AN: This fic is for Irish Luck, whose willingness to try her hand at non-linear storytelling (and the Hunger Games Universe) has challenged me to try something different as well.

This fic is rated T for violence and language.


The Reaping

It's over. It's done.

It's been long in coming. A fucking relief, actually, now that it's here and done. You spend 6 years of your life wondering each Reaping Day if it'll be your turn….and finally it is.

My name is Petra Angelovna. I am about to die

No more waiting. No more worrying. No more hand-wringing and dilly-dally. This is it: you're going to die. You could live to a hundred and still worry about the end. I pity them that do.

Eighteen. Not surprised. The odds weren't in my favor. My name's down at least six times, and then there's the tesserae on top of that. It's only fitting that the same foodstuffs and medicines that saved our lives should cost me in the end. Life has a poetic justice to it. Kill yourself or go mad are the only options any of us have to escape its firm reality. There's subservience, too, but it's only another form of madness when you get right down to it. Like all these people watching me ascend the platform, heads bowed in solemnity and acceptance of the State. There's a moment of silence for me, sure; but every parent is breathing a sign of relief their daughter wasn't chosen, and every girl from twelve to eighteen is secretly grateful it wasn't her. I would know: I've done my share of Reaping Days.

At least one way or another, this will be my last.

I take it calmly. Ignore the cameras. Viewers want a fight, festivity, rejoicing, at least for the Careers. They're probably cheering and chanting the volunteers on in Districts 1,2, and 4. Not here. Not in 6. It's a shitty hand to be dealt, but I'll take it. No one can make me celebrate it.

"Petra Angelovna!" Victor Victor Ivan Klerkov congratulates me, as the mixed vapor of grain alcohol fumes and what must be perfume roll over me. He reeks of money and whores. Klerkov's hand is flabby and soft in my palm—a lifetime in the Victor's Village will do that to a man. "You were just selected to represent Distric 6 for the Hunger Games. How do you feel?"

Same as you did your Reaping Day, I say. Scared shitless. "Resigned."

They draw the next 'contestant.' Sure. Like it's an honor or election or a choice. I half hope it's someone from the labor camps-strong, stoic, a potential partner…but he might turn on me, so I find myself wishing it's some starveling who won't pose a threat instead. Either way I don't want to look, don't want to know. But the cameras are here, the crowd is gathered, and I'm forced to look at the huddled mass of males before me and stare into the face of the man I must be willing to kill.

I will, I tell the crowd. Damn well count on it. I want to live. Then I realize I'm already playing the Game. Their Game. I'm Petra Angelovna. I was Reaped not moments ago and already I'm a cold-blooded killer.

Klerkov unfolds the paper with relish, and booms the words cheerfully to the mike just as he did mine not moments before: "Xavier Malcovitch!"

No one's prepared for it. Not even me.

"NO!" A woman wails. "NO! Not my baby not my baby please, please not my baby-"

The cameras pan to see him. Maybe he'll make the Capitol vids tonight, maybe he won't. But his mother just signed his death certificate as sure as the State. You can't afford to be seen as weak, fragile, childish...not if you want to live. I strain my neck, but even on the assembled screens surrounding the stage I can't make my opponent out through the crowd.

"No please, take me, take me instead, not my baby NOT MY BABY-!" Game Authorities pour into the crowd to drag Malcovitch forward. They're beating her off but still she clings, and it takes them nearly a minute to cow her into submission. Ordinarily I'd cheer for her; today, I'm just disgusted. All the cameras are set, all eyes are turned, but still he's invisible in that sea of bodies.

The Uniforms break through. A hush falls through the masses as the cameras catch view. A cold, sharp blade passes into my heart. Even Victor Victor Klerkov has nothing to say.

Xavier Malcovitch isn't a man. He's a little boy who knows he's about to die.


We're dead.

…and fucked.

Our Victor is a drunken fop, our District is a squalid den of poverty, and our champions are an ugly woman and a little boy who just pissed himself for the world to see. There will be no sponsors, no help, no mercy, no consolation prizes. Petra Angelovna, you're on your own.

"Hello there, young man," Klerkov tries to alter the somber mood with a cheery smile and peppy tone as he bends to ruffle Malcovitch's dark curls. He fails. Noticeably. "You were just selected for the Hunger Games! How do you feel?"

Xavier Malcovitch's tear-streaked face fills the screens. Bubbles of clear, viscous snot dribble down his chin. He whimpers.

…We're dead. And fucked. Totally fucked.


They come to say goodbye, of course. I watched the games for eighteen years—I wouldn't've expected any less. It's family first. It always is. I understand now it's more for the family than the Reaped.

I want nothing more than a moment of solitude. Reflection. They just want a chance to say goodbye.

"Oh, Petra-" mother begins, but I cut them off. They'll make it teary, grief-laden, complicated. They'll draw it out, dig the knife in deeper. I have to make it short. Have to tell them goodbye.

I was dead the moment Victor Klerkov drew my name. They have to understand that. "I love you very much." I tell her. Tell both of them. "And I know you love me."

"No tears, eh?" My father asks. "No crying? I tell you we named her well: Petra. The Stone-heart. You're a rock." He grips my shoulders firmly. "You're aren't soft, not like a woman should be. At times I think this is cruel, now I am not so certain. You are Petra. My Petra." He kisses me. "Rocks can't feel," he whispers into my ear. "Rocks can't die."

Rocks can't feel. Rocks can't die.

"Petra-" my mother clings to me. She struggles for words to say. There aren't any. She is soft, timid, beautiful. Zaychik, my father calls her, bunny. I am Petra, the Rock. All my life she's believed she's failed me.

Perhaps she has.

"I'll be alright, mother." I kiss her forehead the way father kissed mine. She's fragile, tender. The gesture is meaningless to me, but she'll treasure it. I am the last of her children left, the only one who survived long enough to make the Reapings. I am my father's Rock, the Stone-heart, with the strength her other five children so piteously lacked. Her womb is dry. No more babes will nurse those sagging breasts, and now she knows no other infants will rest there, content against their grandmother's flesh. She mourns them all, both her offspring and mine, the ones she'll never hold.

I am spared this grief. I've known for years now this would never be so.


There are neighbors, friends, teachers and politicians. They all want their turn, and the train is waiting. I kiss my mother a final farewell, then pull my father aside. "Keep her safe, ∏aπa," I instruct him. "Remember me. Like this."

"I will." He promises.

For the first time I nearly break. "And for God's sakes don't let her watch."

My father kisses me. There's finality, but no desperation. A kiss for a daughter, yes; but a kiss for an adult. I breathe his heady scent, and we break apart. His leathery, stained hands grip my shoulders once, then fall. This is his goodbye. I turn away. Don't want to watch his retreating back. If I am to remember him, I want his weathered face and dark, tickling beard to be the last of him I see.

But my father calls me back. "What of the boy?" Xavier Malcovitch, born on Reaping Day twelve years past. Unlucky bastard. It's only fitting. Death—like life—has a poetic justice to it. Go mad or kill yourself, for tomorrow you may die.

"What of the boy?" I return.

A smile tugs my father's lips. "Petra, my Petra," he repeats. "My Stone-heart." His final words, then he is gone.

Remember me. Like this, I begged him. But I'll never know if it's admiration-or resignation-that he relates in our final parting.