I am no one important.
Not anymore.
Once, there was a time when the whole world watched me. Everyone knew who I was and where I was from and what I was doing and wearing and even eating. But now? Ha, no one cares now... I doubt they'd even remember. After all...
I died seventy-four years ago.
My name was Fatin Blackstone. I grew up in District Nine in the aftermath of the Dark Days. I was one of the twnety-four unlucky children to be dragged off to the Capitol to be publicly slaughtered in the guise of 'control'. I was thirteen years old.
Things were bad, back then. We'd just come out of the Dark Days. Our new home was District 9, and we were in charge of growing and processing grain for the Capitol and the thirteen Districts. All the Districts and the Capitol were compiled into one nation called Panem. We had no history, no legacy, we had nothing. All of that was stolen and obliterated by the Capitol. No one knows where we come from, what existed before Panem, even if there was something worth anything before the Dark Days. There had to be something in the beginning. After all, something can't be made from nothing. The government was oppressive... stifling... suffocating. Government-issued drones called Peacekeepers paraded around the District in their stark white uniforms... almost like angels, but not nearly as forgiving and gentle.
My father was beaten to death by one Peacekeeper.
I'll never forget him, ever.
He had long blond hair, reaching past his shoulders, and fierce grey-green eyes, like the color of a bruise. His skin was almost as white as his uniform, a sickly pallid color. His face was always twisted into something between a grimace and a scowl. His name was Theseus Hipswitch.
My family was small to begin with, just my father, mother, myself and my older brother. My parents worked in the fields and my brother Barley and I worked in the fields. One day about a year or two after my father's untimely death (and subsequent burial by bonfire), near summery like weather, the government forced us all to gather in front of the Justice Building, where the Mayor and the head of the Peacekeepers resided, along with their families.
The Mayor rambled on and on about the reform of the country in the aftermath of the Dark Days. Times were changing, people were changing, the world was changing... but we were not allowed to change with the world and the people and the things. We had to stay here and do as the government said. And that included playing their games.
One in particular.
A new game no one was familiar with.
The Hunger Games.
Two glass bowls were placed in front of a flashy Capitolite man with bright green hair and a sky-colored suit.
Barley grabbed my hand, his palm sweaty. No one knew what was going to happen, no one. For all we knew, whoever's name was on the slip of paper he pulled out of the glass bowl could've been selected to go live in the Capitol.
"Jeeves Salaman!!" the Capitolite bellowed.
A strange ripple went through the amassed District. A tall boy, probably around six- or seventeen, with bushy orange hair strode forward bravely, holding his head high as he walked up the massive stage that was set up in front of the crowds. Even though I was holding onto Barley with all my might, I felt so incredibly lonely.
"It's alright, Fatin," he assured me. His grip on my hand only tightened as excruciating, agonizing seconds dragged slowly on.
It felt like the world had slowed down. I watched as his hand, tinted yellow, reached into the second glass bowl. He fumbled around with the paper slips, struggling to find one to grab and pull out. His tongue flicked out over his lips, wetting the dark green lip color he painted on them and making them shine with a certain artificiality. Slowly, slowly, slowly, so slowly... he finally withdrew his hand from the bowl, a single folded strip of paper pinched between two of his yellowish fingers. He brought it in front of him and scanned the crowd. From where I was standing, somewhere in the middle, I could clearly see the brimming excitement he harbored. A lump rose in my throat, and I struggled to swallow and maintain my composure. He brought his yellow hands together and unfolded the slip of paper.
"Fatin Blackstone!!"
My breath caught in my throat, nearly choking me. I didn't know if I was frightened, excited, or shocked. Maybe all three mixed into one. I was scared because I didn't know what the 'Hunger Games' actually were. I was excited because I might get to leave Nine and see the Capitol. I was shocked because it had been my name that the Capitolite had drawn from the bowl.
But that brought a whole set of questions I just could not answer.
What were the Hunger Games? What sort of game was it? How many people were playing the Games? Where would I be going to play? Why was I chosen? Why was my name in the bowl, when I hadn't entered in any sort of contest or competition? Why did the Capitolite choose one boy and one girl? Why were we different ages? What would happen to us when we played the Games?
...what happened if we lost the Games?
There was only one way to find out.
While I'd been lost in my thoughts, someone had guided me onto the stage. I was standing next to Jeeves and we were both in front of Theseus Hipswitch and the Capitolite.
In my rampant thoughts, I only picked up a few words anf phrases the Mayor and the Capitolite were shouting at the masses of 9ers.
"...Tributes in the very first Hunger Games! These lucky young..." from the Mayor.
"...and may the odds be ever in your favor!" the Capitolite added.
We were rushed away into the Justice Building. I was only thirteen years old. After barely scraping through the remants of the Dark Days, how could I know anything? I wasn't in school because I had to work in the factory with Barley and many other kids. No one told us what happened in the other Districts or the Capitol, and only a few places in Nine had Holosets, massive translucent screens that videos were projected on.
