36th Games

this year's arena was notorious for looking extremely pleasant, before it was revealed to be a poisonous nightmare.

This year's victor was Danny Wu, age 17, from District 9. The arena was set in a poisonous rainforest, featured irritable anacondas, acid rainfall, and lasted for 6 days.

Danny and his district partner, Teri, were fortunate enough to be on adjacent podiums and when the gong sounded, they ran together to grab some water and a small knife, before they escaped into the nearby rainforest together.

As they jogged through the rainforest, they heard a canon go off and a hovercraft not far in front of them. Teri pointed out that they should run to see the body being retrieved, as it may inform them on how this person died. As they saw the body of Cirquette (3) being retrieved, they saw the dark red hue of berried around her mouth, as these berries fell from her lifeless hands. They then realized that they could not trust any of the fruit within the arena and so they went without food for the next two days, whilst taking turns to sleep and keep watch.

On the third day. Danny and Teri went back to the cornucopia to see if there was anything useful there that they could take, but within the clearing, the only thing they saw was the career pack. As the pair left in search of food, they saw Laurel (11) spying at them from a tree.

Danny started climbing the tree in order to kill her, but Teri stopped him, pointing out that as Laurel was from District 11, she would be knowledgeable of non-poisonous fruit and could also taste fruit for them before they ate. Laurel was practically forced down the tree by Danny and had no choice but to accept this plan. Danny, Teri and Laurel were able to eat for the rest of the day, with Laurel pointing out the non-toxic fruit and trying it first, in order to prove that she was telling the truth.

The next day, there were only eight tributes alive after sunrise. Whilst Danny, Teri, and Laurel walked to the perimeter, acid rain suddenly began to fall. The group frantically looked foe shelter but couldn't see any, however Danny quickly ushered Teri and Laurel into the nearby river, so that they could shelter in the water from the acid rain, whilst only occasionally coming up for air.

After the trio had been sheltering under the water for almost half an hour, Teri was bitten on the ankle by an anacondas and she came up to the surface whilst screaming out in pain. They realized that the rain had stopped, so Danny and Laurel helped her out of the water, As Danny tried to look at Teri's ankle, sever anacondas appeared from the water and the surrounding trees.

Laurel immediately tried singing to the anacondas, which greatly confused both Danny and Teri, but as the serpents slithered closer to Teri, Danny grabbed Laurel by the shoulder and ran from Teri and the anacondas as fast as he could force Laurel to move. Teri screamed at Danny as he ran off with Laurel and her canon was heard shortly after. Once Danny and Laurel made it to safely, he asked her why she sang to the anacondas and Laurel said that her mother claimed to see a girl do this in order to calm snakes during the games of Laurel's uncle, Reaper.

On the fifth day, only five tributes were left, including Danny and Laurel. The pair once again ran out of food and so Danny made Laurel choose a new type of fruit. She picked some orange pear-like fruit and seemingly ate a bit, before declaring it safe. Danny then started eating some of the fruit, just as Laurel coughed with her hand to her mouth. At first it didn't dawn on Danny what had just happened, until he grabbed Laurel's hand and saw that she had deliberately coughed out the bit of fruit she'd tried.

Realizing that Laurel had just tried to poison him and had almost succeeded, Danny immediately stabbed her through the face, killing her instantly. He then made himself vomit in order to purge himself of any poison that he had ingested. However Livia (2) had been nearby and heard this commotion occurring.

As Danny noticed Livia suddenly approaching, he fled down the path that bordered the river and she threw some knives at him. Although Livia didn't quite manage to hit Danny, she very nearly hit an anaconda that was resting on a tree by this path. As soon as she ran past, the irritated serpent lashed out and but her straight on the neck, before she collapsed to the ground in pain and the anaconda wrapped itself around her neck, slowly killing her.

Knowing that there were now only two other tributes remaining and that the showdown was fast approaching, Danny ran back to the cornucopia. As he ran, he noticed that the anacondas were slithering down from the trees as he entered the cornucopia clearing, he saw all sorts of snakes quickly moving through the grass and so he climbed to the top of the cornucopia. As Danny looked out across the clearing, he saw Stitch (8) sprinting towards the cornucopia.

Once Stitch was almost on top of the cornucopia, Danny slashed his throat with a knife, sending him falling back down to the snakes on the ground. Danny realized that there was only one other tribute left, but he couldn't think of who it could be. As he was trying to remember, he heard the footsteps approaching and as he turned, he was kicked to the ground by Blinky (6), who was covered in black paint and must have camouflaged herself into the top of the cornucopia.

When Danny was kicked by Blinky, he fell over and his knife fell into the pit of snakes below. Blinky tried to push Danny off the roof of the cornucopia, but he successfully held on and eventually managed to grab Blinky by her hair, before yanking her off the roof of the cornucopia and into the hissing snakes, thereby winning this year's games.

A week after returning to District 9, Danny was stabbed by Teri's brother, but he ultimately survived. Once he left the hospital, Danny went on to open his own bakery in the heart of District 9.