Chapter Text
“The sea waits for no man, Annabel,” my mother woke me, her arms already full of her fishing rods, her nets, and her spears.
It was Reaping day and I was fifteen years old. I spent my Reaping day without her at shore but with her, we woke up early for all the hours we could have out on our ocean. She’d deliver me back, my hair full of sea salt, still covered in sand, only just in time for the mayor to begin.
Those were our least productive mornings. It wasn’t fish that filled them, instead the call of the water - just a little bit further and they couldn’t catch us if we tried.
Now I wake alone, in the Capitol. On the side of the bed where Finnick had sat, there’s only a piece of paper.
I’ll see you soon.
-Finnick
Her necklace gone from me and all the sea salt long since stripped from my hair, Manta is who collects me.
I couldn’t eat very much, no matter how I tried, but I did manage to drink the water set in front of me before he brought me to the hovercraft. There, they have needles and they inject some sort of tracking device into my arm. Even out at sea, they’d know where I am.
In the room with the tube, meant to send me up, Attilius is there. I decide it’s better. It means I cannot crumble, not if there is a risk of his comfort.
I dress in the clothes he gives me.
He pulls my hair back, out of my face, and he tells me, “I hope you make it back to me.”
I have a half a mind to betray my promise to Finnick, to not make it back to him. Maybe it would be for the better.
I don’t speak and he doesn’t either. It crosses my mind that maybe he was warned. The presence of the Four victors hangs in the room over him like a threat, to not further harm a girl on her death bed. The room is silent until there is an announcement, that I am meant to take my place. It’s time. My chest feels like seizing and it’s hard to breathe around but he moves to me and so I duck and I move to the tube. It closes around me, encasing me, protecting me for one last moment.
I keep my head up, my shoulders back, and try my best to breathe even as the air feels short supplied. He stares with the hunger back and all I can think as the ground rises beneath me is that I desperately wish I went sailing that morning. I wish that I could’ve been out on the water again.
My birthday has always fallen on the first day of the Games. Today was meant to be my freedom. I would’ve spent all the time allowed at sea, all to hide from shore where Earwyn would be fighting for his life on those big screens in the square. I would’ve kept the Clarks and my father fed.
Happy birthday, little fish.
All of a sudden it all gets so bright. I blink through my blurry eyes, my heart already pounding and aware of the danger. My vision finally refocuses as the countdown begins. It is foggy all around us.
60, 59, 58.
The air is thinner. I hear the roar of water, though I don’t see it.
50, 49, 48.
I look behind myself and see nothing but sky. We are atop of a cliff..
40, 39, 38.
You’re my heart, little fish.
32, 31, 30.
I see Earwyn just a few platforms down from me. His jaw set, already prepared. A giant. He doesn’t meet my eyes, his shoulders are set. In front of me, there’s a small pack, only attempting to entice me forward still.
20, 19, 18.
Beside me is the boy from Three and the girl from Seven. I can only hope they’ll both be preoccupied.
10, 9, 8.
My chest hurts with my panic, I only hope that I keep my face passive but it would be a feat. I force my shoulders back, trying to breathe.The bloodbath is fish in the Capitol’s barrel. No one on my side of our circle will make it down, everyone must make it through. It’s that or steeply down.
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Go. I’m off the platform nearly synchronically with the boom of the start. I dive to the pack ahead of me and sling it over my shoulder, around my body.
The screaming comes at once and I find the source, just in time to watch a young girl hit the ground, a knife in her head. Her eyes stay open. She must’ve screamed only for fear of the Games, the knife killed her before she could’ve thought to cry out.
The Careers have overtaken the Cornucopia, the weapons are now theirs.
I find Earwyn. His spear hollows a boy’s chest.
My heart pounds in my head and snaps me back into focus, only in time to be knocked to the ground. A girl atop of me, I’m thrown back to the edge of the cliff. She’s unarmed as well.
Everyone tried to prepare me. Earwyn, Finnick, my mother all pound in my ears. I feel on the ground for anything when I feel a rock. It’s jagged but it is big and it slips out of my hand, off the edge as soon as I had it. I hear a splash. I am almost fully sure I hear a splash.
Her hand wraps around my throat and I fill my lungs with air right before her palm comes down and crushes my windpipe. I fight the panic back, furiously trying to hold my breath as though I’m swimming.
In a moment of wild, I make a decision. I wrap my arms around her and I throw us both. She’s knocked off balance. She couldn’t have known anyone in their right mind would dare to take on the cliff.
My head aches with dizziness and we dive.
She hits water first. I do not hit the waterbed, I collide only into her. Somehow, I am still alive. She’s off of me now and everything is spinning. Still alive. I swim as fast as I can to get away, I leave her.
She doesn’t pursue me. I look back and she’s floating. The water is red around her. Beside her, where I was, a rock juts out of the lake. My mouth tastes of copper, I bit through my lip. Seven’s head is open.
She broke my fall. I can’t breathe, be it due to panic or her hand, gripping tighter to my throat like a lifeline on our way down.
“Annabel,” my mother, back in my head, the first time she ever let me use a spear. Let being a mile away from the truth, she insisted. It always felt violent, moreso than a line strung off the edge of our boat. She promised me, “It’s kinder than the hooks. They don’t know to be afraid.”
My heart threatens to pound out of my chest and I see the water turning redder, spreading out from her. She’s gone.
Did she know to be afraid? I realize I don’t know her name.
I leave the water as fast as I can and as soon as I reach the shore, I’m vomiting into the reeds. Tears finally have the sense to course through me.
Loud booms cut into the air and ring in my chest. I could thirteen. Eleven left. I watched Earwyn murder the young boy. I murdered Seven’s girl. Four has taken atleast two lives. The world is still spinning. Ahead there is a cavern, the mouth of the cliff.
It’s with shaking legs that I stand, dizziness courses through me as soon as I’m up. I make it there.
I watch the hovercraft come and collect her to bring her home. I don’t know whether or not I wish to know her name.