Chapter 56: Cecelia Rheys
A/N: District Eight once again and this time they're back with a Catching Fire Victor, Cecelia! She knows how terrible the Capitolites can be, and they view her as nothing more than a weak little tailor, but oh boy is she going to prove them wrong...
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Katniss gritted her teeth. "I just can't get that image of her with her children out of my head, you know?"
Peeta nodded, a sense of bitterness in his eyes. "Yeah, she was torn away and never even got to say goodbye. That was horrible."
"And I don't even know if those children survived," Katniss bemoaned. "They could've been in that hospital, when it was bombed to the ground..." Her voice faltered, tears welling up in her eyes. Peeta however, looked less upset.
"Actually, they did," he piped up.
Katniss blinked, a look of relief flushing upon her face. "Wait, really?"
Peeta nodded, pulling out a separate letter and showing it to Katniss. "Cecelia's eldest daughter Camilla sent this to me. She wanted to ask me how we were doing and all, and we exchanged letters for a while. She's safe, and so are Aurora and Chris. They're with their aunt Tia in District Eight. In fact, I think Camilla's leading the plans to rebuild their District, and she's only fifteen."
Katniss chuckled softly, reading Camilla's rather sweet letter. "She seems like an intelligent girl, just like her mother, huh?"
"Yeah, exactly like her mother," Peeta agreed.
Cecelia Rheys
District 8
Aged 16
1 Kill
"GET BACK TO WORK, YOU SNEAKY LITTLE BITCHES!" Lyana screeched, her loud, shrill voice echoing through the halls like a loud banshee. A shoe was sent flying into the air, and into the direction of Cecelia and Tia, both sisters quickly diving to dodge it. Lyana snarled, gnashing those fang-like teeth, a crystal clear warning for Cecelia and Tia to scoot away. The sisters nodded meekly and rushed back to their room, although to call it a room would be an overstatement. It was more of a prison cell, with a two-storeyed bunk bed, a desk, a small square window and a bit of space for all their stuff. The cell was dark, dusty, filled with cobwebs, but it was their home. The tiny square window, with that tiny piece of greyish sunlight, that was the only thing apart from each other that helped to maintain their sanity. A fair amount of light flooded in through that tiny square, the tiny square that was part of a bigger sky, a sky they were barely permitted to see. Cecelia was sixteen and Tia was thirteen, although both sisters could admit that they acted well beyond their age due to the sheer atrocities of life in District Eight. They hailed from a poor family that lived in Memphis, the main city of District Eight where the Justice Building was. Their parents worked in a shoe factory, earning a very meagre wage and working night and day shifts just to support the whole family. Then the tornadoes came. The tornadoes that had swept across much of Panem in the buildup to the Forty-Eighth Hunger Games had destroyed their home, rendering them homeless, and the harsh winters that followed had driven the family to extreme starvation. It was only through the kindness of that sweet girl Calico that they managed to survive, although she herself couldn't possibly have the means to sustain them. It was a rough time, but things were only about to get even worse, something Cecelia at the time didn't think would be possible. The second wave of tornadoes followed, and their mother was too weak to escape it. Her body was never found, but both Cecelia and Tia knew she was long gone. That meant that Cecelia and Tia had to join the workforce at a startlingly young age, working at a textile factory not too far away from the shoe factory their father worked at. Things were going decently enough, after all, one could not expect much being a citizen in Panem, but things just had to go wrong once again. Calico did drop by once a month to help out, but the girl seemed shaken, lost, in a blurred daze, and over the years, her charitable visits, as well as her good deeds in general, began to lessen as she declined into insanity. Cecelia was sometimes scared when Calico came by, the Victor girl having gained an extraordinary amount of weight from excessive stress eating and having lost the ability to sleep, leaving her with dark circles around her now glum, dejected eyes, devoid of the usual life and energy they once had. She would hand them some bread and food, then glare at nothing in particular for a couple of minutes, awkwardly standing at the threshold of their newly built crude excuse of a house, just being so unresponsive it terrified the girls. Then, she would shake her head and trudge off to the next house. Some of the older folks believed she was cursed, and would chase her away, doing little to help her rapidly declining mental health, and causing her to hiss and snarl at anyone who carried anything even remotely sharp, which included herself. To see Calico, a bright young talent who once bore so much life and promise, tear and bite at her own skin, leaving ugly red marks and gashes as she desperately tried to claw and draw blood, was nothing short of horrifyingly depressing. But nothing could be more depressing than the news that their father had gotten both mill fever and tuberculosis, a deadly duo that sealed his fate. Just a month later, he was buried in a crowded grave in a crude cemetery for the poor. Cecelia and Tia's textile factory closed down too, so they had to seek employment elsewhere.
