They sat in front of a library computer and scrolled through thousands of results of fanfiction.
"Okay, so let's pick a random number of the Games that you could easily manipulate and go for it," Durante suggested. Reading Hunger Games had taken a lot of sneaking about and hiding them from her Mom. All of them but Dusty had read the books—he hated reading. Blackie said she'd read them, but Leona never took her word for anything. All of them had seen the movies. Movies as a whole had been terrifying at first, but Leona eventually found it very comforting when the monsters and villains of the world were confined to a box. Her mom would flip if she knew anything they did. Leona shivered to imagine what she'd say if she knew what they were about to do. This is so bad Leona, she said to herself, so bad, and yet you do it anyway.
It was even more risky because she knew very little about how fanfiction worked. The next book might tell her, but she hadn't been able to get a copy yet. It wasn't as though she had a mailing address where she could send it. She'd signed up for Tumblr specifically to message the author in hopes of getting hints, but he told her nothing helpful. Spoilers, he claimed.
"I though this is against the rules," Dusty complained. "No fanfiction."
"It's not," Leona bit out.
"You said…"
"The rules say nothing about fanfiction," she determined. "I just normally try to avoid it because their world are even less stable then out own, and then there's…you know…him." She never really explained who he was. He had taken his own headcanons, as they call them, and brought them into the Inkworld, causing extreme chaos. Most people she knew liked to pretend he didn't exist or else would mention him only in passing, but she'd read Inkdeath and she knew everything. As far as she was concerned, the devil himself would have brightened the story in the shadow of Orpheus.
"Click on that one, it's short," Blackie said, jabbing her finger at the screen, trying to point out the word count. Leona rolled her eyes and clicked the link. It was simple English with short snippets. It might actually work. She read through the few short chapters quickly.
"What about this Durante? It's a random number of the games, is clearly fan made, and can easily be built on." He nodded, leaning closer to the screen.
"Perfect. You can write us in as part of the next two chapters."
Leona excitedly opened google docs and resize the window so she could look at her and their words side by side. According to the Ink-trilogy, Orpheus once claimed that you could only use words already in the story, but her mother had proved him wrong. She had verified this on numerous occasions. This time, it should be easy. She stretched her fingers and took a deep breath. Live the story. She closed her eyes and envisioned the characters described so far. She paused for a second, trying to think of American names.
"Okay. I'm going to write us in as tributes," she started with anticipation, "Who should go with who? We have to have a girl and a boy for each district, which means I'll only have to write two short chapters to get us in." They all fell quiet. Prince shrugged.
"I don't care. Can I be in district 12?"
"No. It's three or four, I'm not writing out all the districts. Dusty, look up the districts for me." Leona handed him her phone.
"So….three is tech and four is fishing. Oh, and four has careers…I think…sometimes."
"Let's not pretend to be careers," Leona muttered.
"I don't mind the fishing district," Durante suggested. Leona typed his name under "District Four."
"Is there a fire district?" Dusty asked, leaning to close. She thought about the writer's original words. Who would they pair? She typed both Blackie and Dusty under district 3. Her heart pounded a little. It worked out that she'd brought Blackie, but it could end so badly. She deleted each name and retyped it. No names. That was one of Bethany's rules. It was also a general fanfiction rule.
District 3
Alaura Walters
Danny Ellison
District
Ebony Prince
Dustin…
"Something with Fire this time," Dusty suggested. Leona just grunted and typed Flame. These names were starting to be typical for them. She should probably use more generic names like "Maria," but she was worried that not staying true to their characters would make the pass from one world to another more difficult. She hoped Flame wasn't too much of a personal flare.
"I can't write with all of you hovering like this!" she complained. "Go do something."
"Fine," Blackie said. "You're boring when you get writing anyway and you never let us help. Let's play sardines upstairs."
"How long do you think it will take?" Durante asked. Leona shrugged. Not too long.
"I'll come fine you when I'm satisfied," she said. Blackie grabbed Durante's hand. "Come on, let her do her boring stuff. Do you think this library has the Avengers? I've wanted to see it ever since that trailer."
"Bring me a book about the military, will you? Oh, and a recipe book. Also anything about survival." She relaxed when they were gone and started to type. She was a decent writer, but matching someone else's style exactly took specific skill.
I hang behind my parents as we walk to the reaping. I am their only child. I don't think I'll be picked. There are many more poor people in the district who probably put their names in a hundred times for food. There was no way I was going to volunteer. Maybe we'd have a volunteer this year. District three never had as many volunteers as one or two. The lady in the square gave her usual speech. "Ladies first" she said and crossed over to the girl's bowl to pick out a name. "Alaura Walters." My mouth drops open.