Just a Game
Chapter 1: Allies (Adrien)
I really don't know how to describe the scene in front of me. After going two days without proper resources, I decided that enough was enough and set up my own trap for any game.
What I didn't expect was to trap an actual human.
I recognized her; the girl from District 8, Marinette I think her name was, the one with those soft pink lips, gorgeous blue eyes and a petite physique whom at first glance didn't seem like much of a threat, but after her score of 10 in individual training, all of us were scratching our heads at how she got a good score that you would usually see from a Career.
I can see the sneer on her face as she dangles from the trap I had set, her arms crossed over her chest firmly. We stared each other down in silence until she finally spoke.
"Well?" She spat, her voice dripping with disgust. "Aren't you going to kill me?" I blinked, shaking my head and her eyes contorted from anger to confusion.
"Isn't that why you trapped me here?" I broke into a laugh.
"I was actually just looking for food; didn't think someone like you would get trapped, what with your individual training score and all." I explained, walking towards her, knife in hand. I see her flinch slightly before I start to cut the rope that was holding her up.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like? I'm freeing you,"
"Why, aren't you a Career?"
I sigh. "I may be from a Career district, but I refuse to associate myself with them," she didn't seem convinced.
"Look," she trailed off, realizing that she never caught my name.
"Adrien," I respond.
"Adrien. How do I know I could trust you?" she spoke. She did have a point. "How do I know that I'm not going to end up without a head or maybe a knife in the back?"
"If I hung around with those Careers since the very beginning, then I would've stayed. But those guys are too arrogant and selfish for their own good; I happen to personally know the female tribute from my District and she's honestly not very pleasant to be around," I say, the rope now loose as I lowered her down gently.
"Thanks," she mumbles as I untie the rope from her ankle. "You're welcome," I mumble back, the rope now loose as I proceed to wind it back up.
"No use setting another trap up," I chuckle as I look at her, getting lost in her soft blue eyes staring me down.
"What are you looking at?" she questions, her eyebrow raised.
I blink and shake my head, my face turning red in the process.
"N-nothing. Come on, the sun's going down." I turn and start walking but pause after walking a few steps and looking back, noticing that she hadn't moved an inch from where I had accidentally trapped her.
"Well? Aren't you coming,"
"What makes you think I'm going to believe you? For all I know, you're just doing this to lure me into some other trap." she crosses her arms over her chest once again and I walk back over to her.
"Is there something about me that seems threatening?" I stepped closer to her. She kept eye contact with me as our faces were now inches away from each other. "Besides the fact that I'm a Career and apparently can't be trusted?" she remains silent as we continue our little staring contest.
"You know nothing about me except that I'm from District 1," I tell her, stepping away as I began to pace. "And yet you're just like everyone else. Everyone is so quick to judge me because my father is a Stylist so I should know about fashion or that I'm from District 1 and that I should be allied with the Careers! But what if I don't want that! I don't want to be a part of any of this after what my mom had been through!" I stop again, panting a little after my rant before looking back at her, seeing a look of shock on her face.
"I-I didn't know…"
"Of course, you didn't," I laughed bitterly. "No one ever does," I could see that I've somewhat frightened her.
"Look, I'm sorry for unloading all of my drama on you. I just had to let that out," I told her before I looked behind her and could see someone aiming their bow and arrow in her direction.
"LOOK OUT!" I leaped and pinned her down as the arrow zoomed past us in the nick of time. I look down at her.
"Are you okay?" she nods, her blue eyes wide as I looked back at the archer as they loaded another arrow.
"We have to go," I got up, helping her up in the process as we both ran from the attacker. I unload my bo staff and extend it, swinging it as a way to deflect the arrows as I noticed Marinette take out a yo-yo from her back pocket, unwinding it and letting it fly onto a tree branch. I feel her grip my waist as she swung us onto another tree branch.
I couldn't help but gape as she winds her yo-yo before my mouth formed a smirk.
"So that's how you got a 10 in individual training,"
"I'll explain later, the archer's coming," before I could say any more, the both of us were swinging from tree to tree to avoid the archer until they ran out of arrows.
