Skyler Dacher, District Five (15)
There was something to be happy about. The tube went up and I saw the Arena was just about the best thing I could have hoped for. Districters didn't even dream about things like this. What a wonderful world the Capitolites must live in. The stores around me were filled with more and better things than I'd ever seen in my life. To a Capitolite it was just a normal.
Eleven people died in the Bloodbath. The stores around the Cornucopia all had glass windows to let the Careers see where Tributes were fleeing. Even though hardly anyone went in for supplies it was one of the biggest Bloodbaths of the decade. The only problem was none of the Careers died.
Hadley and I went upstairs. It was probably some really predictable instinct to go upwards to avoid predators or something but we didn't really think about it. The store we ended up in advertised that all its wares were ten dollars or less. It had everything from cheap makeup to bags of candy. It wasn't healthy food but it would keep up alive. I found something out, though. When you eat nothing but candy, the first day is great. The next day is almost as good. Then it goes downhill fast. After I won I found out I'd lost ten pounds in the Arena. I had plenty of food. It just got to the point where I had to be really hungry to eat it.
My Games experience was pretty unconventional. My Games lasted thirteen days and during those days I never ran across another soul. The closest I got was that sometimes Hadley and I huddled in the back room of the store when we heard anything that sounded like people. The rest of the time was kind of… fun.
"This one's my red carpet look," Hadley said, batting at the red feather boa she wore. She turned her face to the light and pretended to let photographers see her enormous false eyelashes and dark red lipstick.
"I am the prettiest princess," I responded, strutting down the walkway between the aisles in the back room where our fashion show was being held. The stiff pink dress with glitter and frills was probably the sort of thing a Capitolite mother would buy if she forgot her little girl had a party the next day but to me it was the most magical dress I'd ever seen. It billowed out around me as Hadley and I sat on the floor painting each others' nails.
On the nine day of the Games Hadley went next door to use the bathroom. Through the glass I saw her take five steps and then fall with an arrow through her head. I'd never even known Emma was on the same floor as us. It was just carelessness that she didn't check the store well enough to find me hidden on the top shelf in the back room behind a pile of canvas backpacks. I didn't go out into the front store after that.
Emma and Hunter killed each other. Hunter killed Emma before he died from the poison on her arrow. I wasn't even there. I was still in that back room. That was all I saw of the Games- just that one little store full of the nicest things I'd ever seen.
The rest of Panem treated me like a miracle. Other than the Career Districts everyone was happy to see an innocent kid make it out of the Games without killing anyone. It was the first time it had happened since Toby. I felt like a mascot. Then I got back to Five and it happened all over again when the supplies and gifts rained down from the sky.
My parents always encouraged me to do what I needed to heal and set me up with therapists a few times but I honestly didn't need it. I'd watched Hadley die and that did stay with me, but in that strange resilience children have I was able to put it behind me. When I thought of her I thought of our days together in the store. I thought of the times we ate gummy hamburgers and pretended they tasted like hamburgers instead of candy or the time we painted our faces with glitter and talked in Capitol accents. I didn't have to bury my past like the other Victors. Sometimes I even wished I could go back for a few more days. We had good times in the Arena.