~The Hunter

Chaise wasn't always this way. He knows he wasn't. He just can't remember when he felt above the pettiness the world offered. There was more smiling, more forgiveness. Most of all, there was selflessness.

There are no remnants of this anymore. He doesn't smile often and when he does, it's when he's satisfied with something from his own doing. He scoffs at forgiveness—what is there to forgive when they have already done wrong to you? And most of all, he despises selflessness. There's nothing to gain from it. That's a trait that only imbeciles retain after they've grown up to see the world as it truly is; to see the world without the kaleidoscope glasses that are snatched away the moment the children have outgrown them.

The world is cold and unforgiving. The Hunger Games that the districts are forced through every year is a prime example of that. Though sometimes, Chaise wishes that he had never seen the world for what it truly is. It would have been better to live in oblivion. Ignorance is bliss.

He knows one thing though: something had hastened the speed of the gradual awakening to the world. If he thinks hard enough, he can almost feel the pain shooting through him. There was a streak of black, and then there was excruciating pain from his chest. His arms and legs felt too heavy to lift and the ground was cracked and dry beneath him. He can still remember struggling for breath. And there was white too—whether it is a dress or a ribbon, he can't remember. The details are a little blurry now. All he remembers is a dark-haired girl that stared at him inquiringly before rushing away like she had not seen him dying.

He clenches his fist, thinking about that flash of black and white. If only he can remember her face. He may have even been able to track her down and then…

And then what? He's not sure but he's half glad that he can't remember what she looks like. He's not entirely heartless enough to want her dead for something that happened at least a decade ago. If he ever recognized her now, he might have put a knife through her heart out of anger. She saw him suffering and at that time, he was weak enough to ask for help. She looked at him and walked away.

Bitterness swells up within him until he is able to squash it down. There's no point in thinking about her anymore. She's gone. He'll never plan out any sort of vengeance unless he wins the Games. There's no time to be thinking about old troubles when new ones arise.

He lies on the bed, staring at the ceiling and starts to plan for the Games. Maybe he should team up with the stronger tributes from the Career districts. Then when they split up, he can wait until they kill off each other and emerge victorious… assuming that they don't put a knife in his back before the top eight.

Suddenly, he thinks of Azalea Ever. All he can see now is a girl standing alone in the corridors, staring at him like he's just ruined her. He remembers the hurt in her eyes. And the way she tasted. He still feels the sweetness of her lips on his and the soft sigh that exited her lips when he brought her closer.

Closing his eyes, he shoves the memory away from his mind. He cannot think about things like this. Azalea Ever is just someone he will use for further means of survival. She is nothing to him but a snivelling little girl who couldn't keep her heart carefully hidden under her sleeves.

Still, the image of her dark eyes lingers. It's not that he's fallen in love with her. Love is a silly, weak thing that Chaise. He'd never fall in love with a girl like Azalea, much less his fellow tribute while he should be worrying about his own survival. It's that her eyes look achingly familiar though he just can't remember why.

His fists clench again and he fights the urge to pound them against the wall, knowing that it is counterproductive and will only end up in him hurting himself. He hates not being able to remember things. It's a handicap and Chaise hates the feeling of not knowing.

He closes his eyes, letting the shadows of night creep over him to obscure his vision. He doesn't want to look at the chambers anymore. His fingers find the golden ring and fidgets with it, thinking about the words his mother had spoken. Of course, thinking of that also reminds Chaise of Daisy's final words. After she said them, they stared at each other. Then Daisy took a deep breath but before she could speak again, the Peacekeepers entered the room and pulled her out. Chaise isn't sure whether he's glad that he hadn't heard Daisy's final words or not.

The ring is warmed from the heat that comes from his skin, reminding him that he is very much human and may face his mortality in the arena no matter how many times he tries to convince himself of his false superiority. Very much human similar to the world beyond the fences of District 12 even though it may not seem like it.

The woods; it was there where he was found by his foster father.

It's no wonder why it feels more like a home than anything else he's ever known.

~[*]~

He woke up to the sound of muffled cries from his mother. It was always like this after he died. Not a day went past without her crying rivers. If it kept up, Chaise would have enough water to keep thirst from ever setting foot in his household again. He hated the sound of her crying. He didn't understand why she was so weak. She could be strong and continue living her life, but she chose to succumb to bone-numbing weakness.

Without someone to bring in money for the family, the resources were slowly dwindling. Chaise wouldn't admit it out loud but he honestly didn't know what to do.

