Hey everyone! I'm Steph, and this is an idea I had for one of the previous Hunger Games. I have yet to decide what the arena will be like, so if you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them. There might seem to be some loose ends right now, but those will be explained in the chapters to come! I plan on uploading at least once a week, so follow or favorite if you want to read more!
Thank you all for reading!
Chapter 1
Each year a tenth of the population of our textile factory is out of commission. I look to both sides of myself, down the line of kids barely old enough to be in middle school, all covered in dirt and grime, staring intently at the machines below them. That tenth is our district's children. A slip of the finger a centimeter to the left punctures it through and through. Blood on the fabric, fingers caught in the machines. It's a liability. Just like that, the family is out of money, left to die. I am sixteen years old, which gives me a leg up in this business. I'm young enough and small enough to fit in the small places of the machines, but old enough to use the larger machinery and not make silly mistakes. I sigh, looking down at my hands, which carefully guide a piece of maroon silk along a bobbing needle. I too have fallen victim to the tip of the needle, my fingertips now scarred and calloused. I can't do this much longer, not today. I try to see through the dust filled room, eyes roaming to find a clock. 5:56 PM. In four minutes, a bell will ring and hundreds of children and adults and elderly people who can barely see will flood out the doors, past the watchful eyes of the peacekeepers. That moment arrives not a minute too soon and the glaring sun is on me once again. The sun doubled with lack of moisture in this desolate plain is cause for dust storms that put District Twelve to shame. Well, I don't actually know that, I've never been outside of Eight. I'd imagine it's pretty similar, just one painting the town with black instead of brown. Everything is brown here, from our mousy brown hair and eyes to the freckles that pierce our skin. I shuffle along, staring at my calloused, bare feet that are riddled with dust. Only about a mile left until I reach the abandoned tenement. Almost there. My mind fills with vacant thoughts of dreams that will never come true. I could have been a doctor. Maybe a teacher. Or a cryptographer; yes, that's the one. Ever since I was a kid, I have always loved puzzles, always been really good at them. The other girls would be talking to each other, telling jokes and discussing fashion designs for their future careers in the factory, because maybe, just maybe, they all might get lucky and work with the capitol instead of in the sweatshop. I knew the truth, and there was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could solve. That's why I turned to puzzles and riddles and brainteasers; they were all something I could solve. I break from my daze as I reach the nearly dilapidated building. From the outside, it doesn't look like much, but on the inside is a fortified sanctuary for me and the other threads. The threads are what we call the parentless children, the single thread that doesn't have a bond to fabric. Textile humor. Ha. Before I reach the handle, the door swings open with a loud thud as it hits the wall, and at once a little boy latches himself around my leg. I chuckle as the little boy with a head of thick brown curls and sky blue eyes looks up at me, face smudged with dirt and sweat. He's one of the good ones.
"Adelin, you're back! Can you come play with me?" Gailen says ever so innocently.
"From the looks of it, you've already been out playing for a while," I remark as I wipe from of the dirt off his forehead. "You really shouldn't be out here that long; the sun is getting hotter and the air is becoming worse." The air is my main focus. The fumes from the factory cloud the air, drenching everyone in smoke and other air toxins. I see it all the time, the masses that have coughs as if they smoke 5 packs of cigarettes a day, the ones that collapse from lack of oxygen. It's frightening to see, and even more frightening to think about it happening to Gailen or the other four. "Let's get you cleaned up, then I might let you be apart of my mission tomorrow." And with that, his eyes light up and he's inside as fast as his five-year-old feet can carry him.
I step through the door as well and welcome the soft carpet that caresses my stinging feet. It feels like ages since I have been here, though it has only been twelve hours. I take in the familiar smell of dusty carpets. This smell is not the bad kind of dusty, not that which permeates outside, but that of old books with yellowing pages. From the outside, the building looks abandoned, a former tenement that has since rotted away and is of no use to anyone. However, on the inside the walls are coats with layers and layers of fabric, all sporadically collected from our jobs at the factory. This does a good job of acting as protection from the dust and fumes that seem to magically seep from this entire city. Our apartment has two bedrooms, one bathroom, and a living space, with a designated corner for food on the shelves. It gets pretty cramped, but we make due, the six of us. There's Sorrel, the oldest of the threads at seventeen years old. He takes care of and shares a bedroom with two other boys, Corun, 12, and Aster, 9. I, as the second oldest and only a year younger than him, take care of and share a bedroom with Selle and Gailen, a thirteen year old girl and a five year old boy. Sorrel and I both have jobs in the factory, as well as part time schooling. We have these jobs so the others don't have to, so they can stay in school, so we can earn enough money that they don't have to put their names into the reaping any more than they have to.
