The 57th Hunger Games | Day Two: The Careers (High-res version)

Upon awakening the next morning, Matthew was rudely greeted by an unpleasantly-cold gust of wind. Naturally his body began to shiver inside the sleeping bag, so he immediately pulled the hood from his jacket over his head and made sure his entire body was tucked in. Overnight, the temperature in the arena had significantly dropped since the games started. There was no confirmation on whether or not it would get warmer later in the day, but he wasn’t holding his breath on that.

The good thing was that he had shelter and something to tuck himself in every night, but that was only a solution to one of his problems; the other was food. Despite having bread in his backpack, it was not much at all — barely enough to last a day, if he wanted to keep his energy. To solve that problem, there was only one option he had to do in order to survive for potentially the next few weeks: hunt.

He had gotten up out of bed after he ‘adjusted’ to the temperature and grabbed his machete before heading outside to find some food. He had no idea how he was going to get it, but one thing was for certain: he was going to get it one way or another.

As time passed, Matthew searched all around for berries or any other plant life that hopefully had fruits hanging from it, but there was no luck — no creatures either. He couldn’t sit around waiting for animals to stroll past and couldn’t wander too far away from his cave, or else he’d risk potentially stumbling across an unwanted guest. So there was only one option left to do…

Using the rope in his backpack, the wolf had prepared a snare near his cave, a trap that could possibly capture any wildlife who’s unfortunate enough to get caught in it. Since Matthew was from District 4, tying ropes was second nature to him; it was something all too familiar. But of course, he couldn’t stick around, otherwise he’d be keeping prey from entering his vicinity.

Once the sun had set that evening, Matthew went back to the snare to see if anything had came across his trap, and thankfully, something did. Upon further inspection, he saw a fluffy, white rabbit with his rope tied around its neck, unable to chew through it; it tried its hardest to escape, but due to being there for hours before and already trying to break out countless times, the creature was exhausted. He even noticed the bunny’s nose was twitching rapidly, afraid and hopeless. He wanted to let it go and roam free back into the woods, but hunger fought valiantly in his mind; if he wanted to survive, he needed food. No exceptions.

The wolf brought his weapon towards the rabbit’s torso, forcing himself to do what he was about to do, and guiltily spoke to the creature.

“I’m sorry, little guy…”

He sunk the blade into the bunny’s side and watched as the creature fell limp until the rapid raising of its chest has come to a full stop before pulling it back out, beginning to untie the rope shortly after.

He felt horrible; hunting for fish back in District 4 was another thing he was used to, but killing a land creature — especially such a cute, innocent one — felt different, for some reason. But it was something he was going to have to get used to in these games.

While immediately regretting the actions he just took moments before, he proceeded to pick up the lifeless rabbit, put it in his backpack and began to reset the trap, until—

“AHHHH!!!”

Shocked, Matthew immediately stopped what he was doing and checked his surroundings. No one was in sight, but he had to move. He got up on his feet and quickly started running back to the cave he was taking shelter in. He heard more screams of a young girl in the distance along with some laughter following closely behind before heading inside, hiding himself behind the cave’s entrance.

He heard footsteps coming into his area with another scream and stumble following shortly afterwards. He could hear her heavy breathing, terrified by the laughter that was chasing her and eventually caught up.

“We told you not to run,” said a much older girl in an aggressive tone.

“Yeah! Just accept your fate, little girl!” A boy continued, followed by a few laughs from what sounded like a few of them. All their voices were unfortunately sounding too familiar.

Matthew peeked his head out for just a second to see who the tributes were before hiding back in the cave, and judging from their jackets’ colours, they were exactly who he suspected — the careers.

The grass-green of District 1, along with the blood-red of 2, were unmistakable; a horrific sight to see for any tribute who was unfortunately in their view.

The doe from 1 was named Crystal; she looked so innocent since she was a species seen as harmless, but that was far from the truth. Behind that beauty was a ruthless killer who would do anything in order for her to win. The same went for her District partner, Steele — a rabbit. Despite looking like he wouldn’t harm a fly, he’d certainly proved that wrong within the first two minutes of the games. He was nowhere to be seen, though. It was likely he was camping at the cornucopia at the time to hunt down any oblivious tribute who wanders into the open.

Both the tributes from 2 were polar opposites of them, though, when it came to appearances; they were fierce and menacing due to their warrior-like nature back home. The hyena standing next to Crystal was Gladius — a cocky and careless murderer who rather enjoyed watching people in pain, as seen from when he killed Metro (6) back during the bloodbath. And the cougar beside him — his District partner — was Livia, who seemed more focused and collected, compared to the rest of the careers. Judging from the time Matthew had spent with her in the training sessions, it was clear her goal was to get the games over with and make sure she was the victor, no matter what cost.

Unsurprised at all, he also saw a panther in the familiar sea-storm blue that he was wearing, meaning Mariana was with them, too — alive and well. The poor groundhog in the snow with the coal-black jacket was Claudia, from District 12. She appeared to not have a weapon, or anything on her at all.

“No…p-please…” Claudia cried.

“Yeah, Livia — PLEASE can I kill her? I haven’t gotten anyone yet,” asked Crystal, mocking the little girl.

“Fine,” she responded, “but make it quick.”