Sign up for tessera. That is his first answer for everything but the month of May after he turned twelve was much too far away to think about. But they could hold on, could they? They just had to wait out a year and a half. It couldn't be very long. He would have Daisy too.

But his mother could barely sew after the passing. All she did was cry and cry like she was incapable of doing anything else. As the days began to past, Chaise was feeling more desperate to just do something about it. He already spent so long depending on others. How would he ever know to fend for himself if he never had experience? Experience is everything, Chaise believed.

So that was why today would be different.

A ten and a half year old boy would help stop the slow descent to starvation his family was making.

It even sounded silly in his head, much less spoken out loud. He had Daisy, though. Two ten and a half year olds would make all the difference, would it?

Chaise doubted it but faith was what made all the difference. If faith didn't keep him going, what would? There was nothing else he could hope on except his own capabilities. He could hope on that.

Getting up and stretching, Chaise glanced over at Daisy's bed. She was soundly sleeping, unaware of her surroundings. Chaise prodded her hard in the stomach and Daisy jolted with a yelp, her blue eyes snapping awake.

Daisy scowled at him but it didn't quite make it on her face. It was more of a smile than anything. "That wasn't very nice," she said, rubbing a hand over the spot where Chaise prodded her. Usually, he would humour her and reply with a joke back to her but today was a serious day. Today was the day where they would carry the weight of living on their shoulders.

"It's time to go," was all Chaise said. The jocular expression dropped off Daisy's face and she nodded curtly, only stopping to glance out the dirt-specked window with a worried expression. Chaise didn't blame her.

After washing up with cold water, the twins stepped outside the charcoal walls of their house and into the early winter morning. The sun was just over the horizon, its' radiance obscured by smoky clouds of the winter day. Chaise exhaled and watched his breath fog up in the cold air. Of all times to choose, winter was the worse. Though he didn't have much of a choice. He couldn't wait for winter to thaw and for life to bloom again. It would be too long of a wait.

Putting on a threadbare jacket and worn winter boots, Chaise surveyed the area, looking for any signs of life. More importantly he was looking for the telltale sterile white uniform that could mean his death if he was caught.

There was nothing. No one would wander around in the cold when the morning just touched District 12. As diligent as the Peacekeepers can be, they would much rather curl up in their warm homes than traipse in the snow to look for rule breakers.

"Are you sure about this?" Daisy asked Chaise. He nodded but Daisy was still hesitant even as they set out to the fences.

"You can stay back if you don't want to go," Chaise said. It was meant to be just a statement but it came out as a sneer. Lately, Chaise had been doing this much too often. Though he was sorry it came out like that, he couldn't find the words for an apology so he didn't say them.

"But are you sure that Cole is right?" Daisy asked, always persistent to the very end. Chaise was getting annoyed of having to answer these questions. In the end, it was really her choice whether she wanted to believe the person they were meeting up with.

"I don't know," Chaise said, keeping his eyes on his destination; always on his goal. "You have to decide that for yourself."

The rest of the walk was silent except for the crunching of snow beneath their boots. Chaise was getting cold but he never complained once about it. If he was going to learn to take care of himself, he would have to keep his protests and complaints locked inside of him.

Finally, they reached the Meadow. In the winter it looked even more devoid of life than it usually did, like the final resting place for a corpse. Past the Meadow were the forbidden woods and between them was a high chain-linked fence topped with barbed-wire loops. The fences were electrical and said to work at all hours of the day.

Only an idiot would believe that, Chaise thought. District 12 was lucky to have two to three hours of electricity in the evenings so he would take his bet to say that the fence wasn't electrocuted at the moment or he'd be a very unlucky person.

Not to mention that Cole would probably be mad at them for never arriving and being in the cold for so long.

"I'll look around for Peacekeepers," Daisy whispered, surveying the area. "You look for weak spots in the fence."

"Not that hard," Chaise murmured, indicating with a tilt of his head to the loose fencing at the bottom, careful not to point to it in case someone was passing by or watching them from a hidden area. "Sometimes I wonder why they don't even bother to fix it."

"Maybe they don't have enough time?" Daisy suggested but Chaise dismissed that idea. The Peacekeepers had plenty of time to do whatever they wanted. Cole said that they left the loose chains there because the Peacekeepers weren't really that cold-hearted and many turned a blind eye to the poachers. Chaise didn't think so. The fence was made for two reasons: to keep wild animals out, and to keep people in. He thought that they left it there as a statement to all those who wanted to exit the district boundaries. It was like saying: is life here bad enough that you would risk death to leave?

