Hunger Games Entries

And the Nightmare Continues...

Hello! So I'll be returning to ILuvPeeta365's new Hunger Games this fall! :D Here's a bonus chapter. Originally I'd planned a different direction for this chapter, but now it's more like a connecting chapter for my new entries in the fall Games.

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As the train passes endless rows of trees and dried up lakes, a wide field of golden grain comes into view. I can't help myself from smiling. I'm not a big fan of District 9, but it's home. And I'm finally coming back.

They escort me to the same stage where my name was pulled out from that damned glass bowl. I remember how I laughed, how I figured out that my becoming a part of the 56th Hunger Games was karma's gift to me for committing a most unforgivable crime in the past.

The crowd cheers loudly for me when the doors to the stage open. Mom and Coreen climb up to the stage immediately, eyes filled with tears of relief. I feel my legs wobbling as they hug me tight. I'm not bawling, but I can't stop the tears. I have missed them so much.

And then I see her - standing on the ground in front of the stage amongst the crowd, beautiful in a clean white dress.

"Lucia!" I exclaim, almost too happily. She looks at me, smiling widely, and I grin back, wider than I ever have.

"Wake up, Quinnox." Lucia tells me with a smile. "It's time to wake up."

The world becomes a blurry mess, and I realize the person holding me is neither Mom nor Coreen. It's a doctor, and I am lying on something cold and metal. He holds a mirror to my face, and on it is the image of a guy I don't recognize.

"Who is that?"

"That's you," the doctor says. I smile at the ridiculous answer, but the guy in the mirror smiles back, much to my horror. Is that really me?

They've bleached my hair. It's now dirty blond. My eyebrows have slightly higher arches and are light brown. The bridge of my nose is narrower than before. My jaw is sharper. My formerly ice-blue eyes are now hazel, almost grey. They've also made my skin slightly tanner. As a weird surprise, I now have some bulging pectoral muscles. The only thing they seem to have left untouched is my mouth.

This is...me? I don't know me.

"Your name is Vincent Galloway. You are a fifteen-year-old orphan from District 4," a male doctor in full surgical attire tells me.

"What?"

"Miraculously, your injuries weren't fatal. The Capitol decided to revive you, but the whole world thinks you're dead. So this is our proposal: Re-enter the next Games as a wholly different person. And you'll keep your life. If you win, that is."

"You mean have another shot at keeping my life?" The entire staff in the surgery room laughs.

They tell me that they'll let me keep my life - only to put it at risk again. That the purpose of reviving me is to put me through hell once more. Re-experience the fears, anxiety, guilt, and sadness.

I narrow my eyes at them. "What makes you think I'll cooperate?"

The male doctor produces a pair of enormous scissors, and the thin-lipped nurse behind him takes out a small narrow pen. I feel sweat accumulating on the surface of my palms. It's my blowdart, and it's been modified - quite frighteningly, too.

"It's easy to cut this," he says, pointing at the tubes of nourishment fluid and blood that's supplying life to me. "But apparently you don't die very easily, so we also have some very potent snake venom right here." The nurse behind him loads the blowdart with an abnormally long bullet, still straight-faced. I watch as the tip of the bullet turns into a bright red color seconds after it's loaded, the smell of heat coming from it filling the room.

"You...do want to live, don't you?" he asks me, both sympathetically and sinisterly.

My lips shake as I think about his question. Is going through all this again just to live really worth it? Am I going to just let them use me to their will again? Do I want to live?

I do. I want to live. I want to reunite with my family. So I swallow up all my frustration and nod.

The surgeon smiles and slips his mask back on. "Now, who are you?"

I close my eyes and exhale deeply. "Vincent Galloway."

The next day, the Capitol begins enslaving me. My days are spent in between the boiler room and the kitchen. I work for as long as 13 hours a day, for nothing but a tiny room as housing and disgusting globs of severely-overcooked grain as nourishment. The Capitol has done a good job of destroying my face - none of the workers here recognize me as a former tribute. I am to never tell anyone of my real identity.

I have thought - many times - that I would just rebel and return to my district, slapping them in the face and making my dream of coming home a reality. But the Capitol has threatened me countless times that they would burn my neighborhood, my school, and my house, with my family still trapped inside. I can't and won't ever risk that.

"You'll be relocated soon," the Manager tells me one day.

"What? I thought I was supposed to re-enter the next Games!"

"Well, you still have to be a part of a district," she says, smiling. "Don't worry, it'll be fun."

At that moment, someone drugs me from behind, and I fall unconscious in seconds.

When I open my eyes again, I am greeted by caterpillars crawling across incredibly green leaves and the crisp sound of chirping birds and roaring machines. The smell of fresh wood fills the air, cleansing my mind. I have no idea where this is, but the Capitol has left me under the protection and shade of a bush.

I grunt as I sit up, pushing my way out of the bush. My body feels so drained, and I am in dire need of food. As I emerge from the bush, I see a sawmill with three male lumberjacks chopping logs. Everyone stops what they're doing when they see me and scamper to me as if I were a wounded bird.

Sawmill. Lumberjacks. Wood. District 7?

"Do you have a name?" the plump, red-haired lumberjack asks me.

"Quin...I mean...Vincent Galloway." I have to get used to this.

"What are you doing here?" wonders the tallest, dark-haired one. "Are you lost? The kids never play this far out into the woods."

I feel stupid, having to lie and pretend that I'm a vulnerable kid. "I'm an orphan from District 4."

The third lumberjack is the most vile-looking out of the three, but even he looks at me like I am just another sad abandoned child. Unanimously they decide to take me in. It's not a wonder why, actually. This isn't a small sawmill, and if it's really only the three of them working here, they're pretty short-handed. I'm a boon dropped from the sky to them.

Countless moons pass. Every single day we're hard at work, chopping wood and more wood. Living with strangers who aren't out to kill you still feels weird to me. I keep on thinking of my family, my district, and my fate. I haven't kept track of the date ever since being revived, but I believe that the time when they will summon me to the arena again is fast approaching.

Soon I will be pulled back into that nightmare.