"Shouldn't we go down there and fight?" I questioned.
"Well, you were the one who said we should run," she countered as we landed by the base of a tree. "But be my guest," she said as she winds her yo-yo again and leaps off to another tree. The archer was close, with only three arrows left in their quiver as I got ready to defend myself, one arrow was close to hitting me in the eye but I dodged it quickly with my staff.
I proceeded to run. "Uh, Marinette? I need a little help here!" I called out to the girl but she was nowhere in sight.
"Where could she be?" I looked around, though it was a little hard to with what very little sunlight there was now. But, I had a choice to make; keep running or fight. Since the archer's weapon was long range I decide to keep running.
"AGH!" I felt a piercing pain on my shoulder and I fall, hitting my head against the base of a tree. The pain was unbearable as I could hear the footsteps slow a little bit.
I roll so that I could see the face of the one who wounded me but only see their body hanging from the tree. The cannon sounds as the person's body sways before it drops. I hear someone leap down in the tree and breathe a sigh of relief when I see Marinette, untying her yo-yo from the now dead tribute's neck and winding it back up.
She then proceeds to get the backpack off of the dead tribute's back. She looks back, our eyes meeting once again as she walks over and kneels down in front of me.
"You had every reason to abandon me, you know?" I whisper, wincing at the pain in my shoulder.
"And not thank you for giving me a head's up about that archer?" she replies, a faint smile on her face before it contorted to one of concern.
"Here," she takes out a first aid kit and looks at the arrow sticking out from my shoulder. She looks around for a moment before she picks up a stick.
"Bite this," I looked at her confused. "Just trust me," at this point, I kind of had to as I bit the stick. What happened next wasn't exactly pleasant as she pulls the arrow right out of my shoulder.
"SON OF A-" I bit the stick harder as I felt tears spring up from my eyes from the pain.
"What the hell was that?" I looked at her as she then she shows me the arrow that was one embedded into my shoulder.
"That was just the first step in healing your wound. After all, we are allies, aren't we?" she smiles at me again and I felt my heart flutter. "Yeah, I guess we are,"
"Okay, try to take out your jacket and your shirt so I can get a better look at your wound," I complied with her demands as I attempted to take out my jacket without further injuring my shoulder.
"How are you going to heal this without any sunlight?" I questioned, noting that the sun had fully descended from the sky and the moon was now shining in its place. She responds by taking out a pair of night vision glasses, putting them on. "Like this," she smirks as she helps me remove the rest of my jacket and my shirt. I saw a faint blush dusted her cheeks as she got a glimpse of my upper torso.
"Like what you see?" I teased.
"W-what? No!" she stutters and I chuckle.
"Lean forward a little bit," she says firmly, her cheeks still pink from my teasing. We sat in silence as she tends to my wound.
"So, what's life like for you in District 8?" I ask to try and pass the time. She stays quiet for a moment before she spoke. "It's a simple life." she begins. "My dad works in our family owned bakery while my mom would work in one of the textile factories." she began.
"I would help my dad sometimes; the bakery is pretty popular but often times we don't make many sales." she sighs. "Before the Reaping, my dad fell ill and I had to take over the bakery until he got better and he keeps getting worse by the day."
"Don't you have anyone else helping or watching the shop in his stead?" I ask. She shakes her head. "We can't afford for anyone to work at the bakery at a reasonable salary. With my mom constantly working in the textiles factory and with me being here…" her voice breaks as tears began to fall from her eyes and I reach up to wipe them away. She seemed surprised but my action but she didn't stop me.
"I-I'm sorry," she whispers as she finishes disinfecting my wound and proceeding to bandage it up.
"No, I'm sorry for bringing that up. At least you have a family that loves you," I find myself saying. "My father, being a Stylist is not even home a lot anymore and my mom...well she's gone," I look away.
"Oh," she says.
"Yeah," I began. "She, uh, she actually was a Victor. She won when she was just 17," she looks at me.
