Hellooo! I usually don't do the updates, but I think Nina is still struggling with her computer. Technology, man. Can't rely on anything.
Nothing really to announce, except we're already getting messages regarding the 26th Hunger Games even though this one's just started. What a doozy! I think the competition will be even fiercer next time around!
Anyway, these are a fine set of reapings, if I do say so myself. Here goes District 6!
-Belle
Edrick Quillheart of District 6
By ThunderstruckMV15
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible,
make violent revolution inevitable."
— JFK
The window creaks as I slowly lift my large hiking bag of supplies up and out of the second story window. The bag knocks a couple of old, tarnished shingles loose as it rolls off the roof and onto the moist ground below. I hoist myself up and out of the window, trying not to make any noise because my mother is a light sleeper.
I am tall and brawny, but not bulky. My short, dark brown hair is always messed up and spiked at the front. I have rough, crude facial hair that I refuse to shave except for once a week. My vivid green eyes seem like they would glow in the dark, and my thin, straight eyebrows are always low, just above my eyes, giving me a perpetual angry look.
Once out on the roof, I try to think light thoughts, praying I won't fall through the rotting wooden surface of my house and ruin my chances of escaping that damned hell-hole I'm living in. I creep up to the edge, spotting my bag eight feet below, and jump. I land on my feet, but lose my balance and fall over. I stand up, not hurt, and grab my thirty-pound hiking knapsack before running off into the inky darkness of the woods.
I had raided the pantry the night before. It was my final step before my escape the next night. I knew my parents would not go into the pantry just yet, because they had just bought more food and would not need to replace anything old before a couple of days. I have plenty of food, a flashlight, a canteen filled with well water, and, of course, a very advanced first-aid kit. After all, I live in District 6 which specializes in medicine.
I also brought my one Shaw Lionels book. Lionels was the best sociologist in the Capitol, and I had managed to get my hands on a copy of his latest book through a man named Tyrell.
Tyrell is someone in District 6 who sells things that are apparently smuggled out of the Capitol by double-agents in District 1. How he manages to get his hands on this stuff, no one will ever know, but he does it.
Sociology is my new-found passion. I find it very interesting and often wish I could become one some day. There is a problem, though. I freeze up anytime I come in contact with anyone socially. No one knows about my dream yet, but I am certainly afraid to tell anyone about it. They would make fun of me, ridicule me. I know they would.
It was two years ago that I ran away from home, and I never looked back. I was seventeen years old, had a job, and even a friend. Yes, a friend. As in one person. Everyone else except my one friend hates me. Anyone else who knew me knew that I was the socially awkward sociologist. They all hated me, not just because of my hypocrisy, but because of something else, something I can't hide. No matter what.
Two years ago, shortly after I made my home inside an old abandoned hut, I took up a free spot on the harvesting squad. On weekdays, I spent all day carrying medicinal plants in the many hectares of field in District 6. I would start walking, usually about five kilometres, out into the field at six in the morning, and make multiple trips back and forth lugging the crop in a large woven sack.
After about three months on the job, the overseer came to me.
"We have too many walkers now," he said in his raspy voice, "Congrats, you've been promoted. You can crop the plants with this." The overseer went into the tool shed next to the crop-house where all the plants were stored. He came back with a large, menacing metal object that looked like a long hook attached to a slightly curved wooden staff.
"It's called a scythe," he said, "You use the metal blade on the end to hook the plants at the stem and cut 'em down. Put the crop you cut down in a pile, and the walkers come and get it, just like you used to do.
I had a question on my mind, and I had forced it out of myself: "Why haven't I seen one of these before?"
"We keep them hidden from the walkers so the hooligans we hire don't get any ideas. That's why we have specific times when the walkers come, which reminds me, keep that thing away from the walkers at the top of every hour. I guess you'll have to keep an eye on the sundials now."
I nodded briskly, and the overseer handed me the scythe.
