All rights to Suzanne Collins, actual author of the The Hunger Games trilogy.
UPDATE: I'm going through and editing for typos. If you see any, please just leave a review about them, and I'll get to them as fast as I can. I found out I wrote the first couple chapters without a set language dictionary, so Auto-Correct didn't highlight anything. Ugh.
One slip in thousands. That's all I have.
Roped off at the back of town square, I can barely see the district's outrageously gaudy escort. It was probably for the best. Everything she said sounded like mad whispers calling me forward, omens that the odds would betray me. It was as though her every word about the glory of the Capitol was ladened with some dread just for me. I was afraid enough of what she was saying; I didn't need to be terrified further by a nightmarish image.
What I could see, I found myself unable to ignore: the video she had each year about the rebellion over seventy years ago, and how it led to the creation of the Hunger Games. I was alone in my attentiveness, and as each bullet flew in the video, they seemed to fly out and shoot everyone in town square. Everyone in the district just started dropping in a gross shower of lead and blood and flesh, and I couldn't scream, I couldn't cower, I couldn't help. I could only stand and watch and let it happen, let thousands of people die around me by the Capitol's hand.
One slip in thousands. That's all I have. I owe it all to Katniss that, for my first reaping, everything is stacked in my favor. More than that, mom and I both owe it to her that we've survived these past five years. She's already on her way to the woods by the time I wake up, back to the hunting we've depended on.
Mom seems to know the moment I wake up, for she rises right up with me. There are some tear stains on the canvas bed sheet- mattress cover, more accurately- and from where they are so close to mom's chest, I can tell they were mine. And if they were mine, there could only be one reason why. The day finally came for that first reaping I've been afraid of for so long.
I've been afraid ever since Katniss's first reaping, terrified that her bravery in hunting and taking tesserae would get her killed, either in the wilderness or in the dreaded, awful arena of the Hunger Games, and that we would soon follow. So afraid that her name would be called to slaughter that it took a nightmare to remind me that, at last, it might be mine instead. Afraid that, even if it happened, she'd make the wrong choice and take my place. We'd never survive without her, if Katniss died in the games.
It'd much more likely be her. Every bit of the odds is stacked against Katniss, I almost can't believe she's dodged it all so far. Every year, there's one more slip; every year, anyone's doom becomes more and more likely, but there's a catch. There was only one catch, and that was the tesserae. It's an unfathomably, odiously bad deal. One more slip in the bowl for one year's worth of grain and oil. It was our sustenance for four years, and I swear, it probably came more from our district than District 9 or 11. That's where mass agriculture is supposed to happen, not here. There's good grain and actual oil out there somewhere, but it isn't the tesserae rations. The oil ration burns almost as well as coal dust. The grain ration tastes about the same way, and I can't say it's that much healthier either.
No, of course the rations aren't supposed to be very high quality. That's why they exist for the most desperate families. But "food" that has nearly the edibility of solid petroleum should not be an acceptable standard anywhere.
There was this one incident, a long time ago, that almost faded from memory but still gets joked about in school, where for an entire year, all Capitol documents had every occurrence of the numbers 10 and 12 swapped. For the entire year, the most popular use of District 10 livestock in the Capitol was ritual sacrifice by incineration in coal furnaces. Metal production was severely hindered, and it turns out District 2 was blamed for the setback. But that wasn't the best part.
The best result of the incident was the most popular use of District 12 coal in the Capitol. I have to get this right: it was taught- in a sense- as "Government sponsored mass assassination by unidentified toxic agents." It goes without saying that coal can be quite lethal.
When ingested.
The point is that coal, and anything that has the nutritious value of coal, should not be an acceptable source of food, and the Capitol should know this. I sigh as get dressed in the same skirt and blouse Katniss wore exactly four years ago. It only now occurs to me that she was really big, even back then. Her old clothes are such a loose fit on me that when I show mom, I can find the slightest trace of a smile on her face as she goes to find pins to hold it all together. It still looks silly, and I can't figure out how the tuck the back in. Nonetheless, it's one small comfort today to know that she made it out so far, and I can, too.
These good thoughts persist all through the morning as mom and I take inventory on the medical supplies. The basics: cloth, adhesives and disinfectants, are all in standard supply. That is, there's not much, but not much less than we're used to. There's certainly enough to make do, which means I'll be restocking within a few days. There's also a surprise in the inventory. For once, there's an abundance of herbs, enough to make painkiller remedies for dozens of people should the unnerving case that they'd all need it arise.
It's all we can do as an alternative to morphling. It's not as strong a sedative, and consequently not as addictive, nor as effective a narcotic, but our herbal remedies are sometimes called "budget morphling," because the real deal is expensive. Far too expensive for a family in the Seam to use regularly, though mom has a small amount of it kept for dire emergencies hidden somewhere in the house.
