[Author's Note: So...since people obviously aren't reading this. Tell me what you hate/like/are unfazed by, so I can make it more interesting and relatable! REVIEW, please. Seriously, take a moment and tell me your thoughts.]
I was chosen the very last year that I was eligible. Eighteen and ripe for the Reaping. I guess I was lucky in that respect-I had the advantage of age; the youngest tributes almost never made it very far.
Feeling lucky wasn't something I would need to get used to though, throughout the Hunger Games
The voice comes in to me from outside the window. High. Tinkling with laughter even this early in the morning. "Chrome!"
I shift even deeper in my covers, my movements making the frame of the bunk bed creak. The metal was a poor grade and decades old: the best District Six had to offer. "Chrome!"
Streak is getting impatient. She's used to my sleeping in, but she must be on edge for some reason. And then I remember...it's Reaping Day.
The realization runs a chilly, invigorating path through my body. The last year to wake up dreading the day, I think. At the same time, as I go through the motions of dressing, arranging my hair, a little part of me is terrified. But there's still today, it says.
Streak is pacing up and down the slim top of a brick wall by the time I meet her. Her worn leather jacket catches on the crumbling mortar when she leaps down, and she tugs it loose before commencing our walk through town. "Can you smell the difference in the air?" she asks.
"Yep," I say. I'm glum, but my answer manages to sound grimly buoyant. "By the end of the day, two less people will be breathing it."
"More room for us," she returns. Streak is small, but sturdy. Her cap tilts towards the ground, putting her eyes in half shadow, hiding beneath it a round, determined face. She's one of the tiniest women on the assembly line and one of the most productive.
I've never been able to beat her quota. Then again, I'm hardly ever in that part of the factory to try. Ever since I was about fifteen, they've kept me in the Finishing area, putting the final touches on automobiles, trains, elevator cages. Of course I only work part time, but we try to get placed into something when we're young.
I'm a few inches taller than Streak, but I'm still small. And more than that, fragile, compared to most girls on the Block. No muscle definition, or staying power. My fingers, though, are where I make up for that lack.
The overseers found me in metal shop during an inspection of our school when I was working on a simple cart. My teacher had been lecturing me on the extreme delicacy of my wheels. I'd made them far more ornate than the blueprint called for.
Thankfully, this was a plus for people building to the Capitol's tastes. They set me up as a designer and "polisher", making automobiles more pleasing and elegant for the wealthy passengers. In return, I am paid a small (and I do mean, small) wage that can contribute to my family's income.
Streak and I turn automatically down a narrow street that blossoms into a grid of factories and tenements. Wet asphalt has given our walk a less smoky scent than usual-unsettling after our recent comments. It's as if the District Six tributes are already out of our midst.
The Canteen is across from Factory Five, and provides meals for the workers every afternoon and evening. In the morning, like now, the cooks are only just beginning their day. But by the time we reach the smudged iron and glass double doors, we realize that today is their day off as well as ours.
We decide to make the trek to the other side of town, to the junkyard where we've played since we were little.
How many hours have I spent scouring the scraps of broken and destroyed metal? And what have I been looking for?
I pick up a piece of steel that once was a car door-or a section of a door-and hold it up to Streak where she stands atop a pile of crushed buses. "That's nice!" She calls back. When we meet up again, she's holding a fist-sized plastic light that once sat on the roof of a Peacekeeper vehicle. Her hands examine the chipped red case, poking where the light would have been attached.
She sits on the scrap of steel I scavenged. Later, she'll use it for something else. Maybe a tray. Maybe a small table top. I've always been astounded at the uses she can find for things everyone else throws away. Maybe she'll let me do some filigree work on it...
The junkyard is an interesting mix of refuse. It has the standard wreckage, cars, buses, hovercrafts, carts used in mineshafts. Sometimes a train car from one of the lines going to and from the other Districts. We like to nose around in those, if they haven't been crushed already. No one but designated officials get to travel out of the District-ironic for a place specializing in transportation.
New models outshine the older, so we have a peak at the outdated styles of the Capitol, even if we don't work in Assembly. And an added bonus with the cars is the stuff that is tossed out with them. Dinner services, silverware, tablecloths, velvet seat cushions. You can sell all of it. You have to be careful about doing so, but almost everyone has something in their homes that Streak and I have lifted from the yard.
It's another source of income, although if someone really needed something, we usually couldn't turn them away. There are so many people in the Block's crowded apartments that things got worn out quickly, and more often went missing. There was a thriving drug market, if you want it. It's hard to afford though. Most have to steal to keep up the habit.
The sun's high in the sky by the time we leave for town. We usually skip breakfast to save on food so I'm used to the feeling, but for some reason today, I feel twice as hungry than I am normally. It's as if my body is telling me to gather as many nutrients as possible, just in case.
