Twenty Four Shades of Blood [A Hunger Games Fanfic]

The Feast - 4

Tap, tap, tap.

Thirty pairs of eyes track Titus’ progress around the room. It’s early morning in the Capitol and the sun shines weakly through the windows, making the inky night of the screens seem even more dark. Graphs charting core body temperature and heart rate pulse across desks. At the beginning there was a cacophony of them, blaring out from every corner of the room. Now there are only four.

A man with watery yellow eyes watches Abigail’s pulse flutter. Her core body temperature is stable; this is just nerves. Her tracking camera shows her pacing up and down inside the Cornucopia, barely visible in the gloom. The torch in her hands flickers on and off, casting shadows against the metallic walls. To his left, a colleague is keeping an eye on Byron. The camera shows him leaning against a tree, dripping with sweat and visibly trying to steel himself. According to the trackers on the map-holo, he’s close by. He clearly has no idea that Abigail is already in place, and a sneak peek at his stats show that his pulse is erratic and his body temperature has dropped significantly. Acute shock.

Directly opposite him, Benji’s minder looks worried. She’s a small, twitchy woman who doesn’t suit the plain white uniform and her fingers tremble across the holos. Benjamin’s tracking camera isn’t visible from here, but the map-holo shows him moving steadily in the general right direction. Every so often he stops to rest. His core temperature is a little too high, but not dangerously, and though his pulse shows bursts of panic, it is at least steady. The younger boy seems to be composing himself, and it’s working.

At the next desk, Carmen’s minder keeps glancing up at the pacing Titus. He notices, stops, and peers down at the information; the girl’s vitals are all eerily calm.

“Five minutes to go.”

The voice isn’t Titus’. It comes from a man employed solely to keep an eye on the time, a slightly plump young man with a booming voice and an inflated sense of self-importance. Unhappy at being stuck away in one corner of the room, the need to make his presence felt seems to be overwhelming. Titus shoots him a look and nods.

“Commence countdown.”

The order is followed by a brisk swish and a flurry of hand movements. On the holo-map the number five is seared into the sky in fierce red. Benjamin’s dot scurries faster. On the screens, Abigail shakes out her hands and tips her head back, breathing slowly. Byron runs a hand down the blade of the axe and shudders.

Nearly showtime.

“Prepare the items.” An inventory appears down the side of the main screen, which is currently flickering between the tributes. This is what the Capitol see and hear; if the sound wasn’t muted the night-commentators would be audible, shrieking excitedly. Titus insists on having the sound down, believing that the Games should be conducted with at least some dignity, but most of the tense Gamemakers wish for once that he’d change his mind. This close to the end, nobody dares to speak.

The inventory is impressive: bottles of water, medicines of all kinds, packets of dried fruit - the Games favourite - and meat, bread, weapons. Spears and bows and throwing knives, lengths of rope, clubs. Enough for ten tributes. All the items are already prepared above the arena, ready to be dropped. The hovercopter floats noiselessly into place and it will remain there until the feast is done, to pick up the bodies. Everything has been meticulously planned and no expense has been spared.

The five fades and is replaced by the number four.

On screen, Benjamin gasps as his injured arm knocks into a low-lying branch. Hunger and pain has sapped most of the glow from his face and his cheekbones seem huge under hollow eyes. Titus has ensured that one of the medicines being sent in will at least soften the pain. There will be something for every tribute. People need an incentive; the Capitol need blood.