Swimming, it's where I find the most peace in the world. Just sitting out there, letting the waves crash over you and feeling yourself submerged into the ocean. It's amazing, just allowing yourself to be taken over and washing all of the bad emotions out of you like it's nothing to fear. It's nearly sunset and all of the boaters are coming back in from their long day offshore, for some it's more then one day, first time in weeks that they've had enough seafood to bring in for the capital. It can feel the water getting cooler, the wind starting to blow, tonight would be one of those nights that even bring out in my safe haven would be horrible. I left my bottom half sink into the water and wave out to a yellow boat, one that always picks me up.
The owner of the boat is a man named Meliex. He's an older man in his late forties, no wife or kids to worry about with the reaping, just one granddaughter, and always seems more then enough seafood to go around to the other workers that don't have enough for the day. Meliex is the person that you would run to if you needed a few dollars that could not be spared to get food or to pay for medical things. He pulled over to my left side about a yard off and as I swim towards the boat I can hear him laughing, knowing that I should not be out here. As I climb on board he throws a towel in my direction as he makes his way towards the front of the boat and brings the engine back to life.
" Been out searching for pearls once again, Miss Hael?" He asked as we moved, slowly, towards the shore.
" No today, just needed to get away from the sand and school." I sigh, looking towards the sunset.
" You mean from the television and from the announcement tonight?" Meliex asked.
" That too, but mostly from the stress of life around here. I mean with what year it is, all of the seafood goes straight to the capital, we aren't even allowed to buy any of it." I sigh loudly, pulling my hand outside of the boat and letting the water splash up against my hand.
" How long have you been out here pruning for?" Meliex asked as we started to come into the no wake zone.
" Let's see, they told us that the announcement would be tonight about the quarter quell was at eleven, then lunch was at eleven thirty, I got to the shore at noon. So since about then I have been swimming out as far as I could." I smiled, seeing how far that truly is.
" You have been getting faster, training I see." He said, looking back to see where I had been laying to where we were going.
" Yeah, I guess that I want to make sure that I will be prepared if something happened to Dad." I sigh, not even knowing what I would do without him.
" You know that he will last forever Summer." Meliex smiled as we pulled into our little spot on the dock, the farthest away from the actual shore.
" So what do you think that it could be this time around? A triple the amount of kids that get thrown into the arena because of the little scuffle that happened last quarter quell? Or do you think that they toned it down because of what happened the last time around?" I smiled, wanted to know everything that happened before I was even born.
" No. It will be much worse around this time. Trust me when I say that." He growled as we passed a peacemaker, and started to walk in different directions at the shore, him to his house in a smaller part of town, me to Victor's Village.
My father, Quen Hael, was the victor of the seventy sixth hunger games. It was kind of a cheat if you ask anyone from District Four though, it was based around water, the only way to survive was from a bunch of connected rivers making it's way to a waterfall. But many other districts made a good shot through the games, they had to be made harder that year just for them. I was told by my mother once that it was harder to watch her best fired kill people then to worry about him dying. Watching him shoot people down like they were fish in the ocean scared her out of his arms when he returned. That it took over five years for him to win her back, when there was a better game to talk about, and he was finally out of the lime light. There was nothing too special that he did to win her back, from what I have heard, but somehow he got her back, married her, and then, three years later, had me.
There have been a few before him that have become victor and none after him, but this year, with me and my two other sisters are all in the running to become a tribute from this years quarter quell and one hundredth hunger games. Everything will be full throttle ahead and everything will be one hundred times worst to watch it one of my little sisters get thrown in there in some odd turn of events. Too many worries about the quarter quell shoot through my head about what it could possibly be about. People have been told about the last quarter quell, but they leave a lot of holes left, blanks that have to be filled in by the elders that are still around.
" Meliex!" I shout, looking over my shoulder to see the older man smiling and looking back at me. " May the odds ever be in Saforia's favor." We both give a laugh and hustle in our different directions.
I sigh as I made my way down the path that not many walk down, wondering what type of scolding I will get today. I know that my father could never really place a punishment on me, since I look too much like my mother for my own good, he just usually gives me the fifth degree and tells me to never do it again. Which I always do. With a smile I walk through Victor's Village to see that along with my house, Finnick Odair is also home. He lives with his district wife, Annie another victor, and their sons Peeta and Trent. Trent is one year older then me, but being the only two real kids that live in Victor's Village that aren't related, we stick like glue. I dry off my hair and knock on the side window, the window that leads to the study as Peeta opens the window.
" Yes Beautiful?" He smiled a charismatic smile as he leans out the window.
