The Final Sunset of Cinna74, a hunger games fanfic

This won third place in the Judges' Pick Category in the Write Me a Story Hunger Games Challenge, Round Two, hosted by the amazingly talented Ro Nordmann. All the entries were phenomenal, so I highly recommend you check them all out (wmashgchallenge on tumblr)! I've cleaned this up a little since posting it.

The prompt was the beautiful quote, "Because I can count on one hand the number of sunsets I have left, and I don't want to miss any of them" which will gain significance in future chapters.

For anyone waiting for On The Threshold, I want to ease your mind, I'm not starting a whole new story in the midst of that one. This was planned out well before OtT and written for the contest prior to OtT chapter three. This story will be continued, but after that one is finished. Thank you to my superhuman editor, The RPGenius. Without further ado:

The Final Sunset of Cinna74

"Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. "

- Rainer Maria Rilke

I am born.

...I think. Well, maybe not born, but I am, and I think.

I'm sitting on a metal table in the middle of a bright, nearly empty room. The table is warm. So is the air. Given that my life began a moment ago, my ability to catalogue thoughts and surroundings seems miraculous. But how do I know that such an ability is above average to begin with?

Three people stand before me. Two male, one female. Their features are all sharp and precise. The older man's face is finely honed as if by hours of focus, and he looks at me with a certain degree of pride and excitement.

The younger man's stare holds skepticism and distrust, and his face has an intensity to it that feels dangerous like a weapon.

Then there is the female, her face drawn taut like a bow. More than anything, she looks weary, granting me only a few cursory, assessing glances. She listens to the older man, pensive and troubled.

I'm unsure of how I know these things - gender, age, facial expressions, but I do. I'm even able to follow their conversation.

"I've named him Peeta Mellark. It's a randomly generated amalgam of syllables from the most common male names of his time."

"His time?" the younger male asks, "What am I looking at, Beetee?"

"I grew him," the male named Beetee answers. "In the lab, like we were growing our endangered species. This is how adult human males looked on Earth."

"But where did you get the genetic source material?" inquires the young man.

"The Backlogs, of course. I was filing some reference material, and a cube containing an old DNA sequence literally fell on my head from an upper shelf. Since we're shutting down the endangered species labs, I thought I'd have one last bit of fun before everything was gone."

The girl flinches at this, but quickly schools her expression, passive once more.

"I made a few alterations for creativity's sake. And of course enhanced the brain function several magnitudes beyond a natural-born man's. I don't have time to teach him."

"Beetee, that was a huge waste of resources! Especially when there's so little to go around!" the younger male protests.

The girl finally speaks, and it's with passion and fury. Her voice reaches me in a way the others haven't.

"That's reprehensibly callous! You're just going to unleash some poor creature into our community, the only one of its kind, with no direction or purpose? We don't even know if it's dangerous!"

My eyes have followed her through this whole conversation, and I shrink in on myself at her assessment.

"I thought he could help me remember some of the longer formulas," Beetee says, sounding genuinely hurt. "That's what the photographic memory was for." He grows defensive. "Anyways, he's not a creature per se, he's still human. Just a less evolved version."

"But why's he so pale? There's no sheen to his skin, it's all pallid," the other man says, looking at me with distaste. I look down at my hands. They are pale, compared to the three before me.

"Earth was further from the Sol system's sun than Cinna74 is from our own star, hunter Hawthorne," Beetee replies. "Human skin tone was highly variable, which inexplicably incited very primitive behavior. Peeta's skin is not equipped to endure a day beneath our sun."

"You mean he has to stay in the compound? He can't even forage or hunt to add to the food stores?" Hawthorne asks incredulously.

"No…he can't." Beetee admits. "I wanted him to be an accurate specimen."

For a moment, the female meets my eyes, and there's pity within her glinting silver gaze. I find breathing suddenly difficult. Did Beetee give me a faulty set of lungs?

"His eyes," she says, as if suddenly startled. "They're blue."

"Yes. Eye color was also somewhat variable. No terrestrial humans had eyes with the capabilities ours do. Nor the color."

"So even with his skin covered, he'll barely be able to see outside. Our sun will blind him before long," she hazards.

"Yes," Beetee concedes. "If he went outside."

At this, her composure falters, and she rounds on him.

"Well congratulations! You've created another mouth to feed, and one that can't contribute to our society. What were you were tasked with again? Wasn't it trying to prevent our dwindling food sources from going extinct? Stop wasting time, and see if you can't do something to create a viable food supply," she demands, as she sweeps from the room, her compatriot at her heels.

"It's hopeless," Beetee says to the expectant air in her wake.

