I am soooooooo nervous to post this! This was my Big Bang from last September. I never finished it and it sat in my computer until about a month ago when I started writing it again. Let's just say that I've worked really hard on it and I hope you guys enjoy it.
Always Home
Characters: Luke's POV (age 14), Reid (age 17), Little bit of: Casey (16), Lily, Holden, Faith, Natalie, Ethan and other Oakdale characters
Pairings: Luke/Casey, Luke/Reid
Rating: R for violence and language
WARNING: People will die in this, that's the basis of the story. I'm not saying who dies though, but if you've read the book you know how it works.
Synopsis: After a terrible civil war North America is in ruins and is split up into 15 Districts. The country is called Oakdale, it is a totalitarian regime. Every year to mark the anniversary of The Republic crushing the civil war, they celebrate The Reaping where one member of each District must participate in a battle to the death, with one soul survivor.
Thank you: to my wonderful beta, Slayerkitty who has been helping me out this past month because apparently I don't know grammar, lol! She has been, and continues to be, a big help so thank you very much!
Author's note: This is based off of Hunger Games. If you've read the book recently or seen the movie the first few chapters might be boring because I'm setting up the premise for those who don't know. It's not exactly the same, I tried to change some parts so I wasn't completely copying. Once it gets into the game itself things will be sort of different. And of course it's with Luke and Reid.
Ps: If anyone feels inclined to make me some fic art, well that would be really nice! PM me if you're interested.
CHAPTER 1
I wrestle awake with a choking thought in my heart. Through the window I can see the dawn breaking against the darkness; the day I have been dreading is finally rising. I slip my covers off, careful not to stir my two sisters and baby brother who share the bed with me. My mother sleeps in a bed across the room, my father's spot already vacant, having slipped out earlier to get work done before The Reaping.
I trudge my bare feet against the packed soil floor, the tips of my toes blue against the cold earth. I grab a few logs as I enter the great room and re-start the fire in the hearth that had died during the night. As smoke creeps up the chimney I make my way to the cabinets and grab cornflower and a mixing bowl. I measure water and flour into the bowl until they combine into a dry dough.
I press the ground corn dough into the palms of my hands and make loosely packed cakes. I dip them in goose fat and set them in a pan to fry. On most days that is all we have to eat, but a few days ago my brother Ethan had his birthday and we were gifted a small jar of strawberry preserves. We have eaten most of it, but I set out the rest on the table. Since today is a special day, one that may be the last that we all eat together, I figure we can have a treat.
Today is the first day of The Reaping. The Reaping is a game, and I use the term loosely, that The Republic has set up. One member of each District is picked to compete against the others in a battle to the death. We are picked at random - the names of every child twelve to eighteen are placed in a cauldron and picked by the Master of Ceremonies. Once picked the child gets a few minutes to say goodbye to their family before being transported by train to the holding center in the middle of The Republic.
A few days later all the kids are put into an arena and set loose with few supplies where they will have to hunt, gather, evade, and kill each other until only one remains alive. All of this carnage is broadcast live throughout Oakdale and the citizens are required to watch.
Today at noon we must dress in our best clothes and join the rest of the District in the square where they will pick the contestant. In my family I am the only one of age to be submitted, my sisters and brother too young yet to join. Some brave children volunteer, for only one person from each family may ever be picked. You can risk your life for your family's safety and this makes your death all the more interesting to watch for the viewers. They love sad stories of heroics and sacrifice. They also love long drawn out bloody deaths.
Although I love my family very much, I am too weak, and too unskilled to join voluntarily. My father and my mother forbid it. And so, this year like the last few, my name will be in amongst all the other children.
Oakdale is made up of 15 Districts and The Republic. Each District has its specialty. My District, District 8, is agriculture. We grow all the food for Oakdale. Even though our District grows all the food, we cannot eat it. The Republic takes it all and gives us the same meager rations as the other 14 Districts. District 9 is next to us and they specialize in medicine. The only time one gets to leave their District is to travel to District 9. Only the severely ill and injured, or pregnant woman around the time of birth may travel to District 9 to get treatment.
Some of the other District specialties are: coal mining in District 7, Districts 5 and 11 house factories that create all the furniture and tools used across Oakdale, District 1 creates precious gem stones; District 2 makes bricks of gold. Districts 1 and 2 are the richest Districts and find it an honor to compete in The Reaping.
"Hey Luke." My father steps in the front door, unlacing his muddy boots from the fields. "I thought you'd sleep in this morning."
"Too nervous," I sigh, flipping the cakes over.
My father, Holden, lays a hand, heavy with work, onto my shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be fine. One out of hundreds."
"I still don't like those odds," I shrug. My father walks over and pokes at the fire, creating hissing and spitting sounds. I turn off the stove top and pile the cakes onto a plate, setting it on the table with the preserves.
