12th Annual Hunger Games

**The 12th Annual Hunger Games (Youtube/Tiktok)** was held one year after the 11th Annual Hunger Games. A boy and one girl from each District, between the ages of 12 to 18, were reaped to be taken to the Capitol and fight to the death in an arena. Holly Jones from District 5 was this year's victor.

## Background

Despite the problems the year before, having a new arena and environment for the tributes was still received positively, leading to Gamemakers deciding to prepare a different arena for each year. However, after the lack of action in the first days of the previous year due to the wideness and openness of the arena, Gamemakers decided to adjust the format of this year to force a big area of the arena to be indoors, while technology was still not as advanced to properly monitor the tributes and better control all aspects of the arena as it is seen in later years.

Standard arena uniforms were also introduced this year as a measure to prevent cheating, as Mags' use of her own clothing accessories to build traps the previous year was topic of debate about weather it should have been allowed or not.

## At the Capitol

With alliances being a concept now pretty established in the Hunger Games and raising in popularity, Livia Cardew and Florus Friend, now students at the Capitol University and responsible for mentoring the tributes of District 1 and 2 respectively, invited the tributes from District 4 to join their tributes' alliance, a strategy orchestrated by the mentors likely due to the popularity of Mags and all the propaganda that was involved in inviting her back to the Capitol to mentor the tributes from her district. Many other alliances were established that year, such as tributes from District 6 and the male tribute from District 5; and another between the girls from Districts 9, 11 and 12.

Holly, the female tribute from District 5 and the victor of that year, was allied together with both Tributes from District 7, Banyan and Petiole. There were many questions from spectators of why the couple from District 7 would get into an alliance with Holly, as from the beginning she did not prove to be very useful and had to be constantly protected by the two. Petiole, the female tribute, seemed especially attached and protective over the 15 year-old girl, which led to people wonder if she reminder her of someone. Others hypothesised that due to Holly's name, her family could have some ties to District 7, which led the couple to relate to her.

### Interviews and evaluation

During the interview stage, most tributes adopted the strategy of selling their alliance as whole, showing off how their abilities complemented each other, which was very well received in the Capitol, as it got people excited over the promises of possibly big fights happening between alliances.

Tributes were also individually evaluated at the Peacekeeper Headquarters they were staying on the night before the Games, which promoted more bets being placed now that citizens had a better notion of who could be a strong contender. Tributes from District 1, 2 and 4 received the best review, which led them to quickly become the favorites of that year.

## The Games

### Overview

The arena was engineered through repurposing a big Capitol mansion, as the Gamemakers intended to have a big part of the arena being indoors. The place was extremely luxurious, fully furnished, with 3 floors and staircases that gave access to several different parts of the property. The architecture was designed to be almost labyrinth-like, with the layout not being intuitive at all, including stairs and doors that led nowhere and dead-end corridors. Some of the rooms were also filled with fatal traps. The inside of the mansion led to a courtyard where the Games started from, with the other outside side of the mansion also being accessible - leading to a beautiful garden with many plants and flowers, as well as a number of small ponds and water fountains. A gigantic wall delimited the arena, preventing any tribute from attempting to escape.

The courtyard where the beginning of the event took place was grassy, with weapons spread across the lawn and the tributes arranged in a circle around it. To escape from there, they could go inside the mansion through either the doors or windows.

Due to the events of the previous year, the tributes received standardized uniforms before entering the arena: a white cotton t-shirt, white cargo pants with lots of pockets, white socks and running shoes.

### Bloodbath

The start of the games was marked by a big fight between the two biggest alliances of that year. Eight were killed in the first hour, including the boy from District 1 and the girl from District 2 from one alliance, with the other pack suffering the losses of both tributes from District 6, the boy from District 5 and the girl from District 12.

### Day 1

On the first day, one of the tributes discovered that the mansion was far more dangerous than he could have predicted: the boy from District 12 met his downfall when he opened one of the drawers inside while looking for supplies and, instead of finding what he was looking for, he was attacked by a nest of Tracker Jackers placed there.

### Day 2 and 3

At dawn on the second day, the Gamemakers drastically lowered the temperature inside the mansion to try to get the tributes to come out of their hiding spots and explore the outside more, as no one had gone to the garden just yet. Screenie, the girl from District 3, was the only one who didn't come out her hiding spot inside the mansion, ending up succumbing later due to hypothermia symptoms. However, the garden had its own kind of dangers as well - in there, the boy from District 10 entered anaphylactic shock after injuring himself on a genetically modified plant called *ghost-rose*. This plant was engineered to have semi-transparent petals who could reflect the moonlight, emitting a low glow that attracted the tribute's curiosity. However, its thorns were designed to be far more dangerous than the plant's regular counterpart, provoking an extreme allergic reaction to most.
Later, Rose, from District 9, was found in the garden by Danio, the boy from District 4, leader of the alliance that dominated the weapons in the courtyard, along with Columbus from District 2. THe two had been tracking her through a trail of blood, as Rose had already been injured during the beginning of the games, by the girl from District 2. The two did not hesitate in eliminating her from the Games.

