A/N: We've reached 500 reviews, so special thanks go to TwilightRosalieAlice2015, Sillymoose13, Ways and santiago poncini20 for reviewing the last chapter! The support is most definitely appreciated :)

Here's another of my own chapters, and yet again it's something a little different - though I'm sure you've come to expect a fair amount of variety from me by now ;)

I hope that you all enjoy reading today's chapter :)

"This is your life

Don't play hard to get

It's a free world

All you have to do is fall in love

Play the game

Everybody play the game of love."

- Freddie Mercury, 1980.

The 171st Annual Hunger Games

Eleanor Black (17), District 10 Female

Queen - Play the Game (1980)

It's been almost exactly two weeks since I entered the arena on that horrible, rainy day down by the dockside. Just two weeks, yet life before the arena feels like it was a decade ago.

There are only three of us left now, and I'm none of us are within a mile of each other. The arena is made up a small, dingy, industrialised coastal town, and the landscape around it further back from the shore. With all the grimy factories lining the docks, the town looks like a cross between Districts 4 and 8; at least, it does from what little of the other districts we're allowed to see on television. Compared to the rolling hills and vast pastures of District 10, this arena is almost as alien to me as the Capitol itself.

I've been alone in this arena since day one; I had half considered allying with my district partner before we got through training, although once I saw his attempts at wielding a weapon, I realised it would be pointless to keep him with me. It would be an alliance in which I gained nothing. Thankfully, I wasn't relying on his support, because he was dead less than five minutes into the Games. He was one of the first to go down at the cornucopia.

I guess I should feel bad in some way that he died, but I never knew the boy before the Games, and found that I didn't much like him during our time together in the Capitol. Too much talking about things that really didn't matter, while I was just trying to keep my head in the game, preparing myself for the arena.

Some people would be ashamed to say that since being reaped for the Games, they've spent none of their time thinking about their home and their family, but I'm pleased I've been able to cast all thoughts of home away and focus on the task at hand. What's the point in worrying about not getting back home when you know that, if you stick to your strategy, you're going to win the Hunger Games?

Now, with just three tributes left and no doubt only a day or two more before the Gamemakers pull us all together, I know I'm on the home straight.

I guess I should consider myself lucky that my plan can pay off, having been blessed with the genetics that I've been given. Sure, it's an odd thing for a tribute of District 10 to try and seduce the crowd for sponsor support, but it's not like the Career districts have a monopoly on beauty. Just because it's atypical doesn't make it impossible.

Perhaps I've had a little luck that the Career districts provided powerful brutes and a couple of silent, cunning types but little else, but I know myself that whatever the competition was, I would have stood out. All I needed to do was a little crowdpleasing at the Opening Ceremonies, speak a little suggestively during my interview and dress provocatively at every opportunity, provided I got a half-decent training score. Once I'd bagged an eight for myself, I knew the sponsor support would be flooding in since the moment I stepped of the pedestal at the moment the Games began a fortnight ago.

Since then, with my popularity already secured among the Capitol public, my job has been simple; stay out of trouble. The three kills I've gained so far in the Games have all come from stumbling upon weaker tributes from districts like my own; being older, stronger and better fed than most of my allies, I doubt my victims would have caused me much harm if I was disarmed, never mind the two daggers, sword and bow I have collected during my time in the Games.

Other than these brief skirmishes, I've largely stayed out of trouble, brooding among the shadows of the industrial buildings by the docks rather than trying my luck in the woodland further from the shore. I've managed to stay out my way as the numbers have slowly crept down, to avoid interfering in the break-up of the Career Alliance four days ago.

Only when the Gamemakers called a feast near the large stone Justice Building at the centre of the town did I force myself to interact with the other tributes again. Having already amassed so much sponsor support, I'm sure the Gamemakers were intending the feast to help level the playing field a little; to give my adversaries a chance of actually making the finale interesting.

All that the feast really managed was for me to increase my advantage over the other tributes even more, with the pool of tributes being cut from seven to four.

Following the death of the boy from District 2 last night, there are now just the girl from One and the boy from District 7 alive in the arena beside myself, and I finally think that it is time for me to stop hiding and begin the hunt. If I get a choice, I want to end the Games on my own terms, not the Gamemakers'.

For the past two days, I've been holed up in an abandoned warehouse on the docks, keeping myself in good health and doing regular patrols around the small section of the arena that I've come to know like the back of my hand. Now, as I gather up my supplies and pack them into my backpack, sling my bow over my back, tuck my daggers into my belt and wield a sword in my left hand, I understand that I'm leaving my temporary home behind me forever.

The moment I step outside, I see the silver of a parachute floating down towards me. It's impossible to get supplies to me when I'm sleeping inside the buildings around the dock, but without fail, I've always been greeted with a parachute when I have ventured outside in the morning.

The small capsule lands on the cracked pavement five metres in front of me, and I drop my sword to run to it and pick it up, my own face reflecting back off the silver capsule. My usually pristine hair is now looking tired and matted, but I keep it pulled back to keep the focus on my dark green eyes and my perfectly proportioned face. I think it's best if my sponsors still get the best view they can get of why they've chosen to back me.

Opening the capsule, I find a smaller sealed container within it, and a familiar skull-and-crossbones symbol plastered across it. I only have to think back to Remus' Games a few years ago to know what I'm expected to do with this.

I allow a small smile to creep onto my lips as I realise just how easy these Games have become, setting off with renewed vigour to pursue my opponents.

With only three tributes left in the arena, it was difficult for tributes to find each other, and after no action two days later, the Gamemakers used packs of savage squirrel-ferret muttations to force the three suriving tributes out of the forests and back towards the Justice Building.

Eleanor was the first to arrive, and with her new poison-tipped arrows ready to use, it was easy for her to claim victory in the final battle of the 171st Annual Hunger Games.

A/N: Hopefully the ending to this chapter didn't seem too repetitive, but poison seemed like something the mentors would go with, given how much money they had at their disposal and how well it worked last time... Still, if you enjoyed the chapter, please review! As ever, constructive criticism is welcomed :)

P.S. Lately (for the past two months or so) I've been on a massive Harry Potter hype, and I'm considering starting to write a Harry Potter/Hunger Games crossover. Would anyone be interested in reading such a story? :)