In Order to Survive
Chapter 1
Hi, readers! :) The "bamf" fic genre is one I like to write every now and then. This fic was inspired by Evan-Almighty, and has been betaed by Claratrix LeChatham and SkyWriter9. I also want to thank CrazyNerdyFangirl for having a look at the draft of this as well and offering comments.
All mistakes are, however, my own.
Disclaimer: This work of fan-fiction is not intended for personal profit. All characters utilized herein which are not creations of myself belong to Suzanne Collins.
Evan Williams lived in a small town in the United States of America. He'd read the Hunger Games books many times, and had often wondered how he would fare in a Games environment. This wasn't any sort of morbidity on his part. Rather, a curiosity similar to the sort that killed the cat.
Never in his life did he believe he would have to actually live that way, with the Games hanging over his head as a terrible fate to be avoided. He lived a normal life in all respects: he went to school, hung out with friends, had fun at school dances, and he thought his parents were uncool when he had to go to the shopping mall with them.
One ordinary night, he went to sleep in his bed, and the next morning, woke up on the bare hard ground in the middle of a thick stand of trees.
He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. No change. He was still in his T-shirt and board shorts, lying on a dirt pathway in a forest. He stood up and looked around, noticing that the forest of mostly pine trees was eerily silent. No tire treads, or discernible indicators that any human, save himself, had ever set foot in the grove.
He yelled, "Aaron? Randy? Not funny, guys. You've had your joke, come on, here!"
Nobody came out from behind a tree, laughing his head off over the great prank they'd pulled. An uneasy feeling seeped into Evan's gut. Could he really be … somewhere else? How had he gotten there? No footprints, just a rocky trail snaking through the trees. He followed it with his eyes until it disappeared in shadow.
"HELLO!" he bellowed. Terror threatened to freeze him in place. He was alone, in the cool morning air, in a forest that didn't sound like a forest ought to. Evan had always been good at keeping himself calm, but even a marble statue would at least have been… worried.
His voice echoed off the trees, but nobody appeared on the trail. Alone, alone, alone. The echo was eaten by the silence, and he felt even more abandoned than before.
This is not good, he thought. Oh, this is bad.
He looked around and noticed, through the thick branches that obscured his view, the sky was overcast with white clouds. The pathway he was on didn't seem to lead anywhere, but he had two choices: stay where he was, or walk somewhere and find civilization. He could panic later. It wouldn't help him to… cry… now.
Fortunately, as it turned out, the path he chose led upward, and after several minutes of sweaty walking, which served as a handy distraction from the situation, he crested an incline and found himself looking down upon undulating hills of nothing but trees ending at a large brown mountain. He saw some white smoke rising into the air a bit closer to him than the mountain, and hope rose within him as he began walking down the winding pathway that would lead in the direction of the white plume. People… who could help him find his parents. His home. Though he kept the thought locked in the back of his mind, he missed them.
The town had looked so deceptively close from the view at the top of the hill. But it took Evan an interminable duration, needing several rest stops along the way, to finally get there, his stomach growling with hunger because he'd missed breakfast, and very likely lunch, too. And oh man, did his feet hurt. Even though the dirt pathway was solid and mostly free of stones and such, he still wasn't used to walking without his shoes. His feet, which were not his favorite body part in the first place, were covered in a fine layer of dust, battered and scraped from a bad fall when he tripped on a tree root, with a splinter between his toes that he could not remove.
The white plume, he realized, was from a large building he could see as the dirt pathway met a wide road heading towards the town. The slight stink told him it was probably a pulp mill. If that was true, there must probably be a sawmill too.
Shock went through Evan as he wondered. Where on Earth was he?
The pulp mill, and the sawmill which he now saw opposite the pulp mill so they flanked the road, were both huge. They sprawled out on either side of him, dwarfing the shops he saw on the paved road ahead. Further ahead, he could see smaller buildings and houses. A fine coating of sawdust, like a light snow, seemed to coat every surface in sight. Evan crouched down and ran a finger through the stuff blowing gently across the road in wonder, still not quite comprehending just where he was.
The noises and clanking of the machines in the two mills were accompanied by the roar of a large odd-looking vehicle that vaguely resembled a bus, which zoomed past him and down the road into the forested area. It could have been a bus, he decided. It just looked… sadder. A little more beaten down. Like it had been thrown together from patchwork to serve a purpose that wasn't intended to help anyone in it.
The paved road went straight through the town, it seemed, but at the first intersection, Evan could see that the secondary roads were all dirt. This first dirt road he saw crossing the paved road seemed to create a perimeter road that went around the town; he wasn't sure how he knew this, but something about it seemed to make sense. He had looked at maps before, after all. Even so, this town seemed a bit dumbed down from the twisting highways and roundabouts of home.
Unfortunately, bad luck caught up with Evan as a tall olive-skinned uniformed man with a gun stepped around the next corner and spotted him. Frozen to the spot, Evan could only swallow nervously as the broad-shouldered man came up and said, "Well, well. And what do you think you're doing, skipping school? Time for an appointment with Head Peacekeeper Rossberg."