With the inside of the mansion still cold and the allies realising that no one would be coming inside for a while, Danio and Columbus decide to go out again by the end of the day, to hunt other tributes and look for supplies for their alliance. Seeing the powerful duo in the garden again, the couple from District 8 - Rowano and Mellie Stacy - saw this as the perfect opportunity to go back to the courtyard to pick up a weapon. Arriving there, they find the girls from Districts 1 and 4 sleeping under some shade. They armed themselves and took advantage of the situation to get rid of their powerful opponents while they were asleep. The couple of allies then decide to go back inside the mansion, now that the temperature was back to normal, and hide behind a window close to the door with a privileged view over the courtyard, where they could see who else would try their luck at grabbing a weapon from the pile. Several hours passed before there was movement in the courtyard that caught their attention: Shonda, the strong girl from District 11, climbs out of one of the windows and cautiously approaches the weapons - as soon as the girl gets close enough, Rowano and Mellie Stacy get out of their hiding spot to kill her. The two remain there on guard, adopting the tactic of eliminating other tributes if they were to try their luck at the weapon pile.

### Day 4

On the fourth day, Danio and Columbus had decided to move back to the courtyard, where they found their other two allies missing. Seeing the powerful duo approach, the couple from District 8 tried to have the upper hand by attacking them first, just like they did to the girl from District 11 However, the two were easily defeated, as both Danio and Columbus were much stronger.

### Day 5

By the fifth day, only seven tributes were still alive. It was on this day that Holly's alliance with the District 7 tributes, Banyan and Petiole, was found by Laert, the strong 18 year old from District 9. Both tributes from District 7 were armed with an axe each, that they had been lucky enough to grab in the beginning of the games when both major alliances were distracted fighting each other. As Holly's alliance outnumbered the boy from District 9, winning the fight was not difficult and neither tributes from District 7 were injured. This was the first kill caused by the alliance, as until then, they had been hiding successfully, going unnoticed by all - even by the spectators, who did not pay much attention to them due to the lack of action.

### Days 6 and 7

On the sixth day, bets were in full swing and many sponsors started to donate towards their favorite tributes even more, eager to know who would be crowned victor. Columbus and Danio had the biggest odds to win and were the most popular. By killing the boy from District 9, the couple from District 7 gained some attention, but nothing that would place them even close to Columbus and Danio. There was also the girl from District 10 still alive, and Holly, who was on the bottom in terms of odds and popularity - as all she did so far was following the tributes from District 7 around, not contributing in any fighting.
However, with little tributes left and all scattered around the arena, the action was starting to die down. That same day, during the evening, the Gamemakers announced that a swarm of insects were close to being awakened from their slumber and that all tributes that had stayed the previous night in the garden had been marked with a pheromone while they were asleep, that would attract the attention of the swarm. As Capitol citizens were becoming more and more enthusiastic over the result of the Games and Gamemakers finally getting what they wanted with a crowd's reaction, they did not want to risk the interest in the Games dying down from the lack of action, neither for the bets to stop coming.
Just a few moments later, a loud noise suddenly took over the garden, growing stronger by the seconds. Holly and her two allies immediately ran inside the mansion, while the girl from District 10 - who had also been hiding in the garden - hesitated. As soon as the swarm emerged from under the ground, she started running immediately towards the door, but she missed one of the steps leading towards the entrance, causing her to twist her foot. The swarm quickly caught up to her, with some of the insects confusingly flying around her head, others landing on her face. It was a matter of seconds until they started landing all over her face as the swarm grew bigger, seemingly trying to get inside her ears. Holly, Banyan and Petiole watched the whole scene through one of the mansion's window, seeing how her face got completely covered by the insects until she suffocated to death.

After the fall of the District 10 tribute, the swarm quickly lost interest and began targeting Holly's alliance, desperately trying to pass through the door's and window's frames. Thankfully for them, the mansion was well sealed - but this drove the insects to swarm over the windows instead, completely covering all of the window's surfaces as they landed on them. They were so many, that they managed to deprive the inside of the mansion from any moonlight. The sound they emitted was so loud it could be heard from deep inside the mansion, sounding like cicadas in the summer - however, now upon closer inspection as they could see them landed on the windows, the tributes thought they looked closer to oversized moths.
Despite the loud and unsettling noise, the alliance carefully walked through the mansion looking for a place to hide, now seeing how every single window was covered by the moths still trying to get to them.

