The air is cold. A marble gray sky rolls overhead, darkened in the atmosphere of ever-present coal dust. The streets are crowded with emaciated townspeople with timid, sunken faces. Children with hollow eyes that should be playing stand stiff and much too old. I stand in the mass of bodies, nausea running in waves over my stomach due to the heat and stench produced by this forced closeness. Tension fills the air. Why have we been summoned here? The stage in the town square looms tall and cold. The scene is still as a stone; not even a bird dares to fly.
The stillness is broken by four Peacekeepers in blinding white uniforms dragging two people onto the stage. A man and a woman, equally as skeletal as their fellow citizens, are forced to their knees in front of the crowd. Hands tied behind their backs, blood pouring openly from a wound in the man's head, the woman with her jaw set and tears in her eyes she refuses to let fall.
Who are they?
One Peacekeeper steps forward and begins speaking about the couple. His words are harsh, acidic, cutting, as he accuses them of treason. The four jackals raise their guns.
The woman's flaxen hair flutters in the wind, and it is then that I realize who she is. Bile rises in my throat; my mother, my mother is on her knees on that stage, the butt of a shotgun being grinded into her back. Next to her, his chocolate hair matted with blood, is my father.
There is nothing I can do. I am trapped in a horde of starving people and my attempts to lunge forward are in vain. Again the Peacekeepers raise their guns and this time they do not hesitate to fire rounds into my parents, bullets ricocheting through their bodies. Blood and brain matter showers the crowd, spraying onto my face, into my hair and mouth. I scream and the birds finally take flight. Ravens and mockingbirds storm the sky, turning it a merciless black.
I bolt straight up in my bed, cold sweat glistening on my forehead and sobs wracking my body. I gasp for air as if I have been held underwater too long. The dust settles over everything around me, thickening the layer of black that never seems to go away. The slats of wood that make up the roof are sparse and rotting, the cement slab walls crumbled and molding.
The memories never leave. Even the sanctuary of sleep has been desecrated by the past.
A gust of air blows through the shoddy architecture, and with it comes dense ash. My lungs still burn for air, and I cannot help but continue to gasp. As a result, I inhale a large amount of the gray ash and suddenly the sobs are replaced by a fit of frantic coughing. I bury my face in the burlap cover to muffle the sound. My body begins to convulse and my heartbeat quickens with panic. It takes a few moments, but my body expels the poisons and my coughing recedes.
I look down at the burlap and see sprays of red where my mouth was. I fold it over and push the thought from my mind.
A rat scurries across the dirt floor. My hand immediately grasps the handle of the knife stuck in the table next to me; with a flick of my wrist the blade spins through the air and impales the rat against the wall.
Well, if anything, we have dinner for the night.
The mass of blankets across the room shifts, presumably because of the loud thud of the knife sticking in a crack of the cement and the subsequent layers of grit that showered down afterward. Miles sits up, stretching, running a hand through his dark, tousled hair.
My heart rips in half. Suddenly I am staring at my father; the same mop of hair and stormy ocean eyes, the same crooked smile and splatter of freckles across the nose, and I swear I'm looking at the tattered young man photograph of my father that stays beneath my mattress. But no. Before me is my brother, two years my junior but towering half a foot over me, arms long and lanky, hands soft and nimble. When we hunt, he sets traps with such grace and intricacy that I am fascinated every time. I still remember the first time he came into the woods with my father and me. He was barely seven, but when my father had trouble twisting the wires for a snare just right, Miles gently took the materials from my father's hands and set it perfectly in one try.
I was angry. I'd been hunting with my father for two years at that point and I had never set a successful trap. I took off running through the forest, ignoring my father's shouts and my Miles's crying, and scaled a tall pine tree. For three hours I waited, a child sized bow in my hands, my blood boiling but my body still as stone. I shot two rabbits and four squirrels.
When I presented them to my father he took my bow and went hunting without me for two weeks. I never pulled a stunt like that again.
Miles studies me for a few moments. I blink and realize distantly that my cheeks are wet. He smiles sadly at me. "Morning, Penny," he says quietly.
I know he faces the same heartache when he looks at me, as I favor our mother as much as he does our father. I take from her straight golden hair and fierce hazel eyes, a dimple in my right cheek when I smile, a slight figure and a clear voice.
