled flesh and eyes - the explosion had torn his body completely apart. His lower jaw was hanging loose from his skull, separated by a thin strand of skin – and the rest of his body was barely identifiable. He would be an absolute nightmare to reassemble. Damon Bolt was hardly recognizable, although his body was largely okay, his face had been completely torn apart by the mutts Hunter had lured him to. Shane Schultz was painful to look at. He had been almost completely torn in half – clearly he had fallen onto some sharp stone that had cut through his midsection. Jai Benson was practically a pancake – a landslide would do that to you – and Xavier Rowe had a large, nasty looking wound through his throat, his eyes milky and glassy.

I moved over to the next section of tubes, those who had died in the second game. Toby Haynes' face looked peaceful, however there was a large, gaping wound in his chest. Gabriella Donnelly looked utterly grotesque – the skin on her stomach had been peeled away completely, her eyes had been ripped out forcefully, and some of her organs had spilled out of her stomach cavity. Marc Duncan's spine was now in a weird Z formation, his face frozen in terror. Iris Bush was just a pile of flesh somehow squished back into a kind-of human shape, the fall onto concrete had splattered her organs and blood everywhere. Cedric Ramos' head had a huge dent in it – courtesy of Ali – and a large wound in his torso. Acacia McCartney was in a similar state to Marc, as both had been killed by the tornado, although the damage to her wasn't as extreme as Marc's. Harriet was a gruesome sight – very similar to Iris. The only part still intact of her was a hand and the skin on her face, which grinned at me like a gruesome mask. Summer Clementine's body was in chunks, the mutts certainly hadn't shown her mercy, and she was now just a hunk of human flesh. Eddie Graham had a look of fear on his face, and a narrow wound was in his chest.

I glanced over at the final group of tubes – those from Game 3. Doug Matthews's mouth was smeared with blood and gore, a large, nasty wound through the bottom of his jaw. Amaya Mills had a small puncture wound in the side of her neck, but blood had pumped from the wound incredibly fast due to a severed artery. Shay Weber looked quite normal, despite the cuts and bruises on her body, and the small hole from the needle was practically gone. Rosalie Woods had a wound oozing blood in her chest, her face twisted in horror and disbelief. Jay Mann looked much the same as Shay, the only sign of his death being his milky eyes and halted breathing. Chris Chambers looked worse for wear, with long, deep gashes all over his body and an ugly, jagged wound in his throat. Renee Wolfe's eyes were dead open, seeming to follow me wherever I went, and her gaping mouth was filled with sand. Caitlin Sharp was positioned weirdly, almost like a baby in the womb, but despite that it was difficult to miss the blood that oozed down her front. Eric Newton was a sorry sight, his leg was mangled and twisted, and his head had been smashed into nothing more than chunks of flesh. Santana Higgins had an eery smile painted on her face, and a large wound buried in her chest. She seemed limp, her head tilted to the side like a discarded ragdoll, and her eyes were milky and glazed over.

In short, all the tributes looked completely and utterly terrifying.

"Have the votes been cast?" I asked, turning to face Dravius Flamingboul. He nodded.

"Yes, they have," he answered shortly. I nodded slowly, swiveling back around to the tubes.

"Shall we get the tributes up and running, then?"

"Yes," Dravius said, "Also, Jakub wanted to come down here and look at them as well, dunno why. Should I let him?"

"Don't let that bumbling fool step foot on this floor," I snapped, "This is a delicate, confidential part of these games. No one needs to know the specifics of how we resurrected these tributes."

Dravius nodded slowly, "Okay. So it seems that the tributes voted to be resurrected are Ramona McCarthy, Summer Clementine and Renee Wolfe."

"Oh, of course they'd bring the couples back," I snarled, "Young love won't last in these games, it's utterly stupid."

"Well it's what they voted on, sir."

"Send the other 24 back to their districts; I don't want to keep their bodies here for any longer than we have to."

Dravius nodded at my order. I sighed and strolled over to Summer's tube, giving her a one-over with a cold detachment, "She's going to be a nightmare to reassemble."

"That's not your problem to deal with, we have it under control."

I swiveled around, glaring Dravius straight in the eye. He didn't understand.

"Do you?"