Chapter One: First Encounter

Annie POV

Morning mist from the sea creeps over the rocks, settling around my feet and past the land behind me. Beneath my toes, grains of salt rub against the moist grey rocks and a cool breeze is welcomed as I let it blow my long brown billowing hair back behind my slim shoulders.

For now, District Four is peaceful. No peacekeepers out and about, no sickened children crying out for parents who are unable to attend to their needs whether due to a lack of resources or lack of parents themselves, no family to worry about.

Family. The words almost makes me laugh. It's been quite sometime since I've been a part of one. Drunk father who literally drowned himself in a bowl of spirits by passing out, after my mother walked into the sea before we realized what was happening thus drowning herself, after she had left my little brother unattended in the small wash bin where he drowned.

Drowned. Drowned. Drowned.

What cruel fortune, with a sinister smile, found delight in having every single one of my family members drown in all very different manners? An irony so profound, considering we live in District Four, that a deranged smile plays at my lips.

Grief has morphed itself into controllable insanity. It used to be a lot worse. For many nights I had walked the beach laughing hysterically with the moonlight. Then months later, it dawned on me that the moon, light, nor moonlight don't laugh.

Thankfully my midnight strolls occurred in the depths of darkness, so no one knew the extent to which I'd lost my mind. And enough time passed, I've been able to recover most of the bits and pieces.

I really do believe everything will be okay for me. One day, I know I will completely heal. As long as nothing else happens to disrupt my painfully slow, yet far proceeded progress. One day. Not now. But it will come.

There's somebody behind me. Their presence has disrupted the mist particles. Well, honestly I'm not sure if that's the case. I do know someone is here though.

"You weren't at The Shack when I went to check on you." a soft young woman's voice whispers.

She's only seventeen, like me, but while I still consider myself a young girl, Yurol is my best friend who I see as a young girl bequeathed the responsibilities one should not shoulder until another several years have passed; the weight has caused her to transform into a young woman already grown in decades.

Fishing boats, with their sides draped in algae-covered golden nets, rock beneath the small waves toppling on the surface of a glistening turquoise sea. I'm thinking about how it must feel to be trapped beneath those boats, surrounded by nothing but water as if fills my nostrils and lungs as every breath desperately aches for the air only feet above.

That is how they all died. I refuse to die by drowning. The only reason I haven't killed myself. I mean, I'm better now so I wouldn't. But before. That's the reason.

To directly partake in ending my life feels wrong. It's not that I don't understand or don't agree with it because I do. The former is something I cannot explain however. But swimming into the ocean until my arms grew too tired wouldn't have felt wrong. The ocean would have taken me. As it took my mother. Following in her footsteps it would appear.

But now that I fear drowning, my last option aside from natural causes is no longer a decision I will make. In this beauty, thoughts of my death still cloud my mind. Cloudy like mist. Mist and its particles. Yurol is still behind me, isn't she?

I'm grateful she is used to my periods of silence before I come around to answering. "It's hard to sleep there at times, you know," when the wind sends me light kisses from the mother I loss at sea, but I filter my thought because it's not appropriate, "when Binsen snores loud enough to wake the dead."

Sometimes I don't believe that Yurol doesn't know my mind is fractured because she always pauses with this strange analyzing silence. But she never says anything or asks if I'm okay. Perhaps it's a mutual relationship.

That pause, then. "I know, I won't say I haven't been tempted to throw water on him just to wake him from his dreadful nose clogged wheezing and huffing." A girly laugh which means Yurol is sincerely attempting to snap me out of my daze. Being my best friend, she usually can for the whole day with a quirky remark.

I'm back to reality. "Or hold his nose shut until he sputters awake!"

We giggle at the thought of Binsen, the owner of The Shack, receiving a rude awakening. The Shack is a decent dine-inn considering peacekeepers have only approved several requests for other dine-inns to be built.

When our giggling subsides, I get up and turn to face Yurol. Wavy black hair that falls around her green eyes and ends at her waist. Beautiful even if she looks worn out with the ever present hint of a grave expression.

Both her parents were shot by peacekeepers for attempting to intervene with the reaping of their eighteen year old son, Minul, when there was strangely no boy volunteers as career tributes. He'd been sick for awhile and wouldn't have lived a few months pass the 68th Hunger Games.

I guess they both couldn't bear the thought of losing him before his appointed time. They left Yurol with two younger brothers to care for after their deaths. Minul died in the initial bloodbath at Cornucopia.

What chance of running away did a skeleton-thin sick boy have? Despite his improbable chances of winning or making it to the second day, the sharp inhale between a cry and a gasp that Yurol made upon seeing a spear driven through Minul's throat gave me the shudders.

The District Two girl, Heria, is the one who speared him. She was shown on screen to be standing in the spray of blood from Minul's throat, reddening her orange hair, with an amused smile the whole time. Those hazel eyes seemed to stare into the screen, announcing she wanted all the districts to know her face. Later, she was crowned the victor.