"Mother and the kids up yet?"
"Haven't heard a rustle."
My father grabs a hot grease corn cake in his worn callused hands and pulls it apart, dipping pieces into his mouth. "Tastes good, Luke."
I shrug shyly. "It's what there is."
As he munches on his corn cake he enters the bedroom. I hear his deep voice gently sing the kids to wake. It's an old song, passed down through generations from the time of the Civil War. The lyrics are ugly, if you really pay attention, but the melody is smooth and wistful. My father sings it to us at night before we go to sleep, a nightmare wrapped in a lullaby.
I can hear my siblings' tiny voices now through the wood plank wall. My mother is up, directing them with a hushed voice. More tension thickens the air as my sisters, in their dressing gowns, run out to greet me. My fake smile of happy days and children's pleasant dreams is almost too much to bear, but I spread it on my face for them.
"Luke!" The two girls call in unison. They hug me like they always do in the morning but this hug feels tighter, longer, more charged than usual. They might be young but they are wise beyond the years they have been given.
I place sweet kisses to their hair and hold my arms around them comfortingly, "You have a good sleep?"
"Yeah. What's for breakfast?" Faith, the older of the two, asks.
"Corn cakes with preserves."
They look at me without elation of the treat inside their eyes. They do not need to ask the reason for the delicacy, and so they quietly untangle their arms after one last squeeze and take their place at the table.
My mother walks out in her nightdress carrying my two-year-old brother in her arms. "Is breakfast ready?"
"Yeah, I just made it." I lean in and kiss my brother's forehead, who is fighting sleep and trying to stay alert.
"Luke!" He reaches for me and I take him from my mother's arms as she goes to help the girls with breakfast.
"You sleepy, buddy?"
"No!" He squeals indignantly but his eyes fight to stay open.
"We're going to eat the rest of your strawberry preserves, Ethan. If you don't wake up they are going to be all gone!" I speak dramatically.
"No!" He squeals again, this time his eyes spark with energy. He wriggles out of my arms and runs to the table. "Don't eat it all!"
I grab a cake and dip it into the preserves, eating it with my hands as I stand over my sisters who are spreading preserves neatly over their cakes as if they are royalty.
"Luke, sit and eat," my father pulls out a chair for me.
"Can't. I want to go meet Casey before we go to town."
"Don't stay out long. You need to take a bath and dress in your good clothes," my mother says in a nagging tone.
"Yes, mother," I groan with a harsh edge. "I've done this before, I know how it goes."
I go into the bedroom to quickly change into the standard issue long sleeve shirt, blue jean overalls, and work boots. I pull my suede coat around my shoulders before exiting the house. The cold wind bites at my face, the temperature sharply juxtaposed from the warmth of the house.
I walk down the main road lined with two room cabins identical to mine. The glass in the window is broken, leaving sharp misshapen edges. Wood panels rot and crumble while the roofs peel and leak. No one has any money, and The Republic doesn't care enough, to fix their houses, so year after year they fall into greater depths of decay. The smoke from the chimneys mixes in the sky into grey dense clouds blocking out what little sun breaks through the atmosphere. I can see the haze of spring creeping up along the horizon as the sun has yet to rise high. My boots crunch on the gravel of the road. Birds chirp in the budding trees around me, reveling in the fresh air of a new day. A few kids sit at the side of the road poking sticks into the ground, biding their time until noon. Usually at this time I am headed to work in the fields, but since this is the first day of The Reaping, I have planned to meet my best friend, Casey, in the field on the hill.
No one is allowed to go into the field on the hill. It sits shortly outside our District boarder and is used as a reminder of the destruction and bloodshed of the Civil War. Because no one is allowed to exit the District, and because no one would want to go on the hill anyway because of its painful history, it makes a great place to sneak out and talk with my best friend without being found.
He's a dreamer, Casey. He likes to imagine what life must have been like before the Civil War. I assume it was much like what the lucky few who live in The Republic experience every day. They have plentiful food in many varieties that come from the fields we slave over, fancy houses, jewels, fancy clothes, and time to do whatever they want. Maybe all I have seen of The Republic either comes from the TV during announcements or from underground propaganda my father receives, but I believe it to be true. I see how wealthy and fat they are. They feed off of the Districts like parasites while many of us starve.
Citizens stealing food from the fields and orchards is against the law. They set you up against a stake in the District square and flog you, or beat you to death, depending on the severity of your crime. Most "criminals" are hurt so badly they are taken to District 9, but never return. I don't think they are really taken to District 9, and Casey has many theories about what really happens to them.
Even though it is against the law, Casey found a way to sew pockets into the chest of our shirts. We can't hold much but a few apples, or a hand full of berries; some carrots or tomatoes, but even that is enough to keep our families from starvation.