"Adelin, I'm getting in the bath right now!" I chuckle to myself. He is so innocent. It's my job to keep him this way, this happy for as long as possible. I poke my head into my room to find Selle hard at work on homework. She looks up from the page and gives me a warm smile, one that lights up her dark brown eyes.
"Hey, how was school?"
"It was okay. These math problems are kicking my butt, though," She admits with defeat.
"Lucky for you, I just happen to be great at math. I can help you with them after I set the table. Did Sorrel come home yet?"
"No, not yet," She replies, her brows furrowing at the algebraic equation on the page.
"Well in that case, I'm going to check on Corun, then I'll come back and help. How did my shoes fit?"
"Very well. Thank you," She smiles as dismissal, and I walk the five steps to find Corun napping on his cot. He is the one I am most worried about. Sorrel, Selle, and I can all fend for ourselves fairly well, and Gailen will too, once he gets older. But Corun, he has always been soft and sensitive, which by no means is a bad thing; it's just harder in this world. If he were to be picked in the reaping, he would be gone. He wouldn't last a day in the arena, he wouldn't last a day here, if he were alone. That's why we are here, to protect him, to be his family, each other's family. This is his first year to enter the reaping. The thing about us is that we don't have anyone to look after us; we were all left behind in some form. I still remember that night, the night my life changed.
Mommy where's daddy? He's not here, jellybean, he's not going to come back. Why not? He promised he'd play chess with me. He got into some trouble with the peacekeepers at the factory, baby. They killed him, she said, tears welling up on the brink of her green eyes. I climb on her lap and we both sit there, silent, watching the fireplace. We sit there for hours, but I had to be strong, for my mom. I was both eight years old and a thousand years old that day. We held each other like that until we both fell asleep.
Hours later, the sun was just peeking over the horizon as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes. My mother was no longer holding me. Instead, I laid on the grown with a dusty blanket over me, and a note by my head. I reach for it, registering the dried tear marks.
My beloved Adelin,
Under the mattress in my room there is an envelope of our savings. Take it, and find shelter somewhere else. Do not look in the kitchen on your way out.
I love you with all of my heart.
Mom
And with that, I did what she'd said, until I had one foot out the door. I turned to the kitchen beside me, inching toward the edge of something dark and shiny. Something red and dark and shiny. Something red and dark and shiny spilling from my mother's hands. She was right. I shouldn't have looked in the kitchen.
The door slams behind me, shaking me out of my trance. "Honey, I'm home," Sorrel's familiar voice croons. Those three sarcastic words set me at ease. He has a way of doing that to me. "I brought food, children." A wide grin spreads on my face.
"Well lets see what you've brought home," I say, snatching the bag from his fingers. His blue eyes paired with the dark auburn tousled hair are cause for half the girls in the city drooling over him, me not included, mind you. I set the bag on the counter and empty the contents. Two loaves of bread and three cans of green beans. Looks like I'm not eating tonight. Sorrel's eyes fall, becoming more serious. "They almost caught me, I didn't have time to get more," he whispers. "You're going to have to find a different house for tonight, we've done that one too many times recently." I bite my lip as I think of possible houses to raid for tomorrow. "Hey, we'll talk about it later, once the others are asleep. You can just leave a 2 instead of 1." Up close, I can see the wear on his body, his sharp jawline now shadowed with scruff, the dark circles around his eyes. He hasn't been getting much sleep either, it seems. Not with the reaping tomorrow. I push away the thought as the kids gather around the table, spooning green beans onto plates and taking chunks of bread. They all munch away as I sit back, pretending to be busy so they don't notice me not eating, so they don't have to feel bad about it. I hear four gentle taps on the door, imperceptible to those who aren't looking for it.
