Disclaimer: Suzanne Collins created the Hunger Games universe and her characters. I do not own the Hunger Games.
No twinkling stars or shining moon, only darkness blankets the sky. The club has pocketed all of the light, it is filled with flickering and flashing lights that beam everywhere. It is just another night despite the looming threat of tomorrow. Loud music thuds against the club's walls as if it is trying to escape. The pungent odour of sweat, vomit, smoke, alcohol only grows stronger as more bodies fill the building.
Just another night.
Stand, check IDs, throw out abusive attendees and stand some more.
My fighting skills are kept sharp, my mind is kept sharp and I have a good laugh. The uniform is also a great bonus. The black leather jacket, black cargo pants and black combat boots are more than I could ever wish for.
The uniform has become a second skin for the new person I become at night. Athena Sunspeare, sensational security guard at night and Athena Sunspeare, daughter of a disgraced peacekeeper and lowly orphan during the day. Tonight's frost has a bite and I'm glad it can't sink its teeth through a leather layer.
"I've got these babes," Lorcan informs me. His beady eyes eagerly undress the three young girls that approach us at the door. However, his eyes don't have much to work with; the girls are basically nude with their short skirts and skimpy bra tops.
The girls approach Lorcan. I know all three of them. Sixteen, too young to be here. Laura Clamwell, Izabelle El Mar and Violet Pearle were all in my grade but they won't recognise me. I was the haughty, uppity daughter of a peacekeeper who skipped a grade.
Predators like Lorcan hunt easy prey like these three.
Lorcan ogles their chests and ushers the girls in eagerly. On cue, all of the girls giggle shamelessly and slowly sashay into the club. Many underage girls use the flirtatious charm on Lorcan to enter the club.
A moving figure in black catches my eyes. Declan Dune takes long strides towards us. Women and men huddled outside the club hungrily eye his form like starved creatures. Declan is the exquisite delicacy every club attendee craves.
"You knocking off early sunshine?" Lorcan asks curiously and his eyes stray to my chest. I cross my arms over my chest and grin tightly at him.
"Why? Are you worried you can't handle the rowdy ones without me?" I tease playfully despite wanting to deck him. I always play nice because Lorcan is my boss's brother.
"No, just going to miss the view," Lorcan replies, a sleazy grin spreads across his face and he slowly drags his tongue along his top lip. I clench my teeth together and push my arms against my chest to restrain my fists. The urge to blacken and swell up his eyes until he can't see is excruciatingly strong.
"Hello beautiful," the velvety voice of Declan Dune saves his uncle from my fury. My gaze switches from one disgusting creature to the next. Declan cocks his head to the side and grins lazily at me.
"Hello Declan," I reply in a friendly tone. Really I want to call him Dick-lan.
"Better run home beautiful and get some shut eye before the sun rises. If you can't sleep and you need some help, remember that I'm here," Declan drawls out in a slow, seductive manner. I suppose the desired effect was to leave me mesmerised, instead my instincts are pointing out very move I can use to incapacitate him if he tries anything on me.
I extend my hand and pointedly stare at the palm of my hand. Declan's dad always pays me through him. An employer with an underage security guard has to be cautious.
Declan smirk widens and reveals the white of his teeth. His piercing hazel eyes trail slowly down my body and they take extra care to stare at certain parts for a lengthy amount of time.
Don't hurt him, I chant to myself.
You need the money, I remind myself.
Slowly he retrieves his pocketed hand from his pocket and places the green bills into my hand.
"Thanks," I say swiftly.
I can't leave the place any faster than I do.
Declan is handsome, I'll give him that, but his personality is ugly.
Every other girl falls for his charms. Every other girl lives in her dreams with her perfect husband, their perfect house and their perfect children. I wonder, how many girls have written his surname with their name?
Once I turn eighteen, I just want to buy a boat and sail away. I don't know where, just anywhere but here. I don't want a husband or a family. I want freedom.
I hug my arms together and weave down the network of streets. The streets are mostly dark with the lamps barely blinking any light. The streets are all empty too. The drunken buffoons steer clear of trouble as if they are fearful to tempt fate. Everyone plays nice tonight.
Many are over eighteen and have escaped the odds but yet tonight they still remain fearful. Curtains are drawn tightly together and families are huddled together.
The rest of us wake anxiously for the sun to rise to see if we have tempted fate. I like to think I have been unlucky enough so I won't be chosen. I'm hoping I'm not. I live for the day after my final reaping. The day I will finally be in charge of myself and free.
