She is five years old, clutching her father's hand tightly as they stand in a line with other children and parents in front of a crumbling brick building that housed their district's education system. She can see the other children who were to be her classmates, clothed in an assortment of colours and either chattering excitedly or clinging to their mothers' skirts looking like lost lambs. She can hear the murmurs of the parents, exchanging gossip or discussing in hushed tones topics that would never do to be overhead by somebody else. She can smell the drab grey smell (at least that is how she put it) emitting from the building, so she pulls herself closer to her father and buries her face in his shirt, breathing in the familiar warm scent of freshly baked bread. She looks up and smiles at her father, whose face displays a returning smile as warm as the bread he bakes.
"You nervous?" he asks.
She nods. "A little."
"Don't worry. You'll do fine here." He gives her hand a reassuring squeeze and pats her head. She nods and turns to look at the people around her, only to be met by a pair of startlingly grey eyes. They stare at each other for one still moment, then he turns away. She might have as well, but the grey eyes remain in her mind's vision, and so she continues staring in his direction.
Her father notices his daughter seemingly preoccupied with something and follows her gaze. He bends down and points out the boy with the grey eyes to her. "See that little boy? I wanted to marry his mother, but she ran off with a coal miner."
She gapes at her father in disbelief. "A coal miner? Why did she want a coal miner when she could've had you?"
A strange look comes over his face. "Because when he sings… even the birds stop to listen."
She turns back to stare at the boy, then at his father with whom his is currently absorbed in conversation with. She watches as they both burst out laughing, oblivious to the stares of those around them, as if they shared some sort of private joke. She stares at the father's merry face, animated with hilarity. Is his voice really so enthralling that even the birds would be captivated by it? Just then, the line starts shifting into the building, so she looks away and clutches her father's hand even more tightly as they file through the open doors with everyone else.
The day passes by, and soon she finds herself seated in a pillar of weak sunlight shining through a window, gathered with the rest of her class as the teacher took attendance for the music assembly. She turns her head and smiles at the blonde girl next to her, who beams back at her in return. They have been friends as far back as they could remember, growing up side by side in the nicer part of the district, far from the coal mines and the Seam. Just then, the teacher finishes taking attendance and she turns her attention back to the front.
"Now children, since this is your first day of school we'll start with some simple songs." The teacher's eyes scan the room full of upturned young faces staring at her. "Who knows the valley song?"
There is a moment of silence in the room. She leans towards her friend. "Delly, what's the valley song?"
"I don't know," Delly whispers back. "I think - " she stops abruptly as a hand shot right up in the air – his hand. The two girls watch as the teacher places a stool in the front of the room and gestures for him to stand on it. He gets up accordingly, his red plaid shirt gleaming in the sunlight, and stands facing the rest of the class. Then the first few lines flow from his throat - and there was complete silence.
The birds, she realizes as her eyes, along with everyone else, fix firmly on the little figure with the grey eyes. They're all silent.
He continues singing, his voice rich and melodious, with a hint of the deeper tone he would develop later on when he grew older. There is no other sound in the room, not even a slight intake of breath, for everybody seemed to have been struck dumb by his song. When he finishes, he stands there on the stool, staring at his silent classmates who stare back at him, and starts to fidget nervously, not used to having so many eyes trained on him. He glances at his teacher for assistance, and she blinks twice as if waking up from a dream before nodding for him to take his seat.
As he gets down from the stool, the entire class breaks out in hushed whispers. From beside her, Delly's adoring eyes follow the boy as he returns to the space he occupied previously at the very back of the class. "Wow, who knew he could sing that well? I've never heard anyone sing like that before!"
But there is someone else, she thinks. The coal miner who even the birds stop to listen when he sings... the one who the boy's mother ran off with... his father must have passed his talent on to him. And she knew, right then, that like the boy's mother, she was also a goner.
...
She is working with her mother in the bakery, kneading the dough that would be baked into the next day's bread. She is so engrossed in her work that she does not notice her mother leaving her side until she hears the shrill voice she knows so well screaming at something outside from the doorway. Curious, she makes her way to her mother to see what is happening, all the while listening to her shouting about moving on and do they want her to call the Peacekeepers and how sick she is of having those brats from the Seam pawing through her rubbish. From her mother's words, she deduced that a few hungry Seam kids were searching through their rubbish bins for something to eat, desperate as they were for anything remotely edible that could be found. She peers out from behind her mother's back, and her eyes widen as she recognizes the soaked figure backing away from the bakery.
