122nd Biannual Hunger Games

## Overview

The 122nd Biannual Hunger Games was held in July 99 and lasted 11 days. The Arena was a prehistoric earth, each day aligning to an era in which new prehistoric flora and fauna appeared. To the north are tall, glacial mountains, in the center steppeland, and the south is covered in dense forest. The Arena is one large island, with an iced over ocean to the north and rocky beaches around the rest of the land. Beneath the Arena were "tectonic plates" that broke the Arena apart into separate continents, and the Arena endured sped-up ice ages, heat waves, flooding, and earthquakes. No modern technology exists in this Arena; there is no electronic countdown, the weapons in the Cornucopia are rudimentary, and there are no hovercrafts. Alder Reid (18) from District 7 won on Day 11.

## Arena Events

Major arena-wide events:

* Day 1: Launch
* Day 2: Earthquake, revealing tar pits that trap tributes
* Day 4: Second earthquake, sending avalanche through the Arena.
* Day 6: Heat wave, snow melts and causes flooding
* Day 8: Third Earthquake, Arena splits off into multiple different land masses
* Day 10: Fourth Earthquake and ice age, land masses reconverge
* Day 11: Final fight at the Cornucopia

## **Recap**

The tributes are launched into an open steppeland with great, treacherous mountains rising to the north and dense forests crowding the south. The oceans touch each edge of the large arena, reachable only by days on foot. The podiums circle a mud, stick, and stone Cornucopia filled with only rudimentary weapons and materials. There is a deafening silence that filled the Arena after launch- no countdown. After a tense sixty seconds pass, the typical gong sounds. The Arena henceforth is clear in a policy of no technology. There are no hovercrafts to collect bodies, instead they remain where they fell for the duration of the Games. No announcements are made. The only modern weapons or materials are obtained via gift. The single exception is made to display the fallen each evening, nothing more.

The Career districts dominate the Bloodbath, forming a tentative alliance, including Everett Cannon. Another prominent faction consisting of Alder Reid, Star Wheatgrass, Memphis Shiloh, and Marino Byssus splits south into the woods. Delta Blue take solitary refuge in different corners of the Arena. Early the first morning, there is a fight between the Careers, splitting them into the pair from District One, Everett takes off to find Delta and head into the mountains with her after impromptu stitches, and Isabela sets off into the woods.

On the morning of the second day, the tributes awoke to the earth shaking and rocking. Great tar pits opened up in the non-mountainous regions swallowing half the tributes up and requiring a rescue, where in the mountains the quake tears open ice crevasses. The tributes all manage a rescue.

Alliances shift, change, and evolve often in the Arena in the coming days. Early morning of day four, the Arena rumbles again, this time sending a cascade of snow careening off the mountaintops and through the entire Arena. Tributes must seek safety or face down being buried alive. This buries some tributes in caves in the mountains, others are forced to try to free themselves in the middle sectors, and stay dry and warm as it melts rapidly in the hot, lower sectors. The Career alliance begins to fracture, infighting and irritation spreading. Star Wheatgrass dies of sepsis.

After two more days, temperatures begin to climb to unbearable heights. The snow melts rapidly, saturating the earth and drowning plant growth at an unnatural pace. Animals in the Arena begin to grow hungry and increasingly desperate, including vicious repoponomous packs. Memphis Shiloh is attacked by a dimetron on day seven, and though chased away by Alder Reid, sustains life-threatening injuries. As the lack of resources, desperation, and attacks push tributes toward the center, many tributes run into one another the evening of day seven into the morning of day eight; however, despite tensions, manage to avoid further death.

On day eight, the morning harkens in another quake, this one far greater and horrendous than the last. The island splits off into distinctive continents, leaving groups of tributes stranded on each, forced together. Memphis is swept into the ocean as the earth cracks and is deposited on the shore of the island with Delta and Everett, and Alder and Marino are on another island searching desperately for Memphis after he is swept away. Delta and Everett keep moving after the quake in search of the ocean through a thunderstorm. While crossing a creek, lightning struck Delta, killing her quickly. Everett takes her body to the ocean for burial, walking the better part of the night, and shortly after finds Memphis washed up on shore on day nine. Everett then brutally kills Memphis out of grief.

Things remain quiet for a day as tributes recuperate, move, and break alliances off as everyone senses the end that is coming. Alder celebrates his eighteenth birthday alone in the Arena. The evening of day ten, temperatures begin to drop. At first it is a nice relief from the pressing heat of the previous days, but overnight it drops to freezing. One final time, the Arena tremors, and tributes are rocked and shaken as the landmasses collide back together, the oceans drain back as oceanic fissures erupt on the equatorial outskirts of the Arena, and fresh land bridges are revealed as ice crystallizes at each pole. Tributes are forced toward the land bridges and back toward the Cornucopia to take their final stand. In a great Games recreation of the dawn of the Ice Age, new mammals like Woolly Mammoths and  vicious sabretooth tigers emerge. Existing Arena mutts are also pushed to the center along with tributes, forcing them to stay vigilant. A cannon sounds- on the other side of the Arena, the District One tributes have both died to mutts.

The District Two girl and Alder run into one another on the way to the center. She attacks Alder, but hesitates, allowing Alder an opening to kill her before she kills him. Alder then continues to the center and sets the Cornucopia on fire, a beacon for the tributes to gather and let it all finally play out. Everett and Marino emerge. Everett aims to attack Alder with his blow gun, but hits Marino instead. Alder then attacks Everett, and Everett stabs Alder in the stomach with his dagger. As Everett retreats to finish Marino, Alder takes a final throw of his axe, where it finds its target in Everett’s back. Alder joins Marino’s side to try to save him, but it is clear he is too far gone, and Marino dies. Alder lays down beside him to let death come. Alder Reid, clinging to life, is proclaimed the Victor of the 122nd Biannual Hunger Games.

## **Scoreboard**

1st: Alder Reid - District 7 - Victor

2nd: Everett Cannon - District 2 - killed by Alder Reid

3rd: Marino Byssus - District 8 - killed by Everett Cannon

4th: District 2 Female- killed by Alder Reid

5th: District 1 Male - killed by muttations

6th: District 1 Female - killed by muttations

7th: Memphis Shiloh - District 9 - killed by Everett Cannon

8th: Delta Blue - District 4 - struck by lightning

8th: District 5 Female- killed by District 2 Female

9th: District 11 Female - killed by muttations

10th: District 6 Male - killed by District 1 Male

11th: District 8 Female - killed by District 1 Female

12th: District 4 Male- killed by Marino Byssus

13th: Star Wheatgrass - District 9 - killed by sepsis

14th: District 12 Female - killed by Star Wheatgrass

15th: District 3 Male - killed by District 1 Female

16th: District 3 Female - killed by District 1 Male

17th: District 6 Female - killed by Everett Cannon

18th: Daphne Brumel - District 7 - killed by District 2 Female

19th: District 5 Male - killed by Everett Cannon

20th: District 10 Male - killed by District 4 Male

21st: District 10 Female - killed by District 4 Male

22nd: District 11 Male- killed by District 1 Male

23rd: District 12 Male- killed by District 1 Female