*Hello. (: This is a prequel to the Hunger Games (the first book in the trilogy). It doesn't really involve Katniss and Peeta, but does take place in District 12. Enjoy, and please give feedback on what you deem fit. Thanks for reading!(:*
I dip my head beneath the surface of the water, scrubbing my roots with soap. The water is still vaguely warm, chilling with each passing second and threatening to envelope me with its cold embrace. Every bead of water washes away the grime and fog from the Hob this morning, tears the smell of morphling off my skin. In this tub, I feel safer than I've been before.
I know I need to get out soon, to take my little brother's hand and lead him to the reaping, that neither of my parent's are strong enough to help us through this, but I'm mesmerized by the peace of this bath. There's no morphing-addicted parents, no little brother who needs a parent I can't be, no Ky. I get to be the person I could've if none of this happened.
I muster what's left of me, the fragments of the person who doesn't have to support her family, the shards of my childhood, and I try to piece together the puzzle.
My father is Mayor Undersee's right hand man, and also his brother. The mayor looks after my family in a way my parents never have. He looks out for us like I imagined a dad should, instead of taking tablets to make the nightmares go away.
We live in the Seam, where we tend to look distinctly related, -and I'm sure our family tree's have interwoven branches somewhere- usually poor, and spend our whole lives inhaling coal dust and misery, passed from parent to child.
Morphling is usually too expensive for anyone in the Seam, but after the accident, Mayor Undersee keeps my parents with a steady supply. Our home reeks of it, the sickly sweet smell coats my lungs, adheres our walls. I know it's supposed to help with the pain, but my parents walk with glazed eyes and faraway smiles. Wherever they're locked, I don't have the key.
My parents, before I was ever alive, were a happy couple. My mother worked for the bakery, icing and baking cakes, often coming home with flour on her cheeks just to amuse my father. He loved her, he really truly did. Everyone talks about it with envy singing out in their voices, whining to be heard.
I didn't find out from my parent's directly, by the time I was born, they were so far gone. At the Hob, Darius and few other Peacekeepers joke about it, saying I learned how to live by myself.
According to the Peacekeeper's, my father was crazy about my mother, a little too much, maybe.
Even though we're technically related to the mayor, things weren't going financially well for my family. My father worked in the coal mines, alternating between that job and singing for whoever would hear. He had a beautiful voice really, before he was condemned to the occasional grunt and trill. I have bits and pieces of it that are caught in my memory from old tapes that friends lent me. I wish I had one of him saying my name.
Things began to fall apart, swiftly and with ease. They crumbled beneath the two lover's feet. My mother grew worried, taut with grief.
My mother was a floozy with a black widow's heart. She loved money, and the idea of happiness, but had no love for my father to speak of.
When he was singing on his way home from the mines one night, he saw her, through another man's window. Strolling on his way home, he put the thought from his mind. The woman he loved would be at home, cooking what he managed to scavenge for the two of them. He whistled then, and birds off in the distance were silenced.
They won't tell me how the man is. I've begged but I know no good will come.
My father arrived at an empty home, no warm stove to speak of. The edible plants he'd found were in the basket he'd brought them in, the slice of goat cheese he had saved and saved for sitting measly on the countertop. My mother wasn't there.
He sat and he waited, and finally she came, sweat and guilt reeking from her skin. He never mentioned it, and nor did she.
Five months later, the test proved true. He cut it out of her with good intentions and a rusty knife.
Darius teases me, that one day; I'll get to see the grave. I want to so badly; I want to spit on the spawn of adultery, to curse the one who tore my family apart.
When he was done, she was still alive. It was miraculous in its way.
Someone pulled the right strings and got her sent to the Capitol, where she recovered quickly. She told my father she hated him, and with them came a supply of morphling that the mayor is kind enough to keep replenished.
They're only truly themselves for moments before they get swallowed whole again, but the people I see are riddled with ruin. They could never be the mother and father I've prayed for.
I rise from the tub, haunted by the thoughts. I promptly tie my hair back in a bun, and don the white dress I picked from my mother's closet. It fits nearly perfectly, as well do the shoes. I smooth it down, and take one last look in the mirror.
