Hey guys! So this is my first fanfiction! I've been a fan of this site for a long time and debated with myself several times if I should put my own fanfictions on here. I finally decided YES! I will. So I have. Now you guys get the pleasure of reading it. I hope you like it.
-AGEless
DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Hunger Games
One
"Just try it," my father says, trying to hand me a piece of bread.
I stare at it for a second. "If you're so sure that it's good, why don't you try it?" I say, pushing his hand back at him. "After all, you're the baker."
Father seems hesitant at first. But he puts the bread in his mouth and starts chewing. I wait for his reaction. He keeps chewing, seeming okay. I think that maybe I had gotten the recipe this time. Then, his face twists into a bad expression and he spits the bread into the disposal.
I sit on the corner of the counter, balancing myself so I won't fall off. "See?" I say, waiting for him to finish. "I'm not good at cooking. The men in this house are better cooks than the women. It's a shame. Hopefully, I'll marry a man who can cook. Considering I don't want my children to starve."
Father straightens up and looks at me. "Maybe a little more butter next time." He comes over to where I'm sitting and props himself against the counter. "And what's a shame is that the women in this house hunt better than the men. It's not right."
I roll my eyes at him. "But you do know how to survive. Be glad you can do that."
Father and Mother were in the Hunger Games so many years ago. The Hunger Games were games that the Capitol created to show they still had power after the Dark Days about eighty or ninety-some years ago. They would pull two tributes ages twelve to eighteen from each district (with twelve districts to make twenty-four tributes) to go to the Capitol and be put in an arena. In that arena, they would fight to the death. The last one standing would be the winner. They would get showered with gifts and fortune. Mother and Father were the start of the end of the Hunger Games.
Father's blue eyes went from sapphire to light blue as they hardened and turned to ice. "If it weren't for Katniss, I would be dead. Your mother's a better survivor than I am. If it weren't for the Games, none of this would have happened."
I braced myself in case he was going to have another attack. When Father was seventeen, he got stolen by the Capitol. They injected tracker jacker venom into him, showing him pictures of Mother while doing it to make him think she was some sort of evil thing. He still has tracker jacker attacks every now and then. Instead he just grabs my hand and squeezes. "And now it's over," he whispers every so quietly. "And I'll never let anything as bad as what happened to me happen to you, Sapphire. I promise."
I look dead into his eyes and nod. "I believe you. If anything happens to me, I'll fight to the death. No one's going to take me that easy."
He grinned a bit. "That's my baby girl." He moves back over to where my defective loaf of bread is sitting. "So. Try again on Thursday?"
I can't really focus on the bread. Father is always telling me things like he just said. But they had never been as intense as just now. It put butterflies in my stomach. It makes me feel like something bad is going to happen and Father knows it, but everyone else doesn't. Maybe he does. Or maybe he was just having a small tracker jacker attack. Who knows? But it makes me flash back to the first time he told me that and I understood why he told me.
I was twelve. It was the night after I had watched the Hunger Games. I had a nightmare. I woke up screaming about my best friend, Sutton, trying to kill me. Father was the one who came to comfort me.
"Shh," he whispered. "It's alright." He stroked my hair while the tears streamed down my face.
"It was horrible, Father," I sobbed into his shirt. "I was in the arena. I was in the Hunger Games. I was just trying to stay safe. And Sutton was there. He was chasing me, trying to kill me. I just wanted to stay alive, Father. And he was trying to kill me." My voice broke and I kept crying.
"Shh," he repeated. "No one's trying to kill you. You're safe. There aren't going to be anymore Hunger Games. You're not going to the arena."
"And Bey was there too," I mumbled. "Beowulf was with me. They put him in the arena to taunt me. I'm not the one I'm crying about. It was Bey I'm crying about. I… I killed him. In my dream. I didn't mean to, Father."
"I know, I know. But Bey is fine. Look. I'll take you to see him."
Father led me through our dark house to Bey's room. He pushed the door open and my nine-year-old brother was lying in his bed, his blond curls a mess. Stifling my sobs, I went over to his bed to look at him. He was dreaming, a little grin on his face as he dreamed. I was honestly glad he was having good dreams. And I was glad he was still in the dark about the Hunger Games. I brushed a few curls back from his forehead and kissed it. His eyes opened just a bit and he looked at me.
