Persephone // Finnick Odair

Chapter 3

"Look mum! There's Persephone, she's on her way to the reaping"

I look out the window and there was Persephone Rei, the victor from last year whom I had the pleasure to talk to twice. I never spoke to her again.

"Mum, I'm going to go talk to her, I'll see you at the reaping"

With that I left my house and prepared to talk to the broken girl that seemed to want to avoid me.

••••

I bounded down the steps with my mind set on joining her on her walk to the reaping. I fall in step with her and glance at her every now and then. We just walked in silence for a while, a comfortable silence. She was smiling at herself, seemingly happy with my company

" So Finnick, how many times is your name in? "

She finally asks me.

" Only twice, one for last year and one for this year. I don't have to sign up for tesserae, we eat ok "

She smiles.

"That's good "

We continue to walk and her nerves seem to get worse as we walk on. She grows jittery with her fingers tapping her leg as she walks. Every now and then she pulls out her ponytail and redoes it. She constantly fiddles with the hem of her dress and her breathing becomes more laboured.

" Are you ok? "

She shakes her head and stops walking. Her body starts shaking and she starts to cry quietly. Finally she collapses and sits on the dirt road that leads to the town square. The tears continue to roll down her cheeks dampening her dress when they slide delicately off her face.

" Finnick oh my god! I can't do this, they are relying on me! I'm a mentor, did you know that? I have to send kids to their death! I'm 14! I can't–"

Her talking is cut off by how much she is crying. I sit down in the dirt with her and hug her. Her head buried itself in to the crook of my neck as she sobs. I can feel all of her wet tears slide down my neck to my collarbone. She stops crying after a few minutes and I help her off the ground.

" I'm sorry about that "

She says kind of ashamed. I only nod. Is that what the games did to people? I always knew that the victors changed, I mean, they killed people! But I had just experienced what it did. And I could only hope that she would be ok after all this.

We reached the town square and parted ways. She walked up the stairs and sat down next to mags, the old victor and our only one at the moment. The others had died of old age, one from skin cancer and another had killed themselves.

The escort for district four walked on stage to call out the names of two kids whose lives that would be changed forever or taken from them. For their sake, I hope they don't make it. I don't want to see more people be driven insane.