My name is Amorose Snow. I am the granddaughter of President Snow. I am eighteen years old. My hair is the color of a red rose, my lips the color of blood. My best friend is Rhinestone Flaire. He is eighteen also. We have been best friends since we were three. We are in the Mockingjay Games together. We were reaped. Our luck . . . is gone.
And that's all I can do to keep myself from breaking down as I enter the arena. I repeat those sentences in my head at least three times. It just doesn't even seem possible that I'm in the Hunger Games. No. I'm not in the Hunger Games. I'm in the Mockingjay Games, which is almost the same, except it bares the Capitol's children. And we don't get mentors, we won't get sponsors, and we definately won't see those silver parachutes that can mean life or death.
I can now see the arena. It's a dense forest and the other tributes and I seem to be in the middle. A vast clearing is where the Cornucopia is this year. Twelve backpacks lay in the center of the clearing. Weapons are scattered across the area. Dozens of trees are cut down and build almost a fence-like structure around the large circle of tributes. The elevator tubes begin to open and slide into the ground from which they came. Wind wisps through my hair and a cold, freezing shiver runs down my spine.
Capitol children are not forced to watch the games, though we do study them . . . a little.
The countdown. That's what she forgot. She tried to run before the gong. We studied the countdown in first grade, was it? I force myself to look to my left. A girl, seventeen perhaps, lays on the ground seizing. Every single tribute stares at her as the life drains out of her. That could have been me. That could have been anyone.
"Five," The anouncer says. The voice is everywhere, echoing, booming, but the girl's cries of pain are still overpowering. I don't even hear the anouncer say four. "Three," The girl continues to struggle, screaming and gasping for breath. I stare at her in horror. I want to help her, but if I do, I'll be just like her. And then what help could I give? "Two," I want to look around at my oponents, look for Rhinestone, but I can't. I can't help but gawk at the girl. She died so soon. No. Not yet, that is. She isn't dead yet. And I guess it was her own fault, but she didn't even get a chance to fight. She didn't get a chance to save herself. "One." The girl's screams are cut off abruptly as the gong sounds. No one moves. No one runs or does anything. The boy to the left of the girl who just died, the boy right beside me, falls down dead. No struggle, no scream, nothing. And then, everyone runs.
Twenty-two capitol children run towards the Cornucopia. I set my sights on a bulky green pack. It doesn't look too heavy, but hopefully something good is inside. Children scream battle cries around me. I jerk my head in all directions, trying to find Rhinestone. I can't find him; my vision is obscured by wisps of my red hair. Rhinestone and I agreed the day after we were reaped that we would be allies. We would be together from the very beginning. He could protect me and I could protect him.
I am halfway to the pack that I want, when I fall. A girl jumps on top of me, a large knife in her hand. Terror is written all over her face and regret already manifests in her mind and eyes. "I'm sorry," she says, tears beginning to form. "It's what I have to do." I scream. I scream for Rhinestone. I kick my legs and thrash my arms trying to pry the girl off of me. "Stop it!" she shouts, all sadness quickly vanishing from her face. Anger and rage is born in her and she glares at me, just now remembering that her life depends on taking mine. She takes her knife in her left hand and begins to run it along my cheek. "None of us would be here if it weren't for your -"
Suddenly, Rhinestone materializes above the girl. He grabs her by the shoulders and flips her, slamming her into the ground beside me. Her knife cuts along a section of Rhinestone's forehead as he flips her, but he manages to take the knife. "Go!" Rhinestone orders. I run back to the Cornucopia, all the other tributes too busy wrestling and fighting and killing to pay attention. I realize nothing has been taken from the Cornucopia yet. I grab the green pack I want and I scan the pile for anything else that may be of use. Before I can pick anything else up, Rhinestone runs by, grabbing my shirt, pulling me to my feet, taking my hand, and pulls me along.
"What did you do to her?" I ask him after we've ran for at least twenty minutes. I throw the pack onto my shoulder. He doesn't answer. "Rhinestone!"
"I killed her, Rose." he says, shame, regret, and disgust laced through his voice. "Now come on. We have to get as far away from that place as possible. There'll be a bloodbath and when it's over we shouldn't be close." Rhinestone squeezes my hand, reasurring me that everything is alright. That he is still the same boy from the Capitol. But we'll never be the same. We'll never be the same.
As we run, the words the girl said spin in my head, repeating themselves over and over again. She may not have finished her sentence, but I know very well what she was going to say. None of us would be here if it weren't for your grandfather. She's right. I hear that a million times in my mind. It makes me dizzy and nauseous. I stop in my tracks, jerking Rhinestone back as he is completely oblivious.
"What are you doing?" he asks.
"I just . . . We should look and see what's in the pack. I think we are far enough away from the Cornucopia. We can keep moving once we're done." Rhinestone looks at me for a while, one eyebrow raised, then sits. He pats the ground beside him and I sit, our shoulders touching. A small creek flows by where we are, a peaceful sound in a war-like disaster zone.
"Are you sure you're okay?"
"Rhinestone, I'm in the Hunger Games." I shake my head. "The Mockingjay Games. I'm a Capitol child. I shouldn't be here. None of us should."
"It's alright," Rhinestone says, wrapping his arms around me. I realize just how much I've missed him. We hadn't talked much since being reaped. It all seems like a blur now . . .
