The Tribute From the Ocean (A Hunger Games Fan Fiction)

•12•

I didn't sleep that night so when my door cracked open I was shocked mostly because I didn't think it had been that long to already be awake. The light flickers on.

"Do we really have to be up this early?" I ask Finnick.

"Not for another ten minutes, but you weren't sleeping anyway. Mostly because I wanted to give you something." Finnick says in a low voice. He hands out a necklace with a black leather strap and a charm in the shape of a wave. It was oddly familiar.

"This was your district token." I say to him.

He nods slowly and finally sits on my bed. "And now it's yours." He closes my fingers around the charm.

"Thank you. I didn't even think about it." I whisper.

"Everyone needs a District token. When you're in the arena sometimes you need something to remind you of home." Finnick says. "Now I'm not supposed to have seen you this morning, so good luck, Kya. You can do this."

"Bye Finnick." I whisper through my room. He looks back at me when he's at the door.

"This isn't goodbye." Then he was gone. I couldn't believe how honest he was. I just didn't want him feeling back when I didn't come home.

After he leaves I pull open the drawer in my nightstand and pull out the blue beads I got from the girls parents. I slide half on one side of the wave charm and half on the other.

Ten minutes later, just like Finnick said, I was pulled out of my bed and taken into one of the capitols hovercraft. We are all seated in rows, but not by District.

I can see Brandon, but he's in front of me and one seat over. I buckle myself in before a man in a white suit comes but me with a weird looking gun.

"Hold out your arm." He demands. I don't hesitate to push my arm out towards him. He sticks the point of his gun into my arm and clicks a button causing the tip to glow, and stay nestled in my arm.

"Trackers." The boy beside me says. He was young, probably not twelve maybe thirteen then I recognized him. The boy from ten. "So they can keep up with us in the arena."

"Smart. Cause I mean, we'll probably wonder ride out of that arena right?" I snort. The boy laughs nervously. "You're the boy that scored a ten."

I remember hearing Gabrielle talk about him. Oh how she wish she was the escort for ten this year.

He nods. I wondered what a little boy like him could do that could score a ten.

"Did you mean to score that six?" He asks me. "You did really good in training."

"No. I did the same thing too. The game makers were probably mad I was stronger than their target." He laughs a little at that.

"Probably." He agrees.

"What's your name again?" I ask.

"Lysander. And yours?" He asks.

"Kya." I tell Lysander.

"Oh right." He sits back in his seat with his back firmly pressed against the wall. I guess this wasn't a good time to make friends.

Outside the hovercraft, we were each taken into a different room in a building with our stylists. I sit in the room with a comfy clubs across from Riverlily.

"Do you want something to eat?" She asks me. I look up. It was smart enough but I didn't think I could force food into my body right now. "A drink?"

I nod at that. Cold water sounded good right now. She hands me a glass that an Avox had brought in earlier.

"Thank you." I whisper to her.

"No problem." She smiles at me.

Thirty seconds remaining. I look at Riverlily and tears start to fill my eyes.

"Come here, darling." She tells me and stands me up by my elbows and pulls me closer to her. Her silver hair was in a loose braid down her back today and I couldn't stop staring at how beautiful it was.

I cry into her shoulder for a minute then she pulls me back and runs her finger under my eyes.

"Dry those tears and go up there and be brave." She tells me.

"I'm ready." I whisper.

Ten seconds remaining.

"To live." She finishes for me. "You're ready to live. May the stars guide your path." I hadn't heard that phrase before but I just smiled at her and stepped onto the pressure plate. Riverlily had faith in me too. Finnick and Riverlily and Brandon and I couldn't leave any of them down.

I thank them all quietly in my head. I loved them all in different ways. Riverlily was right, the bracelet with the innocent word Love on it reminded me I didn't have to be alone and now I wasn't.

A tube slides around me and I hold my breath on the way up. The clothes they had for us were  basic black trousers and a long black shirt. I wrapped myself in the black jacket we got that zipper on the front and had two pockets. I had Finnick's necklace on tucked safely under my shirt.

When my head finally reaches the surface of the arena I brace myself for a bright light, but it never comes.

The only light that shines on my face is the moon. I look around the arena and it's dark with two torches on either side of the cornucopia. Never have I seen an arena that started in the dark. I search my brains to try and remember even one of the ones I've seen in my time growing up.

Keyon always had me watching the games intently and taking notes to help me apparently.

In the background I see a snow dusted mountain in the background and find a few trees in the far distance.

Claudius Templesmith's booms loud over the arena. 

"Let the 72nd Hunger Games begin!"