Defeating Hunger
Disclaimer – Hunger Games and its characters belong to Suzanne Collins. I make no claim on them, nor do I profit from this story.
Zones were not mentioned in the Hunger Games book, but in Catching Fire, Katniss mentions how huge District 11 is and how it would be impossible to gather all the children in one place. In the Hunger Games movie, there is one building with the sign on it that says 'District 11 Zone 8' that is shown when the citizens start rioting. I figure this is how the children are chosen for Reaping.
I already did one Hunger Games fic, about a Career Tribute, and thought it would be nice to do a fic from someone else's point of view. Though Seeder is not my own character, there were still plenty of gaps in the Hunger Games books that I thought I could write a good story for Seeder. I hope you enjoy it!
o0o0o0o
For District 11, the Hunger Games has never given anyone reason to celebrate. Not in all of the 28 years of the Hunger Games has anyone from this District become a Victor. Every year, an innocent boy and girl from this impoverished province – having nothing to do with the crimes that the Capitol is still punishing the Districts for – are sent to their deaths for the Capitol's entertainment with the flimsy premise of earning forgiveness.
Every year, Seeder has watched the Games, always rooting for the Tributes from her District, hoping they will win, for if District 11 won, they could finally have someone to live in the empty Victor's Village, and for a year, everyone would receive a Parcel once a month. For a family like hers, one of the poorest in District 11 – and that was saying quite a bit – this would be almost unimaginable luxury.
All of her older siblings have so far managed to be able to avoid being Reaped, though the alternative is not that much better. Despite all the work the family does, they barely live above outright starvation. Since their mother's death, the siblings have done what they could to support the family, even going so far as to pilfer food from the orchards and fields they work in, at immense risk to themselves. Signing up for tesserae would make their lives a little easier, but Father refuses to consider it.
o0o0o0o
Seeder glances at the blank television on the table as her older sister smooths back her short hair. Today is the preliminary Reaping Day. Since District 11 is so large, it would be impossible to gather up all the children in one place for Reaping, so ten boys and the same amount of girls are selected from each of the Zones and sent to City Hall for the final Reaping. Three children in her family remain as candidates for the Reaping, the youngest brother, her older sister, and herself. She looks down at her threadbare dress, originally belonging to her mother and handed down through the girls in her family until it ended up in her possession. The age of the dress shows, and it is a bit big on her, but it is the nicest dress she has ever worn.
"Don't worry, Seeder. This will be over soon enough and we can come back home." her sister reassures her. Seeder shrugs. Back home to what? A two-room shack with intermittent electricity, and no running water? The nicest thing in the house is the old television. The Capitol ensures that each household has a television, something that Seeder's family would never be able to afford on their own. Yet the Capitol will not offer the citizens of District 11 what they need most, food.
Her stomach rumbles hungrily, but she bites back a complaint. Soon enough she is at the Zone town square, standing with the other fourteen-year-old girls. Many of the girls look like her, dressed in shabby hand-me-downs, their parents or senior family members looking at them anxiously. The Escort is only at the final reaping, so the leader of each Zone is the one who draws names out of a ball.
"May the odds be ever in your favor!" he says as he dips his hand into the first ball. He is met with deadpan stares as he draws out a name and reads it out loud.
It is her name.
o0o0o0o
Seeder rides the bus to the City Hall with the nine other girls that have been Reaped, and two family members of their choice. Her father and older sister are with her, and her sister squeezes her hand. Seeder still has a chance to go home. There are twelve zones, so there are 239 other children who could be Reaped.
It is a hot day, and all she wants to do is go home and lie under the cool roof of the shack. No one has to work on Reaping Day. She listens as the mayor recites the Treaty of the Treason. The Escort comes up, heavily made-up and wearing a ridiculous outfit that looks like it was made from gold foil. Every year, watching the Reaping on television, she and her siblings would giggle and make fun of the outfits.
"May the odds be ever in your favor!" he says in an almost trilling voice before he slides his hand into the Reaping Ball. Please don't be me, please don't be me, she prays, there are 119 other girls. One should not wish for the death of someone else, but she certainly doesn't want to die.
"Seeder..." She doesn't hear her own last name pronounced as the other girls from her Zone turn toward her. All she can do is stand there, staring blankly at the Escort as he beckons her forward. None of the other girls move, and a Peacekeeper has to reach into the crowd and grab her arm, dragging her forward. She stumbles a bit but does not fall, and looks over her shoulder to see the dismay on her father and sister's face.
