Here is chapter two of my story it's going to be in Annie's perspective. I will use both Finnick and Annie's perspective in my story. Hope you will like it let me know what you think :). This chapter turned out very long :)
Chapter two - Annie's story
When Annie arrived on the little house she had leaving in her all life the door was wide open and a concerned and angry father was waiting for her.
Annie's father had caramel curly hair falling along his square face and chin dimple. His eyes were brown chocolate and he wore glasses. Usually his eyes were nice and gentle like his daughter but not now, they were filled with displeasure.
« Annie ! I was so worried about you ! How dare you leave like that early in the morning, on reaping day ? Annie you can't scare me like that, not especially right now and not in your condition »
Annie sighed loudly and angrily she hated when her father talked to her like that. She hated especially when her father ( or brother ) talked about what she had been through as a condition. It has been a rough year and half for Annie.
It had all started in a morning of late November a year and half ago, a week before her birthday. She had woken up like every other Saturday, ready to help her mother in her shop.
Her mom owned a shop, it was a kind of drug store where she sold all kind of things she made herself like clothes, jewelleries ( she was very good at netting) , fish hook, trident, fishing net,…
Annie had always helped her mother and knew that after she finished school at eighteen she would work in it full time and would take over one day. Indeed Annie was very good with nets too and loved doing jewelries like necklaces and bracelets.
The Cresta family wasn't poor but wasn't rich either. The shop her mom owned wasn't that popular because of the concurrence. In a district like 4, a place where fishing's items were sold was more than needed. There was four shop like her mom's in the District, each one in different neighbourhood of the district.
The Cresta family lived on the east cost of the district right along a coastline full of seaweed. The all neighbourhood overlooked the sea. Which was great because Annie and Octave had swam all their childhood. Their father had started a little job as fishermen. He mostly fished sea food and went on Thursday, Sunday and Monday to sell them on the market. Other day he would help in the shop.
But the east cost wasn't the best for fishing because the shore was very narrow and it was mostly very sharp rocks and large stones. It was always very windy which was difficult for boats to pass. The most they could fish easily was sea food. This is why in this part of town it was mostly shops. The victory village wasn't that far.
Their neighbourhood was nicknamed the snaky shell because all the shops were built next to each other following the narrow cost. To own a shop you needed to have an approbation of the mayor. Once the approbation was given to you, they would gave you a shell with a number you hanged to your door. Her mom's shop was number 8.
In district 4 people were very resourceful, so inhabitants would go to shops only in a case of huge need ( even the richest). This is why the snaky shell wasn't the richest neighbourhood. People were mostly like Annie's family they would live in little houses with coloured roof (Annie's was yellow ) and a huge room which was both the kitchen and the living room. Every houses had also two bedrooms and a bathroom with a little bathtub. Annie was thankful she had her own room anyway. At first it was a cupboard but her parents had turned it to a room when she was born. It was only a bed, a bedside and a lamp. The only thing she had to share with her brother was a closet.
Annie was happy like that, she didn't need more. She knew she was lucky to have her own room.
The district was very big, one of the biggest. There were two other neighbourhoods and the city center. No-one lived in the center. It wasn't very big it and was mostly a place with a statue of Poseidon where every year the reaping would take place on the stage built for the occasion. There was also the building justice, the school and a market where there was a shop like Annie's mother.
The mayor lived in the west coast's neighbourhood where the richest inhabitants lived and the training center was. The training center was designed to train some children for the games. It was either from the age of 12 to 18 or 16 to 18. It was a training, kids went from Monday to Friday, right after school.
But it was very expensive. This is why most inhabitants would only go there for two years. Also to train meant not being able to help your parents after school, which a lot of family couldn't afford. So Annie and her brother had never trained.
Inhabitants in the west coast were the richest because the sea was always calm and clear which was perfect for big boats and to throw huge nets who could catch a massive amount of fish. The fishermen of the west coast would have a marina to park their boats and would sell directly to the Capitol. This part of town was mostly doing industrial and massive fishing as the opposite of the South.
The South coast of district 4 was the poorest. It was very windy and was mostly fields endlessly. Because of the fields inhabitants had to live very close to the beach and with the wind and the recurrent storms, houses were damaged. Families were mostly fishing in little sailings boats with trident, and fishing ropes. They wouldn't catch much and quickly, so they couldn't sell to the Capitol. You would find them everyday from 5 am to 8 pm on the market trying to sell their prey.
But the knowledge they would learned had been very handy for a certain Finnick Odair. He came from this part of town and had helped his father and brothers all his life to fish. A trident was an extension of his arm which as everyone know had crowned him a victor at only fourteen.
The rest of the district was mostly an uninhabited land because of the fields of glasswort and other invasive plant growing savagely.