"I guess you better get movin', it's seven o' clock in ten minutes."
I had put on some muscle carrying the crop during the few months I was a walker, so I guess the overseer thought I was the right guy to promote.
I spent the the rest of my cropping career teaching myself how to wield the scythe when other croppers weren't looking. Most of the time I'd be doing my job, just chopping down plants like I was supposed to, but sometimes I'd get away from everyone else and slash and hack the air wildly until I became comfortable with the weapon. I wasn't an expert, but I decided I'd be able to defend myself with a scythe easily.
'If I'm ever reaped into the Hunger Games,' I had thought, 'At least I'll have something to defend myself with.' The thought of it still made me uneasy. I knew if I did have to participate in the Games, there would be no guarantee that even a single scythe would be available.
I had managed to keep my job as cropper for more than an entire year after I had earned it. I'm seventeen, and I feel I'm finally coming of age.
As I walk alone in the field, miles ahead of everyone else, I can see the sun starting to become harsh, even though it's still morning. I swivel my head around to look for the spot I'd started to crop the day before. About a hundred yards away, I see a group of tall plants ripple as if they'd been hit with something, and then they fall down behind the rest of the crop. I break into a run, but come to a halt when I see a girl chopping at my group of plants. I hide behind a pile of crop near the girl to observe.
I whisper to myself as I recall my latest findings from my Shaw Lionels book: "Flaring nostrils, brash movements, she's angry."
The girl is very pretty. She has long, wavy brown hair that goes halfway down her back. Her slender figure is distinguished in her white tank top, and her long legs are easily noticeable with the jean shorts she is wearing.
A twig snaps from under me as I move to get closer. She hears the sharp snap of the twig and stops her hacking. She turns around, and she must have seen me because she comes storming towards the pile of crop. I hear the rustling of the grass stop right in front of me. I open one eye, then the other. The girl is staring down at me, scythe in hand, and livid. I smile weakly.
"That's, uh, that's the group of crop I started on yesterday," I say. I regret what I said as soon as the last word leaves my mouth. I was sure the girl was going to bash the giant blade right into my skull, but she instead drops it on the ground beside her and thrusts out her hand. I just stare at it.
"You gonna take the hand or what?" she snaps. I look at the ground and don't move. Realization lights up on the girl's face. "Oh, you're that kid who's the shy sociologist," she says in what I perceive as a condescending tone.
Now I'm mad. I slam my hands on the ground and stand up in one swift movement. "Okay, look here, I might not be able to make your stupid small talk, but I don't have to be good at that to be good at the theory behind it."
"Whoa, whoa. I didn't mean anything, I actually think you're pretty cool. I don't know how everyone else can judge you like they do. My name's Aly."
I look at the ground again and speak softly. "...You're the first person I've met who doesn't think I should be chucked in a freaking asylum."
"Hey, no problem." There is an awkward pause. "So what's your name?"
I look up at Aly and smile, then laugh. "It's Edrick."
"Well, Edrick, want to help me out with this crop?"
"Uh, sure." I want to add something to what I said, but can't think of anything relevant, so I just blurt something out: "How come you're angry, Aly?"
"Oh, that Hornslund kid was teasing me again."
Colby Hornslund, another cropper, is the one person that pisses me off the most. He's the one who started teasing me about my dream to become a sociologist in the first place. He got everyone else to do it, too. It was odd, Hornslund is so awful, but everyone still likes him. Every time I see him, I just want to hit him. I almost did once, too, when Hornslund first made fun of me to my face. I had stood over him, my fist raised. I really was two seconds away from punching his teeth in, but Hornslund immediately stopped laughing and ran off. Now he just ridicules me when I'm not around.
I look to the sky and scoff. "Hornslund," I mumble under my breath. I look back at Aly who seems to be breaking down.
"He teased me about my mother," she squeals, on the verge of bursting into tears, "She's got signs of Alzheimer's."
