"I get that you're unhappy with being assigned to one of the districts, but that's what happens when you screw up as bad as you did." "So that means no?" "What do you think?" "What if I pulled out a winning candidate?" "From Twelve? Please." "If I could…" "That's a pretty big 'if'. If things go south, guess who winds up on the chopping block." "It won't come to that."
Soryn sat at his desk, bored while waiting for class to end, scribbling his thoughts down in his notebook to make it seem like he was paying attention.
After Lloyd had taken Soryn in, he had Soryn resume his schooling, much to Soryn's chagrin. Most days were boring, with few things ever being considered interesting in Soryn's eyes; a repetitive, mundane routine. During lunch, which he considered the most interesting part of the day, Soryn met up some other children close to his own age.
Maxwell was one of several sons of the baker next door. His shaggy blond hair often drifted in front of his hazel eyes, causing him to regularly brush it out of the way.
Geordie was a scrawny lad, with dark brown hair, pale grey eyes, and was a year younger than Soryn and Maxwell. Despite being younger, Geordie stood a good two inches taller than Maxwell, who was an inch and a half taller than Soryn.
Charna was from the Seam, with jet black hair and olive skin, and her temper sometimes got in the way of her better judgment.
Sitting next to Charna was Ollie, a bookish boy with glasses who chose to hide in Chara's shadow, scarcely talking to anyone.
While Natalyne had an open invitation to sit with them, her lunch schedule was different than Soryn's. The two usually did not see each other until it was time to go home. After lunch, it was a couple more classes and then it was another school day for the books.
Soryn found Natalyne waiting for him out in front of the school. As soon as she spotted him, she ran up to meet him. After they had put some distance between them and the school, Soryn noticed something was off. On most days Natalyne would keep talking from when they met up after school until they got to the house, but today she was uncharacteristically quiet.
"What's eating you, Nat?" Soryn asked.
"Nothing" Natalyne replied, avoiding eye-contact.
"Come on, I spent years bartering with adults. I can tell when someone's not being honest."
Natalyne sighed "Some boys at school were harassing me."
Soryn had to suppress his growing fury in order to keep listening. Natalyne was practically like a sister to him, and the thought of anyone ever daring to harm her was maddening.
"Hey, who knows? Maybe one of them will be reaped." said Soryn, trying to cheer her up.
"That's not funny, Soryn." Natalyne said in disgust. "Besides, there are a couple of them that don't even go to the school, so I'm guessing that they don't even go to the Reaping."
"How many of them are there?"
"There's usually just five, and no you aren't going to fight them. We can't have you getting sent to the stockade again."
In the past three years that Soryn and Natalyne had been living under the same roof, the only thing that she ever really took issue with in regards to Soryn's behavior was his tendency towards violence. Just in the past year he had been put in stocks twice for getting involved in fights at schools, with all but a few instances being on Natalyne's or someone else's behalf. Thankfully, he was still too young to be publicly punished with the typical lashing or execution.
The rest of their walk home was uneventful. When the two had gotten home, Soryn prepared to help Lloyd in the shop. Typically, Soryn just handled the shop-keeping, but some days he would work in the back, helping Lloyd with the actual butchering. Once Lloyd had learned that Soryn had spent time in the woods hunting, killing, and cleaning animals, he almost jumped at the opportunity to put him to work.
Knowing the Peacekeepers would be suspicious of a ten-year-old boy working in a butcher shop, Soryn busied himself by bringing back small animals from the woods. Once Soryn had grown old enough, Soryn was allowed to help in the shop, only suffering strange glances from customers until they had grown accustomed to his presence.
No one asked Soryn questions. Many of them were customers long before Soryn was born, and many of them had never ventured into the Widow's Peak, and by extension, had never seen him before and no one concerned themselves as to where he had come from. Soryn preferred the relative anonymity.
When they began to close up the shop for the day, one last customer came in. He appeared utterly unremarkable, with closely shorn brown hair and static brown eyes, along with wearing a long, brown coat that was worn and tattered. He seemed jumpy and smelled of alcohol. The man greeted Lloyd, his accent obviously from District Twelve, but with a slight hint of the Capitol, which immediately clued Soryn on the man's identity: Ulysses Hunter, District Twelve's mentor for the Hunger Games. Eventually, his job would be taken over by a Victor, but until then, they were stuck with him.
