The second chance
The first chance, aka. Jack
"Ladies and gentlemen, let the seventy-fifth hunger games begin," Claudius Templesmiths voice is projected all around the Cornucopia.
So there I was. Looking across at the second person I had truly loved in the world. My heart racing, blood pumping and hands getting moister by the minute. 60 seconds, and the murder would begin, knives would start flying around my head, and spears would start to be thrown in all different directions. Even though I wouldn't let on to any of the other tributes, who might take it as a weakness, I'm not really looking forward to it. But hey, this is what my nutcase of a father seems to think I was built for. Yes, my own father seems to think it's a privilege to see people trying to kill his own child. That's why I ran away, left him and the whole of district 1 behind. It was so easy, just stuffed the few items I owned in a bag and legged it through the woods. I ran and ran all the way to good old district 8, and I still ended up here, at these awful games. But, it's for him. He's my one and only second chance. I'd go to the end of the earth for him, walk through fire for him, even sell myself to Lucifer, the devil himself, if it would mean he'd be okay. He'd be okay, unlike Jack.
Jack. There's nothing I could do for him now. Jack, the first person I had truly loved in the world, now lay six feet under, encased in a dark and secluded box decaying with all the other corpses in that forlorn cemetery. If only there was something I could have done, but not even the most expensive Capitol medicine could have stopped the disease.
So, you ask, how I would even get in this situation where my life could end in less than 2 minutes. It all started in district 1, the richest of the districts. It specialises in making luxury items for the Capitol. The Capitol, the only thing I hate more than my maniac of a father. The Capitol filled with the most self-centred, materialistic and egotistical people you will ever meet, and the accent, God, the accent. If anything could make me want to jump off my cliff and top myself, it is hearing that spine-chilling Capitol accent with its freakishly high pitch.
I was 6 years old when my father declared it was time for me to start training. And even though I knew that it was common for district 1 children to train to volunteer, as I had even witnessed a neighbour, a boy of my own age, participating in the same crazy training regime that I was to become accustomed to, I was confused. Me? Train to volunteer for the hunger games? I was a small six-year old that was bad at ferociousness and worse at sports. My life's aspiration was to become a doctor and cure the sick. I knew I wasn't hunger games material, but nothing would persuade my father to give his dream of me being a champion up. By the end of my first day training I fainted with exhaustion, but this was supposedly what every future hunger games victor should have to endure if they strive for success (and life). My trainer, Jad, was the only good thing about training. Even though he made sure I kept up the strenuous regime, he'd often sneak me books and games to fill the long stretching days of my sad, practically redundant life. Unfortunately, this hard training went on and on, and with each passing day my hatred for the man I called my father grew and grew.
My only escape was time spent with my tutor, Milo. He taught me about all different subjects: lands far and wide, mathematical formulas that took years to discover, the fascinating stories of history, the inner mechanisms of the Capitol databases, and best of all the anatomical workings of the human body. Milo's words ensnared me, and left me needing more of this satiating information. Information Milo was only too happy to provide, I continued to eat up his tit bits of knowledge with relish, but my hunger for wisdom was still never satisfied, making each wait for tutoring crawl, long and slow.
My twelfth birthday started to approach, training getting longer and even more challenging. I didn't want to volunteer for these silly games, where the sole aim was to ensure the downfall of all other tributes (yes, tributes. It's the Capitols way of making out that participating in the hunger games is some sort of honour). The only thing that kept me attached to district 1 was my little brother, Jack. He had had poor health ever since he was born. My father immediately gave up turning him into a hunger games volunteer, knowing his ill health would limit his ability and prevent him being the victor. Soon after, the doctor told my father that it would be healthy for Jack's mental state to have at least 30 minutes company everyday; so obviously the job of talking to Jack for half an hour in the evenings was dumped on me.
At first it seemed like a chore having to spend most of my meagre free-time talking to my ill little brother. But, time passed and with it the wall of awkwardness and unspoken thoughts dissolved. And this half an hour every night became my salvation, it was the only thing I really looked forward to in the whole of my monotonous life. Jack and I would tell each other of all our anxieties. He was the only person I could really open up to, and he felt the same too. Over time I realised just how much Jack and I had in common; opinions, likes, hates, interests, insecurities, ambitions, desires. You name it; we probably had it in common. It was more than inherited similarities; it was a connection shared by two people who had had to live through the same tough times.
Soon, I found the only reason I still dragged myself through training was so I could tell Jack the kickass moves I had learnt, the only reason I continued to learn from Milo was so I could tell Jack the fascinating stories Milo had told me and the only reason I still tried to talk to my mother was so I could try and give Jack faith that she'd snap out of it one day. But Jack had already given up on ever having loving parents, and somewhere along the line, I had too. My mother, forced into marrying my father because of his high status, was always detached and isolated. She had a habit of wandering aimlessly around the house drifting off to her own dream world, probably filled with fantasies of a charming industrial worker and a humble little family. But, unfortunately, her always being off in this dream world caused her to be unaware of the suffering my brother and I have had to tolerate, leaving us with only each other. However, that had been sufficient for me then and I hoped that Jack felt the same. We had gone from having no one to having each other, a blissful alternative.
A beep pulled me back to reality. It was to signal we had a diminutive 30 seconds left till the horror began.