But of course, Chaise had been a cynic for a long time. Maybe they just didn't care.

While Daisy cleared the area, Chaise slid under the wires. Halfway, his worn jacket was caught by the sharpened ends of the loose wires and he let out a growl of frustration. He touched the cold wires with his fingers, hoping that it wouldn't suddenly be turned on. Pulling it loose from the fabric of his jacket, Chaise slid the rest of the way out of the district and into the woods.

Now away from the district, Chaise felt like he was breathing from a different atmosphere even though only a chain-linked fence separated them. He felt healthier and freer: like he had been a bird trapped in a cage all its life and was now being released back into the wild.

Daisy slid through a little clumsier than Chaise's try. After coming out on the other side, Daisy stood up, shaking the snow from her jacket. Her eyes surveyed the area with awe and even though they had seen this before on the other side of the fence, seeing it without the chains made it feel more real.

"Wow," Daisy murmured, walking up to a tree and pressing one finger against the bark. "We're really here." She couldn't believe it at all. All their lives, the fence separated them from the woods. The fact that Daisy couldn't believe that they made it past the fence annoyed Chaise. He wasn't going to stay in the districts forever. He would set foot outside. He wouldn't be like a rat in a cage like the others. He would be the one to break free.

"And we'll be caught if we don't move," Chaise said, looking behind at the fence apprehensively. He almost expected Peacekeepers to run after them, shouting their names. There was no one. Daisy nodded in agreement and started forward, hesitating for a while so to let Chaise take the lead.

To be honest, Chaise had no idea where he was heading. Like the person Cole was, the directions were vague. "Meet me in the woods" was all he said. When Chaise and Daisy prompted him for more instructions, Cole merely shrugged and said, "I'll find you" in that condescending way of his that annoyed Chaise even further.

While Daisy had been a bit worried, Chaise brushed it off at the time. Now he was regretting it with every crunch of the crisp white snow under his feet. He was cold and his limbs were feeling number with each step. He glanced around the trees furtively as if he expected Cole to jump from a branch in front of them, showing all grandiose and infuriating Chaise.

That never happened.

Daisy was shivering, rubbing her hands on her arms quickly to insulate what little body heat she still had. "Where is he?" Daisy muttered more than a few times. She was keeping her voice low and her steps quiet as if she expected Peacekeepers to appear from behind the trees with guns.

Chaise didn't answered that question because he didn't know the answer. While he could be betraying, Chaise couldn't lie. Every word that had ever come from his mouth had always been true. He never lied about his whereabouts to his mother or father. He never lied about anything he said. The only 'lies' he'd ever given were the truths that he never told.

Their traipse through the woods felt like hours and Chaise was beginning to get more anxious. Had they wandered too far from the district? As much as Chaise despised being trapped behind the fences, he still had his mother to care for and he doubted he could last long in the woods.

"Where's Cole?" Daisy asked to no one in particular again and this time, fueled by growing anxiety, Chaise answered.

"I don't know!" he snarled and Daisy winced, startled by his sudden outburst. "He told us to meet him in the woods! He's supposed to be here!"

"Perhaps we took the wrong turn," Daisy reasoned calmly in an attempt to mitigate Chaise's sudden outburst. "Should we turn around and scan the perimeter of the fence?" It was a good idea but there was just too much fragility in her tone and uneasiness in her suggestion that made Chaise ignore her suggestion.

No sooner was he about to respond, another voice spoke up. "You'll wake all the animals from slumber, Chaise Hart." There were footsteps and then a tall boy with jet black hair, olive skin, and dark eyes stepped out from behind a tree. He fixed his sharp gaze on the twins. "So you made it. I was getting afraid that you would lose your way like stray pups."

The anxiety had subsided but Chaise felt angry at Cole for making him feel way. "Shut up. You're the one who didn't give us directions."

Cole shrugged. "That's the first lesson: figure it out by yourself. You won't always have people telling you where to go and what to do."

It was true and Chaise believed it but that didn't make him less angry. "So what are you going to do now? Lecture us on the choices of life?" He was hurling the words at Cole like badly thrown weapons now, just hoping for a hit.

"No," Cole said, walking past them, his eyes fixed on his destination. "When my father wasn't in the mines, he was working for his survival. He taught me, and now I'm going to teach you."