"We should get started," I say with difficulty, clearing my throat of the blood and tears.
Miles nods and slides his hunting jacket on, then walks over to the wall and unsticks the knife and the rat. In no time flat the rodent is skinned and gutted, thrown into a pot full of water and stuck on the coals from last night's fire. I grab my jacket, slip on my boots, and the two of us leave the house.
We walk to a hole in the fence just beyond the Vice, the nickname used for the outskirts of town that we live in. The fence emits a low, ominous hum, alive as always with electricity. The hole in the fence is large enough to safely army crawl through, terrifying though it may be. I wriggle through to the field on the other side, followed closely by Miles.
"I swear," Miles says quietly, a half-smile gracing his cherub lips, "I can feel the current from the fence running through my body every time we go under it."
My mouth spreads into a grin because I know exactly what he means. Whether it's the deadly voltage we barely elude or the crisp, piney air so different from the coal miner poison we're used to, I feel alive in the woods.
Miles pulls a coil of wire out of his jacket pocket and starts mindlessly twisting a snare while I walk to the hollow tree that stashes my bow.
It's a good day in the forest. The rainfall last night dampened the fallen leaves so I can soundlessly track prey, and the river is almost overflowing with fish. Miles sets his snares and soon has three fat rabbits hanging from his belt. I shoot a wild turkey and two squirrels, and our net catches a dozen fish. We also trek to the shallow pond where katniss roots grow and stir up several pounds of the tubers. By midday we're already heading back to the fence, ready to trade our goods in the Grate, our black market.
I toss the bags of game over to Miles after he crawls back into town and then follow suit, brushing the dirt from my pants as I stand. Over the hum of the fence we suddenly hear something foreign. A crackling soon gives way to a harsh male voice: "Citizens of District Twelve, a mandatory assembly will take place in the city square at six p.m. this evening. Peacekeepers will be patrolling the streets to ensure attendance."
The blood in my veins turns to ice. Mandatory meetings are rarely called, and never pleasant. Food rations getting smaller, increased surveillance in the shops, an earlier curfew. Something about the announcer's voice this time is making my skin crawl. I glance at Miles who looks just as uneasy.
We do our business quickly at the Grate, trading two pounds of tubers, eight fish, and about half the game for twine, ink, and wool. Then we head home and add our remaining fish and half the katniss roots to the rat stew.
Before long it's quarter to six and we have to leave. We join the other residents of District Twelve around the same platform where I watched my parents get slaughtered months earlier. Miles grabs my hand and grounds me, reminding me to take deep breaths. The mayor of our district, a greasy man brought in from the Capitol, steps up to the podium and begins to speak.
"People of Panem, of our humble District Twelve, it has been one hundred years since the districts rebelled against their generous and loving Capitol. In half that time, the people discovered they were nothing without their capitol, which is all that sustained them. It has been a grueling fifty years to rebuild the city, and even now it is merely a shadow of its previous glory. But progress is being made every day.
"The districts have returned to providing goods and services to the Capitol, which in turn provides security and structure to them. The only alteration to the path we're on now is to boost the morale of the people in both the districts and the Capitol. This will be done by reinstating the historical Hunger Games, where one boy and one girl from each district will be brought together to fight to the death. By continuing this tradition we can fully mend the wounds left by the second rebellion and restore life in Panem completely.
"Because this is the first year, names will not be compounded based on age. Also, tesserae will not be offered. Each child between the ages of twelve and eighteen will be entered into the drawing exactly once. Names will be chosen this Sunday at noon. Attendance is mandatory. That will be all for tonight; you are excused."
Miles shakes my shoulder and I realize I've fallen to the ground. He slides his arms beneath me and scoops me up. It isn't until he sets me on my bed that I realize I'm convulsing with shivers.
"It'll be okay, Penn," he says, wiping tears from my face. I hold my breath as guilt washes over me. He's only fourteen yet already caring for his older sister. "There are thousands of kids in District Twelve. More than there were for the last Hunger Games. The chances of our names getting pulled… Well, the odds are in our favor, are they not?"
I laugh, which mixed with my sobs causes me to hiccup. "The odds aren't in our favor at all. You know our namesake, Miles."
He sighs. "I know our namesake," he agrees. He takes a deep breath before saying my full name.
"Pennyroyal Rue Mellark."