He turns to me, as though I've been a participant in any part of the exchange.

"She knows it's hopeless."

Their planet is dying. Or all the plant and animal life on it is. They're not really sure which.

There have been food shortages due to bad harvests and depleted herds and lack of prey animals for as long as anyone can remember. It fluctuated gradually enough that everyone assumed it was a temporary low in a natural cycle - that good times would come again. Except they haven't.

The knowledge that their civilization is in dire straits, that their very survival is threatened, has only been widespread for about the last fifty years. The leaders of their society couldn't pretend nothing was happening any more. A lot of species went extinct in a very short time. Famine spread, and disease followed.

Beetee explains this to me in the days following my awakening.

The last remaining colony on the planet, Colony 13, has survived by sheer force of will, and extreme resource management. Despair lingers in the corners and niches of the underground compound, but not all hope is lost. She's a major factor in that. She's a symbol for her people, a leader of sorts.

The girl who was there when I woke up.

She isn't a political leader, and she doesn't run the colony. She's seen more as a source of moral guidance for her people, an inspirational figure. Colonists view her with awe and reverence, and rely on her for comfort in these troubling times.

They call her "Mockingjay," after a creature associated with resilience and purity of heart. Beetee says there are no mockingjays anymore. Whether they're long-extinct or simply legendary to begin with, I don't know.

She visits with Beetee from time to time, checking up on various experiments. Beetee says she's been colder than usual since he woke me up.

She has no time for me, and rarely notices my presence. I cannot say the same. The Mockingjay is forever being called away to attend to pressing matters regarding the colony, most often by the young man who did not like me first. Hawthorne, he's called. I think he may be responsible for her whereabouts and safety.

He, also, has no time for me.

Beetee has been tasked with keeping an eye on me, but as the leading scientific mind of the shrinking community, there are other claims on his attention. He quickly tires of my presence, waving me away distractedly when I ask questions. My assistance necessitates more explanation than it's worth, he says, and it just makes him more impatient.

I have an awareness of shared human experience, meaning I understand social cues, voice inflections, facial expressions, and emotions. I am fully biological, completely human in the classical sense, I am told, just with an enhanced mind. I remember everything I see and hear, and I have an intellectual mastery over the language from my first moments. But knowing the words and knowing how to pronounce them are very different things.

I start by requesting an occupation to assist the colony, but no one seems to have a clue of what to do with me. I have no training, but the biggest issue is that I am an unknown entity. I have no records on file. This proves the greatest stumbling block, as my 'nonexistence' in their system seems to almost scare them. Their inability to program an itinerary on my forearm, without any pre-existing documentation, prevents me from being assigned anywhere. They grapple with their databases for hours.

Eventually, I give up. I seek to discover more about my home, find my place and learn my purpose, but everywhere I'm greeted with grimaces of distrust, or worse, repulsion. It seems I look too different, too alien to be considered one of them. I try to tell people that I am human too, just an earlier "human," but many of them sneer at my halting speech, laugh at my raspy, untried voice. I know the words, but I am still new to speaking.

The colonists look at me like an intruder, as if I chose to invade. I only woke up and found myself here, as each of them did, once. Nonetheless, there is fear in many of them, and I'm given a wide berth as if I'm dangerous or unstable.

After a group of young men and women chase me through the halls, making a game of hunting me down, I stay on the lowest levels, surfacing only for the occasional meal in one of the massive mess halls. Dining, like everything else, is a rigidly structured affair. Food is counted, measured and rationed with scientific accuracy. Nowhere is the militant discipline of the colony so apparent.

And yet, I'm somehow exempt. Everyone prefers to pretend not to see me. So I take to wandering the underground hallways of the colony. In the labyrinthine network of unused passages, ignored by a population only a fraction of its original size, I alone am free.

I explore for several days before loneliness sets in. I've never experienced such a feeling before, but thanks to Beetee's enhancements, I can recognize it. It's amusing, because I've never known companionship, so how can I miss something I've never had?

Nevertheless, a hollow ache settles over me. The fact that I have no kin, no people, and no history begins to weigh heavily on me. I realize no one would notice If I was gone, or miss me.

I have intellect, but no learning. Ability, but no purpose. Awareness, but no identity and no memory. The only thing I have is what's been programmed into me.

I decide to find the spot where Beetee found my genetic code, the place historical records are kept. "The Backlogs," he called them.

Like any man, I seek to discover my origin. Those records are the closest thing I have to a family.

The Backlogs are not easy to find, and I don't ask Beetee for help. This is personal, and I feel at odds with the rest of the colony. Apparently it's rarely ever visited, because it's located at the end of a dusty, unused corridor on the lowest level of the compound. The sign on the door has been mostly scratched off, until the only legible letters are b, o, g, and s.

