Shark
Lots of people say to me, Shark, why are you so big and strong. Well, I answer, no one would disagree with me.
It is true. No one would mess with a guy named Shark. Or who looks like me. I mean, I'm big and buff, not a very weak looking person or anything. I'm full with scars and wounds, a tattoo, bite marks, all that not good stuff.
And that is exactly what I need for my job. Not really like a mafia thingy, but feels like it. Being only eighteen, I am the head of the fish market in the west side of Halfest's Harbor. Lots of people here make lots of money. People make me rich, no matter what I do to them, I get paid either way.
"Hey boss, we're done moving the fish and crustaceans from dock five, what should we do now?" One of my workers asks.
"Take ten and then go over our production for the day, then report back."
"Okay."
For our bad luck, something got the fish and they are either bad or dead, greatly reducing our money…so we can have that we sell the fish high priced, sell the bad fish under the normal price, or continue the normal selling.
And the Reapings are tomorrow. People want to take out a day or two to be with their friends and family before one of them get Reaped. There are only so much people I can let go, so I decided that if they do the next day's work before or after, they are free to go. But if they don't, they'll wish they never took that they out.
Then again, I have Guppy to do all the important, smart-ass stuff.
I have my own stuff to do.
Right now, it is to buy something for Tiara.
See, she's going to the Games as the Escort, and…well…I'd just like to give her something.
So I go into a jewelry shop and search for a little bracelet.
There, I found this pearl bracelet.
"I want this," I tell the salesman.
"That'd be seventy dollars," he says and puts the bracelet in a bag.
I give him the money and leave.
I hope she'll like it.
Not like she won't. It's Tiara, she is happy for every present she gets. Even from a guy like me.
I had to drop out of school in my freshmen year to start working so I could keep myself up. My parents just threw me out of their house for no reason, and now I live alone. I'm pretty gruff and rough, and so obviously I'm not the smartest person. I maybe be smart business wise, but not book wise. Besides, do you really wanna mess with a guy who is almost seven foot tall and weighs two hundred pounds, that is all muscle? I don't think so.
Outside, everything's fine. People work, the sea gulls fly, like everything is perfect.
I spot Tiara wandering about.
Well.
Now or never.
"Hey Tiara, can I talk to you," I ask her, nervous as hell.
"Oh hey Sebastian, sure," She says smiling at me. She is one of the few people who know my real name.
"Uhm…I was just wondering…I was wondering if you…if you want to…you know…go -"
"Hey boss, do you know where-"
"What?" I roared at the kid who interrupted me. "What do you want?"
"Wh-where is G-guppy?
"I don't know, search him!" The kid ran away frantically. "Sorry about that…"
"It's okay. What did you want to ask?"
"Uhm…do you want to…go out with me?"
Well, it went worse than I expected…Oh well. I just go and change for the Reapings. My last Reapings.
I wonder what will happen if I get Reaped, I get to spend my remaining time with Tiara.
And die.
Haha, please, me? Dying?
I could strangle anyone with my hands. Or snap their arms. Beat the shit out of them with a club or a trunk.
But then…I have to kill small, innocent kids.
Haha, that'll be great.
I take a shower, pretend I care about my looks, and get on a bus to the Square.
Carolie Davis
I don't know about you, but swimming is the best thing ever. It is a great sport, works your whole body, and it is a leisure time activity too.
"Hey Cora, did you grow fins or something?" Anhell calls from the shore of the ocean.
"Come and check it out!" I yell back as I show him my foot.
My my, I really need to cut my hair, but I don't want to. It is long and silky, sandy brown and wavy, but it gets in the way of my swimming, and not once my hair tried to kill me.
Anhell my friend, who is also like my brother, he is deathly afraid of water. Any kind of water, lake, river, running water, still water, bottled water, and some other things that are liquidy. I don't know why he is scared of water, when I'm here. I'm a pretty good swimmer, and if he goes drowning, I can save him pretty easily. He is not heavy, and in water, people float.
He has sun dried brown hair and gray eyes with lean built and minimal muscles. He is good looking too, but since he got reaped into the games, he is back to Christianity. You see, he was Christian, and then became an Atheist, but two years ago, he got reaped and someone volunteered for him and he is back to Christianity, saying that God saved him and all.
"Anhell, come on! If you start drowning, which you won't, I'll save you!"
"Nah-ah, I'm staying on solid ground!"
"You do know that Panem is not a solid ground, it is a continent, but a continent is a large island, and an island is moving, since it is not connected to the crust of the earth, so by simple logic, you are not on solid ground," I explain, laying on my back.
"Carolie Davis!" He calls by my full name and I know he doesn't want to argue anymore with me.
"Ah fine…" I sigh and paddle back to shore.