As the night went by, the Gamemakers started lowering the temperature inside the mansion again. This way, with the outside taken over by the mutts and the inside of the mansion with freezing cold temperatures, the tributes had no other option but to move to the courtyard in the center of the arena, where Danio and Columbus were. However, before moving anywhere, Banyan and Petiole decided to take the little time they had left before the temperature became unbearable to orchestrate a plan where they could take advantage of having the element of surprise, knowing that otherwise their chances against the two strong contenders were low. Knowing that Holly hadn’t been able to contribute much in terms of fighting so far, she was not included in the plan.

Together, Banyan and Petiole managed to eliminate the boy from District 2, after Banyan managed to throw his axe onto the boy's chest from a distance, catching him by surprise. Petiole had attempted to do the same against Danio, but missed the throw - giving a chance to the boy of attacking back, and with an accurate throw of his spear, Petiole was eliminated from the Games. A fight then unfolds between Banyan and Danio, the latter having somewhat of a disadvantage while he could not get a hold of his spear back. Even then, their fight was intense, leaving spectators on the edge of their seats as Banyan's odds kept raising and bets about who would win the fight kept coming in. It ends up being a close call, with Banyan being gravely wounded and suffering dozens of wounds across his body before he could emerge victorious. The games had taken a turn, and his feats brought a lot of attention to the broadcast, with many Capitol citizens tuning in to watch the fight.

Banyan was now on the floor, gasping for air as he tried to recover from the fight. Suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere, Holly jumps on the boy and stabs him in the back with a dagger she had collected from the floor, using her whole body weight to carve the weapon deeper. The audience was perplexed by the attitude of the little girl, who until then had been doing nothing but hide behind the back of her allies. It doesn't take long for Banyan to fall, as the boy was already in a very bad condition to begin with - giving Holly the victory.

With her at the bottom of the popularity list, many bettors lost money that year, and most citizens were extremely disappointed with the outcome.

## Placings

* 1st - Holly Jones (District 5) - victor.
* 2nd - Banyan Canales (District 7) - killed by Holly Jones (District 5) with a dagger - day 7.
* 3rd - Danio Dusen (District 4) - killed by Banyan Canales (District 7) with an axe - day 7.
* 4th - Petiole Nowalk (District 7) - speared by Danio Dusen (District 4) - day 7.
* 5th - Columbus Rooney (District 2) - hit by axe throw by Banyan Canales (District 7) - day 7.
* 6th - Verika Horsue (District 10) - suffocated by doom moths - day 6.
* 7th - Laert Bamps (District 9) - killed by Banyan Canales (District 7) and Petiole Nowalk (District 7) with axes - day 5.
* 8th - Rowano Ornelas (District 8) - killed by Columbus Rooney (District 2) with a sword - day 4.
* 9th - Mellie Stacy Myrholt (District 8) - speared by Danio Dusen (District 4) - day 4.
* 10th - Shonda Stanton (District 11) - killed by Rowano Ornelas (District 8) with a machete - day 3.
* 11th - Gizell Goldtak (District 1) - injured by Mellie Stacy Myrholt (District 8) with a knife and killed by Rowano Ornelas (District 8) with a knife - day 3.
* 12th - Anabee Kelpho (District 4) - killed by Rowano Ornelas (District 8) with a knife - day 3.
* 13th - Rose Greenspan (District 9) - speared by Danio Dusen (District 4) - day 2.
* 14th - Lorenzo Chiff (District 10) - killed by anaphylactic shock caused by a ghost-rose’s thorns - day 2.
* 15th - Screenie Sugar (District 3) - killed due to hypothermia symptoms - day 2.
* 16th - Gulph Sheperd (District 12) - killed by a trap with tracker jackers inside a locker - day 1.
* 17th - Severiano Wheelan (District 6) - injured by Anabee Kelpho (District 4) with a spear and killed by Columbus Beenne (District 2) with a sword - bloodbath.
* 18th - Zagar DuVernay (District 11) - killed by Danio Dusen (District 4) with a knife - bloodbath.
* 19th - Bellamy Beenne (District 2) - killed by Severiano Wheelan (District 6) with a club - bloodbath.
* 20th - Zahir Gulliver (District 5) - killed by Columbus Rooney (District 2) with a sword - bloodbath.
* 21th - Shandra Werksman (District 6) - speared by Anabee Kelpho (District 4) - bloodbath.
* 22th - Lux Kepner (District 1) - killed by Severiano Wheelan (District 6) with a club - bloodbath.
* 23th - Bulb Pete Harris (District 3) - killed by Laert Bamps (District 9) with a sickle - bloodbath.
* 24th - Portia Bradburn (District 12) - speared by Anabee Kelpho (District 4) - bloodbath.