"This is going to be Natalyne's second year, isn't it?" Hunter asked
"Yes, but I'm holding together"
"I can't imagine what it's like having to go through something like this with one kid, much less two." This was a common occurrence. When standing next to each other, Soryn and Natalyne looked related to each other. Most assumed he was a cousin, rather than an outsider from a part of the district that no longer existed. Very few had ever suspected that Soryn was not related to the Raylands, and no one had ever confronted Lloyd on the matter, so they played along.
"Don't worry too much. The Games follow what the citizens want, and predictable is not something they want or like. They will likely mix it up; keep things interesting."
"Thank goodness for that."
The man finished his business and left the store, disappearing behind a corner. Once the store was empty, Lloyd had a coughing fit, something that had been becoming more frequent as of late. Every time Soryn had asked him about it, he told him not to worry about it. At dinner, Soryn and Natalyne discussed what they were going to be wearing to the Reaping ceremony, but the rest of the night was otherwise uneventful.
When Soryn bedded down for the night, he read through his journal. His journal was not so much a collection of his memoirs, but rather all of his experience and knowledge from his time on the streets and ventures into the woods committed to paper.
When he had resumed going to school, he had begun working on it to counter his boredom. After months of work, he had finally completed it. To make sure he did not forget what he had learned, Soryn read a little bit of his journal every night, making sure there were no errors.
Most of the journal was filled with entries and sketches of plants, knots, and anything else relevant when it came to surviving in the wilderness. Every now and then, there would be a random doodle or sketch of something unrelated to what he was writing about, but other than that, it looked like it had been written by a grown professional.
After he was done reading, Soryn put the journal away, safely secured under the floorboards, and immediately fell asleep.
/-\\
At the break of dawn, Soryn woke up, jumping out of bed and making a noise for those downstairs. Today was one of the few days he could get out of the house and be himself.
Putting on clothes suitable for an outdoor expedition and grabbing a quick bite to eat, Soryn made his way to the edge of the district. Once he had gotten around the fence, he located his hiding spot for his hunting equipment.
Lacking the necessary skills, Soryn had not been able to build himself a bow, forcing him to utilize blades. Having fashioned himself two nearly identical short swords, he had had to work at becoming even faster and agile in order to catch some of his prey. Moving through the trees, Soryn could trail his quarries without ever touching the ground.
He started on the trail of a deer. Tracking the creature from above, Soryn watched his prey closely, inching ever closer to the position to strike. As he silently crept along the branches above his target, to his misfortune, the direction of the wind shifted and his target was off like a shot.
Soryn took off after it, running along the branches. Once he sufficiently overtaken his prey, he threw a knife while jumping between branches, landing the blade just to the right of the spine, hurting it enough for it to slow down, but too far down to bring it down quickly.
Without missing a beat, the hunter resumed his pursuit, but lost sight of his target soon afterwards. Clambering down from the treetops, Soryn knelt down at the trail the deer had left; a series of deep imprints in the soft earth with a spattering of blood on top. Sloppy.
There had been no sign of the Capitol lurking about, but the notion of them finding his prey first was discomforting. Any hunter knew what would happen if they were caught "poaching."
Following the trail for about half an hour, he spotted the deer lying on the ground with the knife still in its back. Disappearing from view, Soryn took to the trees once more, checking to make sure that no one was lying in wait. Satisfied with his observations, Soryn still approached his mark carefully and went to work, frequently looking over his shoulder. Once he had filled his satchel, he hid the corpse and made his way back to the district.
After cleaning and stowing his equipment, Soryn inspected the fence. A quick listen-check indicated that the power was currently off. More and more, the Capitol was leaving the fence off, most likely to conserve energy, and after a few years, the animals stopped trying to get in, which probably made keeping the fence going all of the time highly impractical.
