Origins of a White Rose: A Hunger Games FanFic

Chapter 1

My life was beginning to feel like a continuation of the nightmares that tortured me at night.

I hadn't slept well in days.

Someone told me once that fame looks good on screen but feels horrid in reality.

Maybe it's because you've reached the top and have nowhere else to go.

No one had noticed my depression. I was an actress; I could put on a good face and act like nothing bad was happening.

But I couldn't act when I was being swallowed up by darkness in my dreams. It was the same dream, every night. I sat in the corner of a room, nowhere to go, nowhere to run. It was pitch black and freezing cold. Something, I never knew what, was approaching. I was going to die from it. The entire dream was like this, nothing new happening, no climax.

The morning he came, I had forgotten to set my alarm clock, so I was stuck in the dream longer than usual.

The doorbell was unexpected. I didn't actually have plans for the day. I had a train back home around 8 that night. I had spent the night before putting on one of my shy smiles, parading down a red carpet, only to sit through the premiere of a horrid historical drama about the Dark Days.

I sat up in bed.

I knew two things for sure: 1) This person either knew the doorman or was able to persuade him to let them up and 2) whoever it was was going to have to see me looking atrocious.

The doorbell rang yet again.

"One moment," I called. I decided that I hated surprises, in that moment. I grabbed the bathrobe on the back of the door and slipped it on. I picked my blue towel off the ground, wrapping my hair up in it.

I opened my bedroom door, revealing the spacious loft I called my second home; the first being District One.

The loft was devoid of all other human life.

I rushed over to the door. The time on the stove blinked 10:43.

I opened the front door, apologizing even before I saw who it was.

"I am so sorry, I was in the shower and--"

I stopped as my eyes met with familiar brown eyes of the perfect human who stood before me.

"Hey," the boy said. There was an air of hopefulness and hesitance to his voice.

"Hi," I said. I was stunned and at a loss for any other words. "Hi."

"Is this a bad time?"

A stupid question.

"No," I said, shaking my head. "I'm— I wasn't actually in the shower."

He eyed the towel on my head, suspiciously.

"Come in," I said.

My thoughts began to speed up as a mental list of things to do began to compile itself in my brain.

I backed up to let him in. His eyes seemed to widen at my spectacular view of the city. I smiled, slightly, pleased that he was pleased.

I snapped out of my headspace.

"Tea," I said. The AI built into the apartment would register the order and began boiling water.

"Give me five minutes," I said, rushing back into my bedroom, not waiting for his approval.

I had five minutes to make myself presentable. My mind calculated all the ways to spend that time. One minute on clothes. One minute and thirty seconds on hair. Two minutes on makeup. Thirty seconds on teeth.