The 69th Hunger Games loom large before Panem. The annual selection of twenty-four children to perform in a gladiatorial festival of blood approaches as splinters pierce the Capitol. Rumbling thunder shakes the foundation of Panem's brightest jewel, and voices begin to call out against sitting President Snow in the dark recesses of the Capitol's forgotten corners.
In District 10, the Capitol is both savior and sinner. It is a boon to those born of the right class and a slavedriver to the unfortunate ones who are left to fall between the cracks of a stratified society. Fifteen year-old Summer Glenn has been fortunate her entire life: Born into one of the wealthy families of the district, she has not known the poverty and daily drag that plagues so many in this divided nation. But even she cannot escape the Capitol's horrors forever. In her trial from average girl to fighter, she will need more than luck to face up against this tyrannical and fracturing empire's fiercest tests.
District 10, Year of the 68th Hunger Games | Autumn
A beast appraises me from across the river.
Two eyes like dead suns gape and blink in the dying crimson light of the dusk. A dark mouth full of chipped teeth hangs open as a bassoon's moan echoes from the creature's throat. Water drips from the gaping jaws at a quick beat. The creature's ribs protrude from its skin, a reminder that even nature withholds wealth and privilege from those not born into its favor.
This forlorn bobcat and I have nothing in common. I have no need to jump the fence that surrounds District 10. Peacekeepers do not shoot at me like a pest like they do to desperate creatures such as this cat. There's food aplenty for the bobcat in District 10, from the cattle that roam my father's ranch land in the evening sun to the mud-caked pigs and chickens of the neighboring barns over across the river. It's food for the Capitol, however, not food for the bobcat.
I pick up a rock from the grass and pitch it across the river. The animal hisses at me and scampers away, heading off over the hills towards the Meatpacking Quarter, off to its people – the desperate, the poor, the factory and abattoir workers who struggle every day under the watchful eyes of Peacekeeper sentries for a set table and full belly.
I don't cross the river to follow.
A wet spray of spittle flies across my back. A chocolate-brown horse behind me neighs and kicks the ground, annoyed. Ruby's the runt of my father's horse stock, but she's been my ride for years now. Maybe she's small and less useful for herding the lowing cows that have been herded back into their fenced pens for the night, but she's a reliable and loyal mount. I rub my hand over her mane and hop onto her saddle, glancing one more time across the river.
The bobcat's long gone, lost in the red and gold autumn woods or stalking the dirty streets of the Quarter by now, hoping for scraps of trash even a desperate man wouldn't eat.
"Let's go, Rube," I say, tapping my heels into the horse's side.
Ruby trots along over the hills as the sun becomes a glowing memory. Purple and navy streaks set in to the eastern sky, and the soft yellow lights of ranching homesteads pop on like dozens of fireflies. Here lives my family and the others allowed to own land and property in the district, those who act as wardens in the Capitol's name.
The thousands of ranch hands, machinery operators, and others who work for the landowning families live in scattered villages across this half of District 10. Life may not be easy for them, but it's not terrible, either. There are no alien steel warehouses or processing plants on this side of the river like there are in the Quarter. There's no daily struggle to survive, no frenzied scarcity. The Peacekeepers have no need to keep a constant eye on everyone with the wide-open fields that stretch for miles to the west, and we get along with the Capitol's soldiers in an amiable truce. This district is a land of haves and have-nots, and we're the fortunate ones on this side of the river.
An equine snort to my left takes my attention away from the grassy hills and fields. A tan, tall horse saunters up from out of the encroaching darkness. A thin young woman with flowing blonde hair rides atop the animal, waving lazily to me as she strolls up.
"Hey sis," the woman says loudly, her voice ringing out in a thick alto. She pulls a thin brown jacket around her narrow shoulders as she stops her horse. "I thought you were coming home when your friends left?"
"Plano only went home a half-hour ago. I just wanted to sit for a while, anyway," I tell her. She's Holly, my older sister by four years, but you couldn't tell by glancing at the two of us. My blue eyes and brown hair, tied up tightly in a ponytail, look nothing like her loose appearance and warm, hazel eyes.
"The boy you're friends with?" she says, rolling her eyes. "So it's like that."
"It's not 'like that,' thanks," I say with a hint of indignation.
She scoffs, "I ain't saying nothin'. Just wanted to tell you that Dad's getting drunk and arguing with Mom again. Best not to go home just yet. C'mon, Austin has a bonfire going. We can go hang out until it gets late."
I follow Holly off over a low hill to the south. Music carries on the dry, cool wind as we cross over the hill. A bonfire blazes a hundred meters off in the distance, with a hundred people scattered around it. I trot Ruby closer, spotting several people – ranch hands, probably – playing a common game on this side of the river, with one rolling a large hoop along the ground as others try to throw long poles through it from as far away as possible. It's a game I've played with Holly since I was young. The hands laugh and shout taunts to each other as they play.