I'll use a log to float away if I have to. Hopefully I will wash up on a distant beach; golden sand, sunshine, gently rolling waves, squawking seagulls, palm trees and freedom. Bliss.
My breath escapes my lips in wisps of steam and once again I am grateful for the warmth of my work jacket. The woollen lining within the jacket only blesses me more. If only leather jackets grew on trees like leaves because then influenza and pneumonia wouldn't spread like flames through the House. No one will give warmth to the lowly rejects of our district, the numbers they lose in winter are regained later in spring.
I wish I could protect the other children in my home, but in a way I am selfish; once they sniff a whiff of a person you care about, they use them against you.
Once you reach the grimmest street in the grimmest side of the district you find the House. The House is the district's orphanage where children rejected from foster care are placed.
My House, my home and my prison all bundled up into an old factory. Wiry, dry, golden straw surrounds the pathway towards the House. If someone harvested it all we could sell it as hay so they could feed us edible lumps of soup for once.
The old converted factory is four thin, tin walls in the shape of a rectangle. In winter the House is a freezer.
I have to climb the limbs of a willow tree to sneak into my room. Once I slide the window up, I quietly slide myself inside the building.
My room is an old cleaner supply closet which is the size of half a carriage. A hammock bunk bed and a small bedside drawer are the only furniture I have. They don't belong to me. They belong to the Capitol. When you become an orphan nothing belongs to you, not even yourself. Your body becomes property of the Capitol and they can rent it to anyone they like. Unless, like me, you use money to bribe Mrs Shell the House 'Mother'.
The House is a brothel. It's the disgusting truth made more real by looking at the children imprisoned inside of here. All of them are thin and sickly with no spark of childish glee in their eyes. So many filthy men and women taint their innocence until they have none.
The children here are used for money or for payment.
Mrs Shell is a vile, disgusting, portly, bird-nosed, beady eyed beast of a woman. She doesn't see children, she sees money. Mrs Shell is the one behind the grand scheme.
I climb up onto the top hammock and caress the green bills within my pocket. Three quarters for Mrs Shell and the rest for me.
The hammock sways side to side like a boat rocking against the waves. I love the hammocks, they can easily rock you to sleep. The hammocks are better than the wooden slabs they call beds.
On my distant beach, I'll have a hammock.
My eyelids become heavy so I rest them.
My slowing breaths are the only sound I hear in my room. The thin, wooden walls manage to block out the sound of the other children living here. Tonight is especially blissful because their nightly visitors don't come.
No groans, no miserable crying, no wretched wailing and no banging. The children are safe for a night but only because of the danger they face tomorrow.
I used to share my room with other children. Emily House, a girl my age used to share it with me at first. Every child dumped as babies have the surname House.
Her hair used to be long, black springs that used to boing and bounce with every step she took. Her eyes used to shine bright until pneumonia took that light away. Her voice could lift you away and into a different world where things were better and happier. She was my first friend in the House and my best friend. I used to cry myself to dehydration in her arms. Her bony, gaunt frame would shelter me from the harsh reality of House life.
Emily taught me the ins and outs of this place.
Rayna House was next.
Freckles were splattered across both of her cheeks and the bridge of her nose and she also had a long neck. She introduced herself as giraffe to everyone. Her ginger hair was always weaved into two fish plaits with faded, pink ribbons tied at the end.
The ribbons were gifts from her birth mom and every night she would tell me stories about her mum; every story had a different version of what she'd want her mom to be but the mom would always be loving. She was my friend too.
She was thirteen when she died.
One day she left to perform a task for Mrs Shell and she came back unwell.
She desperately beseeched for me to get her help. Foam was frothing from her lips, her porcelain skin was an unhealthy shade of red and she was convulsing on the floor.
"Please," she kept begging. I screamed and cried for Mrs Shell.
Mrs Shell came tumbling into the room. I thought she'd save her. Mrs Shell banged her head against the wall until Giraffe's head sagged limply. I screamed my throat was raw.
My voice has been raspy since.
I lost other friends after them too. So many. Three years within these walls and I have witnessed too many deaths to count. Only Emily and Giraffe have really imprinted on me.
I couldn't bear it for long. I tried not to get attached to them. Every time I did. There is only so much shredding a tattered person could take. Mrs Shell is happy with the pay I give her in order to have a room to myself.
