Hey, so I kind of got this idea – loosely – from a story Our Hearts Are Heavy Burdens, by Vamay. There was only one thing that's even remotely the same, and that's the fact that it's being read out of a book, but everything else is straight from my head. This won't be my main update priority, but I'll try. I hope you enjoy (:
I flipped through the pages of yet another book, bored out of my mind.
I'd lost it with my nanny, insert gagging sound here, earlier and as a result I was now locked in the library. This was the expected punishment, as I'd been getting it since I was a child. And they wonder why I excel in school. My mother, before she had died, had once told me I was supposed to find something in there. The question was what? Every time I'd asked her she simply laughed and said "a book", as if it were some sort of joke. Well, there were millions of books in here in case she hadn't noticed!
I sighed and tossed the book aside, stealing a longing glance out the window. It was scorching hot, as it normally is on a summer day, and I tugged off my black hoodie. At the moment, due to the removal of the layer, I was dressed in only a blue undershirt and plaid boxers. I'd blown a gasket at breakfast, so I was still dressed in what I'd slept it, what I always slept in.
I leapt out of the chair I'd been sitting in, and walked through the aisles between the endless bookshelves. Walking over to a secluded area of the library, I ran my idle fingers up and down the wall and felt a catch, as I always did. I knew it must've opened, and probably to reveal what my mother had wanted me to find, but I'd poked and prodded and it never budged.
"Estúpido compartimiento secreto." I muttered under my breath, meaning stupid secret compartment. I was careful to always speak Spanish, not English, whenever I was sure I was being watched; I could see the security cameras now. I was the only one in the house who spoke Spanish, so no one would understand me. Everyone believed me insane, so they wouldn't exactly question me walking randomly, running my fingers up and down walls, or speaking to myself.
And people say that being so abnormal they deem you crazy is a bad thing. No, it's actually quite good; I could do and say whatever I pleased and people would just laugh and say "oh, you". Except my stupid niñera - nanny - who didn't believe I was insane, but believed heavily that I was "prone to dangerous mental lapses resulting in violent behaviour".
In other words, I was sane, but only just. And according to my niñera, these mental lapses could be easily cured by a hot cup of hot chocolate and a day or two locked in the library, reading or studying. Whichever, just as long as I shut up. My father either didn't care that I was locked up, or didn't realize that it could go on for weeks, only having me be allowed out to eat and shower, even then heavily guarded.
I was a prisoner in my own home.
And I sound like a small, whiny child. This is just great, considering I am nearly seventeen years old. And I still had a niñera. Great, just great. I might as well be a small child for how people treat me, except in intellect-they had all the time in the world to speak to me about my study of Shakespearean literature, a man who lived nearly six thousand years before us. How his literature managed to survive when the human race almost didn't, I'll never know, but it fascinated me.
I yawned to myself, and plopped down in a chair almost as uncomfortable as the last, slightly better. Apparently the man who decorated this room thought that it should be more about learning, not comfort. Can't one have both? Apparently not. I rubbed my arms, feeling the cool draft come in through the open window and cause goose bumps to form on my skin.
I walked over to the chair where my mother used to sit; it was completely out of place with the other furniture, as my mother had placed it there afterwards, the only comfortable chair in this hellhole. My hands brushed up and down it, through the side until I felt a bump. I jerked back at first, but then, moving the cushion aside, I saw a book.
I pulled it out and saw that it was hand-bound by leather, and there was a note clumsily attached to it;
Querida hija
Para aprender de su pasado, de lo que solía ser, usted debe leer este libro. Los hechos, dijo en el mismo son del todo cierto, y se repitieron durante setenta y cinco años después. Me amo y te extraño mucho, y aunque yo no estoy contigo, me siento orgulloso.
Esparenza.
Esparenza; my mother. She must have written this letter in Spanish so that anyone who came across it wouldn't understand it. It roughly translated to,
Dear daughter
To learn about your past, as it used to be, you should read this book. The facts stated in it are entirely true, and repeated for seventy-five years afterwards. I love and miss you very much, and although I'm not with you, I feel proud.
Esparenza.
My mother was never good with sentence structure, when written down; she could speak Spanish fine, but writing and reading it was a whole other story. So maybe the catch in the wall didn't have anything to do with my mother. Or maybe it did, it just wasn't what she wanted me to find.
I opened the book, and the first page was blank. I flipped to the next page, which was typed. It appeared to almost be a definition, and it went like this;
The Hunger Games;
An annual games that followed the first rebellion of Panem, in which every year two boys and girls from each district would be reaped and sent into an arena to fight for the dead. Only one person would be crowned victor, only one to be left alive.
Underneath it was a list;
D1; Joslyn Maiden; 13; x
D1; Samson Jorgen; 15; x
D2; Caitlyn Daye; 17; x
D2; Damien Ford; 18; x
D3; Lara Kendel; 12; x
D3; Liam Kendel; 12; x
D4; Annette Leisie; 14; x
D4; Rift Wilson; 16; W
D5; Mersaydez Verette; 14; x
D5; Connor Kane; 15; x
D6; Maria Kisles; 17; x
D6; Travis Stoleson; 18; x
D7; Karina Levele; 16; x
D7; Anton Jameson; 12; x
D8; Jaylena Gardner; 13; x
D8; Sean Mcneier; 17; x
D9; Amanda Leedx; 16; x
D9; Michael Harcin; 14; x
D10; Joyce Ann Fain; 17; x
D10; Darren Hois; 18; x
D11; Violet McHains 12; x
D11; Johnny Babe; 14; x
D12; Amethyst Stone; 17; x
D12; Austin Towne; 15; x
I suspected the 'D' stood for district, and the number for which number the district was. The numbers beside the names were presumably their ages, but the names, however, I did not recognize. I was petrified of what the x's might mean, but I figured as soon as I read more it would explain. And it did. Only this time, it wasn't typed, it was in untidy, scrawled writing. A explanation of what this book was that at first seemed to be written by the person who started 'The Hunger Games', but by the end you realize that it's just a kid;
This was never meant to happen, when the Games began it was only meant to be a onetime thing, for revenge, you know? My mom worked so hard to make everything good for the Districts, and instead she got thirteen furious ones. I guess everything was kind of misunderstood, but by the time the rebellion was over, we, the Capitol, had won. And my mom, in her anger, created The Hunger Games. I know she didn't mean it; it was more of a joking suggestion. But it spread like a wildfire, so she went along with it, thinking it would only be once. But the Capitol scream for more, even after my mothers' anger was gone and replaced by guilt and remorse, they wanted the Games to continue. And so they did, year after year, endless lives lost. But it was out of our control by then, I'd never liked it, my mother had never liked it. But everyone, even the districts, surprisingly, wanted more. More, more, more. No one understood they were killing, to everyone it was just a game, a popular TV show. But, it wasn't just that; it was twenty-four unsuspecting, unprepared children. Twenty-four lives lost, and then more. I always kind of understood that it was hard on my mom too, but the districts hated her. Eventually, a few years ago, she was assassinated and killed. My father was never around so now here I am, a seventeen year old orphan filling out my mom's last wish; to tell the story of the first Hunger Games, so that the dead will never be forgotten. I'll tell it as best as memory recalls, but I was only eleven when the first one started, but I believe it went a little like this...
The page stopped there, and I sucked in a breath of dismay. This really happened? I was almost too afraid to turn the page, but i could almost hear my mother saying, go on, mija. Don't be afraid.
I braced myself for what I would read next, and turned the page.