I see a tear roll down her face as her lips trembled. I walk up to her slowly and hesitate before holding out my hand. I don't know why I chose to hold my hand out, but she takes it and pulls me into a hug. I'm taken completely off-guard by this and fidget a little bit.
All of a sudden, Hornslund and the other croppers are right behind. Hornslund, of course, has his stupid little grin pasted on his face.
"Aww, looks like big Edrick's found a little playmate," says Hornslund mockingly.
"Get out of here, Hornslund, we don't need any more of your shit," says Aly, all of a sudden angry again.
He is about to continue, but sees the look on my face, and sinks back into himself.
"Come on, guys," he says the all the other croppers, "Let's get out of here."
Hornslund turns on his heel and starts back where he came from, but I know better. I listen closely to what they're saying as they walk off.
"He's such a loser, no wonder he can only make friends through me. The damned kid wants to be a sociologist, eh? He can't even communicate with anyone else! He's a freaking primate!" cackles Hornslund with his friends.
I break away from Aly and start to jog towards Hornslund again, then I sprint. I tackle Hornslund from behind and start punching him. Hard. Over and over and over again. He cries out in pain, and he starts bleeding. Once I think he's had enough, I stop.
"So you just can't help yourself, can you?" When I'm angry, I have no problem talking to other people. Hornslund's nose must have broke, because it's gushing blood now. I look around at the rest of the croppers, who stand back, not wanting anything to do with my rampage. I look back at Hornslund.
"You think you can just go around laughing your ass off at everyone else's problems, eh? You think you're fucking invincible! Well, you even think about trying something like this again, I'll happily test that theory, got it?"
At this point, Hornslund just laughs.
"What do you think is so fucking funny now?"
"You've made a huge mistake, bucko," says Hornslund with a grin on his face, revealing his now bloodied gums.
"How do reckon I made a mistake, tough guy?"
"You must have forgotten."
"What?"
"You stupid son of a gun."
"What?" I bellow, raising my fist again.
"The Quarter Quell reaping's tomorrow. You must have forgotten. People vote the tributes in this time. Guess who I'm voting for?"
"Why should I give a damn who you're voting for?"
"Because it's you. And whoever I vote for, everyone votes for. I have that kind of power, buddy, and I've had just about enough of you."
I let go of Hornslund's shirt, take my knee off of his chest, and get up. I look down at him, and he was still smiling his blood-red smile.
"I'll tell everyone what you just did to me, and guess what? Everyone's gonna want to vote your ass in to go to the Hunger Games, and there's nothing you can do about it. So go ahead, beat me up some more, 'cause when I get back to the village, everyone's gonna know, and it's just going to be better for me."
"Why, you little worm!" Aly pipes up from behind me. Hornslund gets to his feet and laughs openly.
"Have fun in the arena, Edrick. I'll be watching." With that, Hornslund wipes his nosebleed on his shirt, and he and his gang turn around and leave. Aly tries to run after him, but I hold her back.
"We have to do something!"
"What the hell are we going to do, Aly? He's the most popular guy in District 6!"
"Edrick," she says weakly, "I just met you, and I already like you. You have social potential."
"That's not going to do me much good in the arena, I'll...lose...for sure. And I can only talk to you because you were nice to me."
"Yes, it will do you good! If we can't stop Hornslund from voting you in, I guess you'll just have to win. I'll help you, Edrick. I'll prepare you. Socially."
I sit with Aly on my front porch. I have my Shaw Lionels book out again, and I'm studying people as they walk by. Some are angry, some happy, others I just can't read. I'm still learning.
As I'd expected, Hornslund had managed to tell half the district about his run-in with me. Some people looked at me briefly, and then sped up and shook their head. I had guessed those were the people Hornslund had already talked to.
"You said you could wield your scythe pretty well, didn't you?" Aly asks me suddenly.
"Yeah, I've been able to do that for a while, but I don't know how good I am."
