#Hunger Games chapter series

[promisemepancakes]

The Ones Who Cheat Death - Chapter 1 (A Hunger Games FanFiction)

A/N: I will be releasing a Hunger Games fanfic chapter series as I read along my journey of The Hunger Games series. I am currently on Mockingjay, but releasing this story will take some time as I will be busy throughout my days. So please, bear with me.

TITLE: Chapter 1 - Twilight Dandy

PAIRING: OC X OC (with face claims)

RATING: M

SUMMARY: Spring had just bloomed. The sun is out, the air is warm. Maeve sits with eagerness as she learns from her mother various things by the edge of the fence. But, she does so to keep everything else to the back of her mind.

NOTES/WARNINGS: This story will be based on my own character made for this series. The pairing will not be with any of the Hunger Games Characters.

WORD COUNT: 2,232

The sound of bees and insects filled the air around us. Warmness was felt on our skin as the sun beat down on us and the fence was heard with a low hum. But we just sat there a few feet away from it, learning about the different plants that grew alongside the fences. It was nice, considering spring was now starting to bloom and the weather began to cooperate. It was as if we forgot where we lived and how we lived in this one instance.

“Mama,” I whisper but I was met with gentle shushes as fingers were working gently with the plants. I was leaning in to take a closer look, but I was pulled back a few centimeters for caution by my older brother who was sitting just behind me. I guess I had some nerves welling up inside my body because I felt him firmly plant his hands against my shoulders to stop me from trembling.

 She was tenderly picking various flowers; ones of white petals, ones with yellow, others with purple. There was one with  black petals,  with yellow inner patterns that flow towards the point of the petals just by the base of the fence. It has a  large, dark stigma right in the middle of it, indicating as a sign to be careful and cautious when around it. It was a nice large flower that bees could land onto to collect its pollen. It had an oddly sweet scent to it, a sickeningly sweet smell that smelled of vanilla and syrup. Twilight Dandy was what it was called, but it was anything but dandy. 

She didn’t even try to touch it. According to my mother, this was a highly poisonous flower to humans if ingested through our bloodstream or through our stomachs. So don’t be fooled by it. If eaten or punctured under our skin, then sickly green, blotchy spots with yellow veins could be seen on the infected spot before it swells up. Twilight Dandy was what it was called, but it was not so dandy. The swelling looks like infected boils on the surface. Is there a cure for it? I don’t know, mama hadn’t told us yet. 

My brother and I watched with eager eyes as she plucked a different flower free from the ground. She had managed to grab the little bulb from under the soil and laid the entire thing in her hand. “Be careful when pulling these out,” she says as she shows us her palm. This flower was a deep purple with bright blue veins in its petals. “We want to be able to grab all of the plant in one piece. This flower is very useful whenever we get sick mentally and physically.”

“What does it do?” I asked, looking at the beautiful and enticing petals. “It’s so pretty.”

My mother chuckles slightly as she turns it over and over again for us to get a good look at it in its entirety. “This flower helps those who are in deep depression. When they feel that they can’t seem to reach for themselves in their pit, ingesting this flower will help you feel happiness. And,” she reaches for her satchel to delicately place it with the others she’s collected to take to the apothecary on the way to our house. “These also help with bad infections, in and out.”

It was such a powerful flower that this can make anyone happy. I never knew such wonderful things grew here within our fences. It’s always so crazy to think how many beautiful things live within our district, but it’s worse to think about it when you realize how bleak and disgusting our home looks like. How terrible a condition we truly live in.

My mother gets off her knees and brushes off her skirt, then helps me up to my feet. “Ok Silas, go take your sister to the cattle farm. You two have to go to work now,” she says, walking towards the dirt path we took to get to the edge of the fence. “I’ll be home making supper.”

The cattle farm. More so a dairy farm, one where we steal the milk of mothers who need it more for their calves, but we take their supply for the Capitol. It’s a disgusting idea for an even more  cruel environment. It’s the one job I dread all week. The dairy farm forces you on your knees to milk the cows for hours. And if they knew that it was a special occasion, they would force you, abuse you to do something you don’t want to do or have you do for far longer than supposed to. Well, at least some of them, the peacekeepers. The cattle watchers were usually the more cruel peacekeepers we have out of the dozens upon dozens we have patrolling the entirety of District 11.

And, unfortunately, today is a special occasion. My birthday. Of course you have an easier way of hiding it if there weren’t so many peacekeepers patrolling around, but word gets spread whether you are celebrating a birthday, holiday, or some sort of junction that the district holds. Sadly, because of them being easily known, District 11 hardly holds anything special or fun even if it was a child’s big milestone. If it isn’t part of the Capitols made up holidays, then it isn’t to be celebrated. Even if there was a wedding happening, it would be a small celebration that would only last maybe an hour or less.

“Alright, let’s go Maeve,” Silas says, patting my shoulder. “Don’t want to be late for work.” I gave my mother a melancholic look before we got to the fork of the path and went our separate ways for the afternoon. I’ll see you at supper, mama. 

I reached up and took Silas’ hand and squeezed it tight. We both knew what might happen today while we work, but we didn't say anything about it. Didn’t want them to get word of it before we arrived, unless someone had already run their mouths about it being my birthday in the morning. Or they just kept note of someone’s birthday from previous years so they can finally torture the ones whose birthdays fell on a Saturday or Sunday. 