The new Peace Keepers were Rebels. They were all over the Capitol, telling us where to go, keeping us in line, keeping us from saving ourselves. Rhinestone and I had walked home from school, like we usually did, followed by a large band of Peace Keepers. Lord knows the former president's granddaughter would be the first to make a move. Rhinestone and I stood in front of my doorway; tears flowed from my eyes like a downpour. Rhinestone pulled me into his arms, telling me that it's alright. The Reaping was only hours away. I wore melancholy like a coat that day.
The Peace Keepers barged through our doors five hours later. They pulled my arms behind my back, and then my little sister's behind her back. They nodded towards my parents to follow them. As I was being dragged out of my house, I saw Rhinestone, who lives just down the street, being escorted out of his home along with his two little brothers. They looked scared. So very scared. Rhinestone looked at me, screamed my name; he nodded quickly and mouthed something. Before I could do anything, I was yanked in the direction of the Capitol building and Rhinestone disapeared from my vision.
The Capitol building was adorned in banners and gigantic televisions. The Rebellion Seal - a mockingjay on fire - was on each screen. Banners read "Welcome to the Reaping" and "First Ever Mockingjay Games". They were so proud of themselves. They thought they were better than the Capitol, better than my grandfather. They're just as worse, if not, more.
As soon as all the Capitol children ages twelve to eighteen were arranged in two groups - boys and girls - Katniss Everdeen walked onto the steps of the Capitol building. She stood in front of a clear ball filled with small papers. Every paper had the name of every Capitol child. Somewhere in that pile was my name. Somewhere in that pile was Rhinestone's name. Katniss Everdeen, heavily pregnant, smiled and began to speak.
"Welcome everyone to the very first Mockingjay Games. As you all know, The Hunger Games were broadcast across all of Panem for 75 years. Each year, 24 children, two tributes, a boy and a girl from each district, were sent into an arena where they fought to the death. It was an almost never ending bloodbath, but the Capitol was so generous as to let one tribute win. The Capitol has managed to ruin billions of lives, and for that, they must pay. This year, we will be having The Mockingjay Games. For those of you who don't know, it's The Hunger Games with the Capitol children. But of course it can't be exactly the same; let's let the tributes figure that out on their own. I will now begin to call the names of the tributes. If your name is called, please, calmly walk onto the steps." Katniss raised her arm and lowered it into the Reaping Ball.
I looked through the crowds for Rhinestone, but I didn't see him. Katniss called a name that I didn't recognize. I watched as a twelve year old girl with blonde hair draped into a side ponytail walked onto the steps. She turned to face the crowd; Katniss continued to call names. She called twenty-one names I didn't recognize. It was all downhill from there.
"Rhinestone Flaire." Katniss anounced. My mouth dropped slightly open, tears began to fall from my eyes. My heart ached and my stomach lurched in horror as my bestfriend walked onto the steps. I wanted to collapse to my knees, but I continued to stand. I stared at Rhinestone, not believing his name could've been called. Katniss continued to call the twenty-third name as my life plummeted to hell. Katniss smiled wide and laughed to herself. "Amorose Snow." She said my name with such pleasure, such joy, that it made me want to run up those steps and choke her. I wanted to choke her and then take Rhinestone by the hand and run. But I didn't. I walked up the steps and stood, last tribute to be called.
"Did you hear me, Rose?" Rhinestone asks.
"Yes. I was just thinking about . . . "
"The Reaping?" Rhinestone says quickly, as if he read my thoughts, relived the memory with me. I nod. "Let's just open this pack already." Rhinestone smiles at me, an odd gesture after everything that has happened so far. But his grey eyes are full of sadness, a deep pain. His black hair shines in the sunlight and for a moment I feel like we're five again, playing on the swingset at school like we always did. I pull the pack off my shoulder and set it in my lap. I unzip it and begin to rummage through it. There are washcloths, antibiotics, a bag of jerky, a bag of rolls, two bottles of water, a small tube of water cleanser, a knife, cloth bandages, one pair of night vision sunglasses, and a small bag of berries. "You take the knife." Rhinestone says. I pick the knife out of the small pile we had made and stick it into my back pocket, blade inside, handle out.
"We should clean our wounds," I say. "So they don't get infected." Rhinestone nods in agreement. I grab the washcloth and the bottle of antibiotics. I pour a bit of the antibiotics onto the washcloth and dab it onto Rhinestone's forehead. The cut is deep, oozing blood; he winces in pain. I whisper a quiet shh. He leans into me and I continue to dab the wound. "What are we going to do?" I ask him after a long moment of silence.
"Do about what?"
"About who wins. Out of the two of us."
"We can't talk about that now, Amorose. When the time is right, we'll know. If we make it that far, that is."
"Winning wouldn't be worth it if I had to go back without you." I say. Rhinestone looks at me, sadness draped across his face. A wave of melancholy washes over me, drowning me, sucking me in and removing the breath from my lungs. Rhinestone puts a hand up to my cheek and strokes my cheekbone with his thumb.
"It won't be that bad." he says. Those five words are his only purpose in these games: to make sure I win. Even if it means he dies, he'll make sure I win. I don't want that. If he dies, I'll die as well. If I go back to the Capitol without him, I will surely go insane. It would be a living hell.
This chapter was just an introduction to the characters. It will get more interesting, I assure you(: Please review.