D8F: Lina, 15
The only thing that Lina can see when she rises into the arena is the beauty surrounding her from all angles. Coats of snow and ice paint fingers of obsidian black stone jutting out of the earth like something out of a dream, the tantamount of her unprivileged life, the very thing that she can't have. The frigid crags and canyons to her left and behind her that send sprays of moisture up the back of her neck to chill to ice, they can wait. This world in her line of vision is hers, and hers alone. Nobody can take this from her.
The way the rocky peaks extend to what must be the North leaves her in eye, reminding of the way those cakes glistened in the store window of Hatties' Bakery, the forbidden fruit taunting her through the glass window that she could never have, no matter how much she tugged on Daddy's sleeves or tried to appeal to the heart of Organdy's father at the cash register. Every time she did, she would always see her nemesis's smug face, cackling as she gave herself an appropriate pig nose on the ever-stainless glass window and did things much dirtier as they grew older.
Look at me now, girls, she thinks proudly, puffing up her chest as her pedestal clicks into place and the countdown begins. She doesn't pay much attention to the robotic voice uttering sequential numbers. Her mind has always had a tendency to waver between things real and things fantasized about in her own head, so much so that she would not be able to tell the difference if it weren't for the hateful words of her bullies, the jaded resignation with which her mother sits that night's bowl of slop, breadcrumbs, and tesserae oil down in front of her on the floor. But in her own mind, Lina always knew that she would amount to better things. She always saw those gorgeous girls with hair and skin of all different colors of the rainbow dancing in the advertisements on the screens and knew that she would be one of them someday, the breathtaking city that seems to exit only to remind the rest of the world of what it can't have, of what she could never have. Lina has it.
Lina is on the television screen, and she cannot comprehend the girls at school watching with anything but jealousy. She doesn't care about her family. She has left them for better things by now. Her new family loves her, she knows that in her interview when they cheer graciously for her and when she dances for them and shows them all of her designs. She doesn't understand why they wouldn't.
"Ugly."
"Idiot."
"Anorexic in a world where if you don't eat you will starve."
Lina doesn't care what they say about her, because they have always been just petty, envious fools destined for nothing but a hand-me-down job as a merchant girl with some gross merchant boy that they will someday pass onto their daughters. Complacent little bitches. Those Gamemakers are jealous of her too, elderly and covetous of her youth and allure, and that is why they gave her a three. She is beautiful, and they gave her a three, and they call her weak, but she knows that they are all jealous liars! She knows it!
Lina is this close already, absentmindedly pinching two fingers together in front of her. She laughs, a bizarre sound that cuts across the frigid wind and garners questioning looks from those all around amidst the crying children all around her. She'll win. She knows it. She just hasn't done it yet. And after that, the whole world will be hers. Her fingers clasp around her million-dollar handbag, and she can touch the diamonds on her neck, furls the very dress that she designed that she wears in front of the paparazzi right now. That is what those cameras are.
She doesn't even feel cold. She doesn't feel anything but warmth, the warmth streaming through her eyes, through what must be two heavy parkas, a windbreaker, a shirt, and an undershirt. Nothing that she would design herself or even dare to dress herself during the cold winter months, however dire the conditions were for her and her family, but she knows that she is wearing other things.
For another second, she takes in the wondrous fantasy-world all around her in its beauty and all her lonesome. Paradise.
The sharp clanging of a gong arouses her from her own world, and for one brief moment she ponders why all of the other tributes are running.
"Oh no," she says meekly, gracefully hopping off of her podium and running headlong into the thick of things.
Then she sees it there, untouched by the carnage in all directions, and it is the only object that she can see. It isn't as big as the ones that were in the shop. It isn't even tiered, but it is hers and hers for the taking, frosting and figure perturbed by absolutely nothing in the cold winter air.
Lina doesn't even realize what is on all sides of her until she sprints straight into the lunging form of the girl from One. Everything in her world is knocked to the side, and she lets out a squeak of shock as she falls into the snow, the freezing, unbearably cold snow. Then she screams for real. The girl from One is on top of her, and for a moment, all that she can think is how pretty she is, blonde hair cascading in waves down her face to tickle Lina's cheeks. Lina wants to be that pretty.
But the cake!
Lina squirms, and has her face shoved brutally down into the snow effortlessly by the predator.
"Where do you think you're going, love," she says, a disgusting, impulsive laugh tumbling out of her lips before she has a chance to control it. She puts a hand up to her mouth coyly, simpering as she subdues Lina with only one hand.
"No!" Lina yells in bewildered defiance.
This isn't how things are supposed to go! Lina is winning, she knows it! Lina is going to strut down the steps of the marble street and fluorescent alleyways of the Capital in her lavishly self-designed outfits, taking the stage and the eyes of everyone around, attending exclusive banquets and the most luxurious of dances, dazzling the world with her voice and her dancing. Lina isn't done yet!
"No? That's wasn't a yes or no question, love," the One girl says, smiling as if she is having a conversation about a boy that one of them likes.
A cutting noise startles Lina in the blur of white noise and numbing cold, and then something pokes her, and there is more pain in her world than she has ever even comprehended.
There is laughter in the background, but Lina can't feel anything but pain.
"What's happening?" she utters, half-conscious of everything but the agonizing sawing feeling cutting into her abdomen and the warm, wet feeling spreading across her torso. Lina is starting to have trouble breathing.
"You're dying, dummy," the girl on top of her says, and her cackling is starting to lose its melodic quality. "I'm killing you."
She drives the knife in deeper, and Lina lets out a screech of pain.
This can't be it! Lina can't be dying now, because she isn't done yet! She isn't a celebrity, not dancing or singing or acting or otherwise setting the world alight with her fire, and Organdy Hattie is gorging herself on cake as she sits in her plush living room and watches her die.
That can't be right, because Lina isn't dying. She's famous, and she knows it! They love her, all over the Capital they are screaming her name, and she is finally one of them. Not one of them, the best of them!
"No," she chokes out weakly. "Not yet."
"No, not yet," the girl from One says. "Let's draw it out just a bit further. I've got to make a splash for the first kill of the year, right? But I've got other monkeys to make a show out of, so we should speed this up a bit."
The horrible cutting feeling rises up past her rib cage, and Lina Patterson lets out one final dying scream that lingers in the air before waning and dying out. She's crying, because she never amounted to anything in her life, nothing but a weak little ditz from Eight who ran straight into her death. Lina is confused, because she can see it in her head this future that she is never going to reach, but she is already there!
Lina gives one feeble, futile, final kick to try and subvert the career on top of her, but it doesn't work.
"This is my show, bitch!" One says, and in the oblivious cerulean sky the glint of her knife catches as it plunges into Lina's throat, and she dies out yards away from her cake and eons away from ever amounting to anything.
Her killer shoves her to the ground, done with her, and all that Lina will ever be remembered for by anyone important is the first to die in her year.
So, hey everyone, I'm posting this because school is hard, and I wrote this about two months ago for the purpose of stockpiling. Thanks for clicking on this and reading it through if you're new and took a chance on a random story, and also if you are one of my SYOT readers. I promise I will try and update soon, but I'm honestly super busy right now, so I thought I might try to appease you with this. Another chapter will be coming again whenever there is a gap in my updates, and I can say now there will be twenty-four. Please leave a review! It doesn't have to be long, but I love seeing them and I'd like to know that some people are reading this story before I continue to stockpile. Tell me what you thought of Lina, the D1F, and also of my writing style, since this is one of my first tries at third-person. Have a great day, and I'll hopefully see you all soon!