This world, this life, this reality likes to rip everything you love away from you. I've learned it is better to have nothing. Once I'm eighteen and free of this place, I'll have my own paradise somewhere away from here. I'll forget the screams and cries of miserable, exploited children.
I was lucky because of my dad. I was able to teach martial arts for a living. I met my boss through my lessons and I got my security work as well. The greenery I've collected over the years has managed to save me from Mrs Shell's tasks.
She still tries to lure me in with false promises and fake declarations of motherly love. Stupid woman, I still remember her motherly love depriving Giraffe of life.
Life with my dad and brother was nothing like this; warm, soft beds, big, tasty meals, curling up by the fireplace, playing on the backyard swing, my school friends, playing with Faolan, bedtime stories from my dad and everything good.
I never knew about the darkness within our district.
I shift to my side in the hammock and pull my patchy quilt over my body for more warmth. These thoughts won't help me sleep so I decide to let my sleepiness wash them away. The hammock begins to sway side to side again and slowly, very slowly I drift to sleep.
Bang! Bang! Bang! "Reaping is in an hour! Get up!"
My eyes burst open. Sunlight trickles into the room through my bedroom window and lightly caresses my face with warmth.
Bang! Bang! Bang! "Reaping is in an hour! Get up Sunspeare!"
The nasally voice of Mrs Shell's grate my ears unpleasantly. Her voice reminds me of the tin, front door when it scrapes against the concrete floor.
"Awake," I yell back.
"You are missing breakfast! Come and get it or miss out!" Mrs Shell screeches. I hear her feet thud against the floor as she marches away. Please, I'm not eating her sandy seaweed and fish scrap lumps for breakfast.
I take a shower first. The line was long but I easily got to the front by shoving a bit of green into a kid's hand. The little girl looked up at me as if I were a goddess. Ha, what a joke.
The shower head splutters out ice cold water that quickly wakes me up. I lather the small, lavender scented soap on my skin and then let the cold water wash it away. Lavender reminds me of Emily and I splurged on the soap because of her.
For the reaping I decide to wear my leather jacket. The frosty air still has a bite and I feel badass when I wear it.
I wear a white, ruffled shirt, black jeans and my combat boots. Tidy and formal enough. Tidier than the faded grey, stained clothes the House provides.
I use my fingers to comb my wet tangles of dark locks into a high ponytail and imprison my hair with a black hair tie.
I stroll down the hallway and eyes following every step I take. When I skitter down the stairs, eyes still follow me. Everyone in the orphanage likes to stare at me even Mrs Shell's sometimes. She sees a profit in me.
Mrs Shell's clients eye me too. I do a few fancy twirls with a knife and they quickly avert their gaze.
I've lost enough, I'm not losing myself too. Control over my body is all I have left. I just have to keep working until my last reaping has finished and then I'll be free.
Mrs Shell is waiting at the door and she looks at me expectantly. I remove her share of my earnings. Eyes still follow me and they watch as I hand over green bills to Mrs Shell. Mrs Shell bites her thin bottom lip like always and her blue eyes hungrily eye the notes as she counts them.
"An extra ten?" Mrs Shell asks with a raised eyebrow.
"Feeling generous, I can take it back," I move forward to claim the extra note but Mrs Shell holds the greenery protectively to her chest.
Mrs Shell plasters a fake smile on her face and she shrieks delightedly, "Oh, no dear. I will use this to buy more groceries for the other children. I will excuse you."
The tin door screeches as Mrs Shell scrapes it across the concrete floor and she moves so I can escape.
Groceries for the other children? More like groceries to add another chin to your collection, I think. Mrs Shell buying proper food for the other children is like Declan going celibate.
"Thanks," I mumble before quickly fleeing from the grim house.
The fresh scent of the morning lifts my mood and I walk briskly to the nearest bakery. This morning I decide to splurge on a piece of fresh bread and a small bottle of milk. In my nice clothes the baker is kind and he even jests about the weather, but when I am in my messy clothes he is less agreeable.
Less people are on the streets.
Most of them are either flowing towards the District Square early or are hiding away in their houses as long as they can. The people on the street smile brightly and mimic the warmth of the sun but the crease near their eyebrows reveal their worry.
Even faced aged with lines and wrinkles are pulled into a fake happy expression. Everyone is worried. However, when it comes to the reaping we all stand tall and proud. We all pretend to be brave and defiant even if our faces are lies to our inner thoughts. Everyone has a mask.
