Year One: Hope & Rajat
His heart beat right up to his throat. Looking over to Hope, she just looked up to where their pods would lead them, up, all decisive and strong. Rajat really admired her. Admired her strength, her sense of wonder, how she never gave up. She was quite his opposite in those things, he thought, somewhat wrongly. Then, as if she had felt his gaze, Hope looked over to him. His heart skipped a beat waiting for her ear-to-ear-grin, but she just looked at him, her face still a mask of determination. Then their pods moved and Rajat’s heart was still frozen in place, as if of stone.
The light outside was blinding and Rajat held his hands up to shield his eyes. “Do we have any sort of plan?”, he yelled over to Hope, who was still ignoring him. This was getting worse and worse. With the sound of the last horn, the time of making plans was gone. Rajat looked around to see many run towards the Cornocopia in the middle, filled with backpacks and rations and whatnot and - since everybody else did it - ran towards it as well. He tried to go for a fishing rod - teach a man to fish -, but someone else looking at him aggressively had grabbed it before, so all that was left in front of Rajat was the bait. At least! Quickly, Rajat ran back, a little too shaken up by the reality of this short, harmless encounter. Hope was nowhere to be seen. Why had she run? Of course he’d slow her down, of course she’d have to drag him along, but it was... unlike her to just go. It hurt. But Rajat understood. It was okay.
***
Someone didn’t seem to like that she had run from the Cornocopia, but Hope didn’t give a single fork, not at all, nuh-uh. Maybe a little, because she got food from them, from a little parcel that had hovered down the sky, but that’s it. There was no fighting out there, not yet. As soon as he didn’t see her, she’d do what she’d need to do. If she could, because this - this thing - it meant she would have to kill him, too. Her doctor.
***
Rajat just ran or jogged around the arena, really, not sure what to do. What should he do? He was a doctor, he didn’t want to hurt anyone. He felt lonely and forgotten and... stumbled over a root right into a little band of three people. They were nice, but two of them wanted to fight, to kill other tributes. Rajat tried to beg and reason as much as he could to not do that, but when they told him they could kill him, too, and simply ignored what he and another woman said... there was no other way to go along. Rajat felt dirty and weak.
Eventually, when it started to rain really heavily and the rains picked up very much, the three of them made their way towards a mountain, trying to find shelter in a cave - one of their team was suddenly gone. They tried to look for him, but the winds were too strong.
***
She simply couldn’t stay away from him for too long... he was hers, her doctor, afterall. So she stalked him, put her job to good use. He was with people, but two of them were rude as fuck to him and Hope hated that. She hated that they were close to him and she was not. When they retreated, she isolated one of the two who had ignored and cut him earlier, the one that looked even colder than the woman and threatened them out and away from the group with a sai she had found on the ground. Further and further away, closer and closer to the huge, loud, fucking hurricane. Then Hope pushed them in. Now her doctor was a little bit safer, she said to herself.
***
