Chapter #1:
Year of the 62nd Hunger Games
Victor: Enobaria Luncaste
I watch the ocean hit the rocks so roughly and I'm reminded of my mother. How, when I was little and sad she would tell me to calmly think of how the waves hit the rocks as though they were angrier than I. For some reason that illogic would calm me down. I reach my fingers down ever so gently and feel the overflow of the waves brush up against them. The cool water fills the uncomfortable hot spell I've been under all day.
I look up at the clear blue sky and notice that there is not a cloud in the sky. Not at all how I pictured a day like this going. I never really imagined this day at all but every funeral I'd ever been to had been dark and gray. Today is clear and sunny. Though, my mother hated rainy days because it meant we couldn't go in the water and swim for hours on end, like we did so many times.
Our little house was so close to the beach we could walk most days, eat fruit from the trees that we passed on our walks, swim for hours until lunch, picnic on the sand, swim more, go home, sleep, and repeat. I loved those days because nothing else mattered except Mom, Dad, Ariel, Ammon, and I.
I have to remind myself that those days will never happen again. They are all dead. Ariel was thirteen, reaped, and killed by a bear in the games. No one saw that coming. She died, leaving three tributes in the games. That was the sixtieth hunger games, two years ago. Mom, Dad, and Ammon were killed three weeks ago by peacekeepers for being out after curfew. My parents were too adventurous for their own good. They took Ammon out to go for a night surf and the peacekeepers shot them down.
I've been staying in the orphanage of District 4 for the last three weeks because I have no other living relatives. It's disgusting there. Disgusting food. Disgusting, moldy bathrooms and showers. A disgusting room that I share with three other girls. But we get to wander off every so often, so long as we come back.
That's why I'm here. The last place my mother was. The last place my father was. The last place my baby brother was. I'm sitting on the last rock before the drop off into the deep waters. No one else is here. Well, except for him. The boy I always see swimming, surfing, sailing on this beach. He's blonde, tall, and fit, but I've never met him.
For whatever reason though, watching the blond boy makes me relaxed. Almost forget the black dress that I wear. Makes me almost forget the fact that I just left a cemetery after crying for the three losses that I've suffered. Almost.
The wind rushes past my ear and I breathe in the cool sea air. It's the best taste in the world. The taste of the salty air, mixed with the reflective sunlight from the golden sand. It's the smell my mother's skin wore. Even next to her casket I could still smell the sea air that mixed with her flesh.
I start to feel more tears run down my face. I didn't think it was possible that there could be anymore tears left to give, but apparently there are. Apparently there are enough tears left to match the smell of love coming off the ocean water.
I don't know what I'm going to do now. My mother's parents died long before I was born, and my father's mother died when I was three while his father passed just before Ariel was reaped. Both of my parents were only children and had no distant relatives. I have no where to go. When I'm eighteen I'll be excused from the orphanage but that's in eight years.
Maybe I'll be reaped in a few years and die to go be with my family. That would be great.
The tears are spilling out of my eyes now, faster than the waves that are coming. The pain I feel for my parents and brother is so overwhelming I can't seem to find a breath.
"Hey—are you okay?" I hear a new voice that is strangely calming and look to the source of the sound. It's the blonde boy that only moments ago was in the water swimming. I stand from the rock into the cool water and walk towards him on the sand that burns my bare feet.
"I'm fine." I choke out. I see that he is standing next to the black flats I took off when I came here so I make a beeline for him.
"You don't look fine." he says.
"Well I am, so please go away." I bend down and grab my shoes before walking past him.
"If I guessed right would you tell me?" He jokingly asks.
"No."
"Okay, let me see. Your parents won't buy you a puppy." I just keep walking almost ignoring him, yet playing his little game because he's distracting me.
"No."
"You didn't get the necklace you wanted for your birthday?"
"No."
"Your favorite dress in whatever store was out of stock?"
I stop in my tracks and face him directly. "Why are you assuming I'm some spoiled girl?"