It was him.
Her mother goes back into the bakery, grumbling under her breath, but she continues to watch as he stumbles behind the pen where their pig lived and slumps against the far side of an old apple tree that has been growing in their backyard for as long as she could remember. She sees the tired look on his face, his grey eyes weak with sickness, and as she returns to the warmth of the bakery kitchen all she is thinking about is how could she help him. Then her gaze falls on the rack filled with loaves of bread, set over the fireplace to keep them warm.
Clash!
Next thing she knows, her mother is screaming again and her face is stinging from the blow delivered just a second ago. She is sent outside with two burnt loaves of bread, the crusts scorched black from the fire. As her feet slosh through the mud towards the pig pen, her mother continues yelling. "Feed it to the pig, you stupid creature! Why not? No one decent will buy burned bread!"
As she tears off chunks of burnt bread and tosses them into the trough, the front bakery bell rung and her mother disappears to help a customer. Still, she does not dare to look at the boy in case her mother somehow saw her, and she takes one wary glance back at the bakery to make sure she couldn't be seen before throwing the loaves of bread, one after the other, towards the apple tree, all the while keeping her eyes on the pig. Then she sloshes back to the akery and closes the kitchen door tightly behind her, but not before sneaking a glance at the boy to see him staring at the loaves in - what? Disbelief? Gratitude? All she knows now, as a hand rubs the red mark on her cheek unconsciously, is that his family will be eating a little better tonight, which means her actions were worth it. Even if he might not remember what happened today in the future, she knows that she won't forget the day she helped the boy in the rain.
...
She stands on the stage, trying to remain emotionless, but inside her veins are coursing with alarm and panic. She is still trying to recover from the shock of a few moments ago, when her name was called out, because she knows that she is now on a journey from which there is no return, and which will result in an undoubtedly painful end. Somewhere far away, she vaguely registers Effie Trinket reaching into the glass ball that contains the boys' names. She automatically wishes for his safety - like she always does every year, but this year is especially important, seeing as that she does not want to face the last few weeks of her life with the prospect of having to kill him - as the pink-haired escort smoothes the slip of paper, and then gasps with the rest of the crowd as she reads out the name. It isn't him, but it is worse.
The crowd murmurs unhappily as the little child, smaller than his brother had been at his age, walking stiffly towards the stage, the back of his shirt hanging out over his pants that are slightly too big for him. And then she hears his voice, the one who struck the birds silent in the classroom so long ago. "No!"
He runs through the path suddenly allocated by the crowd and pushes his brother away just as the latter is about to mount the steps. "I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!"
As the whole scene is thrown into confusion, she stares dumbly at the boy who she has had a crush ever since she was five. If he becomes tribute - as he most certainly will insist on, for it is clear how much he cares for his brother - then what will she do? She cannot kill him - not him - but the alternative is an early death, for he will surely be a formidable opponent in the arena, strong that he is from all that hunting in the forests. Yet she cannot bring herself to contemplate even hurting him, or anyone for that matter, for while he just might actually become the district's first victor in almost three decades, she is most likely to be one of the casualties on the first day. She cannot kill, she cannot hunt - she doesn't even stand a chance.
But now the mayor is finishing the Treaty of Treason and the two tributes are required to shake hands. She holds his calloused hand in hers and tries to gives a reassuring squeeze, but she is shaking so much he will most likely mistake it for a nervous spasm instead. As they turn back to face the crowd and the anthem plays, she briefly considers the idea that someone might kill him before she has to - or, more likely, kill her before she can even get her hands on a decent weapon - but any options now are very much undesirable to her. Still, she is now standing here next to him, closer than they have ever been and yet soon to be driven apart by the need for survival, and her muddled mind somehow comes up with a clear thought.
I will not hurt him. Not the boy in the rain.
Whew! Been quite some time since I published anything on this site; hope my writing skills haven't gotten too rusty! This is my first Hunger Games fic, which I'd been working on for quite some time, and any comments and suggestions as to where I should improve and/or what I should keep in my future fics would be warmly appreciated! Thanks for reading!