I awaken to the sound of seagulls; their piercing cries ring outside the window I left open last night in a desperate attempt to circulate cooler air throughout my room. After a quick stretch, I shuffle in the dark over to the open glass pane, resting my forearms on the wooden sill and peering out at the familiar sandy view. All is unusually quiet, except for the occasional waterfowl screech. And then I remember.
It's reaping day.
I return to my hammock, shifting my weight into it evenly so that it won't flip over and topple me into the wood floor four feet below. My fingers instinctively reach to finger the knots and grooves in the netted bed, a familiar habit I often have when my mind needs to be cleared. My mother's quiet precision never ceases to amaze me, how she first handcrafted my hammock when I was an infant, gradually adding on to its length as I grew. She wove a lot then, the early years when she was still married to my father. I consider those times our own Dark Days of the past, our Treaty of Treason the divorce papers.
Those who live in District 4 have very different outlets for temporary release from the pressure of the Capitol, but they all are somehow linked to the sea. A lot of the teenagers, the constant possibility of being reaped weighing on their minds, take to surfing the rips and curls of the ocean. My brother Hayden, three years past the reaping age maximum, is one of them.
My mother, like a lot of the other women her age, uses weaving as a personal release. Every morning, I wake up before the sun rises and gather sturdy vines and reeds along the sand dunes for her. I don't mind waking up early, though. Unlike most of the people of District 4, I'm an early riser. There's just something about being on the beach, feeling the damp, sandy shoreline beneath my feet. It's serenely peaceful out here in the dark, long before the other obnoxious teenagers the Capitol likes to call "the generation of our future" arrive.
I guess I should have more compassion for those around me. Life isn't exactly easy for all who live in Panem. But, being a Career district, 4 is often a target for animosity coming from the less fortunate districts, like 11 or 12. Honestly, I would probably feel the same way if I were living in starvation. Even though a lot of us fishermen and –women believe we're all that and a bag of kelp, on the inside, we're just broken people living in a broken country.
That's one of the reasons why I don't have many friends. I'm one of few who actually know the missing piece to the society I live in. We may seem spoiled on the outside, but District 4 lacks one important quality: unity. I can only hope against hope that maybe this year's Hunger Games will be different.