Chapter Ten: Journey
Maize sat silently by the window. Her eyes trailing the scenery passing by as the train zoomed through the land. She was in her room now, well temporary room until they reached the Capitol, after being shown to it by the escort, Goldie Bell. The Capitolite was still annoying in Maize's opinion, but the woman couldn't be blamed for how she was raised. Maize could, however, hate Goldie's blindness to the pain and suffering of the tributes and the twelve Districts.
Their mentors for the Games couldn't be more different from one another. Seeder and Chaff had won back to back Hunger Games. Seeder was rather serious compared to the male Victor. Chaff spent the first hour on the train getting shit-faced drunk, but he was the only one who could make Seeder smile and relax somewhat.
Cana had taken the time to gorge himself on all of the food he could get his hands on in the car, despite her warnings not to, and as a result, had decided to try to go to bed early for a nap after he vomited the majority of the contents in his stomach. Maize would go check on him in a while with lighter food for him to eat that wouldn't upset his stomach. For now, though, Maize just watched the scenery pass her by through the window as she tried not to think back on the morose goodbyes she'd shared with her devastated family.
It was only a knock on her door that was able to pull Maize away from her thoughts and back to the present. "Come in."
Goldie poked her head in cheerfully, "Good! You're up! Come, come! The reapings are airing!"
Maize ignored the dread blooming in the pit of her stomach and stood up to follow the –annoyingly- joyful Capitolite into the 'den' or lounge car where the two former Victors and her fellow tribute were waiting. It looked like poor Cana hadn't been able to turn in early for the night after all. She plopped herself down beside Cana and threw her arm over his shoulder so that the younger teen leaned on her frame.
"How're you feeling Cana? Did your stomach settle?"
Cana smiled sheepishly up at her, "A little."
The fourteen-year-old seemed to soak up the silent comfort she was giving him like a sponge. Maize hadn't been close to the younger teen, but with their little brothers as close friends as they were, it was impossible to not be dragged into each other's lives occasionally. The last time she was half-hugging him like this was when Maize had been giving Cana some advice over a girl he was crushing on. Apparently instead of helping Cana, his older sisters were set on heckling and teasing the awkward teen rather than helping him. Maize let herself sink into the comfortable cushions of the couch, and heavens it was soft (it was the softest thing she had ever sat on in this life), before turning her attention to the screen to watch the reapings unfold in the other Districts.
The tributes for the Career Districts looked particularly bloodthirsty this year and three of them were volunteers. That was going to be a problem. But they were also extremely arrogant, and that would be their downfall. There was one particular tribute that did catch Maize's attention. The female tribute from District 4, Annie Cresta.
The name rang bells in her mind until she finally made the connection. It was that Annie Cresta. The one that married Finnick Odair during the Second Rebellion in the series. All she could remember about Cresta's games was that there was a flood and that the Victor had gone mad after she had won the Games.
Maize wanted to cry.
She now knew what the arena would most likely be, probably a huge dam that would break during the 'finale' of the games, but now Maize knew... knew that she wasn't supposed to come home. Amla! Poor Amla! What would have happened to her dear cousin if she hadn't been born in this world? It would be Amla in her place, destined to die either at the hands of the other tributes or drown. Because Amla didn't know how to swim, no one in District 11 knew how to swim. They didn't have any large bodies of water in their District (though there was a lake outside of the Districts borders that was used for irrigation), so there was no way for the people of her District to learn.
(But Maize hadn't always been a farmhand in District 11. She was once a young woman from an island in the Caribbean. She had grown up chasing olas, and diving under the warm and salty water of the ocean. Maize knew how to swim, even if she hadn't had the chance to in the last sixteen years of her life. She was going to have to train her lungs again to hold her breath for long periods of time).
Annie Cresta was supposed to live. Maize didn't know what role the woman played behind the scenes but Finnick Odair had loved the woman in the series, married her the moment they escaped from the Capitol. Annie Cresta needed to live.
Didn't she?
For that to happen Cana had to die.
Hell, Maize had to die.
It was selfish.
Unbelievably so.
But Maize didn't really want to die.
She wasn't afraid of the great beyond or what would happen to her following death. But she loved her family. She loved her life, no matter how desolate and backwards it could be at times, loved it with all of her being.
And while she would do everything in her power to save Cana and try to bring him home... if, and only if, her District partner fell, Maize would fight with all of her being to go home. To go back to her family. Maize had made a promise to her brother, after all, she was many things but Maize had never made it a habit to directly lie to her siblings. Especially not to Birch. (He was her first ever sibling in the world, and she was prepared to fight all the Peacekeepers in Panem to make him happy).
Maize would try to come home.
Annie Cresta was the Victor for the 70th Hunger Games.
But Maize had a lot to fight for.
Maize wants to go home.
She wasn't going to roll over and die because Annie Cresta was supposed to win the Games. Maize knew already that no won the Games, and Cresta hadn't come out unscathed originally, but Annie Cresta wasn't going to win the Hunger Games this time around.
Screw the consequences.
The rest of the reapings were rather... unnoticeable in comparison to that revelation.
Words: 1,115
Edited: Oct. 23, 2019