Clove:
All I know is darkness. There is only darkness, pain, and silent struggles to win a battle against an unbeatable enemy. Time does not exist in the warring waves of my heart and my mind. The unrelenting surf pushes harder to overcome the bit of humanity I have left, on a little island in the dark swells of myself. I am Clove Sevina, supposedly the unbeatable knife-thrower. If they could only see me like this…
The slowly decreasing amount of logic and sensibility within me confronts the ever-aching pain in my heart. I can feel the loss, the loss of someone important to me.
And then there is a little girl, being carried through the waves like a rag doll. I can see her in my mind's eye. She has long dark hair like me, pale skin like mine, the same almond-shaped hazel eyes, but she has innocence in them; the innocence that I never possessed.
"Mother?" she calls out bravely. Silence follows, and the sea pulls her under. I watch, able to do nothing yet knowing that I can do anything within this land. Her head pops up again, and this time her voice rises in a desperate, childish screech. "MOMMY! MOMMY HELP M-!" and she's pulled down again.
I scream. And then I wake up.
The first thing I see when I wake up is a pair of unfamiliar blue eyes. I choke back a sob of fear.
"Yes, she's alive." A tall blonde man straightens up and dusts off his hands.
"Oh, yay," a sarcastic male's voice says. "Great."
"Shut up, Cato," a girl says dryly. Cato? "Not all of us are contemptuous idiots."
"Well, Rena," drawls the boy, "you can't possibly be talking about me. I have never been addressed as a contemptuous idiot."
"You learn something new every day."
"Children, stop fighting," a tired older woman's voice cuts through Cato's response.
"BUT MOM!" they say as one.
"You interrupted my amazing comeback to Rena," Cato complains.
"Cato's an idiot," Rena snaps back. "He'll never come up with one as good as mine."
I raise my head and look at the people whom I've been listening to for some time. Rena is a fair-skinned, blonde girl with green eyes, looking to be a couple years older than Cato. Cato's blue eyes are boiling at me. I know he's seventeen. His mother shares Rena's emerald irises, but it seems they've both got light hair from Mr. Hadley.
"Why am I here?" I rasp, voice hoarse with disuse.
"You're a charity case," Cato says scornfully. "My poor mother was overwhelmed with sympathy for you, and just had to offer you a place to stay."
"Cato!" Mrs. Hadley looks shocked.
"Is it not true?" I challenge her. "So don't bother, I'm leaving."
"They won't let you stay anywhere alone until you're sixteen," Rena calls out. Crap. I still have two years to go.
"Why did you tell her that?" Cato rolls his eyes. "Do you WANT her to stay?"
"Yes, because I need someone else around this house who can kick your ass just as well as I can," Rena replies.
"Pshhhh, you? Kicking my ass? In your dreams, sister."
I smile, but quickly hide it, because happiness can easily equal vulnerability.
"Rena!" Cato's mother says. "Do not talk to your brother that way."
"Why shouldn't I?" she grumbles. "He talks to me like that. Respect your elders, Cato."
His only answer to this is an eye-roll and a rude insult.
"Cato, come with me," Mrs. Hadley says sternly. She leads him out of the room.
Rena grins at me and slips after them.
It has been a month.
I visited the Justice Building intending to apply for a permit that would let me live alone. I was denied. I won't even be fifteen until after the reaping; it's still several months away.
My weak solution has been staying out until one or two in the morning, and leaving the house before sunrise. I've been training harder than ever. My mother, father, and sister are all gone. I will volunteer, whether the Hadleys like it or not.
I've taken up harpoons and bows, maces and clubs. None fit my hand as well as a knife blade. I dare not touch the swords.
I've charged the payments to the Hadleys' bank account; they won't miss it. It must be a fraction of the money Mr. Hadley makes in an hour.
This particular morning, 5:30 am, has been going rather ordinarily, I suppose, save for the absence of Britannicus. On usual occasions he'd be here yelling at me, but it's oddly silent. Only the sound of my breathing pierces the still air every so often.
Today, I've decided to come back to my roots and go through knife-throwing moves.
I throw a small knife that might as well be just a stark metal blade. I notice that instead of my perfect bulls-eye, it sticks slightly to the left of the center dot. That's strange. I don't miss. I pick up a more weighted one and aim it to the center. This one veers down.
"Good lord," I mutter, "what's up with me?"
A ghostly breeze flows through the Academy. It whistles through the crevices of the equipment and ceiling rafters. It vaguely sounds like it's saying "kitten, die."
I bet Cato would like it if I kicked the bucket. Less competition, though I don't know why it bothers him. He's a guy, I'm a girl; we could both be chosen for the Games in the spring, though God forbid we are.
I shiver in the stillness. Dawn light is slowly filling the room and washing out the lights, but the February chill hangs in the air.
A door creaks. I freeze. Who's there? The others don't usually get here until eight.
I hear heavy breathing, as if a person had just run several miles.
"Who is it?" I call out. "Show yourself already."
I swear I hear muffled footsteps pattering through the room.
A huge mass tackles me to the mat. I whip around and claw the first thing I come in contact with, the person's face. He roars and clobbers me in the head. I see stars as I fall back down.
I catch a flash of blonde hair whirring through my vision. It must be Cato.
Stay down, I tell myself. You're out cold. I slacken my muscles and lie flopped on the mat.
I smell something sickly sweet nearby and realize Cato has come prepared. Chloroform? Really?
I crack open an eye very slightly and see Cato's back turned as he soaks a rag. I get up silently, ignoring the burn in my head. I leap up onto a stack of mats and slip into the rafters, wincing at the clang of my running shoe against the metal beams.
He looks up. "Bitch." He knows he can't chase me through the bars. I'm barely ninety pounds, and he easily weighs twice that.
He can't catch me, so he stands there and talks up at me. "You should never have gone anywhere after your mother died," he says savagely. "No one should have helped you. You don't deserve it. They should have just left you there or taken you to the goddamn orphanage, and you would never have been able to keep training, because only God knows how much you can improve from now to the Games despite your age." Cato glares at me. "I wasn't supposed to have competition, I was supposed to be the best of all, and I will not let a teeny little fourteen year old take that AWAY!"
Ah. It's all about my talent.
"You shouldn't be here. It's my year. Mine. I'll make sure of it." He whips around and leaves.
A/N: Haven't written in a whole long time but SCHOOL'S OVER so I have timeeeee.