Eternal Winter // finnick odair

1- victors and vanguished

NOW EDITED
District 4 isn't how it used to be. It still looks the same, with the same beautiful seas I grew up in but it's not the same. It never will be, not since Katniss Everdeen has put the idea of rebellion in everyone's minds, including mine.

Tomorrow is the day president snow will announce the quarter quell and the atmosphere is tense. We have four living victors in 4. Mags. She's an old lady, she can't speak and is basically everyone's grandmother. Annie Cresta. She won the 70th annual hunger games and they drove her crazy, she's never been the same. Finnick Odair. The Capitol darling, everyone loves him except for me. Then there's me, Adriana Moore. I'm 22 this year and am finnick odair's former best friend, I won the 69th hunger games. Two of us will have to mentor in the quarter quell and I just hope I'm not one of them. Who knows what sort of sick twist the games will have.

Before the 65th games finnick and I were best friends. Then he came back from his games as an arrogant, self-obsessed flirt and I was just another girl that he could flirt with. After that I refused to speak to him and he didn't even try to get our friendship back, to get me back. He threw ten years of friendship down the drain.

Then I was reaped as the female tribute for district 4 in the 69th annual hunger games. I was 16 at the time. I expected him to help me, to guide me like a mentor should but he didn't. He was off somewhere drunk the entire time. I went through the games with one gift and one gift only, and no. It wasn't from Finnick. My only gift came from Haymitch Abernathy, the only person apart from Jo that I can trust in this world. I had never met him before but he seemed to know exactly what I needed. A trident, my weapon of choice. I had my spear and multiple different knives that I could kill with but I wasn't confident. Not like I was with a trident.

When I came out of the arena finnick was sober and the Capitol was in a frenzy. The all too familiar weapon had sparked rumours about finnick and I. They were all different, some saying that we had simply known each other before, some saying we were family and others saying we were romantically involved. However I ended all of those rumours quickly, they didn't need to know how close they were to the truth. People didn't need to know that he abandoned me. District four already knew, and I'm sure it wasn't good for his reputation either.

I really need to sleep, the announcement is tomorrow, but I'm scared to. Nightmares plague my sleep like monsters in the dark, there seems to be no way out. No end to the struggle that is my life.

He was chasing me. I really shouldn't say he, more like it. It's the finale and its me against the massive guy from two. Only he doesn't seem to be human anymore, he has become a blood thirsty demon of the Capitol. I'm his next target. He gains on me quickly and throws me against the wall of the cornucopia. I feel my head get damp and sticky from the blood that leaks out of my head. He takes my trident from my hands and is about to finish me off when -
"RIA, wake up it was just a dream Ria, just a dream"

I open my eyes slowly trying to see in the dark room. Hovering above me is someone but I can't tell who it is yet. They must have woken me up, must be a victor, my screams would have been loud. As my eyes adjust to the dark I can see the muscular figure above me is only finnick. I hate him more than I should, he left me to die in the arena but he wants to wake me from my nightmares?
"What are you doing here"
I whisper quietly and quickly. I can tell how weak I sound, I can hear my voice breaking at the ends. I always sound like this after one of these nightmares, the ones where I almost see myself kill. The nightmares that remind how me how messed up reality really is, the ones where I find no relief in waking.
"It seems that I'm the only one who cares enough to wake you up"
I scoff and roll my eyes. Cares? I know for a fact that Finnick doesn't care. He doesn't care about anyone except himself, and maybe Annie but I wouldn't be so sure, I thought he cared about me and he never did.

Finnick silently stands and leaves the room pausing in the doorway to remind me that they announce the quarter quell tonight. The quarter quell occurs every 25 years and make the games even worse than they already are. In the last quarter quell they sent double the amount of children in to the arena. 48 tributes in total, 4 from each district. That means 47 deaths, and that was the year that Haymitch Abernathy won. He's like a father figure to me. He outsmarted all the tributes, he outsmarted the Capitol but he payed for it. They don't take this sort of thing lightly. His entire family was killed, murdered by snow and he made it look like an accident to the Capitol. He lost the love of his life and has been a drunkard ever since. He always seems to sober up for me though, to help me when I need it. He's always there for me and even though it's a weakness I love him. He's the father I never got.

When I was 3 years old and the world wasn't such a cruel place I had a family. I had a mother, father, brother and Finnick. Yes I knew Finnick when I was 3 but we weren't exactly friends. That wasn't important though, I could rely on him. My world came crashing down the day my dad drowned at sea. He was out fishing just like everyday when he went for a swim, a shark bit his leg and he drowned. He would have died from blood loss anyway. Everything fell apart after that. I didn't know what was going on I was only 3. I kept asking when daddy was coming home. Mum would always answer with the same thing,
" in a while sweetie "
But my brother, Cyrus, got sick of it. He yelled at me telling me that dad was never coming back.

My mum, Lily, was trying to keep us together the best she could. We recovered after dads death and continued as a family, just not a very happy family. Our family now included Finnick, who was Cyrus's best friend. It was six years after dads death. I was 9 and understood what happened to dad but that didn't stop me from loving the water, I basically breathed it. However it definitely stopped Cyrus. He refused to even go near the water, and that's a hard thing to do since we lived in four. He spent most of his days shut up in his room and Finnick and I became good friends. We had a rough couple of years, mum had to do everything, the fishing, the cleaning, the selling and looking after us. I helped around the house and fished a bit, I couldn't catch much with my spear however because I was only nine. Finnick started teaching me how to use a trident and I was a natural from the start, but with help I became amazing and could catch fish well after a while. It was that year that Cyrus was reaped. He was only twelve and had his name in once as mum refused to let him sign up for tesserae. With no males in the family, and his best friend underage no one volunteered for him. He died.

Mum took it hard. I was all she had left but I didn't seem to be enough, Cyrus was always her favourite. Finnick became my best friend, we helped each other through everything. When I was 11, 2 years after Cyrus's death mum had enough of her life and drowned herself. I never was good enough.

My mother was a beautiful women even leading up to her death. She had wavy blonde hair that was always perfect even if she had just woken up. She was around 5"9 and had freckles dotting her nose. Her eyes were a bright forest green and as much as I would have liked to have eyes like hers I don't. Undoubtedly the most beautiful thing about her was her smile, it was so bright and filled with happiness. It made you feel like nothing could ever go wrong. After Cyrus died I didn't see her smile once.

I look a lot like my mum in ways. I have the same freckles that dot over my nose, the lovely pink lips and best of all her smile. Everyone says I have her smile and that makes me so happy inside even though it can't be true. No one could ever have a smile as beautiful as my mums. My hair is wavy and an average length, it's blonde like mums. I only got one thing from my father and I think it's my best feature. My eyes. They are a brilliant, clear, icy blue. They are the colour of those beautiful bays that are always in the photos, warm and welcoming but when I'm angry they turn a hard, cold blue, more like a grey.

I quickly dress in my favourite swimmers and put a shirt on over the top. I run to the water, throw off my shirt and dive right in. Finnick used to call me his little mermaid since I can swim like one. I've spent more of my life in water that out. I wish I was a mermaid or even a fish. I could swim far away from here, away from the games, away from this nightmare.

I swim all day and head back home approximately an hour before the announcement. After I shower and dress I head downstairs to watch the announcement. Since I'm only 22 I have never been alive for a quarter quell, this will be my first. President Snow comes and stands on the balcony. I would do anything to have that man dead.
" On the 75th anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that even the strongest amongst them can not overcome the power of the Capitol, the male and female tributes will be reaped from their existing pool of victors "