When I enter the records room, I realize it's not a room at all, but a cavernous open space, far larger than even the most massive of the mess halls in the colony. I now know why it was placed on the lowest level - so it could cut deep into the ground, and its size would not be checked by the spatial demands of the rest of Colony 13. Despite its size, it's packed with sections upon sections of towering shelves, each one completely filled with stacked cubes that are see-through with a pinkish tint.

Shafts of light stream down from the ceiling onto glass columns at intervals throughout the space. Every column is identical, and I discover that cubes placed in the slot at the top are perfectly positioned for light to be refracted through them. Some sort of prism within each cube projects the information it contains. They hold a wealth of material, which can be cycled through by manipulating the surface of the glass columns.

It quickly becomes apparent, based on the staggering information capacity in even a single cube, that the Backlogs contain a historical record of human civilization.

Perhaps I've found my people.

What I've found is a treasure trove. Not meaning behind my existence or purpose to sustain me, but certainly something to occupy me. Many sections are in disarray. Hoping to be helpful, I decide to catalogue the neglected areas.

I immerse myself completely in the Backlogs. With Beetee's enhancements, I can absorb information and retain it at a rate that far outpaces a normal person's. I fully intend to explore every cube, and with no claims on my time or outside obligations, it should be more than possible.

I start with how humans ended up on Cinna74.

I read about the culmination of the human race on Earth, the way they wasted their resources and abused their world. I read about the ensuing wars for control of a dying planet, of the race to develop the technology to escape, and the resulting migration and dispersal of the human race across the galaxy. Over time, all contact with other colonized planets stopped, and the pockets of human pioneers gradually evolved to suit their new surroundings - at least they did on Cinna74. Now history is repeating itself with the grim state of the planet. Or it seems that way to me.

Beetee barely notices my absence. When I do see him, I lament the inconvenience of trekking to the top levels of the colony for meals when one is involved in a project. This I know he will identify with, as it's a personal peeve of his as well.

He happily informs me that he has gotten unrestricted access to the food stores now, for new research on methods of ration preservation. It is no longer a necessity for him to leave his lab to eat, as long as he stocks the facility with rations that require no special preparation. Not knowing or caring what I'm up to, he extends me use of what he's stockpiled.

The final obstacle to my seclusion out of the way, I take some of the lab's food supply and quickly move into the Backlogs. It's not difficult - I have no quarters. I've been staying on a cot in the labs. It's as simple as moving my bedclothes, sleepwear, extra clothing, and toiletries. Everything I bring with me is standard-issue from the medical facility, secured for me by Beetee before I was awoken. I have no possessions of my own. I relocate to an area between two shelves with cushioned benches and some tables.

I throw myself into my new life. From the moment I wake until long into the night, I pore over historical records on every topic. I race through entire centuries and follow the rise and fall of entire civilizations, absorbing everything known about their culture. I feel like I'm the last of them, and must therefore carry the remnants of their existence within me.

The people here on Cinna74 have clearly rejected their past, based on the abandoned state of the Backlogs. But I'll remember it, even as their own civilization begins to fall around them.

I'm awoken by the strangest sound.

Someone is singing in the Backlogs. It's the dead of night, even after I've turned in, and someone's here. The lights never turn off, but there are darkened areas aplenty in which I can find a comfortable bench and sleep.

Cautiously, I peer out from behind a shelf, and what I see changes me forever.

Standing in one of the shafts of light several sections over, is the Mockingjay. She's alone, and likely unaware of my presence. She's facing in a different direction, basking in the golden glow that I've read is the closest thing to the light quality of our original sun in the Sol system.

Even though I haven't yet reached the section of the archives devoted to music, I know her voice is exquisite. And just like that, I'm a goner. Lost to what, I don't completely know, but I can feel that something has forever shifted in me.

I can't help but want to be nearer to her. I step closer, wanting to see her face, but I must alert her to my presence somehow, because she abruptly stops and turns to face me, guarded.

"Oh. It's you," she says.

I'm still a poor speaker, so I nod in affirmation as I join her in the brightly lit circle.

"I forgot about you. So this is where you ended up? The Backlogs?"

I shrug. I guess I'm not surprised my existence slipped her mind. I wouldn't remember either, if I was her. I find myself wishing I'd practiced speaking aloud a bit more.

"Why are you here?" I manage, slowly and shyly. She's patient while I labor over my pronunciation.

"I like the light and the silence. And the solitude." She looks at me speakingly.

Ah. She came here to be alone. "P-Privacy," I volunteer, to show my understanding.