Just in case, I think. In case this coming meal is one of the last I'll ever need. My mind is foggy, and I come out of my starving reverie only once Streak and I reach my building. Instead of seeing me off at the door, and going back to her own apartment, Streak follows me to the third floor where our friend Titania lives.
Titania's littlest brother opens the door. At his heels is the next oldest, and they run off together as we crowd inside. Someone shouts hello from the kitchen. We make our way through the apartment, small, but larger than my own, and find Titania up to her elbows in bread dough. Her mother, a stout, dark-haired woman, stokes the coal stove in the corner.
"Ready for your last Reaping, girls?" She asks. Mrs. Waters has coal-black eyes, the same as her daughter, and they glint fiercely. I can tell she's determined that her daughter won't be chosen this year. Confident.
Titania comes over, toweling flour off from her hands. "As we'll ever be." My friend beams, yet her smile doesn't carry the same faith that her mother's did. Streak pulls out her slice of metal and presents it awkwardly. Change of subject. Before she and I head home, all of us sit down for tea, reliving the past twelve years of our friendship.
Titania brings up a time back in second grade when I was reprimanded by the teacher for drawing during lessons. They couldn't find me for hours afterwards and finally, Ti opened a cupboard at the far side of the room, revealing my hiding place. Everyone howls in laughter, and I just remember how cold the cupboard was.
My brother watches me enter our apartment, pressing his lips into a thin, look-what-the-cat-dragged-in sort of line. He knows that our mother will have wanted to spend the morning with me. It's not just the reaping, but the fact that I'm old enough in a month or so to strike out on my own. Not that there's a lot to strike on in District Six.
I head to the room that Marten and I share, and hurry to get dressed so that I can be out at the table when Mother comes home. She's probably used the time I was gone to go to the market. We try to have some kind of commemoration every year. Something that says, I'm glad it wasn't me.
Clothes that are untarnished by smog or smelting burns are hard to come by-most of the time I wear denim pants or coveralls that can take the abuse. A shirt light enough to breathe in the heat of the factory after school. Today though, we'll be expected to be in respectable condition.
So when I'm ready in a cotton dress, I return to Marten. Or I think I am. There's a living room, a kitchen, and a bedroom, and right away I can tell he's in none of them. I wonder where he's gone before my mind registers something from a few minutes ago. His expression, the pallor of his skin. I suppose it was around time for his next hit. He confirms my suspicions by bounding into the room from the landing outside our door. His sleeves are pulled down, unusual for him.
He shakes off my intent gaze by flattening his collar, straightening his cuffs. "I don't know where Mother is, but you'd better get to the center." At the center of town is the square, where the Reaping will take place. "It's almost two o'clock, now."
I nod, knowing it's stiffer than usual, and make for the door. "Hey," he says, catching ahold of my shoulder. "Good luck." Glassy but sincere, his eyes follow as I close the door behind me.
Seven reapings. That's how many I'll have been through by the end of today. I've only taken tesserae three times. The odds are in my favor.
Lined up with the rest of the Eighteens, I try to bob my head between necks to see the stage that's been set up at the Justice Building. You can always watch the screens they put up for the audience, but it really takes away from the immediacy of the event. I make myself live it. I live it as much as I can because someone won't be living at all pretty soon.
I owe it to them.
Someone nudges me on my left, and I see Titania step into formation beside me. On my right, Streak falls in as well. This will be it for us. We smack our hands back and forth with one another like in a children's game. Both of mine with one of theirs, each.
Next to me, Streak closes her eyes. Without looking, I can tell she's smiling, taking pleasure in the simple movement. Titania adds her left hand to the mix, enclosing mine with gentle slaps, bottom top bottom top bottom...it begins to synchronize with my heart as we stand still, waiting for the show to begin. She's worried.
Then, with a metallic screech, the microphone comes to life and the speakers in the square reverberate the sound through the crowd. Taps come next, as our district escort, Pallas Palantine, tests the mic yet again. His voice booms over us: "Welcome to the 73rd Annual Reaping of District Six and Panem!"
He must be in his thirties, but the current fashion of the Capitol makes him look like he's been alive for every Hunger Games. Hair powdered white, with matching eyebrows and lashes, he reads his yearly welcome speech, dressed to the nines in an ocean of malnourished steel workers. I give up my useless stretching at this point, and lift my eyes to the enormous screens.
Our Mentors sit to the side of the podium, dressed in what must be their best, but looks like something thrown from a malfunctioning kiln. The woman, Singe, wears a bright orange dress that spirals up around her neck and wrists, an odd sight for someone over fifty. Her counterpart, Torch, is practically aflame in a blue outfit as bright as Singe's. Neither look fully present, despite (or maybe as a consequence of) their dress. All the makeup in the world couldn't hide their yellowed skin that seems to be melting as we speak.
