The Finnick + Annie Story
By Cesca Herondale Morgenstern 13
October 2012- 2012-10-26
-Finnick and Annie
[Finnick POV]
I look up at the place where soon two of the districts children are going to be sent away, to fight to the death. This place is where my life changed. Forever. I had to kill people. For the Capitol's pleasure. Sure, they say it's punishment for the rebellion more than 65 years ago. I only won the games a few years ago. I'm still fresh in the people's minds. The pain is still recent too. The pain of killing other people, it destroys you. Ruins human life for you. Makes you question everything. And everyone. Five years ago I stood down there, and had my name drawn from the reaping balls. And now another pair of tributes will face the same fate. I know these faces though, and they know me. I don't know how I'll cope with it this year. More and more of my old friends, my family are being entered, and the only thing I can't stop, is if they are reaped, and no one volunteers, they will have to face the Games. It could be anyone. Anyone of them could have their name drawn. And if it's not one of them, I still have to mentor the two tributes and get them sponsors. I'm barely even nineteen, and these two people are relying on me to keep them alive, to help them survive. I'm not good at this though. Last year, the tributes barely made it through the Cornucopia fight. It's not their fault though. The sponsors, they purposely make promises and break them. It's like they don't want them to have a chance, like D4 doesn't deserve a winner. Like they don't want to let go of me being the latest D4 victor. It's sickening to see, to be a part of, and the families blame me for not giving them parachutes.
[Annie's POV]
Today is the day of the Reaping. I've seen the tributes from Districts 12-5 get reaped; they all might stand a chance of winning. My name is in there at least 5 times, I can't remember, then if I was put down for tesserae, times that by the number of people in my household, you get the idea. I might be chosen. I go through my Reaping Day ritual, giving gifts to my family members and friends, visit the beach, relax on the sand until I have to leave and get ready for the reaping. I do my round of gift-giving, thinking all the while 'If it's me this year, and I don't come home, who will care? Who will lie weeping by the side of my coffin, as they bury me in the earth, performing our burial ritual? Who will bother? Who will remember me in ten years? What about in two years?' The answer is none. My family will move on, thinking of me only when they see the Hunger Games every year when they have their own families far in the future. I am the quietest, shyest, most invisible person in my family. They won't care. When I return home after relaxing on the beach, I find my reaping clothes laid out for me. I put them on, put my hair in it's usual curly style, and put a white carnation behind my ear, to symbolise all that may happen to me, and all that won't. I then prepare my little brother for his first reaping, for the daunting feeling that is sure to come, then with the rest of my family, I set off for the justice building, to have my life once again determined by the hand of one person, and a bowl full of slips of paper with names on.
[Finnick's POV]
It's almost time, time for two new people to be sent away from all they love, to fight to the death. They're about to start, they need me on the front of the Justice Building. This year, we have Deedee Georgiana for the escort. She is crazily happy all the time and the most annoying person I have ever met. Ever. She asked me to pass her a piece of paper earlier and I felt like choking her right then. She obviously knows what President Snow has made me. A slave to the Capitol women, unable to leave, unable to stop it. Forced to look like some kind of jerk, unable to keep my hands off married women. If only they knew the truth. I am a disgrace to my district, a disgrace to every person in Panem. And she enjoys watching me squirm at people touching me, even by accident, even the slightest touch, and she loves it. She is so... so... evil. And no one pays any attention. And no one should. I mean, there are more important things to do, right? Like kill twenty three children every year and make their family, friends and neighbours watch, for people's entertainment, for instance? Yeah, I thought so. Just another way the human race destroys itself.