The Characters Altered Destiny

Chapter 3- Written by MAOWARRIOR

POV Kaniss Everdeen (from Hunger Games, Book 1)

"Doctor?" I asked cautiously. "Doctor what?" He grinned at me, his face crinkling into a smile. The woman behind him laughed.

"Not anything else. Just Doctor." He said. I shrugged, not really caring what his name was. I had more important things to do. I glanced behind me before quickly sliding my bow back onto my back and putting my arrow back in it's quiver. As I looked around, I heard a sudden buzzing noise coming from the Doctor's direction. I spun on my heel, drawing my bow over my shoulder in one smooth motion, an arrow pointed at his throat. The woman behind him made a slight choking sound in the back of her throat and looked like she was going to say something, but the Doctor guy silenced her with a look. In his hands he held the weird metal thing he had dropped before.

"What. Are. You. Doing?!" I said, my voice low and deadly. He raised one eyebrow at me over the rim of his multi-colored glasses and didn't speak. We must have stood there for a couple of minutes before the woman behind him finally said;

"Well, this is bloody brilliant!" She stated, sarcasm dripping from her words.

"Donna." The Doctor warned. I sensed that he wasn't warning her against him, but against me.

"Oh, shut it, spaceman!" She said, ignoring his plea. "I mean, we're stuck here, on a different planet, which I suppose I should get used to, and there is a crazy martin pointing a bow and arrow at me!" I narrowed my eyes at her, not really liking her attitude. The Doctor just sighed.

"Donna..." He said it in a way that made me think she was like this a lot, but I could hear the smile concealed in his voice.

"Yeah, yeah, that's great." I cut through their conversation like a knife cuts through butter. Not that I got a lot of that in District 12. "But what is that?" I gestured to the metal thing that was still pointed at me with my bow. The Doctor grinned.

"Oh, you mean my sonic screwdriver?" He said. I nodded and he picked it up from the ground. "Its kind of-" He was cut off from the rest of his explanation by a loud screech that had me covering my ears with both my hands.

"Hello, peoples of Thorix." A rumbling Voice echoed around the outside area and bounced off the trees at the edge of the forest, Donna covered her ears and winced as it hit us. "You do not know us, but we know you. You are the folklore of our people, the things we read and write about, or watch happen on TV. We know that your lives have been hard, but nobody was very sympathetic due to the one thing about yourself you don't know; you are not real." I scoffed.

"Of course we're real!" I yelled. "We're right here." Donna was nodding, though she looked doubtful, as if it wasn't uncommon for things to go drastically wrong with her life. The Doctor had his sonic screwdriver out and was pointing it all around. It was lighting up blue and buzzing again. I had a strong urge to slap it out of his hands, but I had bigger problems to deal with- the Voice was laughing.

"Real, are you?" It hissed. "Then how do we know your futures? We know everything about you, Katniss Everdeen. And if you don't believe us, see for your self." A giant screen was materializing in front of my eyes, high up in the sky. It looked kind of like the screens the Capitol used for showing the deaths in the game, only it was larger and glowed with a white light. Images started to fade into view as I watched.

A video of the Doctor and Donna, running through a library with a skull in a space suit behind them. A short clip of someone I had never seen controlling a wave to hit two flying ...things... in the air. Three students blasting light from the points of sticks they gripped in their hand. And a video of me shooting an arrow into the sky as a dome fell around me. But the thing that was odd, or more odd then it had been so far, was one thing.

I had never shot my arrow into the sky.

That scene had never happened.

I gaped up at the sky in shock as what the Voice was saying hit me. They were saying that they knew my past, and my future, due to the fact that I and everybody else were story-book characters.

"I know that this must come as quite a shock to you." The Voice purred. "But don't worry; as soon as you complete the challenge we will give you you can go home. We will put you right back into your story, complete with whatever items and memories you could have gained during the test, and your individual story will continue on as planned. With the new information and possessions you have gained, of course." I sat down with a thump. New possessions... I could win the Hunger Games with those. I had to win.

"The rules are as follows; the challenge is a contest, between the people from your story and everybody else. Each story has up to three characters which we have chosen. You may have only one person from your story, or you may have three. It's not fair. Deal with it." The Voice continued in a steely voice that seemed far to loud for my tastes. "Each story may ally with one other story during the game, and the allies may change mid-game if one group decides to leave for another. At the end of the game you have to end the alliance with the other story and fight each other. That's it."

Donna strode forward, looking up at the screen. "How do we win this challenge, then?" She said bravely. "What do you want us to do?"

The Voice cackled gleefully. "Yes, well, that's the thing. The contest is really just a very big battle. A battle... to the death."