They look alarmingly like my brother. This makes sense, when you know they're both morphling addicts. Where is Marten now, I wonder.
The Mayor steps up, reads his part, and resumes his seat. He's a puffy man. Not particularly plump, just tipping middle age and showing it.
We're silent. Pallas steps back to his podium to wish us luck, May the odds be ever in your favor, only to stride over to the glass orbs containing the name of every child between twelve and eighteen.
"Ladies first," he states. No flourish. No smile. He might even look a tad reluctant today.
I'm suddenly aware that my friends' hands and mine are no longer touching. We've hesitated between claps, and instead our palms hover next to one another.
So when he reads out my name, they're right there to catch me.
I wake up, or...was I asleep, even? No-I'm on my feet, walking forward somehow. I look briefly to the side, just out the corner of my eye, and see Titania and Streak. It's just a glance. Not much of a chance to see anything.
Their expressions, though. Frozen. Terrified.
The rest of the District is still. Like I am, inside. After the initial shock, I feel I've never been calmer. You can't fall to pieces if the worst has already happened. If I'm meant to die in the Games-and I am, more likely than not-I'm as good as gone now. Why fight it?
A flag flaps somewhere above us. I've taken so long to reach the stage that Peacekeepers have begun to walk towards me, to escort me up the stairs. I manage without them. I'm a little surprised I don't fall. My legs are numb...
And when I believe that I can maybe make it through the rest of the ceremony, I hear Pallas again. "Our boy tribute,"
I don't recognize the name. He's a year or so younger than me, I think. I can feel how blankly I must be staring at him, but I can't change my expression. As he steps out of his group and walks towards us, he catches his shoe on another boy's. He falters and they steady each other. Then, back away to continue on. They're friends, perhaps. What are his friends like? Does he have many?
In a moment, he's there with me, and we're made to shake hands. It'll be a pleasure killing you, I think to myself. It was a joke, something I did automatically. But immediately I am sorry.
"Hello," I say.
He grimaces, as if I'm too dumb to kill. That's okay. He can let someone else do it.
The Mayor steps back up, telling the story of the formation of Panem and the Districts that once rebelled, and were made to pay for years to come. Our Mentors look at us dreamily, foggy inside their own drug spun world. Singe takes my hand in both of hers and gives me a smile, kind yet slightly deranged.
My fellow tribute is approached by Torch. Shyly, the former victor hugs him. The boy simply pats the older man's shoulder. He looks grateful for the strange embrace. The audience applauds politely in the background.
I'm just trying to get another look at my friends when Pallas comes over to me, ushers me beside the boy, and gives a final, "The District Six Tributes!"
The applauding continues.
We're supposed to say goodbye to our families. To do so, we're led off the stage and into the Justice Building.
It's a huge structure, built not of steel and glass like everything else around here, but of brick and stone. A mural is painted across the high, domed ceiling, and held in by carvings of men and women with wings assembling trains, planes.
They put the boy tribute and I in separate rooms, and I suppose he waits for the door to open just as I do, to let in our visitors one by one. I really should have stayed with Marten, to spend the morning with my mother.
Marten looks the most like her, but Mother is small like me. Her dark hair isn't bobbed as most women in the District have theirs, but pulled up into a loose knot at the crown of her head. I think of her home, alone, with Marten to worry about. He's ten years older than me but less practical; he won't be much help as far as money goes. It'll be like I hadn't happened-as if the clock is reset to a time before I was born.
They'll have one less person to care about. It might be lonely for a while, having been used to three people in the apartment. They'll get used to it, though. Eventually.
If I could summon a response during our encounter, I would tell her I'm afraid to die and that it isn't fair. That I was almost out. But neither of us can, and we stand holding each other for our allotted time, and she doesn't say goodbye when she leaves. She says, "I love you" and, "You can win."
Marten brushes past her, coming in. "No one volunteered. I...was expecting someone to volunteer." His sleeves are pushed up again, like normal; he's shaky though. Not normal.
I think I laugh. "If it wasn't me, it'd be someone else," I hear myself say. My arms are regaining sensation, and they're cold. Pieces of meat hanging from hooks where my shoulders should be.
"Someone volunteered for me." Marten says, his eyes wide, apologetic. "I-I can't volunteer for you."
"What? Well you're not a girl..." I stop. "What do you mean someone volunteered for you? You were...you...?"
"When I was twelve." He looks ashamed. "Someone stood up to take my place." Lost. He looks lost, too. "I'm your brother. I'm supposed to be able to protect you. To at least try."
We stare at each other. "I've done a damn poor job of it."