He heard screaming. It wouldn't stop, and as he sat in this… this cell, the reverberating voice hurt his head. Throughout half of the clips of the past Hunger Games, the girls voice kept going and going. It was growing annoying and painful, it sounded too familiar. It was as if his mother, screeching in her sleep, calling out for his father…
Yet this girls voice was different. The man could faintly hear the voice of a boy, muffled but audible. He was pleading for her to stop.
"Crescent…"
Crescent?
The thirty-three year old man rushed to the side of the room, where the voice was coming from.
"Crescent? Crescent is that you? Crescent!" he yelled, pounding against the concrete wall.
The horrible screech she was emitting started to die in her shock.
"Kai?"
Kai Odair sighed, leaning his head against the wall. He felt her move, saying something to someone. That voice, no matter how distant, was familiar too.
"Not Briar too…"
Crescent shuffled over to where Kai's head was beyond the wall.
"Kai? Oh Kai, not you too…"
"I'm afraid so, little bird." He said solemnly.
"This has to be some sort of cruel joke, it can't…"
"If anyone with the last name of Snow is involved," Kai bit out. "I'm afraid this is all too real."
He looked to the TV screen just in time to see his mother go crazy. Her district partner, the man who was decapitated in front of her, had died. His detached head rolled along the ground, and she broke. Tears welled up in his eyes and he turned again to the wall, where Crescent's warm voice was waiting for him.
"I promise Crescent," he said. "I won't let them hurt you or Briar. We'll find a way out. We'll escape!"
She nodded furiously, but then realizing he couldn't see her, she gave out a soft, "Yes."
Briar sat within his own room, watching the television. He already knew who was on the other side now. Kai Odair, the beautiful son of Finnick and Annie. Briar's hands shook, as he knew his mission to save his sister had just become so much harder. Crescent loved her Aunt Annie, the wonderful broken woman who only had her son to hold onto.
So if Annie's only son was in danger, no matter how capable he was of getting out of this alive, Crescent would try to protect him. Briar had already accepted that most likely, people would die. Whether from an escape attempt or an actual… He swallowed, Hunger Games, he knew people would die. He watched as his mother and father flickered across the screen in their first Hunger Games.
He already knew about the Hunger Games, they started teaching kids about it in history class when they turned 16. His sister might know more than he did, but he knew his parents had been an essential part of the games that accelerated them to propelling a rebel movement. The nightlock did it. His mother, when he asked one day after school, had stiffened.
"I only wanted us to live," she said. "I am happy with the result, but there are people I might not have lost if only one of us had one."
She never mentioned which of his parents would have, or should have, lived.
The Quarter Quell was passing by the screen now and he knew Kai would become riveted to the screen. He had never seen his father before, except in the portrait Briar's father had drawn in their book of the lost. Finnick was there, handsome and strong, saving Peeta, having to sacrifice Mags, saved from the poison, and crying over Annie's tortured voice…
He thought he heard a soft sob, and it did not sound like his sister.
Katniss, Haymitch, and Peeta forced themselves to watch the "reaping's". It starts from District 1, and they are forced out of their own homes. They are not given any warning before they are taken. Unlike all the children before them who at least could have anticipated their name being drawn, these poor boys and girls were violently kidnapped.
An eighteen year old from the factory in District 1 and a fifteen year old girl who elbows her attacker in the nose before being hit upside the head. In District 2 two twelve year olds are taken. One from a Sweet Shop as she was taking out the trash, and the boy from a house in the Victors Village. District 3 took a couple, who were working at afternoon jobs in the new factory for things called computers. District 4 made Katniss shy away from the screen. Kai, despite the fact that he was thirty-three years old, was taken by surprise in his sleep. It seemed though, to balance that out, they take a twenty-three year old woman who works as a nurse in the hospital Katniss mother works in.
It keeps going on and on with the boys and girls taken one by one. When it gets to District 12, Peeta lets out a muffled sob. Briar and Crescent are laughing over the bread they had just made when suddenly they're attacked. Haymitch, unnoticed, grabs a bottle of liquor and takes a couple of swigs. When the horror seems to be finally over, another shot is shown. Katniss and Peeta look bewildered, until the high-pitched voice of Clytemnestra comes on again.
"As an exciting twist, this year we have added two new tributes from the great Capitol itself!"
Haymitch nearly drops the bottle.
A boy of about seventeen is taken. Although Capitol fashion has become less extreme his hair is a striking forest green that stands out against his pale skin. He did not stand a chance when they jumped him. The thirteen year old girl is small with darker skin with a little purple bow in his frizzy brown hair. She, also, stood no chance against the man who took her from her own home.
"Capitol children?" Peeta breathed. "But that makes no sense."
"Who is Clytemnestra? Why is she doing this?" She looks like she's from the Capitol, she has the accent. Why would she do that?" Katniss wonders.
Haymitch makes a derisive snort.
"How quickly you forget one of the people you were intent on killing," he scoffs.
Katniss whips her head around, her long braid whipping against her face.
"What?"
"This is a revenge plot," Haymitch growls, sitting himself down in a chair and taking another drink from the liquor bottle. "Clytemnestra is one of the Capitol children you, we, wanted to put in another Hunger Games as revenge,"
Katniss and Peeta seem to painfully recall the memory, there eyes widening in terror.
"Have you finally put two and two together, sweetheart? She's President Snow's granddaughter."
The trio in their separate cells watched the reaping from each district, analyzing the other tributes. While Crescent looked at the screen with pity and compassion, Briar and Kai had different ideas. If they could not find a way to escape, they would have no choice but to look at these tribute, these children, as prey. If they wanted to live long enough to see their home again, it was their only option.
Briar could not help but feel disgusted with himself. How willing he was to think about becoming a murderer of innocent people when his life, when Crescent's life, was on the line. Was this how his mother thought? His father? If it was, he thought, no wonder they were plagued with nightmares.
Clytemnestra's face, increasingly becoming more ugly the longer her saw it, came on screen again.
"This will be such an exciting games this year!" she exclaimed. "Now, the tributes should get ready! They'll be assembled soon for their makeovers and, of course, meetings with their mentors!"
The screen went black.
There was a silence, and then Briar heard Crescent's voice ask,
"So this is really happening?"
The answer came when the door opened and a brawny man in a stark white uniform walked in to Briar's room.
"Yes." He said bitterly before he was hauled to his feet.
A/N: I hope this actually works this time. ff .net is being REALLY, and I mean REALLY stupid right now. It sayd it has uploaded my chapters but it won't lead people to the page. *sigh*