And this was where Lyana Riversong came into play.
The wife of Head Peacekeeper Pontus Riversong, she was a wealthy Capitolite who owned major shares of several factories not just in District Eight, but also in Districts One, Two, Three, Six and Ten. This, added to her efforts to contribute bits of propaganda and fake news about District Eight to Capitolite news agencies and school facilities gained her a significant social status and cemented her status as one of the wealthiest women in Panem.
And her two new personal tailors? Cecelia and Tia, of course! The sisters acted as the couple's tailors, spending their days making clothing for them and fixing up Lyana's outfits and Pontus's uniforms, in exchange for a place to stay, two loaves of bread and three bowls of soup a day for both of them and a meagre wage. They barely ever saw Pontus since he was off at work, and they would prefer to keep it that way. Taylor, one of the cooks in the mansion, had told them that Pontus was nothing short of a foul, fiery dragon of a beast, who was harsher than Snow himself at his worst. Lyana, though, wasn't exactly that much better. She was cruel, abusive and viewed Cecelia and Tia as nothing more than puny, weak, enslaved insects, dehumanising them and often starving them or hitting them with a hot iron rod as punishment. Life was tough in the Riversong Estate, a giant, impressive mansion that glittered brightly amongst the dark, heavily-polluted streets and worn-down houses of Memphis. Sometimes, Cecelia wanted to just stir up a rebellion amongst the employees and revolt against Pontus and Lyana, murdering them and taking over the estate and that secret weapons stash they knew was located in a secret vault somewhere beneath the main grounds of the mansion. But she wasn't stupid enough to think that it could possibly work. No, Cecelia couldn't do that, she and Tia and all the employees would be tortured and hung for their crimes. She sighed, flicking back a strand of hair as she went back to stitching a dress for Lyana, a pink one with the highest quality fabric in Panem, one that she would wear at the Reaping in just a week from then. Cecelia and Tia, on the other hand, could only afford to wear a plain blouse and skirt for that 'special event'. There was no way on earth that if either of them were Reaped, they would be eye-catching enough to attract potential sponsors. But even the thought of getting Reaped was too much for Cecelia to bear. She concentrated on her work, shifting a little as an army of ants marched across the wall she was leaning on. The Games were not to be thought about or worried about until the Reaping itself.
Tia stood nervously at the Reaping Square amongst the other thirteen-year-old girls, fiddling nervously with a piece of red ribbon her mother used to wrap around her wrist as a child. It was more or less insignificant, nothing more than a strip of ribbon around her wrist, but it was the only accessory she had, plus it reminded her of her mother. Gazing up above the Reaping Square, she saw that the grey clouds of smoke and pollution had for once parted ways to reveal a tiny patch of blue sky. She wondered if that shade of blue was the same shade of blue in District Four's vast oceans. How lovely it must be to be able to see it every single day, she thought. Compared to their dark and gloomy cell inside the Riversong Estate, the idea of being able to see a clear blue sky every day as you headed off to work was absolutely fantastical. Up there in the sky, she knew that there would be stars, stars she could never see, but stars she had heard of in children's nursery rhymes her parents had told her as a little child. Tia had never actually seen a star before, the god-awful pollution and blinding street lights at night preventing the stars from popping up for a decent show, but she imagined them to be white dots in the sky, white dots that when approached, would appear larger and larger until you came close enough to see that they were giant balls in the sky, glowing brightly with pristine light and otherworldly energy. She wondered if beings lived on those stars or on other things in the sky that she could neither see nor comprehend. Maybe they were friendly and peaceful. They couldn't possibly be worse than the escort up on stage at that moment, right? Tia had heard about how the previous escort, Willuna Amora, had deeply cared for Calico and still continued to help her even after her Victory. She then got promoted to District Four and Tia had once heard Lyana gossiping on the phone about a supposed one-sided romance between Willuna and Geneva. Tia wasn't interested in that. She just wished that Willuna could come back and replace that bumbling fool Latisha Wildlock, who spouted a bunch of rotten lies and even threw some banter on those poor souls who died last year, calling them 'rat-like bitches who couldn't even operate a television'. She even called out Calico for being a terrible mentor, to which Calico responded by snarling, then hiding her face. Tia could've sworn she heard sniffling from Calico. Woof put his arm around her and glared at Latisha, but of course, she didn't notice. She just continued wearing that glossy smile on her face and prancing around looking like a clown in her weird outfit and surgically-altered ears. Tia had no clue what those ears were meant to resemble, but they certainly looked nothing like anything in District Eight. Listening to this strange lady from a land Tia could never quite understand was tough for Tia, she wanted nothing more to go back to the estate with Cecelia and continue working. Their treatment was nothing short of abusive, but hey, at least there was no chance of Lyana killing them. For all her hitting and cruel, vile punishments, Lyana could never even bring herself to kill a fly, instead getting one of the employees, or rather, slaves, as they preferred to be called, to kill it for her, then she would slap them for ending a life, even if it was one that in Tia's mind was extremely insignificant. But here in the Reaping, all Latisha had to do was to pull out one of those four slips with her name printed on them and her fate would be sealed, her one-way ticket to the afterlife booked, her future turned bleak with just one utterance of her name.