After every crumb of my pie has been devoured I then stroll slowly towards the District Square. Horses pull carriages of the well-off citizens towards the District Square while the rest of us walk on the footpath.
Young children of different heights all cuddle into the sides of their parents or caregivers. Older children walk closely beside their parents, caregivers or friends. All of them are in the formal wear of either dress pants, dress shirts, nice shorts, skirts, white shirts or pretty dresses. Grey, white, black or blue tones merge together in the sea of people flowing towards the District Square.
Everyone looks nice for the reaping but not out of choice. We all have to treat the reaping like a ceremonial event. The fat cats love to rub salt on our wounds.
The term fat cats is a term of endearment for the people of the Capitol. The fat cats have easy lives because they live off our hard work. The reaping is how the fat cats entertain themselves and punish us. Two tributes, male and female, are chosen to compete in the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games is an annual event celebrated by the fat cats. Every district has two tributes reaped and all twenty-four tributes fight to the death in an arena.
The tributes are selected from age twelve to age eighteen. The age starts from twelve because supposedly the youngest person found in the rebellion was a twelve year old boy from District 2.
The Hunger Games is our punishment for the Rebellion of the Districts or the Dark Days.
For the reaping we all gather at the District Square.
The District Square is a large, empty concrete space surrounded by buildings. In front of the District Square is the District Hall. The District Hall is just a concrete, rectangle slab of a building with pretty statues and poles. It is a huge, fancy building for our mayor and all of our other officials. The Head Peacekeeper's office is in there. My dad used to have to drop his paperwork off here all the time.
Our District Hall has a huge, stone podium at the front which stone steps lead up to. The District Hall is used as our reaping stadium. Tall, thick poles support a silver canopy that shields the stadium from the sun's glow, but after the reaping the canopy is removed. The District Square is where they gather us all and part us into two categories; male and female.
Around the District Square are buildings, which is why some people informally call it the Courtyard of Death. These buildings are mostly the expensive shops with fancy, glistening windows and fake people wearing garments. During the reaping the fat cats use these buildings for their camera equipment.
Families begin to whisper and embrace their children in front of the walkway. The walkway is a wide space between a fancy clothes store and a bakery; it is also the only entrance to the District Square.
Everyone hates this place. The officials try to make the District Square welcoming and pretty with the occasional rose bush and fancy tree but there is still a cold feeling to this place.
Today is always exceptionally cold even though it is a beautiful sunny day. Some whisper that the ghost of tributes join us every year on a death march. I think they are buttering seaweed and calling it bread. Who the hell would come back here after death? I'd haunt the hell out of Capitol if I were a ghost.
I tap my shoes impatiently against the concrete path and frown at the families blocking my way. The families have created a wall blocking the rest of us from the District Square.
"Excuse me, sorry, thank you," is my chant as I squeeze through places between different families and join my line. There are two lines, one for males and one for females.
Every year it is the same, families block the way in. Only possible tributes are allowed in the District Square; parents, family members, friends, gamblers and all the rest of District 4 have to stay outside the walls of the buildings. The fat cats placed two huge TV screens on the back of the buildings for them; decorated by a frame of pearls because such a festive occasion has to be properly decorated. Salt rubbed on the wound.
The line is long and agonisingly slow. Every two minutes we take a step forward but there are probably hundreds of girls in front of me. Not that I'm complaining about the amount, the more there are than the less chance I have of getting picked.
The mayor is talking. I don't know his name because I don't particularly care. He is a Capitol puppet and he regularly attends the House.
He flaps his gums loudly and the speakers shriek out his verbal vomit. The apocalypse, great Panem, the Dark Days, our traitorous actions of rebellion and the forgiveness of the Capitol are all he prattles on about.
Tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, cyclones and other natural disasters – how terrible they were and blah, blah, blah – and then the rise of Panem. Oh, the great, holy and divine nation rose from the destruction – waffles on about the greatness and blah, blah, blah – and thirteen districts and the great Capitol were born.
I've heard it all before. It sounds the same every year. The mayor kisses as much of the Capitol's ass as he can. Great this and great that. Every big word he has in his vocabulary, he uses them all to tell us of the splendour of the Capitol.
He can butter seaweed as much as he likes but it will never be bread.
There are twelve districts in Panem and the Capitol; there used to be thirteen districts but District 13 was destroyed as punishment for the rebellion. The Capitol is the leader of every district and we have to listen to their rules or die. All of our fisheries exist for them, all twelve of them and none of the fish or shellfish that go through the fisheries are ever consumed by us.
