Alors On Mange [Wyatt and Zeki]

[Will]

.: ZEKI WEBB :.
{district five : 69th tribute}

Lunch.

This is possibly my favorite part of the entire day. Each morning I wake up to breakfast, full of waffles and syrup and pancakes and strawberries and crepes. Every night I come to dinner, and the table is covered with mashed potatoes, steaks, pastas, anything I could possibly imagine is laid out in front of me. It's truly the best feeling in the universe. Especially knowing that it's there because of the efforts of myself and all the other tributes. Our tireless and grueling work back in the districts has, in a sense, paid off. Right here and right now, in this week, we are given whatever our heart desires. Five hour long showers, plates piled high with only the most unhealthy of foods, clothes sent directly from the heavens. This is paradise. But paradise comes with a price. And the price that we must pay is our lives, possibly. If we do not pay with our lives, we pay with our sanity. Our peace of mind. We will never be our old selves again. It will be impossible. Too much will have happened.

Now that I think about it, you can never truly win the Hunger Games. You may only survive it. Those are the options. Survive or die. There is no winning. Other than the fact that the Capitol forces you to mentor, forces you to take part in their silly over-the-top culture, you are never going to be whole again. You are never going to be innocent again. We are just kids after all.

I force myself to stop. I can't keep thinking like I'm depressed. That won't help anything. I have to keep my head up, keep hope alive. Because if hope dies, then I die. And I won't let that happen. I may not be able to help if I die or not, but I will not just die. I will fight until my very last breath to return home. I never got to say goodbye to Georgia, after all.

I focus on lunch now. This is my favorite meal of the day. It provides a break from all of the working out and training. I know it's all for my benefit, but it is exhausting. The best part about lunch, though, is it's food options. It has foods from each district. It's absolutely incredible! There are foods from District Four, District Seven, District Nine, any district. And they're all so different. I can never decide which foods to choose.

As I stand there, staring down the different food options, I realize that I'm holding up a few other tributes. How did I realize this, well, someone told me.

{table by zoë}

ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ

[ᕙʕ•ᴥ•ʔᕗ]

They excused us from training to go eat and I headed to what was probably my least favorite time of the day. Twenty-four of us meant there were 23 chances I would have to talk to someone. I had for all intent and purpose made sure to talk to my district partner as little as possible, but that still left 22 people who could walk up at any point. I didn’t want to be their friend and it seemed like they didn’t want to be mine. To me, that wasn’t a problem. The problem was finding a place to sit. Back in District 7, whenever we had our lunchtime breaks, we sat wherever we pleased. Sometimes I would sit with Axel; other times I would walk off by myself. But here at the building that might as well have been a cage, there was only so much distance I could put between the other tributes and myself. That made me a very moody person. It was only the first day of training, but it felt like it had been a lifetime since I was dropped off in this godforsaken place, forced to communicate with people I would have to kill or wanted to kill me. It was a wonderful thought, one that could not be broken up by the luxuries they kept stuffing in our faces as if to try to make the situation any better. Some of the tributes from the lower districts took to it right away. The other tributes were serious. Just grabbing a meal felt like a kill or be killed situation, and I was often reminded the hard reality of it. I always took my time to grab lunch. By the time I had grabbed my food and sat down, everybody else would already be sitting down. It was the perfect strategy that I couldn’t see the flaw to. The only problem was I wasn’t the only slow one as I stared at the kid standing in front of me. He wasn’t moving and it took me a few minutes before I realized why he wasn’t grabbing any food. I could hear the mutterings from the other tributes behind me, and I knew I was going to have to speak up. “You know you can always come back, right? I mean, I get that you wouldn’t want to be throwing up during training, but you do have the option,” I said blankly, hoping that it would be enough. When it didn’t seem like it, I threw in a smirk. “Kid, if you don’t move, the people behind me are definitely going to beat you up.” I quickly glanced behind me to see if they really would, but while some of them did look rather annoyed, none of them looked like they were ready to throw fists. How cordial of them, I mentally sneered as I looked back at the kid.

[Will]

.: ZEKI WEBB :.
{district five : 69th tribute}

“You know you can always come back, right? I mean, I get that you wouldn’t want to be throwing up during training, but you do have the option,” I hear what he says, but I do not look up from the food. At least not as quickly as he would like. Because before I can turn to look at him, he spits out his next sentence, much more venomously than the first, “Kid, if you don’t move, the people behind me are definitely going to beat you up.”

As I get a better look at the kid I see what his true intentions are. He wears a smirk and although the tributes behind him do not look at all happy to be waiting, none of them seem angry enough to want to kill me. Not just yet at least. That's for the arena. I bring my gaze back to the boy and try to judge him. Should I judge him from his first comment, or his second. Because one leaves a much nicer first impression than the other.

I decide to wait until I see how reacts next. I tell him sincerely, "I'm sorry. There's just so many choices and they all look so good."

But then I have something along the lines of an epiphany. I should make friends, right? That's how people go far in these Games. They make people not want to kill them. So before he can respond to my stupid little innocent comeback, I throw in possibly the shakiest question I've ever asked before,

"D-Do you have any suggestings? I mean suggestions?"

This is ridiculous. I've never been at a loss of words before. Never. I don't think I've ever not known what to say. But on that same token, my life has never been on the line before. So I wait and see.

{table by zoë}

[Will]

.: ZEKI WEBB :.
{district five : 69th tribute}

“You know you can always come back, right? I mean, I get that you wouldn’t want to be throwing up during training, but you do have the option,” I hear what he says, but I do not look up from the food. At least not as quickly as he would like. Because before I can turn to look at him, he spits out his next sentence, much more venomously than the first, “Kid, if you don’t move, the people behind me are definitely going to beat you up.”

As I get a better look at the kid I see what his true intentions are. He wears a smirk and although the tributes behind him do not look at all happy to be waiting, none of them seem angry enough to want to kill me. Not just yet at least. That's for the arena. I bring my gaze back to the boy and try to judge him. Should I judge him from his first comment, or his second. Because one leaves a much nicer first impression than the other.

I decide to wait until I see how reacts next. I tell him sincerely, "I'm sorry. There's just so many choices and they all look so good."

But then I have something along the lines of an epiphany. I should make friends, right? That's how people go far in these Games. They make people not want to kill them. So before he can respond to my stupid little innocent comeback, I throw in possibly the shakiest question I've ever asked before,

"D-Do you have any suggestings? I mean suggestions?"

This is ridiculous. I've never been at a loss of words before. Never. I don't think I've ever not known what to say. But on that same token, my life has never been on the line before. So I wait and see.

{table by zoë}