"As long as you have experience with some kind of weapon."
I just nod and go back to my book, but then I notice a group of girls clustered some fifty feet away. They're looking at me. No, they're looking at Aly.
"Who are they?" I ask.
"They're my friends, do you want to meet them?"
"Uhh, no. I'm good."
"Edrick, I don't mean to sound harsh, but if Hornslund does manage to get you into the arena—"
"—he'll manage—"
"—then you have to know how to make alliances."
"I—I guess you're right."
"Don't worry, they're nice."
"I'm sure they are. Unless Hornslund's gotten to them."
Aly grabs my hand and practically drags me toward the group of girls. She introduces me to them one-by-one, but all I can manage is a quick wave.
"Hi, Edrick," says a blonde girl in a blue blouse, "We just wanted to tell you that we heard about you standing up for Aly. We're all on your side."
"Th-thanks," I say briskly. The girls giggled. There was an awkward pause. "D-do you girls w-want to come—" I search for something to say, "Uhh," my face flushes red, and my fists clench up, "Sit on the porch with Aly and I?" he said a little too loudly and hotly. This time a red-head spoke with a smile, revealing perfect, straight teeth.
"Yeah, we'd like that, Edrick."
The reaping is held in front of the district hall. I had dug up my one dress shirt I had stowed away in a small closet and dusted it off.
Aly had gone back to her own house to prepare too. I don't know what to make of our encounter the day before. It was the first time that anyone had even remotely taken interest in me.
"The way you are, Edrick, so shy, you'll never get far in life. You'll be stuck with the same lonely life you have now forever if you don't put yourself out there," my parents had said far too often.
When I was just fifteen, I ran away. It felt like my parents just never really gave a crap about me. They blamed me for my crippling shyness, even though they could never give me social advice when I asked for it. I had always felt so alone—no, I felt less than alone. Neglected.
I had figured living alone would be an upgrade. That's when I raided the pantry and gathered some survival gear—I didn't know how long I would have to live in the woods, after all—and escaped into the cloak of night. I left no note, and I never heard from my parents again. Sometimes I wonder whether they even bothered looking for me. I doubt it.
At two o' clock, I make my way to the district hall. All of the other kids are walking the same direction as me, yet they keep their distance. Hornslund must've gotten to everyone.
The district hall is at the center and back of a humongous cobblestone courtyard where many people hang out when they aren't hard at work. I haven't been to the district hall very many times before, or even in the courtyard, for that matter. Pretty much only for reapings and the occasional time my parents had dragged me along to do errands.
Today, there is a giant stage set up directly in front of the district hall. There are decorations draped from the stage, the hall itself, and the over-sized monitors on each side were they play the same video they always did each year at the reaping.
Everyone is ordered by Peacekeepers to go to their respective sides of the courtyard by gender. I'm astounded by how many Peacekeepers are actually there. Why would anyone need so much security for a bunch of adolescents? Only the Capitol could answer that.
A man, the escort from the Capitol who would take the two tributes on the train for the long ride to the Capitol named Drake Harlem, traipses onstage and stops in front of the microphone.
He's a scary man. His skin is dyed royal blue, and he has piercings all over his body, but there are two piercings that stood out above everything else, and I can't stop myself from staring at them. They are a couple of mini ivory elephant tusks that extend from his nose, and they look absolutely ridiculous. I will never understand the fashion trends the Capitol get into these days.
"Welcome one, welcome all to the Twenty-Fifth Annual Hunger Games, and the first ever Quarter Quell!" he says enthusiastically. There is just silence. The man drones on as I spot Aly on the girl's side. She spots me.
Aly is wearing a red, low-cut sundress that brings out her vivid blue eyes. She gives me a saddened look that threatens to rip my heart in two.
