And we run

My name is Daphne Amphitrite

My lips curve into a scowl within moments of my eyes opening. 

Sleep was bliss. Unconsciousness is, of course, most always bliss, but last night was better than normal--probably because it was delaying something I'm definitely not looking forward to.

And what is that? The reaping, of course. I'm seventeen this year, so I've got six paper slips with my name in that big glass ball. It's really not a very high number, in this context, but like anyone else sensible, I'd prefer less. 

My name is Daphne Amphitrite. It's more than what people call me--my name has shaped my life, in more ways than one. My last name ties me to my father, the long-ago victor who was apparently once a kind man. It reminds me of the family I lost when I was too young to know how to mourn. But my first brings me history. When I think Daphne, I think of the grandmother I was named for, the independent woman who chose her own name after her entire life was stripped from her by the Capitol. My surname says I belong with my father, in the place I currently call home. But my first name suggests a different hope, one I still haven't quite deciphered yet. 

I haven't found where I belong, and I'm not sure if I ever will--the only thing I am sure of is that it's not District Four. 

I peel myself out of bed with a groan. My dream from the nighttime is already fading from my head, but I know it ended with the sea, sharks, and a whole lot of blood, as most of my dreams tend to.

I'm sweaty all over, three blankets really not helping. Sunlight peeks through my window shade, casting rays of gold across my drab room. 

A beautiful start to a very ugly day.

My sole reason to hate the reaping is not that it murders innocent children, though it's not like I enjoy that fact, either. I have countless reasons, really, but one shines bright above the rest: it stole my older sister, when I was six and she was fourteen. She tried, she tried so hard, but in the end she was killed--just like the rest of them. Killed by that psychopathic career from District Two, whose relentless smirk plays on a loop inside my head, unceasing, blurry from the years since.

Salacia didn't deserve her death. In my six-year-old mind she deserved the world, and in my seventeen-year-old one now, I realize that she had it. Because for Salacia, the world was not a perfect life, it was life at all. 

Deep down in my brain, a morbid part of me is glad she didn't survive--victor fame is odd. It alienates you from your peers, because no one can understand, not even your fellow victors. I see it often enough in my father, on those rare times he graces me with his presence. 

A woman lurks in the room right across the hall from my bedroom, cooking breakfast, a parental replacement. The smell of salmon washes over me, and my stomach rumbles. 

I sigh, and force myself to standing. Food motivates me, if nothing else. 

The woman turns out to be someone I've seen only twice before: Shan. Her features include black, graying hair, a pinched face, and deep wrinkles around her eyes. Even though I don't know her very well, I'm not allowed to, I can tell she's a very even person. Never leaning too far in one direction. There is a perfect balance to life, and Shan has found it.

She smiles at me, choosing to show that side of herself, or risk losing a job. 

"Morning, Shan," I greet, and her eyebrows raise slightly at my remembrance of her name. 

"Good morning, Daphne," she says formally, turning her attention back to breakfast. 

"Where's dad?" I ask, expecting one of three answers: silence, meaning he's doing something either illegal or top secret; his location, meaning he's kind today; or a 'you'll find out later,' meaning he's having a bad day--or, again, doing something illegal.

"He's at the Justice Building. He said they are choosing this year's mentors."

I raise my eyebrows. A good day, huh? And on reaping day, too. Guess the odds really are in my favor.

Well, reaping day isn't always a bad thing for my father. He volunteered for his spot as tribute--and then won, granting himself, and soon after my whole family, a place in Victor's Village. 

The fact that the games took my sister, too, never fazed him. In nights of staring up at the ceiling and speculating, my mind has formed the theory that he blocks her death out to convince himself that who he is, the trait he has built his personality around, is valid, and not abominable. That he, in general, is a good person. 

My mother died the year after Salacia, during childbirth. Her body was buried alongside the boy who could have been my little brother, her arms wrapped around him in the coffin. The funeral was the first and only time I ever saw my father cry. 

And then he, like so many other victors before him, turned to alcohol and drugs. Apparently staying intoxicated all the time, ignoring his only daughter, was better than facing the reality of his dead wife and children. So when he was sober, he hired people. Used his seemingly-infinite supply of money, provided by the Capitol, to get housekeepers, nannies, chefs. They all took care of me, but not for long. They would disappear within a few days, returning months or even years later. I never got to know any of them; never got to know anyone. 

I don't know if it was strategy or neglect, but years of that takes a toll on a person. 

"What time's the reaping?" I ask, as if it's not the same time every year. Shan doesn't look up from the food, just scoops it onto a plate. She sticks her arm out to the side, plate balancing on frail fingers, and I quickly snatch it, setting it in front of me. 

"Eleven A.M.," she says. The rest of the food gets poured into a glass container--for a snack, if I'm hungry later. She doesn't eat any. She's not allowed to. 

I fight the sudden instinct to offer her some of my own. If she took it she would be fired, worse if the government found out. It would be considered stealing, because the food isn't technically mine, it's my father's. And stealing is punishable by death. 

Shan sits across from me. Not in my father's seat, not in the seat designated for my mother, but the one specifically for staff. My mother was never the sentimental type of person, and so the chair that could have been Salacia's sits in one of our many closets, abandoned, just like me. 

If she was here now, she would be disappointed in dad, I think. It feels like a forbidden thought; something I would never say out loud, because my father would be livid, drunk or not. He hates reminders that his wife wouldn't like the man he's become. 

I don't care, though. He can't read my mind--and I'm not stupid enough to say those things out loud. 

I set my fork down on the table with a bit more force than might be necessary. Shan looks at me, her eyebrows raised. 

"I'm not hungry," I choke out, standing, politely pushing my chair back in. Shan's expression is judgmental, but she doesn't try to stop me. 

The reaping's at eleven, said Shan. Currently, it's ten--I slept in. So I have an hour to either roam around town or stay inside. 

I choose the second option, as I always do. Staying inside sounds wonderful right now. Outside the stares will gather like flakes of snow on the ground, all landing on me, the girl with too little luck, too many tributes.

Daphne Amphitrite, the girl of tragedy.