The Capitol's Lies || Annie Cresta's Story

Chapter 3

The sunrise over the beach is such a beautiful thing, but today it seems overshadowed by terror. The Reaping is tomorrow. A faint aura of anxiety lingers in the air. Today, I run to the beach instead of walking. I forget breakfast, as if I could eat anyways and force myself to keep running. I get to work early, almost an hour before the Peacekeepers arrived. I sit on the dock and start impulsively weaving a net.

Rowena, an old victor of the games, comes and wordlessly begins to start a net. Rowena won her games at the age of 16, about 30 years ago. Her wrinkled skin is a sign of her nightmares and horrors, not her age. I remember watching the rerun of her games, because it was required for school. Her games. They were awful. A completely flat terrain, with no water, just bushes and sand and deadly tributes. There was no place to hide, any trees were impossible to scale. She survived by being ruthless. She took down 13 tributes total, because of her deadly skills with a spear. She doesn't talk much anymore. We sit now in silence and let ourselves get lost in the work.

Slowly but surely, the others come in. One by one, they sit down and silently work. Even Finnick comes and starts on a net, though he doesn't need to work because he's rich. He sits near me and I smile slightly at his hands moving intricately, weaving knots into the net. Even in his wealth, he didn't forget where he came from. I finish my net and ask the Peacekeepers, in the most polite way I can muster, if I can leave early, to go to the market. He responds in a gruff voice that I know far to well. "Well, red, it'll cost you." I see a smirk from under the helmet as it lifts and I see his face. It's Possel Reeds.