Illusions (A Hunger Games AU)

•ONE•

My body aches as it wakes me up from my nightmare. The beds they give us in the ARI are so stiff I don't even want to lay in. But on a day like this, I don't have much motivation to wake up. The day before the Reaping, how... fun! I was considering waking up my roommate Karma to discuss what would happen if we got Reaped, but I feel as if I might just get my throat spit open if I do that. She's intimidating, probably having a much better chance of surviving the games than me.

50 years ago, the leaders of the Overseer society, going by Control and Death, were sick of the constant revolution by rogue Overseers and decided to punish all of us. 24 children were forced to fight to death in a game known as the Hunger Games to show rebels just how reckless they could be. Most of these kids are taken from the Ava Reformation Institution, shortened to the ARI. The rule is at least 10 of the fighters, or "tributes", need to be from this place. I'm pretty sure the rest are Overseers and Maintainers but I can't be too sure. It's not exactly like we're desperate to stay in here anyway.

Life moved on as normal, us still following our usual routines. Great, another day of swallowing down this garbage that we eat for breakfast while holding my nose. It technically gives us all of our needed nutrients, so the admins aren't going to improve it anytime soon. However, panicked discussion filled the usually dead-quiet room. "What if I get Reaped?" "Would I even survive?" "Why couldn't the rebels have won?" I'm going to guess this happens every year, as it's the first Reaping I've spent at the ARI. Eventually the Peacekeepers for the institution walked in and quieted the gossip with warnings of extended sentences and more entries of their name.

Nobody was quiet after they left though. They never were. Im not  exactly the most social person in the room, so I mostly just thought it over in my head. Overthought it as some points. I get picked, and then I get caught off guard and left bleeding out on TV. Exciting. There was so much going through my brain that I forgot to eat my mush. Not a big disappointment anyway.

Instead of just moving onto chores or missions like we usually do, the Peacekeepers lead us all into a room with an oversized screen. This place was crowded and I could barely even see due to how short I am. Luckily I whispered to the guy in front of me, who was about a head taller, and he let me stand in front of him. Getting caught was a frightening possibility but I guess I'm lucky. The screen then turned on, revealing Control and his wife Death in their expensive mansion. I kind of find it funny how Death is at least a foot taller than Control, but this probably isn't the time to laugh.

He then started a speech about the "History of Overseerian Society", which most mostly just him talking about what were known as the dark days, or when less powerful Overseers decided to revolt against their corrupted system. Of course those two wouldn't say that, but everyone knows they run and and have always ran this society terribly. After more meaningless speeches about pride of our race or whatever our leaders were even talking about, we were finally free to go.

We weren't allowed to select any new missions today and any that would take longer than a day had been cancelled due to the fact that the Reaping was tomorrow. That was a shame, as the next mission I planned to do would earn a huge amount of time off of my sentence, even though it would most likely take about a week, maybe longer. It's just irritating, as what's the chance of my name even getting selected? There's hundreds of Avas in here, some way older than me. I'm only 15 after all, and my name has only been added an extra 3 times, making my total entries seven. Seven out of probably hundreds. I guess the odds are in my favour for tomorrow.

I decided to take a walk around the building, as we had a bit of free time. Humming, I thought about the last few games I've seen and how they've won. Halley Way won by acting helpless until the climax of the fight, where she took about 5 people out with a bow and arrow. She was a Maintainer though, I doubt that would be believable for an ARI member. There was a boy named Jupiter who became a victor through his use of magic, just to name one. I'm not even sure if my magic is strong enough to do that. Who else was there?

Just that second, I fell backwards. Coming back into reality, I soon worked out I had bumped into someone else. I quickly skimmed her nametag to find out her name was Jaymi Phoenix. She wasn't angry at me like I expected, instead she was laughing. "Are you serious? You were literally walking into me!" It seemed kind enough, Jaymi wasn't exactly known for being mean... just obnoxious. And loud. And annoying. Well, those aren't traits that would give you a victory in the Hunger Games. They'd guarantee you'd be extremely unpopular with the audience. Unless you can pull it off, which isn't something I've seen before.

I'll give her a chance, why not? We started chatting for a couple minutes, which soon turned into half an hour, meaning that we had to go back to our schedule now, but laughter made the average day seem less dull. I wonder what the schedule will be like when we have to spend hours a day watching the poor tributes bruised and bleeding. Surprisingly, she actually can talk about quite deep subjects. Just before we had to leave, I imitated those over-the-top Overseers who seemed to actually enjoy the Games for some reason. "Happy Hunger Games, Jaymi! May the odds be ever in your favour!" We were both hysterical when walking to our next task.