So naturally, that was exactly what happened.
Tia didn't remember much. All she did was stand there, frozen in fear, shocked by what had just happened. A surge of panic coursed through her veins as the realisation of what had just happened began to kick in. It was as though someone had injected a bit of poison into her veins, because all of a sudden, her legs began to wobble and her vision began to cloud and her head began to spin around and around and around to no end. Tia took a step forward, a bold move on her part, really, her teeth chattering and a single, lone tear sliding down her freckled cheek. Another step forward, there she was. She couldn't breathe, gosh this was a problem, a huge problem. Someone must've stolen her lungs away, because her breathing began to slow to a near halt as she tried to take several more steps forward to the stage. Her body swayed a little. She was going to faint, wasn't she? A couple of Peacekeepers began to approach her, with the intention of prodding her along. Tia took a deep breath, breathing in as deep as she could, trying desperately to gasp for air. She tightened her fists but they were sweaty as ever and shook beyond her control. She took more steps. Almost to the stage now. All she had to do was reach the stage whilst attempting to ignore the certain death that awaited her.
But someone else beat her to it.
It was a line never before heard in District Eight, a cursed line that brought along implications of greed and immoral hunger along with it, as well as the memories of the horrible breed known as Career volunteers. And yet, on that fateful, eventful day, that line was heard like an echo rippling across the entire square. "I volunteer." Tia whirled her head around, in a bit of a confused daze at that point, her knees threatening to give way and her head trying to shut itself down and leave for the day. She could see Cecelia, her beloved older sister, boldly marching her way to the stage as all around her, many gasped and others watched in stunned silence. Then Tia understood what Cecelia had just done. The mere thought of it hit her like a bullet through the brain. There was no stopping the long, pained screams that followed.
Calico sat glumly in her room, staring quietly out the window. The dense, thick, green forestry of rural Panem, where no one lived, had given way to a vast, open, green meadow with bright sunshine and beds of colourful flowers swaying slightly in the light, gentle breeze. Calico took a sip of beer, pushing away a few loose strands of hair that were blocking her view. The sky was a fresh, beautifully brilliant blue, an incredibly stark contrast to the grey skies of District Eight she had grown used to over the years. Calico could remember the first time she saw this large, pristine, blue patch of sky on her way to the Capitol for her Hunger Games. She couldn't believe that something like this could be real, she had previously thought that the notion of sunny green meadows with lush beds of flowers underneath a blue sky with fluffy white clouds of all shapes and sizes was nothing more than a child's aimless, dizzy fantasies. She would have expected to look forward to all the times she got to see this majestic scene. But over the years, every time she saw this field, a fiery ball of red hot anger and molten hatred would burn through her cold, unforgiving heart, filling her with a desire to seek vengeance upon not only the Capitol, but herself too. Every time she saw this field, it would be either on the way to the Hunger Games to inevitably watch two innocent kids die on her watch, or on the way home from the Hunger Games with two cold, cheap caskets. Sometimes there wouldn't even be a body inside that casket. But every time she saw this field, it reminded her of the inevitable that would surely happen. And she deeply resented herself for not being able to prevent this from happening year after year. Ever since she had to watch poor little Georgia die in that horrible Quell, all her confidence had gone flying out of the window and was replaced by a dead, barren, empty soul that was just at a loss in life. Gwen and Willuna and Woof had all tried, particularly Gwen, but none of them could bring back the girl that Calico once was. That girl was dead, replaced by what some of the local people called 'Rotten Pepper'. And frankly, Calico found herself unable to fight against that moniker, because it was true. She was nothing more than a rotten pepper.
