I am still alive. Well thanks everyone for the comments they made me want to continue writing this little story.
I will warn you however that I do mention somethings that may be a trigger to some. I do not write anything explict, but it is a Hunger Games fic and everyone knows what happened to the victors.
I thought District 1 would been the hardest district to visit.
I was wrong.
Standing in the middle of a party, people celebrating the first victor in more than a decade, shouts of my name and a banquet being prepare.
And Lark's face staring at me in the hologram.
I never thought too much about it before. How was for the other victors to come back home alone. And it may be heartless, but I can't say I miss him. The truth was that he was a stranger in the best hypothesis. Between Lark and me… I would have poisoned him in a heartbeat. And I am sure he would have killed me too if he had the opportunity.
He wasn't exactly the most child friendly guy.
But I can and do feel sorry for him. He was young, with too many tesserae in his name and a family to help support. If he wasn't reaped he may had lived a full life in our district, it would not be a life of luxury, but it would had been a life.
Now his mother and siblings stare at me.
They do not look at me like Aurelius' family did. I doubt they imagine Lark would survive and he died way too early in the games for them to have any type of hope, but celebrating now seems like rubbing salt to a wound. I am shadow for them of what it could had been.
What kind of tree would he had become?
Something citrus, I imagine.
Absolutely nothing sweet, it just didn't fit his personality. Although I only saw it when he was under a lot of stress.
Empty words flow out my lips as I read the cards the Bloody Man handed to me. It is awful and nothing that I truly believe, but is safe, so I do as I did in the past eleven districts and smile and pose for the cameras, counting the minutes so I could lock myself home and try to forget the outside world exist.
"I thought I would be just like you half a year ago. I am glad I am not and I do not regret anything, but is just weird to think how much has change in such a small time frame. I didn't know you didn't have a father. Did he die? Run away? To be honest it was better I didn't know. The arena is not a place for sympathies." Lemon tree. Fitting. The tree, if it can be called like that, doesn't reach my knees, but hopefully it was planted in a good place so that the heat of summer would not kill it. "Just to be clear I don't feel any moral obligations toward your family. I already have too many shackles to add more."
Even the wind doesn't answer me. In other places winter may mean cold and snow. At District 10 it means rain and a little bit less sun. So instead of only being hot, it is also humid. Before I would say that they design hell to look just like this. I can't say I disagree…
The heat makes me sweat causing my clothes to glue uncomfortably at my body and the humid air makes sure that smell of everything is way stronger than it was supposed to be. In a district specialized in livestock it is hell. At least the summer is dry and I can feel a little bit less like a pig.
"I never understood people that talk to graves. The dead are no longer there, just like you are no longer here. But I guess is more for the comfort of the living than the one that passed. So here I am trying… I will probably not come back, so I just want to tell you one last thing… Vale, Lark, memor eris."
Goodbye, I will not forget that you were here.
The last goodbye in our district. It is not flashy like some other district, we do not make a symbol with our hands and even our graves would pass unnoticed, but we are simple and direct people. In the end, there is nothing more to say, but while I'm still alive I will remember so your existence was not in vain.
I never thought that I would welcome the view of the apartment build my unit was in. But all I could feel was relieved. It was better than I expected. Better than it will be in a few years certainly.
It had been only a month and I was back at the Capitol for my first 'job'.
(Job sounds nice. Well, not nice. Less threatening. Yes. It sounds as something not exactly enjoyable, but normal. Normal is good. In the Before people didn't like it. Here I thrive for it. It would be nice in this world to live a normal average life…)
The Yews were a family of new riches. And because of that they were trying their most to strengthen their hold on the high class of the Capitol. For this they need to stand out and it meant 'inviting' me to attend their youngest son birthday party and entertain guests.
Their son was seven.
And my emotions regarding children had not change since I was one. I did not dislike them and found some of them kind of cute. But also, enjoy their company way more when I can leave whenever I want.
I couldn't.
That meant I spent agonizing hours entertaining children and acting as much childish as I could.
