Chapter Thirteen: It's All Fun and Games

One Day Remaining (Give or Take)

Zari Morlett, District Six Female

Note: When Liela "talks," all of her "dialogue" is in italics to simulate sign language. All conversations with her will be in italics. Sorry for any confusion.

I've essentially become a mother at the young age of seventeen.

And the crazy part is, I think I really like it.

The five of us- Zeke, me, Ophelia, Xander, and Myra (from oldest to youngest, of course) are all back together in our house, which is a little overpacked now that school's out for the summer. Meaning, Zeke and I have to keep watch over the other three whenever Mom and Dad are at work. And, honestly, it's kind of fun. I figured out pretty quickly that when you put all of us together (especially the younger three) you'll get some charming, albeit very odd, experiences.

Which leads me to my current position. I'm currently "chained" to a chair with duct tape and being held prisoner in the kitchen by Zeke, who has dressed as a cyborg pirate (complete with an eye patch and a robotic right arm). I'm supposed to be a fairy princess (evidenced by my pink crown and "magic wand" which is actually just a plastic spoon coated in pink glitter). From the bits I've overheard, the other three plan to rescue me with a plan that involves rainbows, a unicorn that spits acid, and an octopus that's missing two limbs. (And I thought my childhood imagination was ridiculously nonsensical!)

No matter how insane our games get, we've only upheld three rules while we play: no intentionally hurting someone else, no breaking anything on purpose, and no raw eggs. (That rule got added two years ago, after Xander thought that the best way to defeat a mad witch was by hitting her with raw eggs. Unfortunately, a six-year-old doesn't exactly have impeccable aim, meaning more of it got on the walls than on me. Those stains took days to scrub out.)

Currently, Zeke is waving a sword like crazy with his free hand, cackling like a lunatic. "You'll never take me alive, you nut-sucking mongrels!" (I have no idea how to translate pirate lingo, but I'd guess that's an insult.)

All of a sudden, the other three burst through the door, toting a variety of strange things- most notably, a toy octopus that Myra keeps swinging like a baseball bat. Silently, I'm grateful we had this part of the game in the kitchen- there's nothing that can really be broken in here.

"No, but we can take you dead!" Myra yells this as she swings the octopus directly at Zeke. He dances out of the way, and the thing narrowly misses my head.

Zeke smirks. "Brave, for one your size. But it is you who shall be dead when I have accomplished my greatest endeavor yet!"

A voice from the living room calls out "Not quite yet!"

Then, Xander and Ophelia burst into the room, toting a unicorn and what appears to be rainbow glitter. Zeke immediately gasps. "Oh, no! That isn't just any glitter!"

Xander responds with "That's right! This is super rainbow glitter!"

Ophelia chimes in. "Guaranteed to stop pirates and robots, every time, or your money back!" She immediately throws all of it onto Zeke.

"Nooooooooooo!"

Zeke does a pretty good job of over-dramatically collapsing to the ground as he claws at his face. Then, the other three peel off my duct tape, and say, "you are free to go, The Lovely Fairy!"

Then, I traipse out of the room as daintily as possible, as everyone bursts out into uncontrollable laughter.

"Wow, that was awesome!" Ophelia says this as tears stream down her face. She's laughing so hard that about a minute later, she starts hiccupping. Then, all the laughter just fades into a bit of an awkward silence.

"That was awesome," I reply, "but, Mom and Dad are going to be home any minute, and all this glitter isn't going to clean itself up. Come on, everyone knows where the dustpans and hand brooms are!"

Everyone, including me, grabs a hand broom and a dustpan and starts sweeping up the glitter. In no time, the job is finished. Which is good, because sixty seconds after we've deposited most of the glitter back into a gigantic bag of the stuff, the front door swings open, and Mom and Dad are officially home for the day.

"Hello, guys!" This comes from Dad.

"Considering that the house is still standing and I don't see any raw-egg stains on the wall, I think I can assume nothing too tragic happened while we were gone. Am I right?" After the… incident with raw eggs, she's harbored this fear that she'll suddenly come home and find the house burnt down or something. I've never been quite sure why.

Myra quietly slips out from behind Ophelia. "Nothing except for Peggy going to sleep forever."

"Who's Peggy?"

I cut that off before it gets too out of hand. "No one important." Then I turn to Myra. "We were just pretending, remember?"

She looks at me and nods. "I remember. Sorry."

Zeke then turns to our parents. "Do you mind if Zari and I go out for an hour to see friends? Just in case, you know, the unthinkable happens tomorrow."

