Sunshine | Finnick Odair

| part 4 |

This was my second year being a mentor. I wish I had died in that arena. No one prepared you for returning back home. The looks I got from Caspers family shattered my heart into a million pieces. The guilt of my actions still eating away at me. You don't have victors in reality you're just a surviver. Stuck with the nightmares and joy of sending a new bunch of kids off to die every year. Oh and the best part is your whole life is controlled by the capital. Who in the right mind sells a 13 year old girl for their body? Snow has been selling my body for a year now to keep the people of panem busy in between games. That man disgusts me more than anything. He's vile.

Today, was the reaping
and the day I got to see which 'lucky' kids I was going to be mentoring. I make myself look presentable before leaving to head towards the reaping. The day before the reaping tend to be when my nightmares are at their worst so I spend the night at my old house. It's not exactly great when your little sister has to hear you screaming bloody murder.

I stand next to mags on the edge of the wooden stage. Being the only victor out of the two, that can talk, I am mainly the one who mentors the tributes.

Helena walks out onto the stage in a simple but beautiful red toned dress. "The time has come for us to select one courageous young man and women for the honour of representing district 4 in the sixty-fifth annual hunger games. As usual ladies first"

Helen walks over to the girls bowel and swished her hand around until she picked her chosen card. Chills send through my body as I remember the day I was reaped.

"Adella Gibson"

I see a girl of around 16 walking up the stairs with a smug smile on her face. Great, she was one of these tributes that believed it was an honour. Being from a career district meant most tributes saw it to be an honour, making my job even more 'fun', Yay.

"Now for the boys, Finnick Odair" A boy around my age begins walking out of the crowd and towards the steps unfortunately he too looked proud his name was called.

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Me and Mags make our way to the dinning table to be met with Helena and the two tributes for this year. I take a seat down next to Mags and opposite Finnick. I have to admit he was attractive, those golden curls, ocean blue eyes. Aurora stop thinking!

"How do you we win this?" Finnick ask cutting straight to the point. 'My god, was I this desperate? No. Yes, yes I was'.

"In training you need to practice on your weaknesses not your strengths, you already know what you are good at. If your not good with a weapon train with weapons. If your not good with survival instincts then study them" I inform the two, rember if the advice Mags gave me during my games.

"What about sponsors?" This time Adella was asking the question.

"Sponsors are key to your survival in the games. You need to make sure your well liked. Use your time in the interviews to make you seem desirable or a sob story normally works"

"How do we be well liked?" Finnick asks. I turn and face him. "For you, you will want to use your looks to seem desirable you may be young but the capitol doesn't really care about age"

'You either die in the arena or live long enough to become the capitols new toy, but I couldn't tell them that.'

"You think I'm good looking?" he questions with a smirk on his face.

"Don't flatter yourself"
My god this was going to be long and agonising.

"For you" I say turning to face Adella. "You need to come up with a good sob story, I know your mother is sick so try to use that"

'Uh oh. It appears I have struck a nerve'. I look at the girl who now has glossy eyes as she slams her chair back landing it on the floor, before storming out the door.

"It appears she is sensitive" I accidentally say out loud. Mags gently hits me round the back of my head and glares at me in a motherly way to tell me off. Finnick just sits in his chair laughing at the scene that has just unraveled.

"Things like that" I beginning, pointing to where the girl was just sat. "will get you killed in the games. She just revealed her weakness. If it comes down to having to kill her in the games use it against her but don't kill each other unless your the last two left" I point out to the blonde.

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It was late at night and I was unable to sleep so I wondered to the living room and sat down on the sofa, staring out the window admiring the night sky. I hear the door slide open and in the moonlight I notice the shadow of a boy. Finnick.

"Couldn't sleep?" He asks.

"I don't sleep. My mind has a scary capability of being dark and twisted" I say, before sipping my tea.

"Your scared of your dreams?" He asks confused.

"Yes" I whisper to myself. "I'm a victor I don't even know what sleep is anymore" I tell him so he can hear. Sleep. If only. He smiles at my response but I watched as he nervously fiddled with his fingers. "Come sit down, I can tell your worried" I say gesturing to the armchair in front of me.

"I'm going into the games I'm bound to be slightly nervous" he laughs trying to appear strong.

"That is completely normal, I was scared shitless before my games" I explain to him.

"Weren't you like 12?" He asks. I nod in reply. "So how did you win?"

Memories of me and Casper flood through my mind. People say you get used to death after time. But that was a lie. You never get used to the idea of someone being gone, especially someone who was part of your daily routine. Just when you think you've moved on and healed someone points it out to you and it hits you all over again. This was one of those moments. Every night my dreams are haunted with Casper's face. His death. I killed him. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do and I can't seem to get him out of my head. I'm brought out of my thoughts by Finnick clicking his fingers in front of my face.

"Hey are you ok?" He asks puzzled.

"Uhh yeah I'm fine" I shrug it off.

"The tears down your face say otherwise" he tells me. His thumb coming up to my cheek, brushing away my tears. I didn't even realise I had been crying. "Sorry what was your question?" I say bringing myself back to the present day.

"I asked how you won your games?, but you don't have to talk about it" he says clearly not wanting to upset me.

"No it's fine, I won my games with keeping my strengths hidden. I didn't practice them infront of the other tributes so they had no idea what I was capable of"

He simply nods his head in understanding. I look at him and see his eyes begin to get droopy. "I suggest you go to sleep, you have a long three days ahead of you"

"Ok thanks, good night"

"Good night Finnick" I say as he disappears through the doors leaving me to be alone with my thoughts. No matter how long it's been since the games the memories are still freshly painted in my mind. Every single detail of how I killed those tributes. These games will forever haunt me, I will never truly be free.

1343 words.