"I am alone here in darkness
I embrace the night
Staring up at the sky
I can't help wonder why
nobody's daring to love me
cause what I am
A creature of the night"
-Zombie Girl, Creature Of The Night
District Seven Reaping
District Seven Avox, Sparrow Renee Oakwood
Nobody's even paying attention to me. I'm just some little Avox boy with a girly name and long girly hair, just standing in the corner, listening to crimes that would be worth a short jail sentence. Nobody cares that I'm listening. I'm just an Avox.
"So, why were we choosing Willow Thames?"
"I told you. Her parents moved from District Nine to here, and that has to be quelled. We have to make an example of rulebreakers."
"Okay, I get that. But why Michee Oakwood?" I stiffen, almost drawing attention. "She isn't a rulebreaker, is she?"
"Tatu, Tatu. You poor, naïve escort," Ripley Farragut smirks. "When your baby brother, the errand boy breadwinner of the house, becomes an Avox, you run out of money. Especially if he becomes an Avox for thievery, and you get in trouble for it. We're doing them a favor. Giving them a chance for riches."
Tatu scratches his head. "Oh. Okay. That makes sense. So I just read out Willow Thames and Michee Oakwood for the girls' names, no matter what the papers actually say?"
"That's right, Tatu," Ripley says patiently. He smiles. "Just do as I tell you and we'll keep being friends. I just want Willow and Michee to be tributes. I don't care who the boys are."
He pats my head. "Isn't that nice, Oakwood? You might get to serve your big sissy. Won't that be fun?"
I nod with clenched teeth. That condescending treacherous scum of a Victor, turning against his own district...
"That's right. Now go put the finishing touches on the tribute rooms, and if you're a good boy, I'll let you watch your sister fight."
It takes under thirty seconds for me to make it through three doors, halfway across the train, and into the female tribute bedroom.
It's not that I'm hurrying because I want to see her fighting, maybe dying, but it's just that I haven't seen her in two years. I was nine. She'll be eighteen now.
The girl tribute's room is slightly different than the boy's. The bedclothes are a light shade of lilac instead of blue, there's a large and elaborate mirror near the closet, and the wallpaper is decorated with delicate woodland creatures. I run a finger over leaping fawns and soaring sparrows, sparrows like me. Mich would love that. I've always been her little sparrow. I know that maybe she wasn't really the nicest person to everyone else, but I love her. I find myself praying to the dim, close to forgotten gods of pre-Panem that she'll survive, even if she has to kill this Willow girl who's just as innocent as she. I can't see her die.
Remembering why I was sent in here, I hastily plump the pillows on the fourposter bed, give the mirror a polish, and straighten the dresses in the closet. There isn't really anything else left to do; Tatu's put me on overtime, because this year's Quell makes everything special.
The boy's bedroom needs only a quick dusting of shelves, and then I'm free as a bird in a golden cage to watch my sister fight, potentially die.
I scramble through the train doors, almost onto the stage, then catch myself before a Peacekeeper sees and shoots me for disrupting the Reapings. Ripley catches my eye and smirks, raising an eyebrow and subtly pointing toward Tatu.
"Herm, ahem, welcome, District Seven, to the Reaping!" he says. I bet he's mouthing the names he's supposed to read out. His pea brain will forget them otherwise.
"I'll pick the, the girls first. Okay. Um." I actually do see him mouth a name that time. He pulls out a name that looks, even from a distance, much longer than Willow Thames or Michee Oakwood. If the cameras are catching this…
"Um, this says Willow Thames!"
I see Ripley bury his head in his hands momentarily, disgusted with the inadequacy of Tatu's acting.
"Willow Thames, please come up to the stage right quick!"
The sixteen year old girls slowly part, like a wave, and leave one terrified brown-haired girl in the middle. She's frozen with fear. A girl near her pushes her out, breaking her paralysis.
Slowly, Willow walks out toward the stage, tripping a few times. Her jaw is clenched, and her eyes are sparkling with unshed tears. And even though I absolutely know I want Michee to win, I feel so sorry for this girl who's just been given an almost assured death sentence. Don't cry, Willow.
"Uh, good. Great! Congratulations, Willow Thames, may the odds be ever in your favor, I'll pick the next girl now," Tatu sputters. He yanks out another slip of paper and squints at it, trying to remember my sister's name.
"Oh, er, I can't pronounce it," he invents. "Give me a second!"
How can he make an excuse for not being able to pronounce Michee Oakwood?
"Ah, yes, Mishee Oakwad!"
Ripley shakes his head again, looking pained.
The girl I haven't seen in two years, my sister, steps out of the crowd calmly, not waiting for them to part. She makes her way up to the stage, showing no emotion through her practiced calm demeanor.
