The 64th Hunger Games – The Victor Who Was Never Meant to Win
Chapter 1 – One more day
Olea's POV
"Hey tiny! How're you doing up there?" A voice called up to me from below the branches. Peeping over the foliage – rich with food we were meant to be harvesting – of the tree I was in, I peered down at the people on the ground below me. The tree was high, but heights have never bothered me, I was raised this way, to be one of the workers in the fields and orchards. If you're small, you climb the trees to the highest branches. You can't afford to be scared of heights – if you are, you can't work your best, and if you don't work to the highest standard, your family doesn't get the money to live on. It's a life or death matter, really.
I spot the person who was calling to me, my eldest brother – just turned nineteen only a few days previous – was waving up at me, shielding his amber eyes from the sun with his other arm, large and muscled from all the manual work. His dark skin - a common trait here in district 11, it was rarer for you not to have it than have it – was covered in sweat that shone in the sun, and he was squinting even with his arm up. I waved back down with a smile, cupping my mouth with my hands once I was sure I was stable.
"I'm fine up here! Catch!" I un-cupped my hands, grabbed the satchel of picked fruit I had gathered, and threw it toward him. Holding both arms up, he easily snatched the bag from the air before it hit the ground, winked at me, and then emptied the bag into the wooden cart. Then, the satchel was thrown back up without any previous warning, and I flailed out to catch it, failing miserably. I cast a glare down at him, raising an eyebrow, "Thank you for the warning, Taxus!" The idiotic giant just laughed and went back to grabbing the lower fruit. I groaned, and scrambled down the tree to grab the satchel from the lower branch it had landed on. As I neared it, I heard creaking among the branches, and jumped, nearly falling from the tree – something I never did – before a large hand caught my small wrist. Looking at my 'saviour', I glared seeing my other older brother – eighteen years old – holding onto me with a grin.
"Slipped, huh Olea?" Salix said, pulling me properly back to my feet and standing on the branch. It creaked beneath his overly muscled weight, threatening to crack. I stood too, the branch beneath my feet not creaking in the slightest, I was much too light. Neither of us had meat on our bones; his weight purely came from the muscle of the tasks he rotated through. Time was spent here in the orchard, out cutting down grain in the fields, picking the cotton, digging up other foods that grow in the earth – you got more money by doing more than one of the jobs. At my age, however, we stayed to the jobs like this – climbing high trees that no one else could go up without breaking them or getting stuck.
"Shut up Salix! Come on, jump down! You're going to break the branch and get in trouble!" I snapped, giving him a look, hands on hips. My little display did nothing but make him laugh, but he obeyed and jumped down to the ground, a loud thud sounding from the connection of his bare feet with the ground – but not before handing me something. I rolled my eyes as I slipped the glasses on, seeing clearer as the dark started to take over as the sun began its slow descent. For anyone on the ground, the glasses wouldn't be necessary, but up here in the thick foliage of the trees I needed as much vision aid as I could get so that I didn't fall to the floor. If I did, I would likely break several bones, and I wouldn't be getting any treatment for it. Looking around, I grabbed the satchel and climbed back to the top of the tree to pick any remaining fruit that was up there. We wouldn't be working much longer today, they often kept us past sunset to get as much work in as we could, but not today. They wanted us in bed so that we could wake up on time for tomorrow, to get up and be ready by roughly one o'clock, the time of…
Cutting the thought off, I scrambled to grab the last of the fruit before it was time to clamber down. I grabbed the last of the fruit, shoved it in the satchel, and then peering out of the top of the tree, I looked at the sun. Time to close up for the day I think. I stare at the sunset for a minute more to confirm it, then nodding, I checked around the branches to see if the little birds – Mockingjays – were there to hear, and then sung out a small tune. Four notes. The birds paused, and then the tune passed around, alerting the people on the ground and lower branches. I heard equipment being packed up, and stood on the highest branch I could get to. Salix and Taxus saw me, and then high fiving each other as they always did, they stood below me. Taking a breath, I jumped down and felt the wind nearly taken out of me as both of them caught me and settled me on the ground.
"C'mon then sis, time we went a got a good night's sleep, if we're not up and ready tomorrow we'll be dead, literally," Taxus said, his voice eerily cheery even now. Easy for him to sound like that, he was out of the running this year, he'd missed having his name in those stupid fishbowls, whilst I was in them for the first time. My name was already in there seven times – nothing compared to Salix, who I had lost count on, or how many other people in the district had their name in, but for a twelve year old it's a much larger amount than is seen on average. My family was struggling – we were a rather large family.