"Sapphire?" he said groggily and annoyed. "What are you doing in here? What time is it?"
I shrugged. "I had a bad dream. I just decided I would check on you since I was up. You need anything?"
He looked at me in surprise and shook his head. "No I'm fine. Well, now that I think about it, I need sleep. So get out of my room." He put his head back down on his pillow and closed his eyes, easily going back to sleep.
I pulled his covers back up to his chin and turned to walk out. "Goodnight, Bey," I whispered. Even more quietly, I whispered, "I love you."
I was almost out the door when I heard him say, "You know, you're not so bad for a sister. Night, Sapphire."
Father brought me back to my room. He put me into my bed. He looked at me. "See? Bey's okay. You're okay. I'm sure Sutton's okay. Nothing bad is going to happen. I won't let it. I promise." He kissed my cheek and started out of my room. "Goodnight, Sapphire."
Before that, I was like any other sister would be to their little brother. Mean and harsh. But not anymore. I treasure Bey's life more than my own. More than anyone's.
"Sapphire, did you hear me?"
"Huh?" I snap back into reality and see Father looking at me. "Oh, yeah. Thursday. My other baking day. Sure. We'll try again."
Father smiles and moves to where I was sitting. "Dearest daughter," he says in a teasing voice, "you need to be more attentive, quick on your feet. Because if you aren't, people will catch you by surprise." On "catch you by surprise" he flips me off the counter. I roll backwards and catch myself in a crouched position, like Mother showed me.
I grin evilly and look up at him through the lock of hair in my eyes. "It takes a lot more than that to get a hunter by surprise. I would think you would know that. Considering you married one."
"I'm still learning. Even after about twenty-five years."
I hear the front door slam and footsteps through the foyer. "That was so much fun, Mother!" I hear Bey say as he comes in. "When are we going again?"
I look at Father mischievously and press my finger to my lips. I pull my boots off and set them to the side. Still in my crouch, I move to the foyer. Excellent. Bey has his back turned. Mother catches me behind his back, and again I put my finger to my lips. The corner of her lip twitches, then she focuses back on Bey. She continues to talk to him, but I'm not paying attention to what she's saying. Making sure he doesn't suspect anything, I pounce on my twelve-year-old brother.
"Awk! Sapphire!" Bey complains from my grip. "Why? You can't just act like a normal person?"
I giggle and squeeze him into a tighter hug. "I'm just happy my baby brother is home!" I finally release him and ruffle his hair. "So how'd the hunt go?" Bey and I take turns hunting with Mother and then baking with Father. Both of us preferred hunting. But Bey is better at baking than me.
"I caught three squirrels today," Bey says proudly, fixing his hair. "Two were with snares. The other was with the bow and arrow. I'm still not a good aim."
I smile at him. "You'll get the hang of it one day. You just need to practice a bit more."
His gray eyes are doubtful as he looks at me. "I'll never be as good as you and Mother. I mean, I'm good with snares, but not very good with archery. Or throwing knives. Or spears. I'm good with baking and cooking though."
"That's why you need to keep practicing. So you can be good at it." I shrug a bit. "I didn't get good at archery until I started practicing."
Bey snorts at my sentence. "Yeah right. I remember watching you when I was five. There's no way some eight-year-old could shoot as well as you could. You were born with the ability to hunt and shoot and everything."
"Katniss, Bey, there's some bread in here," Father's voice floats into the foyer. I almost snicker, knowing what he's about to do.
Not everything, I think as I follow Bey and Mother into the kitchen. I watch as Father hands them both a piece. "Who made it?" Mother asks as she flips her graying, black hair over her shoulder.
Father smiles at me. "Sapphire. I think she got the recipe this time."
Mother winks at me and takes a bite of her piece while Bey shoves a whole slice in his. Then, I start laughing as their expressions twist into disgust. Bey quickly spits his into the disposal. He glares at Father. "You're going to pay for that," he growls. He tackles Father and they start a brawl.
