Cities in Dust - The 73rd Hunger Games

Cover art by Helen Zhao

"Cities in Dust - The 73rd Hunger Games," by Devin J. Naqvi is the story on how the Career winner, Wade Rankine won this year. He was inspired to make this story after seeing a small clip of it in The Hunger Games movie. He also gathered information on the weapons that year, since according to Katniss, there was "*only horrible spiked maces that the tributes had to bludgeon on another to death with,*" that year.

This story took a different tone, with the story starting right when the Games begin instead of him being reaped. Some of the characters were based on real people, like the D1 Female was his friend Madison, Boq was another Career, and so on an so forth. Sadly, this was one of his less popular stories that he published.

## Pre-Games

Before entering the glass tubes minuets before the Games, his mentor, Enobaria wished him the best of luck. Wade also mentions a couple of other Hunger Games before he competes in one.

## 73rd Games

During the Cornucopia bloodbath, Wade killed the boy from 12 by using one of the maces. He also saw the boy from 3 try to escape, but he pursued him and killed the boy as well. During the bloodbath, he also saw the the careers were killing most of the tributes who were dead. On day 2, since the Careers couldn't find any camping equipment, the settled in one of the abandoned buildings. Later, they spot a girl wandering aimlessly around the arena with no weapon. So, the District 4 Male kills her with his mace.

Three days later, they find two tributes, one boy and one girl from different districts making an alliance. Of course, the careers broke up their pack and killing both of them. The girl received the worst death in the Games, as her demise was the slowest one, since the careers wanted to give the crowd a show. Two days later, the group stumbles upon the District 11 Male. When the District 1 Male kills him, this angers the District 4 Male since he really wanted to kill the guy for his immense thirst for blood. This caused the two careers to get in a fight, a fight in which the District 1 Male won by slamming his mace on his opponents head.

One day later, the District 4 Female decides to try and poison the careers, since there aren't that many tributes left and also because she wants to win. She does this by poisoning the District 1 Male by getting nightlock berries she picked from a tree. Once the other careers noticed what she was trying to do, all hell broke loose, resulting in a huge fight between the. Wade didn't want to fight with his friends so he escaped the battle with no injuries. The one career that was in the fight that survived the whole ideal was the District 1 Female. Once they run into each other, she tries to make an alliance with Wade again. Since she just killed some careers, Wade was a bit sceptical but made the alliance and settled in another nearby building. He didn't fully trust hers so he stayed very vigilant when she was going to sleep.

The next day, the Gamemakers decided to start a demolition on the building Wade and the District 1 Female were one. Wade got out of the building in time, but the District 1 Female didn't, resulting in her death. Later, since this was the final day of the Games, he ran into the boy from 10, so he had to fight him, since they were the only two left. Wade used all of his energy to fight they boy, since he was extremely skilled in close-combat. While he knocked the boy from 10 to the ground, he took a brick, and smashed it into the boy's head until he died. This action would haunt him for the rest of his life, as he didn't want it to come down to this. This is around the time the story ends, with Wade being picked up by a hovercraft, being sent elsewhere.