Our entire district exists to fish for them. Fishing is our main livelihood.
In school, the first thing we are taught are how to fish, make nets, ties ropes, make hooks, make sinkers and anything else that has got to do with fishing.
In the public school most of our classes were us out on the boats helping the fisheries meet their quota. Other days we were doing basic math and other school subjects. Once a week we even had a day committed to brainwashing us into believing the splendour of the Capitol; I hated school on Mondays.
By age ten we can all use a spear because of spear fishing. It gives us an advantage in the games but not much compared to District 1 and District 2; both of them are dedicated to the games and winning. In District 2, the children have an academy where they can learn different ways to kill a person.
We have similar tributes to District 1 and District 2 at the private academy. District 4 elites all have their children attend the Pearl Pacific Academy of District 4. At that school they don't go to help the fisheries meet their quota, they are trained for survival; martial arts, weapon use, fishing skills, making traps and snares, detailed understanding of edible and poisonous plants and the strengths and weaknesses of Capitol mutations. I attended that academy from age three to twelve years old.
From age three the children of the elite are trained to kill and survive. My brother and I were one of them.
My dad expressed importance in training. We had no choice.
My brother hated it. My brother couldn't pull a wing off a fly without crying.
I loved it. My dad used to tell me that I was more of a Quartzite than a Sunspeare.
On my fifth birthday, he gifted me a set of silver knives.
On my tenth birthday, he gifted me a spear.
On my eleventh birthday, he gifted me with two swords.
My dad was from District 2, he had been sent to District 4 to serve as a peacekeeper. He had meant to return but he fell in love with my mum.
Triztan Quartzite was his name. I took my mum's surname and my brother took his. I lost everything after his death. The district dumped me into the House. Foster parents were afraid of a lethal charge.
My father always said that my rage could spawn a bloodlust nearly equal to his. My brother was too kind to even think of hurting anyone.
"Next!" Finally I reach the front of the line.
The lady barely acknowledges me. She pricks my finger for a drop of blood and my details appear on the screen of her device.
"Next!" I take that as a cue to go to my place in my line.
The mayor now talks about District 13 and a huge TV screen on the District Hall reveals an image of the ruins. I move to my place in the line and look at what is left of District 13. Once again it is the same picture I have seen for the last couple of years; the same crumbled remnants of a building.
The mayor waffles on about the Treaty of Treason. The Treaty of Treason was signed by all twelve districts and the Capitol and the treaty gives the Capitol permission to hold the Hunger Games. After the destruction of District 13 the other districts quickly surrendered. I find it strange that the Capitol doesn't show the entire district in tatters because it isn't like them to not gloat.
"And now we must repent for the mistakes we made in the past," the mayor bellows and the image of District 13 transforms into our escort's face, Helena Goldheart.
Helena's face is painted white like usual. Her lips are painted red but the paint is smeared to make her lips look like a heart.
The top of her dress is the shape of a heart and her skirt fans out. Her dress is red, of course and it is glittery, of course. Red to match her hair and lips, glittery to make her stand out more. Anything and everything to make Helena stand out.
"Happy 69th Annual Hunger Games. Before we start let me introduce your previous victors," Helena squeals into the microphone. Helena's eyelashes are the size of half my pinkie finger and she bats them at Finnick Odair.
"Finnick Odair the victor of the 65th Annual Hunger Games and the youngest tribute to ever win the games at age fourteen," Helena squeals loudly.
Finnick Odair steps forward, smirks, winks and waves to us all. All of the girls around me release long, adoring sighs. I can't believe them. They are all at their possible funeral and yet they are drooling over a guy. Sometimes I don't understand people and their priorities. Last year, Mikayla Marine volunteered just so she could possibly win and be with Odair. The idiotic girl gushed over him throughout her entire interview with Caesar Flickerman. She wasted her three minutes and didn't get a single sponsor.
Finnick Odair is the guy everyone in the Capitol wants and no one wanted him taken off the market. So, of course, she died early in the games. The tree falling on her was no accident.
Finnick Odair won the 65th Hunger Games at age fourteen by trapping tributes in a net and killing them with his trident. His trident, a trident made out of pure gold, was a gift from a sponsor and the most expensive gift a tribute has ever received.
Some say he is Adonis in a mortal form. Ha, yeah right and I sprung out of my dad's head.
