Writer's Games Entries

Task 5: "The Banquet"

The night is dark and full of terrors I believe they say before every ghost-story session. To be honest that feels like every minute of daylight in this place. I remember how I was so clear on leaving this house because of the dream I had the night before, but then came the three witches and pretty much cornered me at the front door. The fates scared me. I didn't step one foot out of the door in fear of either of those fates coming true. Or let's be honest, the one where I killed a person. They say there's no escaping my fate because it's apparently already written down somewhere (well, guess what, I'm gonna fight it).

Hence why I have locked myself in. I'm just sitting here trying to decide what my best move will be. Going outside isn't one of them because I'll end up killing someone, and falling asleep in this house was a mistake that I don't intend on repeating (I'm supposed to learn). So now I'm fighting my ever-closing eyelids and praying that this night won't bring out any more terrors. Last night was terrible and those witches were even worse, only adding to the tension. Why I was picked to deal with witches is beyond me.

The fates are haunting me though. Even the supposed 'good fates' had some kind of bitter aftertaste to them. They were both the result of the warning from the witches, the one where I killed a human being to stay alive. What makes a good fate and what makes a bad one is a matter of perspective it seems. I found that they were all just equally bad, just some of them sugarcoated to seem better. It has just come to the fact that I am done 'socializing' in these Games in fear of my fates.

I spend the night turning the house upside-down looking for food, supplies, anything that might come in handy despite the fact that I don't plan on leaving the house any time soon. I manage to find breadcrumbs to my small delight, but there is nothing else around here and my stomach is starting to complain loudly. I'm starting to feel sick with the lack of proper food. I can usually last a long time on a meal, but we are dangerously close to the twenty-four hour deadline since the last time I had a proper meal and I could really use something to help my legs lift me up.

All the searching and crouching underneath furniture gives me nothing. I'm truly about to lose my mind. I end up just sitting against a wall for the rest of the night, feeling hopeless. This means I have to move out of this house and go elsewhere to find food, something that contradicts my initial plan. I'll start wandering the streets at dawn, hoping to only find food, and no other tributes. Our number has gone down drastically in a very short amount of time, and I don't want my face to be on the sky as a another deceased tribute.

"Good morning, tributes," a voice comes over a speaker in the arena and immediately startles me. I am jolted wake, realizing that I did what I wasn't supposed to do, which was doze off. "A new day with new possibilities. I do believe at this point that some of you are quite desperate," great, a mind reader. I can see the soft light of the sun come into the room through the window. It almost blinds me as I get up on my feet and see the great theatre in the middle of all the houses. "Well, today, I plan to be very generous," he continues.

"At this point in the Games, you are all desperate for different things – food, medicine, supplies or even weapons. There will be a banquet in The Globe Theatre. You will find all the things you need. Call it a small moment of truce. The challenges to come are not for the lightweights," the message ends. So he's calling us back to the theatre (hopefully not to break our legs). This is nothing else than a trap. They do not just want to feed us because they discovered sympathy all of a sudden. They put us here. They put me here. The voice is right however. I am desperate. I need food, I need energy, but at the same time, I don't want to die (which I will if I don't eat or drink anytime soon).