Knock, knock. Someone had knocked on the door, but Calico didn't care. She didn't respond, instead choosing to take another sip of beer and continue to stare out the window as the meadows disappeared and were replaced by forestry once more. More knocking. Rolling her eyes, Calico once again ignored the knocking and chugged down some more beer. The beer tasted awful, but at least it helped ease the pain, the loss, the feeling of having no clue what the heck was wrong, away from her body, even if just for a short while. Her head ached a little, but just like the knocking, which grew louder and louder, Calico couldn't care less. She was perfectly fine and comfortable with wallowing in her own drunken miseries. Even when Woof and Cecelia finally got fed up with her and barged in. She paid them no attention, none whatsoever.
Woof stared down at his watch. Cecelia's private session should be underway at that moment, unless something unexpected had occurred, delaying the session. He wasn't particularly nervous about her, if he were to be completely honest. Cecelia had shown good skill with traps and she could cook too, both of which could easily earn her a decent score. No, it was Cecelia's District partner Bobbin, a nervous twelve-year-old boy with a crude eyepatch, that he was truly concerned about. Bobbin had formed an alliance with the boy from Seven, both twelve-year-old boys forming a close bond and working together for the duration of Training. Woof wondered, what if, those boys hadn't met in such unfortunate circumstances? In an alternate universe, where the Capitol didn't exist, they could've been best friends for life, spending their childhood days laughing and playing underneath a golden sky in a lush green park with colourful swings and slides and other children from walks of all joining in on the fun. Instead, in this sick world, they were forced to live in fear, to act like slaves to an oppressive government where the elite dominated and ruled over the poor with an iron fist, and in a world where they had to come up against older, stronger kids with a horrid bloodlust in a deadly game where only one could make it out alive, and often, making it out alive was a fate far worse than death itself. Woof had seen what had happened with Calico. The girl had once been a bastion of hope, a bright ray of sunshine in the dark, dreary textile-producing District. And Woof himself had been nothing more than a sweet, innocent boy who loved romance more than anything else. The Games had been like a huge vacuum, sucking the life out of both of them, before blowing them to one side to be cast away and wasted forever with empty fame and worthless wealth, all of which came with the hauntingly frightening memories of their torturous arena voyages, a time they desperately sought to forget, but were never allowed to. Then there was the VPR, a vile, cruel brainchild of Snow, Draco and Ravenstill's most perverted and greediest daydreams. Woof himself had only been sold three times, and was likely never going to be sold again, but those three visits to three disgusting incarnations of women were simply horrific and he spent much of his days trying to claw all the memories of them out of his stubborn mind, which was forever scarred by the sheer trauma of the Games.
His train of thought was interrupted when Bobbin returned, a frightful look on his young, pale face as he slowly ambled his way towards Woof. Woof walked towards him. Bobbin reminded Woof so much of his younger self, especially with his interest in romance and writing. The little kid had massive, untapped potential, a potential that Woof unfortunately knew was never going to be fulfilled and would be quickly forgotten along with his name as he was sent home in a wooden casket. The same would be true for Cecelia. Woof thought she might go far, but he wasn't exactly sure she could clinch victory, even if she had volunteered for her little sister Tia, an act of bravery and courage that had earned her a fair number of admirers across the Capitolite fanbases. Woof bent down and gave Bobbin a hug, the young boy failing to hide his emotions any longer and promptly bursting into a fit of sobs right there and then. His warm tears rolled onto Woof's sleeves sliding down his shirt and onto the ground, forming small puddles on the ground, puddles that contained the last remnants of hope to save Bobbin's life. Bobbin bemoaned about how he had already given up, and no matter how hard Woof tried, he couldn't seem to be able to convince him otherwise, because deep down, he couldn't even convince his own shattered heart that Bobbin could win. His score f two later on only served to shatter whatever fragile threads of confidence that Bobbin could possibly have left in him.
But hey, at least Cecelia managed to cook up some supposedly exceptional food during her sessions and got a seven.
Cecelia stood on her pedestal, glaring straight ahead, a stony, sharp concentration in her eyes. Her body leaned forwards slightly and she put one foot forward, in preparation for the run that awaited her. Her fists were clenched tightly, her teeth gritted, her muscles tightened. She was not going to die. She was not going to go down the same path as her parents, down the dark, misty road known as Death, down to the afterlife to become a ghost forever, no. Cecelia Rheys was not going down. Not today, not tomorrow, never. Lyana's voice echoed in her head, all the years of verbal abuse ringing in her ears like loud foghorns, trying to get her to give up, to stand down, to just take the easy way out and die but nuh-uh, Cecelia was not in a million years going to listen to those wretched calls for her blood. Instead, she was going to listen to one voice and one voice only, the one voice that screamed louder than any other inside her hardened heart: Tia's.