It won't be you, Dahlia. You won't get picked.
I hope the voice is right.
As soon as I leave the bathroom, I'm greeted with whines and tremors that run through my body and hold me in shock. My mother is rolling around on the floor, lost in medication, and my father is beside her. At least the floors will get clean. I think, but I want to take it back so badly, I don't want it to be true.
"Can we go now?" I see Amaryllis standing in the doorway, looking scared. My father isn't nearly his size, so I set aside a week and fabric I bargained for at the Hob, and did the best I could. He still looks shabby, but less ridiculous than he did in our father's clothes.
Without a word, I take my baby brother's hand, who was unfortunate enough to just turn twelve, and I guide him to the town square.
Outside our door, the world is chaos. Morphling doesn't taint the air, but desperation does. I suppose my parents would be desperate if they weren't medicated, but I'll never know.
The truth is, if my home life were better, I'd be desperate too. I have my name in that glass bowl thirty-five times, seven because I'm eighteen, and four every year because I signed up for tessarae for every member of my family every year. Amaryllis has his name in once.
To be honest, I don't know if I'm doing him a favor or not. He has no one to support him here, except for maybe Ky.
With Ky's name comes a flutter of hope that I want to shut down before it spreads through my being.
The town square is just ahead lined with children trying to hold themselves together. You can see parents at the edges of the rope, trying to hold kids hands, assure them they're not going to get called up.
I feel so miserable that my own parents are rolling around on our floor, living in a world where they don't have children; I want to break down and cry. Instead, I pull myself together and compose myself. This is Amaryllis's first Games, by the off chance he never sees me again, he needs to know the basics.
I've been putting together a book for him in my free time. It briefly goes over the basics of hunting, some edible plants, who in the Hob will buy what, who will look out for him; how to get under the fence that separates 12 from wilderness, so forth.
I don't have the time to tell him, though, we're here. A couple of feet ahead is the line where children are getting their fingers pricked. I pull him away from the crowd, hysterics screamed and echoing in my head. I bend down to his level, but all I have time for is,
"When you get home, look under your bed. I love you." I kiss the top of his head, and try not to look back, because if I do, I'll have to know that if I get called as tribute, that boy will surely die.
The Peacekeeper pricks my finger, and "Dahlia Ribett" flashes on the scanner. She nods briefly, and I'm lead to where the eighteen year olds are roped off. I desperately search for Amaryllis behind me, but can't find him anywhere.
I feel a hand and my shoulder, radiating heat and comfort. I turn and look in Ky's eyes and know I can finally stop being strong.
But I can't. Up on stage, Effie Trinket appears. She's wearing a magenta wig, and a flaming orange outfit. Amidst our drab clothing, she's laughable. From a distance, she seems to be a burning fire. An improvement, really.
She welcomes us in the raucous Capitol accent and cheerfully exclaims, "Ladies first."
There's an awkward moment when you hear her fingernails scratching and clawing the glass bowl that holds thirty five slips of paper with the name "Dahlia Ribett" on it carefully, and finally she pulls out a piece of paper.
In a loud, voice comes the two words that I know were coming, but hoped wouldn't.
"Dahlia Ribett!" I sleepwalk to the stage. I am my parents on morphling, not here, not anywhere. I see relieved faces, smiles spreading like wildfire, glad their friends and selves were spared.
That's fine. At least I've brought happiness to someone.
All I hear is the wind blowing, occasional relieved murmurs with echoes far too large for such a whisper. Eventually, there are the sounds of Effie's spotted pumps against the hard wood beneath her feet, screeches that seem to never end.
I hardly even hear her digging in the glass bowl, before her voice rings in my head.
"Amaryllis Ribett. I bet my stars they're related. District 12, meet your tributes!" No one breathes a sigh of relief this time, not when the little twelve year old boy begins the long trudge to the stage. I hear every scrape of his boots across the gravel, every turning of head as they look at the male tribute almost make his way to the stage.
Almost. Not quite.
Ky Ahele reaches out an arm and stops my little brother in his tracks.
He steps up to the stage and says the sentence I would both rather he didn't and did.
"I volunteer as tribute."