I swallowed hard and pressed my face into my brother's arm as we walked closer towards the sounds of cows in distress. Even their crying is agonizing, making me feel disturbed. The dirt under our feet crunch under the pressure of our weight, soon making my throat feel choked up once we lay eyes on the barn doors. Crying. Crying and crying. Oh god I can’t take it. I can already feel the weight of agony in my chest and I feel my knees grow wobbly. But Silas keeps a firm grip on my hand and forces me upright. He gives it a reassuring squeeze to tell me that everything was going to be ok. But I knew it would never be ok. Never ever, not while we live in a world where they work their children and in the same year….kill them off as a sort of sick ritual.

The day finally comes to an end and I’m slogging my way back home. My hands were trembling at my sides, my arms unmoving, numb. It was hours after my shift. Twelve extra agonizing hours, to account for my turning of twelve, being forced to milk, shovel the hay and clean the whole herd of cows pens while they shat on the floors almost continuously. My fingernails were caked with their waste, feeling like there were bricks trying to pry off my nails from my skin. 

Many of the Peacekeepers didn’t care for my presence on the streets past curfew. They knew the reasoning, considering I can hear them talk to each other through their boxes on their hips or shoulders.

They patrol the darkened streets with lights coming off their helmets. In a way, I’m grateful for them because I can watch where I step as I trudge along the rocky paths back home. My shoes were ruined by the cows so I had to walk barefoot, having jagged rocks press into the soles of my feet. 

After about twenty minutes, I managed to slip behind some houses and go through backyards to get to my house. The lights in the windows were dim from candles being lit. I come to the back door and I knock on it. The door didn’t open right away, but I could hear whispered voices and a quick pounding to the back door. I knew they were talking amongst themselves, wondering who it was but only then realizing it was me when opening the door. Nobody but us would use the back door instead of the front. We wouldn’t want to alarm everyone else thinking it was a Peacekeeper to disturb the peace.

“MayMay!” One of my younger sisters says in a gasp. She reveals a toothy and toothless smile as she immediately stepped forward and asked for some uppies. Eloise. I gave a tired smile and, despite  my arms feeling like warm noodles, I scooped her up in my arms and stepped inside, closing the rackety door behind me. I give all of my will power to my arms to force them to stay up as I shower her face with kisses. She gives a squeal and some giggles, her legs kicking about.

I pull away and sniff the air a moment. “Mmm, what’s mama making?” I whisper to Eloise. I already knew what she was making, but I wanted to entertain her while I was home for a short time. Our mother was making a lavender, acorn and fennel soup. I could tell by the smell. We didn’t have a lot of money and tradables to get better food for our family. So, mother has to go about the fence to look for edible plants to make sure her kids get fed. 

Eloise doesn’t answer my question, but just bounces in my arms. I give her one last big kiss before setting her down before I drop her. With my arms feeling weak, I told my mother I didn’t want to eat. But she knew better. As I will as father. He took me gently by the shoulders and led me to the dining table, making me sit. “But papa,” I protest as he grabs his bowl and fills half of mine with it, then fills the rest from the pot mother had on now smoldering ashes.

“No, my children eat first. Then the parents,” my father says before he plants a kiss against my cheek. “You were out late. What happened?”

“I had to stay extra because of my birthday,” I sigh. I lift my soup up with my spoon. I could barely make it into my mouth, and was about to let it fall back into my bowl, but my father helped me spoon it in. I gave my father a sorrowful smile, a thank-you-for-helping-me-but-this-is-embarrassing kind of smile. But, knowing him, nothing is too embarrassing. Or unimportant than his family. He is the type to put others before himself, just to make sure they are full before finishing off what they have left. 

So, he makes sure I eat as much as I can before he takes my bowl. “Good. Now, go wash up and go to bed. I’m sure you are beat,” my father says. I watch him for a few moments as he scrapes the small bits of my soup into his. He also takes my siblings left overs and splits it between him and mother. 

I go and give my face a good scrub after going under my nail with a hard brush. I furiously scrape the underside of my nails until they feel sore. I feel horrendous, disgusting, so when I get to bathing in the lukewarm water I try to scour my body clean. I stop until I feel my body buzzing and raw right before the bleeding begins. 

After I get my bath all situated, I get into a pair of clean jammie’s and crawl into my bed. Elouise sleeps with our parents, so I get the bed to myself tonight. But, I feel oddly lonely. I begin tossing and turning with my body suddenly feeling all scabbed. Itchy. I couldn’t sleep. I end up just staring up at the ceiling of a leaky roof with just the pale light of the moon. Why couldn’t I sleep? Then I realized the feeling I succumbed to. I feel anxious about something…But what was it? I scratch around my brain to see if a thought forms about my sleeplessness. For the longest time I didn't get an answer. Then it hits me like a pile of bricks. Oh god. It was an answer I dare not try to complete, but I am defeated. By this realization, I become paralyzed with fear. My eyes and cheeks start to hurt and my throat all of a sudden feels tight. 

I try not to choke out a gasping sob as the realization pounds on the walls of my brain. I’m 12 years old now. How could I not realize this before? 

