Hi!

So, I'm going to keep this shorter than normal, because it's kind of late here, but thank everyone so much for your continued support! We're almost halfway through these reapings! So yay!

I don't own quite a bit including the Hunger Games and these beautiful characters from Theali.

~District 9 Reaping~

~Tarrin Davey 14~

I wake to the sounds of kids outside my window. Yawning, I crawl our of bed and head over, throwing open the shutters to investigate. We live close enough to the fields that I can see the great expanse of gold, shining in the morning sun. Let District Four have their ocean, I think, smiling as I look at it, we have one of our own and it's even more beautiful. A breeze ripples the waves of gold as though proving my statement, and ruffles my bed-mussed hair, making me laugh aloud. One of my classmates sees me as she runs by, off to where the other kids are disappearing into the grains. "Come on, Tarrin!" She calls, "We're going to play The Monster in the field!

I want to hop out of the window right then and join them. It would be a great change to spend a Reaping morning not trying to convince my mom everything is going to be okay. And besides, a morning of the grain around me and the soil beneath my feet sounds inviting. But I shake my head. "Sorry, Halley. My mom likes my family to spend reaping morning together. You know…just in case…"

Halley nods, but also shrugs and says, "My parents are the opposite. They practically kick me out every morning. 'Moping about it won't change anything. Go enjoy yourself for a few hours!'. I think that's a better way of handling it."

I don't disagree with her. Maybe a few years ago I could have done that if I had thought about it, but now, ever since my cousin's reaping, it's like my mother is convinced that letting me out of her sight will guarantee my being reaped. I'm trying to decide how to explain the situation to Halley without sounding like I'm just looking for sympathy, but she saves me from that. "I get it though," she tells me, "Everyone deals with things differently." And with that, she waves at me, says she'll see me later, then disappears into the gold with the others.

The encounter makes me smile as much as it makes me sad. It's nice that some people still get to be kids today even if I'm not one of them. I get dressed in the only decent cloths I have for the reapings. The dark trousers are actually okay; new since I grew out of my old ones so they fit well and her free of frayed edges or holes. The shirt is less so. It's just a plain polo. It's free of holes, but it's so faded I can't remember if it was always an iffy shade of grey or if if used to be white.

Once I've dressed I head out into the kitchen. My mom makes a found sound when she sees me and leaves her place at the table eating bread(the one food we don't lack here) for breakfast. She makes her way to me and hugs me tightly. I hug back, and then pull back smiling. The Capitolite escort and the mayor say "Happy Reaping" every year, and Ive heard that echoed, usually mockingly, among my peers, but I can't say that to my mother. She would cry. She probably will cry either way, but best not to give her a reason.

She fusses with my shirt and my hair, then leads me to the table to sit. We talk about school and about work. When my father comes in we talk about the same things all over again. We almost make it though the morning without incident, until I go out with my mother to get some more bathwater for tonight from the well. Some younger kids, too young to understand what their really saying, are arguing and above the other voices one rises with a terrible phrase. "I hope you get reaped!"

And then the water worlds begin. It's horrible, and not just because of how much I hate to see her(or anyone) cry, but because this isn't just silent tears. It's gut-wrenching sobs. Her face is scrunched and red and the tears fall steadily, rolling down her cheeks. The sudden outburst startles the children, who all turn to stare at us with huge, innocent eyes. I glare at them, but can't keep the expression for long. The oldest of them can't be older than nine. They didn't know. Still…"Go wish death on each other somewhere else."

They scramble away in different directions, and I pick up the half filled bucket with on hand and wrap my other arm around my mother. Her face is buried in her hands now so I can't see it, but I can see her shoulders convulsing. I lead her back into the house, dump the water in the great bin which is now mostly empty and lead her to the table to sit.

My father comes into the room as I'm fetching her a glass of water. He looks unsurprised, but says in a worried voice anyways, "What happened?"

I hand my mom the water, and she thanks me in a watery voice and drinks deeply. "Some stupid kids," I tell my father. "Making some thoughtless jokes." I want to make a bad, sarcastic comment as well, but I don't think dry humor is appropriate to help my mother, so I keep the though to myself.

My dad sits down in the chair next to my mom and puts an arm around her, rubs her arm reassuringly. He makes the quiet shushing sound that people make when someone is upset, like telling them to stop crying is going to make them stop or feel better. "It's okay," he whispers to her. "We're okay. Tarrin is going to be okay."

"Yeah," I put in cheerfully, "My name's barely even in the reaping bowl." There are twelve-year-olds with three times as many slips as me…or more.