"Edrick," whispers a fellow cropper, one who isn't in Hornslund's group, as Harlem drones on about the Games's history, "I feel sorry for you, man. Hornslund's got nearly everyone voting for you. It's been all anyone's talked about since you kicked his ass!"
"I had a feeling," I whisper back.
Now I'm nervous. I had woken up that day in denial that yesterday had even happened. When I accepted that it had, I thought there was no way Hornslund could be that brutal. Now that I have confirmation, there's nowhere to hide. It's just me, twenty-three others, and a very good chance that my demise will be untimely.
Drake Harlem's voice goes on in monotone, putting me into a trance. Icy hands grip my heart. Steel marbles ricochet in my stomach. A thousand white hot knives pierce my thoughts, and my muscles tense.
I imagine the worst. I imagine my mangled corpse, bloodied from the beating it's taken. Stab marks penetrate deeply into my stomach and chest. My breaths are labored, my pulse weak.
Watching safely from the other side of a television was Hornslund. His crooked smile was sly.
"It's time to announce this year tributes for the Twenty-Fifth Hunger Games!" Harlem's voice boomed. I flinch, snapping out of my tortured thoughts. "You voted, and the girl who will represent District Six in this year's Hunger Games is Londyn Aureole!" The crowd is still silent.
I'd never heard of Londyn until now. She is led out into the aisle, and I can only see her head. It keeps bobbing up and down and ducking under the obstruction of the crowds' heads as if she keeps tripping and falling. She finally stumbles up onto the stage and takes a seat in the chair on the girl's side.
I look back to Aly, but she doesn't see me. She seems relieved.
"And now time for the male tribute for this year!"
I go weak in the knees. It feels like time stands still when Drake Harlem opens the envelope that almost surely holds the result of my standing up to Hornslund.
Just as Harlem opens his mouth to speak again, someone shouts.
"It's Edrick!"
Some of the crowd giggles. One person cracks up laughing, no doubt Hornslund.
"District Six's male is...Edrick Quillheart!"
The crowd screams out in rejoice. I just want to throw up.
I'm pulled from my position by someone and thrown out into the aisle. I walk slowly toward the stage where a smiling Drake Harlem is waiting. People cheer. It's disgusting. They all deserve to die before me. It makes me angry. It makes me want to kill them.
On my way up the long aisle, I spot Hornslund. He's laughing relentlessly and giddily as if he'd just won the lottery. It makes me sick. Dark thoughts imbue me. I imagine Hornslund in the arena, helpless and unarmed. Me with my scythe, raising it high in the air, I split Hornslund's head in two.
Expressionless, I walk up the stairs and sit in my chair.
I sit alone in the the house where the goodbyes are always said to tributes going to the Hunger Games. I have my head in my hands when a Peacekeeper brings Aly in by the arm, throwing her at me.
"You have two minutes," he says.
Aly throws herself on me, sobbing. "I don't want you to die, Edrick! I just met you, I like you, you comforted me when no one else would!"
"...You look gorgeous, you know," is all I can manage.
Aly presses her face into my shoulder and weeps openly. "Edrick—" she gags through tears. "You have to win. Please. You have to try. I need to see you again. It can't end like this, it just can't!"
"Aly, you're the only person in the world I would die for. I don't have anyone except you, and if I die in that goddamn arena, it's for you. Everything I do from now on is for you. I don't have parents, I don't have family, but I have one friend, Aly. You. And I need you to do something for me. Just one thing."
"Anything, Edrick." She looks at me with her now reddened, glossy blue eyes in anticipation.
"Stick it to Hornslund. Have tough skin, and he can't bother you anymore. He'll get frustrated if he sees nothing's getting to you. I've seen it happen before. And when I get back, when we're together again, he won't be able to do a thing to us."
"Time's up," the Peacekeeper barges in and takes Aly away.
"No! No! NO!" Aly kicks and screams, but it's no use.
I had thought my visits were over—I had no one else—but the door opens yet again. I thought I would never see who had walked through again, but there they were. My mother and father.