"Yes."

I nod at her confirmation, and step back out of the light. I can only be an annoyance to her. I incline my head in a parting gesture before carefully wishing her a good night.

"Goodnight," she answers, as I shuffle back to the darkened area with my bench.

She doesn't sing again, but I can't fall asleep. I wonder what it's like to be surrounded by others to the point one would crave loneliness. After another hour and a quarter, I hear the door to the Backlogs quietly close.

I decide the next day to speak aloud what I read, so that I may work on my elocution. It slows my research to a crawl, and my throat gets sore after a while, but I can notice an improvement the longer I recite. Many of the words in my reading, however, are quite difficult to pronounce, though I understand them. I search for something more palatable for my level of speaking experience.

It is then that I discover literature.

I find it by way of children's stories. Silly rhymes and simple tales, designed to please the ear and practice pronunciation. There are even things called tongue-twisters, a name I find very apt. But that is only the beginning, and I quickly move on to longer stories, for both children and adults.

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves,

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogroves,

And the mome raths outgrabe."

I am no longer staying within my range of speaking ability, but I can't help myself. It's worth stopping and stumbling over artful phrasing and carefully selected syntax to experience these works.

There is no way to describe it, but being privy to the lives, minds, and imaginations of the past connects me to myself. I feel like a person and not an extraneous side-experiment. I was in the cave, guessing at shadows, but now I've jumped twenty-thousand leagues-deep into human experience. The following days are ones of excited discovery and exhaustion.

Someone kicks my foot. I jolt awake, squinting into the blinding brightness as my neck and back protest their position for the last few hours. I'm leaning against one of the glass columns. I must've drifted off in the midst of Siddhartha's wanderings.

But something woke me up. I jolt further upright, and I see the person standing to my side. It's the Mockingjay.

"You're back," I croak, pulling myself to my feet.

"And you're still here," she responds. "Why?"

"Your people don't like the sight of me," I answer, more sullenly than I'd like.

"They are your people as well," she counters stubbornly.

I gather my courage. I can't pretend I'm not eager to talk with her. I've been practicing, and interpersonal interaction seems a rare treat. That, and she's had my attention from the first.

"These are my people, Mockingjay," I clarify, gesturing loftily to the towering stacks of cubes.

"Those are holologs. And nothing more," she asserts, studying me with critical, narrowed eyes. My silence contradicts her when I dare not to. Still, she seems interested by my claim.

"If we in the colony aren't your people, then must not see me as a leader," she posits.

That sounds like a dangerous stance to take. I stumble over my words in the struggle to find a correct response. "Well, not exactly, M-Mockingjay, I mean, that is to say-"

"In that case, why call me Mockingjay?" she asks tiredly.

"Wh-what else would I call you?"

"My name is Katniss."

"Oh," I breathe. Has she just given me permission to address her informally? As if we're equals?

"I'm Peeta," I mutter, humbled.

"Peeta," she repeats, trying it out. It's never sounded that way, the way it does running over her lips. "That's right, Beetee told us," she remembers. I nod dumbly and the conversation flounders.

She turns to leave, and I'm suddenly desperate for her to stay.

"Back for more solitude?"

She frowns, before admitting, "More like avoiding my quarters."

"Has something happened?," I ask in concern.

Katniss sighs. "They took Lady to the kitchens. To use for food. What am I supposed to tell Prim?" she frets.

I'm completely taken aback, then ill just thinking about it. I had no idea things were this desperate, that they would eat other colonists.

"Th-That's barbaric!"

Katniss studies the extreme revulsion on my face questioningly, but instead of mirroring the sentiment, she gives a humorless snort.

"Lady was a goat. And Prim's my sister," she clarifies.

Oh.

She shakes her head in disbelief. "You think I'd just stand by and let that happen, if what you thought was true? I can see why you wouldn't want to be one of us, with our being barbarians, and all. Funny that you're the one making primitive assumptions," Katniss says testily.

I feel like a fool. I don't know what I was thinking, jumping to such wild conclusions. I'm not sure how to defend myself, either. Luckily or unluckily, she doesn't give me the chance. Before I can even gather my thoughts, the door's closing behind her.

She comes to the Backlogs at least once a week, and far too much of my time is spent wondering when she'll be here.

Most of the time she just ignores me, keeping her own counsel. I let her be. It would be awfully hypocritical of me to deny someone refuge and solitude here.

I count it a victory that it only takes a couple visits for her to stop glaring when our eyes meet. My stare is no match for her silver gaze, which glints like slivered mirrors in the light.

But after reading about Scottish nobles, Danish royals, and English kings vying for the power that comes with title and rank, I can't contain my curiosity forever.