I look behind me to make sure the road is empty before I turn off into the woods at the edge of the District. I startle birds that fly up with agitation from their perch as I run through the trees. A quarter of a mile through the trees it opens up into a valley with a white water river flowing through it. This marks the end of District 8. On the other side of the river a solid brick fence encases the entire District. They box you in so you can't escape.
Above the fence, in case you get crafty and find a way to climb it, is an electrical barbed wire that runs the length. They make it impossible to go over it, but not so impossible to go under it. I find the stones that make a bridge across the water and hop expertly to the other side. A few paces away there's a boulder that covers the entrance to a cave Casey dug.
Normally The Republic would have inspectors come out to check the length of the fence for any broken bricks or places where the electricity was down, but this spot is different. They don't expect any citizens to come to the hill, and more realistically, they don't want to visit it. I move the boulder easily and shimmy my way under the fence, spitting out dirt on the other side. Now all that stands between me and Casey is a field of red and yellow tulips that paint the hill. You can see them from any place in the District.
I trip up the hill, panting as I go, the wind creeping under my jacket, the earth mucky from last night's rain caking my hands. I scramble up to the top to see between the red and yellow flowers a torn blue cap riding low between the stems.
"Casey!" I hiss.
"Yo, dude! Wasn't sure you'd come. We said 6:30."
"Sorry. I didn't realize the time I guess." I lay down amongst the tall stems beside Casey. The muddy ground up here feels warm against my back. We are high enough now to break through the low morning clouds and get a taste of sunlight. Even though Casey and I have been trudging up here any chance we get for the past three years, the tulips grow undisturbed covering our tracks, as if they are watching out for us.
Casey is two years older than I; he only has two more Reapings to get through before his name will be ineligible.
"So, here we are." Casey picks a blade of grass and sucks it between his teeth. "Another one of these damn games."
"At least you only have two left to go." I offer pathetically. He looks at me with an angry roll of the eyes. "Yeah, I know." I pick my own blade of grass and twist it around my fingers.
"I don't understand why people let them get away with it. If you ask me it's all a piece of bull shit propaganda. I bet if we organized we could crush The Republic. I bet you anything they don't even have an army. They keep us scared enough with the notion that they could do something they don't have to do anything. Fear is a lot more powerful than a sword."
"You're lucky you're up here spouting that and not in town. You'd be arrested."
"No shit, that's why I'm saying it here. Is everything OK with you, Snyder?"
"Oh yeah, peachy."
"Yeah, I know." His eyes look down at his chest and he plucks a new blade of grass.
"What if one of us gets picked?"
"I'm hoping someone volunteers like last year. That was sweet. Stupid Abigail Williams raises her hand all excited to go in and then she got killed in what, the first ten minutes?"
"She wasn't excited to fight; she was excited to save the rest of her family."
"Bullshit move, the odds of her getting picked are far less compared to the odds that she would die in the game."
"If your brother was still old enough to be picked you might do the same."
Casey sits up quick and glares at me. "Don't even say it, Snyder. Don't tell me you're thinking of going in to save your sisters and brother."
"Cool your jets, Casey, I wouldn't. If I thought I had a chance of winning I might consider it, but look at me. My body is made for climbing trees in an orchard, not beating men to death. I wouldn't last a minute. I'd die of fright. As you say, fear is stronger than swords."
"OK… good…" Casey says slowly, hesitantly laying back beneath the red tulips.
"What happens if one of us does go in?"
"We make a pledge right here to fight."
"Maybe we should make a game plan, you know? Figure out the best way for kids like us, with no experience, no knowledge of tools besides a shovel and a spade, to stay alive."
"I'll tell you one thing I wouldn't do. When does the most killing happen?"
"At the beginning of the game," I say quickly, no thought needed. In the first ten minutes of the game blood spills from every direction. At one Reaping eight kids died in a matter of minutes.
"Right. And why? Because they are trying to get supplies from The Center Square. Unless you're strong, skilled, and fast, there's no reason to go for the supplies right away. I would run for cover. Wait until the blood bath is over and kids spread out, and then go back and see if there's anything left."
"Yeah but remember a few years ago a kid form District 14 tried that, and the bigger kids had formed an alliance and booby trapped it somehow. They were waiting for the weaker kids to come back. The best way to stay alive, depending on what they give you to work with in terms of terrain, is to stay alive by your own means. I'd climb up to the highest tree and wait for dark, then find as much food and water as I could and climb back up as high as I could and wait for everyone else to kill each other."
"You'd die. Besides, there'd still be one person left you'd have to kill unless you got lucky and two people killed each other simultaneously."
"Or, the last one is wounded and all I have to do is wait for them to bleed to death or get an infection."