As an unrelated bonus, the Peacekeepers began keeping closer the actual district, rather than the empty fields that the surrounded their little piece of civilization, making getting in and out of the district much easier.
During his years on the street, Soryn had memorized every patrol route that the Peacekeepers had, and with his knowledge of every shortcut and back alley in District Twelve, avoiding the authorities was almost no trouble at all.
The Peacekeepers obviously had their suspicions, but few times they had acted, they always found Soryn empty-handed. He had only ever been caught twice. The first time he was beaten and sent off with a warning because he was too young to be publically punished, and the other, he lost his catch to a hungry Peacekeeper. Since then he had taken extra steps to avoid being caught.
Entering through the back entrance to the house, Soryn left his catch of the day in the shop and went to go clean up. Natalyne was sitting in the living room reading a book that Soryn had gotten her for her birthday.
Noting his arrival, she put the book down and gave Soryn a hug. Even though he was not related to the Raylands by blood, without a family of his own, they were the closest thing, treating him like one of their own despite Soryn trying to act as cold and distant.
After helping Natalyne with chores around the house, they joined Lloyd at the table for dinner. The conversation was relaxed, but ultimately uninteresting as there were very few things that happened in District Twelve that were pleasant enough to talk about around the dinner table that had not been talked about at least a dozen times before. Occasionally something would happen at school, but other than that it was usually a variation of the same conversation.
Quickly stuffing down his dinner, Soryn sat at the table working on sketches of whatever came to his mind: landscapes, people around town, the stories that his parents had told him about the time before Panem. Vast tracts of land with hundreds of nations, some with dozens, if not hundreds of sprawling cites with larger population counts than the Capitol.
The cares people had back then and the wars people fought seemed so trivial, so mindless. But had anything really changed in the decades that had passed since the end of the Old World? If anything, the world had regressed back to the way things were back during the Dark Ages.
If the stories were true, the only thing that had really changed was the way things were fought and the fact that humanity was pushing towards the brink of extinction, if it was not there already.
The Capitol was careful in making sure the districts knew as little about each other as possible, a fact that was only reinforced after the Rebellion. For all anyone knew, humanity could be numbered less than a million.
When Soryn had finished drawing, he went to bed, dreaming of what it would have been like to live in the Old World.
/-\\
Another day dawned on District Twelve. Soryn's eyes snapped open. Throwing off the sheets, Soryn jumped out of bed and did his morning stretches. He quickly put on the clothes he had laid out for himself for school and hurried downstairs.
Lloyd was cooking up breakfast, ham and eggs. He slid to the table pouring a cup of coffee for himself and grabbing a piece of fruit from the bowl in the center. Natalyne was not far behind him, sitting herself across from him at the table. The three ate their breakfast in silence; there was nothing else that had to be said.
Soryn scarfed down his food and went to grab his bag for school without bothering with his hair. Natalyne took the hint and hurried up to follow him out the door. The two walked towards school, with the sun shining on them and Natalyne talking like normal. Early on, Natalyne protested Soryn's disheveled appearance, but eventually settled for reminding him once every year.
If it was not for the fact that Natalyne pestered him about it every year, Soryn could hardly care less about how he looked. Even though it was an annual event and with nearly everyone had been anticipating for the past several months, the Reaping was still was hard for most to deal with.
When they got to the school, Natalyne gave Soryn a quick hug and ran off to meet her friends and he went to his first class, where he barely paid attention while the teacher droned on about the importance of their district. When lunch time rolled around again, Soryn went to the same table. Geordie was the first to join him.
"How long have we known each other?" Soryn asked.
"It's been a few years."
"Coming close to three." Soryn corrected. "During that time, have I ever asked anything from you or any of the others for that matter?"
"Not that I can think of."
"Well, now I have something to ask of you."
"What do you need?"
"If I anything happens to me, promise me you will look after Natalyne."
"What's on your mind, Soryn?" Geordie asked.
"Natalyne told me some idiots were picking on her the other day. She didn't say it, but it sounded like it there was more happening than she was telling me."
"Yeah, I heard about that."
Soryn drove his nails into the table. "What all have you heard?" he asked calmly.
