BLURB: She will survive this world. She will survive and thrive, and grow strong enough to burn it all down. She doesn't owe this world anything, after all. Not anymore. (Olva Dimond is picked as District 12's Tribute for the 72nd Hunger Games along with her younger brother. Everything changes, and only Olva knows. But who the fuck cares? Olva doesn't.) (OC/Self insert) (M for a reason)

...

FOUR

I Have No Mouth

...

After the utter farce of an interview is all done and wrapped, Olva sighs and girds her loins for another bout of torture. She gets to have a quick meal before her televised meeting with the President though, so there's that.

It's fried chicken, to her surprise. Crunchy and steaming hot, fresh from the fryer.

The chicken tastes strange to her.

She stares at Ollie with a deadpan expression. "You know you're allergic. How about no."

The kid whines. "But how come you can eat it? It's not fair!"

"...Fine, you brat. Then I won't ever eat chicken too. That fair enough?"

If her eyes tear up after the first bite, it must be because of the amazing taste of nationwide classism and what basically amounts legalized slavery and child abuse.

There's nothing quite like the crunch of the oppressed, Mr. President Snow, sir!

She supposes it tastes like Church's chicken, or "Texas chicken" as it's known outside of North America, only there's no "North America" anymore, and instead the United States has mutated into this game show parody of a country named after bread, of all things.

As if there hasn't been enough emphasis on the nationwide poverty and famine.

Olva supposes it's not for her to judge; she's saved her judgment on far more relevant things, far more important things, than the taste of fried chicken and the total lack of creativity involved with naming a nation after bread.

Seriously though. Panem. She still can't get over that. Like, why not libum or laganum? "Cake" sounds a mite more interesting than fucking bread. It doesn't seem like any of these Capitol fuckers have tasted a single bite of plain bread in their spray-tanned lives anyway.

A silent girl - avox, she remembers Abernathy calling the mute ones - comes cleaning up the table almost immediately after Olva has set her last chicken bone down. No knives and forks for this little Seam girl. Chicken that good isn't supposed to be eaten with utensils anyway, and there's nobody around to judge her.

Abernathy is out arranging her own schedule with the government spooks - strangely efficient of him, that.

Olva's neon afro barbie shadow was in the next room over, fretting over color-coordination and the political correctness of using burgundy or even carmine lipstick, when the president obviously prefers a shade of red between imperial and crimson, or some such rot. The woman's name was Ellie-Something. Something completely forgettable.

Olva can't rightly know why Ellie-Something is freaking out about at least four shades of red. It's stupid. Red is red. Who the hell cares if their sadistic fuck of a president prefers one shade or the other?

Personally, Olva would've preferred it if the man just wore crimson all over, especially if the color dripped from his neck and chest... and, well, Olva may be fifty shades of stupid but she isn't completely retarded, so she keeps her mouth shut about that.

Time and place, Olva. Time and place.

She's kept her mouth shut about a lot of things.

Abernathy has been a total rock throughout, in that not even a towel-clad, teenage girl having an emotional breakdown in front of him stopped the man from being his unapologetic asshole self. Suck it up, he told her then, while she was dripping with bathwater but still felt as if she were drowning in blood. She wasn't clean enough. She'll never be clean- Suck it up, little girl, because it only gets worse.

So she did. She toughed it all out, weathered the absolute hell that this fictional plot-device of a government threw at her (and Ollie). Though she doesn't really think Abernathy was right about that last part.

They killed Ollie.

It couldn't possibly get any worse.

I have no mouth, and I must scream.

A/N: So sorry for the short update, as a resident doctor there's just SO MUCH STUFF GOING ON, and so inspiration is spotty for me. You know, on top of my being a horribly slow writer in the first place. I'm grateful for whoever reads the crap I've been spewing here on FFdotnet, lurkers and reviewers alike. Seriously, y'all, this is one of the few things that are keeping me sane during this pandemic.