That morning of November when Annie had woken up, her mother wasn't in the kitchen neither were her father. She entered the kitchen and heard it loudly, the silent. There was no sound of her brother's singing voice, no japing from their dog, no the usual snap of her mother cutting lemon. The breakfast was set on the little wood table, as usual, but the chairs had moved as if someone had gotten up suddenly. That made her trust her instinct. Something had happened.
She could have think her mother and father had gone take a walk with Arieltheir dog, but it had never happened before. They had a routine. On Saturday her mother and father would woke up at 6 and start to prepare the breakfast. Then she and her brother would woke up at 6:30 and they would all eat breakfast together. Her parents would walk the dog after breakfast.
Breakfast was simple and always the same, some bread, ( the salty fished shape one everyone ate in district 4 ), on which they spread a bit of lemon jam cooked by her mother.
Sometimes when they had enough money or in special occasions it would be strawberries or berries jam. To go with it they drank tea, lavender tea. Her mom loved purple, she would always either wear it or eat it.
Annie was standing in the kitchen that morning, her heart had started to race so fast at this point she still doesn't understand to this day how she didn't die.
She remembered going immediately to her big brother's bedroom. She had found him curl up on his bed crying.
« Octave where's dad where's mum ? Why are you crying ? ». She felt a lump in her throat
« Did something happened ? »
Her voice was a croak and was hardly coming out.
She didn't even know why she bothered asking, she knew the moment she heard the silence that something terrible had happened.
« I'm sorry I didn't wake you. You were asleep I was scared to wake you up »
« Please Octave what happened » Annie had curled up next to her brother now.
« Mum's dead. »
The silence was so loud. Her mother. Dead. The green of her eyes always looking at Annie with so much love. Her light laugh. Her lilas dress hanged in the wind drying in the summer. Her smell like the lavender's soap she always used. Her long brown hair. Her long fingers detangling Annie's tangles every time she washed her hair. Her long fingers knotting and unknotting rope to create jewelries.
Just like that, a morning of November she was gone.
« She choked drinking water »
Her long finger taking a glass to drink water. She was gone.
Annie was still curled up in the bed with her brother and they stayed like that for what seems hours. She didn't cry. She couldn't believe the situation, it wasn't real. Her mother was with her father, they were taking a walk with the dog. That must be it, that's why they weren't home.
« Where is dad ? »
« He carried mum to the neighbours, the Sandies, where they tried to save her with mouth to mouth. But it was too late. He's still there, Ariel followed them too. It was so scary Annie. I woke up earlier this morning and I'm the one who handed mum the glass of water. She started to drink, to cough and one second later she was blue. I'm sorry I didn't wake you up. You were so heavily asleep »
Annie didn't answer.
How life could be so fragile ? Every year the Games taught her that somehow. But it felt different. This time it wasn't a stranger or someone she barely knew. This time it was her mother and it wasn't a game.
But what frightened her even more was, how she could have sleep ? Annie had always been a heavy sleeper. A fanfare could have been going outside her room and still she wouldn't have woken up.
But now she felt how terrible it was to be a heavy sleeper. She was mad at herself now. How could she be like that ? She had never thought of it, but now it made sense, being a heavy sleeper was a default.
Her mom died next to her door and she was so asleep she didn't wake up.
She was more mad at herself for being a heavy sleeper then she was to her brother, for not waking her up.
She was so shocked she couldn't feel anything. It was like being anaesthetised.
It had happened to her once in her life when she needed surgery for appendicitis.
She felt cold in her all body feeling every muscle shutting down. Exactly like when she was eleven years old and the doctor had anaesthetised her. She didn't cry and it's only a week later that her first tear had fallen.
After her mother's death Annie hadn't talked for three weeks. She remembered trying but it was useless the words didn't want to come out anymore, until one morning as if nothing had happened with no explication she could talk again.
After this day everything else went wrong in Annie's life.
They had to close the shop because without Annie's mum it was too hard to run it. They started to live on her father and brother fishing ( sometimes she would come too ), while Annie tried to sell bracelets on the market. That made them poorer.
Then her and Octave drifted apart. After her mother's death her brother became cold, distant and violent. He became a tirent with her and everyone, almost hitting her one night when she had cried.
It broke Annie's heart because her and Octave had been close all of her life. They were four years appart but used to always be together, on the beach swimming, walking their dog, playing silly games, trying to learn to play instruments. Octave's friends were Annie's friends too. She had grew up hanging out with his three best friends.
But it wasn't the same after their mother's death, he was a new person. Her sensitive and cheerful brother was now replaced by this stranger, a man, always standing straight, lips closed, always frowning, and giving everyone cold and deadly eyes.
Annie had a boyfriend at the time. His name was Shelter who was a year older and they had been together for a year. Annie had had a crush for him the past three years and had been so happy when he finally asked her out on a school party in the beach. She had fallen in love with him quickly and she thought he had too.