"Take it to the kitchen!" Mother tells them. She puts the loaf into our very old cat, Buttercup's dish. The fat, ugly cat sniffs at the loaf and then looks up at Mother like, "This is really what you're feeding me? You can forget it."
"Dumb, spoiled cat," I mutter. Mother had told me about how she had tried to drown him once, and she couldn't follow through with it. "Maybe you should have drowned him."
Mother chuckles. "Honestly, I'm really glad I didn't. He kept your Aunt Prim happy through the years."
I shudder hearing Prim's name. I've read about the Uprising – later known as the Revolution. I know about the silver parachutes with the bombs attached to them. The ones that killed Prim and gave Mother and Father all their burns. The ones that were supposedly the traitor, Gale Hawthorne's doing
I feel a hand touch my wrist. "Sapphire," Mother says quietly. "Please try to control yourself. I don't want you to end up like me and Peeta. Torturing yourself with memories and horrors."
I nod and hop down off of the counter. I walk into the living area, where Father and Bey had settled their dispute. Bey is flipping through a book, trying to find his place. Father is watching the news, his face pinched. He looks over his shoulder at me. He doesn't get a good look at me. "Katniss?"
"No," I say. "She's in the kitchen."
"Katniss!" Father repeats.
Mother appears, wiping her hands on a dish towel. "Yes?" she says. "Is something wrong, Peeta?"
"You might want to see this."
We all turn our attention to the television, where the top story is being played. Few people still have that annoying Capital accent and this announcer was one of them.
"In other news, President Hamilton passed away late last night. Hamilton has been sick for several months. The doctors believe that his heart gave out in his sleep. His daughter was the one to find him this morning. It has already been declared that Vice-President Nicola will take over as President. He shall be initiated into office next week. The only question here is will he be as good a President as Cresol Hamilton?"
The telephone begins to ring, so we turn the television down as I answer it.
"Hello?"
"Sapphire?" a frantic voice says on the other line. "Sapphire? Is your mother or father there? I need to speak with one of them."
"Grandmother," I say slowly. "Calm down. Mother's right here." I hand the telephone to Mother, who is standing right beside me.
"Mother?" she says. "Yes… Yes… Slow- slow down… Uh-huh… Yes, we saw… No, I'm sure everything will be fine… You're over exaggerating… Look, I know you've worked a long day at the hospital. Just go home, get a bit of rest, and call me later, alright? Okay… I love you too…"
She hands the telephone to me and I put it on the receiver. "What was wrong with Grandmother?" I ask her, seeing her shake her head.
"She's never like Vice-President Nicola," Mother replies. "She thinks that this is going to be the worst thing since the Dark Days and he's going to bring the Hunger Games back into society."
"Don't we to vote on this?" Bey asks, flipping through his History textbook. "Or you and Father do. Isn't that what usually happens when we get a new President?"
I shake my head. We had learned about this in my classes last year. "Not in the case that the President dies," I say. "The Vice-President takes over as President, completing term until it's time to elect a new President. Very simple once you learn it."
"And plus, we can't have another Hunger Games," Mother says. "It's against the law. The last one was many years ago."
"The last one didn't have to occur," Father says, coming up behind Mother. He looks angry. I have heard this before and I hate it every time I hear it. "But it was what the Mockingjay wanted. And the Mockingjay gets what she wants."
The very last Hunger Games was voted on. The last Hunger Games victors voted on it. The yeas out won the nays. The tributes were Capital leaders' children. President Snow's granddaughter was in it. She didn't make it past the second day. There was no victor in the Seventy-Sixth Hunger Games. The last person committed suicide.
"Peeta," Mother says. "Please don't do this now." She put a hand on his arm. "This is really not the time."
Father yanks his arm away. "If you hadn't have voted yes, we wouldn't be having these arguments." He stomps towards his room. Mother sighs and starts after him.
Bey tugs on my arm. "Why do they have to be like that, Sapphire?" he asks me.
I shake my head. "I don't know, Bey," I say honestly. I will never know why. And I hope I never have some kind of event that makes me know. "Let's go skin those squirrels."
So what did you guys think? Love it? Hate it? Needs improvement? Reviews and suggestions are very welcome and make me happy.
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