Bell Collier, 12, District 12
Everyone in this room with me is probably not aware of the fact that I even exist. Not existing, being invisible, and all around elusiveness is one of my only talents. That's why Butterfly recruited me to the Wolves. Ever since Peacekeeper presence increased in the district around a year ago, we have had a new enemy, other than our rival gang, the Miners. The law. The gangs were usually allowed to do their business in peace, but lately violence has greatly risen. Butterfly said that it's a message to the Capitol to leave us alone, that Twelve does not want to be 'gentrified'. I hope the Capitol gets that message, because it's a little disheartening to find out that many innocent people in the district with Capitol ties are mysteriously vanishing.
Around every week or so I'm sent on a mission by Butterfly. It can range from getting juicy information to stealing bits of food or even valuable things she needs. All of them make my heart beat out of my chest just thinking about them. Sometimes, if I'm unlucky, I get caught and simply reprimanded, because the Peacekeepers don't know I'm a Wolf. What I'm truly afraid of is not the law but Butterfly's reaction if I fail. Beatings are almost always ensured.
Butterfly had instructed me this week to listen in on a Miners meeting. I hate undercover missions; I have nightmares that my cover gets blown and I'm fed to real wolves or thrown into one of the many abandoned mining tunnels to starve. Which, in a way, is probably not far off from my punishment for being caught spying.
I gave up trying to get a good view of the gang leader, whose name is apparently Fischer, ages ago. I've instead settled with blending in with the wallpaper in the corner of the room, trying to listen to her words above the sound of my growling stomach.
"Those Capitol pigs cut off our food supply in the Seam chapter. We had been sending Marley to collect food supplies but her cover was blown." Fischer points to a picture of a girl who I am assuming is Marley, one of the many pictures crowding the wall. She dramatically crosses out her picture with red marker.
"As far as I know, she's off to the Capitol to become an Avox." Fischer tells the Miners.
Hushed but concerned chatter fills the small underground room, and Fischer slinks a throwing knife into the back wall, mere inches from my face.
"Quiet!"
The crowd of Miners goes eerily silent.
"We can't let the Wolves know that we are running out of food in the Seam. Someone new has to go undercover and sign up for the tesserae under a new name. It's risky if you're caught, but anyone willing to do it is in for a promotion."
Everyone in the room looks around at each other, probably playing a game of Not-It regarding who has to do this dirty work. My heart sinks when I see a finger pointed at a young girl who looks around my age.
"How about this girl? Look how young she is! She looks almost Marley's age." A stocky man standing next to her suddenly yanks her wrist, and she begins to whimper.
"Who is that girl? I don't recognize her." Fischer asks stepping off of the stage and walking towards her.
"What's your name?" she asks the girl harshly.
"Leslie," she answers in a voice barely audible. She is quickly scooped up by Fischer and brought to the front of the room onto the small stage.
The crowd begins to cheer, and that's when I've decided that I've had enough. I silently slip out of the room, shaken by what I just saw. A poor little girl was sacrificed,
Once I report back to Butterfly, she actually smiles for once upon seeing me. I eye her colorful tattoo depicting a butterfly. I wonder if she chose the gang name first or the tattoo first.
"Report, Bell."
"Well, a-apparently the Miners are running out of food, because their old food provider in the Seam was caught. The new food provider is named Leslie," I tell her shakily. Butterfly ponders for a moment before bursting into laughter.
"We actually killed their old provider, Marley. I'm glad they think the Capitol caught her. It's nice to know that they won't blame everything on us, for once, so they won't kill our members as much." Butterfly paces the small wooden cabin, staring out of a murky window.
"We're planning on starving them out, so they can't-" Butterfly suddenly cuts herself off, and shoots me a mean glare as is she just noticed I was in the room.
"You can go." As I leave, Butterfly whistles at me. I turn around, and without warning she throws me a bag containing what I hope is food.
"For your troubles." she tells me. I dash out of the room, holding the precious cargo as if it were a baby. As soon as I'm out of sight from the other Wolves gathered near the river camp, I tear open the bag, which carries a loaf of bread and some kind of spread that smells fishy, but looks good enough to me. Not that I would have cared about the taste anyway; both food items are gone within a minute.
I smile from ear to ear as I notice that the aggressive growling in my stomach is gone, too. It'll be back before long.
Alexander Iaso, 12, District 12
"Look closely, Alex. You see how that person's ribs are sticking out in the book?" Mom drags her finger to a picture of a small child, coated in coal dust and with a skinny, skeletal frame. I nod slowly.
"That doesn't mean they are fit. In fact, that's a sign of malnutrition."