"Really?" she sounded somewhat surprised.
"Yeah, I was practically born in Victor's Village, the pride of my District resting on my mom's shoulders but she said the Games weren't something she was proud of. She was forced to kill her only ally in the Games by her District partner, whom she described was a manipulative and sadistic psycho. In retaliation and rage, she killed him, making her the winner of the Hunger Games that year." I looked up at the night sky, hearing the crickets chirp.
"What happened after she was sent home?"
"Growing up, I would frequently hear her scream from nightmares that haunted her for so long. I sometimes heard my father try to comfort her and as years passed, she distanced herself from both myself and my father." I paused before I continued.
"The year my name was entered in the Reaping for the first time, she was gone; disappearing without a trace. My father didn't exactly react well to her leaving and gradually distanced himself from me."
"So, you lived a pretty lonely life, huh?" I nod.
"Yeah, I still had friends, but I was always envious of them because they had a family that loved them while I had a distant father and a missing mother. I felt alone in that big house in Victor's Village." I shook my head, looking back at her.
"You're lucky. I would easily trade my life for one like yours...one where I had a family that loved me," My eyes looked downwards.
"All done," she leans back and observes her work. "Oh, you have a scratch on your forehead," she reaches out to touch it gently and I wince. "Hold still for me?" I nod again as she begins to treat the scratch.
"There," she smiles at me before she looks behind me. "Hey look, a cave," I look behind me.
"Let's hope it's not a trap," I chuckle and I hear her giggle as she helps me up and we walk in. Marinette went in first since she did have the night vision glasses. "Coast is clear," I proceed to walk in. The cave steeped a bit underground so it was easy to cover it from any passing tribute.
Moonlight made for a good light source in the cave as I sat down with my back against the cave wall. I see Marinette set out some of the things from the backpack she got from the dead tribute. She laid out a sleeping bag, some packs of dried fruit as well as a bottle of water, another first aid kit, and supplies to build a fire.
After setting up a fire, we sit in comfortable silence, rationing the dried fruit and nibbling them in silence.
"So, a yo-yo huh?" I see her smile and nod. "Yeah, my mom gave me my first yo-yo when I was 7 and I had spent hours on end learning different skills from it and I guess it was efficient enough to become a weapon. I was surprised when I found a yo-yo as part of the weapons the Capitol has provided; I mean, I would've made one myself." she chuckles and I find myself chuckling as well.
"Any other weapons you're good with?" I asked.
"Well, there's the knife but that's pretty much it," she shrugs as she finishes the last of her dried fruit.
"How about you? I've seen what you can do with a sword," I just shrug.
"It's not a big deal really. As a kid growing up, my father made me do fencing and I guess my teacher saw how good I was and decided to further hone my skill at the academy,"
"How's your wound holding up?" she looks over at my shoulder. "Fine. It stills stings but I'm fine." "Okay, but let me know when you need me to re-dress it,"
"Of course," I nod
"I never got to thank you properly; you know for giving me that heads up about the archer," she looks down before looking back up at me.
"I should be the one to thank you; for not letting me die and for dressing my wounds. I really appreciate that." I notice a piece of her hair falling in front of her face. I reach out and brush it behind her ear and she looks up at me, eyes wide, lips slightly parted and cheeks dusted pink.
I didn't know what was up with me as I leaned forward slowly. There was something about this girl that was intriguing. She was damn stubborn but her stubbornness itself was irresistible. I cup her face with my hand, our faces close, lips inches away from touching.
"We can't," she whispers, pulling away her face going from pink to red. I wanted to agree since we've really just met but...I don't know.
It's like my heart was telling my that I was in love with this girl.
"I'm going to get some shut eye." She said after a few beats of silence. "Wake me if your arm's bothering you or if there's an attack," she lays down in the sleeping bag.
"Goodnight," Marinette tucks herself in and soon, she's out like a light.
Tomorrow would be a new day, and I know for a fact it won't be easy.
AN: Hello there. Yes, I started another multi-chapter story but I couldn't resist! This one won't be a long one I assure you.