Hellscape: The Tenth Hunger Games
"Hello, hello, hello, helloooo ladies and gentlemen!" Caesar Flickerman rolls the O between his pristine white teeth. Like a connoisseur with fine wine, he lets the vowel dwell on his tongue for just the appropriate length of time. His hair and make-up are a bone-white today. They give him the appearance of a grinning skill bouncing around on a spinal cord, like a child's rattle.
Hannel Gunnerson can't believe it. Sixty-five years, and the hosts have only got more annoying.
"We've got a very special show for you tonight. With the Seventy-Fifth Hunger Games around the corner, we've been recapping our faaaavourite Hunger Games!" Caesar holds his arms out wide, his manic grin firmly in place. Hannel wonders if it is pinned in place. The audience cheer, baying for blood they have yet to grow tired of. "But we have a rather unusual one tonight." He pauses. The audience quieten and sober up.
"The Tenth Hunger Games are not talked about very much these days. In the excitement of Quarter Quells, we tend to overlook the few games which established and founded our noble Panem we know today. But no longer."
"The Tenth Hunger Games have gone by many names- Hellscape, the Bloody Arena, that damned mess as our unlikely Victor Hannel Gunnerson so memorably dubbed it-" Hannel grimaces as the audience laughs their ugly chorus of birds laugh. They're playing him as the Grumpy Old Man for cheap laughs. He remembers the interview's sting, even after thirty years. When they were listing the names of dead children and laughing, laughing of all things about it, how else was he supposed to respond? That was certainly the least colourful thing he called his own games.
"-with some scenes deemed so violent, they have only just been approved for showing, for the first time, in our twelve part documentary: Hellscape: The Tenth Hunger Games."
Hannel feels his fingers itch for a cigarette. His doctors forbade him especially, and Hannel ignored them especially. But the Capitol took special notice in him this year. He's an old, old bastard but they can't let him die before they've dragged their painted monkey out for one final dance.
"And onto our next segment. Katniss and Peeta, the wedding of a century- what will they be wearing? Our two lovely presenters are on an mission to find out-"
He switches the television off with a dismissive grunt, and flops back on his hotel bed in the Capitol.
All he wants to do is forget about the awful events of sixty-five years ago. But almost against his will, his eyes drift closed and memory claws its way through the unforgiving darkness-
It's beautiful when it rains.
He's heard they loathe rain in other districts- take umbrellas out, put tarpin up and the like- and the Capitol is said to have its own dome up to keep the rain out, a paper-thin crust of diamond that lets every drop of rain slide right clean off it. Course that was what Billy Spencer told him in the factory yesterday, which wouldn't be such a doubtful thing if it weren't that Billy was also convinced the machine on floor 3E was haunted by the ghost of his dead cat. He lost an arm to the swishing silver teeth trying to give it a tummy rub a few months ago.
But it's beautiful to see even in a place like Factory 3-6-1. It turns to liquid silver down the open window-pane, where a few drops splash deliciously against his skin when he leans close to the lead-lined pane. The pounding of the rain is enough to drown out the endless machine thrumming that drills into his head and has crept into his dreams in a flurry of pounding needles and tangled threads. Sometimes it seems like he's only ever known peace in the rain.
He loves the smell of the rain the most. When he's walking home after a twelve-hour factory shift, hands raw and red and back aching, there's nothing more he loves than smelling the rain. The copper-y tint that makes him think of grass he's only ever seen in pictures and when he turns his eyes right up to the sky, right up in that deep-grey dusk it makes him feel like he could be anywhere else in the Districts, makes him feel so free-
"Gunnerson!"
There the stab of pain in his back. Next thing he knows he's lying drooling on the floor, pain arching his body into strange shapes as a dark dullness spreads through where he's hit the unforgiving stone floor.
A pair of fine-sewed leather shoes (specifically made of the gold thread they sew in Factory 8-3-4 and the smooth light brown leather they make in Factory 5-5-5, as Hannel learnt in school, both of which are imported to Districts 5 to 9, materials reserved for people who are of a mediocre importance, notably respected most by themselves than anyone else) creep into view and none too gently kick his head upright to face the Inspector.
The Inspector is a clean-shaven man, with wild dark hair and blue eyes the colour of blueberry-dye. His uniform is pristine and probably made in another factory in District 8. He's a home grown man, mean and petty as they come in 8, and theres none he likes to have a go at more than Hannel. A taser swings from one hand, the air still smelling of sulphur slightly.
"Tell me, boy, do I pay you to stare out the window all day?"
"No, sir." Hannel forces the words out through the pain. He knows it will be worse if he does not reply. Fifteen or no, able-bodied or no, the Inspector will taser him to nothing on this concrete floor if he does not play the game. Hannel has seen it happen too many times.
The Inspector says nothing for a moment. Hannel, heart pounding in hope, begins to drag his weakened body upright. He is in severe pain, but he had been in pain before. He will be dead if he stays on the floor. The Inspector stops him half-climb, places his foot on Hannels chest, with Hannel awkwardly half-risen and unbalanced.
"Do you dislike working here, boy?"
"No, sir."
"I can assure you, there is a fine career as a beggar awaiting you if you do." The Inspector sneers down at him.
Shit. Hannel feels cold beads of sweat roll down his back. He needs this job. His mother can't work, and his father won't work, leaving him and his eight-year old sister to bring back the money.
For better or worse, he needs this job.
"Do you dislike me, boy?"
"No, of course not, sir."
"Liar." Hannel doesn't deny it.
After what seems like a lifetime the foot is lifted. The Inspector allows Hannel to rise-
A sharp strike across the face. Hannel is stunned, he stumbles; but by some incredible feat remains standing. The Inspector looks disappointing. "Get back to work, then." He snaps, and walks off, his taser swinging at his side.
Hannel feels weak with relief, or possibly faint from pain. He can't make his scrambled mind up. Either way, he returns to work, his fingers nimbly working the barrels of fabric through the beast of a machine in front of him. None of the other boys on his floor looked up during this encounter. Hannel doesn't blame them; its something everyone learns quickly in the factory; least, all the smart ones do. Ignore what doesn't involve you, and run from what does involve you.
Always go unnoticed. That's how you survive.
He bites his tongue betwixt his teeth; and notes, with indescribable sadness, the rain has ceased to fall.