Pushing all thoughts of the reaping out of my mind, I nodded at my numbskull older brother and walked to the cart to empty the last satchel. Taxus followed after me, taking his position at the front of the cart to pull it along to where the food should be taken to. This job was one of the reasons he had so much muscle, he did it every evening after it was full, and several times during the day as it filled up rather fast.
As he did that job, my family all soon gathered around me as we headed back toward the exit to the orchard. My mother was only a little taller than I was, with thick hair tied into multiple braids, black but greying in parts. My father was the same, but his hair was shorter and straighter than most others in the district, and he was about as tall as Salix. Both held hands, an old tender love that I admired. Around our feet, my overly hyper six year old sister, Acca, ran around, braids flailing in the breeze behind her, her golden eyes bright and alive. We never understood her energy – we barely had enough to eat, let alone make someone so energised that they could run around so much. But she was a little flicker of life in our lives, we like it.
My family began to chat to the other families around us, talking about the workload, and inevitably about the reaping that was to come in the morning. I heard the four notes I sung to the birds at my left, and turning I let a smile take over my face as I saw a familiar little toddler on someone's shoulders singing it in a beautifully soft little voice. Her name was Rue. She was brought to work every day because her parents couldn't afford to leave her alone in their shack. She stayed on their back or shoulders all day, picked any fruit she could reach, always a little helper.
"Wow little Rue, you pick things up really fast, don't you? By the time you're five you're going to be scaling trees like an expert, I bet," I said, ruffling her frizzy hair, her giggling before our families went their separate ways. My smile faded, and the rest of the walk back to our shack was in silence.
Once inside, I ate my small rationing of bread – not enough to stop the rumbling in my stomach, and then went straight off to my bed. Well, it wasn't just mine. I shared it with Acca; we didn't have enough room for there to be beds for everyone individually. Even the boys had to share. But we got by, just about. I tucked in my sister, and laid myself down beside her, wrapping my arms around her tiny form and stroking her soft curls, loose from her braids. She nuzzled against me, and we both attempted to fall asleep despite the unbearable racket the boys were making in their bed, play fighting or something along those lines. Tomorrow was going to be a long day.
Longer than even I could anticipate.
As soon as morning came, it was time to get up and prepare for the reaping. We always slept in, and by the time everyone was awake, it was only two hours until the reaping began. If we were late, we would be punished by certain death, so we all immediately sprang into action, eating our rationing of bread and drinking a glass of water. After that, we all took a bath – each using the same metal tub. We didn't have long in the tub, and I again had to share with my little sister. She kept splashing me, but it kept some cheer in the gloomy morning, so I didn't complain. We washed our hair, cleaned under our nails, washed our faces, and did our hair.
The wash brought out curls in my hair, curls that were natural but rarely showed due to the lack of care my raven locks received. They fell in ringlets to my shoulders, some in my face which was rather annoying. Mother stood behind me, pulling some of the curls into small braids, and tying them together behind my head, keeping some more of them from my face. After doing this, she whispered to wait a moment in my ear in her soft voice – she used to be a singer for the birds when she was a child – then headed to our box of belongings. I slipped my high necked blouse on, a dull yellow colour, as I waited for her to come back to me. When she did, she was holding a folded orange item of clothing, with a piece of string holding a golden cross on top of it. My eyes widened a little, and I looked at her to make sure. She nodded.
"Take them. You need a nice dress, and you've always had your eye on the cross. Salix is taking the moon, you can take this," She smiled an old, worn out smile and tied the chain around my neck, before undoing the dress which seemed to button all the way down the front, and slipped it on over my blouse, buttoning it up for me, and smoothing it out. It dragged on the floor, and the sleeves were too big, but this was mother's only nice dress, the one she had worn to her wedding. It was a blessing to wear it. It was precious to her. The necklaces, the cross and moon, were the only expensive things we had, passed down from generations ago, when times were not so tough.
"It's time to head down there now," Father said, taking my mother's hand and letting Taxus scoop up little Acca. She held her arms out to me and Salix in an air hug, knowing we needed luck and reassuring. She was young, but the games were already imbedded into her young mind. We had lost friends to these games. It never truly left us alone.
Salix put a firm hand on my shoulder, golden eyes looking down at me with reassurance, telling me I wouldn't be picked. I nodded, knowing the odds were in my favour, technically. But this was unpredictable, the Capitol loved to mess things around, and we couldn't really know for sure how many of our name was in there. They claimed it would only be what we have put ourselves in for, plus our age additions, but the bowls always seemed too full, even with the amount of children in the districts. I shook my head, erasing the thought. I would be fine.
