The 71st Hunger Games: Purity

Chapter Four - Annie

TW: r*pe

The tributes from back home are interesting, I guess. I don't know. Being at that reaping, standing up on that stage, seeing the crowd of people watching, it brought back so many memories. In an effort, I blocked my ears and laughed, trying to keep myself calm. I felt someone's hand on my back—small, warm, probably Mags—but I couldn't focus until we were sitting down, face to face with the two tributes.

The girl, Alberta, is fourteen. She doesn't talk much, but she has really light blonde hair, and this insane abundance of freckles that spread across her face, neck, and down into the slit of her V-neck white dress. When she was reaped, I could see her shaking as she walked to the stage, and I could feel her fear as I stood on the stage. I'm not really sure about anything else about her, since she hasn't really told us anything.

The guy, on the other hand, is eighteen. He's buff, with orange-red curly hair, and I can see traces of Finnick in him. His arms are practically the width of my stomach, and he revealed right off the bat that he was one of the wealthy guys from the Academy when he volunteered in place of the boy who was reaped. His name is Lorem, which I think is a very fitting name, because it reminds me of those statues made of rocks, "Totems" and he seems hard as rock.

Finnick sits down next to me and places a cup of tea in front of me. I shoot him a small smile and make haste in burrying my face in the steam that the tea is emitting. To break the silence, Velerio comes in from across the way, sitting next to Finnick and I. "Well that was quite a reaping! And a volunteer. What do you guys think, do you think four will have another victor?" He asks in my direction with his eyebrow raised.

I quickly clasp my hands over my ears and shake my head, not wanting to think of this exact time last year, when Velerio was making jokes about how no one was going to win. Well I won. And I wish I didn't. I think Finnick understands the stress going through my mind, because I feel his strong arm wrap around my shoulders, pulling me closer to him. I stare off for a little bit, my mind swirling with the fear of going into the capital and facing President Snow again.

I guess we had already gone through introductions, and I had missed whatever the tributes had to say, because I felt Finnick lightly squeeze my arm, his soft breath floating through the air and tickling my ear: "It's your turn for introductions, love."

"Oh, uh, okay," I quickly shake my head, focusing back in on the conversation at hand. "What do we have to say again?" I ask, taking a sip of the hot tea in front of me and looking at the plates the tributes had made. Lorem, who I presume came from a well-off family like mine, had taken a croissant and some sort of meat. On the other hand, Alberta, who was small and frail, had piled a bunch of different pastries up on her plate, which caused me to smile softly at her and her plate of goodies.

Trident sighs, crossing his arms over his chest. "Cmon Annie," he shakes his head, to which Finnick squeezes my arm reassuringly. "Say your name, and something about your games," he adds, in some sort of effort to help me.

"Oh, well, I'm Annie, you already heard that. And well I guess you guys know I won the last games, through pure luck and the graciousness of the other tributes to spare me upon certain interactions," I explain, biting my lip nervously. I glance down the side of the table, seeing who else had to go, and hoping I wasn't the last one. I look over at Finnick, my eyebrows knit together worriedly. "Where's Mags?"

"She wasn't feeling too well today," he answers, taking a sip of his tea with the arm that wasn't wrapped around me. "So she stayed in her room, but we can go visit her after these tribute introductions, if you'd like?" I nod my head, a small smile on my face.

"Yeah, that would be nice."

Mags always helped to calm me down, and she really was, like Finnick said after I won my games, a second mother to me. She took care of me when I was upset on the reaping stage, she held me while I cried on the train and in the tribute center, she calmed me down without words when neither of us wanted to talk.