Life Through Sea Green Eyes - A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Part 2: Chapter 13

Disclaimer: I do not own or claim ownership to any content related to or included in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. I write this story purely for my own enjoyment and the enjoyment of others, with no intent for making money.

Life Through Sea Green Eyes

Part Two: Decadent Delirium

Chapter Thirteen

          It turns out that there really is a secret floor in the Training Center, except it’s for the mentors, not the tributes. There’s no elevator button for it, but if you hold down buttons 4 and 5 for three seconds, the lift will take you to the level that holds the Sponsorship Room.

          The Sponsorship Room is a giant room that takes up the entire floor. It’s lined with floor to ceiling windows that, at a touch of a button, change into monitors that give you unlimited access to any of the cameras in the arena. That way, supposedly, we mentors can keep track of the entire game and send our tributes whatever items we think will help them most in the long run.

          This means that, although each mentor has their own workstation, all the mentors are crowded into one room. Haymitch shows up already tipsy, and nearly misses his chair when he tries to sit down. The female tribute from 6 has a morphling for their mentor, and the gaunt-faced woman spends most of the day twirling round and round in her swivel chair.

          The Games start a few minutes after I arrive, and Andromache explains how I use my workstation to send my tribute gifts. There’s a blank screen that will start filling with text if any donations come in from the Capitol. Beside it is what looks like a catalogue of every conceivable thing I could think of sending as a gift – food, weapons, medicine. One option is a llama. Why would a tribute possibly need a llama?

          Then there’s the joystick, which I will use to steer the silver parachute should Cal’s insane interview actually win him any sponsors. I kind of hope that he pulls in a little money, so I can send him something really big and heavy and drop it straight on his head.

          I watch with the rest of the mentors as the Games unfold. No one bothers to send gifts for at least the first day, so we mostly sit in silence, sometimes wincing or laughing when something happens. Cal actually is pretty ferocious, and although the Careers must have rejected him, he still manages to grab a sizeable backpack and an array of weaponry that should serve him well.

          Lacosta also survives the bloodbath, as does Johanna Mason. The former sprints for the lake and swims out to a small island in the center – smart, especially if no one else besides Cal can swim. Johanna grabs a dagger from the cornucopia that’s basically at her feet when she steps off the golden plate, and books it for the trees.

          Three days in, things are proceeding at a fairly steady rate. We’re down to thirteen tributes, including Cal, Lacosta, and Johanna. The Careers are in fine form, and are developing a surprisingly elaborate search system that they use to flush out their prey. They are tracking down a ruddy-faced kid from District 3 when I realize that Cal has reached the lake and is obviously contemplating swimming across.

          Since he killed a girl during the bloodbath on the first day, I have no doubt that he’ll attack Lacosta if he finds her. Cal has gotten a few donations, to my surprise, so I do the only thing I can think of. I punch the button for inflatable water wings, and float them down onto the top of his waiting head.

          “What the hell?” Cal shouts on my screen, grabbing the package. He peers up suspiciously at the sky, apparently realizing that I must have sent it to him. “What are you playing at, pretty-boy?”