" Where would your brother be?" I smile back, leaning in a little closer towards the window.
" He's upstairs, but you really don't want to talk to him. Do you?" He smiled. This was the game that we have always played, Peeta acting like we have always been in love with one another and me playing along to get at Trent's nerves. It has always seemed to work.
" Who's at the window?" Finnick says, pushing his son out of the way to see me, smiling and soaking wet standing outside. " You know that your father has been looking for you."
" Most likely for a pretty long time. Worried that I would miss the big news about the quarter quell, eh?" I smile at the beautiful man. This is where the Odair boys get their beauty from.
" Very long time. You had all of here worried that you had gone out in the ocean and god knows where you would have gone from there." He smiles. " Trent!" Finnick yells so loud that I swear it rocks the house.
" What?" Trent yells from upstairs.
" Guest for you at the window." The whole house knows it's me from just the fact of the window.
I usually come to the window, I just feel better talking there then being inside their house. The only time that you will find me in their house in the in winter, when it's much too cold to be outside. I love being outside, it's where my true home is, and being in someone else's house and being in their rules. It just makes me want to scream. Not that there is anything wrong with the Odair's family rules, just that I do not want to deal with anyone's rules. As I wait for Trent to come to the window, Peeta tells me all of the different theories that he has about what the quarter quell could be about this year, where they could place the kids, anything that really comes to mind to get a response out of me. I rest my head against the brick wall and start to think about the beach, how many better things that I could be doing there.
" Will you please leave her alone!" Trent says from the next room over, throwing something light at her older brother.
" I was just talking about dating plans with my girl here." Peeta smiles. " So after the quarter quell announcement, want to meet me by the ocean?"
" Sure, why not?" This sends a shock through both of the boys.
" Re-really?" Peeta asked.
" Not in your wildest dreams." I sigh, head already too clouded up.
" Now get out of here you little rat!" Trent smiles. " So what's up?" He asked.
" You missed some really good swimming out there today. I thought that we promised to meet up right at our spot if anything ever happened." I sigh, knowing already what he will say.
" Summer, nothing happened. They just told us that they would be telling us what would be happening in the quarter quell tonight and you flipped out and left." Trent says, swinging his legs out the window and jumping beside me.
" I just have a feeling it will be like my dream. Exactly like what my dream says." I say, kicking up some of the grass that's around.
" What? That somehow your name will be called, that you will be in the games, and that you will be killed because you wont be raised enough onto the game platform and that somehow you will drowned in water? Sounds a little off to me." Trent sighs as he looked over his shoulder, making sure that the Capitol anthem hasn't come on yet.
The way he puts it makes it seem like everything is off about my dream. It's the realness that makes me want to scream. The fact that I am stuck in the glass tube, no way of getting out, no way of escaping, screaming that I want out of this place, being thrown up into the air where you cannot see anyone or something besides darkness. But instead of placing me with all of the other tributes, I get thrown down into the ocean, deep, deep, down. I see the other tributes, most just watching and all they do to help is stare, but one or two diving in after me- for some reason trying to save my life. But the two start to have red water coming from every pore in their body, blood coming from where which way, making my scream, sending salt water into my lungs. I try to swim up to the top, to air, but I just keep sinking down the father I try to go. Soon I'm surrounded in the darkness and that's usually where I wake up, one of my sisters shaking me awake.
" It's different from that, you know how my dreams are." I hiss.
" No, sometimes your dreams come a little true and usually they are expected things like there will be a great catch one of the days this week or that it'll rain!" Trent hisses back.
" No. Just, no." I sigh, knowing that fighting with this boy would be too much to deal with right now.
" So how was the swim today?" He asked.
" I think that I will forever be pruned, just the way I want to be." I laugh a little.
" Just the way that almost all of the woman that work in the town are. I mean have you seen them once they come out of the water?" He asked.
The man are the ones that fish and trap things in the water, the woman are the ones that dive for things under the water. Woman are the ones that have to go deep down into the sea to find things like clams and sea snails that people in the district like so much. Woman can do it so much better then men because they have a little more body heat to be able to control the cold with, making it a little better to work with. I have never even been able to go into the ocean with the woman doing those things, I am a Victor's child and until I get married or until my father dies, I will stay in Victor Village, living the privileged life. But one day, I will be living in the town with the other people, with a possible husband, and we both will be working for our living off of the ocean.
" It's supposed to start at seven thirty." Trent sighs, knowing whats on my mind the most.
" What time is it now?" I ask, not really wanting to know.
