TIP ONE: SURVIVE → HUNGER GAMES
The nightmares didn’t stop. She’d heard that before, but Layla had never believed it until she’d come out of the arena herself. Ever since the 70th Hunger Games, she’d had nightmares almost every single night. She’d never thought that her name would be chosen at the reaping, but it had, and the next seven days had gone by like a surreal blur. Nobody had thought that she would be able to last longer than a couple of hours, but somehow, she had defied all of the odds and managed to come through as a victor. It didn’t make any sense, but that was her life now.
Yes, she had a nice house to live in, but she’d had that before the games. She was the Mayor’s daughter, it was almost unheard of for someone that high up to end up as tribute, especially since there were people who trained for their whole lives to volunteer for the games. She’d had no such luck that time, nobody volunteered to take her place as the tribute, but she showed them. She’d persevered, and done things that she regretted every single day in order to guarantee her own life, but that was something that she would have to live with. That was the way life was, and had been for the past 70 years.
Swinging her legs over the side of her bed, the blonde looked towards the large clock on her bedroom wall. It was 4:30am. It had been a year since her name had been called out, and yesterday the tributes for the 71st Hunger Games had been called, and it meant that she was going to have to step up and mentor the tributes for this year. She wasn’t sure how much help she would be, since she was pretty sure that it was just a fluke that she had been able to win in the first place.
The next couple of hours dragged by, and the blonde was able to pull herself together somewhat and get herself ready to meet the tributes. There was another previous winner from District Four that was around the mentor the tributes, but the Games had affected him more than they had Layla. Years of post-traumatic stress had taken its toll, and she could remember from her year that he hadn’t been much help. Then again, Layla hadn’t had any skills that she could have taken with her into the arena.
Looking at the tributes standing in front of her, she could empathise with how they must have felt. She could remember how she had felt in the same situation, and how terrified she was about the unknown time she had ahead of her. “I’m Layla, and I’m going to be mentoring you as best as I can. You may know me from last year’s Games.” She said, swallowing hard. “I’m going to be honest, it’s going to be hard. My first and most important piece of advice is leave your morals at the door when it comes to the arena. You can’t let them stop you from trying to survive.” Living with what she had done in order to survive was one of the hardest parts of life outside of the arena. Looking at the two tributes in front of her, she could barely take her eyes off of the male tribute. She recognised him from school, and she knew that he didn’t deserve to be there. And she was going to help him as much as she possibly could.
