Ch2 - Etolia POV
Song quote:
"And you'll know you didn't beat me,
When you look down and see,
I've got an I heart question mark
Written on the back of my hand!"
From I Heart? by Taylor Swift. Etolia, reflecting on how much life has tried to break her and that she hasn't broken.
Blinking lights. That's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the reaping in District 5, my home. All of us, fourteen and up, have prepared for this day. Not like the Careers. We don't train and try to compete for the glory of it. Except the guy with the missing arm a few years ago. He did. They had to amputate his arm after an accident with the south generator under Main Street. He was never the same since. He told everyone he was going to be the best tribute ever known in District 5, but he had trouble walking in a straight line with a missing arm. The Capitol Peacekeepers eventually took him away after he managed to climb up to the top of the Justice Building and start chipping away at the top brick, saying it was blocking the sunlight from reaching his mushroom garden. Yeah. Figure that one out.
Anyway, most of us here in District 5 don't train like that for the games. We prepare, yes. We learn to throw a spear or wield a sword. Sometimes even shoot an arrow. But by far, our biggest asset comes from our district's principal duty—the making of power. Very early, in our schools, we learn how electricity works. By the age of five we know the difference between conductors and insulators. By ten, we could replicate the heating and lighting systems in our homes. Despite this, we are not often the winners of the Hunger Games. More than Districts 11 or 12, yes, but not like Districts 1, 2, and 4. Most of the time the arena is set in woodland, or some other place of nature. Over the course of sixty-two Hunger Games, we've had exactly seven victors. About half of them joined the Career pack in their Games, and the other half either had the homefield advantage—meaning they had access to electricity—or they just got plain lucky.
Only those of us fourteen and up prepare for the games, in case we're chosen. Twelve and thirteen year olds, of course, can get chosen too, but it's tradition that if you're less than fourteen when you're chosen, someone else will volunteer in your place. It's usually someone who had been chosen and replaced because they're too young. There's a certain amount of guilt that goes along with it, and you'll never really be accepted as a member of District 5 by the people here if you were saved and you didn't save someone else who needed it. If there is no one like this left, then an eligible family member, or a friend of the family would step up.
"Here, let me do that for you, Etolia," my mother, Sowea Akari, says. I shrug her off, fixing and brushing my hair myself. My mother has brought out one of her fine dresses for the occasion. It's light green over white, and still mostly in style, but even more importantly it's more comfortable than some of the others I could be wearing. It's form-fitting and cut off diagonally just below my knees. My golden sandals are visible under, and all in all its comfortable and not hard to walk in. My mother says the green in the dress enhances the green in my eyes. She spent nearly a year's worth of wages at the power plant for the dress, originally for my older sister. She got it from District 3, from a man whose daughters were well past their could-be-tribute days. My older sister died, however, before she could wear it. No one knows what exactly happened to her, but they found her body in the catacombs fried from electricity with a metal fork in her hand. The official cause of death was suicide, but nobody in my family believes it. Addalia wasn't the type to kill herself, even if it was the day before the reaping.
We do a lot of trading with District 3. Without them, we would have nothing to use the power we create for and test it in our labs. Without us, they wouldn't be able to power their machines and factories. The Capitol allows we two districts to trade for everything we need from one another during the space of one week, which was call the Week of No Somnus, or the Week of No Sleep. There is so much to do, trade, sell, and buy that week that we rarely sleep at all. Many of us use our one vacation day the day after No Somnus to have a chance to rest. Grogginess when working the generators equals electrocution.
"There. You look beautiful," my mother says, standing back and smiling. The reaping isn't so much a death sentence here in District 5. The mortality rate of electrocution is much higher than the mortality rate in the Games, as horrific as that is. Starvation, unlike in some districts, is not a problem here. Few enough need to take out tesserae, and those who do easily manage with it.
My family has never needed for me to take out tesserae. Addalia only did once, six years ago, when she was twelve. It was a bad time. My father had just left my mother, and had taken six year old Ocia with him to the Capitol. He left our district with her and went to the Capitol to work there at his new, high paying job. Though it was very lucrative, we never once got a letter or a cent from him. We never saw Ocia again either, although she would be twelve now and we wouldn't recognize her even if we saw her. In a way, she's lucky. In the Capitol, she's safe from the reaping, safe from the games, and safe from electrocution. That's the view my mother takes, at least.
I nod to my mother and step outside into the light. We barely ever have actual sunlight in this part of District 5, so only people in our sister city—the only other city in District 5—bother to make solar panels. We always have a thick cloud cover. I think I've only seen the sun once—I was seven and don't really remember much. They say that seeing the sun means that our male tribute to that year's games will win, and the moon for the female tribute, but that was disproved by last year's games. The sun shone out one day in the summer, but our male tribute was the first one to die in the bloodbath at the Cornucopia. The lights that I face now are ever-glowing, ever-shining lights of District 5. I have never seen a time where all the lights of District 5 are off.
Now, I know that other districts don't fare as well as us. Some even would say we are slightly pampered by the Capitol. The truth is, we aren't. The difference between us and District Twelve is this: we have the means to steal our power, while they cannot steal coal. We in District 5 barely ever pay for electricity, and thus can spend more money on food and other necessities.
"Etolia!" A shout of my name brings me back to attention. "Etolia!" it calls again, and I locate the voice. It belongs to Marie, my sort-of friend. She waves for me to come stand with the other sixteen year olds. We wait in the plaza, all looking up at the Justice Building. On the steps, the two glass balls already await. The mayor steps up and starts his usual spiel about the history of the games. I've heard it a hundred times before, as it was something we had to memorize and present in class every year. I find myself mouthing the words with him. Marie stifles a giggle as she glances in my direction. I snap my mouth shut at once, shooting a friendly glare in her direction. The mayor ends his speech and ever-happy, ever-bubbly Elena Sosot bounces her way up the stage, chattering about this and that. Our previous victors, the three that are alive, that is, are sitting in chairs next to the table. She scoops up a slip of paper from the boys' ball. She's done that every year, even though it's supposed to be ladies first. But that's Elena Sosot for you. She smoothes out the crinkled paper and a hush falls over the crowd, all of us wondering who it is.
She blinks, shuffles around a bit, turns it upside down, and reads the name: "Dion Zemos." A hush falls over the crowd. Heads all turn towards the small fourteen year old, whose face is white, but he manages to make it up to the stage. I remember training with him for a week or two. He's hopeless with a mace or club, but pretty decent with a sword. Elena vigorously shakes hands with him and scoops a slip of paper from the girls' ball. The crowd goes silent once again. She clears her throat to read out the next name. "Ocia Akari." My sister.