“Yes!”

Shortly after, Claudia scurried and attempted to climb back onto her feet to run, but was swiftly pinned back into the ground by the deer, screaming for help and trying to drag herself away, but there was nothing she could do. She let out painful yelps from each shank of Crystal’s gladius swords. One last unsettling scream was heard before the hacking sound of her swords followed after, putting her cries to an abrupt stop. A few seconds later, the familiar sound of the cannon echoed through the arena, confirming that Claudia was now dead.

“Hey, I found some rope,” stated the hyena as he jogged back into the vicinity. “Somebody’s set up a trap.”

“Which means someone’s camping nearby,” Livia added.

And immediately after saying that, the pack split up and started searching around for any other potential tributes hiding near their location.

“Maybe this was just HER camp, though,” Mariana suggested, likely pointing at the now-lifeless body of Claudia with her spear.

“Don’t be so sure…this could be his camp.”

His camp? Who was Livia talking about? Was there someone specific they were looking for? Was it Matthew?

“I don’t get why you’re so obsessed with finding him specifically,” said Crystal. “He’ll come around at some point, whether he likes it or not.”

“‘Cuz he betrayed us! As long as he’s still alive, he’s a threat.”

Of course, she WAS talking about Matthew; and, unsurprised, she was certainly not happy about him splitting off from them.

“Relax! We have him outnumbered five-to-one,” Gladius reassured.

“For now, until WE eventually start dying! The sooner I see his face in the sky, the better.”

While listening to their conversation, Matthew started hearing steps getting louder, meaning somebody was coming right towards him. He held his machete up, ready to launch his weapon into whoever stepped inside. His heart started pounding in his chest once he started seeing a shadow form on the wall from outside the cave, which was growing along with the sound of their steps. He was cornered in the cave, with nowhere to run; if he booked it in that moment, the careers would’ve easily noticed him and hunted him down within moments. He was mostly expecting Gladius or Crystal to show up, who he would’ve attacked the moment they stood inside. However, he was surprised to see neither of them entering the cave — it was Mariana.

She jumped in with a silver spear ready in her hands for any potential opponents and immediately noticed him, but didn’t say anything; in fact, her expression changed from aggressive to more surprised. Matthew froze, unable to attack her. She may have been part of their pack, but she was still from his District. Killing any other tribute in the games was another thing, but his partner? It felt wrong to him.

“Mariana! You found anything in there?” Asked Livia in the distance.

There was a brief silence between the pair. Matthew was especially on edge since he had no idea what she was going to do.

“Nope…nothing!” She called back, implying the cave was clear.

Thankfully for him, she appeared to feel the same. The panther brought a finger to her muzzle and did a shushing gesture towards him, making sure he stayed quiet until they were gone, and then she left the cave.

“Can we just go back to the cornucopia? It’s dark out, and it’s freezing!” Whined Crystal.

“Yeah, I’m with her, too,” Gladius agreed. “We should carry on hunting in the morning, when we can actually see.”

A slightly frustrated sigh was heard from the cougar.

“Fine…let’s go.”

Shortly after, the group of footsteps were getting quieter as the careers manoeuvred their way back into the forest and continued their chatter. They talked like they weren’t even in the games! It’s like they thought their victory was guaranteed, regardless of whoever else would compete against them.

Once he couldn’t hear any footsteps and the chattering of the group, Matthew immediately started folding his sleeping bag up, preparing anything he had with him so he get out of that area as soon as possible. The careers had tracked him down from the direction he ran away to during the bloodbath, and he knew Livia specifically had superb tracking skills. His camp was no longer deemed safe, and he had to find somewhere else FAR away from where he was; they were likely to come back and continue from where they left off, which would’ve eventually ended with them catching him.

Once packed up, he made his way into the cold once again to find a new potential camp — one that was nowhere near his first. Before he left that area, though, he stopped to take a look at Claudia’s corpse. She had multiple stab wounds all over her torso and a massive gash in her forehead, with blood pouring out of it. She had tears leaking down from her eyes, even after she had died. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for the groundhog, and responsible for her death; how could they have been so cruel to such a young girl, especially one that refused to fight back? He could’ve distracted them long enough for her to get away, but fear took over; Matthew knew he wouldn’t have stood a chance against all four of them.

However, he couldn’t bare to look at her anymore, and he couldn’t stay there — it was time to move on.

Eventually, he managed to find a decent new home that night — a cave that was at least a few miles away from the original one he stayed in. Hopefully, no careers, or any other tributes, would come across that one; caves were looking to be the best source of shelter in that arena, but there could only be so many of them scattered around the landscape.

Later on, as soon as the wolf crawled into his sleeping bag, he began to wander: How was he going to kill those people? There were twenty-three — now thirteen — other tributes he had to look out for, and on top of that, four of them were trained killers who were determined to win.

The odds weren’t exactly in his favour, and it didn’t look like they were going to change anytime soon…

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Finally — the second chapter of the Hunger Games story is complete! Sorry for the long wait of this one guys, I was waiting to get the pic for this chapter done since I didn’t get them all done in order XD

I’ve already gotten three other pics from the next three chapters, so rest of those should come out MUCH sooner <3

This horrific piece was done by Jailbird!

All characters in this story are owned by me.