Geordie licked his lips and took a deep breath. "Most of what I've heard is that someone saw her meeting with some kids after school. It hasn't been the first time she met with them, but they never seemed angry before, and until some Peacekeepers walked into view, it looked like they were going to hurt her."
Soryn clenched his fist, trying to hide his reaction. "As soon as school's over, I am getting her out of here as fast as I can."
"Be careful. These are not your average school bullies."
For the rest of the day, Soryn could not focus on school even if he tried, his thoughts drifting towards what he would do to the kids if they some much as laid a finger on Natalyne.
As soon as the final bell rang, Soryn was out of his seat and rushing to find Natalyne. When he went in front of the school, she was not waiting for him in her usual spot. Soryn quickly began scanning the area, making sure she was not taking shelter with a group of friends elsewhere.
After looking around for a minute, Lacie, one of Natalyne's friends ran up to him. Soryn wasted no time in pressing her for answers. "Where's Natalyne? Soryn asked.
"She already went home" Lacie said in confusion "Didn't she tell you that?"
"How long ago?" Soryn asked, still trying to contain his worry.
"Less than five minutes."
Just then Soryn saw two boys jogging down the road. Already suspecting their intent, he quietly followed them, ducking behind some bushes when the opportunity presented itself. The two boys darted around a corner while Soryn ascended to the rooftops.
Even though he had been living in relative luxury, Soryn had still made the effort to keep his skills sharp, and these boys were traversing on his turf. As the two rounded another corner, Soryn heard Natalyne scream, which was quickly cut short.
Getting into a better position, Soryn saw what was happening. Natalyne had been running, and it looked as if she had discarded her backpack during the pursuit. The leader, a red-headed teenager, was keeping one arm locked behind her back with his other hand over her mouth. Natalyne was trying to struggle, but every time she threw a punch or kick, she struck only air. As the others closed in, Soryn made his move.
There were at least seven of them, all of whom were neatly arranged in the narrow corridor. Soryn punched the nearest target behind the kneecap and followed up by sweeping the boy's leg from underneath him, letting gravity do the rest.
The next one spun around, his arm swinging around purposelessly, leaving an opening for Soyn to exploit. Grabbing the boy's arm, Soryn slid behind of his opponent, knocking one of his legs from underneath him, forcing him down to one knee while pushing the boy's arm upwards then behind his back, giving off a distinct cracking noise as it slammed against Soryn's shoulder.
As the second boy fell with his arm flopping around in an unnatural fashion, the others realized they were being attacked.
The third one, a boy with long, messy blond hair and dull brown eyes, turned around in time to receive a deft kick to the groin, doubling over to meet Soryn's kneecap, breaking the boy's nose.
Finishing the third boy off by elbowing him in the spine, Soryn ran to meet his next opponent, a girl who stood three inches taller than him. The girl dodged Soryn's first few punches and made several attempts to grab Soryn until they were interrupted by an oaf of a boy with buck teeth. Stooping down, he allowed the boy to carry his momentum over his shoulder.
Returning his attention to the girl, Soryn kicked at her midsection, only for his attack to be intercepted. With his foot firmly in her grasp, the girl was beginning to lift up before Soryn pushed himself upwards and kicked off of her chest, rolling backwards.
With his feet firmly on the ground again, Soryn slammed his full weight into the girl while she tried to regain her balance, smashing her into the wall before falling down. Before Soryn could recover, a tall dark haired boy tackled him.
Rolling with the momentum, Soryn knocked the boy off balance, giving him time to react before his opponent could recover. As the boy lunged at Soryn again, Soryn kicked at him with both legs, staggering him backwards.
While he was reeling, the oaf came back at him again. Ducking under a poorly aimed punch, Soryn punched him in the stomach, forcing the air from the oaf's lungs, followed by another punch to the throat.
While the oaf was staggering and gasping for oxygen, the dark haired boy had gotten back to his feet.
"Watch out!" Natalyne called from behind, leaving Soryn just enough time to avoid having his shoulder slashed open.
