Finnick and Annie

I Kiss Peeta?

 

I went to bed, and though I was extremely tempted to call Annie, I knew I shouldn’t. In a way I felt like this was my last chance to say goodbye… just in case, but we’d already talked, and I didn’t think I could stand another goodbye.

I woke up the next morning to Celia’s banging on my door. I let her in and sighed, her face was gloomy, and I knew how bad she was at goodbyes. We made our way to the hovercraft silently. They injected the tracker in my arm, and soon after we were arriving at the arena, so the windows all blacked out.

“You’ll be awesome,” she said, giving me an encouraging smile.

“Yeah, I know,” I sighed, turning Haymitch’s golden bracelet around my wrist.

“What’s that?” she asked, grabbing my wrist.

“Just a bracelet.”

“What happened to Annie’s bracelet?”

“What?”

“Finnick, I know a lot more about you than you think…”

“Yeah well, don’t tell anyone.”

“You know I wouldn’t.”

We got to the arena, and were led to our underground Launch Room. Celia examined the outfit that was hanging on a rack next to the couch, were I sat and drank two whole bottles of water.

“This is… interesting. You’re going somewhere warm and humid probably.” I looked at her and noticed the fitted, blue jumpsuit I was supposed to wear. I dressed in the undergarments, zipped up the suit and put on the purple, plastic belt around my waist. I saw myself in a mirror and then at Celia.

“You look great.”

“Yeah, don’t I always?” but the teasing, cocky tone of my voice was barely there anymore.

“Time to go, Finn,” she said as the glass tube slid up to let me in.

“I’ll see you soon.”

“I’m sure of it.”

The glass tube closed, and I was once again trapped, not only in the glass cylinder, but also in the arena, in the games, in Snow’s games. The platform began to rise and I was engulfed by darkness, I felt a bit claustrophobic, I didn’t like enclosed spaces.

As the platform began to reach the surface, I was blinded by the bright sunlight, and stunned by the familiar, cold feeling of the lapping waves covering my feet. I looked around and found myself surrounded by water. I left out a small involuntary laugh as I recognized the water and the white beach in the distance. There twelve spokes that separated two plates. There were two platforms between two spokes, and the sandy beach seemed to be surrounding us in a perfect circle.

After I had taken in the scenery, I looked around at the other tributes. Most of them seemed really confused and displeased, as the vast majority was probably unable to swim. The countdown continued and it was getting closer to zero. I crouched and prepared myself to jump off the platform.

There was a loud boom and I pushed off the metal plate, and dived flawlessly into the cold, salty water. I fell into the familiar pattern of breaths and arm strokes as I moved closer and closer to the cornucopia. I was there in less than a minute, and of course I was the first one there, however, I was surprised to see that Katniss was nearby, swimming towards me.

I quickly grabbed the first weapon that caught my eye, which was of course, a shinning trident, set up next to a net right at the mouth of the cornucopia, waiting for me. I grabbed those and brought my trident up and towards my head, waiting for Katniss. She took a bow and spotted me and I smiled a little, but in now way, relaxed my pose... they were the games after all, and I wouldn’t be of much help if she killed me first.