I was left alone in a mostly barren room. I sat down on the mildewy old couch with ugly patterned fabric and waited as patiently as I could. The Capitolite came in eventually, bringing my mom and brother in with him. Barley rushed over and swept me off the ground, hugging me tighter than ever. My mother was crying silently but steadily.
"My, my, my! What a positively adorable little girl we have here!" a chipper female voice blabbered. A mass of pastel pink, blue and purple swept into the room.
It was another Capitolite, this one a woman. She had long wavy pink hair with what I think were called baby doll bangs (whatever they were called, they reached down to about halfway down her large forehead), large and sparkly blue eyes, and skin like milk, smooth and creamy. Her elaborate dress was nothing but tiers and tiers of pastel blue and purple stiff, semi-see-through fabric that billowed around her spindly legs and arms like a ridiculously colored cloud.
"I'm Ainsel. I'll be your Stylist for the Games, Darling," she grinned at me. Her lips were painted light pink, and her eyes light lavender. She was pretty, not at all like the Capitolite who had drawn my name from the bowl.
"Fatin," I replied monotonously.
"Ooh, you're just too adorable!" she cooed, snatching me off the ground and holding me like a was a child. "I can see where you get your charming looks." Ainsel smiled warmly at my mother, who stopped crying enough to speak normally for a while.
"We love you, Fatin. Never forget that."
Barley cleared his throat awkwardly. "Do your best to win," was all he said.
That was it. No advice, no pearls of wisdom, no anything. A Peacekeeper led them out of the room, leaving me alone with Ainsel. I felt like all my insides had been sucked out of me, and I was just an outer shell. Ainsel stroked my hair comfortingly.
Jeeves and I boarded a train bound for the Capitol. My room was far too large for a single person, and there were so many buttons everywhere I was scared to push any of them. Taking a shower was difficult, because the water shifted between hot, cold, scented, flavored, lukewarm, unscented, unflavored, steady stream and little bursts of water that I think were supposed to massage me but only made my back sore. With my hair dripping wet, I shuffled to the dining area. In the Districts, we eat poorly: no meat, no greens, barely enough bread to get by, and certainly no luxury foodstuffs like cakes and pastries. The train's dinner was something else entirely. Soups of all kinds and colors, large plates of leafy green salads, massive cuts of the best meat (not that I'd know what separated good meat from bad meat) grilled to perfection (according to Ainsel), and so many desserts of all colors. I had a large mug of hot spiced apple juice, though Ainsel called it cider, which was nice because that's what I used to drink at the Cob, District Nine's community center. There, you could get a hot meal and something to drink. I tried little bits of everything, but couldn't finish an entire meal. After growing up eating barely enough to survive, I had no idea how to eat more than what would keep me alive. Ainsel stared at me curiously. The best meat I tasted was the venison, deer meat. And I continually picked at a red velvet cupcake with creamy white frosting while the adults and Jeeves chattered.
In the Capitol, we couldn't look as we did. Ainsel and several other people were put in charge of making us look acceptable to the other Capitolites. After being primped and preened and plucked and shaved and bathed and oiled and painted, I hardly recognized myself.
My dark brown hair, which normally hung in limp, lifeless waves, was pulled up into two matching ponytails on the sides of my head, the voluminous curls tied up by two lacy ribbons. My bangs were neatly brushed and framed my face. My lips were glossed a light pink and my eyelashes blackened by black sticky stuff. What skin that was showing glowed, and the rest of me was covered by an expensive-looking dress. It had folds and ruffles and billowing fabrics and too many ribbons and bows to count.
Jeeves was also dressed up in frills and lace, poor thing.
An old man asked me questions about my home and my family. He asked the other Tributes as well, and each answered easily. I struggled with my answers, unable to shake the horrible feeling that something bad was going to happen. But I choked them out one by one, like a machine.
Me and the twenty-three other kids were allowed to practice using all sorts of weapons and survival skills. I wasted my time studying different kinds of plants until Jeeves suggested I try practicing with a sword. It would be similar to the scythe we used back in Nine to harvest the grain. Everyone had to help with the harvesting.
Most of them were too heavy for me to lift without resting the handle on my hip bones, but there was a flimsy, skinny one that was surprisingly lighter than the others. I spent the last day of practice using the skinny sword. I hoped we wouldn't have to kill anyone, especially animals.
The next day, we all were paraded around the Capitol. Jeeves and I wore flimsy white cloths wrapped around our bodies and held together with pins made of intricately woven wheat. We wore wheat crowns, which I thought was funny because back home, wheat crowns were used as a symbol of marriage. The bride and groom would wear them to signify their engagement after making the crowns for one another. Then we were taken away and made over again.
This time, it was a black skintight suit with light grey boots and gauntlets. My ponytails had no ribbons, but Ainsel tied one around my neck. It was dark purple, almost black.
"For luck," she had said.
