Writer Games | Death Wish & 51

Task Two: On the Steps of the Palace - Females

District One - Belladonna Cranium

My designer did the last  adjustments to my outfit and I had to admit that I didn't hate it.  Black, unusually tight but well fitting, with dark red stripes on the  arms and white markings around the collar.

"You're done, Miss," the  man eventually announced and stepped away from me, leaving it to me to  secure my mask around my neck on a small band. "You look great," he  quietly added and I slowly turned around and literally felt the smirk  spreading over my face.

"Thanks dearie, it's one of the things I'm aiming at. After all, it's slaying or getting slayed, either thing should be fun!"

I winked at the slightly confused Capitol worker before stepping into the tube and travelling all the way to the surface.

As soon as the arena  appeared in front of me, I was pretty pleased. A dark forest surrounded  the entire Cornucopia, although the leaves of the trees were colourful  and shining, predicting that there would be some...dark kind of  interesting fashion in these Games. In a not so far away distance I also  spotted a fairly big castle. Not bad. I'd like to know what hid behind  these walls and what kind of fancy things you could do there.

Just after a moment, I  realised the lowering countdown and also felt my feet glued to the  ground. What a strange thing to do. I wondered why the Gamemakers would  force us to stay on our places until it was safe to get down again.  After all, if people jumped down too early, we'd be down to a smaller,  more interesting number pretty soon.

30. It also just dawned  on me that I was part of the Career pack. I fought hard against the  smile creeping onto my face. A Career pack meant an immediate alliance  and an immediate alliance meant people I could play with and get out of  my way if necessary.

15. I focused my vision  fully on the Cornucopia, a place which the Careers would very likely  immediately claim as their own again, just as every year. It wasn't as  if I'd been trained to become a superior tribute, but surely, my job  hadn't been the worst thing to do before the Games either.

When the last numbers of the countdown started to appear, I took a look at the other tributes around me.
Most  of them seemd either weakly cute or so full of muscles that hardly any  brain could be left. I felt as if one person was staring especially  intensely at me, but before I could find out more about it, the clock  hit zero.

At an instant, the glue  vanished from my feet and I could jump up from the pedestal and lunge  forward, diving swiftly past the other tributes while doing so.

I reached the Cornucopia  as one of the first tributes and immediately grabbed a whip and the  knife closest to me. When whirling around, I spotted Eoghan, my District  partner.

He tried to flash me a  charismatic grin while saying "Sorry, darling" and raising a knife on  his own, however, I was faster. I slid through his arms and lunged  forward, cutting his stomach and chest and ducking away when the blood  started to spill.

I let out a laughter and  got up, kicking Eoghan's body a little bit away from me. "You shouldn't  have tried to betray the Careers, really!" I chuckled.

Just in this moment, I heard someone calling my name.

"Belladonna!", it was Epona, the Career girl from Two, "I'll take the right side, you defend the left one!"

"Excellent! It would still be good for the others to arrive soon!" I screamed back, still half-way grinning.

Suddenly, I felt someone  grabbing me from behind and when I whirled around, I stared at the  brown-haired boy I remembered coming from Eleven.