After she'd wrapped a boy from District Twelve in a blanket, tied him to a barren tree's branch, and lit a fire beneath to let him roast for nearly an hour before a canon boomed; tied a girl from District Six against a fourteen foot cactus with needles two inches long which drove into the girl's back and arms, and then proceeded to take two hours to cut off all the girl's fingers and toes before leaving the girl to be eaten by lizard muttations that slowly ate the girl from bottom to top for another hour until all her innards fell to the desert floor leaving a half body's cavity empty; dug her fingers, as in plural, into the eye sockets of a boy from Ten, used a rope as a collar and lead him around like a pet, making him beg for rotted scraps of food, kicking him when he cried, throwing rocks of all sizes and edges at him when she grew bored, forcing him to relieve himself in his clothes until they became so soiled that infection spread and killed him when she saw the pus ridden wounds and left him on the sand to await death for next two days; and lastly, lured the other final tribute, a boy from Three, into quicksand where she shot him with arrows, one by one, until he nearly resembled a porcupine.

Those are only the tortuous deaths she inflicted. At Cornucopia she killed Minul, the two tributes from District Nine, and a girl from Eleven. Something is terribly wrong with Heria, it's easy to tell she enjoyed the kills and would have exacted out torture for all the tributes given the chance.

Poor Minul. Poor Yurol.

She can tell I'm thinking, but doesn't ask about what. Instead, she nods her head in the direction of our village. "Let's go back. The mist is clearing up, and the peacekeepers are going to make their rounds. You know the won't be happy if The Shack is closed because their best waitress has gone missing."

"What would I do without you?" I ask jokingly, and we begin walking.

"Break into a million pieces?" Then it looks like Yurol instantly regrets saying this.

But I don't want her to filter her thoughts, I don't want her to feel bad. She's always been here for me, and her question is pure truth. "I definitely would."

Yes, I, Annie Cresta, would have surely shattered into dust a long time ago without Yurol.

We link our arms and return to The Shack.

In time too as Binsen is thundering in the kitchen while Yurol and I step inside. "Where is that girl! We are supposed to open in four minutes. Four! Peacekeepers don't wait for their food."

Someone, who I can't distinguish, says. "She always comes even if it's a minute before we open. She'll be here."

The sound of a pot thrown against the ground clangs loudly causing both of us to cringe. Then Binsen storms out of the kitchen, slamming the two metal doors into the walls covered in cracks for that very reason.

Immediately his face is contorted into a mixture of rage and relief. The left side of his face spasms since it can't be decided which of the two conflicting emotions should override the other. During this pause, I notice how his forming wrinkles against dark skin look like creases in leather. Random flecks of grey hair have invaded his jet black hair. Aside from his slightly round stomach, Binsen is in fair shape though.

Finally, "Every time you disappear and only reappear minutes before opening, it feels like my heart has exploded." There's no spite in his voice. He sounds relieved even if his mind decided to say angry words.

We can't help it. Unanimously, Yurol and I begin to laugh hysterically. Giggles and hitches in pitch bounce off the blackened wooden floors and concrete walls. The noise filling the room with life. Deflated from his outburst, Binsen clomps up the creaky stairs while muttering to himself. "They do that all the time, all the time. Don't even care if they'll be the death of me. Wretched, ungrateful..."

He knows we'll be ready to work before seven, and still laughing, we don't fail him.

I've set the twelve tables with utensils and clean rags for people to wipe their hands with. Swept the floors mainly to retrieve any fallen food since there will always be a thin layer of omnipresent sand on the floorboards. And Yurol is in the back waiting to wash the mound of dirty rags which will be coming her way in no time.

Exactly at seven, three peacekeepers come inside. They take a seat at a table with an ocean view from the open window, but are paying more attention to removing their helmets and not getting them dirty. I walk to their table, today's menu memorized since it changes so frequently depending on what fresh catch Joln has ensnared.

I catch the end of their conversation from Lionel, a black haired, blue eyed peacekeeper. "...arena will be this year?"

Derek, a blonde peacekeeper with blue eyes too, responds. "It better be something interesting. After that girl Heria last year, the audience won't be happy if it's not as entertaining."

Entertaining. My stomach becomes queasy. Their amusement is founded on the gruesome deaths she inflicted? It's one thing to know the Capitol enjoys watching the slaughter of district children, but it's an entirely different thing to meet people who hold the same view.

Apparently I've closed my eyes because I can't see through the darkness when someone asks. "Annie, feeling alright?"

Slowly my vision widens until I see Lionel, Derek, and Vonir looking at me. At this moment, the most I can focus on is Vonir's slightly slanted brown eyes, and I just know he's the one who asked the question. He's always been the kindest of the peacekeepers. That comforts me.

Adjust my mind to focus on the concerned brown. "Just didn't sleep well."