Inside the glass tube, luck was far from me in any form. As I was shot out of the ground and into a swampy forest, I knew I would have no luck. The twenty-three other kids all had fierce looks on their faces, even Jeeves. In the center of the circle we all formed was a large golden horn overflowing with weapons. A horn blared, and everyone ran for the gold horn. I copied them.
One of my flaws was my semi-perpetual ignorance.
My ignorance was my undoing.
Jeeves grabbed a large, fearsome axe and swung at someone from Three. Their arm came clean off and lay twitching on the ground. I stood frozen in my tracks, clutching the one skinny sword I'd found.
"Fatin!!" he screamed.
I turned around and the srowd I'd been clutching in front of me stupidly slashed at the stomach of the girl from Ten. Blood spurted from her wound, the warm spray settling on my facce and arms. She screamed, an animalistic one, and charged at me with a spear. Out of instinct, I ducked and hid behind a pile of untouched weapons.
What was going on? Why were we killing each other?
I watched as Tributes fell one by one. I heard Jeeves scream and covered my ears. Something landed on my lap. I opened my eyes and screamed. It was Jeeves' head, his dead eyes staring accusingly at me. I scrambled to my feet and attempted to run away. Something cold and hard wrapped around my wrist and tugged, dragging me to the ground. A wire whip. A group of five or six people, from One, Two, Four, and the boy from Three whose partner Jeeves had dismembered and killed loomed over me. The 3er raised his hands and pointed at me. The others took my other flailing limbs and pinned them to the ground. I heard a shot, and something pierced my right shoulder.
He had a gun.
My other shoulder, my knees, my elbows and wrists and ankles and hands and feet were all shot. Absently, I wondered how he didn't run out of bullets. It was funny how, in the waves and waves of pain, I thought of how many bullets he had. But maybe it wasn't so funny, because that was clearly how I was going to die if I didn't bleed to death first. More shots, in my stomach, my chest, my arm, my leg... it just wouldn't end.
This was the Game we had to play.
We had to kill each other.
That realization somehow eased me. I no longer cared how many times I was shot. Even iff they all were killed, I'd lost too much blood to be worth saving. I was riddled with bullets and bleeding steadily from all the shot wounds.
"Do it," I insisted at the 3er. "Go ahead... and finish the job."
He wavered, his face a mixture of guilt and confusion. The hand holding the gun trambled violently. He was lowering his arm when the girl from One wrenched the gun from him and pointed it at me.
I laughed.
I don't know why, but as she made to shoot me in the head, I laughed. She ground her teeth, clearly thrown off by my laughter and insistence that I die. The others were yelling at her, at me, at each other. I just found it all so funny.
Then she shot me.
I... was only thirteen.
After that, I remember wandering. Here and there... going to the other Districts and even to the Capitol again. Ainsel died, eventually, as did my family, whom I'd failed in the Games. But they weren't like me. When they died, they stayed dead. They didn't wander, like I did.
Time wore on, and I eventually came back to Nine.
It hadn't changed. There were still rolling, endless fields of golden grain with countless people working among the stalks. Peacekeepers were still there, though they didn't seem as bad as when I was alive. There was one in particular I found... interesting. A Peacekeeper... with long blond hair and green eyes.
He was talking to a girl with red glasses and long coppery-blond hair. She was talking about her sister, who had died three years ago in the Games.
I liked the girl. She reminded me of myself, sort of. She was quiet, and soft-spoken. And vulnerable, too. I hung around for a while, watching her. The more I was around her, the more I identified with her, though we had nothing in common. I grew fond of her, and one day, I decided to show myself to her.
She coudn't see me, at first. I tried again and again, but she still couldn't see me.
Then there was the day when she finally did see me.
It was nothing at all like I'd imagined. I'd pictured frantic screaming, disbelief, maybe even the throwing of some objects.
She smiled at me.
A small one, almost imperceptible. But she smiled, like she'd been expecting me.
And from that moment on, I decided to stay with her. I might not have been able to do much, being dead and all, but I could watch over her.
This girl... we looked nothing alike, had nothing in common... I said we did so I could stay with her, but we didn't. Our lives were complete opposites. She was alive... and in love. I died without ever getting the chance to think about it.
It'd be wrong if I said I wasn't jealous of her, but there was nothing I could do in my state. The most I could do was toss around objects and make myself invisible.
But...
Those traits would become very useful in the days and months that followed. those traits would be the ones I'd use to protect her... and the blond Peacekeeper, too, though he reminded me of Theseus who killed my father seventy-four years ago.
I have not aged a day since I died. I still look thirteen. I have curly brown hair and brown eyes. When I died, in the very first Hunger Games after the Dark Days, I was only thirteen. I never got the chance to live, really live... or fall in love.
I wish someone would stop the Games. Even now, seventy-four years later, the Games are still being played. I wish someone... anyone... would put an end to the Games and their senseless killing. I want someone to end it, to stop it, stop the Games and the Gamemakers, stop the killing and the suffocating oppression of the government and the President.
Someone... anyone...
Please, end the Games...
...so my human girl can live a happy life with the one she loves.