One thin, relaxed man in a dark duster slouches down near the fire. Black hair hangs into his eyes, sticking out at odd angles from underneath a wide brown hat. It waves in the evening wind as if dancing along to the upbeat soprano melody he plays from a harmonica. He's no ranch hand. I recognize him immediately: He's Austin Ortega, the winner of the 52nd Hunger Games seventeen years ago. He may not look like much of a victor now, lying on an elbow in the dirt along with the husbandry workers, but he's one of the Capitol's favorite survivors – and one of the most polarizing figures in the district.
Austin volunteered for the Hunger Games, the annual contest of survival, skill, and brains put on by the capital city of our country, Panem. He didn't volunteer to be one of the twenty-four tributes from the twelve districts out of any obligation to his family, nor out of loyalty to a friend. Austin saw the Games the way few in District 10 do: As an uplifting, if risky, means to escape an ordinary life out on the prairie. As the son of a dairy plant machinery operator, Austin had little chance of having a life that didn't involve scraping to get by day after day. Now he's the richest man in District 10, an ideal shown off by the Capitol as the kind of success story forged by the Games.
I don't know what to make of Austin. The Hunger Games are part of life to me, a force of nature, a universal constant rather than any cruelty or the other derisive names tossed around the Meatpacking Quarter. They were in place when I was born, and they'll be going when I die. Most who are selected to participate in them never leave the arenas that host the Games with their lives. The few who do, like Austin, never worry again.
Nothing to worry about now, however. The 68th running of the Hunger Games ended three months ago, with the winner a lithe, enticing girl from District 1 named Persephone. The boy and girl from District 10 who Austin mentored died early on in the contest. I doubt he bat an eyelash over their fates. I didn't, either. I didn't know them and couldn't pick them out of the tens of thousands of others who live in District 10. Why worry?
"Wanna go down?" Holly asks, pointing down to the fire.
As if she'll let me say no. I shrug and say, "Sure."
We tie the reins of our horses to a nearby tree before heading down. Holly leaves me almost immediately, splitting off with three other older girls in a flurry of chatter. I don't recognize the workers around, almost all of whom are older than me. I stand awkwardly off to the side of the fire with my hands in my pockets until someone whistles loudly.
"Glenn girl?" a high, scratchy male voice calls out. "Summer Glenn, right? Why don'tcha sit down rather than just stand there like a statue?"
I glance over. Austin's staring at me with those smoky eyes of his, harmonica in hand. I've never spoken to the man in my life. How does he recognize me?
I maneuver around a pair of drunk, arguing ranch hands and squat down to his right. Austin sets his harmonica down and pitches a rock towards the hoop game going on nearby. His rock slices through the rolling hoop like a missile, cutting off into the growing darkness beyond.
"Don't think I've talked to you before," Austin says, staring back into the fire. "I hate not knowing people."
"You know my name," I say with a shrug.
"Yeah. Your chatty sister's hard to avoid," he says. "Guess I'll have to deal with it, though. I do business with your dad, and it sounds like he's grooming her to step into his shoes sometime down the road."
"He is."
"Well, that's no bad life. Big sky, open fields, herds of cows and fast horses. Little romantic, even."
"It's not your life."
I don't know why I said that. I glance back at the fire quickly as he turns to look at me. When I flick my eyes over at him again, I see shadowy demons dance across his clean-shaven face in the fire's light. Something in those smoldering eyes reminds me that I'm not talking to some kind-hearted victor, but a man who knifed his ally and district partner in the back during the final days of his Hunger Games.
"That's right," he says slowly. "It's not my life."
An awkward silence descends like a vulture between us. I curl my hands around my knees and stare at an angry coal in the bonfire. I've never been the best conversationalist. I'm not Holly, who stands twenty meters away with a pack of other girls and boys her age. I have friends, sure, and I'm not unpopular, but my circle of friends is small and close-knit. They're people who I'm comfortable trusting after years of knowing them.
Austin guffaws next to me. His laugh's high-pitched and sharp, like a jackal's cry. He pitches a handful of grass into the fire and says, "Quiet one. Whatcha hiding? You want my life too, heh? You want this, what, celebrity? Friendship, if you can call it that, with President Snow and Executor Scipio? Treating with Caesar Flickerman?"
He turns away and smoothes out a crease in his duster. "It ain't bad. Gotta be careful sometimes, though."
"Like when you have to kill somebody?"
Once again I say something stupid. This time, however, Austin merely raises an eyebrow and lies back before saying, "What makes you think I've killed anybody?"
"You won the Games," I shrug. "You killed, like, eight other tributes in it."
"Did I?"
"What else would you call it?"
"Shades of gray. You see things like Cal does, just in black and white," Austin says, referring to District 10's older surviving victor and winner of the 41st Hunger Games, Callum Taylor. "The Capitol puts on the Games. The people watch 'em. All I did was perform, like a gun firing a bullet. I was a particularly accurate gun. Do you blame the gun for shooting someone?"