This is it, this is it, I'm sorry Willow but you've got to survive, Mich, even though people call you a bully, even though the crowd will side with Willow, you've got to win.
"I volunteer!"
Ripley's face goes purple, Tatu's goes white, and the same relieved gasp comes from Michee and me.
A pretty girl, also with brown hair, and wearing an orange dress so faded it's probably gone through generations of wear, steps lightly out of the fourteen year olds. That's an extraordinary thing: she's four years younger than the girl she's saving. Another extraordinary thing is: she's smiling. Not in the psychotic 'I'm going to kill you' Career way, or the charming 'Look I'm so pretty sponsor me' way. Just a serene little smile as she walks, almost dances, up to the stage.
"Uh, um, uh, why'd you volunteer? Sister or friend or something?" Tatu asks, running his hands through his dark hair stubble panickedly. "I'm not sure-"
"I really had no affection whatsoever for her. But I wanted her to have a chance to right her wrongs. And Michee couldn't exactly do that if she was getting slaughtered in the Hunger Games, could she?" The mystery girl twirls in place and keeps smiling.
"Er, I guess, okay. What's your name?"
The moment before she says it, I recognize her, and surely the whole district knows now too. It's the strange girl, the one who disappears into the forest for hours and comes out covered in dirt and twigs. The one Michee sometimes bullied, for all the unsavory rumors about her. It's- "Dryad Elden, and Michee's little brother couldn't be allowed to see her die, he's eleven."
My hope is fully with Dryad as Michee stumbles back to her place, unable to keep the shocked expression from her face. Please win, Dryad, I don't care what the rumors say, you're a good person who just saved my sister's life and you must not die.
Tatu mouths a 'Sorry' to a fuming Ripley Farragut, shrugs, and slips back easily into his confident, non-stuttering escort role.
"Well, now that we have two charming, lovely ladies, they'll need a quick weapon scan, then they can fight! How does that sound?"
He is met with total silence from a stolid, honor-loving district that respects Dryad's brave volunteering and Willow's hard-working District Nine family.
Hardly daunted, Tatu continues. "Well then! Ripley- no, Head Peacekeeper Truman- scan them for weapons, please."
I wouldn't blame him for wanting to stay away from Ripley.
Head Peacekeeper Truman, the one who caught me stealing, waves the nonsensical bleeping device up and down. Only a District Three or Five would understand it, I'm sure.
"They're both clean," Truman announces.
"Good, great! Now they can begin. Ah, Truman, let me through this fence, would you?" Tatu's pudgy fingers slide off the simple mechanisms, and trying not to laugh, Truman unlocks it and enters with Tatu.
Willow faces Dryad, her lip trembling. Dryad is still oddly unperturbed, and cocks her head to the side as she just keeps smiling.
"I- I can't fight a fourteen year old," Willow protests. "It's not fair for her."
"Only two years apart, Willow!" Tatu tells her. "Fighting Michee Oakwood would also be two years apart! And Dryad doesn't seem too scared."
Dryad shakes her head and does another twirl.
"Fight!" Ripley shouts. He looks very vexed indeed. I suppose two bloody fights will cheer him up. "Go on!"
Looking more than a little lost, Willow adopts something like a balanced fighting stance. Dryad twirls into something more like a ballet position. She nods to Willow, a signal to begin.
Willow starts to advance toward her opponent, getting the hang of keeping in her stance. She feints towards Dryad's head, then kicks at her knee, but the calmer girl just sways, and the half-hearted blow passes her by.
"Like you mean it," she coaxes. "Wind bends tree, bigger tree breaks it."
Willow takes a deep breath and begins her attack in earnest, fighting for her life.
It's like poetry, what Dryad does, it's the only way I can describe it. She flows under Willow's arm, under her leg, and trips her while righting herself to inflict a stunning kick to the back, sending Willow down again, and this is all in one movement as she dances like a river.
Blood drips down from a gash on her forehead where she hit the ground, but Willow rises, and this time there's no doubt in her hazel eyes.
She doesn't dance in her attack. Her right hand comes down in a straight-to-the-point chop, and it impacts with Dryad's neck, winding her for a moment. While her opponent is down, Willow delivers another chop, aiming for the face, but by then Dryad is already gone.
If her previous movement was smooth like poetry, this next assault is more aggressive, like the swooping flight of an eagle. She flips over Willow's head, does an aerial pirouette, and lands her pointed feet in the center of Willow's stomach. The impact is devastating: her breath rushes out in a strangled gasp, and she falls over backward, cracking her head on the stage.
Dryad still has her little smile, but she somehow looks indescribably, horribly sad.
