Stargazer • The Hunger Games

ONE

CHAPTER ONE
❝Alice❞

— • —

I was lost in the realm of my thoughts when the last of the catch was hurled onto the deck. The weight of the seafood caused the boat to dip down into the water before bobbing back to its normal height. The movement made me lose balance, sending me tumbling off the edge of the deck and splashing in to the water. A normal – land living – person would have freaked out at the thought of swimming in a cool ocean that was deeper than you could even imagine. Me on the other hand? Being submerged in cool salty water was one of the best ways to cool down on a hot windless day.

"You finally put the fire out," I heard laughter from up above me. Reemerging from below the water, I found Eric leaning against the deck railing. Laughing at me.

"Your humour never ceases to amaze me Eric," I joked before swimming over to the ladder not that far off to my right. I pulled my drenched self back onto the boat, wriggling onto the deck like a sodden fish.

Eric walked over to me and threw a towel in my general direction. I grabbed it and hastily wrapped the cotton around my drenched body in effort to get dry. "Thought you were out on the Ever Sail today helping sort their catches?" I asked him while rubbing my arms dry of water droplets.  The Ever Sail was the biggest boat in the fleet of three and needed all the help they could get sorting out their haul.

"And I thought you were helping your dad haul that in," Eric replied, nodding towards the net full of sea life on the other side of the deck.

"Took a break," I shrugged.

"Same here," Eric flashed his killer lopsided smile that made me roll my eyes at him. He then sat down besides me, dangling his legs off the side of the boat, his attention the turned from me to the deep blue ocean surrounding us.

I should probably explain a few things about Eric. He calls himself my 'protector'. He is the son of my father's best friend and just over a year older than I am. When my dad shut myself out of his life, Eric's dad took me in as a substitute daughter and Eric just came along with the deal. We grew up with each other, spent our early years practically in the same room for most of the day. I was weary of him at a young age but as soon as I figured out basic communication that quickly went away because he ended up being the best playmate I could ever hope for. As we went from being toddlers to children, he made a promise to protect me from the big bad world around us. When dad decided to become part of my life, he worked side by side with Eric, protecting me from the dangers and harsh reality of the world I live in. During the years, I watched Eric change from the adorable toddler to the snotty nosed child to the gawky prepubescent teenager and to now, the – I'll admit it – handsome almost adult that he currently was. Eric may have changed physically over the years but to me he was still the boy who would put my needs above his own and do anything I would want him to do.

In a way he was not just my best friend but also my servant.

Eric must have known that I was thinking about him since he turned his gaze towards me. The sun's light made his shaggy golden blond hair look almost white which complimented his sky blue eyes that were found on almost every person on the deep-sea fleet. "The fire is starting to burn again," he snickered before flashing me a cheeky smile that earned him an earnest light punch in the arm.

"It's called bullying when you pick on someone who looks different," it was true; I was different. There were six families in the fleet and almost all of them bore similar features. Most looked like Eric: hair in various shades of blonde, medium build, sun kissed skin and the standard blue eyes. A few had light brown hair but to me it didn't count since it was so close to the hues of blonde. I on the other hand was completely different. My father tells me that I am almost identical to how my mother looked. My hair is like a fire; long, wavy and the colour of a burning flame or the setting sun in summer. I have never met anyone else with hair like mine and until I do, I am alone with my burning hair. Unlike the others, my skin isn't tan like the rest of the fleet. It was as white as the sand on the endless beaches along the south of the district – as pale as the moon is how Eric explains it – and if I spent too much time in the sun I freckle. My skin becomes covered with small orange dots that in time fade when I stay out of the sun; it never darkens, only patterns. The only traits that I share with my father are my slender build and stock standard sky blue eyes.

I focused back on Eric, studying his face to see what his comeback would be. Instead of another joke however, his face became serious, "we will have to head back soon."

"Better than facing the giant waves of terror," I nudged him, a vain attempt to light up the mood.

"What it it's one of us?"

"My name is in there four time and yours is what? Six?" I sighed, "the odds are in our favour, it's us versus the tons of other kinds in the district."

"How can you be so positive about this Alice?" Eric was always confused about how I always seemed to be positive about the subject.

"Because," I took my now dry hands and squeezed his own reassuringly, "If we let the games control us then the result isn't going to be in our favour."

Eric frowned but after a few moments he let go of my hand and stood up, "should get back to work Alice. If you put all of your positive energy into the catch then we would already have the entire ocean in the bellies of the Capitol citizens," he smiled before turning around and heading towards the rowboats. He was probably retuning to the Ever Sail to help with their own catch.

Now alone, I was left with no other choice than to go help the other members of Stargazer sort the final haul.

— • —

Night had fallen and the wind had picked up, gushing past the fleet as if it was a rush to get somewhere fast. The strong breeze caused the Stargazer to sway violently in the wind. Fortunately, after spending almost your entire life solely on a boat, you got used to the whole swaying thing.

"This was a killer of a catch to end the season!" my father laughed as he jumped up the stairs from the storage rooms and entered the main living area on the boat. Dad and I shared Stargazer with Mr and Mrs Matthews and their twelve-year-old twin daughters; Willow and Aspen.

We were all seated in the living area and we all felt reasonably drained, relishing the feeling of being able to sit instead of sort seafood. Out of the six of us, my father was the most positive one in the ragtag bunch. He clasped his hands together and looked at the rest of us; the Matthews family all had various degrees of worry all over their faces, which caused dad's positivity to be washed away.

He wavered at the entrance to the living room, frowning before addressing the whale in the room, "We have to start sailing back tomorrow if we are to make it back in time to sell our catch as well as be present for the reaping." He said the last work as if there was something caught in the back of his throat.

"Are we old enough mummy?" the tiny voice of Willow asked her fretful mother. Her pain blonde hair and tiny frame made herself and her twin look not even nine instead of twelve. Their tiny physique made me almost forget that they were now eligible to partake in the blood sport.

Willow's mother, Danielle Matthews, slowly nodded but didn't speak. Her husband, Ronan, only placed a protective arm around his wife in effort to comfort her.

Both Willow and Aspen looked up at their mother, blues eyes wide and filled with fear.  The negativity in the room was pulling me down so instead of sitting there in awkward silence, I had to say something.

In a steady voice I told the two girls, "Both of you are only in there once and you are up against hundreds upon hundreds of others with their names in more times than you. Some are in there over fifty times; you both have only a single slip with your names on them. The odds are in your favour, don't stress about it."

Willow looked over to me kindly and Aspen sent me a smile of relief. I only hoped that the odds were in not only the twins' favour but for me as well. No matter how positively you took the days leading up to the Hunger Games, you could only hope that when reaping day comes to town, that words of moral support were completely true.