"Thank you," he says, and he is noticeable more relaxed. He puts a towel on my back and I sit down on the warm sand. He sits down next to me. "Why can't you be like most girls? Tanning on the beach and chilling…"
"Why can't you be like most guys? You could do swimming, showing off their skills and body, doing dangerous things?
"Good question. I'm just much more careful than doing that." He lies down on the sand and I can almost see him instantly tan.
"So you give up by giving me right to bypass a touchy topic?"
"You make it sound so wrong," he says.
"But it is true…" I say dreamily and I lay down on my stomach.
It feels good having him next to me. Not like we're in love with each other, but it is good to have a strong boy who smells nice next to me.
His brother, Lemon, now he is hot. Tall, muscular, a six pack like oh my god, angel like voice, and all that…perfect guy. Too bad I was born too late for him. He is eighteen, and no, I do not have a crush on him. I just…enjoy seeing him swim. Now he loves to swim, so we spend quite a long time swimming and leaving Anhell worrying.
I embrace my fifteen years old friend, and I feel his ragged wound.
Well I guess that explains his fear of water. He was a kid, ten years ago or so? He got attacked by a shark, poor boy was on the edge of his life, but he survived.
"You smell like seaweed."
I like seaweed.
How much did I sleep? An hour or two? I don't know…but that is the cost when you come out to the ocean at sunrise just for the view. Ah, the view, it is so worth everything in this world. The colours, the waves, the sounds, even the smell of…well, that smell I cannot describe, and having my seaweed smelling friend, it is even better.
I wake up, and find Lemon staring at me. Anhell is not beside me.
"Look alive sunshine," he says smiling.
"Good morning Lemon," I say as I stand up and dust my skin off of dried sand. "Where is Anhell?"
"I told him to go and take a shower for the Reapings. You have like, oh, thirty minutes?"
"Oh…okay, ah, that makes sense. Thanks for waking me up though."
He walks me home where my overly terrified family awaits me.
My sister, Millea, she is working as a tailor, and a pretty good one for that. She and I, we both have our weird eyes, they are purple. Purple! That is one of the reasons I love them, they are so special, and she likes her eyes too. People say we are like two twins, we look a lot alike. We do actually, and how she looks like, that is how I imagine myself in my older years.
Lionheart, my older brother, he is fun to be around. He is but three years older than me, and his is always serious and dramatic, that is what makes him so awesome. I always joke around him and prank him, driving him nuts. Oh the joy. He has green eyes and blond hair, he enjoys surfing and finishing, sometimes putting the two together. He is popular by, pretty much everyone in the richer parts of District 4. Though there were times when his kindly revenges went a little too far for me, but whatever.
Yep, the richer parts.
Thanks to our parents, Rola and Halray. They are both very successful business people. My dad owns the fish market, and he has a good sense of buying low and selling high. He knows who to hire and fire, and he is very, set-minded. He doesn't care if something is blocking his way, he will not surrender, ever.
Tiara, my oldest sister is a singer and dancer, adored by people. She has long sandy brown hair and purple-ish blue eyes. Her voice like an angel's, no duh people like her. She loves to sing, and sometimes she does that thing that she sings when she should talk. But she doesn't sing in the nursery type way, or the rhyming way, she is rapping or rocking out. She 0only does that with her friends and family.
The Davis family leaves the house and Tiara stays for a sec.
"Are you ready for the Reapings?" I ask Tiara, she's wearing a beautiful purple gown.
"Oh yeah I am."
"It was your dream to be an Escort for District 4…aren't you a little nervous?"
"Seriously? Shut your face. Who else could it be to host this thing," she starts rapping. "People know who the h I am, I'm a pro. The right time, and the place to be, yeah I say it, I'm the best right here." She stops and waits for me to continue. She really encourages me to sing, or rap. She says that I have the voice of a siren. I don't believe her…but I still enjoy singing when no one is watching or hearing me.
"Here we go another page in your legacy, Halfest wait until they get a load of thee," I sing the line of a song she made up then stop.
"Come on, you were great!"
"I forgot the rest."
Rola, my mom, she was working as a fisher-woman when she was a kid, now she is working in an aquarium. All the fish, coral, water mammals, sharks, oh I love sharks, and it is very safe. I once fell into the shark tank, and nothing bad happened. Well, maybe because those sharkies were fed some quality meat.
After taking a good warm shower, I dress in a white sleeveless dress with ruffles at the end, with a purple tie at my hip and sandals.
Even though I shouldn't worry about a lot of things, I worry about an old friend of mine. Finley. We were friends for a long time, from kindergarten up until three years ago, when she had to leave District 4, and go into District 3. I do not know why she left, she didn't tell me or her parents didn't tell her. But oh well, not like she will get reaped.
"Come one come all, we have a Reaping to attend!" I sing-song cheerfully, but I really do not wish to go to the Reapings.