"Mags Cohen, the victor of the 11th Annual Hunger Games," Helena squeals but she doesn't tear her gaze away from Odair's ass.
Mags Cohen steps forward and stands beside Finnick. She is an old tribute from the 11th Hunger Games. I heard she won her games on her survival skills alone. She apparently only mercy killed tributes and spent the rest of her time outliving everyone else.
I've seen her once before. I was only eight years old. She wore a flowy, long white dress that dragged along the marble floor. Her features were much softer, less lined but her blue eyes are still just as bright. Her voice had been softer than whisper.
Everyone in the district adores her. She is the mother of the district; genuinely warm, soft, loving and everything maternal. According to Giraffe, she used to visit the House every Sunday to read a story to the children but after her stroke she stopped her visits.
The left half of her face droops slightly now but it didn't before. Not when I saw her.
We used to have more than two victors. District 1, 2 and 4 have the highest amounts of victors. I think altogether we have had around seven victors but some of them died of illnesses and ailments and the rest are in the loony bin. Mags and Finnick are our only sane, living tributes.
"Now, we will also watch a fabulous video made for you by the Capitol," Helena shrieks and she quickly loops her arms with Finnick and Mags. Women in the Capitol must be fuming because she is touching their golden boy. I wonder, will a tree fall on her too?
The video is a joke we all have to watch. On my first year in the reaping pool, one boy was captured looking away and afterwards he was publically punished. The video is just a collection of shots of how our betrayal affected the innocent people in the Capitol and how we lost.
President Snow talks all through the video about how the games glue Panem together and helps make Panem a great nation. President Snow, like our mayor, tries to butter seaweed and call it bread. His lips give me a good laugh. His lips are two fat sausages pressed together and when he talks he reminds me of a fish.
I can do great imitations of him, I used to make Giraffe laugh all the time; it is easy, part your lips like a fish and hiss like a sea snake.
The anthem sounds signalling the end of the video and the beginning of the reaping process.
"Now, I shall select our female tribute for the 69th Annual Hunger Games," Helena announces with excitement gleaming in her eyes. Her dark red hair is curvy like waves and the waves bounce against her back as she struts towards the crystal bowl.
My name is in draw four times. One for when I was twelve, one for when I was thirteen, one for when I was fourteen and another one because I am fifteen. Four times. Four slips for each year I have been in the draw. I've never taken tesserae, I don't want to feed Mrs Shell's fat face. Besides, I don't want the poor children to have to roll her down the stairs.
Helena takes her time swirling her hand around in the crystal bowl.
Panic sets in. I can hear my heart thudding. I just want to run away. I hope it isn't me. Life has sucked enough. The Capitol has robbed me of a mother, a brother, a father and friends. Isn't that enough?
Helena pulls out a name, I hope it isn't mine, and she struts towards the microphone.
I've been unlucky enough. I've lost enough. Please don't be me. Please don't be me. Surely, surely the universe has done tormenting me.
Apparently the universe hasn't.
The name Athena Sunspeare rolls off Helena's tongue and seals my fate. At first it is like a punch to the gut; all of the breath is knocked from my lungs and stolen from me. Then, everything becomes numb.
Time freezes and my life momentarily stops.
"We were all born to die, some are meant to die sooner than others," Mrs Shell had told me nonchalantly after disposing of Giraffe.
I guess I was born to die sooner than others too.
I designed the House the way I did because of what Suzanne Collins wrote in the Hunger Games about the children in foster care in District 12 and how Katniss didn't want to end up in there. I wanted to play around with the theme of child abuse and exploitation Katniss slightly hinted at.
I made Athena the daughter of a peacekeeper to make her skills make some sort of sense.
I also played with the concept of District 4 career tributes by creating a private academy, but I made the specialised training reserved for the elite. Only so the divide in the district is clear and also District 4's population is quite huge for just one school.
I hope it wasn't that bad. District 4 is seen as one of the top district's and I wanted to show the dark side within it.
I wanted to show another narrative to District 4. In the last book, I have heard that Katniss saw the mast of boats, waves crashing over the rocks and fun days on the beach in Finnick's eyes. Katniss and Peeta had different lives in the same district so I wanted to create different lives for Athena and Finnick.
Please review and give me thoughts on the character.
Don't worry, there will be no OC and Finnick romance. The character I have written is probably to wary of guys to participate in a relationship.
Give me your thoughts and impressions.