"Hope it's not the kid from District 9, he'd know how to cure it."
I laugh gaily. "This is stupid, there are hundreds of kids eligible for The Reaping; we are not going to be picked."
"Yeah, you're probably right. Let's hope some poor sap volunteers to save his family, that'd be nice, then we could skip the drama of waiting for them to call the name."
"It sucks having to watch them die, though."
"It would suck more to watch you die," Casey says thoughtfully. He gives me a look that I have only seen a few times, but I've always wondered what it meant. A look of sadness and caring, with a pinch of something more, as if he's trying to get inside me. My body shivers at the thought. I smile inwardly to myself as the wind blows the tulips down to tickle my cheek with their velvet petals. I can't deny that I have thought about Casey in a more than platonic way. He has blonde hair that he tries to brush back but always flops over his eyes. I'll catch him puffing air up to move them aside, and the action flutters my heart.
Casey is strong, in a different way than everyone in the District is strong from manual labor in the fields and orchards. Casey is strong because he works at during our off time. His smile is cute, playful, cheeky. Especially when he uses his dry sarcasm on someone at school and the insult goes over their head. He'll look at me with pride and cunning curving his lips and twinkling his eyes and I know the look is only for me. I'm the only one who can interpret it. I have never spoken to Casey about my feelings, I can't; he'd totally freak. We've been best friends since I was five and I'd never do anything to risk losing our friendship.
"Well, anyway." Casey breaks me from my thoughts. "If you get picked don't die on me, Snyder." He masks his affection with straightforward commands. I know the way he talks, I know the meaning behind his words, but he still adds a soft wink between the rows of stems to show how much he cares.
"You-u do-don't die either, OK?" My voice comes out wavy, my mind trying to erase the idea he could care about me as more than a brother.
"I can't die, Snyder. I still have so much to teach you." He sits up and brushes dirt from his hair. I sit up too and my face is hit by fierce sunlight. The clouds of the morning have burned away and left the sky an untouched blue.
"For a day that started out so cold, it's going to be a hot one."
"Oh great." Casey throws his grass stems to the dirt. "If The Republic doesn't kill me in their game my mother is going to kill me for sweating through my nice clothes."
I laugh and he joins in. The laughter finally cuts the tension of the day and rolls down the hill to the bubbling stream.
"I think you'll be alright," he says seriously, once the laughter dies down. "And so will I."
"Even if I die there will be more like me. We will keep coming. There will always be people ripe to pick for The Reaping. I think you're right, Casey, they can't kill us all and they know it, so they do this to act like they could. But if they could kill us all then they wouldn't play games to show it."
"Stop being brilliant, Snyder." Casey reaches over and ruffles my spiky short hair before standing and stretching. "Damn, that sun feels good. I wish I were in the fields today instead of standing around in the District square. I could work on my tan."
"You don't need to work on your tan, you look good. You always look good." Oh shit. I look down to the ground and glide my fingers over the warm soil. My heart is pounding against my chest and I hope he can't hear it like I hope he didn't hear my last comment. But he did.
"Luke, Luke, look at me." Shyly I look up at him from under my eyelashes, his head haloed by the rising sun. "I know, Luke." Three simple words, but I know the meaning behind them like I know the meaning behind all the words he speaks. I swallow hard, my fingers digging into the soil now.
"You, um, you, what?" I stammer, feigning ignorance.
He bends down on his haunches in front of me. Softly I feel his fingertips glide over my cheekbone. I'm dreaming. I gotta be dreaming. My heart suddenly slows and my body relaxes. My eyes are closed and all I see is the pink specks of sunlight trying to penetrate my eyelids.
"I know," he whispers again and I feel his breath against my skin so close. And then suddenly his lips are against mine, softly, gently pressing together, and then apart. "I gotta go." His voice is steady, but a whisper. I nod with acknowledgement, my eyes still closed. I hear the flutter of tulip blossoms as he hurries away. When he's gone I press my fingertips to my lips. There's no way. I must have imagined it. I must have fallen asleep up here on the hill and my 14-year-old boy crush must have taken over. I open my eyes and I'm sitting in the field of red tulips. The space where I dreamed Casey lay is undisturbed. Flowers wave back and forth against the wind, not a single one crushed by weight.
I stand up on shaky legs and dust my pants off. I sigh to myself as I walk back down the hill, what a wonderful dream, maybe the last good one I'll ever have. I stop short though, when I get to the rounded edge of the hill and see a tiny white speck near the river below. It hops its way across the stream before disappearing into the woods that line the edge of District 8.
Holy shit. My feet give out from under me and my butt smacks against the solid ground with a cracking sound. "That was real," I whisper out, and the wind gusts across the hilltop, leaves rustling a high-pitched reply. "Yes."