She can see relief in the faces of some of the family members whose daughters are left in the holding area, but they try to make it not too obvious, keeping their eyes to the ground or to their daughters.
A boy's name is called, and he goes up to join her. They shake hands, and then the Escort then lifts their hands up in the air. "May I present to you the District 11 Tributes for the 29th Hunger Games! May the odds be ever in their favor!"
o0o0o0o
Seeder sits alone in the room within Town Hall, her heart pounding as the door opens to admit her father and sister. Her sister starts sobbing as she throws her arms around the wiry girl, and Seeder starts crying too. Father is silent for several moments, letting the girls have their cry. After several more minutes, the girls manage to calm down.
"I'm going to miss you. You're the best little sister anyone could ask for."
It does not have to be said, they do not expect to see one another again. Father, a man of few words, simply draws her into a fierce hug. The hard life he has led makes him look twenty, even thirty years older than he really is. His hair is white with very little gray left in it, and his face is lined with wrinkles amidst the leathery skin. His hands, large and callused, grip her arms tightly. She cries again, into his chest, and he strokes her hair with one hand.
o0o0o0o
"Now, don't look so sad!" the Escort scolds them as he leads her and her partner onto the train. The boy – his name is Emmanuel, she remembers – glares at the man who has never known starvation.
"We're going to die!" Emmanuel almost shouts as the train doors close. The coiffed male looks at him with a disapproving pout before he turns away, leading them further into the train.
"You two must be hungry, yes?" he asks. Seeder can not help but nod, all she has had this morning was some okra and sun-dried tomatoes, and it is now nearly supper-time. The next car practically assaults her with the smells that surround her as soon as she steps through the next door, and her stomach growls. On the table is what she has often dreamed of, a banquet of delicious foods waiting for her to enjoy. She looks to her right, and sees a slightly glassy sheen to Emmanuel's eyes. The boy is tall and lanky, obviously poor from the looks of his clothing, he would know hunger as well as she does.
"Well, enjoy! Regardless of the outcome of the Games, this is all yours to enjoy!"
Apparently Emmanuel has forgotten his earlier comment, because he goes to sit down, and she joins him across the table. There is no Mentor to join them, and their companion sits down at the head of the table.
"Come on now kids, don't be shy, eat up. It'd be nice to be an Escort to a Victor for once."
It is her turn to glare at the man for his insensitive comment.
"Well, it's true!" he replies almost petulantly. There is no arguing that, so she just focuses on the food. Some of it is easily identifiable, particularly the vegetables, but they have been prepared in ways she has never imagined, and cooked with a variety of ingredients that most people in her District have never heard of. She takes a bit of everything and puts it on her plate.
In District 11, very few people can afford to be picky, and Seeder and her siblings learned at a very early age to not snub anything that was offered. Having grown up like this, it is practically impossible to dislike anything she tries. It all just tastes to delicious.
o0o0o0o
Her stomach hurts from all the food she ate, and she lies there in her cabin, moaning softly. The food was just so delicious that she could not stop eating, and she especially liked the crème brulee. People get sick from not eating enough, and now they apparently get sick from eating too much. She lets out a weak chuckle at the irony.
o0o0o0o
The next morning, their escort announces to them that he will be their mentor. Emmanuel stares at him skeptically.
"Since District 11 has no Victors..." he is interrupted by a snort from the boy, "it has fallen on my shoulders to guide you through the Capitol and try to get sponsors for you. It will not be an easy task, since the Capitol prefers the Careers, but just listen to me and I will do what I can for you."
"Like hell, you're just escorting us to our deaths, like all the other boys and girls you took to the Capitol!" Emmanuel bursts out. "If you really wanted to help us, you would -"
"Wait." Seeder says quietly. Though her voice is soft, it is also firm. "Flavius can't come back to the Capitol empty-handed, and we do need all the help we can get. Our chances aren't good, but we can at least try."
Flavius looks grateful to her, and directs himself more to her when he is dispensing his advice to both children.
o0o0o0o
The Capitol is almost mythical in appearance, given its stark contrast to District 11. If she thought that Flavius' gold-foil outfit was silly, some of the things she sees make him look drab in comparison, and she wonders how the tall buildings she sees do not topple over.
She and Emmanuel meet the lead of their beauty team and are whisked away for their treatments. She had imagined getting her hair styled, some makeup, a hot bath, things that are luxuries for much of District gets all that, and more. There are procedures she had never imagined, and she tries to ignore the critical comments of her team as they decide what to do next after each task, it seems that the embarrassment will never end.
o0o0o0o
Flavius tells them to smile and wave at the crowds during the Tribute Parade, so that potential sponsors will like her. She has a easy time doing this, because even if Flavius wants her or Emmanuel to win for a selfish reason, the fact remains that he is still helping them. She has always been a kind and polite girl, so it is not difficult to listen to what he says and figure out how it will help her, and she is also very polite in the interview.