Cole reached into the hollow of a tree and pulled a weapon out and Daisy let out a yelp of surprise. Cole didn't even flinch. Quicker than any of them could react, Cole had an arrow notched onto the bow and aimed at Daisy's throat, his hand tensing.

Daisy stared at the sharp tip of the arrow, her mouth open in a silent scream. After getting over the initiate shock, Chaise felt his heartbeat pounding quickly in his chest. He knew what Cole could do and it wouldn't be pretty.

"Put. That. Arrow. Down," Chaise found himself saying, his voice frosted over with cold fury. Cole didn't move and his eyes were impassive though there were strain lines around them. "Cole, put that arrow down!" Chaise hissed, ready to launch himself at Cole but not in the arrows' path.

Cole didn't relent and Chaise was left to calculate the time it took to grab Cole's weapon before he released the string. He figured he didn't have time and Daisy would just have to be smart enough to leap out of the way when the arrow was let loose. Chaise was still left formulating ideas when the tension in Cole's arm released and the arrow flew from the bow. Chaise snarled, running towards Cole with outstretched hands and Daisy let out a bloodcurdling scream.

The scream went on even when Chaise had reached Cole which shouldn't have been because the arrow would have pierced her throat and silenced her. Chaise was distracted just enough that the more experienced Cole could wipe his feet from under him and pin Chaise to the snowy ground.

"She's not dead," Cole said, barely out of breath which Chaise envied. He looked over at Daisy and the arrow that was pierced on a tree right above her head. A rare grin crawled across Cole's face. "You can stop screaming now."

Chaise squirmed under Cole, hating to be the one at disadvantage. He glared hatefully at Cole, ignoring the sudden odd thumping of his heart at their proximity. "What was that for?"

"Three things," Cole replied. "One, don't let your guard down when someone else has a weapon. Two, don't forget who's in charge." He got up, leaving Chaise on the snowy ground by himself. Chaise stood up, shaking the snow from his body. His heartbeat was still racing and he had no means to calm it down. It left him feeling weak and flushed.

He glared at Cole, suppressing the feeling. "What's the third thing?"

Cole grinned again. "Don't rat me out unless you really want me to shoot that arrow at your throat."

~[*]~

Meetings with Cole were more frequent and he taught them to use all sorts of weapons that were handcrafted by formers. Chaise's favourite was the spear but he never admitted that out loud because that was also Cole's favourite too. Ever since the first meeting in the woods, Chaise had taken a disliking to Cole for making him feel so weak. Daisy, on the other hand, felt the opposite.

She was enamored by Cole and he smiled a lot more often in the woods than in the district. It was only when Chaise was fifteen did he catch Cole and Daisy locking lips behind a tree and even then, he wondered if this had happened before he figured out. For some reason, Chaise felt strange about their relationship. There was a feeling of confusion and inner pain, and he couldn't look at Daisy in the face for a week because he felt so angry at her for reasons unknown.

Chaise spent long hours in the woods coming up with strategies for new snares and different ways to wield a spear. After Cole had taught them everything, Chaise had found pleasure in solitary hunts. Cole and Daisy didn't mind this. As long as Chaise appeared at the end of the day, they wouldn't bother looking for someone who didn't want to be found. He tried not to dwell too much on this fact; every time he thought about Cole and Daisy together, he felt confused, and angry, and upset.

He spent more than days and weeks outside the district. Chaise spent years in the woods. All the hours must have added up to balance the life inside the district and if he hadn't had his mother to take care of and the threat of death by the Peacekeepers' hands, Chaise would have left to live in the woods forever.

He grew stealthier, stronger, faster, and more nimble. When Cole was sent to the mines at the mandatory age of eighteen Daisy stopped coming to the woods on the weekdays, always insisting that they had enough food.

But Chaise knew she didn't understand his love of the woods and freedom. She didn't and he didn't bother explaining it to her. He loved survival—he lived for it.

~[*]~

He needs to win the Games.

He's spent so long practicing in the woods, so many days and hours. Chaise knows that he needs to win.

Besides, how hard can killing people be?

Didn't check for typos yet (and I tend to make a lot). Point out flaws (please?) to help me improve. And my vocabulary is VERY small, I noticed. *facepalm* In future chapters, I may use more synonyms in place of common words. If I used the words incorrectly, PLEASE tell me! This chapter and the next chapter is more of a flashback.

Next chapter: ~The Huntress