Hi everyone! This is my fan fiction debut, although I've been reading and reviewing around here for much longer. It's a shorty, but I'd love to hear what you think!
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
There are no trees in District Five. In the Power district, every extraneous scrap of matter is used for fuel, an offering to the great, belching smokestacks that coat the land in smoke. There are no trees, but there is soot in every crevice—between the cracks in the sidewalk, underneath the fingernails of the workers; in their hair, in their eyes, in their gums.
They say you can tell what kind of day it will be by tasting the air. On a good day, a day with a swift, strong wind, the billows of the smokestacks are blown east, granting a brief respite from the stagnant smog. On these days, the air has a certain crisp quality—not clean, per say, but lighter somehow, unburdened of its heavy particulates. On a bad day, the air hangs still and heavy, falling about the tenements in a thick, choking haze. On these days even breathing is a hazard, one that every year steals the lives of the young and old alike.
To live there is a study in efficiency. Every move is calculated to walk the careful line between productivity and conservation. Too little, and the peacekeepers are on you; too much, and you'll collapse in exhaustion in the stultifying heat. From an early age, children are taught control above all things, learning to suppress their wasteful tears and hide their frustration with quick, tight smiles. To the untrained eye, the people seem a dour, downtrodden lot, but a patient observer learns to note the subtleties. That swift, fleeting gesture, that half-quirked brow, a sharp twist of the lips—they compose a hidden language of nuance and understatement, a language not lacking in its own brand of sardonic humor.
A world of hidden meanings and calculated gestures: this is the world of Vivian Finch. It's the only world she knows, up until the day she is sent to the Capitol.
xxx
She is called to the stage by the puffy blue woman, and they know she is going to die. She's too small and too thin, already on the verge of starvation from a hard life in the tenements. Her skin is pale and sickly, and her hair is a nauseating shade of orange in comparison. That hair, they mutter to themselves in chagrin. Even if she is physically capable, her hair will betray any chance she has at camouflage.
Her neighbors see the truth of it, but she doesn't. Even as she takes those first, tentative steps onto the stage, her fear is overcome by a calm, sure determination. She can win this. She's not going to die out there.
Her district partner is a boy from school, someone she's known all her life. But when his name is called she shakes his hand coldly and gives no sign of recognition. There is no room for friendship in the Hunger Games. Her partner understands this too, and wonders sadly if he ever knew her at all.
xxx
When the gong sounds, she runs. It's not very fast, because her legs are weak and thin and her breath comes in an asthmatic wheeze. But she keeps moving, fighting her way through the bushes and bramble until at last she feels she is safe, and collapses, panting, in a tangle of undergrowth. Then she waits.
The seconds tick by, and she can hear the sounds of the bloodbath begin to dwindle as the Careers make short work of their opponents. When all is silent and still, she creeps back toward the Cornucopia and watches them work, arguing and posturing as they set up camp. Her keen eyes take note of every detail, every flaw in their strategy. There are opportunities there, waiting to be exploited.
xxx
She excels at tasks involving memorization, each subtle detail catalogued by her quick, sharp mind. But more than that, she is a problem-solver, and had the game-makers designed a test to accurately reflect this, she would have blown it off the charts. As it is, when she navigates the minefield they realize, with not a small amount of surprise, that this is one to be reckoned with. This one's mind makes her dangerous.
For all that, she is bafflingly dull, her days in the arena filled with evasion and survival. Not once does she make an offensive move—not even when the Career pack lies helpless at her feet, in various states of delusion from Tracker Jacker venom. Is she afraid? they wonder. Does the caution that guides her through the arena prevent her from dealing the final blow? She gives nothing away to the cameras, but even if she had, they wouldn't have understood. Her priority is survival, but stealing food and stealing life are two very different things.
She receives no sponsors throughout her sojourn in the Games, the Capitol's money going to flashier, dramatic tributes. She is an afterthought, a ghost in the arena, forgotten even by her morphling-addict mentor.
xxx
Toward the end, the early hope of those first days begins to fade, and she knows at the back of her mind that she will not be going home. The rule change is meant for Twelve and Two, the star-crossed lovers and their darker doppelgangers. The Capitol has their favorites, heroes and villains alike; and she and the large boy from Eleven are extraneous to the plot.
She can feel herself withering away. Every day she becomes a little sharper, her skin tightening incrementally around her frame. Her fingers are down to skin and bones now, and when she presses her hands together she can see the gaps between her knuckles. She is fading slowly and she knows it, but she still clings stubbornly to hope. Anything can happen in the arena. Maybe, just maybe, she will make it out.
When she sees the berries left by the boy from Twelve, she is too hungry to think and too tired to care. As soon as she pops one in her mouth, she tastes the bitterness and knows that she has made a fatal error. But she chews and swallows anyway, closing her eyes and thinking, perhaps it is better this way.