This is the first year I am put into reaping bowls. I can now participate in The Hunger Games.

[hauntingyouwithpjo]

I’ve been reading mockingjay and this is a summary of what I think is happening inside peeta’s head rn:

Peeta: once I manage to undoom you from the narrative the wedding is back on!

[happyhauntt]

BURIAL GROUND, a hunger games fic.

─── summary:  In District Four, they teach you  how to survive the Games. They don’t teach you how to survive what comes after. ─── warnings: this story contains triggering themes including sexual assault & rape, prostitution, self-harm and thoughts of suicide, death and canon-typical violence. these themes, along with others, are prevalent in the hunger games universe and will come up in this story, so please don’t read if these things affect you! ─── fic tag. read on ao3. fic masterlist.

CHAPTER ONE ─── the uglier truth (3.8k words.)

     YOU WOULD THINK, by the way people in the Capitol talk about Nimah Caplan, that she was some kind of deity. That she wasn't born human, but instead rose from the sea foam crashing onto the shores of District 4 one day, skin glowing like the inside of a buttercup and eyes greener than the freshest grass.

     The Capitol likes to forget the uglier truth  ━  that she was never some goddess that appeared out of the blue one day, some beautiful woman to be at the center of President Snow's glistening parties.

     Nim hates to disappoint, but her life certainly didn't start out that way. She was a child, once, a long time ago. They drag it up every year, her adolescence reduced to nothing but a newsreel; it hurts to look at the films and see how young she used to be, still soft with innocence. She grew up a feral child, practically born with a knife in her hand, and yet still, before the Hunger Games, she'd been... something else.

     On mornings like this, though, she wishes she were born of the sea. Dragging herself out of bed, the silken sheets still tangled around her legs, she stumbles into the bathroom across the hall. She runs the tap and holds her hands beneath the freezing water for a moment before splashing it onto her face, hoping the chill will wake her up faster.

     Nim is fairly certain that goddesses don't get hangovers.

     She groans, drying her face off with a towel. A mirror hangs above the sink, large and oval with a silver-painted frame. The sheet she threw over it years ago, in an effort to ensure she never saw her own reflection again, is loose at the edge. For just a moment, she catches a flash of blue-streaked curls, desperately in need of brushing.

     She holds her breath and tugs the sheet back into place.

     The clock says it's late. Later than she should be waking up, anyway, on market day. She learned a long time ago that alarm clocks weren't the best way of rousing her from a dead sleep, and Nim had destroyed more than enough of them in a panicked haze to prove it.

     Heading back into her bedroom, she tugs on the nearest pair of black slacks she can find and grabs her tan wool-lined jacket from where it is draped over the foot of the bed. The empty bottle sitting on her bedside table glares at her until she grabs that, too, taking it downstairs with her and tossing it into the trash.

     Her boots, slippery black leather, slide on too easily over her narrow shins. At the door, she pauses. The nausea comes quickly, an unpleasant burn lingering at the back of her throat, and Nim presses her forehead against the glass until it passes.

     It isn't always so bad.

     Most of the time, these days, she doesn't need to drink. At night, she can take her sleeping pills and drift off to a dreamless netherworld where little can trouble her, and the nightmares cannot fight their way into her subconscious to tear her brain apart. Nim is happy to survive in this way, half-rested, as long as the terrors stay safely trapped in the lining of her bones where they belong.

     There are the bad days, though. Less now than there were a few years ago, when the Games were still fresh and the trauma was new, but they still happen. Those days, she cannot sleep without a bottle in her hand and enough alcohol in her system to tranquilize an elephant.

     Those days only come when she knows the inevitable is coming. A fast train to the Capitol, a few nights clinking glasses with society's elite, a shining example of what a young woman should be, with the right stylists, escorts, manners  ━  and a particularly memorable stint in the Hunger Games under her belt.

     The thought of brushing shoulders with Capitol folk again always makes her want to crawl inside a bottle. The thought of what happens when the lights go down and the party is over makes her want to never come back out.

     She swallows the bile back down and breathes deeply until her headache subsides a little, but the static on her skin never goes away. The hangover is only half of what makes her so sick; leaving her house in Victor's Village always feels like treading through a minefield. The wide open spaces, the eyes peering at her, judging her, reducing her to nothing but a tiny grain of sand...

     Nimah can be confident. She can fake it with the best of them, hold her head high in the Capitol and wear her dazzling smile and bat her eyelashes, because when the cameras are out there is nothing else she can do. This was the part assigned to her when she won the Games, and it is the role she'll play for the rest of her life.

     In her home district, though, Nim just wants to be invisible. Every pair of eyes on her feels like a dagger in her back. The navy streaks in her hair and the inhuman green of her eyes mark her out as a creature of the Capitol, now. An outsider.

     Steeling herself, she wrenches open the front door and steps out into the street. 

     Nim used to think that Victor's Village was pretty. As a child, she'd stand at the gates and press her face between the bars, looking at the long row of a dozen white marble mansions, six on either side, dreaming of the day she'd get to live in one.

