Hope and Nightmares - A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Angeline stands behind me in the mirror, brushing my hair so it falls in a silken sheet of icy blond hair around my shoulders. This reminds me of the morning of the reaping, only four short mornings ago, as Crimson stood behind me, braiding my hair.

I am in the Launch Room under the arena where my probable death awaits. Despite my remarkable ability to fall asleep under any condition, sleep evaded me last night, and the fact in itself has come back to haunt my reflection.

Purple bags wallow under my eyes, marring the complexion that Angeline has worked so hard to perfect.

The outfit that I will wear in the arena is the same for all tributes. It consists of dark brown pants, sturdy mid-shin boots, and a long-sleeved red t-shirt under a black coat designed to reflect body heat.

"I would expect a mountain or tundra environment and some cold nights," Hermia says.

She presses Scarlet's gold-banded diamond ring into my palm and encloses my fingers around it.

"Thank you," I whisper. "Thank you."

Angeline smiles at me sadly, and wrapping me in a hug so tight and motherly and warm that I'm finding myself getting choked up.

"10 seconds to launch," says a cool female voice.

"Good luck," she says.

After I step onto a metal plate, a glass tube slides down, trapping me in its confines. For a terrifying few seconds, I am completely enveloped in darkness. I have left everything behind. Max, Rusty, Crimson, Tulle, Crassus, Brick, my parents, District 1. I will start my new journey now.

The metal plate pushes me up, and I am momentarily blinded by the sun and the light from outside and met with a dry breeze biting at my cheek.

After my eyes adjust, I am free to assess my surroundings.

Twenty three other tributes are standing on discs similar to mine in a wide circle around the gleaming Cornucopia, stocked to the brim with supplies. I see a black backpack not too far from where I'm at, and at the mouth of the Cornucopia a small sash of glorious knives. I know that those knives will be the key to my survival in the Games. Those knives could be my ticket back home.

All around me is a scrubby, mountainous landscape. Beyond the Cornucopia is a small lake fringed on the left and right by dense forests. Beyond the lake is a small, rocky mountain thick with pines and capped with snow. To my left is a steep slope studded with boulders, shrubbery, and tall trees here and there casting lengthy shadows across the snow-spotted ground. To my right is a shallow trench sliced with a creek and deserty plants. Over the trench is an endless yellow meadow. Behind me is the sketchiest of all - a valley of strange-looking ditches and holes cowering in the midst of towering trees thinly spread throughout the area.

By the time I have finished assessing the arena, only thirty seconds are left on the holographic timer hovering above the Cornucopia. I have been instructed not to get anywhere near the Cornucopia, because that's where half the deaths take place: in the initial bloodbath. But maybe if Max knew there were knives, he would advise me to go for it. Wouldn't he know that would be the one thing that would save me?

Fifteen seconds left. I am in between the girl from District 3 and the boy from 12. Not much competition for any supplies nearby.

Ten seconds.

My heart is hammering in my ears, adrenaline pumping thick through my veins. This is the 72nd Annual Hunger Games.

Five seconds.