She helps a dazed Willow to her feet, flicks a drop of blood off her head, and waits for her opponent to make the first movement. But she's underestimated Willow. Before, it didn't seem serious, it was a sixteen year old logger against a skinny little fourteen year old who was called odd in the head. Now, it's a wounded sixteen year old logger against a skinny little fourteen year old who beat her up nine ways to Sunday. And she's fighting to win.
Willow unleashes her logger's strength and catches Dryad in a viselike armlock. The snakelike lunge takes the skinny dancer by surprise, and I hear a vicious crack before she extricates herself. She's not smiling any more.
"Breaking the branch will make it fall," she warns, letting her injured left arm dangle by her side. She darts at Willow, her erratic movements now making her resemble a fly. The taller girl can't predict where the next strike will land, and she doesn't anticipate her legs getting tangled around Dryad's little foot. She is up in a second, but Dryad is too: on her back.
Willow barely staggers, the weight is so little, but she knows that her head and face are now vulnerable. She tries to shake the little koala off, but she's obviously to try falling on her back, because her monkey-like attacker could most likely get away in time and leave her sprawling. She shuts her eyes tightly, and I figure that's what Dryad is going to go for, but she does something far more unexpected. She simply touches certain parts of Willow's throat, almost gently, and she is forced to jump off her free ride as Willow falls unconscious to the stage.
Dryad is a rather unsettling girl. Perhaps some of the more disturbing rumors were true.
"I'm sorry," Dryad tells Willow. "The valley of the elves shore down the willow tree."
She lightly pushes Willow off the stage with her uninjured hand, and the body hits the ground with a snap. Her neck is broken, and the battle is over.
The dryad-ballerina-eagle-fly-koala-monkey has won the fight, and I am more afraid of her than of anyone else in Panem.
A little girl shrieks and escapes from the crowd. "WILLOW! No, no, no, Willow! Get up! Will, get up! You're not dead, you're not!"
Her parents, just as tear-stained but quieter, take hold of the little girl's hands and pull her away from the crumpled body. "No, Maple," the mother whispers. "It's over. She's gone."
"No! No, she's not! Mother, Father, let me go back to her! She's not dead! She's not dead!"
They have to drag her away while she screams and pleads. She couldn't have been more than five, Panem help her. The Capitol never really thinks about what could happen to a five year old girl who watched her sister die. They don't think about how insane she could go, the damage she could cause. If I'd watched Michee die, I swear I'd burn the whole train and myself with it, before letting it leave the station for their fun.
"Now the boys' turn!" Tatu says, too dim to be really unnerved. "I hope their fight will be just as exciting! Ah, let's see." He fishes around and turns up with a paper from the bottom of the bowl. "Now let's greet...Stephen Pendgrass!"
There's a complete silence.
Then two boys scream.
One is tiny, with huge blue eyes. He's twelve. No, he's only a year older than me, this isn't fair. How could he ever have a chance to be able to win the initial fight, much less the whole Hunger Games?
He falls to his knees, and the kids around spread out, as if he's a plague, as if being Reaped is contagious. A Peacekeeper has to drag him up to the stage, while he sobs and tries to struggle away.
The other boy shares the huge blue eyes, but he's much taller, and isn't even in the Reaping area. He must be nineteen. Another sibling, facing the death of someone they love.
"You bastards!" he yells. "Damn you, you sick, psychotic murderers! He's twelve, damn you, leave my brother alone! You get away from him! I'll-"
Head Peacekeeper Truman tasers him in mid-rant, and shoves him back towards his parents, who are clearly devastated but stay in their spot. "Discipline that boy, or you'll have one son dead and the other an Avox," Truman snaps.
"Well then! Let's choose our other boy tribute," Tatu says, unfazed. He pats Stephen's trembling shoulder. "It's okay, Stephen. Ah, our next boy is Huck Crandall!"
There's an immediate round of gasps, particularly in the sixteen year old section, and particularly around a well-known boy. He's one of the popular kids in school, a lumberjack, handsome, strong, blah blah blah. He's the special kid, everyone loves him. Even Michee. Especially Michee. And now, his fearless facade is utterly ruined, as he just stands there, mouth open in shock.
Don't drool on your nice dark blue suit, Huck, it's probably your father's.
Okay, I'm jealous of him.
He still looks shell-shocked as his feet start to shuffle up to the stage, seemingly of their own accord. Even though he's obviously scared, like anyone could be, I can't feel as much pity for him as with the other tributes, because he's going to fight a twelve year old and a bit because I'm jealous. Nobody ever liked Michee or me even close to near how much they like him. And he never stopped his friends from bullying Dryad.