     Now, as she treks down the path, gravel crunching beneath her feet, the mansions aren't so pretty anymore. They line up like pale tombstones on either side of her, empty windows leering into the street. At the very end of the road, six of the houses sit dark, with no one inside to make them into homes. Every other mansion in the village bares the flaws that Nim was blind to as a child; the cracks in the paint, the wrinkles in the skin of a Victor, the proof that the Games are not all they are made out to be.

     Mags' home is nearest to the gates. Orange chrysanthemums blossom in the window boxes  ━  gardening was the talent Mags chose when she won her Games around sixty years ago  ━  but her gnarled hands haven't touched the soil in years. These days, the caretakers are the ones keeping the village looking perfect.

     Annie Cresta's house sits across from it. There are little stars and hearts carved into the front door, from when the pair of them sat on the doorstep one day a few summers ago, intent on letting the world slip by for once. They'd been able to hear the voices from the square, where the rest of the district had gathered to watch that year's Victor on their victory tour. They were both supposed to go, but Annie's breakdown prevented her, and Nimah volunteered to stay behind and sit with her friend.

     She'd stolen knives from the kitchen and they'd sat in silence, gritting their teeth, carving happy symbols into the wood, forcing their anger out in a way that was more productive than smashing things. The caretakers painted over them, but when Nim goes to visit her friend, she runs her fingers over the marks left behind by their knives. It reminds her of a solitary, pleasant memory in the midst of so much bad.

     Next to Mags' house is Cowell. Winner of a Games that had long-since past, the windows of his mansion were broken years ago in a fit of rage, and boarded up with wood. Sometimes Nim can see the light from inside peeking through the gaps in the boards, but she doesn't see Cowell often. She doesn't mind. There is a haunted look lingering in his eyes, the kind she knows is mirrored in her own, and she hates to be reminded of her failures.

     Hobbs lives next door to Annie. Almost as old as Mags, his door is always open for anyone who needs to talk. When Nim first returned from the Capitol after winning her Games, it was Hobbs she ran to when she could no longer stand the quiet in her own house.

     Finnick and Nimah live opposite one another. She has been inside Finnick's home enough times to know that he keeps it immaculately tidy, as if cleaning up a physical mess is his way of sorting through the trauma he keeps buried. He always needs to keep his hands busy.

     Nimah sleeps with every light on in her house. Before she goes to bed, she treks through all the rooms and closes all the curtains, only to turn on the light before she leaves. If she wakes up in a darkened room, terror clogs her throat until she can't breathe. Her screaming wakes up the whole street. Even now, at midday, if she looks back over her shoulder she'll find her bedroom window glowing with golden light. It's how she finds her way home.

     When she reaches the gates, Nim pauses. Just beyond, down a long pathway, she can hear the bustle of the docks. From her window she can see the beach, the sea rising up in raucous grey waves to crash against the sand, and all the fishing boats bobbing in the water.

     Her old house, a brown shack with only a few rooms and a leaking roof, isn't near the beach. It sits in a long row of other shacks, all different shapes and sizes, in the shadow of the huge fisheries. Her parents used to work on the conveyor line, sorting the fish. Nim grew up in a house where the scent of rotting fish permeated everything, and she shared a room with her brother, and her grandparents lived in the room next door. There were six of them in that house. Her family wasn't poor, they earned better wages than many in the district and Nim and her brother never had to take tesserae, but every spare bit of her parents' money was spent sending their children to the combat academies.

     They didn't want the Hunger Games to take their children away.

     At least not without a fight.

     "Nim!"

     The crunching of gravel creeps up on her, and she turns weary eyes upon her new companion, offering him a small smile. "Finnick. I thought you had left for the Capitol already."

     His throat bobs as he comes to a stop beside her, holding the gate open so she can go through ahead of him. "Tomorrow." The smile he offers her in return is dazzling, white teeth gleaming like a shark's. "I've got business to attend to before the party next week. Are you going?"

     His voice dips, and for a moment it vanishes in the cool wind blowing in off the sea. Nim can't help it; she shivers. The party in question is the Victor's Ball, held at the Presidential Palace for this year's newest winners, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. Former Victors have always been invited, but most of them don't bother to go; Annie hasn't been to the Capitol for years, not even as a Mentor, and Cowell never passes the threshold of his front door these days.

     For Finnick and Nim, though, their attendance is not optional.

     Nim grimaces at his question, knowing he is only asking to be polite. "I'm putting it off until the day before. I've no desire to be in the Capitol any longer than required."

     Part of her likes it. The mindless gossip, the glitter and the gold, all the strange people and the way it distracts her for an hour or two. Her prep team dolls her up, and Nim has always shone as the center of attention, able to command a room with little effort.

     The days after, though, she has to bury herself beneath the covers and cry. To be so outgoing comes at a cost. To allow strangers to touch her, to rub shoulders with them and laugh with them, takes all of her energy. At one of her first parties after winning, someone grabbed her wrist when she wasn't looking, and she nearly clawed their eyes out.

     Surviving them takes everything she has.

     Without another word, the pair of them start the slow trudge down the path towards the town square. Nim pulls her jacket tighter around her. In mid-winter, the weather in District 4 is mild. It never snows here, but on the coldest days, the wind coming from the sea nips and bites.

