Hazel Fowl, 70
Victor of the 60th Hunger Games
Hazel's body hurt as she got up from the couch and answered her front door. She was not as young as she once was. She was fifty-five when she was given six newborn children and told to raise them from infanthood.
At seventy years old now, she's tired.
She opened the door and saw Moriah Jackson standing in the doorway. She tried to push her way into the room when Hazel held out her hand. "Did your mother never teach you manners? You wait to be invited in."
She stepped out onto their front porch and moved over to the porch swing and sat down. She leaned the back of her head against the wooden railing of her victorian wooden house and sighed.
"Actually, my mother was out of the picture," Moriah said as she moved over to the swing and sat next to Hazel. "My dad, as well. My grandmother raised me."
"Ah, yes," said Hazel chuckling to herself. "Eden Grant. How is that old cow anyway?" Moriah rolled her eyes and sat down next to her. "I bet she'd be proud of you for carrying on her work. I tell you when she told me that after I had won my Hunger Games, I lost my mind. But I guess things worked out for her, yes?"
"Yeah," said Moriah. "She married my grandpa, Ashton, and she ran Grant Enterprises...into the ground." she had a bitter expression on her face. "Turns out Panem wasn't ready for a woman CEO of the Hunger Games, but that's beside the point."
Moriah turned to Hazel and looked at her, annoyed. "You've had two slip-ups this year, Hazel. Two new tributes that you've had to have come into your home! You can't mess up-"
"Excuse me," said Hazel picking her head up from the wall. "But last time I checked, my son died because your faulty chip messed up in his head," she rolled her eyes and looked at her angry. "Clarke also wasn't my fault. Had you let me revive Emerson as I wanted, this wouldn't have been an issue!"
"You know why you couldn't have Emerson," said Moriah. "For the exact reason, you're getting upset at me right now. She wouldn't have been treated fairly, and for this experiment to work, you had to be completely unbiased!"
Tears welled in Hazel's eyes as she remembered her good friend. Sure they knew each other for about a week and a half, but she remembers Cullen, Emerson, Spike, Chrysanthemum, and even Djuviko regularly. While she settled her demons long ago, now and then their ugly faces would rear their tragic heads.
"I just miss her, Moriah," said Hazel.
"I can imagine."
"No," Hazel corrected. "You can't. Because if you did imagine, you would have never come up with this experiment. The games change you, Moriah. The trauma of it all scars, even the people that haven't killed in their games." Hazel stood up and began to pace the front porch. "They know, you know? I could tell something was going on, but then I overheard Cortana and Delaine in the gym."
"You're sure they know?"
"I'm old, Moriah. Not deaf."
A silence falls over the two women, and Hazel took a deep breath as she sat back down on the bench. "Do you think whoever wins is going to hate all of us?" Hazel asked Moriah. "Because I just keep replaying how I felt when I came out of the games, and I hated everyone. The other three are from career Districts so that it might have been different, but for me, it was hard."
"These kids are careers," Moriah points out as she crosses her leg.
"But they're not actually," said Hazel. "What happens when they win, and they do research on their lives, and everything comes back. What are we going to do? Lock them in a cell and never let them out again? I just keep thinking of what my kid's lives were like before. None of them were careers, you know? I did that intentionally. Even Clarke, when you guys made me take her, was from District 8."
"The way I see it is if it weren't for us they'd be rotting away aimlessly in nothing. We gave life to these children. We gave them a new way of living and a chance to earn it back. We are the people that saved them.
"Yes," said Hazel getting up from the porch swing and walking to the front door. "We gave them life just to yank it back from twenty-three of them. You can show yourself off my property Moriah. I'll see you at the next meeting.
We are now on house Princeton! This short chapter took me all day because I've been DISTRACTED. Anyway, we are almost done, so I figured I'd show you the format.
Chapter 19: Princeton picks #1
Chapter 20: Princeton picks #2
Chapter 21: Princeton picks #3
Chapter 22: Princeton Update
Chapter 23: Alliance Update Chapter
Chapter 24: Alliance Update Chapter
Chapter 25: Reality Show information (Last Minute Private Sessions)
Chapter 26: Into the Tubes
Chapter 27: BLOODBATH!
This is the latest bloodbath I've ever done, but I've enjoyed it! Hope you're having fun reading it!
Hope to hear from you soon,
Caleb