" Seven fifteen. Want me to walk you to your house?" He smiled as he sees that it's only a feet yards away.
" Why not? It's a pretty long walk and I think that I will been all of the strength that I have." I laugh as we cross our arms into one another and march onto the street and slowly move towards the house.
" Do you ever think about what would have happened on the last quarter quell if my father would have been able to save the rebels, if they had succeeded and won, what would have happened?" He asked lightly to make sure that no one hears him make rebel talk.
" The whole world would be a different place Trent. It would be amazing and we would not be worrying about the quarter quell I bet." I smile as we keep walking towards an identical house to his. My sisters waiting on the front steps.
" I would think that we are being watched." Trent smiles as he waves to my fourteen and twelve year old sisters.
" Ten bucks says that my dad told them to wait out for me, to make sure that I have not been messing around with those terrible Odair brothers." I smile a little, nudging him.
" Well I do hear that the older one. . . what is his name. . . Peeta I think it is. . . he is a terrible person. I mean he is always flirting around with all these different woman and I mean he really thinks that he's all full of himself. Always trying to take away his younger brothers girl. What is that boys name?" He smiles back at me.
" Hmm. . . let me think about it for a second. . . Oh! I have it! It's Rent! Yes Rent is the other boys name!" I laugh as we walk towards the front steps.
" Well it was lovely to walk you this far Madam, but I think that I will go before your sisters send a trident through my heart." He laughs as he bows towards me and then starts to job back towards his house.
" Hey Trent!" I yell.
" What?" He calls back.
" If we find out that we have to be paired up for this quarter quell, you'll be the person that I run to. Because we all know that these two can't kill for shit!" I smile as I turn towards my siblings that see them shooting daggers at me. " What? I'm saving the both of you two's lives here. Be happy that I don't pick one of you." I laugh as I shake their heads and walk between them and into the house.
" Dad! I'm home!" I yell through the house, taking my boots off at the front door and looking up the staircase to see no movement and hear sizzling in the kitchen.
" Good to see that you're home Sum, pass me a little of that butter right there." He replies with a smile.
" Sure. Whatcha making?" I ask, looking at the pan.
" Fried Scallops." He says and my stomach does flips, even the smell sends me right out of the room.
" Good thing I made sure that we are stocked up on shrimp." Good. Something that I can handle.
My father is my hero, he is a survivor, not because of the games, but because of all of the hell that he has been put through since then. From losing my mother to the hunger games, winning her back, and then losing her again all because of a hurricane and no one would even stop to bring her in the boat with her. My mother still worked down on the docks from time to time, helping bring in the boats and make sure that everything was set in place, she never went out of the water. But one day she decided to bring my youngest sister, Autumn along with her, since my father was off on one of the pre-hunger game interviews, and me and my other sister were at school, no one could take care of her. Somehow Autumn had fallen into the water and my mother was the first, and only, one to dive after her. They got caught up in the storm and by the time that Meliex had gotten to the spot where they had been, my mother was gone and my sister was nearing there too. It took everything Meliex had to revive my sister and drive the boat back into shore.
" He's not even mad." I whisper as my sisters walk in.
" Too worried." Spring, the middle sister smiles.
" Oh." I sigh, giving a look back in the kitchen as I move towards the living room, finding my place in a overstuffed lounge chair and turning on the television. Turning it on sends a spark of tension through the whole house. It's too close to be time.
Soon everyone starts to file into the room together, my sisters sit in the love chair as my father scoops me up into his lap. Thought I am the oldest child, I still love to sit in my fathers lap, it's one of the only places besides the ocean where I feel safe and peaceful all in one sweep. He wraps his arms around me and holds me like I'm five again, wrapping his scent of the ocean and lavender around me. I smile as I turn to the TV and watch as Ires Snow, the President, comes onto the television.
" Good evening." My heart stops, from the way that she's smiling I can tell that she's up to something evil, it's in the way the corners of her moth crook upwards. By the time that I return to watching the television the envelope's already open. " For the quarter quell and the one hundredth Hunger Games, we will have. . . an eligible child from each victors house and the victor as well, working as one team."
My heart drops. That means that Finnick or Annie and one of their sons will be going into the games, and my dad and me or my sisters will be going into the games as well. My head starts to race, I can hear someone screaming and don't realized until someone – my father- has their arms tightly around me, that it's me screaming. Soon after I'm done screaming the hyperventilating comes over me. My father will be going back into the games. Autumn just stares at the television, tears forming up in her eyes as she stares. Spring openly cries out as she throws everything off of the coffee table. I walk out of the house and head straight for the ocean.