Dad frowns. "Oh. Right. Tomorrow's Reaping Day. You two can go out for an hour. Just be back for dinner!"

Zeke's already halfway out the door. "Sure thing!"

Seeing no other real options, I head out the door after him, wanting to see my own friends as well before tomorrow.

Zeke and I have split up for this part. If there's one thing in particular we don't share as closely (despite being twins) it would be what we looked for in friends. Unlike the semi-crazy bunch Zeke has been known to hang out with, my friends are actually pretty normal. For the most part, anyway.

I'm not sure where they all are as of now. I'll have to round them all up if I want to have any chance at talking to all of them and still getting back in time to eat.

Thankfully, they're all clustered together around a bench outside the town hall. I'm not sure what they're there for (depending on what time of day it is, you can hear speeches from our mayor, listen in on some truly bizarre conversations, and even see a morphling deal now and then), but the point is, I won't have to hunt them down.

Korrie is casually leaning over the edge of the bench and chatting up a storm, causing Jacob, who's sitting right next to her, to nod constantly. Liela, the last of our group, is quietly standing up behind them, wearing a heavy pair of earmuffs despite the sweltering heat.

"Hey, everyone!" I'm yelling this as loud as I can. "Over here!"

They all turn in my direction and wave, even if Liela needs a bit of prompting from Korrie, since, unfortunately, she's deaf (she wears earmuffs no matter the weather so that it's obvious that she can't hear anything that anyone says to her).

"Zari, nice to see you!" Korrie nearly yells this at the top of her lungs.

Hello, Zari, Liela quickly signs for me.

"Hello, guys," I say as quickly as possible. Then, I sign it for Liela. Hello, guys. (Zeke dragged all of us- including Liela- into some optional class covering basic sign language two years ago. At least now I can hold up my end of a conversation with Liela.)

Jacob quietly turns towards me. "You feel ready for tomorrow? Because, in all honesty, I sure don't."

I try to laugh him off. "Dude, there has to be a million slips in that bowl! We didn't know either of the kids last year, or the year before, or the year before. No need to stress about it. It's not happening."

His face turns ashen. "My younger sister, Shannon, knew the girl last year. Not closely, mind you, but they shared a few classes."

"She knew who that Sofia girl was?"

"She did. And she took it pretty hard when she died three minutes in. Sure, this girl wasn't one of her friends or anything, but, it probably still felt horrible to know that someone she saw regularly, hell, they might have talked a couple of times, wouldn't ever be coming back."

The smile fades right off my face. "Sorry about that. I didn't know."

"It's fine. You didn't know. A year has passed, hopefully she's gotten over it by now. Just don't bring up the last Hunger Games in front of her."

Liela signs, I'll be fine, even with the Games. We can't change them, so why bother?

I sign back, saying, That's a good line of thought. We can't change it, why worry about it?

"What are you guys saying?" Korrie asks this quickly, like she's nervous that I'll get all offended over her asking a very reasonable question.

"Just that there's no real reason to worry too much about something we can't change."

Then, I allow myself to look at the time. Near the top of the tallest building in town- the church- there's a gigantic clock that took a team of fifty workers a full summer to complete properly. Even if that clock is off, it's been what everyone has based their times off of ever since in this town.

As soon as I see it, I have to stifle a gasp. Forty minutes have already ticked by, leaving me with ten to spend with everyone else and ten to make the walk home.

"So, anything you guys want to do right now?"

Korrie replies with, "How about we try to climb that tree?"

Liela signs, What tree?

She signs back, Come on, you know what tree. It won't take long. Come on, let's go!

I know what they're all talking about, and I'm getting a pit in my stomach just from thinking about it.

The tree they're talking about is a real monster. It's been dead for quite some time, but thankfully, no one has cut it down and sent it to District Seven yet. We've dared each other to climb this tree all the way to the top every single year since age ten, but haven't had the guts- or the steady feet- required to make it all the way up. At age twelve, I nearly missed grabbing a branch on it and almost fell thirty-plus feet to the ground. I still have nightmares about that.

However, when we reach the tree, it's already surrounded by a couple of kids, chanting as a girl in the branches climbs higher and higher. Including one familiar face…

"Hey, Zari." Zeke has distanced himself from the crowd so he can be heard over their chants of "Go, girl, go!"

"Who's that in the tree?"

"Oh, that's Belle. She's in my Car Assembly class. She's the best climber out of all of us: if she can't do it, I highly doubt anyone else can."

