A/N. I was very intrigued by the character of Foxface in the Hunger Games. This story is meant to be about her experiences, written in the form of a diary kept by Foxface from the Reaping onward into her time in the Arena. Obviously, there will be Hunger Games spoilers here. I apologize for any awkwardness with the language...this is the first time I've tried to write in first person. Warnings include more mature themes (death/violence) and possible language later on in the story. I'm not sure how long it will be in the end, but intend to write from the Reaping up through the Games. The title translates as "I came, I saw."
Veni, Vidi
Culled
My name is Lucretia de Vries.
It is a ridiculous name. My father says that names have power, and my mother had great expectations for her offspring. She saddled my brother and me with these grandiose names reminiscent of the opulence she saw in the Capitol. She was loath to bring another Bolt or Watt or Electra into District 5. Now the tribute train snakes towards the Capitol while I write. I wonder what my mother would say if she could see me now. Somehow, I do not think this was she expected for my future.
I will never know. My mother died six years ago, after Tavian was electrocuted during his apprenticeship. Even the powerful Capitol medicine could not save him. She killed herself out of grief and unfounded guilt. I am thankful she did not live to see her only daughter reaped for slaughter in the Arena.
My mother was a doctor. I favor her physically: slight of build with a pale pointed face, wide amber eyes peering out from under red hair. My father is the Chief Engineer for all District Five. He is the wisest man I know. Even the Capitol scientists defer to his knowledge on the generation and delivery of electricity. I favor him in nature: precise and dispassionate, my words always weighed and measured before speaking. One day I will follow in his footsteps: first as a lowly operator or shift engineer, then advancing through the ranks to Plant Engineer, onwards and upwards towards Chief Engineer.
At least, that was my plan. Until this morning. Until my name was selected for the cull they euphemistically call the Hunger Games.
Is anyone ever truly prepared to be Reaped? There, I've written the evil word…writing it makes it concrete. Writing it makes it real. I have been Reaped.
Perhaps I will be able to make sense of this newfound twist of my fate by putting my thoughts down in concrete form, indelible words on a physical page. Maybe my father sensed this. He gave me this tiny book in which I now write, smaller than the palm of my hand, the pages specially prepared so only he will be able to read them when I am retrieved from the Arena. Not even the Capitol knows all of my father's secrets. Neither will they have mine.
Today, the day of my Reaping, began much as any other. I ate silently at the polished table with my father; a good breakfast of sausage fried with chiles, and biscuits spread with honey. He had even allowed coffee to be prepared. We are one of the richest families in the district, but one would never know from our table. My father rose from humble beginnings by hard work and sheer intelligence. He never forgot the hard lessons of his childhood, even though with his elevated position we seldom wanted for anything.
Like everywhere in Panem, school was cancelled for the Reaping. Even we Track 3 students were given a reprieve from the endless equations and circuit diagrams and schematics essential for the running of the massive power plants in our district. This purely technical education was not satisfactory for my father. He said that a truly educated person studied everything, not only was what most useful or practical in the moment. For this purpose he kept a store of precious books, old knowledge from the old world. They had been carefully collected from his travels all over Panem. I was to spend a portion of each day studying this literature: natural sciences, art, literature, even a forbidden history of the world before the Dark Times. The books were our secret, protected by my father's silence and elevated position. Usually, each morning over breakfast I would be quizzed over one of these tomes until my father was satisfied. But Reaping Day is not like other days.
"Thank the Fates you will be nineteen this year, Cree," my father said, glancing up from one of the plant's monthly progress reports. I looked up in surprise. He rarely called me by this pet name. It was once Tavian's nickname for me. "This will be your last Reaping Day."
"It will be a relief," I agreed. He looked back to his report, and I back to my breakfast. Many of the residents of District Five worship one god. They invoke him to protect them against electrocution or injury from the huge generators, when the sun disappears behind clouds and output drops, to protect their children from Reaping for the Hunger Games.
My father and I know there is no god in Panem but the God of Chance.
