A Game of Chance [THG Fanfic]

Day Four (1)

-Troy Thorstone, District Ten-

Each time a person comes into the room containing the cage that i'm currently stuck in, I throw myself at the electric bars, in desperation, to get to them. The smell of them is all too alluring.

Unfortunately, I have no control over my actions. Therefore, I begin to wish that I could be left alone. The electric shocks might not hurt, but they do leave red blotches of skin all over my body.

The next time a person comes, I hold my nose amd move as far away as possible from them. For some strange reason I have no inclination to attack them.

The woman geins at me, her smile widening even further when she realises that she doesn't have to worry about me attacking her. My guess is that she has planned this, somehow. She could quite possibly be one of the gamemakers who came up with this 'human mutt' idea.

She stares at me, then reaches into her pocket and pulls an object out. The smell immediately intensifies. If I had have thought it was bad before, now it is just pugenent. I scramble to try and get even further away, but as I do so, my back hits the back of the cage, and I am thrown into the middle by jet another zap of electricity.

She chuckles softly. "There's no escape, dear. This is nightlock. It is the only plant that can kill you and your fellow mutated friends.

I frown, puzzled. There's more? In all the time that i've been here, which seems like an enternity, nobody has bothered to tell me any information about the Arena, and about the latest dead tributes. For all I know, there could still be twelve tributes ou there, although I doubt it. Valentyna seemed to be on a killing streak the last time I saw her. I doubt that she's been standing around, doing nothing. My money would be on her to win these games, if she hadn't have killed me, and therefore gotten me turned into this awful creature.

The woman's eyes gleam as she continues. "We decided that we had to make sure that you could be killed some way. Before we added this vulnerability in, your mutated species had no weaknesses. That won't do. We have to give the remaining tributes a chance to not get eaten."

I give her a confused look, still leaning away from the nightlock. "Who said anything about going back into the arena?" My voice takes me by surprise, as it does not sound like my own. Rather, it is quite deep, and has a gravely edge to it, with a scraping sound as I speak. Presumibly, that is the metal inside of me causing the sound.

She gives me a strange look, before replying to my question. "You're going to be in the finale, with all of your other fellow dead tributes. Our plan is that you get at least one, or maybe even two of the remaining tributes out of them way. You shall be our weapons."

I open my mouth to yell out a rude word, but before I can, she cuts me off. "I almost forgot the most important thing- you're not going to be alone in this cage anymore. Another mutated tribute will be joining you.

I snap my mouth shut, and look at the ceiling, which is emitting a mechanical noise. The woman leaves, smirking as she does so.

A hole in the ceiling opens up gradually, and a bundle is pushed in. I step out of the way of it when it is coming down, to avoid being crushed.

Astonishment fills me when I see this 'mutt's' face. It appears that the District Eight girl, Mia Elgarven, finally died. I suppose Valentyna must have been the one to kill her; for some reason she majorly disliked that girl.

It is when Mia sees me, and gives me a glare, that I begin to suspect that all is not as it should be.

Just after I think this, 'Mia' confirms my suspicion about her new type of behaviour, by announcing that she is actually Valentyna. I can't help but let out a snort of laughter when I hear this. Valentyna looks livid, so much so that it is funny to watch.

She leaps at me, snarling in the way that our new mutated selves do, but I stand firm to my ground, and push her back as she reaches out at me.

She flies back, and hits the bars of the cage. I can see her 'new' body shuddering as the electricity courses through it.

She gets up slowly, a new expression on her face, one that i've never seen before.

Appariently, she isn't as immune to fear as our alliance once thought that she was.

She collapses back onto the floor, her face turned away from me, accepting that she is stuck here, just like me, and that there is no way out.

After what seems like a couple of days, although it must have only been a few hours, the woman who originally had the nightlock enters the room, flanked by about five peacekeepers. It satisfies me when I realise that the keepers have nervous expressions on their faces. We must finally be getting out.

The stench of nightlock hits my nose, and I bend over, retching. As I begin to straighten up, a bag is placed over my head, and tightened. They must be doing the same to Valentyna, as well, as I can hear her muttering something that sounds suspiously like a threat. I should know; she was the one who killed me after all.

It's strange, but I don't hold a grudge against her for killing me. I believe that somewhere deep down she is actually a decent person. It was just all the training and killing that made her like this.

Although she could have at least tried to be nice on at least one occasion.

Straining to hear what is going on around me, I realise that the floor below me is moving ever so slightly. We must be in some kind of plane- probably a hovercraft.

I feel glad that there is nightlock in the room. Without it, there would have been a load of dead bodies right about now, and I don't doubt that I would be the only one causing those deaths. Valentyna would probably return to her insane mood that she had in the arena. She might even have killed me... a second time.

I feel it when the hovercraft stops with a jolt, signifying that we have landed. A hand grabs my neck, and drags me along the ground without mercy. I don't bother to struggle, lest I might be returned to the cage.

The person holding me throws me into something. I hear a thumping noise beside me, and realise that Valentyna must still be here.

The bag is removed from my head, then, as I stare at my surroundings, I see Valentyna's also being removed. The peacekeeper hurries to the edge of the cage that we have been put in, exits, and firmly closes the door behind him with a resounding clang.

All of the secrecy makes sense now. The cage is on the outer edge of the arena, and the door is an automatic one that can also be unlocked or locked from the outside.

It must nearly be time for the finale of the games.