One Fire: A One Direction Fan Fiction

16

16

   Before the program signed off, Kaius said his parting words, “Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour.” How were the odds in my favour if I was being thrown back into the arena again as a tribute? Sure, I had the other blazing boys at my sides, but President Snow definitely wouldn’t allow multiple victors again.

   Last year, he had witnessed our torture in some way or another – Zayn had not only nearly drowned in a flood, but had to watch Perrie Edwards, the tribute he was infatuated with from Seven, be shot with the very arrow that had killed her. Liam had had to see Danielle have her neck snapped. Louis had nearly died from the spear Taylor had driven into his thigh – but Niall and I had gotten off the easiest. He’d probably leave Niall be, but I definitely wouldn’t live. He’d throw everything at me. But I’d find a way to be ready.

   Leah had cried all night, and, admittedly, I shed some tears as well. If I didn’t make it this time, I hadn’t even gotten a chance to say a final goodbye to my mum, Gemma, Robin or Ed. I just pictured them weeping as well.

   But, when dawn came, I showered; slipped on the clothes Caroline – who was now my stylist again – left for me to wear and met Simon and Leah in the dining room to discuss the first official day of training.

   “Keep your talents a secret,” Simon says.

   “Everyone in Panem already knows my talent,” I argue, “An arrow is what killed Taylor and saved Louis last year; my arrow!”

   This argument continued until I got him to allow me to shoot arrows at the targets as I pleased (as I still needed to practice my aim since the whipping), on one condition: I had to follow the advice I didn’t last year, talking with the other tributes, and not only if they approached me, like Louis had.

   And so, as the boring three days of training progressed, I followed his orders. I still stuck with the blazing boys, but I socialized with others; Louis and I shot arrows with Dosa and Roti Petty, the twins from Nine. Chiffon Vang, the female from Eight, showed us how elaborately she could weave nets (much better than Taylor could). Teak Duke and Cedar Spence, the tributes from Seven, gave Zayn and I tips on how to correctly throw axes. Through it all, each of us had found some more suitable allies – not necessarily ones we would spend each hour of the days we were in the arena with – which I ran by Simon. He just said he was happy I was following orders this year.

   On the last day at lunch, just before our final assessments, some of us, who are sitting together at one of the tables, are discussing our strategies. I’d already made a wine bottle explode with an arrow last year, and was definitely out of fresh, new ideas to get my score of an eleven again. Mousy, the girl from Liam’s district had pointed out something else which gave me a lack of options.

   “See that,” she said to me one day, pointing up to the stands where the Gamemakers sat to watch us.

   “What?” I asked.

   “It’s rippling,” she squeaked, “There’s a force field around them, like the kind they use for the arenas. We call the ripple parts chinks back in Three. We can identify them just as easily as they can be broken and rupture the entire structure of the field itself.”

   Not only had the genius, twelve-year-old given me valuable information to know not to shoot at the Gamemakers again, lest the arrow bounce back at me, but she’d told me Liam was one of the best at identifying them. I wondered exactly why he’d kept this from us last games.

   Since we were from Twelve, Leah and I were the two scheduled to go last; boy first then girl. I told her what I was going to attempt; something rebellious, which she agreed to try as well. After a good near six hours of waiting, they finally call me in. Leah wishes me luck, and kisses my cheek and I leave her.

   The atmosphere is different this year. Last year, the Gamemakers were sitting in the stands, getting drunk and chattering loudly. This year, they are sitting there, some still sipping wine, waiting to judge what I do, but my mind is drawing a blank while it’s, at the same time, attempting to find something which would cause an uprising if shown to the public. I see Arpil Fans amongst the others, eyebrows raised, waiting to see what I do to make an impression.

   I close my eyes for half a second and open them to a different scene, something that has crossed through my mind whenever I thought of training, or shooting a bow and arrow. I see spilled wine, some of it staining Arpil. This memory leads me to the Cornucopia in the last games where I saw the bow and arrow. It leads me to Zayn firing it at Claire Easton, last year’s tribute from One. And just after that death, five more would have followed if not for Xanthius Naia. And I know what to do.

   As quickly as I can, I set a dummy up on the archery range. I take a spear from one of the weapons racks and a bow and quiver, and use some of the pointers Jella Pope, the girl from Louis’s district, gave me yesterday during training for throwing spears. The spear soars and hits the dummy to the right side of its lower body, where the right thigh of a human would be, and where Taylor had hit Louis. Before it fell back, I loaded my bow and shot the dummy through its heart.

   Taking some of the paint from the camouflage station – a beautiful blood red colour – I moved in front of the dummy, and, as quickly as I could, in large letters painted a message. And I left at that, without being dismissed, as I had last year, leaving them staring at my work in shock with open mouths. In the lovely blood of my victim I had wrote, not even words, just acronyms, which I knew they knew the meaning of.

   R.I.P. X.N.