So this is your solitude.
There is no solitude, don't you see?
There is no alone, no isolation.
We are all bonded.
These things that bind us do not keep us.
But surely you know that by now.
You're not naive anymore; that's not your excuse anymore.
You know where your life is heading.
Tell me the stories about the old days.
Asking about the years when the world was in peace.
We've come to accept that we know no peace.
And that's all right.
No, that's not all right.
No one's ever seen the point in peace.
There's a moment in your life when you realize you're doing everything wrong, when a name goes up in lights and it's not yours, the moment when you break down. Finnick Odair has never had that moment.
xx
The mid-morning sun glowed bright against a portrait of rolling sand dunes, an ocean painted against a blue, cloudless sky. This was his home, this was the place he'd grown up in. The sun was focused on the gleaming cornucopia. Silver weapons and sleek leather lay on the sand. This couldn't be home. There was no stench of fish, no friendliness or laughing neighbors. The twenty-three people were trying to kill him, not befriend him.
Finnick Odair never saw the point in peace. He only knew enemies and family. There was no friendliness in between. He was only fourteen when his enemies 'forgot' to volunteer for him, when his world became broken.
From the moment the podiums rose, the feeling of twenty years was compressed into a single minute. Counts in heads, heavy breaths. Quiet sobbing came from a young girl three tributes to the left of Finnick.
The gong went off, a ringing sound across the entire arena. Finnick shot off of his plate and ran straight into the cornucopia. His sandaled feet hit the sand softly. It was comforting and familiar, like the beaches of District Four. He dropped to his knees, brushing a strand of caramel hair out of his face. He dug through a large leather pack, pushing food and medical supplies. Beneath them lay a long, silver knife. It gleamed even in the dark of the cornucopia. He took the knife in his hand and snatched another from the ground. He swung the pack over his shoulder, wearing it comfortably.
He shot out of the cornucopia, knives in both hands. There were already several bodies on the ground, their blood stained across the sand. One lay with his neck snapped to the side, another laying on her side with her stomach gouged and bloody. Some were just bloody heaps on the ground, unrecognizable. Finnick headed over the sand, knives clutched in left and right.
xx
They used to say you could hear the screams from the edge of the arena, the agony pouring out from open mouths that filled with blood. Jackets were sliced and slicked with blood, victims' jackets used to wipe sweat from foreheads then thrown into the sand carelessly.
Finnick's got his shirt and jacket off by the time he finds his first tribute in a labyrinth of rivers and sandbars. It's a boy just older than him crawling in shallow water, his eyes trained towards the bright-as-hell sun. Both knives are in one hand as Finnick stalks the boy, walking down the sandbar with light feet. He's ready to tackle, ready for his very first human kill. There's a quiet, terrified gasp, a loud splash, and a final scream accompanied by the sound of footsteps, pacing away.
xx
He's excited, truly excited. It's his first, real, human kill. Those other 'kills' were all dummies and animals made to die, things that weren't allowed to win. He'd killed a real, live thing with a chance of life. It's exciting. Finnick's hands are slick with blood and saltwater when the body is out of sight. He's washed his hands in the winding river a million times but the blood is still on his hands, growing stickier and stickier with each unsuccessful washing. He grips the knife hilt harder, tighter. If he drops the knife during a battle he doesn't think he'll ever get it back.
Finnick's only fourteen, young. He's smaller than most and would easily disappear into the shadows if his bronze hair didn't glint in the flashy way it did. But at the same time he's attractive and leaves thousands of teenaged Capitol girls swooning at his feet. He isn't underestimated, either, a strong, young fellow with an arrogance and an ego the size of the District Four sea, which is miles and miles and miles in three directions away from the coast.
Finnick doesn't stop pacing down the sandbars until the sun's about to set. It's only then, and when the fourteen cannons fire, when he opens his pack. There are two canteens. They aren't made of gold but they're the most valuable thing he's ever seen. He sloshes one and then the other. Both half full. There's also jerky, iodine, and a single spearhead.
"It's crap, it's all crap," Finnick mutters, trying not to raise his voice. These last six hours have been nearly inaudible, only feet hitting wet sand and hands running through streamwater. He's never had good luck, from the moment he was born he was dropped on the floor, always got the small serving of salmon, always falling off the dock. That's all led up to his name in those vibrant blue fingernails, having his eyebrow slit by a stray knife in training, this horrible backpack. Of course, Finnick's already got a kill, but it was so easy. All he had to do was walk quietly and slit that boy's throat. That wasn't a battle, wasn't a fight.
xx
Finnick doesn't want to die for his country. He's lying in the shallow water moaning, the empty two canteens thrown to the side, sand in the bag of beef jerky. He doesn't want to die for Panem, no matter how sweet or honorable it may be. If some Peacekeeper's daughter from Two wants to die nobly by the hands of a boy trained to do it, why should he care? Finnick shouldn't be here, he should be lying in his house laughing at some absurd idiot in the Games. He shouldn't be in the Hunger Games. He's got four more years to learn to kill. But he is here and, like a mother, he's going to tell himself to make the best of it.
He can remember only a few words from that old language his mother would speak so fondly of, but the one sticking in Finnick's mind is memento. Memento mori. Remember that you will die. The words posted on the Capitol gates. Or so they say. He's going to die, of course, Finnick just hopes it isn't in the slaughter Games. Not the Hunger Games. He isn't suffering from hunger, or thirst or injury. He isn't suffering of anything, really, but in his heart he knows he's suffering from fear.
Oh, but he's never going to let it show, because even in his solitude, there are a million people watching and only nine that aren't. They're all staring into his soul and trying to see if he's scared or tired. He's both, but he's also hungry, thirsty, nauseous, and not ready, not ready at all. But it's not worth it to show his feelings to a million people, so he doesn't.
xx
And he waits out the rest of his Games listening for cries. He receives his trident in the middle of the night and suddenly he feels oh-so-alive. Even in his solitude, he knows pride is a feeling you've always got to show. Finnick also knows never to express his horribly weak feelings.
So he doesn't, he shuts up and he kills, kills because he has no other option, really. There's only one more tribute left in the end, a tanned, blonde boy four years older and four years stronger than he. He's scarred and bleeding before Finnick comes towards him. His enemy laughs, drops his sword, then charges, full-speed. Finnick throws his trident with as much force as he can muster. He's tired; he's sick of fighting. The One boy ducks, easily, rolling over the sand. The trident hardly grazes his shoulder. Finnick knows his name when he comes up. He's Valor Moray, the boy who beat someone unconscious, another volunteer, at the reaping. Still he falls to the ground screaming. What a disgrace after all he's shown in the Games.
He retrieves the trident and watches Valor writhe on the ground, clutching his shoulder. The grotesque open wound practically gushes blood onto the sand, and Finnick can see clearly that the blood flow is slowing only because a clump of sand has stuck to it, inevitably causing the boy far more pain than it should.
"Wait, wait, no, please-" Valor begs, holding back a yelp. "I have so much to live for, please, just- stop, stop!"
Finnick pulls back his arm, trident poised to launch. "You're almost dead already. I'm sorry," says Finnick in a small, hoarse voice. And with that, he throws the trident into Valor's chest. Valor screams for a moment, gurgles, then falls silent.
Boom. Trumpets blare through a speaker somewhere and Claudius Templesmith's voice booms. "Congratulations, Finnick Odair! You are the victor of the sixty-fifth annual Hunger Games!"
And then, his life is hell.
To be continued in part two.