VENUS《 FINNICK ODAIR

Chapter 52. THEIR GAME.

HER HEART FLUTTERED LIKE THE TICKING OF AN OLD CLOCK. Minute hands clung to the offbeat harmony of exasperated breath, hour hands lingering on rotten thought.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Such a simple sound of sands shifting, tides erasing, people breathing. It was discomforting, a familiar, repetitive beat only she could hear.

Edith sniffled, unsure what to do with her hands. The ticking lingered in the back of her mind, a constant reminder of the day's marking.

Another Reaping.

Another day.

Another twenty-three marked for death.

It was just a matter of seconds shifting.

Tick. Tock.

She felt the disgust run deep through her brittle bones.

One look was all it took for the people of 8 to add Woof to the abysmal list that was Edith Scotch's death count.

The Victors stood tall on the stage, the people crowded in the Basin Square. Children stood tall like their mothers and fathers told them to, with their best cotton skirts and breechers on.

A sea of maroon, brown, purple and cream coloured patchwork; made from factory scraps and dyed with warm red and purple toned dyes from the broken down lavender farm and the poppy fields cut in half by the Wall. From the dirt and grime and the hand washing, the dark magentas became maroon and the lavenders became cream. And poppy dyes were the cheapest to buy from the farmers coming through the border.

At this rate Edith was desperate for anything to focus on, the crowd seemed to follow each twitch of her fingers and every baited breath.

Waiting for evidence to damn her for all eternity.

Edith couldn't bare to listen to her mother's words. Paylor's consonants overlapped with the crackly sounds of the Presidential address video, and vowels danced alongside Candy's chopped chatter.

This Reaping was more of a lynching, the rope would soon find it's home.

Edith's vision blurred in front of her, trying to spot her siblings within the dissonance. Jorja and Jaida were with Lucy in the fifteen year olds, Lottie and Delilah were with the eldest group.

Their last year.

The dizzy girl didn't bother looking for Jak, she knew he had a year still to go before joining the twelve year olds down the front.

Candy clicked her tongue before continuing her sentence, already anticipating the response, "As we always do, let us thank our past Victors service, and hope for a Victor to make your District proud!"

Shuffling and shouts came from the adults in the back, electric batons sizzling from their slumber in anticipation.

"Edith Scotch of the 70th Hunger Games!" Candy began, Edith nodded weakly, like she usually did. The crowd stayed silent, those with either alcohol or something stronger in their veins hollored hollow slurs and vicious truths.

But it was the majority that sustained a silence that would be deafening to those watching in the Capitol.

They were sending a message to all Edith's admirers sitting down on their primly puffed lounges and waiting impatiently at Reaping parties with a drink in their hands.

That she wasn't her District's hero.
She was the death of her home itself.

And in years to come, I would come to realise that they were right all along.