"Congratulations!" chirps Tatu. "You are the lucky boys who each have a chance of competing in the Hunger Games! Uh, well- yes, you definitely both have a chance."
Nobody expects Stephen to win. Nobody even thinks he has a chance at all.
"Scan them, Truman."
The perplexing device again whizzes around the boys. It remains silent on Stephen, and sounds a loud beep while scanning Huck.
"Hand over the…" Truman checks a reading on the scanner. "Pocketknife."
Huck starts, as if waking up suddenly. "What? Oh. Sorry." He pulls it out of his left breast pocket, then hesitates. "Can I give it to Stephen? To make the fight more fair? I mean, he's little- he doesn't really have-"
"I don't need your pity," says Stephen. He straightens to a rather small height. His voice cracks. "I can handle myself."
"Heh. See, he doesn't need your help, and no weapons are allowed anyway. Hand it to me."
Huck reluctantly gives Truman the knife, and watches in helpless bewilderment as the fence is relocked, and he is stranded on the stage facing Stephen.
"But I can't fight a little boy!" he calls to Tatu. "Repick m- repick Stephen, it's not fair for him."
Stephen's pale face goes red. "I told you, I can handle myself. See?" He copies Dryad's fighter-of-doom ballet position rather successfully.
"Sorry," Tatu says. "Can't repick. Just, uh, may the odds be ever in your favor!"
Huck looks down from his comparatively enormous height of six feet, balking.
Stephen looks up from four feet nine, afraid but fierce enough to go out fighting.
"Hey, Stephen, how about you attack first?"
"I don't need special allowances!"
"We could draw lots?"
"Argh!"
"I could close my eyes?"
"Shut up shut up shut up."
"I could give you ten extra seconds?"
Stephen leaps and lands, feet-first, against Huck's chest. When he staggers back, Stephen has the chance to climb, quick as a cat, onto his back, trying Dryad's strategy. He's very observant.
Huck realizes this, and falls over backward, apparently not expecting Stephen to be as agile as Dryad. His mistake is confirmed when Stephen nimbly hops away, sending Huck crashing down.
"Like I said, I don't need your pity," the littler boy says, getting more confident.
Huck sighs, rises to his feet, and rubs his back. "Just because you can move like a cat doesn't mean you're quite as fast as one. I'm sorry."
"Sorry for wha-augh!"
Huck grabs Stephen's foot and white button-up shirt, and, using all his logger's strength, as he heaves him up into the air. Stephen squeals and tries to right himself in the air, like a cat, but Huck swings his arm and bats him like a baseball.
He hits the stage hard. Something breaks. There's a unanimous gasp from the crowd, and if I weren't Avoxed, I wouldn't be able to hold in a little yelp.
Stephen tries to hop away on his uninjured foot, but Huck tackles him, eliciting a pained squeak.
"I'm sorry about this," says Huck. He pushes him, just a light push, but a push into the fence, the horrible, metal, spiked-on-top fence. Stephen manages to kick off with his good foot before he's skewered, but one of the spikes rips through his sleeve and arm. A stifled cry sounds out.
Huck looks down at the wounded but fierce little boy, pity evident in his doubtful expression. He doesn't want to kill a twelve year old.
Stephen looks up, a ferocious light in those huge blue eyes. His foot is broken and his arm is torn, but he has no qualms in continuing to fight.
"I don't want to kill-" begins Huck, but he's cut off by a series of angry elbow jabs.
"I don't!" Whack. "Need!" Whack. "Your!" Whack. "Pity!"
Huck rubs his bruised arm. "Ow."
Stephen stomps as hard as he can on Huck's foot, but when he makes contact, the foot jerks up into his mouth, and he falls again. A bubble of blood slides between his clenched teeth, and more follow, foaming with his hissing breath.
"I'll try to make it quick," Huck says. "I'm only doing this because I have to, I'm sorr-"
Whack.
Huck cups a hand under his nose, catching the blood. He swears and waves his other hand around, trying to contain the pain. "Ow. Shoot. Dammit!"
He grabs Stephen up by the head, and his logger's arms jerk hard to the side. Stephen's bones crack once more.
His head lolls limply on a broken neck, Huck releases him, and just like that, the fight is done.
"Shoot, shoot, damn," Huck growls. His nice blue suit is covered in blood. "Ow, ow, ow, you Capidol bastards, you dever should've chosen a liddle boy to die."
"If a little boy tribute dies onstage but there's no cannon, does anyone even notice?" says Dryad, smiling dreamily.
Her strange gaze passes over blood-stained Huck, jubilant Tatu, coldly furious Ripley, limp Willow and Stephen, and me. Her smile and eyes are dangerous, unearthly, like some alien creature.
If there are any gods left in Panem, help me...