"That's different. You volunteered."
"Not much different about it. The Games don't end until one person's left. The one black and white thing about the Games is that someone's going to be the gun. I just stepped up and let the Games fire me."
He waves his hand around the fire, glancing over at a pair of off-duty Peacekeepers talking to two flirty young women. "Look at me now. Better than living in the Quarter, heh? Sometimes it's good to be a gun."
I see why many people don't like this victor. Austin's cold view sends goosebumps across my arms, even in the warmth of the fire. I wonder if he even knew the names of the two kids he mentored this year.
"Does everyone in the Capitol think like that? Like they have no responsibility?" I say. Malice infects my words as I tighten my grip on my knees.
"You're an idealistic little thing, huh?" Austin says. "I know a lotta people don't like the Games. I'm not saying they're nice or whatever the Capitol calls 'em. Oh, yeah, a 'pageant of honor.' Not quite. People die. Not a whole lot of people from districts like ours want to volunteer to be a part of that. I get it."
I spit into the fire. "It's not like we really have great odds. How many times have the volunteer kids from the inner districts won in a row?"
"Seven. Ever since Enobaria in '62 and now up to Persephone this year. It might not look like we're trying, Summer, but Cal and I do. Every victor does, even if they're as drunk as a toddler with a beer."
"Do you give toddlers beer often?"
"When I want them to shut up, sure."
He laughs and throws another log into the fire. "That's a good metaphor for life after the Games. You get all the money and laurels for winning, new trinkets and attention and experiences. You get the best medical attention around courtesy of the Capitol and you'll never be hungry. You're safe from the things that'll kill ya here. But there's a dark side for those who didn't go in knowing what they wanted."
"Are you saying people should volunteer every year, or something?" I ask.
"Nah. But I am saying that people shouldn't think of the Games either as damning or 'honorable'. It's a mixed bag."
I rest my chin on my knee and gaze into the fire. "I wouldn't volunteer. Sorry."
"Well, you're what, fifteen?" he says with a shrug. "Sometimes the Games have a way of finding you. Maybe that's my way, where you've got nothing to lose. Or maybe it's because you're Reaped, and you've got no choice. It's a big district, and you don't need no tesserae, but I wouldn't start thinking too far ahead if I were you. Four more years of Reapings is a long time."
Austin stands up and wipes dirt off his pants. He stuffs his harmonica in his pocket, tosses another log on the fire, and says, "I'm going to go get the Peacekeepers drunk. Have a little fun with my evening. Now I know you, Summer Glenn. That's all I wanted."
He walks off without another word. I stare after him, wondering what to make of Austin Ortega. I don't understand his views. Volunteering for the Hunger Games is unthinkable in my eyes – not when I can work my father's ranch and live here without too many worries. Sure, Austin doesn't worry about anything anymore, besides what happens once a year in the arena. But why take that chance? Why risk everything on a slim chance of winning everything?
Holly walks up with a smile plastered on her face. She sits down next to me and points towards Austin's retreating figure, saying, "Were you talking to him?"
"Yeah," I say.
"You know Austin?"
"No. Well, I do now."
"Isn't he interesting?" Holly says with a glimmer in her eye. "I wonder what it'd be like to be him, to be able to go to the Capitol or any of the districts whenever he wants. Just to have all that…stuff."
Funny. I wonder what it'd be like to be my sister. She has her whole life planned out: No more Reapings, no more chances to become Austin Ortega – or the tributes he watches get killed every year. She's got the family ranch all laid out for her to take over when my parents grow old, and she's one of the more popular girls this side of the river. She really doesn't have any worries, just like Austin – except she's never killed a person. She's never been the gun.
Like Austin said, that possibility's still in my future. I've never thought much about being picked for the Games besides the past three Reaping Days that I've been eligible for. I've never thought about what it would be to step in front of the nation, to put myself on display, to open up every nook and cranny in my guarded soul for the crowd to ooh and aah over before waging war against twenty-three other kids in the exact same situation.
I shake away the thoughts. Better to stay here. Better to stay in front of the fire in this district. Maybe it's a slow life, maybe it's a tad too predictable, but that certainty has its benefits. It's not a bad life on this side of the river in District 10. It could be worse.
As Austin said, taking the dive into the Games has a dark side to it.
Author's note: Thanks for reading chapter 1! I'm always open to questions, comments, critiques, or whatnot, so feel free to open up about what you think any time while reading the story. I've taken some minor creative liberties with the Capitol and Panem for the story's effect, but nothing drastic. Just spicing up the Hunger Games with a little flair here and there.
The Hunger Games, Panem, the Districts, the Capitol, President Snow, Finnick Odair, Enobaria, Gloss, Glimmer, and all proprietary characters belong to Suzanne Collins. Rated T for violence, suggestive and aggressive themes, and the occasional swear word.