She was coming home, that was a given.
She was coming home to Tia.
She was coming home and taking Tia and they were going to be a happy family in the Victors' Village, away from Lyana, away from the Riversong Estate, away from the beatings and the misery and all else that life in District Eight had to offer. She. Was. Coming. Home! Years and years of torture and abuse and pain and horrific misery had awakened the lions in her heart and ignited the fire in her soul and there were beasts in her belly that were so hard to control but she did not for a moment think she would die. She was winning, period. One quick scan of the arena, that was what she did. A big savanna, good for a running kid. The trees were sparse, the canopy open, the grass tall, the wildlife abundant. In the distance, Cecelia could see several water holes, water holes that either contained a vital ingredient for life or a poison so vile life was taken away in an instant. Back to the Cornucopia now and Cecelia let a small, slightly nervous smirk spread across her face. She knew what to do. This was her time, her time to shine. She didn't want to, but she knew she had to. The gong rang and she burst forward, running faster and faster with every big stride she made, faster and faster, the wind soaring through her hair, the adrenaline pumping and pumping through her veins like steam in a steam engine. The lions roared in her heart, morphing into cheetahs, cheetahs that were born to run. She eventually had to slow down and bent down to quickly scoop up a backpack. A loud scream echoed through the rushing wind and with a pang in her chest she realised that it was Bobbin's scream, which momentarily paralysed her but Cecelia snapped out of it instantly, the cheetahs snarling for her to get a move on in her toughened heart, and her run resumed, with her heading straight for a yellow object hidden amongst the gently swaying golden grass of the Cornucopia clearing. But someone else was heading for it too: the boy from Nine. Cecelia narrowed her eyes, forcing the turbines in her legs to work harder, forcing her legs to zoom faster, pushing herself to the limit as she snatched away the yellow lighter before the boy with the sickle even came close. She swerved away from him and sprinted off, almost tripping over the boy from Twelve's bloody corpse, and into the savanna beyond. Her determination to win for Tia remained firm as ever, rock-solid right from the start. And just because that boy from Nine had begun chasing after her, it didn't mean that she would back down. Not a bloody chance!
Tia sat at the very front of the crowd, watching the big screens in front of her anxiously. She had never in her entire life been this scared, this terrified before. The fear was like a huge mutt, threatening to gobble her up in one bite. The fear loomed over her, cackling at her every wince. The fear knew no boundaries in its mission, its conquest for the torture of the mind. The fear was a ruthless demon, enslaving Tia in its grasp with the chains of horror. The fear was a shapeshifter, and could well morph into Cecelia should she be forced into a kill sooner or later. Tia shifted slightly. The feeling of being at the front of the crowd was surreal. She was never the most outgoing person, in fact, she was pretty shy, so being at the centre of attention, with the cameras zooming in on her every reaction to Cecelia's acts, it made her uncomfortable. She hadn't been at the front of the crowd since her first Reaping, a horrid day that thankfully ended in her being safe from the clutches of the Capitol and the Games. Alas, a year later, Lady Luck seemed to have forgotten her, and her future soon became a blur when Cecelia was thrown into the Games in a bid to save her. But sitting at the front of the crowd also allowed her to see the action, to monitor Cecelia's well-being, to see if she was having an okay day. Tia had been very careful making wishes in the dark, she never knew when they would come back and bite her, jinxing Cecelia into dying right in front of her eyes, but at least by sitting at the front of the crowd, she would know what happened as it happened and wouldn't have to worry every time a cry rang out from somewhere in the crowd. Cecelia was sleeping underneath a tree in the middle of this vast savannah, this vast expanse of golden grass that seemed to expand on and on and on towards the edge of the world itself. There were some animals, striped horse-like creatures the boy sitting two rows behind her had called a 'zebra', grazing on the grass nearby, the mother of the herd with her young, almost as if she were singing a soft lullaby. They didn't seem dangerous at all, just peaceful beings chilling about underneath the rising sun as a golden dawn approached and the sun began to extend a warm hug to the savannah's inhabitants and tributes, although the sun bore a tiny smirk of malice, knowing that it would be present to witness the deaths of children and animals alike.