"Get out," are the the first words out of my mouth. "Get the hell out! You have no right to be here!"
"Edrick—" my mother starts.
"No, I don't even want to hear it! I ran away two years ago for a reason! You people called yourselves my parents, but you didn't give a rat's ass about me. Of course now that I'm going to freaking die, you show up. And I'm telling you now, I don't want to hear your 'we're your parents, we had to come' sob story. You two can get out of my life, and stay out, because I want to enjoy what left I have of it."
It was his father that spoke this time. "We came to apologize, Edrick." He paused. "...But I see we're still in the wrong," he finishes sarcastically.
I can't believe how angry I am at my parents right now. They neglected me, and they ignored me for fifteen straight years, and my father still has the nerve to get sarcastic with me.
"I already said it once," I say in a calm voice, "Get the hell out of here. Now."
My father throws up his hands, kicks the door open, and slams it behind him. My mother still stands where she is.
"Hear me out, Edrick. Please," she says briskly.
"Fine. You have one chance to say something to your damned son before he dies."
"Why your father gave up like that, I don't know, but I never stopped loving you, Edrick. When you ran away, I looked for you for three days straight while your father sat at home. Later that month, I divorced him. He only came today because he thought he would look bad if he didn't and someone found out."
I see right through my mother. She shows no emotion. Aly had sobbed her eyes out. My mother is treating it like I'm going to work for a day.
"What a load of crap. You neglected me just as much as dad did."
"He said he'd hurt me. He said to give up on you. It's so complicated."
"Get the hell out before I call the Peacekeeper in," I say. I don't need to call the Peacekeeper in, though.
"Time's up," he says again, like when Aly had been taken away.
"I love you, Edrick," my mother says quickly before the Peacekeeper forces her out the door.
"Aly's given me more love in two days than you've given me in fifteen years."
Londyn Aureole of District 6
By 1Styx and Stones1
"The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame.
He might get burned, but he's in the game.
And once he's in, he can't go back, he'll
Beat his wings 'til he burns them black...
No, The Moth don't care when he sees The Flame...
The Moth don't care if The Flame is real,
'Cause Flame and Moth got a sweetheart deal.
And nothing fuels a good flirtation,
Like Need and Anger and Desperation...
No, The Moth don't care if The Flame is real..."
― Aimee Mann
The morning starts like any other.
I wake on my bedroom floor, wrapped in the linen sheets that spill off my bed to cocoon me like a disheveled butterfly, with the taste of ashes on my tongue and a dulled pain in the back of my head, tearing at my sanity with its jagged fingernails.
It takes a minute to orient myself, taking in the familiar stillness of my room, and then I grapple to my feet, searching out the bedpost with my hands to better support my aching limbs.
There is a heavy humidity to the air that feels like the color gray. Gray, I am told, is the color of storm clouds and cigarette smoke. Gray, I know, is the feel of impending doom hanging low. It weighs heavy on my shoulders as I stagger, catching my foot in the snarled bed sheets on the floor, into the bathroom.
From there, it is a simple matter of searching out the familiar coolness of a vial and syringe beneath my fingertips.
The gray retreats under a myriad of Technicolor, everything more bright and more alive and more real, as I slide the needle beneath my skin.
It's not an addiction, but I can function better with this artificial life-blood in my veins. My senses are more attuned, nearly enough to compensate for my complete lack of sight.
Some people drink coffee in the morning. I pump my veins full of chemicals I've stolen from my father's affluent pharmaceutical business.
To each his own, right?
And once my body has been kick-started into consciousness, the memories of the previous night bleed back into legibility—cigarette smoke and the dying heat of the setting sun on the smooth clay shingles of my rooftop and me, relatively sober, questioning universal truths with a boy so staggeringly high that it was almost cute.
I am on the roof, smoking and imagining rolling plumes of cigarette smoke soaring towards a vaulted heaven the same color as the feel of brushed velvet on skin.