     Her earliest memories are of summers spent playing on the beach with her brother, digging her toes into the warm sand. Those days were few and far between  ━  the peacekeepers only opened the beach up to the public on holidays  ━  but Nim's fondest memories are of chasing her brother into the surf and jumping over the waves.

     Every one of those moments feels tinged with red, now. The salty tang in the air reminds Nim of blood on her tongue.

     "What do you need from the market? I'll get it for you." Nim already has a list for Annie and Mags tucked into her pocket. The old woman had tried to insist that she was perfectly able to buy her own bread, but Nim had refused to listen.

     Finnick shakes his head. "You look like you need the company." He looks at her, his eyes lingering on the plain silk eye patch and the dark circles beneath her uncovered eye, her unruly curls and the odd pallor of her skin.

     Nim turns away. "I don't..."

     She leaves her sentence unfinished and lowers her eyes, careful to ensure her steps are even, one boot in front of another. Part of Nim craves silence; where Finnick must always keep his hands busy, must always have something to do, Nim adores nothing more than the quiet rooms of her too-large house, legs crossed in the middle of the plush carpet, trying her best to breathe.

     The small, traitorous heart of her, though, needs the company. Not to be surrounded, but to just exist with someone else, in the little moments of peace. To breathe with them. To be reminded that, no matter the horrors she has endured, there is someone else in the world that bleeds the same way she does.

     That doesn't mean she appreciates it. Finnick Odair, the Capitol's golden boy, hovering over her shoulder like she's a fragile thing about to break. Him and Mags and Hobbs, all watching and waiting for her to snap again. Wondering if it will be worse than last time.

     The pair of them walk on in silence, until they reach the town square. On market days, the square in front of the Justice Building fills up with stalls selling all kinds of goods. Peacekeepers mill through the crowd, white-gloved hands ready with their guns. They used to chat with stallholders, gossip and buy their bread without much trouble, but since Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark came through last week on their victory tour, things have been different.

     There is a tension in the air that wasn't there before.

     The shouting batters her ears. Nim closes her eyes for a moment, struck by the sudden rise in volume. Without a word, Finnick presses closer; not close enough to touch her, but she can feel the warmth of his hand hovering over the small of her back, close enough to shield her from the noise.

     Releasing a slow breath through her nose, Nim heads over to the first of the long line of stalls. Drawing the crumpled list from her coat pocket, she passes it over to the stallholder, who sets to work putting a series of glass jars into a basket.

     Finnick leans over Nim's shoulder. "What is Mags cooking up that requires that many jars?"

     Nim shrugs. "Ask Mags."

     They move along the line of stalls. Nim keeps her head low, eyes intently focused on the movements of her hands  ━  passing the money across to each vendor, inspecting her purchases before carefully putting them into her basket. She can feel Finnick at her back, only a few inches taller but feeling infinitely more like a human shield the longer she spends in the midst of a crowd.

     She hates this. Every time someone she doesn't know accidentally brushes past, she flinches away. A vile feeling coils in the pit of her stomach like a viper waiting to strike; an urge to run coupled with the instinct to attack first, to drive a knife through someone's throat before they can get her.

     Her muscles tense. She keeps a tight grip on the basket, lime-green eye darting from stranger to stranger, her pupil narrowed to a tiny black pinprick. Everyone is an threat, even the people she recognises  ━  a girl she went to school with lingers by one of the many shellfish stalls, hardly paying attention to her surroundings, but when Nim blinks, she sees a flash of bare teeth lunging for her neck.

     To be that ignorant, she thinks, pushing the obtrusive thoughts away. It does not stop the horrible prickling of her skin, but she loosens her shoulders a bit. Even with the Peacekeepers wandering around, everyone in the marketplace seems so carefree in comparison to the thundering of her heart. None of them know what it is like to have blood on their hands; to feel the slick warmth of it as it runs up their wrist, to scrub and scrub until their skin is raw and still feel no closer to clean.

     The girl  ━  her name tugs at the edge of Nim's memory, but Nim hasn't thought of her old schoolmates in so long that it feels like that life belonged to someone else  ━  moves along. Nim tracks her movements like a predator until she has moved just out of view, and suddenly someone else, someone heartbreakingly familiar, crosses into her line of vision.

     She can feel Finnick looking at her, wondering why she froze like a deer caught in the sights of a hunter, but with one look at where she is staring, he understands.

     Her grandmother hasn't seen them yet.

     Distantly, as if she is underwater, Nim can hear the irritated mutters of people as they step around her and Finnick, annoyed that they've stopped in the middle of the path. Finnick wraps his hand around Nim's arm and gently tugs her out of the way. Almost automatically, she tears herself out of his grasp, shocked out of her haze.

     The old woman stops at one of the stalls further down, clutching the hand of a young child. Something stony and cold ripples through Nim as the little girl, no older than six, chatters happily away. Beneath the eye patch, the marbled scar over Nim's eye burns.

     "Have you talked to her recently?" Finnick's voice is soft in her ear, but Nim wants to reach up and rip his tongue out. Finnick, darling of the Capitol. Finnick, who, in the eyes of the world, seems never to have done anything wrong in his life  ━  except save her.

     Nim scoffs. "What do we have to talk about?"

