The countdown has started, the kids on the platforms are taking in the arena, and my heart is in my throat. Bloodbath time. In less than a minute both of the kids that Beale and I are mentoring could be dead. I look around at what I can see of the arena, it's a forest, an older one with big hardwood trees and evergreens. Not huge trees, not like in 7, but a good forest. It's cold there, the leaves have already fallen off of the trees and the wind is blowing pretty hard judging by the swaying tree limbs. It's that part of fall when the cold bites your nose and freezes your hands but you don't need a winter coat yet, just a warm jacket. The last withering flowers of summer poke their heads out here and there beneath the carpet of brown dead leaves. I bet at least a third of these kids die from exposure if they don't find something to keep them warm at night. It's my favorite time of year at home, when it comes naturally; but this autumn is faked, it's really the end of June and most of Panem is experiencing the heat of summer. But it doesn't matter what the reality is because in the arena its cold and its autumn and I have two tributes in there to bring home. I strain forward in my seat as the clock counts down the seconds before the bloodbath. I'm so intent on the scene in front of me that I can almost smell the trees and feel the chill of the wind. The gong sounds, the tributes are running, the carnage is beginning. My eyes flit back and forth between the small tribute screens and the larger overhead shot that is being broadcast out to the rest of Panem. I nearly jump out of my skin when Beale reaches over and squeezes my arm reassuringly. I realize that I've been gripping the arms of my chair so hard that my knuckles are white and the checked pattern of the upholstery is imprinted on my skin. We exchange a look and I can see that he's feeling the same things that I am, fear, hope, sadness. No matter what happens at the cornucopia none of the children in the arena will ever be the same again.
Our tributes this year are named Calvin and Fern. He is fifteen and she is fourteen. They are also brother and sister. I thought I was going to be sick at the reaping when our District Escort Adele called two children up to the stage who had the same last name, the same brown eyes, the same smattering of freckles on their faces. I could tell that Beale too was trying to hold back any type of reaction but I could see his eyes mist up for a second before he gained control of himself. I scanned the crowd for their parents and saw a couple with two more children who looked be around eight or nine huddled together quietly crying. Factory workers most likely, they didn't look as if they had eaten well in a while. I looked at the two kids on the stage and then back at the two children who were most likely their brother and sister and thought how terrible it was that the two younger ones would have to learn about the realities of life and death so soon and in such a brutal way; they would most likely see one or both of their siblings slaughtered on live television. Their little faces brought to mind a song that I sometimes heard Beale singing under his breath; a song everyone in District 6 knows and the men sometimes sing as they walk to work in the factories. It's a song mothers use to warn their children about the evils of the Capitol and the Hunger Games. It used to be about something else, maybe even just a poem instead of a song, but when the Dark Days ended and the Capitol punished the Districts with the Hunger Games the song became about how the Capitol took our children away, how they lured them in with the promise of riches and glory and led them to straight to their deaths which in turn murdered the rebellious spirit of the Districts.
Come little children Come little children Follow sweet children Weep not poor children Hush now dear children Rest now my children Come little children Come little children
I'll take thee away, into a land
of Enchantment
the time's come to play
here in my garden
of shadows
I'll show thee the way
through all the pain and
the sorrows
for life is this way
murdering beauty and
passions
it must be this way
to weary of life and
deceptions
for soon we'll away
into the calm and
the quiet
I'll take thee away, into a land
of enchantment
the time's come to play
here in my garden
of shadows
The creepy little tune starts to play in my head and I think how well the words of the song fit our lives in the Districts with a Capitol who takes our children and murders them and the passion of the rebels along with them. We tell our kids to hush their protests and cries against the Capitol because it will do no good, it's just how life is. Funny how a poem written hundreds of years ago so aptly describes life in Panem centuries later. They say that the man who wrote it was crazy and a drunk, but maybe he saw the future, maybe he saw the horror that was coming. I felt for him, the long dead poet. He numbed his pain with booze, I liked morphling better, the numbness lasted longer. The two kids on the stage would be thrown into the Capitol's garden of shadows in just a little over a week. If there was any higher power that had any mercy on people their trip to the calm and the quiet would be quick and relatively painless; but probably not.