"Okay, you didn't look-"

"Hey, Odair!" Derek abruptly yells out the window, cutting Vonir off who conceals any annoyance he may have at this interruption.

Footsteps of a person jogging reach the window in seconds. Somebody is there now, but my eyes are still locked on Vonir. He knows something is wrong, but doesn't pursue. Slowly he directs his attention to the window, so I do the same.

A tall, shirtless, tan figure is leaning in through the open window with his veiny-muscular forearms resting against the windowsill. Several thick veins run all the way up his defined biceps that bulge at the slightest shift in angle at his elbow. His biceps lead to muscular shoulders, a hairless chiseled chest underneath, abs with so many muscle patterns that it's hard to follow, and protruding hipbones leading my eyes diagonally down where they can no longer follow since he's wearing light grey pants.

He. Of course there's a head attached to this body. How long have I been observing?

This seems to be on their mind because when I turn my eyes up, a pair of brilliant sea green irises hold my gaze, smooth lips formed into an amused smile. Seduction laces his voice as he slowly enunciates every letter, "Anything you like? I don't need the pants you know."

A beautifully sculpted face which drives almost every female in all of Panem crazy. Almost. I'm sure there are a few girls or women out there who feel the same as me.

Nothing, that is. Observing is one thing, feelings are irrelevant.

I still haven't answered his question. Was it a serious question? He hasn't said anything yet, and the peacekeepers seem to be waiting for my response as well.

My thoughts aren't distorted so I don't need to filter my next words, "No, and I don't see how that concerns me."

Derek begins to laugh, slapping the table. "Does that burn Finnick? Must be the first time you've been rejected."

All the peacekeepers begin to laugh while Finnick briefly looks at them shrugging with an unconcerned expression on his face, but he does glance at me again. Their laughter has settled down, and Finnick redirects his attention to them. He leans forward causing his arm muscles to tighten with further definition. It feels like his eyes are resisting the urge to look my way to check if I'm noticing these physical attributes.

Finnick asks, "So what were you guys talking about?"

Derek looks around the table. "We were trying to guess what the arena will be like this year. Have any idea?"

Finnick shakes his head. "You know I don't have access to that sort of information. What did you guys think of?"

Lionel says. "Maybe something tropical."

"Doubt it. They did that four years ago for my game." Finnick's face remains the same, but I notice the tendons in his neck stretch over skin. At fourteen, he was crowned victor, and the fame from that game has yet to putter out.

"Maybe," there's a fork between Vonir's fingers which he taps against the table thoughtfully, "an arctic theme."

Rubbing some dried salt off his left forearm, again Finnick shakes his head. "Nah, there was that one game when all those kids froze to death. The Capitol people were not happy with that ending."

Derek suggests, "Some kind of barren land?"

"They did that last year with the desert. The only reason it was eventful was because of that girl Heria. I'm pretty sure the gamemakers are going to make the arena more interesting this year than relying on the chance of reaping another savage victor." Finnick clears his throat. "Most victors don't go that far in killing the other tributes."

No one says anything, and I'm still standing here waiting to take their order. Suddenly, Finnick's eyes glance my way, and his lips form into a lazy smile. "Any ideas to contribute?"

It sickens me that he can talk so easily with the peacekeepers about the Hunger Games, going over theories and scenarios for amusement. Knowing two people are reaped from our home each year is far from amusing, but Finnick's view seems to have been warped by too many visits to the Capitol.

How can he talk so casually about the games after winning? Why is he apparently so undamaged unlike the morphlings from Six, Haymitch Abernathy from Twelve? Or why doesn't he even seem to be less happy like how the other victors appear? Finnick is the only victor who has this lively, happy banter that radiates from him while other victors like Beetee or Wiress have a sad broken sense to them. The deaths and trauma from their games clearly affected all those victors. Maybe Finnick is like Heria, and the other tributes' deaths were meaningless and perhaps even enjoyable.

I cross my arms in dislike for Finnick now that I've interacted with him for the first time. "No," filter my thoughts because peacekeepers are present, "it's not something I like to think about."

Lionel and Derek assume my comment depicts a fragile and innocent mind. While Vonir knows there's distaste in my remark. But I can see my true meaning is not loss on Finnick. There's resent in his bright green eyes at my accusation of him liking the Hunger Games. That he derives pleasure from thinking of ways in which twenty-three tributes will die depending on the arena.

His lazy smile tightens just a bit. "I see." Finnick turns to the peacekeepers. "Well, we'll see what's in store for us within the a week. Enjoy your breakfast, there's a few things I need to do."

With that, the oh so freaking famous Finnick Odair nonchalantly walks away from the window, an air of importance evident in his gait. At last, I return to my job and tell the peacekeepers the menu, they order, other customers come in. It's like any other day. Even if the reaping for the 69th Hunger Games is tomorrow.