Tiara Davis, District 4 Escort
Why am I nervous? I have done things where much more people were watching me with eager eyes. Then why am I nervous?
Possibly the obvious answer is that I am the one who send children into the Games.
And I am forgetting why I applied to be an Escort.
Why did I want to become an Escort again?
To see the world. To see the Capitol. To understand people. To understand the whys and hows of life.
Sure that's good and everything, but…it just isn't fair. It isn't fair to send innocent children to their death for entertainment. Why don't people make books or games? Virtual reality is feeling very…real, so why don't they make a virtual reality game for the Games?
And for Christ's sake, why am I standing on the stage the whole time? Why am I not sitting down somewhere, enjoying a nice café or something?
Whatever. The children are coming; it is time for me to go up the stage.
It feels like my brain is pulsating, the back of my neck is sweating, which is really annoying, and I feel dizzy. Haha, like I will get Reaped.
"H-hello District 4!" There goes my confident introduction. "The 100th Hunger Games is starting, and it is once again time to send kids to their en-" Praise or ignore, my teacher used to say. Either praise the Games and the Capitol or don't say anything about it, "energizing times!" Energizing? Really? "The fourth Quarter Quell's twist is," I open the little yellow note card, and read it. The tributes' families, friends and acquaintances will be sent into the Games too. "The people whom the tributes know will be sent into the Games as well." I say after a few deep breaths.
This got the district buzzing with fear.
"The male tribute is…" I mix the names in the bowl and pick one and read the name. Sebastian Carcharodon. What? No. No no no. That's…No. I swallow my urge to just walk away and say his name. "Sebastian Carcharodon."
He stands up and shoves people away as he walks up. He is not sad, he is not angry. He is…I don't know. I can't read that expression. I know one thing for sure, Sebastian was never ordinary; from the day I met him, I knew something was wrong with him.
"And the female tribute is…" I pick a name, I don't care who the tribute is, just want to get out of here.
What was I thinking? Everything goes perfectly as I imagined? I'm so stupid.
Carolie Davis.
My sister? That Carolie? Oh god no. Just say another name.
Come on Tiara, just say another name. Another innocent girl, but your sister. But who? Everyone I know is already over eighteen.
"Carolie Davis!"
What have I done?
My sister, shocked, walks up the stage, and as she does, she doesn't look anywhere but my eyes.
Sebastian Carcharodon
Well, I'm in the Games, good. I can easily win this game, good. But I have to kill Tiara's sister, not good.
Most of the kids are happy that I leave because they hate me, so I evidently didn't get any visitors. Not even my mother or father. Just as usual.
Both are really rich, snobby assholes. Threw me out of their home for no reason, they ignored me ever since.
They do not know what suffer is, they do not know what it means not to eat for days. They do not know how it feels to be alone for years.
They don't know anything!
Nothing!
They always had what they want, cars, houses, servants and people! I bet they don't even love each other, just have mistresses and gardener boys.
I'm sure Tiara would come if she wouldn't be the Escort.
The door opens and a butler comes in.
"Lady and Sir Carcharodon have written this for you," he says with a posh accent and gives me a letter.
I look at it and smile at him.
I tore the letter apart and give it back to the butler.
"Tell them to shove it up their ass."
Carolie Davis
Not exactly what I have imagined for today.
I got Reaped, and my sister announced it.
Not like it was her fault, she is bound by law.
Still…
At least I'll spend my last days with my sister.
Mom and dad come in, and they do the usual. Try to get me out, protect me, and cry on me. Well, my mom. Dad doesn't cry. Not like he doesn't want to, but he can't. Something's wrong with his eyes and cannot cry. It feels like a minute, but it really is ten minutes and they have to leave.
It feels like they took a part of my heart.
Next comes Lionheart, with a bead necklace.
"Thought you'd need a token for the Games, and this is just what you need… I guess. All two hundred and seventy four beads. I counted them."
That bead necklace. I don't know how I started it, but something like 'for every time I find a new fish' or something, but then it became a hobby for me to collect beads.
This would be a great token for me. A lot of memories are in this necklace, a lot. I can name at least two for each bead.
"Carol,"
"Yes?"
"Be passive aggressive. Hide, scavenge, do not be the centre of attention like you are here. Okay?"
"Fine."
Anhell comes in last, weird how he is not with Lemon.
"There are so many things we could've done before. Like…swim together, or just chill, go to the malls and watch movies. Talk about our significant others if we had one. All those. But no, because no one volunteered for you. Not even Leyra, she is always speaking about herself as a goddess or something, but she actually an ogress…"
And we talked, talked like it was any other day. That is how I want to remember by little seaweed friend, content and Anhell like, not crushed and crying…
Anyhow.
There are no turn backs or regrets. It is all or nothing.