Memories of the Past Chapter 1: The Special Room, a hunger games fanfic

"Deep in the meadow, under the willow

A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

Lay your head, and close your sleepy eyes

And when again they open, the sun will rise

Here it`s safe, here it`s warm

Here the daisies guard you from every harm

Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

Here is the place where I love you,"

Mother kisses my brother's forehead and tiptoes out of our room, without glancing at me. She thinks I'm sleeping. But how can I sleep with what my teacher taught our class today.

"The Hunger Games," she told us, "The Capitol once forced each district to send one boy and one girl as tribute to their killing games. There, the tributes would have to fight to the death. The last person standing wins."

My mother explained the reason of the Hunger Games to me. She told me that my father and her changed things forever by causing the rebellion. She also said I used to have an aunt. But then her voice would crack and she'd stare at the ceiling with glittering eyes. She tells me that she'll tell Dickon about her past when the times right. But I'm not exactly sure when that is.

I glance over at Dickon, my seven-year-old brother, who's fast asleep in his bed. Mother says that I have her hair and my Father's eyes. She says sometimes it hurts to look at me because I remind her so much of the aunt I never met.

Dickon looks more like Father and my Grandma. My mother's mother is a fragile, nimble-fingered woman who accepts everyone with open arms. While she twists my hair into a braid, she'd sing a song in a melancholy voice.

"Are you, are you, coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree,"

The thought of her singing makes me shiver. I sit up in my bed and glance over at Dickon one last time; he's still sound asleep. Suddenly, I hear a purr.

Our old cat, Buttercup, leaps into my bed and nuzzles my arm. I stroke her fur softly and she purrs again. Buttercup hates my Mother; she hisses and refuses to eat the food she offers. But she likes me, and I like her. My Father laughs, saying that Buttercup was the only pet living in District 13's underground settlement, but then my Mother would glare at him and he'd be quiet.

I carefully slide out of bed and tiptoe into my hallway. My house is dark and mostly quiet, but I can hear my parents talking downstairs. My Father is laughing and the smell of burnt bread wafts through the halls. My Mother is scolding him, but I can hear the love in her voice.

"Peeta!" she cries, "You're the boy with the bread! Not the boy who burns the bread!"

I giggle softly and creep into my mother's special room. Shutting the door behind me, I pull on the cord that can fill the room with light. A quiver of arrows hangs from a peg in the wall and a wooden bow dangles beside it. I pad over to the big white wardrobe in the corner of the room, and swing the two doors open.

Inside, several dresses hang, clean and unworn. I've never seen Mother wear them, and I'm not sure why she has them, especially here in her special room. I think she wore them when she was younger, but other than weddings, what cause do we have to dress up fancily in District 12? I touch the silk of one of her dresses. The dress—one that I've wanted to try on since I've seen it—was embroidered with gems of different colors. When I turn the fabric towards the light, it shines and flashes, reminding me of a flame of fire.

All of a sudden, the door swings open and my Mother comes inside. She stares at me uncomprehendingly at first then her face turns scolding.

"Paisley!" she says. I can hear my Father come up behind her.

"Katniss, what's wrong—oh," my Father sees me and his voice becomes understanding. He puts an arm around my Mother's waist.

"Katniss, did you really think she wouldn't be curious? Do you really think she's never seen what inside of here? When you distinctly say 'this room is special, no going inside' it's practically an invitation to go inside!"

"Paisley," Mother says to me, "How many times do you come here?"

"Almost every night," I admit.

"Why?" my Father asks hesitantly.

"Because nothing makes sense to me," I explain. "I've been told the Hunger Games were terrible and frightening. But you met Father there, and these dresses! I've never even seen you wear them! They're beautiful! And you have weapons in here! You tell me never to touch weapons if I ever see any! There are bows and quivers of arrows hanging on the wall, Mother! I don't know what's going on! You have to explain to me what happened, nothing makes sense—"

"Paisley," Mother interrupts, and then she looks at Father.

"Peeta, I think she's ready." She says to him. He nods.

Mother walks to the bookshelf and pulls a box from the top shelf, which I'd never been able to reach. "It's time to watch the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games."

The next morning, Mother tells me about the most important people of her youth. Firstly, her sister, the aunt I've never met, Primrose, who she had volunteered in place of when she had gotten reaped to be tribute for the Hunger Games. She had died of a bomb in the Capitol. Secondly, a man named Gale, she says that they were best friends and that they're fathers died in the same mine explosion. She explains that they used to hunt with bows and arrows together, but now he's living in District 2. And then, of course there's my Father, who had given her a loaf of bread as a child, against his mother's wishes. That makes me understand why she sometimes calls him 'the boy with the bread'.

I'd been up the whole night, watching the Seventy-fourth Hunger Games with my Mother. I cry a few times because of a dark skinned girl my Mother sings to before she dies. Then I realize she was singing the same song she sings to us so often.