     He grimaces, a poor attempt to hide his loathing of the old woman. He has never been so good at biting his tongue when it could get him into trouble with Nim, but these days, he knows better than to push her where her family is concerned.

     Her grandmother buys a loaf of bread and carries on walking, pulling the little girl along beside her. The child tosses her head back to giggle, a wave of brown curls cascading over her shoulders, before suddenly she looks back over her shoulder, beaming a bright smile at no-one in particular.

     "I'm not a masochist," Nim says through gritted teeth. Jaw clenched, she watches as her grandmother and the girl press on, eyes lingering on them until the crowd swallows them up and they vanish from sight.

[creationcitystreet-em]

Me: wow a full weekend off? I can actually study and get some much needed work done!

My brain: what if you reread the entirety of “Where Soul Meets Body” for the first time in like 5+ years and stayed up until 6am doing so instead??

[ifwebefriends]

I started rereading Catching Fire yesterday (I haven’t read the book in over 10 years) and the first chapter is already making me kinda insane for a few reasons

“A light snow starts to fall as I make my way to the Victor’s Village” (12) this pretty much directly foreshadows President Snow’s visit with Katniss at her new house

“[the Victor’s Village is] a separate community built around a beautiful green, dotted with flowering bushes. There are twelve houses” (13) I know that the number 12 is just kinda a common theme in this series but a part of me also kinda thinks this foreshadows the layout of the arena in the 75th Hunger Games as well as the victors’ involvement

After the BOSAS movie was released there’s been a lot of debate about whether Lucy or Coriolanus is the songbird or snake, I kind of think they’re both in their own ways but the final line of this chapter is literally “I'm staring into the snakelike eyes of President Snow.” (17) and made me want to scream

[scandalouslamb]

Guess who wrote a short fic again! It’s the fanfic equivalent of a web weaving that doesn’t quite accomplish what I set out to do, starring Coriolanus and (big surprise here) Felix!

[etherealperrie]

Anywhere With You

Chapter 2: "The Bolters"

Coriolanus (Coryo) Snow x Reader Word count: 1.6k Contains: pre-hunger games Coryo | buzzcut Coryo | longtime friends to lovers | Coriolanus being soft for the one he loves | mentions of minor tbosas characters | tbosas spoilers

Catching Up? Chapter 1

--

There’s a chill in the air. Your body shivers in response, a reminder that you really are here, your fingers wrapped tightly around the handle of the case you packed late last night. Wind dances across the town center, sweeping the leaves up into the air. You watch in awe as the oranges and yellows mix, their rustling the only sound at this hour. You’ll miss the changing of seasons here in the city, even though they don’t carry quite the same beauty and magic they did when you were a child – before the war. 

The sounds of footsteps catch you off guard, an instinct you weren’t aware you had, forces you back into the shadows behind a nearby building. It’s only Sejanus. You had no real reason to worry, he wouldn’t tell. In all honesty you thought he might try to leave with you and Coriolanus, but he refused. Even though he’d be the last person to try and stop you from leaving, you fight the desire to wave goodbye to him. It’s best you’re not seen. It would be easier to fade away in the memories of everyone here. Not only that, it would erase Sejanus of any culpability. To be honest you aren’t sure what the Capital will do once they realize you’re gone, but the last thing you want is for any of your friends to suffer consequences. So, instead of saying your goodbyes, you watch his figure walk away towards the Academy, noting the strength of his shoulders as he straightens up with every step. 

Your heart thuds against your chest. 

Where you’re headed is uncharted territory, really. A place you’d only heard stories about. A place supposedly far beyond District Twelve. A place with no one in sight – no civilization, just open fields and nameless land. Your heart pounds and you’re not sure whether it's out of excitement or fear: maybe both. After all, you’d been taught to fear a place like that, a lawless land. And yet, the thought of being able to live without the Capitol breathing down your neck, without the expectations and demands of your parents and professors excites you. Makes you wonder for all the things you might do, for the person you might become; to see the ways you and Coryo grow together. 

Slinking further back against the building, you glance up at the sky, the sun just beginning to rise from its slumber. When you woke this morning, Coriolanus was gone, his bed empty. Though the two of you discussed strategy mere hours before, waking up alone was frightening. What if Dean Highbottom heard word of your planned escape? What if a Peacekeeper found your Coryo out in the wee hours of the morning and took him to Dr. Gaul? Coriolanus is smart, but Dr. Gaul is calculated – who’s to say she wouldn’t catch on to your plans and punish him? 

Your worries are cut short as your body collides with something, or rather, someone. Before you have time to panic, a hand covers your mouth, another hand interlocking with yours, rubbing a soothing circle into your skin. 

Coryo. 

His eyes meet yours and you release a gasp, wilting into the strength of him holding you up. Your gaze rakes over him, noting something different about him. His hair. The soft wave of blonde curls are no longer, his hair buzzed down.

“Coryo,” you breathe, running your hands over his head. “What happened? Did they hurt you?” Your hands drop from his head down to his shoulders, feeling every inch of him. 

“I’m okay, love, I promise.” He chuckles, pressing his forehead to yours. “I figure it would be easier to maintain this way.” He shrugs. “That, and I thought it might help us slip out unnoticed.” 