Tia could hear someone yawn behind her, quickly followed by a loud slapping sound. She herself felt like yawning too. This was the fourth day of the Games and Tia hadn't been able to get much sleep. Her eyes were bloodshot red, red like the blood of the tributes she was forced to see ooze out of the lifeless corpses of the Bloodbath tributes, red like the ribbon she had given to Cecelia as her tribute token. She was so, so tired, and wanted badly to sleep at night, but sleep didn't come. No, it stood at a distance and reminded her that Cecelia was fighting for her life and that when she woke up, Cecelia could well be dead and buried. How the heck was Tia supposed to sleep at that rate? She sighed, keeping her eyes glued tightly to the screen as Cecelia woke up and yawned, stretching her arms before rubbing the last remnants of sleep out of her eyes. She took a sip of water from her backpack and gazed around. Her eyes locked with the zebra herd and suddenly, Tia saw a ravenous, hungry sort of look in her eyes. Cecelia hadn't been able to nab even the tiniest of wee little morsels from the Bloodbath. Her backpack contained some water, some rope and some star-shaped knives that Caesar called 'ninja stars', amongst a couple of other things, but not a single shred of food. Cecelia wasn't a stranger to hunger, in fact, Tia knew that hunger was like a close yet an unwanted friend of both of them, always by their side, hanging around them even if they told it to go away. But Cecelia had never gone more than four days without food before, and her body was getting weaker by the minute. Sponsors were plentiful, but no one wanted to sponsor Cecelia, it seemed. The Careers were getting them from various Capitolites with bags of cash and pools of gold, wealth Tia herself could not even imagine. But all Cecelia had gotten from a sponsor was insect repellent, which was actually helpful in fending off the mosquitoes and bugs that lurked through the grass, but did nothing to shoo off the unwanted hunger that had tagged along for her arena 'adventure'. Yet now, a sudden realisation dawned over Tia as Cecelia grabbed one of her ninja stars and began to slowly approach the zebras.
Because they weren't zebras.
They were food, glorious food, food that could sustain, food that could give Cecelia strength, food that could ensure her victory. Tia held her breath. She had never had any qualms about killing animals, after all, in order to live she had to eat, and in order for her to eat she had to kill those animals. They were a necessary ingredient of survival and killing them was only an elementary step in living another day or two. Cecelia readied her arm, her eyes narrowing in a fit of concentration. The sun was rising, a red glow illuminating the savannah, but soon, that wasn't going to be the only shade of red in the arena. Cecelia threw her ninja stars, the stars flying through the air, soaring and gaining speed, faster and faster until they wedged themselves in two of the zebras, both zebras going down with loud, agonised whinnies that made Tia momentarily pity them. But pity was going to get you nowhere, so she brushed it aside and watched as Cecelia used a stove from her backpack and the yellow, dirt-covered lighter and some solid fuel to cook the zebra meat she had cut off with her ninja stars. As Cecelia munched on her food, Tia's stomach growled, snarling and grunting like an angry lion within her, threatening her, demanding for food. It seemed that hunger was still by Tia's side for now.
Calico sat in her mentoring room, glumly staring ahead at the screen in front of her. The screen was an unwanted window to the arena, imposing itself before her, cackling and goading her for her inability to bring home a Victor. Calico hadn't even tried for the last couple of years, thinking that not trying would allow her to feel better in the long run. After all, she barely knew or cared about these kids, surely the pain wouldn't be as great, right? Wrong. Instead, the pain grew more and more, growing into a giant, uncontrollable monster that snarled and barked inside her mind, terrorising her with the guilt of not trying, which, to her horror, was even worse than the guilt of failing. It swallowed her up, devouring her like she was just a piece of cooked meat, but she did nothing to help herself. Well, except for drinking a crapton of beer, that is. She was a drunk alcoholic, there was no denying that. She was far gone in her addiction, in her over-reliance of that numbing drink, that drink she hoped could magically solve all of her problems. The beer fairy had smiled and said that she would try, and try she had, but Calico's mornings were simply the worst. The hangovers, oh they were bad. Real bad. Woof sat beside her, although he did keep his distance, curling up with a romantic novel, and Calico couldn't blame him. She was a revolting excuse of a Victor, that was for sure. She let out a small burp and continued staring at the screens, watching as Cecelia made her way through the savannah, glancing around frequently to make sure no one else was nearby. There was little cover, something that had ensured she was already in the top four after just five days, despite the fact that only seven had died in the Bloodbath. But this meant she was in big trouble and for the first time since Georgia, Calico found herself having a bit of hope for a District Eight tribute.
