Chapter 9: The Games

I am getting married. I am in a white dress walking down a white carpet in a garden. There is a bouquet of purple irises in my hand, my family is seated and smiling at me and Gerald is under a flower arch waiting for me. I am in front of Gerald, he takes my hand and then he isn’t in front of me anymore, my white dress is now covered in ash and I am alone in the garden. I look up and there is a hooded figure, it stretches out its hand almost like it is calling out to me. I take a step towards it and the guide appears. She looks really old this time “Cave!” she screams. The Figure is in front of me.

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REALITY

Good, well at least I know I should be wary of an ambiguous hooded figure, thanks guide. It is the morning after the opening ceremony, last night was amazing all the teams were presented to the current Sedes Lycaonis and Gerald was the flag bearer for his team he looked amazing in his Blue and gold uniform, Blue is Peraethus colour but all the houses have gold added to their colours this year. Aegaeon pack is white, Charisius pack is Grey, Eumon pack is purple, Heraeus pack is red , Lycius pack is black and Nyctimus pack is green and all their uniforms have gold included in it. Greg gave an amazing speech and the rest of the night was filled with dancing, eating and a lot of laughing. This morning all the teams leave to their designated campsites. Anthony volunteered to be a supervisor so he will be going into the woods too, his job is to give live updates to Greg’s team that would remain on the palace grounds. I am going to be stuck helping Alyssa prepare for the pageant along with Mirena. I get out of bed and I am careful not to wake Alyssa up. I pick up the tassels I made for my brothers and Gerald; it’s a mini tradition I started with my brothers when we attended the games for the first time. I make a tassel with their initials on it and give it to them before the games start, it’s my way of wishing them good luck.

At 08:00 all the teams begin to match into the woods, I wave goodbye to Gerald, Noah and Anthony and I join Greg and his monitoring team. The first task is for the teams to find and set up their camp as quickly as possible and hunt down a wild boar. Six boars have been released into the woods and the team that doesn’t catch one would be going without any dinner tonight. “This is so exciting” I say out loud and all the members of the monitoring team nod and agree with me. A gunshot is heard and soon we hear Anthony’s voice through our headphones. I look up at Greg and ask his permission to announce it, he passes the microphone to me and I speak “The hunt has begun” there is a loud cheer throughout the palace. The excitement is building up. 

A few minutes pass and then we hear someone from the Charisius pack say they can smell the hog “looks like Charisius isn’t going hungry tonight” Greg announces and there is laughter everywhere as the laughter dies down a feeling of dread suddenly erupts inside me, before I can say something we hear Anthony’s voice he is saying that he can smell blood. Someone from the Nyctimus pack says they just found a dead wild boar soon the communication lines go silent. Greg is trying to reach Anthony and every other person on the monitoring team is pressing buttons and trying to figure out what is going on. There’s a scream and we hear Anthony’s voice over the comms before it goes dead and everyone is paralyzed with fear when we hear the word “Rogues!”

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“Where is she Niovi, where is the child?” Calix screams. He has clearly lost all his patience but the thing that has him really agitated is the feeling of defeat that he just can’t shake. Niovi is making it worse by giving him that look; it’s pity, how is she the one pitying him when she is bound? “Don’t make me do this please” Calix says looking at her, “give it to me”  he holds out the dagger. “I can not give what has already been given” Niovi says and with that Calix cuts her with the dagger but nothing happens she looks at him with an expression that reads “you see”. Calix moves away from her but turns back and plunges the dagger into her heart and nothing happens still. Panic is evident on Calix’s face, he releases Niovi and holds on to her body 

“No”

“No”

“Please Niovi, Please” he cries.