The girl was always slightly strange. She wasn't like other kids. She always seemed to know exactly what she was saying and doing, even from a young age.
She didn't ask questions like every other four year old did, she already knew of most things they asked. She would spend days alone, happily reading a book, climbing a tree, watching the rough logs transform into sheets of gleaming white paper at the paper mill, then stacked up to be taken off to the Capitol.
She had long brown hair and dark eyes, a trait carried in most people in District Seven. She had once lived in a small cottage, Her father, Mother and her older brother cramming into the cosy living room and much of her memories lived there.
At the mere age of 10, she understood the games, the amount of cruelty in her harsh little world and she noticed every detail that proved that. She had one good friend by that age, they would make up games of dragons and villains and as the months passed and they grew out of the silly games, they would explore the vast forest that swallowed most of their district. His name was Rowan.
When she started to learn how to cut trees, her father would compliment her accuracy, she was probably one of the best, it was quite a skill, and everyone had to have strong arms to get even as far as carrying the axe. She would wake up early and she and her brother would walk to the forest, they would go to the warehouse and take an axe and start on a tree, one time she had mocked the Capitol with their ridiculous fashion culture, they would laugh at living a life like that, endless parties and uncomfortable clothing, softened by luxury and held in the Capitol's arms like babies. One time a bird had fluttered away from a tree and a dull grey feather had fell, she had turned around before it graciously fell to the floor, a mistake, she would later learn.
After years of seeing those terrified faces, drenched in fear, desperately clinging onto hope, hope that never existed, she was familiar with the reapings and could only hope those faces wasn't going to be her, wondering as she stared into the abyss of the glass bowl, wondering if it knew it decided the fate of so many innocent lives. But one day she was thrown out of her little small world in her mind, to the boy's name called out on July, the sky a formidable blue, the sun pounding down. A boy, tall and lean, a round childish face, his hair a tangled mop of brown, his eyes wide and curious, The boy went by the name Rowan. He had made the wrong mistake by the start, Johanna had speculated, he had clutched onto that morsel of hope and held it in his hands, he had walked onto the stage his eyes wildly searching the sea of teenagers for a single hand, that, was all he needed. Johanna kept her pain for herself, but even then she had done it sub consciously; she had taken a mental note of Rowans mistakes, asked herself what she would've done and kept it in her mind. She hated herself for that, she knew it was about her friends inevitable death, not herself.
Two years passed, Johanna knew more than anyone what it was like to be in the hunger games, she spent hours in her room, not crying but sitting still. Life had lost meaning for her, even once or twice she had sipped a bottle of alcohol, throwing her worries away.
At 15, the reaping was approaching. She wore a simple white dress, brushed her hair. She walked to the reaping with her head down, staring at her shoes. She waited for what she thought was inevitable; for a poor child to weakly walk to the stage, hunched back, shoulders tense, head down. But when her name was called and she walked up, she recited everything she had learnt and she filled up with anger. The kind of rage that never leaves, never is tamed and for this her head was held high and her eyes were filled with vengeance.
Her interview did not go well, her attitude was too sour and dry for the Capitol's soft manner. Some did admire her for her confidence as she strode off the interview stage, and watched as she flew away from the cornucopia, only at the last minute grabbing a small axe. Many were disappointed, as the girl's eyes had turned from confidence to terror in a matter of days. But that was what they were watching on the screen. She had the plan all set out. She didn't know yet what the games would do to her, she had seen, many a time, a new victor, glorious with pride.
When there was only two tributes left in the arena, she struck. She did it as quick as possible; she came up from behind, hurled the axe at the career's head but there wasn't such thing as 'quick' when using an axe. She laughed as she awaited for the cannon to blow, "Snow, everyone has to pay for their treachery, I wonder when it will be your turn?" She grabbed hold of the ladder, her face expressionless and went up into the hovercraft.
She learnt to keep herself like this when she watched the film, and then the interview.
As soon as she was ready to leave for home, two peacekeepers came and took her by the arms, she screamed and tried clawing her way off. They kept tight grip of her until they arrived in a room. They sat her on a chair, only then did she see her family, her mother, her father and her brother. "No..." She had coarsely whispered. They made her watch all of it.
When she got home, she would sit in her vast house, far too big for one person. She would cry into her pillow and then sit up, her eyes bloodshot and void of sleep and scream how she would get Snow for this. She would hit the wall with her fist, hoping it would break, but she would only rub her knuckles raw. More often she was filled with rage than sorrow. An anger that was beyond her own power, she would only keep herself quiet when she was out of her house, conscious of onlookers.
By the quarter quell she had almost given up. She watched how Katniss was surrounded by friends who always had her back, Katniss thought she had it bad for herself, she knew nothing. she had declared how love was such a silly thing, trying to tell Katniss to let go of love, it would only harm herself and others.
Th girl is still strange. She talks to herself and screams in her sleep. She often never agrees with what anyone says, just to see what happens. She thinks life is just a game, a game with too much drama.
She thinks of lives as feathers, so light that they can glide through life but so easily ruffled. She watches feathers fall, the twists and turns of it are all the drama in one's life. Only when they get to the ground does that life end. She doesn't tell people about this.
But after all, they are just feathers.