A/N: I just felt like updating again :P ; reminder that I own nothing except the content of this fanfiction. Also, I'm continuing with the lyric formation.
Chapter One.
I walk this empty street.
Alone again; as usual. Waking from my daydream of happiness, I glide on fine white socks across my bedroom floor and skid to the mirror, frowning faintly. It was reaping day and I was scared. My older brother, Calder, had just hit eighteen and had his name in that ball five times, I think. Tessera was not an issue, as he never took any; and our reaping woman, Missy Mae, so rarely happened to pick eighteen year olds as tributes, but still, I was scared.
I did my best to look pretty on that morning tinged with fog, but it was hard. Naturally, I wasn't an attractive person; usually I paid indifference to this detail. However, today it was impossible; my blood-shot, widely spaces, dark green eyes lacked the thick and lush lashes so many of my fellow classmates had. My slim, long nose raced down and nearly touched my small cracked lips. And my ears were pointed and drawn too far back, so much that I often used my limp mahogany hued hair to cover it and brush just past my shoulders. Using face powder and various mushy creams, I made myself look decent enough for the Reaping. I pinned dangling earrings to my ears and put on a white dress on the top of my undergarments. The dress reached my lower thigh and had a tight black band just above my stomach, meant to give me a desirable figure. Putting on my comfy ebony boots rather than the red ballet shoes laid out for me, I exited my room numbly and sat at our round, wooden kitchen table. Calder came out of his room in a formal shirt and jeans, and I knew he didn't have to try hard to look good, not like I did.
He eyes me like I'm a bug. "Good morning," I say in a strained tone.
Calder snorts and greets me back in his usual loud sneer. "Hi, Annie."
Things between us are a little weird. He's ashamed of me and my 'whacked brain', and I dislike his arrogant strut and over-the-top style. We manage, though, him and me, without too much argument. I care for him very dearly, even if the same cannot be said for his feelings toward me. "You look nice," I offer.
Calder smiles knowingly, as he always does, and a lump sticks in my throat. I do not look nice, I think, and he does, and everyone else will, and he knows it. I fidget with the thought for a moment until I get used to it and accept its' existence. "Let me take you to Reaping, now. You can eat afterward," he says. I pick my head up, shocked.
"Mother isn't going?"
"And neither is Michael." He replies, bored at my ignorance. I also dislike how he always knows everything, and how he calls our parents by their first names, too; mother being Julie, father being Michael. "They say it's too painful. You do realize that they both lost dear friends to the Reaping don't you?"
I sigh. "Yes, I know. Let's just go."
We walk out silently, and as soon as we hit the street, we know that we are late. He hurries forth and deserts me, leaving me to walk the empty street on my own. As if he's too cowardly to be seen with me…this is true. We both know it.
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
How many lives lost, how many hopes crushed, because of the Hunger Games? I can't begin to think it, can't understand it. I breathe in once, exhale slowly, steadying my pace. Why rush to a place of despair, one where everyone is waiting for a person, two people, to be sentenced to death? Or maybe not death, maybe a lifetime filled with horror at the Games and what they've seen and lived through.
Death would probably be easier though.
When the city sleeps
By the time we've approached, the square is quiet. Missy Mae has already spoken briefly about the games and our Mayor, Reginald Dover, has read the list of victors. Finnick Odair is sitting on the stage, smiling in a frozen fashion. He's like Calder; a conceited jerk, I muse silently, and immediately regret it. My brother is nowhere to be found at the moment, so I silently wish him luck and safety. Mags, a woman nearing old age, is beside him on his right, and on her left is another old woman, except this one looks like she belongs six feet under. I'm assuming this is Nyline Gray, our eldest living victor. She isn't a mentor anymore since she can barely speak, but her dull eyes flash as she takes us all in—pain, visible and startling, surprises me. Of course, she isn't so old that she's lost feelings, but she's not smiling rigidly like Finnick or expressionless like Mags. She is scowling, upset, tears welling in her eyes. How different this is from a victor's traditional grin.
Missy says brightly, "Let's start with ladies, shall we?" The crowd mumbles assent, because what choice do they have? She goes and reaches one slender arm into the ball, shuffles it around, makes a show of drawing out a slip. "Annnnnnnnnnnnnieeee Crrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrresta!" she cheers, rolling the letter r and lengthening the name. The name. My name. My name. It's me.
Everyone's eyes are tired and glazed, uncaring because they don't know me, not really. To them, I'm just Julie Cresta's insane daughter—or if not that, verging on insanity. They don't clap until Missy reminds them to, and then they push me forward with their warm bodies, getting me a step towards death. I go up on stage with shaky, cracking knees. My name, my name.
"Hi there!" Giggles Missy. "Wait a moment while I choose your counterpart." She goes and reaches into another ball, this one filled with male names, and all I'm thinking is nothing. Nothing except the fact that she has just called my name. My name. Why mine?
What happens next is unexpected just as much as it is anticipated. Maybe the reaping ball is rigged, surely it is, for she calls, "Calder Cresta," in that same ridiculous voice she used for announcing my own name. My name. Calder's name. Calder and me. Calder and I.
