Hey guys! It's C.K. I've wanted to write for Starvation for a while, but I've been putting it off. But I finally did - I hope you like it. I wrote this pretty quickly, but I really wanted to write about Clove. She's just so interesting.
The theme is "Epic".
Enjoy!
Epic: a long series of events characterized by adventures or struggle
When Clove Marcela is born, everyone who is anyone knows she is special.
How can't she be? She is born to not one, but two past Victors, both rich and high in society. Clove is everything any little girl would want to be - smart, talented, and beautiful. She is born with a silver spoon in her mouth, and almost instantaneous fame. She has been given the easiest and most effortless of lives.
(But she is also born to be killed.)
Even from infancy, Clove knows how special she is. Her first word is not Mommy or Daddy, but "Clove" because she realizes she "was just that important," as her mother puts it. She walks before the other children, talks before them. She even grows her teeth before them. Yes, it is obviously a sign. Clove is important.
(But important for all the wrong reasons.)
When Clove grows up a little, she starts to get the attention of the boys in her class. But seven year old Clove won't have any of them - why should she? She is special, raised for the most brave of jobs, and deserves much more than a simple, common boy. She wants her knight in shining armor, riding in on a white stallion to sweep her off her feet.
(But no one tells her that this might not be possible.)
When she's nine years old, she finally meets him. He's tall, and incredibly handsome. He screams of arrogance and high-class, and she wouldn't have it any other way. Even his name rings of superiority: "Cato." How beautiful of a name is that? She thinks about him every day, and writes her name tacked onto his last in her diary.
(Yet she doesn't know that he might be slaughtered alongside her.)
Troubles start for Clove when she reaches the sixth grade. On the first day of school, instead of heading to the classrooms, she heads to the Career Center, armed with a fancy set of new knives and high expectations. She walks up to the building, Cato at her side, and breathes in the smell of sweat and a rusty scent that sends a thrill down her spine.
Cato has the same look on his face that mirrors her own. His mouth splits into a grin as he looks sideways at her.
"Scared?" he asks cockily, gripping his new mace tightly.
Clove raises an eyebrow, giving her own trademark arrogant smirk. "Not in the slightest."
Quickly, he grabs her hand, holding on tight for a second. Then they walk in through the double doors, both not standing tall and proud.
(But soon they'll wish they'd stayed outside.)
On the second day of training, Clove meets the older students. They scoff and sneer at her and the other newbies, cracking jokes and pushing them around. It's all harmless fun, Clove thinks, holding her own against them.
But during the last hour of the day, three boys grab hold of her on her way to her class, shoving her roughly into a closet. They slam the door quickly behind them.
They don't even speak, don't say a word to her. Instead, they just flash malicious smiles, only the whites of their eyes and their teeth showing. Clove tries to scream, but one of the boys covers her mouth. Hands grip roughly at her clothing, and she can't get away, no matter what she does. She's too weak. For the first time in her life, she is helpless.
One of the boys hits her down to the floor, and her head catches against the corner of a shelf, tearing through her skin and clicking against bone. She's knocked unconscious
When she wakes up, she's alone and completely naked. Her head is throbbing and blood pools on the floor around her. She hears no sounds outside - everyone must have gone home. For a moment, she wonders why they didn't care enough to look for her.
Blinking back tears, she pulls on her clothes, then runs out of the building and to her house, trying to block out everything that has just happened. She aches and hurts and just wants to curl up and die.
She takes an hour long shower, still feeling filthy when she gets out, and promises herself that she will never, ever be treated that way again.
(And she never was.)
When she turns fourteen, Clove's father commits suicide, leaving behind only an empty bottle of pills and a suicide note.
Clove does not cry, even though she wants to. She's learned over the past two years at the Training Center that crying shows weakness, and weakness will get you killed.
Clove is not allowed to read the letter - her mother says it is too sad, and that a girl her age shouldn't have to read something like that. She tells her, though, that Daddy said he loved her very much and that this wasn't her fault. It was the Games'.
After a moment of hesitation, her mother quickly adds, "He…he also begged you not to go." Her face is full of sorrow, gaze focused on the floor.
"But you want me to go, Mother, right?" Clove says, confused.
Her mother gives a heavy sigh. "I'm not so sure anymore, Clovie."
(But, of course, she still does it.)
Over the next two years, Clove Marcel is beaten, broken, and almost entirely diminished. She's a shell of the person she once been, replaced by a cold and heartless murderer. The Training Center seems to strip away everything she is as an individual. Even Cato doesn't seem to understand anymore.
Because now, she is only intent on her one goal:
To live.
(But she's not going to complete it.)
At sixteen, the Career training is intensified. This is Clove's year - the year she will win.
But the sweetness is taken more bitterly than she had wished. Cato, her one love, her partner in crime, is her Tribute partner. They're not fooled; they both know the rules - twenty three must die, one must win. And they know that one - maybe both - will be gone.
The night before the Reaping is the only one they spend together - talking, laughing, kissing. They are more open than they have ever been. Why shouldn't they be? It is their last chance to see the other alive.
(And yet they both still go.)
Fast forward a week, and the Clove that she had once been - a bright, confident child with the spark in her eyes and dreams outside of the Arena - is completely diminished. Any trace of her that hadn't been stolen by Career training is now completely gone. Even Cato can't recognize her, though he too is only half-sane.
Clove knows it, and for that, she hates herself. She wishes that she had obeyed her father's last wish - she wishes she had never come into this damn Games.
She wants to die.
And so she does - for once, Clove gets what she really, truly wants.
When the boy catches her, she is at first frightened. But then she realizes that this is her escape - her way out. So she clams up, patiently waiting.
She doesn't use her training as the boy - Thresh, her savior - lifts her up. She catches a flash of slate grey whipping past her ear, then closes her eyes as the rock smashes down on her skull.
Afterwards, her dead body is left, cold and limp, on the forest floor, waiting to be taking away by the hover plane. None of the other tributes give her a second glance as they leave, but if they had, they might have seen the small smile settled on her lifeless face.
(Because - finally - her struggle is over.)
Thanks if you read this far. Please review!