The Orphan Games

by b0oRadley23

District 7 has a tradition of using orphans for tesserae rather than their own children and so many of their tributes are orphans, like Johanna. After her parents died when she was young, Johanna has lived alone, learning to survive on her own, but when she is captured the authorities and placed in a orphanage, the inevitable happens... rated T just to be safe

Prologue

'From the treaty of the treason: In penance for their uprising, each district shall offer up a male and female between the ages of 12 and 18 at a public "Reaping." These Tributes shall be delivered to the custody of the Capitol. And then transferred to a public arena where they will Fight to the Death until a lone victor remains. Henceforth and forevermore this pageant shall be known as The Hunger Games.'

45 years after the end of the Dark Days Panem entered a series of dearth years. During this time the winters were harsh and the summers dry. Famine was widespread amongst the districts, but as much as they begged the Capitol for help, their pleas were ignored. Bush fires swept through District 7, the lumber district, during the summers, felling acres upon acres of forest land in a matter of days.

Many in District 7 were left homeless and without work as their forest quarters burned to the ground around them. Those who didn't die in the fires slowly starved to death, sacrificing any food that they had for their children and some even refusing to rely on tesserae, in exchange for entering their children's names into the reaping bowl, which came with the risk of condemning their children to death in the Hunger Games. As a result, hundreds of children were left orphaned and alone. As one of the Districts with a high casualty rate, due to a combination of their sometimes dangerous district speciality, meaning that a number of workers were crushed by falling trees; and a brutal head peacekeeper who believed that every and any crime was punishable by death, orphans were nothing new to the district. Orphanages that had been set up over the years suddenly became filled to bursting point. As the dearth years drew to a close, a number of families began to take in orphans out of compassion, using the extra opportunity for tesserae that came with them to manage with the extra mouths to feed. These families collected tesserae not just from the orphans that they took in, but also from their own children.

However, just as things began to get better, on the year of the 2nd quarter quell, District 7 was once again thrown into disaster. Disease struck down many workers and fires burned once again through the woods. Prior to this, there had been rumour of an uprising throughout the district and many then speculated that their hardships were the result of the Capitol trying to crush out any fragment of rebellion from the minds of those in District 7. As winter began to set in, many gave in to having to collect tesserae in order to survive. But then, the announcement of the 2nd Quarter Quell changed everything. As President Snow stepped out onto the balcony, turned, selected and read out the contents of the little yellow envelope containing the malicious twist for the 50th Hunger Games, he changed the way that District 7 treated its orphans with one simple sentence…

"On the fiftieth anniversary of the Dark Days, as a reminder that two rebels died for every Capitol citizen, each district is required to send twice as many tributes"

Panic swept through District 7 as they began to fear for their children's lives, refusing to enter their names into the reaping bowl any more times than necessary as the odds turned against them. It is unsure who began the trend, but in order to both survive and feel at peace with the knowledge that there were many whose names were in the bowl more times than their own children, people began to take in more and more of the orphans and enter their names into the bowl as many times as possible in exchange for tesserae. That year 3 out of the 4 tributes from district 7 were orphans, 2 of whom died in the blood bath, the other on the second day of the Hunger Games, after consuming the poisonous fruit which hung enticingly from the trees in the arena. There was no one who mourned their deaths.

From that year on, it became tradition in district 7 that as soon as an orphan turned 12, they would be adopted in order to use their names for tesserae instead of the family's own children's. Afterwards, a new name for the Hunger Games surfaced, whispered by the children who were all alone in the world, whilst tears filled their eyes… The Orphan Games