"I'm going to step outside for a second, holler if you need anything," I say, inconspicuously. I open the door just enough for me to slip out, and met by a wave of pine-scented soap, almost completely drowning the scent of the factory fumes. "Arum Reed, what are you doing here?" My green eyes meet his golden ones. His hair falls in brown curls that look completely disheveled and put together at the same time. He makes brown look good. He is like digging through dirt and finding gold.
"Hello to you too, Adelin Belladonna. I brought you some food… I cooked some stew and I had some left over, so…" He rubs at the back of his neck sheepishly. What a nerd. "I also brought some of that bread that you like. What do you say?" He flashes a perfectly white smile at me and my heart can't help but thaw slightly. That bread that I like is the same type of break he caught me stealing from him two years ago, back when I was too new and didn't know enough not to get caught.
"Of course, I will grace you with my presence, if that's what you're implying," I hear my stomach growl and hope that he didn't, but the look in his eyes as he gingerly set the container in my hands tells me that he did. I lower my eyes, fidgeting with my nails. "Thank you for this. We didn't have enough today. Collection is getting harder." I sink to the ground, as does he, and I open the container and try (without success) not to seem like I hadn't eaten for days. Three years ago, Arum Reed was crowned the 34th victor of the Hunger Games, one of the first of our district. As the victor, he had a surplus of money and supplies, so I was sure he wouldn't notice if some food was missing. An oversight on my part, trying to take from a victor. After all, they all had to be hyper aware of everything in order to, you know, not be murdered. I'm sure he'd heard my pattering of footsteps, so when he turned on the light, knife in hand, I could only stand there, frozen, a deer in the headlights. I was fourteen then, he was sixteen. I'd immediately started babbling about how I was sorry and it wouldn't happen again and I was just trying to feed the other threads. Ever since then, he has been bringing us food every chance he gets. He has no obligation to do so, and I've never figured out why.
"How are you doing?" He leans in slightly, those amber eyes warm with some emotion I can't discern.
"I'm fine," I recite almost too quickly, my default answer.
"Mmm, but how are you really?" I take a few bites while I ponder the question.
"I'm okay, I haven't really had time to think about how I'm doing. Not with the reaping just around the corner," I say carefully, eating up the last bit of stew. Onto the bread, not the dense loaves made from our grain rations, but real bread that he buys from the bakery by victor's village. At this point, I think he keeps it in stock just for me. I sink my teeth into the hard crust and sigh with how good it is. Crumbs fall to my lap and I can't help but be disappointed I couldn't save them. And there he is again, with that emotion in his eyes. Then he starts laughing at me.
"That good, huh?" He smirks.
"Well duh. I think I like this bread better than I like you," I reply feigning seriousness.
"Wow, okay. I think I've just been stabbed. In the heart. By you. Are you happy now?" I can't help but laugh at him. "Oh, so you think this is funny? You literally just said you like this baked glob of crushed grain better than me. I'm hurt," he says, trying to be serious but can't keep the smile off his mouth.
"Mhm, actually the only reason I like you is because you bring me food, specifically this bread," I say, and then pause as his smile falters for a fraction of a second. "You know that's not true. I actually value your terrible jokes to an extent," I mend. His smile doubles.
"Terrible? I think you mean pure gold," I laugh, a little too loudly. I hear footsteps walking to the door. Arum and I, who apparently had been inching closer to each other as the conversation progressed, jumped to our feet as Sorrel opens the door.
"Addy—oh," Sorrel's eyes suddenly become darker as he notices Arum. Both stiffen and an awkward moment settles upon us like the dirt does to this city. Sorrel finally clears his throat. "Gailen was asking for you, but I can, uh, tell him you're busy…"
"Oh, don't worry I was just leaving," Arum responds with a slight edge. Huh. He turns to me and pauses awkwardly, as if affected by the presence of Sorrel. "I'll see you soon, okay?" He starts to back away, but I can't let him go that easily.
I pull him in for a hug, one where I sling my arms around his neck and I'm on the tips of my toes just to reach his six-foot-something frame, and he lets go of all reservations and wraps his arms around my midsection and pulls me to him. I whisper, "thank you. For everything." I distantly register the door shutting, a sign that Sorrel has left.
He pulls back just enough so that our faces are inches apart, and delicately replies in that deep, gravelly voice, "Anything for you."