Not Just A Game

Chapter 37

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I like to think we can make the decision, whether we win or lose. Whether we can keep running, circles and circles, never getting to our destination because we're not even sure what it is. Or to stop, maybe question why we agreed to this in the first place.

Maybe it's because we never did.

But maybe we can keep running, keep moving forward, and we'll get somewhere.

But maybe that's not the truth.

Maybe we never stop. Maybe we keep going, always wondering what could have happened if we just stopped. Maybe the good guys don't always win, and we just have to keep fighting.

It gets easier, day by day, hour by hour, we learn to accept what we're meant to do in this brutal world, whether actually do it or not.

Maybe we're all just could've-been fighters stuck in the world of "what could have happened."

That's sure what it feels like right now.

I trudge along into the kitchen, the only tribute awake.

Dakota's face remains emotionless as she stares into her plain bowl of oatmeal, which remains untouched. She looks up, not bothering to mask the furiously depressed expression she wears. Even Elsie, as perky as she always is, looks sad to send us into the arena today. She tries to reassure me with a smile, but to no success. She just looks at me with sad eyes, makeup running down her peach colored skin.

I have to look away, the tears in my hazel eyes are threatening to flow, and I don't know if I would be able to stop it if they did.

I commit myself to the task of piling as much food as possible onto one plate. I'm not sure when I'll eat again.

Everything in this moment seems so familiar. The overly sullen and gloomy faces. Red eyes and scratchy voices. Untouched food and growling stomachs. Emotionless faces full of so much emotion.

I wish it was over. I've never wished for something so hard in my life. My entire existence changed in the blink of an eye, all those weeks ago at the reapings.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I wasn't reaped. I like to believe that what's meant to happen, happens. But if my name wasn't drawn from that big glass bowl on stage, would fate have brought me here anyways?

I hear feet lightly padding against the carpet in the hall. I turn over my shoulder and see Harley enter the kitchen.

She looks rough. She's been up crying all night. I can see the red spidery veins in her eyes, and the dark circles underneath them. Her eyelashes are clumped together and her face is pale. This depressed Harley really contradicts her normal happy attitude, and it makes my heart break.

She gets her food an I hear a small sniffle when she turns around.

After getting her food, she takes a seat across from me and slowly starts to chew her pile of food.

After several minutes that seemed interminable, Dustin emerges from the hall followed closely by Griffin.

Everyone has on the unique clothes chosen of the arena this year.

It's a plain tshirt, District Twelve's is maroon. There's a light jacket over the shirt, made of a dull black material. The pants are thin and flexible, a black and gray color that are right to your legs, all the way to where they cut off a few inches below the knee.