Survival

III.

As soon as they both saw us, they immediately stopped arguing. And that's when I realise I completely forgot their names, so that means I'll have to call them Morris 1 and Morris 2. Morris 2, the girl, smiles strangely at Fresio and me, as if she has been forced to smile, maybe because she has no idea what to say. It's not like she could say something like 'Lovely to see you here' or even 'Make yourself at home' because we are both probably going to die.

"And you are the first volunteer from 10. Congratulations, you are going to die."

The girl just instantly slaps him in the face, pointing her finger to him.

"I told you not to say that specifically," she says.

"Alright, sorry."

I gulp, trying my best to ignore the massive panic attack I'm having, and keep my composure. I look at Fresio, who just seems to stare at the food on the table.

"You can eat if you want," Morris 1 says.

He seemed to be waiting for those words, because he literally jumped on everything that was on the table.

"You can too," he adds.

I refuse, shaking my head, and not looking at him.

"I promise you it's not poisoned," he comments.

"I'm not eating Capitol food although everyone's starving back in my district. Oops I forgot, our district," I spat.

He turns to his sister, and smirks.

"We've got a rebellious one this year. That's going to be interesting."

"First of all, you've got nothing at all," I say. "I'm not yours."

"No, you're right, you're not ours," Morris 2 steps in. "You belong to the Capitol."

At these words, my leg begins to shake violently. I clench my fists, as well as my jaw. Defence mechanism, I guess. I know she's right. I do belong to the Capitol, as much as I hate it.

"Are you ok?" she asks, visibly seeing something is wrong.

"Well I've just volunteered to go to the games, and as your lovely brother already mentioned, I'm going to die, so what do you think?!" I shout in anger.

Ok, maybe I shouldn't have yelled like that. Maybe I should've just eaten, and accepted that I was going to die and that we all belong to the Capitol.

"Anger issues. That reminds me of someone," he says, looking at his sister.

"I swear to god shut up!"

"I wonder where you're getting it from, your anger issues," he continues to say to his sister. "Mom or dad? I guess both, because they both abused the shit out of us."

"Don't talk about them like that in front of our tributes."

"Or what? You're going to hit me? Bitch please, I've been hit my entire life, so," he turns to me before continuing, "I bet you have anger issues because your mom prefers your sister so you volunteered for her because you couldn't bear hear her crying every day for the loss of her favorite child."

That's when I get up. That's when I loose my temper. I grab a glass and throw it this way. He's lucky I'm not a good at throwing, because it would crashed in his face.

I see Morris 2 starring at me. Fresio stopped eating, and I still see Morris 1 smirking.

"You're a fucking asshole," I spit.

"Because I'm telling the truth?"

"No, because you don't pay attention to who is getting picked to go to the games because you are drinking," I spat, hearing Morris 2 whispering 'told you'. "You think Autumn Gray sounds like Avery fucking Howard?!"

He immediately looks down, understanding that I didn't volunteer for my sister, that he was in fact wrong.

"Sorry," he mumbles.

"Whatever."

I walk past him and his sister, going to a room.

"You can't win without us," Morris 2 shouts.

"I can't win with you either," I answer.

--

Once I find a room, I slip into it and slams the door. It wasn't the comment of my mentor that made me angry, or even the fact that he was drinking, no, it was because I didn't even know why I volunteered. Autumn is not my sister, Alice is not my mother, she never treated me like she was my mother. So why did I volunteer? What went wrong in my head to tell me: Oh, Avery, you should volunteer for someone who isn't even your sister just for her not to die although her mom treated you like shit for your entire existence. Honestly, I don't know. I don't know why I did that, and that's why I was mad. Mad at myself, mad at everyone. Why couldn't I just let Autumn die in the games? Why do I need to die in those games? Maybe that wasn't the question to ask. It should be more like: why don't I want to die in those games? I mean, Autumn got picked, and if I hadn't volunteered, she would have died, and Alice would have probably killed herself or abandoned me. I would have been dead anyways. So why does it make such a difference to die back in district 10 or here, in the Hunger Games? 

I don't deserve this, at least I don't think I do. It's not my fault my parents died. It's not my fault Alice treated me like shit. It's not my fault Autumn got picked. But still, she did. And it's not Autumn's fault either. No. Autumn is a kid. She's Alice's kid. She deserves to live. We deserve to live. I deserve to live. This, all of this, all of what is happening at the moment, is not fair. It is absolutely not fair. And that's why I was angry. The Capitol is destroying our life's, the life of the people in the districts. Parents watching every year their kid being slaughtered by someone else's child and victors full of none curable trauma. Nobody asked for this. And still, the Capitol gave it to us. Destruction, pain, death. They need to pay for what they did. Can I make them pay? And if yes, how?

Win those damn games, Avery.