A/N: So I'm not dead and I'm not abandoning Damned and The Storyteller. This is really just to work out some kinks.
Also, I ship Gadge. Hard.
COME ON! They're just so perfect together! :)
Please review if you like it. Or don't like it.
Love,
Shy.
Quiet Eyes
by she.s. .one
CHAPTER ONE
The Morning of the Reaping for the 74th Hunger Games
The Mayor's Estate
My mother's screaming wakes me up.
"MAY…oh God, no, MAYSILEE?" she sobs violently, the whole house practically shaking with the sound of her. I wish I could say that we all leap out of bed and rush to help but in reality, I sink a little further into my bed, wishing I could stuff my pillow further around my ears. "MAY, NO! MAYSILEE, NO!"
I know it's probably terrible of us to ignore her but it's what happens every other morning when she wakes the whole house up at dawn.
"BEHIND YOU, MAY, NO, PLEASE, MAYSILEE!"
Especially Reaping mornings.
"MAY- Madge? W-what? Madge, no, stop, Madge, MADGE?"
It is then I know I have to get up and so I slip my feet out of bed and grab the soft fluffy robe that lays discarded at the foot of my mattress. The chill in District Twelve is bitter and greedy so when I find the whole house dormant and freezing, I'm not surprised.
I carefully move downstairs and out the back of our house, to where the powergrid control lies. I switch on the power for the house. I then carefully flick the other switch, the one labelled PERIMETER, which comes on automatically when I turn the first control, off. I'm positive all the electricity will come on at about 9 o'clock today, when the Capitol people begin to arrive for the main event at 1 o'clock.
Until then, I have my own reasons for preferring to limit the power in the District Twelve Mayor's House.
"MADGE! MADGE!" she screams again and I sigh, going back up the stairs. I make my way down the hall, passing the room my father has vacated to since I was twelve. It occurs to me that most parents sleep together, in the same bed, especially in the Seam and I feel almost amused at how odd that seems to me.
But that's another reason why I'm just the freaky Mayor's daughter. I see the world differently and it always feels as though I'm a step out of place with everyone else.
"Mom?"
"Madge, please, no…" Mareeya Undersee sobs as I enter the darkened room. She's stretched, flat on her mattress, her sheets and blankets on the floor from her thrashing. When I move, she's not flailing, though her arms are outstretched as though something had her pale, skinny form pinned down.
"Mom, please, you're dreaming again," I murmur, sitting beside her on the bed at my own risk. I brush the strands of hair away from her face with delicate, gentle movements and slowly slide my hand down her cheek. "Mom, wake up."
"Maysilee?" she whispers, hopefully as her eyes flutter, disorientated.
I feel like a crushing disappointment when I reply: "No, Mom. It's me, it's Madge."
"Maysilee? I'm so sorry, Maysi, I'm so sorry my love," she cries, quietly, her face screwed up in pain. I know the memories are hitting her fast and hard this morning, so much so that she can barely move let alone distinguish me from her nightmares.
"It's fine Mareeya." I tell her, reaching for the syringe at the table beside the bed and the little clear coloured jar that appears almost empty with how transparent the drug is.
"Oh my love, my sister…" Mom weeps. She was in a depression today then, I thought tiredly.
"It's alright Mo- Mareeya." I reply, injecting the needle into the prominent blue vein in her arm. Donners have always been extremely pale; my own skin was practically translucent when I was born, in the photos I see at least, but Mom refuses to eat and she takes morphling like an addict. She's paler than pale; she's icy.
Like an addict, I snort as she begins to drift away from me, still clutch my arm so tightly it might bruise. "You are an addict." I tell her, sighing.
Addicted to nightmares. Addicted to morphling. Addicted to the pain she feels she deserves after my Aunt died in the Hunger Games all those years ago.
I put the syringe and the jar back in their place and pull the blankets up over her again as she goes limp and corpse-like. I brush my lips to her forehead and leave the room, my thoughts revolving around the Hunger Games and today's Reaping and how on earth she will manage to stand before District Twelve as the mournful but strong wife of their mayor today.
The morning is full of arrivals. All the Capitol crew have come to clean and prepare the stage for the Reaping this afternoon and their central base is the Hall of Justice in the main square and the Mayor's House which sits further away in an almost isolated part of town. Not too far away though. The Capitol would get suspicious if they couldn't keep an eye on us.
I don't see any of them.