"What do you see?" asks Tanner Schaefer in that quiet, serious tone of voice that can only mean he is higher than any of the stars that burn so searingly bright in my mind's eye—the only functioning eye I have.
This, of course, is enough to merit a derogatory snort. A downside of allowing yourself to be associated with a bum is that bums are, by nature, not particularly intelligent.
"Nothing. It's called being blind, Tanner, sweety."
Tanner grunts heavily and sinks to the rooftop beside me. He's too close and he smells of stale alcohol and ashes, so I pointedly scoot away.
He follows, all sweaty hands and smelly breath, oddly innocent, like an eager-to-please puppy dog with paws too big for its tiny body.
"Tanner, I swear to God," I say sharply, launching my bony elbow aimlessly into the broad expanse of his chest before rolling away from him once more. I have no idea how close to the edge of the roof I am at this point, and I am sober enough that the idea of suddenly plummeting through nothing is, oddly, unappealing.
"If you touch me I will shove you off the roof and then I will laugh at your bleeding body and use you to stub out my cigarettes—"
It's not one of my better threats, but it seems to have effect enough on Tanner. He draws back with a sulky, wounded air and starts whining, his plaintive voice grating on my nerves like sand paper on skin.
"—was just try'na be affectionate...think you're too good for everyone, just 'cause you're a walkin' rhinestone...Just try'na make your last night a good one, but no—"
"What are you talking about?" I interject impatiently, feeling about for the edge of the roof line to ensure that I do not misstep and fall. "I'm the one who makes the death threats here, Tanner. And if you touch me one more time..."
"It's the truth, Londyn," he says in self-righteous indignancy. "I'm just looking out for a friend. You don't—"
"Whoa." I sit up and point a finger in the general direction of Tanner's voice. "We are not friends, Tanner. I tolerate you because you're cute when you're drunk, but I—"
"Stop interrupting me!" Tanner interrupts, the hypocrite, in a wounded tone of voice. "I'm try'na warn you!"
I stub my cigarette with every ounce of aggression in me, burning a finger in an instant of bright, sharp pain that reminds me of a brilliant star, singing a hole in the dark canopy overhead with its icy heat.
"Warn me about what?"
Tanner coughs again, a cloud of smoke and ash and the acrid scent of alcohol, and says, "You're going to be voted tribute."
"Don't be stupid," I snub.
"I'm serious!" he protests. "They're not going to—to send some kid with a bright, shiny future when they've got bums like you smoking weed on the roof!"
I frown, hating how simultaneously pathetic and logical he is, and try to quell the sudden spark of fear that is burning like a star through the smog of tobacco and sleepiness within me.
"For your information," I snap, "this is a plain cigarette. And bums like me? Who is the totally smashed one on this rooftop, hon? If you're going to be a pessimist, at least be a non-biased one."
"I turned nineteen last month," Tanner says quietly. "I'm out of the drawing. But you—"
"I am the only daughter of the wealthiest man in the entire District. I may hate the man, but Daddy's got influence," I scoff offhandedly, silently wishing I believed my own words. "I don't think I've got anything to worry about."
Eventually the fear was lost in a haze of smoke and needles and alcohol that tasted like a bitter, harsh shade of yellow-white, and by the time I staggered into my room it was all but lost.
Now, conscious, with every thought and memory amplified by the drugs, it is hard not to duck my head and cower under my covers, hiding from the swirling, gray promise of death hanging overhead.
Instead I retreat, back to the medicine cabinet, and add another star to the constellations that mar the underside of my arm, tiny raised bumps that shape the universe. The fear doesn't go away, but when the sounds and the feel of the world around me are distorted and warped and oddly beautiful, it suddenly seems less important.
I can feel Daddy's disapproval scorching the back of my neck like a sunburn as he pauses in the hallway to glare at me through the crack of my slightly ajar bedroom door.