But that hope seemed to fade into darkness soon enough. As her shadow crossed that of a large rock, that was all it took for the lions to come alive. Calico nearly jumped out of her own skin when they did. The lions a whole pride of them, fiercely majestic beasts with sharp teeth and claws and cold, glaring eyes that bored straight into Calico's soul, causing her face to turn pale even with the knowledge that they could not see her, could not touch her, could not hurt her. But those lions were scary as heck. She could vividly remember the lions that had gobbled up a tribute's leg the previous Games, allowing her to be easily killed by other tributes. And now, would Cecelia suffer a similar fate? Calico took a sip of beer and told herself to shut the Games out. Cecelia, after all, was just another girl, who hadn't even killed anyone yet. She wasn't a Victor, probably not. So why was she caring so damn much? Her emotions were caught in a messy jumble and there and then, in a state of utter moral confusion, with angels and demons encircling her head, arguing about her morals, Calico watched the chase on the screen dumbly, watching helplessly like a sitting duck as Cecelia ran for her life, trying her very best to outrun the quick lions that sought to kill her, to maul her, to tear her apart. They were quickly catching up and Cecelia, no matter how determined, how strong, how willful she was, she was tiring out and Calico could see the exhaustion written all over her face. Exhaustion was tugging at Cecelia, her legs slowly begging for her to stop, her lungs struggling for air, all these Calico could tell as she sat in the Mentoring Room, at a complete loss on how to feel. A lion burst forward and grabbed Cecelia's leg. Calico sighed and pulled a magazine over her years, the sounds of Cecelia's screams ringing through her years, the guilt slowly tiptoeing towards her, ready to eat her up once again. The guilt grinned at her, waving hello as it slowly approached with an aura of confidence, and she glared at it, but she knew it was hopeless. Soon, Cecelia's cannon would boom and Calico would be overwhelmed by the guilt of everything. It was just a matter of time before the inevitable would happen and all too soon, Calico would be staring at yet another dead tribute, yet another lifeless corpse, yet another face that would haunt her until the end of time. The growling became louder and louder, but to her surprise, Cecelia stopped screaming. Was she dead already? The cannon hadn't boomed yet. Was she passed out? Probably yes. But then a third noise entered the fray, echoing through her ears, and all of a sudden, the Mentoring Room erupted into a fit of gasps. Calico pulled the magazine out of her line of sight and gasped too.
The arena was on fire!
Cecelia, that sneaky little legend of a tribute, she had used her lighter to start a savannah fire! Calico shook her head, disbelief washing over her like a giant tsunami wave, enveloping her in a shocked, panicked feeling. On one hand, the fire had effectively scared away the lions. On the other hand, now Cecelia was in danger from her own fire too! Calico watched with a slight pang of sympathy in her chest as the fire swarmed across the grass, trailing closely behind Cecelia, its flames hungrily lapping and licking ahead of the main blaze, desperate in its quest to swallow her up. Cecelia was tired, weary, out of breath and Calico was almost certain she was yet another star that was fading away, about to die now. She half-wished the lions had killed Cecelia, because burning to death in this already sweltering hot savanna was no way to die, a horrible, painful death that no one should ever suffer. At least the lions might have made it swift but the fire? No, it wouldn't. John Gatwick himself could tell you that. Calico glanced over to her right, where John, the Victor from District Ten, sat in his chair, his tribute also desperately running away from the blaze, which had spread quickly beyond control. The wildfire burned through the ground, simultaneously burning through John's heart as he winced, memories of his own arena no doubt torturing him deep inside, poking his mind and whispering coldly about what he had done. Calico would know. She got that feeling every time she looked at a young child or a bit of chocolate fudge or candy. The memories would just flood back and drown her in a whirlpool of her own miseries. There was never any luck when it came to District Eight, so Calico took yet another sip of beer, convinced that Cecelia was surely a goner, about to be charred to death and burned to a crisp, before her obliterated body would be thrown aside into a wooden casket as was the procedure year after year.
But Cecelia didn't die.
