Well, here's my first go at a Hunger Games story. I hope you enjoy. Please review!
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Past and Present
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My father thought my mother's past was something to be ashamed of.
My mother thought it was something to be proud of.
My sister thought it was cool, but not in front of friends.
Me? Well, I just don't know...
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Flashback
"Cinna," said mum, softly, "come over here, I want to tell you about my past."
"Your past?" I asked as I jumped up onto her knee.
"Yes, love, and it's your past too."
"What do you mean?"
"Just listen to the story, Cinna."
And with that, I curled up onto her knee and let my mother's bird-like voice lift me to a world where a story heightened your senses. Where you can touch, smell, see, feel, and taste every little thing in the world my mother painted.
"Your grandparents, my parents, where good people, Cinna, they were wonderful, both of them. My mother's voice could halt even the best trained Jabberjay, and my father's strength was more than any other in the district-"
"-Which district?"
"Don't interrupt. District 13, love, they came from District 13. My mother was called Arianne, I don't know exactly why, mother always used to say that my great grandmother had chosen it because it was an old name. Older than Panem."
"Older than Panem? Then where did she find it?"
"I honestly don't know, Cinna. Now, where was I? Ah yes...
"She had long black hair like mine and deep, sea-blue eyes with your golden flecks that always made her look as timeless as the Universe. She was of medium height, and had full lips with a little nose. She spent her life smiling, she always said: 'frowning creates frown-lines. And frown-lines are unladylike.' At least, that's what she said whenever I had a tantrum. Her voice was musical, Jabberjays and Mockingjays alike stopped to her here speak, let alone sing. When she opened herself to a melody it felt as if the whole of Panem stopped to hear her. She always wanted to live life to its full, and that why she helped the people of District 13 before it was destroyed."
"You mean, she joined the rebellion?"
"Yes, but don't let your father hear you saying that.
"sMy father was called Nolan, Chariot fighter, Champion, and it fitted him right down to the bone. He hated losing, win and he'd be teasing you for hours, lose and he would get himself into a drunken stupor and shout himself silly. He was a strong man, the strongest, he would carry me round and round District 12 when I was young, and, of course, you as well, before he passed away. He was always laughing, and always winning. Weight lifting, Shooting, Hunting, Swimming, Building, Cooking, Baking, Cleaning, Dancing, Singing, Fighting, Painting you name it, I'm betting he could do it. He was brilliant at everything he tried."
"What did he look like, mum?"
"He was tall, built to fight, with ginger hair, matching his fiery temper, and soft green eyes. He had a wide mouth that he wasn't afraid to use, he would talk for hours on end, give him a topic and he could start a full-scale debate. He was a loud man, but a friendly one, everyone in District 13, and then District 12 was his friend, he used to go round in rowdy groups, singing drunken songs, and laughing until he pulled himself through the door. His voice was deep and strong; if he spoke you couldn't help but listen for anything you said would be drowned out by the sheer volume. My mother was the only person he would stop for. To hear her sing and smile and laugh, he would do anything.
"They joined the rebellion to help people, they saw the Capitol as wrong, like so many others in District 13, their jobs where clear: my mother stayed in the District looking after children, healing the wounded and keeping peoples' spirits up. My father fought on the front line when the time came, he marched forward with battle cries filling the air. He fought for days and hardly ever sustained an injury, but when he did, he would fight until he could fight no more. Until he had to be carried back to the makeshift hospital. To my mother.
"Of course, you know what happened to District 13, how the Capitol dropped bombs onto it and obliterated the whole place. My mother and father where at the hospital when it started, they were uninjured, and everyone in there ordered them to go. After all, my mother was pregnant with me and she would never leave without my father. They fled their home, everything they knew, as the bomb got dropped on the hospital. I don't know my parents' reaction, though I can guess. I expect my mother stood there numbly and cried, watching the hospital crumble to the ground, not a survivor left inside. The wreckage would have gone on for as far as the eye could see, a barren wasteland, smouldering mounds of things that were ones buildings. Some of the mounds where still on fire, the flames licking upwards towards the sky; curling away into the ash clouds above. Creating the only light in a deadened world.
"They fled to District 12, settling down as a miner and his wife. They had no trouble from Peacekeepers because they were never recognised. They were incognito, you know what that means, Cinna? It basically means that no one knew who they where, they disguised themselves in the flow of the Seam. Everyone in the Capitol thought that all from District 13 were dead, they never dreamed that my parents survived. They never dreamed that they would raise a family. That one day, the child of two District 13 survivors would be in the Capitol itself, living among them.
"When I was young, I miraculously managed to escape the Reaping, though I had to watch some of my closest friend walk shakily up onto that dreaded platform. Watch them die on the television screen in front of me. I remember that I used to sit there, my head buried in my arms, my eyes shut tight, my ears blocked; desperately trying to stop the sounds come through. Taliyah's scream forever resonates through my ear." Mum had to wipe a tear away from her eye as she recalled the painful memory. "Tal was my best friend, always there for me, when she was picked I nearly ran up there and shoved her back!"
"What stopped you?"
"Another of my friends, Kalista, held me back, refused to let me run to her."
"Why?"
"Kal saw me sacrificing myself as a pointless venture and wouldn't allow it to happen. I don't hate her for what she did, in fact I love her, she probably saved my life. She definitely saved my sanity. When Tal died it was the first time I ever actually saw a death; her scream made me look up. She was lying on the ground in the middle of a forest. Beautiful little tiger cubs surrounded her."
"Tiger's are beautiful?"
"They were Tiger cubs, and anyway, cubs generally don't try and hurt people. These tigers were Mutts, crosses between Tigers and something a lot more dangerous. And poisonous. That's how she died: poison. She managed to get rid of the Mutts with the help of an ally from District 6, who eventually won the games, but one of the beasts had poisoned her and she died slowly in the other girl's arms." Now mum was really crying, tears flowing in a waterfall down her face.
"You don't have to carry on, mum." She just smiled.
"I met your father when I was sixteen, and of course you know the rest. How he managed to get a job with the Gamemakers last year. I'm proud of him, I really am..."
"But..."
"But without the Gamemakers no one would die, and I can't forget that fact. Every time I see Gene all I can here is Tal's scream. Her last sound." My mother's voice trailed off and I hugged her hard.
Flashback End
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I'd only been about eight back then. Hadn't really understood what she'd been saying. That was until she was dragged away by the Peacekeepers for treason. She'd joined the rebellion, she'd told me the night before they came why, it was because she couldn't forgive them for what they'd done, how they'd burned down District 13, how they'd watched Taliyah die and enjoyed the pain. It was odd; my mother could never stay angry for long; if I did something wrong and set her off, she would calm down in a matter of minutes, I had no idea that she'd been holding in all that anger, all that pain for so long. So long that she'd finally joined the rebellion.
So long that today, I had to watch my mother die.
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I hope you enjoyed, I'll try and update soon ;)