Simple Stories by a Simple Man

The announcer calls my name. A wave of absolute sorry sinks in deep. I was to participate in the games. Everyone knew only one of those that participated would survive. A week or two from now fourty-nine people would be dead, me very likely one of them. The odds weren’t just bad, they were abysmal. As I shuffled forward, resigned to my fate, I was escorted into a car. As I was subtle off, one of the games coordinators asked me what I’d requested so he could acquire it. In the shock of being selected I had completely forgotten this part of the process, I’d be granted one non-lethal item to take in with me. I was so sure I wouldn’t be taken, I was one of roughly 500 kids in the age range in my sector, that I hadn’t given it any thought till now. I turned to him, he had a notepad to write down my answer. I asked simply for a picture of my family smiling, might as well treasure my memories while I could. His face turned dark before he noted it down. I spent several days lounging in my hotel room. The first day I spent doing some exercises to prepare before giving up half way through the day, no amount of prep would make up for a lazy lifestyle. Several days went by with me somehow being lazier, the games were being delayed, but no one would say why and when I asked I got fairly rude responses. 

Eventually the games coordinator from the car came and led me away. I was being replaced as a participant. I did not believe it at first, figured this was the lie they fed you while taking you to the arena to ensure you didn’t run at your last chance. However when we got to the lobby and he pointed in a direction and said my sector was in that direction I started to believe it after all. It took me a couple days of walking and scrounging but eventually I made it home. My family was overjoyed to see me as they figured out I wasn’t still a participant when the games started and I wasn’t there. It turns out when the games coordinators came around to take a photo, my family had refused their request to smile stating that no parent could smile when they knew their kid would likely die in the near future. When they refused to smile, despite the abuse they suffered at the hands of the games coordinators, the games coordinators switched gears and ransacked our house, apparently looking for a photograph that you could instead. However we have always been poor, we have never had a camera or money for photographs. When the games ended, the winner being from another sector, same winner as last year I knew I had been right about my chances. Not long after that my family was summoned to the main sector, we were given a new house, food provided. When it became clear we had told no one about how I had been released from my obligations to the games, we were never allowed to leave that house. We were officially prisoners, though despite all that we were still happy. We were alive and it would seem my little sister wouldn’t have to run the risk of the games either.

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This was a prompt to write a hunger games like story which each person is allowed to take a non-lethal item in with them and they choose something very unusual. At first I wasn’t sure where I was going with this idea, I wasn’t sure what if I was put in this position would ask for. This continues a trend for me of writing in the first person. I think it works here but I think going forward I might attempt a different perspective for each of these prompt stories. Does this story work? Let me know down below.