She is still thin, but no longer looks so waifish, and she was put into a dress of harvest gold, complimenting her dark skin and golden-brown eyes. She says how much she misses her family, and how fortunate the people in the Capitol are to never have to worry about such a thing happening to them.
o0o0o0o
In the training arena, the Careers sneer at them. Even after a couple of days of eating and sleeping well, without toiling in the fields, Emmanuel and Seeder are still thin and look unimpressive next to the obviously well provided-for Careers. The Tributes from 12 don't look any better, and Seeder remembers their outfits in the parade, they had been dressed in skimpy black briefs that didn't cover them any more than underwear did, and the rest of their bodies had been smeared with ash. The girl had black pasties over her nipples, and both of them had worn sparkly miner's helmets.
Seeder listens carefully to the instructor, and tries to decide what the best use of her time would be as she looks at the various stations. The Careers focus on feats of strength and weaponry, as this is usually how a Career wins their Game. Naturally, Districts 1 and 2 have the most Victors, but District 4 is catching up to that number, because of Mags, their first Victor. She does not spend much time at the plant identification station, as she already knows most of what the instructor has to teach. That is an advantage of being from District 11, and though no District 11 Tribute has ever won a Game, a few did make it far by using their knowledge of plants to keep alive in the arena.
She learns how to make fires, how to make water drinkable, and how to camouflage herself. First-aid is something she knows very well, because her family could never afford to go to a hospital. All injuries and ailments are treated at home using herbal remedies, and many women in the District also give birth at home. Her mother had been a midwife, and her services were often free, or paid for in food or other necessary items, very rarely did she ever get any money.
She is smart enough to not ignore the sharp, pointy objects, though, as they are not key to just winning the Game, but to survival of various obstacles in the arena. The swords and spears are too heavy for a girl her size, so she learns how to use a smaller blade, and she already is experienced in the use of a sickle from her days of working the fields. Preparing animals to eat is something she already has experience in, though she has never used a knife on another person.
o0o0o0o
Seeder looks around as she waits for the timer to reach zero so she can step off her platform. She sees items of varying value placed around the Cornucopia, with higher-value items closer to the mouth. There is a bag several meters away from her, but to her right is the boy from District 1, a tall and good-looking boy with strawberry-blond hair.
50 seconds.
She does not have much time to decide if she should risk grabbing the bag. To the east is a mixture of savannah and desert, to the west is a forested area. She looks at the Career boy, and then at the others in the ring. Emmanuel must be at the other side of the ring, behind the Cornucopia, because she can not see him.
40 seconds.
To her left is the girl from District 6. And she sees something else, a bottle with a coil of rope tied around it. She decides this is what she wants, because who knows what is in the bag, and the District 1 boy is probably waiting to kill her.
30 seconds.
She studies what she can see of the other players, noting their positions and how close they are to this or that. Several players down, she sees the District 4 girl, a wiry but athletic player who has her eyes on a net and spear near the Cornucopia. The boy from District 9 is eyeing a larger bag about four meters away from his platform.
20 seconds.
To grab the bottle and rope would put her in the direction of the forest, but would that be too obvious? She is certain that most of the weaker Tributes are thinking about going into the forest, and the Careers are bound to chase them down.
10 seconds.
Seeder has eaten well all week, loading up on not just fruits and vegetables for their vitamin content, but also plenty of meat and nuts, knowing their value in fat and protein, and staying away from too much sugar, avoiding the pastries, however tempted she is to chow down on them. After what happened on the train, she learned to pace herself, weighing her food choices because she understands they can affect her in the long run. So many Tributes die from starvation. This morning, she ate a mix of what she considered were the best food choices, wanting to be full but not too full to move quickly in the critical first few minutes of this game. She also made sure to drink plenty of orange juice and water, not knowing when she might be able to get fluids next, since each arena is different.
5 seconds.
Her heart is pounding as she watches the timer, and she sees several Tributes shifting around on their feet.
4... 3... 2... 1...
o0o0o0o
This story was originally supposed to be a one-shot, but I was having too much fun writing this story and it ended up longer than I had anticipated, so I decided to turn it into a two-shot. If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review, and if you are so inclined, check out my other stories!