He had a point, he did look different. Everyone here knew him to have those soft, gentle curls.

His hands tuck into the back pocket of his pants and emerge with a saffron yellow colored scarf. The golden thread shimmers in the early morning light. He glances at you and smiles softly, unfurling the satin fabric to drape it over your head. His fingers work to tie the ends just under your chin. 

“What’s this?” Your brow furrows and you reach up to feel the fabric now covering your hair, shielding you from the wind chill and the eyes of anyone around. 

“It was my mothers.” Coriolanus sighs, lacing his fingers through yours. “Anything to keep us out of sight.” He tugs you the slightest bit closer to him and presses a gentle kiss to your lips. It takes every fiber in your being to hold yourself back from him, to not mash your lips against his in such fervor that reflects the danger of the situation the two of you are in. Instead, you pull back as he squeezes your hand, a promise that there’s more on the other side of the two of you escaping the Capitol. 

The sharp whistle of a train in the distance brings you both back to reality, Coryo snapping up, his posture impossibly straight. 

“Come on, we don’t want to miss this one.” 

Close on Coryo’s heels, your hand in his, you make your way across the Capitol center towards the train station. As you approach, unfamiliar voices echo in the station yelling in virulent opposition to the stoic silence of the Peacekeepers as they yank small, frail bodies from the train. 

Your breath catches in your throat, your feet stopping. Coriolanus doesn’t notice at first, the way that you’ve stopped in your tracks, your hand no longer in his but lifted to your lips, the other shielding your eyes from the horror in front of you. 

The tributes. 

Peacekeepers. 

There’s no guarantee that Dr. Gaul or Dean Highbottom aren’t here as well. There’s no guarantee that you and Coryo make it out of the Capitol, let alone onto the train. You hadn’t realized everything Dr. Gaul mentioned yesterday would happen so quickly. That the tributes would be arriving this morning. Where would they go? How many would survive their welcome into the city? How could you run away while they were being carted to their untimely demise – something you’re supposed to have a hand in? 

From where you stand just behind a rusted column at the back of the station, your eye catches those of a small boy. Dark brown hair and pale skin, marred by dirt and what looks like blood, his left eye blackened. Had he been hit by a Peacekeeper? A fellow tribute? No more than twelve, he snivels, crossing his arms as he jumps down from the train onto the platform. A peacekeeper takes hold of his arm, but the boy doesn’t take his eyes off of you. It clicks then. It’s him. Your boy. The one you’ve been assigned. 

“Where did you go?” You jump at the feeling of Coryo’s breath on your cheek, his eyes wide as he takes in the sight of you stuck frozen to your place. The two of you are cramped behind this column, if a Peacekeeper so much as glanced in this direction, you’d be caught. 

Coriolanus takes hold of your hand and follows your gaze to the boy standing on the platform. More tributes stand around him now, all of them accompanied by a Peacekeeper awaiting instruction. Coriolanus sighs and brings his hand to your chin, turning your head back to him. 

“I know you want to help them.” 

You nod. 

“I should’ve warned you we might see them, but this is the only train that’s going back out to Twelve for quite some time, we have to take it.” 

“But, Cory–” 

“I know, I know.” Coriolanus places a finger to your lips. “Sejanus is going to do all he can to help them. He knows people back in Two. If he can, he’s going to help them escape – but we have to go. Now.” 

“What if we-” you begin again but Coriolanus cuts you off, placing a delicate hand over your mouth. You raise an eyebrow as the group of peacekeepers and tributes fall silent, their footsteps echoing across the platform as they begin their march toward the transport vehicle. 

“They’re going to bomb the arena,” Coriolanus whispers. “Sejanus, the rebels. They’re already in place, the minute anyone sets foot inside, the whole place will go down. They won’t even be able to hold the games. We don’t have to worry.” 

You’re not sure how to reckon with the information. When did this happen? Whose idea was it? It just might work, though, the Capitol is more than halfway out on the idea of the games overall, most people not having bothered to watch in years. A plan like this just might convince the masses that the Hunger Games are a moot point. That these children are victims to a war they never waged. 

Coryo eyes you, looking for any sign of movement. His eyes are slightly manic, bouncing between you and the train as if internally counting the seconds you have left to board. 

“Okay,” you sigh, taking one last look back at the tributes who had been shuffled into the car. A peacekeeper locks the back door and climbs inside the passenger seat just as the vehicle putters away, its engine just loud enough to mask the sounds of cries and screams. 

Your heart rips in half as Coriolanus tugs you from behind the pillar and out into the open for a singular moment before thrusting you up into the open train car, climbing inside after you. His hand rests on your hip, making sure you’re secure before turning to slide the door closed. 

It's dark. 

The train gives one last, mighty whistle as it lurches forward beginning its long trek back to District Twelve. 

“We’re almost free,” Coriolanus whispers, tucking his head to press a kiss to your neck. He rests there, on your shoulder for a long while, his fingers dancing across your thigh as the sound of the train tracks mimics the pounding of your heart.

--

A/N: I know this is many, many months late BUT I wanted to continue the story & tag those who requested it all that time ago...so...

