Jai Terradon

Some people have terrible luck.

The Justice Building in District Eight didn't see much use. It was an old and skeletal building, probably a relic from before the Dark Days, that had somehow managed to hang on throughout the rebellion. It had walls made of exposed corrugated iron, with patches of rust that seemed to seep out the corners like a red fungus. Most of the time, it was where the Peacekeepers tossed the rowdy drunks who needed to dry out. There wasn't a lot of crime, since the textile factories could be such gruesomely dangerous places; with a thousand ways to lose a finger or hand, a hundred ways to melt your skin off, and three dozen ways to die instantly. Everybody had learned to be cautious. District Eight was the kind of place that had little use for reckless youth.

Apart from the drunk tank, the building had a few decent-sized offices where the Peacekeepers filed their reports and stored their papers, and the two rooms that were only used once a year.

In one of those rooms - the one with the purple velvet cushions on the leather sofa, and the intricate silk rug hanging on the wall - was one Jai Terradon. A young woman who was less than pleased with her current situation. She stretched her legs across the couch and ran a hand through her short, dark hair with a despondent sigh. That morning, she'd been relaxed; unconcerned, even. Like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.

She was eighteen, and today was her last reaping. She'd never taken out any tesserae, so she had a better chance than most girls her age; and as she'd watched the thousands of tiny slips of paper turning and falling over each other in that big glass ball, she'd actually smiled. After this morning, the biggest fear in her life was supposed to disappear. After this morning, she'd be able to let go of all of her burdens and embrace life fully for the first time. It had seemed impossible that her name would be called.

And then, of course, it was.

Part of Jai wanted to scream until she couldn't breathe. Part of her wanted to fight and claw her way out of the Justice Building, and run as far away as anyone could. Run until her legs were so tired that the muscles burned. Run so fast that her ears filled with the sound of her pumping heart and her rushing blood, and not even the loudest sirens could be heard. But she couldn't do any of that. If she screamed, the Peacekeepers would think she was becoming hysterical and they'd sedate her. She'd seen it a few times over the years. A tribute would go into the Justice Building shaking like a leaf, or begging and crying, or shouting some incoherent nonsense. When they came out of the Justice Building, their eyes were glassy and their mouths were slack, and they were hurried silently onto the train to the Capitol. And if she ran away, they'd catch her. And even if they didn't, she'd never be able to live with herself.

When Jai was four years old, she started working as a scavenger for one of the cotton mills. Her father had first lost three fingers on his right hand to a ring spinner, and then lost his job because he couldn't do it anymore. It seemed to him that he was a failure, who would be no good to his wife and daughter. So, one morning, he went for a walk and never came back. They found his body in the lake the next day. The factory where he worked usually paid the people who got mutilated a compensation sum - fifteen dollars for each finger, seventy-five for the arm; but when he killed himself, they said that since he was dead he wouldn't have been able to collect income anyway. So they never paid out.

That was when his wife started drinking. Jai didn't remember much about her mother, except the smell of the liquor. A sickly sweetness, like molasses, mingling with a sharp bitterness that Jai sometimes caught in the air around the first aid clinics. Every time she smelled it, she felt sick to her stomach. But liquor didn't come cheap, and the money for it soon ran out. So Jai's mother sold her only child to the mill, just so she could buy another bottle of the stuff.

Most of the kids who worked as scavengers were six or seven years old, but it didn't really matter what your age was as long as you could fit under the machines. The cotton mill took in orphans, and occasionally paid for a child as they did with Jai. They referred to the money that they gave her mother as an advance on future earnings. She slept in a small bed with three other little girls in a room with no windows, above the factory floor. The machines ran twenty-four hours a day, and there were always at least four scavengers working at a time. At first, it was almost impossible to sleep at all because of the constant noise. The whir of the spooling machines, the clatter of the metal looms, the sloshing of the enormous vats of bleach. But somehow, eventually, it was if the sounds became a natural rhythm to her. Like when a sailor adapts to the creaking of his ship.

Jai and the other children were rarely able to go outside, had no concept of play and ate all of their meals standing up. It was miserable, dangerous work. Their job was to keep the machinery free of debris, so that it wouldn't clog or overheat. Most of the time, they had to lie flat on their stomachs and scurry under the machines to sweep beneath them. If they made even the slightest wrong move, they could easily be mauled, or even killed.

There was a girl of six, with long and beautiful hair the colour of autumn leaves. Jai had always been a little jealous of her, and her porcelain beauty. But the girl was always just a bit careless when she worked beneath the spinners, clearing off the dust and oil. And one day, the claws of the spinner had caught up the locks of her lovely hair with the same mechanical ferocity it grabbed the cotton twine. It pulled with such force, that the scalp was ripped right from the girl's head. She had died of infection two weeks later. Jai had gone upstairs and shaved her head bald that very same night.

