Into Thin Air: The Forty-Second Hunger Games

Chapter 4

Slater was in fact designed for One. His submitter was flexible enough to move to Five, so I altered the backstory. Ferrari is my little sister's Tribute and I suggested the name, so that one's on my head.

Shane Donegal

I didn't really think it would go this far. I was just training because I came from a long line of warriors. We didn't actually fight in the Games, though. It was a much older line than that. Way back when, before the Dark Days, my ancestors came from across the ocean. They lived in Ireland, back before the island was submerged in the catacylsms that brought on the war. I was sure they weren't all dead, though. There had to be bits of land still above water, and it took a lot to kill one of us.

Anyway, my people were the best fighters on Earth. They were fiercely proud, independent warriors who fought like animals to keep their lands safe. Since I was a little boy, my parents told me stories of warriors that snapped men in half and fought off nine enemies at the same time. Obviously, they were the coolest people ever, so it was only natural I wanted to be just like them. I might have been a little obsessed with them, in fact. I tried to cultivate an accent I'd never even heard, when I was six I proclaimed that my real name was Fionn Mac Cumhaill, and I once made myself sick by snitching a nip of my father's whisky.

The culmination of all this was training. I wanted to learn to fight like the long line of badasses that came before me. I basically only trained in two things: endurance and the shillelagh. The shillelagh sounds like the coolest sword ever made, but it's actually a stick. People like me knew it's a super important stick my family had passed down for generations, but to outsiders, it just looked like a stick. That was why I didn't think I'd get picked to volunteer. I thought they'd pick Jacques, the guy who dual-wielded scimitars, and not Shane, the dude swinging a stick. When I found out I was the designated volunteer, it blew me away, but I wasn't arguing. I knew I was good, and this was my only chance to ever put what I learned into action. There haven't been many battles in Panem since the Dark Days. That's probably a good thing, but life's boring for a warrior without any wars.

I just hoped there were lots of other fighters in the Arena. I didn't want to fight a bunch of little kids. Killing kids was for dogs. I wanted formidable, terrifying enemies I'd have to be brave to fight. I wanted a real war, not just a little skirmish. This was what I'd been training for, even if I just decided that after I actually got picked. I was going to make my ancestors proud.

Rain Caroline Odessa

What are you gonna do when you're a Four girl who gets seasick? What are you going to do when you have seven siblings, and each one is better than you in some way? When you're just the middle kid, the one who never does enough right or wrong to get noticed? You train, that's what.

I might have been little, but I was tough. I trained hard at the Academy, and I was doing great. It was something I could finally be noticed for. Brooke was the only one of my older sisters to train, and she never took to it. I wouldn't be the one who followed her footsteps. I'd be the one who went farther. I was going to be the youngest person to ever win the Games. I knew I could do it, and I wasn't going to blow my chance by waiting another year to volunteer.

My parents weren't even worried when me, Ermin, Nixie, and Cress left for the Reaping. Mom was busy juggling Troy and Sirena, and Dad left to fish as soon as the sun came up. They probably wouldn't have noticed if I'd just stayed home. I was starting to think even the Peacekeepers wouldn't have noticed if I didn't show up for the Reaping. They were going to take notice soon enough.

I was shaking with excitement as I waited for my moment. I surprised even myself getting picked at such a young age. The instructors saw the way I used my dagger and they saw how I could wrestle people twice my size. They noticed me and they thought I was worth watching. The name was hardly off Catullus' lips when I spoke up.

"I volunteer as Tribute!"

It was my golden moment. All eyes were on me as I strutted to the stage. That's right, I thought. I'm the pick. They picked me. I'm the one they thought could win. I stood tall and proud on the stage, beaming out at all the people who were looking with surprise and respect at their representative.

"I volunteer as Tribute!"

When my partner stood next to me, I didn't feel so tall anymore. Shane's shadow swallowed me up entirely. He must have weighed twice as much as me. I looked up at him with something like awe. It was different after I'd really volunteered. In the Academy, we were practicing. This was what I was really up against in a fight that didn't end until someone was really dead. All eyes were on me, but my eyes were on the boy that could throw me like a pillow.

I screwed up.

I done goofed. I think I put Rain as 14, but she's 13. That's super young for a volunteer but there's a reason and she's not a generic 13-year-old psycho killer. I've been avoiding mentions of other countries in previous stories because I didn't know how that worked in Panem. For now I'll assume they're too fragmented to ever come into contact with each other, but some are still out there.

I think I should add the descriptions of the characters so people can visualize better. I'll have to go back and add them for previous chapters. Shane is almost six feet tall with red hair and freckles (naturally) on a younger-looking face. Rain has dark brown curls and round blue eyes with silver flecks. She's almost five feet tall and she is paler than most people in Four since she avoids boats.