The leader had thrown Natalyne aside to one of his henchmen and pulled out a knife, joining his colleague who pulled out a knife of his own.
Before, the corridor had served as a useful ally, funneling his opponents down a single narrow path, now that he was facing two opponents, one on either side, the advantage was lost.
With both boys attacking at once, Soryn ran in the direction of the dark haired boy, grabbing his knife arm and spinning around him and pulling the knife free from his grip before sending him into his associate with a kick.
Now that he was armed, he had regained the advantage, and it was extremely unlikely that they had the same amount of experience with killing as he did, even if it was just animals.
The two boys charged at Soryn as one, the leader on the left and the dark haired boy on the right. Soryn ran to meet them, running up a wall and jumping off, slashing the dark haired boy wrist as he tried to grabbed him, then cutting him across his temple, nearly slicing the top part of his ear off.
Unable to continue fighting, the dark haired boy ran off. The leader gave his fleeing associate an annoyed look as he disappeared from view before returning his attention to Soryn.
As Soryn twirled the blade around in his hand, readying for another attack, the girl grabbed him from behind, pinning both of his arms to his sides.
Seizing the opportunity, the leader came at him with his knife raised and a fire in his eyes. Soryn snapped his head backward, sending the girl reeling pain from her broken nose, causing her to release her grip and dropping her to one knee.
Taking advantage of the brief respite, Soryn kicked her in the leg, breaking it and removing her from the fight, before spinning around to cross blades with the leader. The two slashed at each other; each deflecting the other's attacks while trying to land one of their own.
The fight seemed to be going nowhere; the two were too evenly matched. The two locked blades, forcing them to stare into each other's eyes. A sense of familiarity passed over Soryn; he had seen this boy before.
While the two stood there, the blond boy had gotten back to his feet and began to rush to his friend's aid, and judging by the vibrations in the ground, the oaf was coming to intervene as well.
The leader had noticed the same thing and slid their blades apart while stepping backwards, readying his knife for a final strike. Soryn sent his knife plunging into the blond boy's chest as he ran around the leader, then stepped forward, grabbing the leader's blade, and driving it into the oaf's leg, before turning to punch the leader to the ground, rendering him unconscious.
No sooner was the fight over when two squads of Peacekeepers closed in from both sides. The Captain observed the scene. "Secure the weapons and get the wounded to medical care. Everyone else goes to the stockades."
Two Peacekeepers stepped forward with stun batons drawn and grabbed Soryn's arms and slapped on a set of cuffs. As the Peacekeepers led Soryn away, the Captain turned to Natalyne. "Move along, Miss. There's nothing more to see here."
Natalyne hesitated for a moment, too terrified to move. "Go home, Natalyne" Soryn said reassuringly "I'll be fine." She began to walk away, taking one last glance over her shoulder and mouthing something before turning to run home.
As the Peacekeeper led Soryn, the leader, and anyone else who was not severely injured, people began to clear the streets and gather at windows. After practically being paraded through the district, the boys were placed in separate cells with their hands bound to the wall.
The leader sat in a cell across from Soryn, and the boy who Soryn had first knocked out was sitting in the cell next to him. The leader glared at Soryn while the other boy frantically looked for a way to escape, finding none. After a short while, Soryn remembered where he had seen this boy.
"How're you doing, Scamp?" asked Soryn
The boy's glare intensified, obviously recognizing the name.
Soryn smirked, satisfied with the reaction "Even if you didn't say anything, I still recognized you."
Now it was Scamp's turn to ask questions. "Why are you talking to me? You killed my friends. I almost killed that girl. We're supposed to be enemies."
"Trust me I haven't forgotten, but right now there are bigger things to worry about. We can worry about killing each other when we're free."
"You have a point." Scamp replied, begrudgingly agreeing with him "You wouldn't happen to have a way out of here."
"I've got nothing, and since you're asking I take it you don't either."
Scamp shook his head.
"So all we can do now is hope the Capitol is in a good mood" Soryn said jokingly.
"Wonderful." Scamp replied sarcastically.
With nothing else to talk about and the stockade fell silent once more. When night approached, one by one, the boys fell asleep.