We finished our meal and walked to the town square together. It was filling steadily with people, mostly children between the ages of 12 and 18. District Five is not large and the plants must be kept running at all times, so only non-essential personnel (usually those in the drawing and their families) attend the actual ceremony. The Capitol was kind enough to install large television monitors all the way from District 3 inside the plants, so the essential workers are not excluded from the festivities.
My stomach twisted nervously when I separated from my father to join the other girls in my year. He had to report to the ramshackle stage; which time blackened with soot and pollution. It had been hung with black and red banners, the colors of the dual polarities that dominate our lives in Five, in a Peacekeeper-enforced attempt at festivity. Some districts relish the Games. We do not. Five is a practical district, and the Games are wasteful of life and resources.
I have never liked the square. The Justice Building sits on one end, dwarfed by the huge smokestacks of the three main coal-burning plants. The vast majority of the power from their generators goes to the Capitol, as evidenced by the forest of power lines extending vaguely north-west. Fewer lines radiate from here, the center of Five, out towards the other districts. Here I feel like I am trapped in the center of a large, dirty spiderweb.
My deskmate Cathode was waiting for me with the other female eighteens. She is as close to a friend as I will ever have. We are both small and lightly built, which makes us look younger than our years. Her pale blonde hair had been pulled up into a severe knot. My own thick red mane was tied into a single tail with a green ribbon to match my dress. The dark green ribbon is the only one I own. I've never been one for feminine things. Cath murmured a compliment about my dress, a relic from my mother. I noticed a dark smudge on her dress from where her mother (who works unloading the coal trains from Twelve) adjusted it before following Cath and her brothers to the square, but I said nothing.
"Who d'you reckon's in for it this year?" Polarity Jenkins, an obnoxious girl with frizzy hair, whispered from Cath's other side. We always line up by class rank in our year. I am top, Cath is second, and Polarity is third. She has been gunning for Cath's seat for five years. Neither of us can stand her.
"Who knows?" snapped Cath. She hid it well, but I could hear the anxiety we all shared in her voice. Like me, Cath has never taken any tesserae, but there was still a remote chance of being chosen. "Maybe it'll be you."
"Bet you'd like that, eh? You wouldn't have to work so hard to stay ahead of me."
Cath snorted indignantly. I smiled, licking my lips in preparation for a cutting riposte. But before either of us could reply, one of the seventeens snapped: "Quiet!"
Further talk was stymied by the arrival of the mayor. He formally greeted my father (as Chief Engineer, he is the second most important citizen of District 5) and Lora Fervan, the woman who escorts District 5's Tributes to the Games. We all stand more or less at attention, parching under the hot sun and desert air. I allowed my mind to wander during the reading of the history of Panem. I know it all by heart anyway. The solar operators will be happy today. Maybe they will let me be a solar operator when I finish school; it would be much more pleasant to work in the open desert than the pollution of the coal-fired plants or the omnipresent noise of the hydroelectric plant. The sky is perfectly clear; they should have excellent output today. I begin to do the calculation in my head, beginning with the area of the solar panels and their average output. Subtract some for dust coverage, as the weekly cleaning has not yet occurred-
Cath elbowed me before I could finish the computation, because Escort Lora Fervan had taken the stage. The tension level in the crowd ratcheted skyward. Today she is Fate Incarnate. She is a stately older woman with steel-gray hair; surprisingly normal-looking for a Capitol woman and a fixture of the Games in Five. Her no-nonsense demeanor and general lack of Capitol frivolity has earned her a modicum of grudging respect in our district. She is flanked by two of the former victors, a drunken woman named Yana and my relation Faraday Cromwell, Five's most recent winner. We collectively held our breaths as she reached into the turning drum to select the name of this year's unfortunate girl.
Her glistening talons methodically opened the small slip of paper. She read in a clear, perfectly modulated voice: "Lucretia de Vries!"
My heart stopped. Cath's fingers dug painfully into my wrist. All eyes and lenses were suddenly on me.
I swallowed hard, feeling the blood drain from my face. My name, Lucretia, was the name of an ancient princess who sacrificed her life for honor. Am I to be sacrificed as well?
A/N: Please review! If this gets enough interest, I'll continue it.