The Sound of Falling Snow | A Hunger Games Fanfiction

Chapter 7

I sit on my bed, hugging my knees close to my chest. With no parade, I have time to myself until dinner. Even though these are my last few of freedom, and I should enjoy them, they feel as though they stretch endlessly, droning on with no end.

When I'm finally called for supper, I heave myself up to join the rest of the tributes to eat. Ordinarily, the tributes eat with only their district partner on their assigned floor, but since we're all from the Capitol, we do it together.

I sit down next to Victoria, but she continues to neglect my presence. The conversations between the tributes are all in hushed voices, the sound of utensils scraping the plates and bowls more prominent than the spoken words.

My attempts to talk to my friend are half-hearted and futile, so I soon drop it entirely. I know she has good reasons for it, but a worry is nagging at me. What if we don't repair our friendship before the Games begin?

It's not a question about survival anymore. I just want to go back to what we were at first. When we were young and carefree, nothing more to feel anxious about than the tests at school. Even if I were to win, nothing would ever be the same again. The Games would loom over me for the rest of my life, and I'd spend every waking moment in the arena, every dream haunted by my past experiences. Not that it would be different for anyone else.

We all just want our lives back. We never said we wanted the Hunger Games to continue. We were just too scared to oppose our elders. It's funny, not in a laughable way, that the people of the districts were the same way. Until the rebellion, where they fought back. But we stayed neutral. We never wanted to fight, we never wanted a war. We're all still only children, not even old enough to be drafted into the army or to become Peacekeepers.

They don't care. No matter what we say, how hard we try to convince them, they're never going to listen. We're criminals in their eyes, whether or not we regret our choices, despite our best efforts to redeem ourselves. It'll never, not even for one moment, be enough.

—

Night is the hardest. The darkness, although schematic, threatens to overcome me, preying on me during my weakest moments. I seek the refuge of sleep desperately, trying to find some escape from reality. It's as if the universe has every plan to harm me each time I think that it'll be the worst yet. First the Games, then Victoria being reaped in, and then when she started ignoring me.

What does it have in store for me next? I think bitterly.

And the other tributes. They probably all hate me. Spoiled, selfish, Clio Snow, who thinks she is so better than everyone else just because her grandfather was the president of Panem. I guess now that I think about it, it's no surprise that Victoria is mad at me. I could have been there for her, but instead all I did was feel bad for myself.

Restlessness has begun to set in, and my legs are itching to move. Sliding out of bed, I get up to sit by the window in the common area of my floor instead. My pale silken nightgown shimmers in the moonlight, the stars twinkling overhead. I sigh, wishing, wishing, wishing that I was back home. That I could freeze time in a memory. Alana laughing, my father smiling, my mother holding me together. It feels so long ago that it's almost a dream. A faded thought that I'm clinging on to, believing that if I close my eyes, I'll realize that none of this was real, that perhaps if I can picture each detail of the scene perfectly, if I can recount it down to the last breath, it'll somehow exist again. Maybe I can just live in the memory instead.

But no matter how much I try to picture it to forget the rest of the world, I know it won't do anything. Regardless of what I try to convince myself, it just isn't possible.

—

I must have somehow fallen asleep by the window, because I raise my head to find that the sky has brightened and the stars are not nearly as pronounced as last night, only obscure balls of luster rather than the radiant blazes they were before.

I slip into the Training Center uniform that all the tributes are required to wear. Although it's still early and the rays of dawn are still barely filtering through the window, I head downstairs for breakfast, finding myself alone.

I butter a slice of bread and am already almost done eating by the time the rest of the tributes have started to trickle in. By the time Victoria walks through the entrance, I've set my now-empty plate on the rack to be washed.

Even though I'm done, the tributes are required to stay until the designated time at which training begins. The chatter is more noticeable than during dinner, and I wonder if it means that the rest have started to warm up to each other – or if they've just accepted their fate. Alliances will soon form, bonds that will strengthen when abilities are shown. Ones that will likely be the end of me.

It's hard to remember that I won't be fighting against people that I've never met before. That we're all used to the soft, easy life of the Capitol. That unlike in some of the districts, we haven't been trained to fight, to kill. But most of all, I forget that many of us are childhood friends.