"What's malnutrition?" I ask curiously. I know what nutrition means, but not the 'mal' part.
"It's when the body doesn't get enough nutrients, so it begins to eat itself. That's why that girl is so skinny, because her body is eating all of her fat, which we all need."
"Does it hurt?" I think I already know the answer to that, because based on my years of watching the Games, starvation does not look pleasant. At all.
"Probably worse than anything in the world." Mom turns the page, and it shows a plate with several food items on it. The wing of a bird, an orange, a slice of bread, celery stalks, and a glass of milk.
"This is we should eat every day so we can stay healthy and not become sick as easily." Mom tells me.
"But I don't like celery," I admit, and Mom laughs.
"Not these foods specifically. Just these kinds of foods. Like, instead of celery, you could have a carrot. Or instead of an orange, you could have an apple." Mom retrieves a shiny red apple from the bowl of fruit in the kitchen, sitting back onto the couch with the apple in her hand.
"I've been in the medical field for years now, and I've learned an old-world saying that used to be popular among us doctors." Suddenly she tosses the apple into the air, and it lands back into her palm. Mom takes a huge bite out of it, grinning.
"An apple a day keeps the doctor away!" she says gleefully. I chuckle slightly, but I don't really understand the phrase. Surely just an apple can't keep you healthy enough to not visit the doctor. Mom gets patients with broken bones, terminal illnesses, and deadly infections. I don't think just eating an apple could have prevented any of that.
Mom closes the book and sets it on a shelf in our kitchen, returning to the bubbling pot on the stove. Ever since construction started on the part of District 12 that Mom calls the Seam, strange men and women have been going from house to house delivering canned goods. One day I was home alone, as Mom had an emergency situation in another part of the district that she did not want me to see.
While I was reading a book on how to properly wrap an animal bite a heard a knock at the door. A tall lady holding a box of food handed me the box without hesitation and chanted a phrase that is now plastered on almost every storefront in the district.
"May the Capitol grace you with its mercy."
Mom says its a good thing, now that she will not have to worry about treating patients who are too far gone in the clutches of starvation. She told me that even the sicknesses she has been treating lately are no worse than the flu, that its mostly injuries that send people to her clinic. As of late, a bunch of younger patients, probably ranging from my age to Mom's age, have been flocking to her, blaming their wounds on the gangs that have been roaming Twelve's streets for as long as anyone can remember.
As Mom dishes me a bowl of steaming breakfast soup, I can feel my appetite instantly vanish. Today is my first Reaping, and while a twelve-year old would normally not be to worried since their name is only in the bowl once, the odds are not in the favor of any twelve or thirteen year-old. For all I know, this breakfast could be my last at home.
"Alexander, are you alright?"
My paranoid thoughts are interrupted by my Mom's concerned voice, and she gives me a sympathetic smile open noticing the fear and sadness in my posture.
"Don't worry about it, kiddo. I know you aren't going to get Reaped," Mom assures me.
"How do you know?" I ask Mom, averting my gaze from the table.
"I just know. Mother's intuition." She motions at my bowl, silently telling me to at least take one bite. I slurp small spoonfuls at a time, my stomach feeling like its filled with lead bricks.
After we finish, Mom hands me my Reaping outfit, a light blue vest with a white shirt. Mom herself is wearing a deep green dress, which she calls her ivy dress. Fitting, since her name is Ivy. She is called Ivy or Nurse Ivy all the time when I accompany her at work. It's a little strange to hear your parent be called by a different name when I've only called her one thing my whole life.
As soon as we reach the square Mom says goodbye to me, hugging me tightly.
"You can come with me to go visit some patients after the Reaping and keep them company. How does that sound?" she offers. I look up at her and nod slowly, and as soon as it becomes clear that my somber mood can't really be lifted at the moment Mom gives me another kiss on my forehead and speeds off to the spectator section.
The lines for Reaping identification are much shorter than usual, with any kids older than fourteen heading to their pens straight away. It's also much more chatty than usual; normally one wouldn't really want to engage in small talk during an event like this, but a lot of kids this year have nothing to worry about. Not me.
After my finger is poked and I'm shooed off into the twelve year old section I wait silently for the escort to sentence two of us to our certain doom.
Please don't be me, please don't be me...
After the escort lady chooses some girl named Bella, she heads over to the male's bowl. Her claw-like fingernails dig around before she pulls out a pristine slip. She rips it open without hesitation.
"Alexander Iaso!"
Even though I am a nearly a teenager, nothing could stop the tears from forming.
I was supposed to post this yesterday but I decided to watch the Super Bowl instead. That was a mistake.
Thank you for reading, please review!