Even when she left the mill, and her hair had started to grow back, she always wore it short. The image of the spinner, twisting those blood stained tresses in amongst the cotton threads, had burned itself into her memory.

By the time she was seven, Jai had grown too tall to work as a scavenger. The foreman told her that her mother had died of a liver ailment. He gave her two options. She could continue to live at the mill, with a roof over her head and meals provided for her, if she worked as a piecer. Or she could take her chances on the streets. Being a piecer meant working the spinning mule, and quickly catching hold of the threads that had split apart so that you could tie them back together. You had to be quick as lightning, with reflexes as sharp as a cat's. It was the surest way for a girl to lose the tips of her fingers. It was an obvious decision, as far as Jai was concerned.

The trouble was, a seven year-old girl had no business living on the streets of District Eight. Even one as determined and bright as Jai. Before the week was out, she was huddled desperately in the corner of an alley, her insides twisting with hunger, and her body numb with cold. She fell asleep one moonlit night, thinking she might never wake up again.

When she did open her eyes, two and a half days later, it was to a fantasy. She was tucked into an enormous bed, as soft and fluffy as a cloud. The crisp white sheets were fine and smooth, unlike the coarse raw materials she had handled at the mill. Jai snuggled up to them, and breathed in their clean linen smell. The rest of the room was like a fireworks display of colour and texture. The padded headboard of the bed was shaped like a cusped arch, and covered in scarlet damask. The duvet was a similar colour, but made from a delicate silk. The walls were panelled with an apple-green fabric that Jai didn't recognize, but it was smooth and a little cold when she touched it. There was a paisley pattern printed on it in shimmering gold.

The room, as it turned out, was in the house that belonged to Kasandra Terradon. Kasandra was somewhat infamous in the district. She had started out in the factories, working the dyes. She knew tricks for getting every colour in the rainbow to come out just so. There wasn't a shade or hue that she couldn't match with exacting precision. Her skills were in such high demand, that she began to charge extra for her work - the fabrics that she made sold like wildfire in the bright and ostentatious Capitol. Eventually, she began sketching her own patterns and designs, and worked up enough money to start her own small business. She quickly became one of the wealthiest people in town.

Kasandra had never married, and that didn't really bother her. In her eyes, a husband or lover would either try to take advantage of her wealth, or else resent her influence and independence. But she'd also never had any children, which was a great regret of hers. Until she had, quite literally, stumbled upon Jai; she had almost stepped on her small body where it lay beside the street.

Jai never knew how happy and easy life could be until she was taken in by Kasandra. Their house was full of books, and drawings, and vivid colours, and engaging conversations. Kasandra was always kind, but she wasn't a particularly affectionate woman. In her business, she was adamant about the flawless quality of the products she produced; and, in a small way, she was like that with her daughter as well. For Jai, it meant that she always strove for an impossible standard of perfection. Maybe she was trying to earn her right to be Kasandra's daughter. Maybe, no matter how safe the world seemed, she would always be afraid of someone kicking her onto the streets or selling her into danger.

The Hunger Games seemed desperate to reiterate that truth to her. She knew that all of her thoughts of running away were pointless. If it wasn't the games, or the cotton mill, it would always be something else.

Jai paced the length of the room in the Justice Building, hoping that Kasandra would come soon to say goodbye. She could hear the parents of the boy tribute next door. The father was softly giving advice that was muffled by the walls, and the mother was crying. Jai didn't know the boy personally. She absent-mindedly wondered if she'd be forced to kill him, or if he might be first to die.

Finally, Kasandra arrived.

"It's so hard to believe." The old woman said quietly.

Jai couldn't speak. She didn't know what to say.

"Here, I want you to take this with you," Kasandra handed her a small velvet box, "I had it made for you. For your next birthday."

It was a locket on a thin golden chain. On the front were two swords, crossed over one another, carved out of a green cameo stone. It was the most precious thing the girl had ever owned, and she held it in her hands as carefully as she would a piece of a star.

"I hope it brings you luck."

"I…" Jai stammered, a lump in her throat, "I… can't…"

Kasandra grabbed her shoulders firmly and looked into her eyes.

"You have to, my dear," she said, "Believe me, if I could take your place, I would. But you have no choice. You have to fight. You have to kill. And you have to come back to me."


A/N: Man, being reaped sucks.

But you know what doesn't suck? The awesome reviews you guys left me! They were honestly the very most best reviews of all time, and I'm hyper-grateful. I hope you liked this chapter, too.