You see, Lady Luck had finally returned to the Rheys family, after a long break away at the Hadley family, who had just welcomed a new child, Cato, a fine, strong boy who Calico instantly detested the minute she saw that seemingly innocent face that would no doubt be warped into a cold-hearted killer ready for the slaughterhouse known as the arena. The wind changed its course, slowing down the blaze just as Cecelia was beginning to slow down, succumbing to her muscles' desperate, anguished cries for her to stop, and the fire was sent chugging down a different direction: straight at the pair from Two. Cecelia collapsed to the ground, panting heavily, and both she and Calico watched as the boy from Ten crumpled to q heap beside her, passed out and in a faraway land of dreams due to exhaustion. Cecelia didn't hesitate, to Calico's relief. Boom! The boy's cannon sounded. Soon after, the pair from Two couldn't keep up the chase, especially not with the lions and hyenas charging in from the other direction, cutting the Careers off. Calico smirked a little as the arrogant pair was mauled to death by the lions after they opted to take their chances with them instead of the fire. Big mistake. The lions drew out a slow death for the pair, but their screams and cries for mercy were nothing short of entertaining for Calico. After all, it had been they who had inflicted such pain on the other tributes, Bobbin included. It had been they who had refused to show any forms of mercy to the poor, little children who were forced to suffer. And it had been they who had volunteered for this death match in the first place. They deserved to die. They deserved to suffer. They deserved to be thrown into the same wooden caskets as their poor victims and forgotten. Because they meant nothing to her, or anyone else, for that matter.
And there it was. It dawned on Calico that she had brought a Victor. The initial pride that swelled up in her heart diminished, however, and was soon replaced by a bittersweet feeling, the feeling that she shouldn't be proud. After all, what the heck had she even done to help Cecelia in the first place?
Katniss and Peeta held a minute of silence for Cecelia, tears welling up in their eyes. "Beetee said he saw Enobaria stab her," Peeta murmured. "But she put up a damn good fight."
"As she should," Katniss said, nodding. "She was a wonderful, brave woman who didn't deserve to die in that Quell."
"Definitely," Peeta agreed. The pair lingered on for a couple more moments, staring solemnly at Cecelia's face during her youth. Then, it was time for the pair to move on. Peeta flipped the page, revealing the next Victor. A boy with tanned skin stared back at them, a hard, concentrated look in his eyes. He had dark hair and dark, stormy eyes that glared straight ahead, unnerving, unafraid of what was to come. His lips were pressed together tightly, his fists clenched tightly, his muscles tensed, as if he was getting ready for a fight. His shirt was drenched in sweat, but he didn't seem to mind at all. Behind him, Mare stood on the stage, a sly smirk on her face as she looked proudly at the Victor she had just brought home. "Colt Dias."
VICTORS
District 1-Sapphire Huntington(4), Onyx Hibonite(9), Franc Montgomery(14), Crystal Montgomery(21), Sterling Jones(25), Luxe Carmichael(36), Geneva Cooper(37), Cartier Cooper(44), Valkyrie Montgomery(54)
District 2-Ragnar Sveinsson(5), Reyna Boudicca(6), Draco Hadley(10), Scipio MacAllister(17), Freya Carson(22), Hercules Nichols(28), Julia Dawson(39), Brutus Gunn(42), Lyme Sveinsson(45), Evan Fortis(55)
District 3-Nikola Johnson(13), Gadget Schroeder(24), Beetee Latier(40), Wiress Jansen(47)
District 4-Marina Bluebell(1), Mags Flanagan(11), Jolien Fisher(31), Timmy Fisher(32), Iris Fisher(33), Rafael Fisher(34), Coral Thiller(41)
District 5-Shocker Crimson(8), Switch Kim(19), Flash Morrison(27), Porter Tripp(38), Marie Meredith(52)
District 6-Ford Hamilton(20), Kimi Bentley(51)
District 7-Hassan Greenwood(2), Jill Wilson(15), Olive Sanchez(26), Birch Davison(35), Blight Gavin(53)
District 8-Woof Casino(16), Calico Pepper(48), Cecelia Rheys(56)
District 9-Gwendolyn Whitfield(18), Laurel Flamsteel(29), Miller Thompson(49)
District 10-Ringo Alvarez(7), John Gatwick(23), Mare Trybull(43)
District 11-Orchid Bloom(12), Seeder Crue(30), Chaff Mitchell(46)
District 12-Axel Millar(3), Haymitch Abernathy(50)
Victors that are underlined are deceased.
A/N: And boom! There we have it, folks! Cecelia Rheys has come home! Hope you enjoyed this chapter, I kinda tried to do a spoken-word script for some bits here and there and there were way too many song references tossed about in here aha. Also, the story has a new name! Hope you like this one and don't forget to drop a review if you liked this chapter! I'm changing the cover pic to Orchid and uhh, I think that's all for today! Stay tuned for Colt! Cheers:)