Pepper Brye- District Eleven female
It was hard to concentrate on what Peppermint was saying when there was a woman whispering in my ear.
"Can we turn the radio off?" I asked.
"What radio?" Peppermint asked.
"You don't hear that?" I asked. It did seem like I could hear a lot better than most people but I would have thought a Victor would be especially sensitive.
"There's no radio in here. Are you just nervous?" Peppermint asked.
"I think I just have really good hearing. I hear a lot of things other people can't."
"Interesting," Peppermint said. "What do they say?"
I looked down at the yellow plastic bottle of pills the Capitolite doctor had given me. Was it really that simple all along? She said I wasn't hearing things at all. I was hearing things. Luckily Capitolite science was so amazing the pills should clear it up before I even got to the Arena. Pity they hadn't seen fit to share that with me years ago. I wasn't even convinced that the two of them didn't just need their hearing checked. But doctors generally knew what they were talking about so I went ahead and started taking the pills.
Everything is so quiet.
All those whispering voices I heard at night were gone. I didn't hear those strange voices telling me I was worthless anymore. And that weird guy I kept seeing every few weeks no matter where I went? Gone. I could hardly believe it but he had never been there in the first place. This is normal? And I wasn't normal before? It blew my mind.
On Peppermint's suggestion I pretended that nothing was different until I got into the Arena. When the Bloodbath started the Careers ignored someone they thought was insane. Wyatt and Hermes made it out as well and in all the garbage we were able to hide for four days before we ran across the Careers. Rapture speared Wyatt the first time they found us and Margo ran down Hermes the second time. If she'd thought I was normal she might have gone after me instead. But I was just harmless crazy Pepper who talked to people who weren't there.
The Arena was almost humorously mundane after the beginning of my life. Everything was actually real. I spent most of the days rummaging through garbage and trying to determine which water was the cleanest. At first most days had a cannon and then they started to spread out more. After I won I learned that the thirty-second Games were the longest to date. I was in the Arena for twenty-nine days.
The end of my time in the Arena was as mundane as the middle of it. I had nothing to do with the death of my last opponent. I just heard a cannon one day and after a few seconds of counting on my fingers I realized it was the last one. My last opponent- Rapture- hadn't even been hunting me for days. I should have known to expect it from a garbage dump Arena. Rapture died of a massive infection in his leg from a wound he got in the Career breakup. It was hard for them to spice that one up when I watched the recap. The last few days were just me walking around looking for food while Rapture lay in a delirious heap.
Some of the Victors bonded over their harrowing journeys to victory. I found a sense of belonging more with the default winners. I had nothing in common with the Careers but Toby, Lena, Drone, Cornflower, and Seeder knew exactly how I felt. Before long I had actual friends. And best of all, they were real.