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They don’t reuse the arenas, you know. Oh, they meant to at first. They had all sorts of plans after the first Hunger Games, schedules for gutting the old interior, rosters for gathering forced labor from the districts, drafts for rebuilding next year’s stadium in the same place. Let it never be said the Capital was wasteful, after all.
They did their best to go through with it too. The Capital dragged in forty workers from each of the twelve districts and set them to work tearing down the old traps, scrubbing the blood from the walls. The screams that coated the ground and huddled in the corners like mildew remained; they were harder to get rid of.
The project was well underway when the accidents began. Now, the overseers expected accidents, even encouraged them. Labor conscription isn’t much of a threat if everyone comes back hale and hearty and whole. So no one cared much about the laborer from District Seven who somehow broke her neck walking to the latrines late at night, or the District Three technician who electrocuted himself while brewing tea. The workers knew something was wrong; how could they not? But none of the supervisors cared; labor was labor, and there would always be another set of hands to shackle. And so the first few mishaps went unnoticed, unremarked upon.
But then the chief architect was found hanging from a yew tree, her face swollen and purple in the dappled twilight. And the next day one of the contractors for the project surfaced face down in the pond at the center of the arena, his skin white like lily petals against the verdigris of the water.
There were reprisals, swift and fierce. The supervisors purged the entire workforce, burned the bodies, and brought in another set of forty from each District. But the incidents continued, and when the head of the project was found in his office with his eyes missing and his skin sewn on inside out like a misshapen rag doll, the project was put on indefinite hold. A new arena was built for the second Hunger Games further to the east, and when all of the children had finished killing each other no one said anything about trying to reuse it.
And so the arenas litter the empty landscape of Panem, out of sight, out of mind. Decaying behemoths, the skeletons of their walls thrusting up like fists against the steel grey sky. They linger, crypts for dead children whose bodies have long since been carted away.
They are fascinating places mind you, for all they have few visitors. The arena for the 47th Hunger Games is half sunken into the toxic seas on the east edge of Panem. Sharks and eels and squids curl around the stones, casting shadows on creatures stranger and older that slumber in the depths.
The arena for the 26th Hunger Games is a series of caverns that have almost all since caved in, the odd flicker of an electric light the only movement in the half-flooded tunnels. If you listen closely though, you might hear a pattering of footsteps rise up from the deeper pools, or an echoed giggle bounce off the rocks.
The arena for the 9th Hunger Games is a sun scourged desert, the endless stretches of shattered sand stretching off into the horizon under a weak red sun. There are no footsteps on the dunes or voices on the wind, but if you go for days without eating or drinking you might begin to see children dancing in the distance, beckoning for you with honeyed smiles and full, clear pitchers of water.
The arena for the 74th Hunger Games is a garden. You could go there if you really wanted to. If you were very brave. No one has been since the Girl who was Fire and the Bread Boy left; silence has settled back into the spaces between the trees in their absence.
You would come to the walls first. Barbed wire and chain link fences, long since flaked into rust, wrap around the structure like a blanket, as if to soothe the unquiet spirits within. As you step through a hole in the fence you can almost hear the roar of the crowds, the wet choke of tendons snapping, the clink of blood dripping onto dark leaves.
There is no blood now, only flowers. Beautiful flowers of all shapes and sizes, strangling the trunks of the trees and smothering the ground with their petals. There is foxglove, also called dead man’s hands or bloody fingers. The little pink bells dance in the wind; they will yellow your eyes, void your stomach, slow your heart. Further afield you might find stands of wild flowers in clumps of gold and violet: rosemary for remembrance, rue for regret. And in the shadow of the elm trees grow plants with rich emerald leaves and full, juicy berries. Belladonna, the Beautiful Lady, who will muddy your mind, shiver your limbs, and drag you down to sleep with her beneath the tree roots. The black berries are waxy in the fading light, and you are filled with an insatiable urge to pluck them from their stems. They seem to be calling to you; you want to touch them, roll them between your fingers, feel their smoothness and their heft. You wonder what they taste like, would they be cloying and sweet? Or bitter, the dregs of the juice biting at your lips and tongue and throat as you swallow them down?
You reach out to touch them-
And see a little red fox watching you through the shadows of the trees, its eyes yellow and unblinking. You smile; it’s somehow heartening to see something living here despite the memories of death that choke the air. The fox seems to be thriving; its pelt is lustrous and its gaze is clear.
It’s only as it begins walking towards you that your smile falters. There are no birds hiding in the elm trees, no squirrels chattering up the oak trunks, and all the flowers are poisonous. What has the fox been eating?
You begin to realize that perhaps you aren’t supposed to be here; perhaps you shouldn’t have come. You turn to go, feet tripping through stands of ivy. The sun is well and truly setting now; in the gathering dark the plants that seemed so lovely before cast strange shadows against your hands as you stumble back the way you came. They impede your progress, catching at your feet and ankles as you run, as if they wish for you to stay with them as the arena plunges into true night.
You can no longer see the fox, nor hear it’s footfalls behind you, yet it is only when you see the fence glimmering ahead of you that you finally slow down. Your heart is heaving in your chest; should you be this tired? You shake your head to clear your muddled thoughts, scan the span of the fence for the hole, find it-
The way is blocked.
A little girl stands in the arch of the twisted metal, hands clasped placidly in front of her. Your breath catches in your throat and you forget all about the fox and the strange roiling in your stomach because she’s lovely, the most beautiful child you’ve ever seen. She has skin like rich earth and flowers in her hair, yellow rue and purple rosemary. She wears a white dress with dark red blossoms embroidered about the hem, and all you want to do is circle her with your arms and tell her everything will be alright, you will take her from this place-
She steps closer and you realize the red splotches on her gown aren’t flowers but blood.
You suddenly remember the fox; you look around wildly but you can’t see it; you feel dizzy; there’s a sting in the back of your throat and a burn in your lips and the little girl is almost upon you and her bloody mouth is as red as the flowers on her dress and she’s smiling and all you can think of is that rue is for regret-
Oh.
Oh dear; I’ve scared you. Hush child, there’s no need to worry. It’s only a story after all. Please calm down. Everything will be alright.
Would you like a berry?