Sugarcubes // Finnick Odair - Hunger Games Fanfic

IX.

I'm in a bright meadow. The sun is setting in the distance and only the faint coos of birds can be heard. It's quiet, but not uncomfortably so. It's the kind of silence I experience when I'm at home amongst the trees - the only thing  enjoy about district 7, that and the smell of the wet summer forest. I can hear the grass shuffle with the wind and the birds cry for each other in the trees lining the field. They leave enough space  between their cries for me to admire the scene without being interrupted, though even when they do call, it's much softer than the birds originally found in 7. It looks like the scenery outside the edges of the district 7 boundaries where you can just about make out vast green fields of grass before district 8. It's so far away that I can't even see the metal fencing around the forest, since it's covered with the lush green leaves of the trees. I've crossed the fence a few times, but I've never ventured very far. I've always had the need to come back home, but if I didn't, if I could go, then this seems like a pretty good place to be.

Slowly, the shuffling of the grass turns uneven. Someone is approaching me. My heartbeat rising from calm to reasonably fast – preparing for attack, I jerk around to face the unknown person.

I don't have to worry though, since it's only Danny that I see, smiling and without bags under his eyes. He is not sick anymore, instead looks like the happy healthy boy I've always seeing. He carries with him an axe from work, I can assume, thought why he would be working is a mystery to me since I never allowed him or Lia to skip school to help me with the money, and a small knife in his pocket. It isn't a surprise that he carries the knife, since I've always encouraged my siblings to carry a weapon on them. Even Lia carries a pocketknife in her shoe, and Anna a throwing knife strapped to her thigh. It's a matter of habit, a safety net even, made more for my mental peace then their own safety. Any of that doesn't matter though, because regardless of how much use it is, Danny is the only one who actually knows how to use one out of all three of them.

I planned to teach Anna this year, but Danny's sickness and my volunteering for the games got in the way of that.

It makes my heart lurch.

"You came back." He speaks softly, and there is a hint of sadness, even reminiscence in his tone which suggests that he knows a different reality than I promised. He knows a reality in which I died in these games.

"I never left."

My words however seem to have an adverse effect than what I was expecting. I can see the anger dawn on his face.

"No! That's not true! You left us!" He shrieks at me bringing the knife out of its place in his belt.

"I had no choice Danny, I did it for you!" I scream in rising panic. Normally I'd be able to subdue him easily. But something about his words play on the back of my mind. They replay the fear that me volunteering wasn't necessary. That I doomed myself and my family for death by putting my hand up.

"You volunteered." He says, moving closer to me, his rage cooling down into an emotionless seethe.

"You had a choice and you made it. You left us," He says in barely a whisper, but I feel like the whole world can hear it, before plunging his knife, the knife I taught him how to hold, deep into my stomach.

I sit up with a gasp. Sweat beads my forehead. I'm inside the sheets, which is not how I remember going to sleep which means Blight probably made a visit to my room when I was asleep with only my towel on and put the sheets on me. The towel remains undisturbed however, below the blankets. I try laying in bed for a few more minutes, but am unable to go to sleep again because every time I close my eyes, the image of my brothers face with the evil look upon it wakes me back up again. It's 3 in the morning, which means there is only a few hours left till daylight. Deciding that I can afford to forgo the extra three hours of sleep I might get, I slip on an oversized grey sweatshirt that hangs down below my waist coming halfway to my thighs and underwear and my bunny slippers and exit my room closing the door gently behind me so as not to alert anyone. I feel like I need some air, and though I'm unsure about how to get that. I slip out of the apartment before deciding my next step grabbing a few sugar cubes from the table – ones that are typically used to put in a drink to sweeten it – and placing them in my pocket. I head towards the lift, calling it to the seventh floor and stepping inside, I asses the different buttons. There is one button marked 'r' which I can only assume means roof, and that seems like a pretty good place to get some air. I'm met with nobody on my way up, to my greatest relief, and the roof is spectacular. I hate admiring a city that has caused me so much pain, but it is stupid to try and argue that the Capitol is not beautiful. It is, painfully so, because the luxury in the Capitol is more than 100 times what we experience in even the richest districts. On the roof however, my solitude is interrupted by one other person, he's leaning over the railing and looking down into the street. He's about a foot taller than I am, but he looks about my age. He has bronze hair that look stunning in the dim light. I don't see who he is, however, and I don't remember seeing him in the training center this morning.