"Trey only had his name in once!" My mom reminds us between sobs. She's right. Twelve years old with no tesserae, Trey and I were sure we were safe. Then the escort pulled out his name and everything changed. Trey died, my aunt and uncle don't speak to us anymore(and why would they? Trey and I had the exact same chance of being drawn and yet it had been him.), and my mom cries every reaping day, and every day the week leading up the reaping.

I don't know what to say anymore, so I hug her instead, and she squeezes me so hard I can barely breath, but I don't stop her.

I just hope I'll survive another year for her.

~Avena Larson 14~

My younger sisters and I sit in the shade of the grain stalks, enjoying a breakfast of wheat bread and goat's milk. Well, Ceres and I are enjoying our breakfast. Mazie picks at hers and doesn't say much. Today will be her first reaping and she's worried just like any sane kid should be, but I don't want her thinking so much about it. I'm trying to think of ways to cheer her up and distract her when I hear Halley calling to someone. The other kids are gathering together for the district-wide favorite: Monster-in-the-Field. I know Mazie personally loves the game, especially getting picked to be the monster, and that innocent joy it brings her makes me smile. I listen a little longer, to Tarrin's rejection and their brief discussion about the differences in their parents handling of reaping day. Halley's parents are on the right track. Forgetting for a few hours that today is the day two children will be chosen to die, that's exactly what I want Mazie to do. So I suggest joining them.

Mazie chews her bread thoughtfully, shrugs. "I guess."

"We don't have to if you don't want to," I assure her. "We could do something else. What do you want to do?" Mazie shrugs. "Come on. We have a few hours before the reaping. We could do anything you want." Almost anything.

Mazie shrugs again. "Maybe I just want to sit here," she replies quietly, taking another bite of bread. The solemnity in her voice makes my heart sink, but also strengthens my resolve. She won't spend the whole morning sulking like Tarrin and his mother.

"No," I say firmly, and climb to my feet. Ceres jumps up to, brushing dirt off of her old jeans and grinning broadly. "We're going to do something, now get up."

"I thought you said we could do what I want," Mazie objects as Ceres drags her to her feet. When they stand right next to each other it's striking how much they look alike. Small and thin, their hair and skin both brown. Ceres's hair has been pulled back into twin braids, but Mazie's hangs down past her shoulders, just like mine. I look just as much like them but somehow it's more striking to see the similarities on people side by side.

"Not if what you want to do is mope around," I reply flatly. "Come on. We'll play," And I gesture back into the grain where the others disappeared before. Ceres cheers and disappears first. I stand there, facing Maize, for a while. My sister doesn't move and neither do I.

"I don't want to play some silly game," Maize asserts when the silence has finally stretched to long. "I might get reaped. I might get chosen to go to the Hunger Games."

"All the more reason for you to have a little fun beforehand," I insist firmly. She stares at me for even longer this time. "Come on." I sigh and move forward, put my hands on her shoulders and kiss her forehead. "I won't say you won't be reaped okay," I duck my head to meet the gaze she has turned to the ground, "but I will tell you that moping about it all morning won't change it. Do you want your last few hours home to be sitting sullenly in the dirt eating stale bread? Or laughing and playing with other kids?"

She shrugged her shoulders, staring at the last bite of bread in her hands. "I don't know."

I don't accept that answer. I take her by the arm and drag her into the field. It's the right thing to do, which I know for certain later when the game is over and everyone heads their separate ways to prepare for the reaping. The fear of the day has briefly left Mazie's eyes and been replaced by a bright sparkle and a wide smile. She talks the whole way home about the highlights of the game and wonders whether they'll play again after the ceremonies. They won't, I know, or at least none of the kids of reaping age, which made up most of the kids who organized the game in the first place, because after the ceremony two kids will be headed too the Capitol and the rest will be celebrating another year with their family. I don't tell her that though. I just smile and let her talk.

At home we change into our reaping cloths. They're just simple dresses, solid colors with no designs or jewels or buttons or any of the pretty things some of the rich girls get to wear. Mine is grey, which seems depressing somehow, but I don't complain. It's something to wear. Some kids just wear ripped pants or dirty work shirts because they have nothing else. I'm lucky, or at least that's what I tell myself when I feel jealous of the girls in pretty dresses.

The square is already packed by the time we get there and Mazie's anxiety returns as she looks around. "A twelve-year-old got drawn just two years ago," she whispers urgently to me as we stand in line, as though I don't remember. Trey Davey was in my class. We played soccer together in the wide open land that emerged when the crop died for winter. He used to stand beside me in music class and that's where I found out he couldn't sing, but he tried. And the day after his death in the games I burst into tears right in the middle of that music class, missing the horrible, off-key distraction of his voice.