"Why don't you mind me rejecting your status?" I blurt one day, before softening the outburst with, "If you don't mind my asking."

She looks annoyed, and a little impatient. "I'm tired of being looked to. I don't have any answers, I'm just as scared as everyone else." She watches me expectantly, as if waiting for my to decry her statement. I don't.

"It's all falling apart," she continues, "and there's nothing I can do! Beetee must have told you. My role these days amounts to putting forth a calm facade. I just can't accept that I'm the best candidate to help people through this."

"But how did you become the Mockingjay?" I ask. She shifts on her bench, turning to face me more fully.

"It was a combination of factors, supposedly. I was chosen by the political leaders at the time." Her voice takes on a dull quality. "My skill with bow and arrow and my ability to provide for my people by hunting made me an attractive candidate. I'm told that I am pure, and have an effect on people that inspires trust and fosters hope. I'm not so sure about that," she disclaims.

"There's a certain brusque aloofness to my manner that gives the illusion of setting me apart, and I suspect that was a primary factor. But mostly, it's because I volunteered to sacrifice something when no one else would. Years ago, the colony was told there were only enough resources left for a select few colonists, and that the recipients would be selected by lottery. I was the first to protest, demanding we divide the supplies and find a new way to feed our people. I refused to take part in the lottery and sacrificed my chance at the rations. It was all a ruse to select the next Mockingjay. No one knew except the heads of the colony. But now it's all coming true, isn't it?"

I'm speechless. It seems a cruel way to determine a symbolic leader, binding someone in servitude to the masses, under constant scrutiny and faced with impossible expectation, just because they proved they held the people's best interests at heart.

But no response on my part is needed, because Katniss is lost in her thoughts again. Soon, her attention returns to my presence.

"Why don't you ever come to the upper levels? Most of us aren't so bad."

I shrug. I don't want to go into detail about how I appear to the rest of the colony. Down here, I can forget that most colonists see me as a disconcerting oddity. It's not like that with Katniss, and I don't want to take the chance that in explaining their attitude to her, she'll start to agree with them.

"I know you can barely set foot outside the compound, and certainly not during full daylight, but you could still see sunset. The temperatures would be cool enough for you, and the lower level of light wouldn't be blinding."

I imagine what she must look like out on the surface at midday, where I dare not venture. Golden-dark skin shining with perspiration, and the quicksilver of her eyes reflecting the blinding sunlight. I shiver.

"We have a ritual on Cinna74, ever since the first ships colonized here. With the limited atmosphere, the difference in temperature between night and day is too drastic for survival on the surface overnight. We must be below the surface, where it's warmer," she explains.

"But people were never meant to be fenced in, huddled in bunkers underground," Katniss says, glancing at me with meaning. "So each day, everyone who is able stays above ground to witness sunset, as a last farewell to the light we hold so dear.

"Everyone gathers, and it could be a time for you to meet people, find a place."

I reach down to tie my shoelace. It wasn't untied to begin with, so I double knot it for something to do with my hands. I can't meet her hopeful gaze. I don't want to disappoint her, but I won't be going.

By the time I look up, I can tell her shoulders have slumped a bit. But she doesn't give up.

"It'll be easier for them to accept you if you're familiar. No one knows anything about you. I don't even know you."

It hurts, but she's right. And I want her to know me. But there isn't much to tell.

"I don't even know your favorite color," she points out.

Neither do I. The inside of colony 13 is all I've ever known, and it isn't exactly a bright, cheery place. Most everything is a dull, faded shade of gray.

I return her gaze helplessly, realizing she's about to discover how incomplete I am. But she doesn't look bothered by it. Katniss looks back, brazen and undaunted. And so beautiful.

"I know your favorite color," she answers for me. "It's orange. Not bright orange, but soft. Muted. Or it would be, if you saw sunset," she insists.

Katniss steps over the pile of pink cubes I've been working through and strides to the door.

"Guess I'll see you there, then!" she calls in parting.

I groan, slumping against the bench at my back. That's just not possible.

***To be continued***

Works hinted at, mentioned, or quoted:

1. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens

2. Principia Philosophiae – Renee Descartes

3. The Republic - Plato

4. Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea – Jules Verne

5. Siddhartha – Hermann Hesse

6. "Jabberwocky" from Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There – Lewis Carroll

7. Macbeth, Hamlet, and Richard III – William Shakespeare

8. Anything other familiar phrases are lovingly borrowed from The Hunger Games Trilogy

Hope it was interesting and enjoyable, let me know what you think! (And I'm sorry about Lady)

I am GhtlovesThg on tumblr. :)