"Sorry." He looks me up and down and mumbles "Black dress…ponytail…tears…Oh. You were at a funeral weren't you?" I look down at my feet, noticing a small cut on my pinky toe. "I'm sorry. Were you close with them?"
"Not really any of your business, but if you must know it was my mother, brother, and father." Tears are coming again. He just stares at me sympathetically before I keep walking in the direction of the orphanage. As far as I can tell he isn't following me.
"I lost my parents too." He says this rather quietly but I somehow hear him.
"What?" I ask more angrily than I meant to.
"I lost my parents too." I turn back and stand in front of him once more.
"How?"
"How everyone loses their families in this town." He takes a shaky breath. "Peacekeepers." We say together.
"Same. They went out for a night surf and got shot down with my little brother."
He suddenly sits down in the sand next to me and I feel obligated to join him. "There was this drunk, stumbling around mainstream. You know what the penalty for being drunk is don't you?"
"Death." I answer. It's simple. Everyone in District Four has four rules: 1) Don't break curfew 2) Don't get drunk 3) Don't interfere with a peacekeeper 4) Don't go outside the fence, break any of these rules and the peacekeepers find out, you're dead.
"Yes. So anyway, there was this drunk stumbling around mainstream. Peacekeepers lined up in formation when my mom stepped in. She stood in front of the drunk saying it wasn't right. They shot her and the drunk before my father tackled the one who fired to the ground. Three others pulled him off and shot him right in the head while I watched. It was terrible. They turned the guns on me but I ran as fast as my six year old legs could carry me. I got away, but they were dead."
I wish I could find the words that would tell him I felt sorry for him, but I can't so I just say, "I'm sorry."
The blonde boy just shrugs his shoulders. "It turned out okay I guess, I'm here aren't I? At least I survived." I nod in silence.
"So, are you heading home?" he asks me and I chuckle a bit.
"You mean the orphanage." I tell him.
"Don't you have any family to go to?" I shake my head. He sighs and stands. "Come on," He stands and gives me a hand. I take it and rise to my feet next to him. Then he turns around and starts to run.
"Where are you going?" I shout as I follow him, but he just stays silent as he runs swiftly and I suddenly see where he is going. He's headed for Victor's Village. I've never been there but somehow I feel myself drawn to it now. We keep running until finally we come to the third house on the right. "What are we doing here?" I ask.
"This is my house." This is without a doubt the biggest house I've ever seen, with white siding, light blue shutters, and a large seashell above the white door. I feel a pang of jealousy for him, he must have family in order to have a house. I would give anything to have my family back, even if we had to live in a box and be hungry. I realize that the blond boy is just staring at me, staring at the house. "Are you okay?"
"I"m fine." He opens the front door and holds it for me. The second I step inside the house I smell the sense of home. The combination of sea water and fresh baked bread. I see the dark hard wood floors, the nice and homey interior design.
"Mags?" he shouts into the house, "I'm home." he closes the door and jogs into the kitchen. There are granite counter tops and stainless steel appliances that would only be found in Victor's Village. I see an older woman standing there in a purple sundress and her long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"Good, I made lunch, I suppose I could make another one for your friend here." her voice is soft, and weak like she has screamed one too many times. "And you are?"
"Mags," the boy says in a condescending way. "This is—" Then he pauses realizing he doesn't know my name. and whispers to me, "What's your name?"
"Annie, Annie Cresta."
"Mags, this is Annie Cresta." he nods back at Mags and smiles.
"It's very nice to meet you Annie Cresta. How did you two meet?"
"I met her on the beach, she was just watching the ocean and I was swimming. I was wondering if she could stay with us for a while?"
"Where are your parents Annie?"
"Um, they died, three weeks ago. I don't have any other family so I've been staying at the orphanage."
"Well, okay. You can stay with us for as long as you'd like. We have a spare bedroom you can stay in and there's plenty of room for you."
"Thank you." I say to both of them exasperated. I can't believe that I have a place to stay. I don't have to stay in the moldy orphanage.
"Oh by the way," the blond boy says. "I'm Finnick Odair."
"Hi, Finnick."
"Hi, Annie."