TAG LIST: @clintsupremacy @jennifer0305 @zucchinimalfoy @marina468 @nishimura-writes @lovebyceleste @ennycutie @mjkale @tellsbabyy

[heavensbeehall]

"One time, when I was in a blind in a tree, waiting motionless for game to wander by, I dozed off and fell ten feet to the ground, landing on my back. It was as if the impact had knocked every wisp of air from my lungs, and I lay there struggling to inhale, to exhale, to do anything. That’s how I feel now, trying to remember how to breathe, unable to speak, totally stunned as the name bounces around the inside of my skull. Someone is gripping my arm, a boy from the Seam, and I thinkmaybe I started to fall and he caught me." -- Chapter 2, "The Hunger Games," by Suzanne Collins

This is legitimately a great description of panic.

[cantheywinthehungergames]

Kris Dreemurr

Age: High Schooler

I assume all Dark World-related and SOUL powers are out.

Name: Kris Dreemurr

Age: Teenager

Restrictions: No SOUL powers and no abilities from the Dark Word

[everlarksquell]

anyway i finished mockingjay on leap day!! (i’ve never been as serious as i am now when i tell you that i want to take my own life and that this will haunt me for the rest of my days on earth.)

[orpheuslookingback]

okay when i saw the headline that there was another thg book coming i was cynically kind of like "oh man do we really need yet another one is there really more we can get out of the series" but seeing that it's going to focus on haymitch's games i am hesitantly excited. that is like the one part of the world that i feel like could use its own whole book at this point lol

[miharuhebinata]

the whole "are you team peeta or team gale" thing is actually so funny in retrospect. as if gale was ever really a contender? it's like asking if you're team mr. darcy or team mr. wickham 😂

[izacore]

the hunger games trilogy was literally written for a tv-show, when will Hollywood get it together and remake that if we have to sit through the era of countless revivals and reboots

[happyhauntt]

BURIAL GROUND, a hunger games fic.

─── summary:      In District Four, they teach you  how to survive the Games. As a Career District, kids are sent to combat academies and taught to become killers, practically born with knives in their hands. They teach kids how to hunt, how to harm; there, children learn everything they need to know in order to survive the Games.

     They don't teach you how to survive what comes after.

     Nimah Caplan thought she was being clever, the day she volunteered for the Games. At age thirteen, she thought she'd make headlines as the youngest victor ever. She thought she was being brave, bringing that kind of glory to her district. After all, if Finnick Odair  ━  who won the Games the year before, at only fourteen years old  ━  could do it, why not Nimah?

     It didn't matter that she had never seen fresh blood spill across the ground before. That the knife in her hand was only dangerous as long as she was willing to wield it. She was going to win, and that was the end of it.

     Or it should've been. For in her triumph, only moments after volunteering, the male tribute was reaped. Nimah's blood ran cold as she saw her brother's hand shoot into the air, saw him shoving his way onto the stage to stand beside her. She'd heard her mother's anguished scream but hadn't seen the Peacekeepers drag her parents away as she was taken into the Justice Building with her brother.

     Winning the Games had always been the plan, but Nimah never meant to do so with her brother's blood on her hands. She'd been unaware of the plan that had been set in place by her brother and their mentor, Finnick, until the very end  ━  and then she had to slide a knife between her brother's ribs and count his breaths until the cannon sounded, declaring her terrible victory.

     In the years since, Nim, like all victors before and after her, became something of a shell. She could not look at herself in the mirror, yet for all the cameras, she wore her epithet as youngest victor with glittering pride, as if it were not a heavy crown she could never take off. Nights in the Capitol spent warming the beds of the highest bidders, days spent lying on bare floors with cold sunlight leaking through the windows, drenching her in saccharine gold.

     They do not teach you to survive what comes after you win the Games, Nim realised too late, because there is no surviving the Games. No matter what happens, some part of you dies in that arena, left to rot in the grass.

     She thought winning the Games would bring glory, and instead it cost her everything she had.

     When the Quarter Quell rolls around, and it is announced that tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors, Nim sees it as an opportunity to save something. All her life, all she had been taught was to destroy, and she'd done it so successfully that everything and everyone around her had fallen to ruin.

     By volunteering for the Quarter Quell, she'd be able to save someone else from their terrible fate, and in that way, perhaps she'd finally be free.

─── warnings: this story contains triggering themes including sexual assault & rape, prostitution, self-harm and thoughts of suicide, death and canon-typical violence. these themes, along with others, are prevalent in the hunger games universe and will come up in this story, so please don't read if these things affect you!

─── fic tag. read on ao3. fic masterlist.

[fastasyoucan1999]

hi brynn <333 hope you and emilio are doing well xx i wanted to ask if maybe you have the time if you would mind talking about your favorite things about thg + your least favorite + the thing that you feel that people miss about it/tend to misinterpret maybe please and thank you <333

ren i really wish i could give u some intelligent and thoughtful response to this that shows my capacity for critical engaging and impassioned discourse but uh. unfortunately thg is not where i can reach that level of thought processing

my favorite thing abt thg is it brings me back to being twelve years old again and my least favorite thing abt thg is that it reminds me i can never go back to being twelve years old again </3

also catching fire is not the best of the trilogy

[seeinganewlight]

do you ever reread the hunger games and just cry because you're so fucking mad about what the capitol does to these helpless children