(Please, see me as one of them. Not a new shine toy, but one of your child's friends…)
I miss calculate how many pedophiles exist. I knew they did, but…
No. Stop.
9 years.
I just need to resist for nine years.
And I am just barely a teen. Or am I? Does my past life count? It seems more and more that the past was just like a book I read. Gain information about it, but I did not actually mature from it.
It was the sound of someone repeatedly mistaking the password that woke me up from my daydreams. Is someone trying to break in?
(Aurelius running toward me. I am not going to make it. Fast. Faster. Just a few more seconds.)
It was the frustrated groans and the muffed sobs that shook me out of my live nightmare and gave me the strength to check who it was.
Finnick Odair. Hair mussed, marks on his neck and poorly bottom shirt.
Oh.
I guess I was too self-absorb.
He just completed sixteen last week.
I clear my throat. It is not good to approach a victor from behind silently. Especially when we already are under stressful circumstances. I would know.
He must have been my neighbor and, in this state, mistaken the door.
Odair was startled, but he was a pro and I could see how he changed in front of my eyes. I could understand how he survive for so long. He straightens his spine, tossed his hair to the side and turn around in a matter of seconds. If I was any other person, I could had missed the way his fist was clenched, his eyes sharp despite the red color, his body curled to strike at the first sign of danger despite the laid back attitude.
"Hello, princess. I can't seem to get used to these doors…" I pass through him and put my password. Guess I will have to change it later. "Oh. This explains a lot…"
Later I would rationalize it. Would tell myself that he will be a major player in the revolution, and it is a smart move to get close to him. That it was all so I could see past the riot that will occur. But not now.
To be honest, I just can't ignore how he looked. Finnick Odair was supposed to be an arrogant peacock. Our previous interaction shows a teenage boy that believe he was the 8th wonder of the world, part of it may had been his persona, but part of it came from the fact he was an attractive man and knew it. However, when I passed to unlock my door he looked like I just kicked his puppy.
And let it be said that Ophelia Gadeer may kill humans and a lot of other animals if it means survival, but puppies… well, everyone has a weakness.
So, when he tried to move to the next door, hopefully the right one this time. I grab his wrist and pulled him to my apartment.
For a mercy of the world, he was quiet and did not question when I lock my door with as many pins I found before and lead us to my bathroom.
It took for me a while to figure it out which of the hundred of buttons I should push so that the bathtub would begin to fill. Only then I look at the teenage boy.
"What is your password?" Hesitation filled his face "None of my will fit." I say while motion between us.
Five minutes I was in and out. He hadn't made any attempt of make his apartment look like a home looking just as bare as mine is despite having it for a year longer than me. A perfect catalogue for capitolians.
I ignore the clothes at the closet and pick some from the duffle bag that was tuck just besides the door, easy for him to grab and run, the clothes inside were visible older and worn-out, half of wasn't even his size. District clothes.
If we were older, I would offer him alcohol, because listening and comforting was never my greatest strength and it has not change over time. But I prefer if neither of us have another awful coping mechanism, so tea it is.
When he joins me, I was sitting on the ground staring at the big windows that surround the apartment like a vitrine. I could had changed the view, showed him the meadows of District 10 or the sight of the night sea of his home, but it would be an illusion so we sat and watched the city lights that never seem to turn off.
He didn't say anything. There isn't any need. We both now what happen and why we are at the Capitol. I cannot promise him that it will get better and he cannot promise me that it will not happen to me.
So, we just sat there in silent until he starts to break and soft and muffed cries echo in the apartment. A rare moment of vulnerability. And I can't stop my own tears, mourning for our innocence, childhood and the people we could had been.
Somehow an hour and a half later I am petting his hair with his head in my lap, luring him to sleep with an unspoken vow that tonight I will be the one at the watch. We are no longer in the arena and in theory we would not need to keep alert to our surroundings, I do either way. It is easier.
I didn't know at that time, that the teenage boy will be in my life for a long time. At that time we were just children, frightened of what could happen and what we had passed, carrying way too much weight in shoulders that weren't big enough, but had no choice in the matter.
Sink or swim.
At that night we start to learn how to.