I've never looked for it; we've never really needed it, but it's there. I know there's some way to make morphling, since it has to come from somewhere, although here in District 12, the morphling supply comes exclusively from the Capitol. It's one of the very few things they can give us to make us dependent on them, one of the few things that we can't completely substitute with a medicine of our own. And it's something that I can't afford to let Buttercup even have a chance of stumbling across.
I see him, the lean, adorable cat that Katniss insists is unbearable to have around, reaching for a locked box in a cupboard. He's trying, that's for sure, and Katniss would no doubt take this moment to point out how stupid he looks jumping up and down trying to claw at a piece of wood. He's not in danger of actually getting any purchase on that box, let alone pulling it anywhere, but I creep up on him as he's in his single minded focus and grab him by his once worm-infested tummy. Buttercup looks so cute with all his legs extended in the box's direction, I giggle until he relaxes him limbs and rests his head against my arms.
I set him down on the ground near a leg of the kitchen table. I glance by at an empty bowl and smile, knowing Katniss got the gift I left for her. I head outside to the little shack behind our house where Lady sleeps, just pausing to ask mom, "Is there anything I should go out to get?"
She's still going over the supplies, having moved on from medicine to food, which we're eternally short on. "No, Prim, not today," is her reply. Katniss is certainly in the woods with Gale, so she'll just as certainly be bringing something back. It's also reaping day; there's not much chance that anyone would have their shops open. I don't blame them, but as healers in the District, we have to be ready for business all the time.
The goat shack looks like it could use some work. That is to say, it looks to be in just a tiny bit worse condition than our house, because it could all stand to use some work. Lady's still asleep as I approach, and I sit down next to her, stroking her soft fur until she moves. In my caress with Lady, I can tell that it's nearly time to shear her fur for winter clothes. She finally stirs, perhaps to let me know she's awake and has been for a few minutes now.
I grab the tin bucket and begin pumping water in it to rinse it out of any dirt it may have gotten and dust it almost certainly has. The pump is tough today; it may have something to do with the underground well it's connected to. There wasn't much rain until a few days ago, so the well might have slightly dried out. It's on its way back.
After that, I cup my hands in the cold water and let it fall on Lady to clean her up as well. I pour just a little bit on her and rub her as stiffly as I can. Just around when she starts baaing is good. From front to back, and rubbing outwards from where I splash her, I repeat until the water in the bucket is only a part of an inch deep- less than an eighth. I dump the last of the water, the dirtiest of it, on the ground and prepare to gather milk.
I come inside with the milk to find mom starting a fire in the pit. For water, I assume, and take the other bucket out to the pump. This one's kept inside and nearly always clean; we only ever put water in it. It's made of two metals: steel and copper, and is one of the most valuable things in our entire house. I bring back the water and leave it near the fire pit before going to help mom bottle the milk in glass jars. That counts. It's the least we can do for Katniss when she comes back to give her a warm bath. Well, that and it's reaping day, so she has to look presentable.
That water doesn't have to be heated until a little before noon, though, since she's not going to be back until then. And until then, we've essentially got free time on our hands, so I pick up some of the papers from life science class and compare it to mom's plant journal. I end up lost, looking back and forth between the notes on katniss roots in the book and the papers. As long as we have this, we'll never starve. There wasn't a thing in the world that could be more true than that.
The time finds its way back into order when Buttercup walks up to and leans against my legs. I shake my fixation on the plants right on the page about poppy plants to reach down and pet him on the head and scratch behind the ears. I notice something on my school papers as I'm scrunched over: poppy plants were once harvested for a narcotic drug called morphine. It really can't exist coincident with morphling; it has to have some connection. Poppies were also harvested for their seeds and oil in culinary uses, notably its use in some kinds of bread. I wonder whether the Mellark bakery uses poppy plants in its cooking.
There are a few notes on poisonous plants towards the end as well, detailing what to avoid. Most of them are flashy and colorful, but a few insidious ones are more muted in coloration. Nightlock in particular is a nasty trap that looks almost indistinguishable from blackberries except for the blood red juices. It's a lot like nightshade, another similarity too stark to be a coincidence, and when I see hemlock, I wonder just how the two could be combined.
Katniss used to look through mom's book with me, and I'm suddenly reminded that it's probably around noon, so I move the bucket over the still-burning fire pit. This prompts mom to look for something for Katniss to wear, and what she comes up with is a lovely light blue dress that must have come from her days at the apothecary. She finds shoes to match, and the anticipation of seeing Katniss dressed nice chews at me from inside as I bring Buttercup up onto my lap.