Before I even registered it really, we were down in the crowded pens that corresponded to our age and gender. I was once again scared out of my mind, watching the stage with my eyes wide and drying up due to being open too long. I was too scared to blink. I had no idea why the fear suddenly overcame me, but it did. And it didn't show signs of going away any time soon. I tried to focus on something that would make it go away, anything, but my fear racked brain only made it worse by focusing on our representing Capitol worker, Ceres Nui. Her skin was dyed a sickly green colour, and her hair was a deep, dark, unnatural green with purple streaks, twisted into corkscrew curls around her face, framing her thin lips – also purple – and narrow, purple eyes. Her extravagant clothing followed the colour scheme her unnatural skin and hair did, and she was in about… twelve inch high heels. Capitol people confused me to no end, and seeing the ridiculous woman wandering around talking to people as if she weren't about to send two children to their deaths just made this all the worse. It was purely entertainment to those people. Sick entertainment.
A shrill voice interrupted my thoughts, as Ceres began her usual talk about the past of Panem and the reason for the games. We had all heard it roughly a million times, so barely anyone really paid attention. It wasn't until I saw her reaching for the bowl of female names that I paid more attention, wondering which of our friends would be picked out this time. To head to their imminent death. We had few victors; the odds were never ever in our favour.
So my horror is imaginable when I hear the simple words: "And our female tribute is… Olea Woods!"
My heart literally skipped a beat, I'm sure of it. No. No. No no no no no! It can't be me, it can't be! I have to stay here, I have to stay alive, and I have to be there for my little Acca, for my mother and father and friends! I can't die… My name, it's only in there seven times out of thousands… no way… no way… The figures can do nothing to reassure me, my name was drawn… and district 11 is not known for volunteering.
With a sharp nudge from a girl beside me, I take a deep breath and whilst trying not to trip over my dress, I walk up to the stage, shakily taking the steps up to Ceres, and flinching visibly as she wraps a cold arm around my shoulders, smiling too cheerily for any sane person to smile at such a thing, and then looking out to the crowd.
"Now, time to pick our male!" She let my shoulder go, and I relaxed immediately, her hand digging into the fishbowl of male names, and pulling a slip out. She held it out to read it, and before the words even left her mouth, I was ready to break down in tears, seeing the name, "Salix Wood!"
My heart skipped again, before beginning an insanely fast sprint of beats, and I had to do everything humanly possible to stop from hyperventilating, and inevitably crying. I couldn't break down in front of the nation; it wasn't safe to do that. Not when you're soon to be pushed into the games. You needed to be strong in appearance. But as Salix, who after this year would have been free from the games forever, walked up to the stage, tears pricked my eyes and I had to rapidly blink to get rid of them. Salix looked stunned, though I couldn't tell if it was due to my picking or his own, or both. I decided both. It was so rare for siblings to be picked, from what I knew. The odds of it were slim. But looks like the odds were definitely not in our favour today. Not at all.
Salix took his place on the other side of Ceres, and tried to peer around her at me, but she seemed to move into the way every time. Then, as if it wasn't obvious by the horrified reactions of only one family in the crowds, or the fact we had the same eyes and last name, the Capitol woman turned and spoke to us in her Capitol accent, saying: "Are you two related?"
Salix's usually warm eyes were cold and narrowed as he looked at the woman, and spoke through his teeth, "Yes. She's one of my baby sisters." I wished I could reach to him and grab his hands, they looked dangerously close to fisting and wringing the stupid woman's neck, which I knew would only spell his immediate demise in the arena. The gamemakers wouldn't give him a chance. Instead I settled for giving him a stern look, pleading with him, until I saw his muscles relax. The exchange took mere seconds, but already Ceres – in her usual, annoying, overdramatic manner – held both our arms up in the air, looking out into the audience.
"We have our tributes! What an interesting Hunger Games this will be!"
End of Chapter 1! I apologise for the random start, it got off topic to begin with, but I was trying to give a feel for our tiny little tribute. Also, I wasn't trying to make another Rue with this character – she has the same tune, occupation, and basic appearance as her because that's just what District 11's people are like, and the tune had to have come from somewhere, why not an old worker and friend of her family? I adored Rue, and I wanted to try using District 11 for my Tribute, something I have yet to see among other OCs.