He is a stone, and the cheers are sad this time, because everyone knows Calder, and he is popular. Expressionless face like Mags, fists for hands. Dry eyes. My brother.
"Siblings, aren't you?" Missy squeals. "How exciting! Come on, District Four; give them a round of applause!" They clap heartily, on cue, and I cry without sound. I try to stop but can't; one, two, three, my tears fall, and I hang my head to hide them. The city shuffles uncomfortably below me, and desolately treks off. Stupidly, I have expected them to recognize us in some way, to do something. Of course they haven't; this is entertainment to them. The people are blind to what it really is, and I was too, up until now. Or maybe they're not blind—maybe their eyes are closed. Maybe the whole city is just shut-eyed, sleeping.
And I'm the only one; I walk alone.
This room with silk drapes, a plush white rug to cover the marble tiles, round dark wooden table like the one at home and big queen bed to relax on, is an illusion. Not really, but its' beauty is an illusion. What do they want to do, have me experience luxury before I die? Like I said, my family wasn't a rich one, but we were well off enough to have dined comfortably and get little treasures like candy every Sunday and big birthday celebrations (for Calder, really; I was fine with a cupcake and a new book to read), so this wasn't really new to me. The white-clothed Peacekeeper ushered in my first guest, and I wasn't surprised to see it was my mother.
"Mom," I say, and walk into her warm embrace. Her hair smells of the jewelry she makes to sell, unique and soft and purely indescribable, though its' scent is distinguishable enough. Her cotton shirt is one she's made, too, and I remember fondly how she wanted me to follow in her life profession. Which was what, really? Trinket owner, clothing maker, seller of anything and everything there is to sell, I think, but am jolted from that thought with another startling burst of reality.
She pulls me back, studies me. "Annie, I'm so sorry," she moans, and starts to cry softly. I cry with her. "I love you," we say once, twice, until she realizes that the object in her hand has been obscured from my view and giggles childishly, like Missy Mae would after reading aloud tribute names.
"This is for you." She brings out a golden anklet and clasps it around my left ankle for me, bending down with her stiff knees. "I made it myself."
The peacekeeper returns for her, my mother, a really graceful middle-aged woman with soft auburn curls, and I'm shocked. So little time with her. "Send my love to…to everyone," I sniffle. "I love you too. Take care of Delilah."
Delilah is my pet dog, a small fluffy brown creature who serves dutifully as my only friend, and thinking of her I begin to cry again. Julie, my mother, waves forlornly and her face retreats behind the thick, heavy door.
My next visitor takes a while to arrive, but he does. Dad; I knew he would come, and I have been anticipating his appearance because who else is there for me? Calder has a girlfriend and people who like him in addition to mom and dad, but these two are what I've got; all I've got, really. Not that I mind it.
It is harder for me to hug him because of his bulging belly, but I cry against him anyway before realizing this isn't a good idea, all this crying. I sniff loudly and Dad promptly whips out a handkerchief, and I blow my nose and dry my tears. "Hey," he says, as he ordinarily would.
"Dad, hello."
"Happy birthday," he comments aimlessly, and I remember. Today I am sixteen. Why didn't my mother remind me, then? Surely she has remembered. And then I think maybe she didn't tell me because she knows it will sadden me, because things like that make my unstable mind a little dizzy. Complicated situations, like bad occasions mingling with good. Like my birthday and reaping day, especially when I just happen to be chosen as a tribute…Alongside my brother.
"Oh yeah, Dad. Thanks."
"I'll miss you 'round the house, Annie."
"I'll miss being around the house, too. And I'll miss you."
"Come back to District Four, okay?"
Impossible. I will not return and he knows it, but he is trying to make me feel better; trying to make it seem as if I stand a chance. "I'll try hard, Dad," I promise, thinking that I'll fail nonetheless. Knowing I'll fail, because that is what I've done best my whole life; fail. Fall short, always a disappointment. This flaw of mine, unfortunately, will just happen to be fatal in the arena. Since thinking of the arena makes me feel like crying again, I tune back into my father and listen attentively.
"Yes, promise that for me," he sighs, and kisses my cheek in a tender motion, with fatherly love. "I brought you a book," Dad adds, taking out a large, dusty brown book, bounded poorly and smelling of mold. My favorite type of story, old and happy.
I laugh, as it is something he would do, my caring father. "Thanks."
"The least I can do," he shrugs, and then that same cruel figure appears at the door per Capitol ruling, ordering my father to go. "Goodbye for now!" he says with a parting, sad smile.
The door slams, blowing back air into my face. My hair lifts lightly, and then falls, and I am rushed onto a train by yet another onslaught of Peacekeepers. Two visitors. Pathetic.
I realize as I step onto the train that I forgot to say 'goodbye' back to my father. So I say it now, quietly, so that no one can hear me. "'Bye for now," I say to the floor, thinking; goodbye forever.
A/N: Was the 'promise you'll return' scene too much like Katniss/Prim? I certainly hope not; anyway, bye until next time!