Whoever this Belle is, she's already halfway up, and not slowing down. Well, she does stop to blow a kiss down towards the ground. The boy who the kiss must be directed towards shrieks and nearly faints. Two of his friends have to support him so he can stand up straight again.

She keeps ascending, and she's not far from the top anymore. Forty feet, thirty feet, twenty feet…

Then a branch audibly cracks under her feet.

She lets out a squeal, and grabs onto a branch above her with both hands, which begins to bend, even under her relatively small weight. As if she'd prepared for this moment, she immediately begins climbing back down the tree, sticking to the larger branches that are close to the trunk, ignoring the groans coming from her audience.

As she hits the ground, she says, in a surprisingly masculine voice, "Maybe if I was lighter. But not now. A pretty good view is better than not living to see an awesome view." Then, she saunters off.

"Hey, Zari," Korrie yells from the other side of the tree. "You want to try next?"

"I'm sorry, but I have to go home. I'll try it after the Reapings!" Then I turn to Zeke. "Come on, dinner's probably waiting."

Despite Korrie and Liela both giving me disapproving looks, Zeke and I dart off so that we can make it home in time to eat. Because, trust me, Ophelia has turned into a human garbage disposal as of late.

Thankfully, I return and there is still food on the table. Ophelia hasn't gotten very far yet.

Before it's all gone, Zeke and I grab some celery sticks and carrots, alongside a small portion of what appears to be beef and a piece of the bread our District is famous for (very chewy, grooves on top of the loaf to mimic tire tracks, hint of maple syrup baked in).

As we're busy filling ourselves up with excellent food, Ophelia, Xander, and Myra chatter away in between bites. The whole table is picked clean within minutes- if you want seconds of anything in this house, ever, you have to eat fast, move fast, and think fast, because otherwise someone else will beat you to it.

Ophelia, Xander, and Myra leave the table all at once. Judging by how much they're giggling, I'd guess they're either going to go on yet another crazy adventure they've cooked up or just re-enact the ones we've already done. Either way, there's going to be a lot of nonsense going on in the small room they all sleep in over the next thirty minutes or so.

As for Zeke and I, we just, well, sit. Everyone else seems to have found a way to entertain themselves until bedtime- our siblings with whatever their game may be, and Mom and Dad with some ancient books they've had since well before I was born. Seeing nothing else to really do, I decide to just have a quick chat with Zeke, more out of necessity than anything else.

"Zeke? If- if the unthinkable happens tomorrow, I need you to agree to one thing. I'll do the same, if they do boys first instead of girls."

"What do you want me to agree to?"

"Don't volunteer into the Games to try and save me. It sounds crazy, but think about it this way: only one person can ever leave the Arena. If both of us are in the Game, logically, at least one of us has to die. And if we both wind up dead, whoever volunteered will have their sacrifice be completely pointless."

Zeke nods. "I agree. Mostly because, I may love you and all, but I don't want to die."

"Join the club."

With a tiny giggle, the two of us begin walking towards our room. Thankfully, while we don't have our own bedrooms, we have our own beds, so we don't bang into each other constantly. (Apparently, I move around a lot when I sleep.)

As we pass by the room that Ophelia, Xander, and Myra all sleep together in, we hear snippets of conversation that, if they came out of an adult, would have them locked up in a mental asylum, no questions asked.

"But Captain Captain, what about the icebergs?"

"I told you, those are foam balls!"

"Those foam balls are walking!"

"Quick! Get the bleach!"

Quietly, we crawl into our individual beds, not even bothering to take off our clothes- it's too much effort. Then, everything begins to fade away.

"Tomorrow after Reapings, we climb that tree together?" Zeke asks this in between yawns.

Even though I desperately don't want to do that, it feels like appropriate celebration for surviving another year. "Sure thing."

"Good night, Zari."

"See you in the morning, Zeke."

Then everything goes dark, and the world vanishes.

Author's Notes:

-Thanks to EmberLex for sending me Zari.

-Just another note- while knowing the exact events of the previous Games (which happened offscreen) is not critical to the story, it will be referenced fairly heavily. If you would like a quick little The Victor's Compendium style breakdown of the 94th Hunger Games (which immediately precedes this one), PM me, and I'll write one and send it over via DocX. (And if you don't know what The Victor's Compendium is, search it up on here and read it, it's pretty good.)

-Coming up in the next chapter is DefoNotAFanGirl's first (and only) character, the D8F.

-This will be followed by the D12F, and both tributes from D5 (They were sent by the same person, so the order is probably interchangeable).

-See you next chapter!