But after her mother's death she soon realised he didn't reciprocate profound feelings like hers. He just felt irritated by her constant silent and broke up with her. Two day had passed and he was dating another girl from Annie's class, Priscilla, a blond blue-green eyes tall popular girl.
So right after her seventeen birthday Annie had to go through a mourning period and a break up. After six months she was still healing when reaping came along. And that's when Pearl, her neighbour who was like a sister to her was reaped. And that's when she really lost it.
For the six months following her mother death her « only symptom » was insomnia. After being asleep while her mother was dying, Annie had started to prevent herself from falling asleep.
How could she sleep anymore ? What if something else happened ? Annie decided she would never be a heavy sleeper.
But except for insomnia once she had been able to spoke again Annie was holding up. She was still optimistic towards life and tried to see things with a positive angle.
But when Pearl died, it was like a tsunami. She discovered again how life was fragile, how quickly it could end. After losing her brother she was losing her sister.
And juste like that Annie became anxious and pessimistic.
Annie had never been an anxious person. She was carefree, living on the edge, and last minute. She was never worried and would always act before thinking. She was daredevil and was always injured somewhere because she had jumped too close from the shore or too hard on the stones.
That made her a fun and optimistic being who loved being alive.
But it started to fade after her mother's death, even more after her break up. And this person became inexistent after Pearl's death.
A minute after her death in the Cornucopia Annie had her first panic attack. This feeling of suffocating had thrown her with such surprise.
After that, they happened more and more until it became regular. By now Annie knew she would have them at least once in a week.
Annie had became solitary, quiet and didn't want to have fun anymore which was odd, because Annie even tough she was shy at first and hadn't many friends wasn't a solitary person. She always loved to party on the beach with her brothers and friends, she always loved to spend time with her parents, she always chatted in class with her classmates. Everything seemed useless after Pearl's death and Annie was always worried someone would die if she looked away even just for a second.
She came into the house and sat at the kitchen table.
« I'm sorry dad okay ? I didn't mean to worry you, I was just swimming before reaping that's all »
Her father loosened up a bit.
« Go change in you reaping dress. It's soon » He just answered.
After her mother's death her father hadn't changed much. He had always been a taciturn person and him and Annie had never been very close.
She went to her room after taking a bath and replaced her lilas dress with a plum coloured one. Both dresses were her mother's. The plum coloured dress was long and slight, and had a neckline in the back. To highlight it she tied her hair up in a high pony tail.
Irony of the reaping everyone always had to look good. Then she made sure she was wearing her necklace. It was a golden chain with a little mermaid at the end of it. Her mother had made it for her when she was seven. She untangled her curled and was ready.
When she went out. Her brother was waiting for her tensed up.
« Dad told me you disappeared this morning. »
« Sorry, okay? I'm fine I just needed to swim » she justified herself for what feels like the hundreds time. She was frustrated that her father told her brother. He was going to boss her around now.
But she finally knew what she could say to drift off topic. Before Octave answered she added :
« Guess who I ran into this morning ? Finnick Odair ! He was up early too and we swam together. »
Her brother eyes had never changed that fast. They were frowning one second and screaming with rage the other. She didn't excepted this reaction.
« What are you a slut? You swam with that guy ? A player and killer ? Are you dumb
Annie ? That guy is a psycho everyone knows that. He just wants to get in your pants. I'm sure he was imaging things seeing you in a swimming suit » he shouted
Annie stayed in a shock for what feels long agonising minutes. Did Octave called her a slut ? Her, Annie his little sister. She wanted to cry suddenly. And what was that with his reaction ? Yes, Finnick was known for his many conquest in the Capitol, but they were rumours. Besides Finnick had been so sweet earlier. And even if the rumours were true, calling her a slut for talking to him was extreme.
« Don't talk to me like that I forbid you ! Revoke what you said ! Since mom died you've been atrocious to me ! Wha's the hell his wrong with you? Because I swam with Finnick Odair I'm a slut now ? How ironic it is then ? He was nicer to me in the hour I spent with him, than you ever been to me in the last year and a half » She shrieked. She was crying with rage now.
It was like a slap in his brother's face. His light skin like Annie's became red and his brown eyes became darker. For a moment they both didn't breath. He raised his arm, and he was close, close to her face, when her father shouted.
« Enough! »
They both jumped and turned around to see their father looking at them furiously.
« Both of you ! Out ! We are leaving for reaping »
And they went out of the house.
And once out of the house Annie realised her father didn't defend her against her brother. What if he had hit her ? Octave didn't even apologise and had just walked past her.
On her way to the city- center, for the first time in her life she realised that maybe her name being called wouldn't be the worst thing ever. Maybe she would be more safe in the arena pursued by 23 tributes than she was with her family. And if so she could talk and see Finnick Odair again she thought. Her face turned bright red at the reflection.
That was it, she was definitely crazy.