"Trey was the exception," I assure her, pushing a lose strand of hair behind her ear, "not the rule."

She doesn't seem wholly convinced, but we sign in and are forced to go our separate ways so there's nothing more I can do for her. I head to the section of fourteen-year-olds. I can see Tarrin Davey standing not too far from me. He looks a lot like his cousin; pale skin, brown hair, average in most ways, except for his eyes. They're hazel and beautiful, or at least Trey's had been. Tarrin's are deeper, more painful, more life-afflicted.

He catches me looking and smiles. I try not to blush, but am saved from him seeing by the mayor, who begins her speech and the other formalities. You get to where you hardly notice most of the reaping. The speeches, the introductions, the educational video, they're all the same. Even the Victor list is the same, we haven't had a victor in eleven years, almost as long as I've been alive. Certainly longer than I can remember.

It's a relief when the bowls are finally brought out. Kind of crazy to think, I know, but the bowls are the the important part. This is the part where you find out if you're going to survive another year or not. The anticipation of this moment is the worst part of the reaping.

Unless you get drawn, Some bitter part of me thinks, but I shove that down and away. I think it's gone as the escort starts walking towards the first bowl, but then it comes back again with something worse. Or Mazie.

I am to focused on pushing that thought away. I miss what the escort is doing and the next thing I know she is standing back at her podium, with a slip unfolded and a name on her lips…no not on her lips, echoing through the noon air, ringing angrily in my ears, shifting those people around me as they all turn to stare at me.

And it isn't just a name that is bouncing destructively around the square…it's my name.

I lower my eyes to the ground so I don't have too see all of their eyes. Their pitying stares, their uncomfortable expressions. If I have to look at one person feeling sorry for me or any other emotion I might just burst into tears. I can't do that. I have to be strong. I have to stop shaking. I clench my fist to try and control them but that only makes the shaking harder. My legs tremble too, which I realize as I mount the stares unsteadily, and cross the stage to the escort. She shakes my hand, as though she wants to be friends, but it only makes me more self-conscious of my shaking hands, so I feel less inclined to be friends.

"And now for your boy," she announces once she has positioned me where she likes on stage, facing the crowd. There are so many faces to not look at. I see them when I look down, and straight ahead, but worse is when I look up and see the screens that show my face. I'm pale, paler than I ever dreamed I could be, and my face is twisted with fear just the way I was trying to avoid. I hate that face. I stare at my feet instead.

I hear the clack, clack, clack of her shoes all the way to the reapung bowl and back. Hear her shuffling papers around in the bowl and the crinkle and rip of the second slip, the second name that will bounce through the crowd and ruin another person's life. I hear her breath as she leans forward and then comes the name.

"Tarrin Davey!

A beat of silence passes, then a wail pierces the air from the crowd of ineligible people. Tarrin's mother maybe. His words to Halley this morning ring in my ear, "you know…just in case" I wonder if Halley feels stupid. I wonder if she remembers telling him that hanging around his family all day and moping was a bad idea. Will she go home tonight and tell her mother what she had almost done? Will her mother force her to stay home every reaping day from now one, like some sort of cosmic repayment?

I wonder if tomorrow she will look at his desk in class or my desk or both and feel our lose. Miss our bodies the way I missed Trey's voice. Or will anyone care?

Tarrin makes his way to the stage quickly and with little incident despite the fact that his mother's sobs are filling the silent square, raw and broken. The sound makes me want to sob too, like someone has reached a hand behind my eyes and his twisting, tighter and tighter, forcing out the tears that I have been forcing down. Does my mother want to sob too? Will she be able to stop herself now that anther mother is doing it. Will they sob together over the mutual loss of their children, never seeing or speaking to each other but holding that unbreakable bond none-the-less. Or will she save her tears for later, behind closed shutters with Maizie and Ceres pressed tightly to her on either side.

"Well, there you are, District Nine!" the escort announces after volunteers have been asked for with no result. And why should they? I wouldn't if I had the luxury of still being in that crowd. "Your tributes for the Ninety-Ninth Annual Hunger Games! Avena Larson and Tarrin Davey!"

When we turn and shake hands it strikes me again how much he looks like his cousin. How unluckily must the Daveys be to loose two kids in three years?

He must have read what I was thinking in my eyes, because he smiled wanly and whispered, "Guess the odds aren't in my family's favor."

And despite how much I really wanted to cry, I smiled back.

"Everybody dies soooner or later. Don't worry about your death, worry about your life. Take charge of your life for as long as it lasts."