Excitement and dread coursed through Evan simultaneously, though dread seemed to be the dominant of the two, as the Peacekeeper roughly grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and marched him down the road. He was in District Seven in Panem! But he had just been caught by the worst person to meet, and the odds of talking his way out of this one seemed low.
/\/\
The town square in Seven was almost identical to the mental pictures Evan had had when he read about District Twelve's. A large Justice Building occupied an entire corner of the square, and it looked like the only building that wasn't just a bit worn-down around the edges. It also didn't have a light dusting of sawdust over the walls and roof.
He didn't get to admire much of it, since the Peacekeeper was already marching him right through the doors, Evan's stocking feet leaving light brown marks on the polished white linoleum. He tried to look contrite and respectful, but he couldn't seem to get his face past 'terrified'. These people… these Peacekeepers… no one knew him. No one would vouch for him. And if a boy could be whipped within an inch of his life for a turkey, then how would he fare for truancy?
They stopped before a door with an ornate nameplate on it which read HEAD PEACEKEEPER. The Peacekeeper banged on it, then waited until it opened, revealing a severe-looking, grey-haired older woman. Evan was almost pathetically relieved. He had kept thinking of Romulus Thread, the ominously evil Peacekeeper who had ordered Gale whipped so hard he collapsed.
The man stood at attention, releasing Evan in the process. "Peacekeeper Franklin reporting this truant boy per your orders."
"Excellent! I'm glad to see my orders to clamp down on this sudden epidemic of truant teenagers have not been in vain. Bring him in, Franklin."
Evan felt small and nervous as he was roughly shoved into the large chair opposite the well-dressed Head Peackeeper at her desk. She smirked and said, "Just the person we need to make an example of for all those other truant boys and girls. It's as though you think the effort we put forth in teaching your tiny little brains about the greatness of the Capitol is nothing to you."
She hissed, "And to think the teachers here are too incompetent to maintain order since I promised three days ago to stamp this out!"
In a show of false sympathy, she said, "I think the only concession we will make is that we will use a leather strap instead of a whip. We can't be hurting you before you even have a chance to work."
Evan couldn't believe this was happening. He blurted, "In front of everybody? The whole District?"
The Head Peacekeeper scowled at him. "Say that again!"
"I said, in front of—"
She cut him off. "Yes, that's enough. You don't have the usual District Seven accent. I wonder, are you a runaway from somewhere?"
Evan thought fast. "Wait! I grew up in the… the Community Home and… uh, didn't come to school most of the time. That's why I talk funny, miss, uh, ma'am." Laying it on thick, he snivelled a bit, saying, "I'm really sorry, miss. I won't ever do it again!"
"You slum rats disgust me. Your Community Home supervisor's useless and a drunk. Garbage, all of you," she snarled. As though her statements were justified, the Head Peacekeeper nodded to herself. "All the better, then, to make an example of you. We cannot have runaways thinking they can just waltz away from school whenever they feel like it."
She grabbed her telephone and began barking orders. Evan fleetingly thought of trying to escape, but realized if he did that, they might whip him for real. At least a leather strap wouldn't leave permanent marks.
That did little to keep his legs from shaking as Peacekeeper Franklin grabbed him and threw him into a jail cell to await his punishment.
/\/\
Within a few hours, several hundred, if not a couple of thousand, people – mostly the kids in school, Evan thought – were gathered around a post which Evan had been tied to, his shirt removed. He was, unfortunately, a bit on the skinny side so the wind seemed to go right through him on this cloudy day, and he felt terribly small, tied to a post, surrounded by burly teenagers, dirty and tired and absolutely starving.
Rossberg barked in her usual no-nonsense tone, "Today, we have caught one of you truant little hellions who seem to think you can just skitter away from school without paying the consequences. In the spirit of slight leniency, which I hope is not misplaced—" she smirked maliciously and seemed to lock eyes with every person who was in the crowd. A few brave souls met her gaze, but most looked at their feet.
"We will be using the leather strap," she finally announced. "Peacekeeper Franklin! Administer the punishment. Twenty lashes across his back."
Twenty? Oh shit! Evan closed his eyes, wishing he was back in his comfortable bed, trying not to shiver from the fear and the wind. His mother… his parents… he couldn't even cry for them. Lost in the past…
Snap-CRACK!
The sudden explosion of pain as the strap hit Evan's back ripped an anguished yell from his throat as he threw his head back. The stinging pain reverberated through his ribcage. Not leaving a mark? He was certain that the lash had broken the skin, fractured all the bones in his back—
Evan lost count somewhere around the fourth blow, and was barely conscious when the last strap was administered. His hands were roughly untied, his shirt was shoved into his hands and a Peacekeeper shoved him into the crowd. In a sneering tone, he said, "Someone take care of this little miscreant!"
Someone's arms grabbed him just before he fainted.
Author Notes: Thanks for reading. Concrit is always appreciated. :)