The Fandom Games

PART IV: Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3 – CAPITOL TV

The Capitol's stylists curled my long hair with a wand of some kind, though it seemed rather inefficient if just by walking the curls would fall right out. I was wearing the red silk dress that Steven had pulled from my closet, now with gold sequins lining the neck. I looked lovely, as all of the stylists kept reminding me. I didn't look how I felt.

Once the trumpets played and Caesar introduced himself, just like he had only a week ago, I was introduced, too.

"But first... a recap of the Games!"

I sat in the same position – the same seat, even – that I had been sitting in with twenty-three others so recently. It was so quiet. So empty. So lonely.

I should have been used to losing people by now. But this was nothing like anything I'd ever experienced. An entirely new type of survivor's guilt gripped me now.

The recap of the Games showed clips of interviews of the tributes I had shared this room with so recently. It showed them playing, some notable kills, but mostly focused around me. Things I'd done or hadn't done. It was strange watching myself in my still-mostly-new body, one that I didn't even recognise at first as mine. I hadn't realised at the time how much the cameras had picked up, how often the world had been watching me.

It started with a few words from the interviews of the tributes who didn't get to spend much time in the arena.

"I hope to win so I can get back to my family. I already feel like I miss them. Hi, Lucy! Hi, Edmund! Hi, Peter!" Susan smiled adorably at the camera, waving delicate fingers toward the screen. She didn't look afraid at first glance. But she must have been.

"I don't expect to win. I think a lot of the tributes are weak and they don't stand a chance. There are maybe five people here with a shot," Christina said, shrugging like it was obvious. She'd been so honest and tried to be so brave.

"My father was in the military. He trained all of us like his soldiers once our mother died." Even strict discipline hadn't helped Louisa. This was a very versatile game. Game, ha. Who gave it that title?

"The Hunger Games have a sports factor," Oliver Wood was reasoning, "but that alone won't help me win. So many skills go into this. This is anybody's game." What a kid he had been. Kidkidkidkidkidk-

The video then cut to him and the Scarecrow going up in flames. I squinted my eyes, cringing, fighting the urge to avert my eyes. Cut to Charming, innocently picking flowers and whistling to himself. A dramatic close-up later, he was blasted by a ball of light from Maleficent. He crumpled. I gasped, but the scene had already changed. I was about to see everyone die again.

It cut to a piece of my interview, something I hadn't given much thought since it happened and let it slip to the back of my mind.

"The Doctor, is it?" Caesar asked cryptically. "Doctor who?"

"Dangerous question. It's just the Doctor."

"No name you can reveal to us?"

"Nope."

It cut to Avril jumping out of a tree right behind Isaac and sinking a knife into her neck. She gasped and fell, but Isaac didn't even know it had happened. He stared cluelessly away, unseeing, ignorant.

It showed me running into the forest after leaving the Cornucopia on the first day. It showed Glinda singing and being shot down by Maleficent. It showed me and Rory and our original alliance all crawling into one single tent. It showed Hermione shooting an arrow at Tobias – I hadn't known that was how he died. Hermione had killed a member of her own alliance? Our own alliance? I wasn't mad about it, I was just confused. But I hardly had time to be confused; the clips were still flashing quickly across the screen.