At last, she's back, carrying a sack of fish, warm bread and fruits and vegetables, and mom and I help her to a warm bath to wash off all the dirt and dust from the woods and the Hob. There's something to be said about her stoicism, and we let Katniss handle her bath herself. I go to get a towel, and I hear her ask mom, "Are you sure?" She's seen the dress laid out for her.
"Of course," mom tells her as I bring a towel back. "Let's put your hair up too." Katniss sits on the mattress after putting on the dress as mom dries and braids her hair.
Her image in the cracked mirror is such a radical change from normal, every bit of my anticipation has been met. "You look beautiful," I say in a hushed voice and with only part of my breath.
"And nothing like myself." She hugs me, putting her arms around me like a suit of armor, or a shield. A shield in front of me that leaves her exposed. There's a tension in her embrace, a rare sign of stress and fear that she displays just for a moment. She loosens her arms and says, "Tuck your tail in, little duck," smoothing out the ruffle of the blouse behind me. The part that just wouldn't tuck in no matter what mom or I did.
"Quack," I say, giggling.
Katniss answers me, "Quack yourself," with a light laugh. A sound that doesn't come out of her often. "Come on, let's eat," she says kissing my forehead.
Mom has refilled the steel bucket with water for a fish and vegetable stew for supper and placed it over the fire pit. The bread and strawberries will be saved for the same time, leaving us to a lunch of things we're intimately familiar with: tesserae grain bread and goat milk. After lunch, at one o'clock, we head out to town square.
It's one of the few nice places in the district, even having a festive feeling to it on the more festive of days. There are shops all around and when they're open and buzzing with bartering and conversation, it really feels different from the Seam. But today, in spite of all the decoration, with Capitol cameras settled like vultures, it is the worst place in the world.
And as I take my place in the back, I find myself on the edge, dividing the circle of victims from the circle of grievance. But there are those who never grieve. Those whose minds and hearts are so long gong that all they care about now is money. Those that bet on what kind of children will get called up to be tributes. That's the worst of it, that there exist people who care so little about their own district and neighbors. To me, there's not a thing more despicable; not even the Hunger Games themselves can claim to be something so overwhelmingly present in such close proximity.
I'm roped off at the back of town square where I can barely see the district's escort, Effie Trinket. She's dressed like castor bean poison, in bright pink hair, green suit and white smile. To her side was the mayor and an empty chair. The two are talking about something, possibly the absence of whoever is supposed to be in that chair, but when two o'clock comes, the mayor steps up to give a history speech.
It's marginally interesting to hear where it diverges from the history we're taught in school, as all the cataclysms he lists off: the droughts, floods, storms and fires, contain no mention of that asteroid strike from nearly a century back. The result of disaster was war, and of subjugation, tyranny. There was a rebellion, in which the last of the thirteen districts was obliterated by the first use of nuclear weapons in Panem. The Dark Days, this rebellion was called, saw another cycle of war, subjugation and tyranny.
This second era of tyranny was the Hunger Games. IS the Hunger Games. "It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," the mayor concludes. He then unwittingly reminds us of our eternally bleak chances of surviving the games by reading aloud the names of all the past victors.
Both of them.
"Juno Blackie and Haymith Abernathy." Haymitch stumbles onto the stage completely hammered with alcohol, and in the ensuing farce, he gives Effie Trinket a hug. Nobody can guess why. The mayor scrambles to keep control of the situation by calling Effie up to do the reapings.
"Happy Hunger Games!" she cheerfully announces as though it were really nothing more than a game. Like it really was the annual sporting competition we all had to behave like it was. Her accent, distinctive of the Capitol, truly shines through, "And may the odds be ever in your favor!" There's something almost melodic to her voice in the way she builds up to the one word she wishes to accent most. When she takes over, there is a video displaying, further emphasizing the points the mayor already made. Just more Capitol propaganda about the horrors of war.
But they're right. As the bullets zoom across the screen and the white flashes of bomb blasts wash away the images, and as the sounds of the myriad of explosions drown out any would-be noise within miles, it almost, almost feels like the violence comes out of the silver and into the weary gray of town square. This time, nobody collapses, and I can see Effie Trinket clearly enough to make note that she's reciting every word of the video, and even preempting some of it in excitement.
It dawns on me immediately that the propaganda is not for the Districts, but for the Capitol itself. And finally, when the video is finished, she turns back to the crowd to make the reapings happen. "Ladies first!" as is her tradition. She reaches into the bowl of girls' names and takes her time to choose one slip of paper.
The dynamics of the sound in town square are dramatic. Before, you couldn't hear yourself think. But now, after one final collective breath from the whole population of eight thousand, there was nothing to be heard except the wind.
Until Effie Trinket reads out the name: "Saige Camphor!"
AN: Well, now that that's out of the way, I hope you've enjoyed the first chapter of "The Winter Frost" and the very first part of what I hope will be the "Catching Cold" series.