Writer's Games Entries

Task 2: "All Roads..."

I thought about my family in the final moments before the timer reached zero. Ever since I left District Seven, their facial expressions from the moment they heard my name announced were burned into my memory. I never regretted that decision, writing my own name on that note instead of my brother Aspen's. He looked at me, radiating the emotion of betrayal in his eyes. My little brother Leaf was more surprised and shocked while my mother only seemed to feel sadness. I was the one she had probably been closest to of us boys. The only person I couldn't figure out was my father. He was either sad, angry, or conflicted maybe, but I couldn't tell. My only hope is that they somehow found it in them to forgive me...

When I peeked over the surface, a gust of air filled with red dust hit my eyes and blinded me for a few seconds. Those few precious seconds robbed me of seeing that we were all standing right in the middle of a majestic stature from thousands of years into the human history. The sun was in the middle of the sky, burning down on us all as I spotted giant pillars holding it all together, big tribunes in the distance, and different pathways leading away from this area. In the middle of it all, when I looked back in front of me, I spotted the Cornucopia showered with all sorts of weapons and supplies. I was only going to get me a bag of supplies.

The first challenge when the countdown hit zero was the limited number of bags spread around further away from the Cornucopia. The blood that was spilt during those few minutes covered the already red and hot ground that we ran across...at least those of us who were determined to just run. The ground got slippery because of the blood as I ran past several dead tributes before I snatched a bag miraculously without falling. If I was going to live as long as possible, I knew I would need all the luck I could get. After getting that, I ran as fast and as far away as I possibly could. Playing smart was how I was going to survive.

I stopped right around a corner and dug through the backpack to find a knife. I closed the bag quickly as I heard a set of fast footsteps approach me. I decided to use the element of surprise. When the individual came around the corner, as small and skinny as he was, I stabbed him multiple times before I could even see his emerald green eyes and the rather tired features of his young face. The knife left several big gashes on his stomach as the blood started pouring out and covered my hand with its thickness and warmth. He was one of the youngest tributes. I remembered thinking that when I removed my knife from his body and he collapsed to the ground slowly choking in his own blood.

As the blood formed a pool in the dry sand, I had to hold back vomit as the blood dripped from my hand. It was as if my hand was locked on to the knife. I knew the Careers were somewhere out there in the Arena, looking for easy victims to take down and make it all about them in the end. That was how the Careers operated. I remembered a fierce Career girl who had made herself the leader of the pack. I had concluded early on that she was like any other Career in terms of ability and attitude. Her major weakness was impatience. If there would ever come a point where I would be stupid enough to face her head on, I'd make sure to take advantage...if I could.

After the boy's cannon, I started running again. I didn't want to waste another second considering people were still running around and the Careers were now out there looking for targets. I had to make sure that I kept a good distance to them for as long as I could. I was leaving a trail from the fresh blood that was still dripping from the tip of my knife. The Careers would be the only tributes that would follow it, but then again those were the ones that I feared the most. Any other of the tributes in this Arena would either ignore it, or switch to a different tail thinking that maybe it was the Careers' trail.

I was starting to heave for my breath as I heard footsteps behind me. They were in a much faster pace than my own and by then I knew it was only a matter of time before that person would catch up with me. I looked behind me once or twice to try to identify the person, but I only saw the tall, slim figure approaching me. My vision was somewhat blurry because of the dehydration and the heat, but I managed to identify him. Some tributes stood out to me. The boy from eleven for instance was one of them. He was freakishly tall for his age in my opinion, and in some of the exercises, he struggled with his coordination.

Looking back ahead, I saw a pile of rubbles. I remembered that I just did a right turn, then a left turn and somehow ended up on the path that led to that pile. As the person behind me approached me faster and faster, I managed to make out the blonde hair on his head. I knew right away that I had no chance to outrun him so I had to come up with something. The problem was that I didn't know what else was there. Maybe there was a trap from the Gamemakers? Maybe it was an illusion, that it wasn't an actual pile of bricks in front of me. I didn't trust my own eyes, but yet I had to plan something otherwise I would be dead for sure.

I didn't realize how close he was to me when I got to the pile of bricks and was going to look back on the path I had just run through. What struck me with our impact when he came at me was that it didn't resemble an actual attack. It felt like more of a collision than anything. It took me a while to notice how my knife had somehow buried itself into his abdomen. He was immediately starting to cough up blood in my face as he lied on top of me. I managed to push him off me. Somehow he had lost a little bit of balance just enough for my knife to pierce his skin. I didn't even plan it. Just this once, my clumsiness came to my advantage.

I looked down on him and noticed this gash on his arm. His face looked pale, and it was probably only a matter of time before he was going to be dead anyway. It seemed like I just sped up the process. That didn't help me though. He was running away from someone and just happened to crash into my knife as I turned around. If someone was chasing him, I knew I had to get out of the way. I was too tired to run any further so I had to try to hide in the rubbles. It was easier said than done, but I did the best with what I had to work with...which was sharp, dry and hot pieces of bricks. I was going to be found. I knew I was going to be found.

"Ah, man! Someone beat me to it," someone said as I heard a set of steps stop by the corpse of the boy from eleven. This boy was remarkably different from the one I crashed with in so many ways. He had a confident smile on his face, he was all sweaty from running but he didn't seem tired. The more I dared to look, the more I recognized the handsome boy from District Six who always had a smile on his face as if he knew something the rest of us didn't. He could be daring and impulsive at times too during the training sessions. Those features about him clearly led him to try to chase down the tribute I just killed.

The boy noticed a few drops of blood away from the dead tribute. I wasn't all that well hidden so I wasn't surprised when he dragged me by the tribute uniform out of the rubbles. "You left quite some blood drops on the ground, loser. I would think it's only fair that I kill you consider you stole my kill," he said. I knew I had nothing on him. Everything I had done and survived up until this point had been on pure luck. He put his backpack down and lifted me up. He was preparing the movement with his own knife when a cannon from someone close to us echoed through the entire Arena.

As prone to distractions as he was, I kicked him in the stomach causing him to stumble a meter or two backwards. He grunted angrily to himself as I grabbed a brick. He tried to stab me with the knife, but I managed to avoid the blade. He hit the brick by accident and lost the knife. I immediately tried to be offensive and attacked him. I knocked him down and landed on top of him. He fought back fiercely, but in the end, I managed to land a few solid punches to his face with the brick. He stopped fighting me, but I didn't notice until the fifth or sixth time that I hit him.

After the cannon boomed over the Arena, I threw the brick and looked at what had once resembled a human face, but now looked more like a lump of flesh and blood. At that point I couldn't hold back the vomit that I vomited all over the body in front of me, as if to just decorate it a little bit more. My entire body was entering a state of shock and panic. I couldn't believe what I had just done. I never realized I was capable of it, or thought I would ever have to do anything like it.

The three deaths that I was involved with in the beginning suddenly made me wonder who I really was now. If my family had a hard time forgiving me for taking the fall for all of them, I wondered what they were all thinking of me now...