OAKETTE MASON (66)
DISTRICT 14 PRESIDENT
You never escape.
Oakette stared down at the carpet beneath her, the warm, snug bearskin rug that lay comfortably beneath her feet, its warm brown colour reminding her fondly of the woods of District Seven that she left behind for this cold, barren landscape.
She had never wanted to leave it all behind, her family, her friends, her former life, everything, it was all gone now, dead, destroyed, a mere afterthought of yesteryear that she would never be able to revive.
Because she had been Reaped, a death sentence for most children in Panem.
Sure, she had escaped with the help of that avox who had looked just like her, the one who simply wished to die rather than to suffer any more from the torrents of abuse that came flying her way. It had been the avox who died in that arena, not her, and then Marina Bluebell, a dear friend of hers once the Games had ended, she had lived to tell the tale of the first ever Hunger Games.
But had she really escaped?
She had escaped the arena itself, but the arena of life, the Hunger Games known as the tyrannical reign of the Capitol, now that she had never quite been able to escape from. Despite the fact that she was technically out of President Snow's reach, she had never been free from the clutches of the Capitol. They always had the upper hand, always had that ability to strike fear into her heart, always had the ability to plunge this rebel outpost in the fringes of the arctic wasteland formerly known as Alaska into a state of terror.
So it was Oakette's job as the President of District Fourteen to keep everyone happy whilst simultaneously rallying in a rebellious spirit against their former oppressors.
Actually, not everyone here had come from Panem. Some were from a warrior tribe that had sailed over from Kamchatka, in search of safety and shelter after they were driven away from their homeland by another foreign empire less technologically advanced than Panem but considerably larger it seemed. They were a tribe trained in the art of warfare and skilled in harnessing the powers of nature, and using them to come up with creative, ingenious solutions.
But they were now a part of District Fourteen, and they were under her care.
She tried her best to host special events, be really nice to everyone, anything to keep morale and spirits high in the network of cabins and tunnels at the foot of an ancient, towering glacier.
But when her own morale was low, she couldn't bring herself to keep pumping up a positive energy.
Not with all the blizzards and false alarms of Capitol raids that were sent their way.
She sighed, as she picked up an old, blurry photograph of one of District Fourteen's brightest young medics, a young woman from Seven named Aspen, someone who was a relative of one of her old friends back home. She had gone foraging over in the summer, only for her body to be displayed live on a pirated broadcast by the Capitol, bloodied and beaten up, a white rose over the fatal wound in her heart, the one that had in a bygone time shone with bright, wonderful light that glowed with love.
It wasn't fair.
Just then, her phone rang and she went over to pick it up, her footsteps heavy as they traversed her office, a small window allowing bright rays of summer light to flood in and give the place a cheerful aura that she so desperately required.
"Hello?" she muttered into the phone, trying to sound peppy like her usual self, the one that wasn't drowning in a state of depression.
"Well, if it isn't our favourite President," a young, mischievous voice chuckled.
"She's the only President we actually like, Dawn," another snickered, her voice crackling a little over the long distance phone lines.
Oakette allowed a small smile to begin its creep up her face as she recognised the two voices. Dusk and Dawn Lind, twin teenage computer wizards from District Three who lived and worked on the other side of District Fourteen. They were simply incredible at what they did, and were by far the best hackers that District Fourteen had in their ranks.
"Hey guys, how's it going?" Oakette asked, her tone informal due to her commitment to treat everyone in the District as a family of equals.
"Ah, it's going great!" Dusk chirped.
"Real great!" Dawn agreed, the sound of her fingers punching over a slew of keys on a keyboard clattering softly on the twins' end.
"Because we've found a little something about this year's arena!" Dusk proclaimed, a triumphant laugh bellowing out of her lips.
Oakette's eyes widened. The arena? Had those two sneaky geniuses found a map of the arena? "Wait what?"
"It's not much, just a crappy, blurry, photo, but it's something!" Dawn told her, her fingers still typing relentlessly on her keyboard. "Oh gosh, I'm trying to send it to you right now but this stupid thing's lagging again!"
Dusk sighed. "Ah well, what did you expect Dawn? Private access to President Snow's personal computer? We're in the bloody tundra!"
"You can send it over soon, right?" Oakette asked, interrupting the twins.
"Oh yes, just give us a second," Dusk told her. "Come on Dawn, hurry up!"
"I'm trying! Uhh, bye for now, Ms President!"
With that, the twins hung up and Oakette put the phone down, a swirl of thoughts surging through her mind. What could those two have possibly found? Surely digging up a map of the arena was just a far-flung fantasy, right? Maybe it was a certain element of it, or evidence of a Reaping rigging, but whatever it was, she couldn't wait for Dawn to send whatever they had found over for her to take a peek.
A beeping sound emitted from her computer and she rushed over, her heart racing as she opened a file that had been sent over by 'the ethereal sunrise', an account name that Dawn had created for herself and one that had sent everyone in the computer room laughing their asses off.
The picture was that of Avoxes and construction workers working on the arena, in the middle of the night, hanging what appeared to be an ornament on a tree with peculiar-looking leaves, as another team worked on a grainy structure that resembled a well of sorts in the background.
Oakette frowned, quite unsure of what to make of this. The ornament's shape reminded her of that of a moon, while the well had a swirl of colours about it, perhaps it was a trap?
Or was everything in this photo just a Capitolite decoy?
She sat there, trying her very best to contemplate this photo, a million questions popping up across her mind.
What the heck was this supposed to be?
Sponsor Questions:
1) What did you think of Oakette, Dusk, Dawn and District Fourteen?
2) What's this structure that Oakette saw, and do you think it's a decoy or a real part of the arena?
A/N: Boom, shaboom, there we go, third prologue and we're edging closer to the pre-Reapings (of which I'm gonna do 9 or 10) and the Reapings afterwards (2 or 3 of those). One prologue is left and it's going to be from someone else's POV, so keep a look out for that xd, and yeah, hope you enjoyed that, there are still a few spots we need to fill in so keep the subs coming! Oh and if you can, pls leave a review, those really do make my day and yeah, that's all, have a great day, and I'll see you next time! Cheers :)