Instead, I take money from the spare change pot we keep in the kitchen precisely for moments like these and I leave in the early hours of the morning when District Twelve has just woken up. I drop by the school and let myself inside; it's not as though it's locked.
Though school is cancelled automatically for the Reaping, it has already been shut for almost a week and a half now for 'school holidays'. Frankly I hate school holidays but God forbid the Capitol pay for any more of an education than they absolutely must.
After almost two hours of wandering around by myself, I decide to go to the Hall of Justice, to make sure things are on their way. The sun has well and truly risen by this point and white-suited Capitol workers are hosing down the stage outside, the lights and entry tables being set up and whatever else. I feel almost sick when I see them laughing together, jostling as they prepare for another Hunger Games.
The Hunger Games are a sick, Capitol creation and every year, they round us up like cattle and destroy a pair of families just for some entertainment. Just watching them makes me feel ill. And while I can't say anything about it, being the golden Mayor's daughter, I know exactly who can so I turn and walk to my next destination quietly.
I run into a few of the Town merchants as I make my way and I send them all the same pitying smile they give me. While the saying might be a twisted, satirical Capitol one, I feel as though each of us is exchanging the same heartfelt words: may the odds be ever in your favour.
When I come across Victor's Village, I feel a little saddened by the emptiness around. The Games have been going on for seventy-four years and we've had an incredible small amount of Victors. In fact, the only one still around is laying, mournfully on the steps of his broken porch, his gaze broken and a little frightening.
Haymitch Abernathy might not seem like much but I have the tape at home. I know who he was before and during the 50th Hunger Games and I know exactly how dangerous he can be. My mother would have a fit if she knew I was here so I've never told her. I visit Haymitch quite regularly and try to peel him off the his own front steps and put him to bed, though he's pretty volatile when he's drunk.
Haymitch wouldn't hurt me though, for the same reason my Mother hates seeing my face: I look too much like Maysilee Donner.
"Haymitch?" I say, sighing. "What are you doing?"
He looks at me, lazily and a small smile crosses his face. "Miss Undersee, how fine of you to grace us with your presence!" he cackles.
I let out a small smile and take a seat next to him and his bottle which undoubtedly makes up the 'us' he was referring to. From his home which is on the main hill to the east of town, his porch gives an incredible view of the Mines, the Town, the Seam and even the forest beyond that. It also gives the best view to the Justice Square, where the Capitol workers have now raised the screen on which the Hunger Games will be broadcasted.
"It's sick." I say, my voice empty. "I feel as though I'm going to throw up when I'm down there tonight."
Haymitch doesn't tell me not to worry. He, more than anyone, can identify with my fears. Just because I'm a mayor's daughter doesn't make me invincible. I'm not protected. I'm sixteen this year and I have five slips in the Reaping bowl this year.
So instead, Haymitch offers me his bottle of amber liquor and tells me: "That's my line, princess."
I refuse the liquor and lean my head on my knees. "Haymitch?"
"Yes, princess?"
He's always called me that. Since the time when I was just twelve and he found me crying in the woods my first Hunger Games. My father was busy and didn't notice me sneaking off. God forbid my mother realise there was even a world beyond her bedroom. But Haymitch found me and told me to 'suck it up princess' because if my Aunt could see me now, she'd be ashamed.
Harsh words to a twelve year old but they worked. After that, I watched the tape of my Aunt's Games constantly, seeing how resourceful and quick she was. Haymitch calls me Maysilee sometimes, when he's really stinking drunk and he's always telling me he's sorry. Same as Mom.
"When they…when they die…" my breath hitches and I try to control it. "…how do you keep sane?"
He knows I'm not talking about the tributes. He knows I'm asking him, personally. The tributes might be our family and friends but Haymitch sees them at their very worst. He is their last memory of home before they enter the arena. He is the last thing they hope for. How do you cope with that pressure?
Haymitch's voice is startlingly sober when he replies. "Don't get too attached princess. It's the only way."
I shiver, not only because of Haymitch's bleak statement but because of the Games themselves. It feels off this year, as though something horrible is coming.
Haymitch takes a long sip of his liquor and stands, wobbling. I reach out to steady him but he shrugs me off with a lazy, bitter smile. "Go on now princess." He waves his bottle at me as he makes his way inside his Victor Village home. "I've got some catching up to do before tonight."
A/N: Sooo...Gale will be showing up shortly. Anyone else super excited?
Much love to all you wonderful readers,
Shy
P.S. I don't see this being very long. 5 chapters tops, though I could be persuaded to add more...