Flooding Panem: The Hunger Games

Chapter Eight: Realising

I arrive back on our floor with an odd sense of relief. I spent lunch talking with Parox, and even though I'm finding it hard not to like him (not for lack of trying on my part) I think I'm able to trust him enough not to slit my throat while I'm sleeping. Of course, I need him to trust me as well, so I'm not entirely sure what to do if the thing about the explosion comes up, but hopefully I'm a good enough at lying to keep that little thing a secret. I don't know why, or what the Gamemakers would do if they found out, but I have a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I hear a mention of the topic. So anywhere near our mentors.

But it was good to talk to Parox- from what he told me, he's had a fairly normal life. His mom is a teacher at the primary school, and his father works in one of the many factories. He has two younger sisters, and a cousin who he's best friends with. No dead family below the generation of is grandparents, not an orphan, not poor, not rich. Just normal. It's quite ni- no; really nice- to talk to someone whose life isn't completely messed up for a change. The Games have a habit of making people over-dramatize their lives in hope of being remembered, or more importantly, of getting sponsors. Parox's complete ease and honesty makes me feel kind of fake for having a sob story. I'm not saying it wasn't hard to grow up without a mother- it was, and I've yet to live a day when it doesn't hurt to think of her. But drowning is a common enough fate in District Four, most people know someone who's lost an infant to the sea. Adult deaths are less common, but they still happen. Still. I know for a fact that mine isn't going to be the most dramatic story for the interviews.

I glance across the room at Marvel. He's sitting at the corner of our little kitchenette. I love that word. Kitchenette. So pretty and homely. Of course, we're nowhere near home, and probably won't be until we've been shoved into wooden boxes, but anyway. He's twirling a few daintily laminated plants. Like the Careers from one and two, he doesn't know much about plants. Fighting, he can do. Surviving? That's completely different.

I'm looking at him for a few moments when he says, "What are you thinking about?" He doesn't turn around, but I don't feel the need to get up.

"Nothing," I say, quickly. "The others, I guess." We hold a pause for a few seconds. I can see his face now, in the reflection of one of the pans. He's not looking at the stems and petals pinched between his fingertips. He has a similar expression to the one I have on my face when I've been angry, but I'm past hoping. Or caring. It's the expression Victoria had her face when she was about to cry, but she was a minimalist as she liked to say. Crying wasted water. Of course, living right by the sea, there was no shortage of water, but she insisted. It was just one of her quirks. I think in all the time we were friends, I only saw her cry twice. Once was when I was eight, and my mom had just died. It was her funeral. Personal deaths are harder than the Hunger Games- I learnt that and so did Victoria.

The second time was when I went to see her after the Reaping. We never said anything. She was in shock, I think. She couldn't say anything, but she needed to get that emotion out of her. I guess tears were the only way she knew how. It's the only way any of us know how, really. It doesn't help, but it tires you out, and when you wake up the next day, the sun is up and you manage to pull yourself up to find something to live for.

"She hated sudden movements." Marvel's voice cuts through my memories. But it's not harsh. It's regretful. "Whenever someone dropped a pan or anything like that she'd just freeze for a few moments. She'd be back to normal quickly, but if it kept happening..." He drifts off and turns to look at me. "I hate what that train would have done for her."

He throws me a sad smile and turns back to his plants. I look in the pan to see him looking at the plants intently, actually trying now. But I can tell he's distracted. He's probably trying to figure out the last few week his sister's life. His eyes aren't focused the same way they usually are, but he's not trying very hard to regain it. There's something else there too. It's funny, I don't know him very well, and I never really have, but he's so similar to his sister and I saw him so much that I can tell what he's thinking about 50% of the time. He could probably do the same to me.