PART I · LOOK AT ME

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Lovise Holst-Mathiasen

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"It's going to be me," I told my aunt, Johanne Holst, my father's sister, the one who raised me after my maternal grandma Greta decided to cut contact, after my maternal aunt Margarete Mathiasen, my father Mikkel Holst, my older brother Silas Holst-Mathiasen, and my mother Annelise Mathiasen all died in the sick games that happen every 7 years in Mallory, considering me cursed and bringing down our Area from 10 to 27.

The plate that was in her hands fell down, but thankfully it didn't break, since we don't have enough money to buy good stuff, so it's made of plastic. "No. No, you won't."

Sighing, I walked towards her and picked the plate up. "It'll be me."

"Why… why are you saying that?" She cried.

"Our family is cursed, auntie Jo, you know that. I don't know why, or how, but this keeps happening. Great-grandpa died and brought our area from 7 to 20, then grandma stayed alive and got to 10, but then her sister died and we went down to 13, then dad died and we went down to 17, then my brother died and we went down to 22, and last time mom was the 2nd to die and we ended up in area 27. This curse has only fallen over us."

"It doesn't… it doesn't mean anything. It could be me."

I smiled softly, putting the plastic plate aside and holding her hands, "The Holst bloodline isn't curse, but the Mathiasen is, auntie. Dad got in it after he married mom and got her surname, so he was a Mathiasen then, and so were Silas and mom, and… well, I'm the last one. Grandma Greta won't be picked because she's been through it."

"You don't know that for sure," she cried. "Maybe someone else,"

"I've been having dreams," I told her. "Of a tear of Mallory floating above my head. I don't want to tell you, because I knew how you would react. But it'll be me, but don't worry, I,"

"What? Dreams? Since when?" She gasped. "How can you tell me not to worry, Love?" She held me by my shoulders. "Those sick fucking games are a death sentence. They will come at you like beasts, because no one wants to end up falling on the power pyramid, which is decided through the games. We are penultimate. The representatives of areas 28 and 27 are walking targets, and everyone will try to kill you first. Even the 28th, and,"

I hugged her, "I won't die. I've been preparing myself."

"Love,"

"Please, trust me. Believe in me. Nobody does, I only have you, can you believe in me on this?" I asked, looking into her teary eyes. "I only need you to cheer for and believe in me, auntie, no one else."

"I…" she swallowed. "Okay. But since when?"

"I actually thought it would be me last time, and not mom, when I was 14, since I began to have the dreams at 10, the minimal age to be part of the Grim Games," I passed a hand over my wavy long blonde hair. "But then mom was picked instead, and I realized I would go in 7 years, at 21. So, every day when I wonder in the radioactive woods, I've been training."

"What did you train?"

"As the animals in there are not eatable, I've been just hunting them for the sake of getting batter at the daggers and archery," my entire family was made of archers, so there's legacy, even though they were mostly bad as fuck at it, which is why I also self-taught myself the daggers by keeping in my memory the techniques the other areas displayed in the last games. "I also found some old martial arts books and I've been trying that out."

"Ah, Lovise, why didn't you tell me?" She asked sadly.

Sigh, "I didn't want to worry you. I swear I'll do well. I've learned how to survive in the wild, how to get water, how to make wood weapons our of nothing, how to make fire, how to know if something is poisonous or not, how to cook wild animals that I hunt, and how to camouflage myself."

She hugged me tight, "You can't die. I can't lose you. Promise me."

"I promise you, I won't die, auntie. No. I'll survive and I'll take us to the top 10 again, even higher than grandma did, so she'll eat her own damn words. I'll break this damn curse, because I'm the last one standing."

"I hope you're wrong… maybe you'll go when you're 28."

I giggled softly, "Mallory won't allow it, that Goddess is a pain."

"This is not fair," she huffed, close to crying again.

"The Goddess isn't fair, but I know that this is Divine punishment. She is punishing us humans for having destroyed nearly all the planet once, for the mayhem we spread all over the earth, wiping more than one hundred and sixty countries through wars and worse. And decimating a great part of the population of the surviving countries, until we became what we are now. We may see this as a curse, since we lost through it, but the Haynes clan are also in the same curse, of only their bloodline being picked."

"But they always win first, and they killed your family," she hissed.

I heard that aunt Margarete died by the hands of Madison Haynes, but I wasn't born then. I was just a newborn baby when my dad died by the hands of Matthew Haynes, so I didn't watch it. I did watch my brother Silas, who was 5 years older than me and 12 at the time, be killed by Thea Haynes. And 7 years ago, when I was 14, I've watched as Law Haynes murdered my mom, and I still have nightmares with it.

The fight between the Haynes and the Mathiasen is old, really old.

700 years ago, the world as it was once known, disappeared because of how humanity brought 80% of themselves to self-destruction, plus global warming and all that shit that my mom taught me, so I would remember, as I was homeschooled because no one in area 27 wanted anything to do with me, also taking me and mom and our family as cursed.

Then, came the Divine punishment, by the hands of the minor-deity Mallory, sent to punish us by the Supreme God himself, which some people in the old world called simply God, as they thought he was the only deity existence. Another foolish mistake.

She got in contact with the remaining human beings, and separated the society herself by the amount of people in each surviving country. Only 28 survived, and she put the less populated on top and the most populated on the bottom, without playing favorites, not giving a fuck about what country was once powerful and which one wasn't.

When that was settle, she told them that every 7 years, they would have a chance of change who is on top, but that it wouldn't be a kingdom, and that each leader of each area would have to come to an agreement about the world management. That would happen through a game, where they're going to be allowed to kill or not other people, to take the power.

But that would only be allowed to happen then, no wars, no world domination, no rebellion against what she decided.

Every 7 years from then on, Mallory would walk the earth and cry for us, her right eye would cry 14 years for men, her left eye would cry the same amount but for women, all between the ages of 10 and 70 years old.

What was supposed to be randomly, did not occur randomly for the Haynes and the Mathiasen. Sure, sometimes people of the same family are randomly chosen in the other areas, but that's a rare occurrence. Whereas with us, it's always us, always our bloodline against the Haynes, and though both clans were once upon a time allies, that changed a long time ago.

It began 700 years ago, from 7 to 7 years, this'll be the 100th game.

And I know it in my bones that it'll be different somehow, all of my bloodline has been weirdly sensitive to the changes of the world, I can only speak for us, since I don't know about the others, but we always feel when things will happen. Our intuition doesn't fail, and in my case, neither does my sharp senses, which I think I'm the first in the family to have.

Grandma definitely doesn't, mom didn't, and neither did Silas.

I'm different than them, I don't know why, but I am, and I'll rely on that to win this motherfucking game, then I'll make grandma dearest eat all the shit she threw at me since I was a little girl.