I smile and turn to face him, fixing my eyes on the face I can't see. "Morning, Daddy," I sing, and then I giggle because the shape of the words feels weird on my tongue.
His voice is flat, as soulless as the cool, silvery feel of metal, as he returns the greeting with a simple, "Londyn."
The ground under my feet seems to be swaying, just the slightest bit, and I steady myself against the dresser as my head whirls and churns like boiling water. Perhaps I shouldn't have taken that second needle; I haven't been so disoriented since the first time I tried shooting up.
I grin, relishing the feeling of floating, detached from everything, free and wild and invincible, as the drugs truly begin to kick in. "Excited for the reaping?"
"Not in particular," he says in his dry, hollow voice. "Londyn, are you—"
"I'm fine, Daddy. Just great, actually—"
"Londyn, why?" He catches me off guard, with a sudden rush of desperate, exasperated emotion, and I stop.
"Why?" I repeat, tasting the word on my tongue. It sounds odd in my ears, and when I giggle again, the noise rings through my head like the high drone of a power drill.
"Why are you—Why do you—" He sighs and breaks off with a frustrated noise. My head is spinning more frantically now, and I don't even hear him approach over the noise of my own fragmented thoughts.
He takes my hands in his cool, pudgy-fingered grasp and doesn't let go, even when I nearly stumble over my own feet in an attempt to pull away. "You are all that is left of your mother."
This close, I can smell the familiar scent alcohol, a foreigner on his breath. Oddly, it nauseates me. Now it is not only my head, but my stomach as well, churning and pitching and tossing until I can no longer distinguish where my father's voice is coming from. It comes in fits and bursts, first loud then soft, choppy and disjointed like a faulty radio wave.
"—BEAUTIFUL—...Wasn't the SAME after you were—...Doctors—...Post-natal depre—...WHY? WHY?...All I—have—left—...WHY—do—you—...to yourself—"
"Daddy," I say, finally succeeding in tugging free of his slackening grip. I search for his face, but instead my hands hit only empty air and I giggle. "Daddy, you're drunk."
He catches my hands in his again, and turns me so that I'm facing the source of his anguished voice. "Londyn, you're lost."
He lets go of my hands and walks away as I wonder how he can move so capably while the room is thrumming and pulsing like a heartbeat. He closes the door and for an unfathomable second I want to cry, but instead I laugh.
Daddy's a hypocrite.
I laugh until there's no air left in my body and then I sink, breathless, onto the bed.
Once I manage to regain my feet, I search out the clock hung on my wall and trace the two slender hands, then curse. I've slept a greater portion of the morning away, and now there's no time to go visit Gran if I want to be ready for the reaping.
As if anyone ever wants to be ready for the reaping.
I dress quickly but carefully, searching out an outfit through touch alone. We're supposed to dress nicely for some senseless reason, make-up and fine clothes hiding the tribute's corpse like a burial cloth, and so I seek out the cool, crisp cotton feel that I will always associate with white bed sheets.
The dress is short and lacy, with eyelet lace lining the hem and capped sleeves, filled with miniscule stitches and flower cut-outs that I can stick my pinky through. Paired with simple strappy sandals, the entire ensemble is intolerably girly, but that is my aim.
The thing about sight is that it can completely blind you. Take it from the blind girl.
People see appearances and they make judgments. That's just how it goes. In school there are people who are fawned over because they're pretty and well-dressed and sexy, when all I hear is the insecurity of a too-shrill voice and the shallow stupidity behind a boy's bluster.
And then there are the people who are called gross and weird and freaky, the ones who are quiet and say intelligent things, the ones you have to watch out for.
Appearance is the first step in manipulation. So if I do get voted 'most popular' and end up on that platform with a babbling Capitol representative, whose voice is all false vigor, I want people to see a little blind girl, not an infamous bad influence with a smart mouth and a rich daddy.
The problem with constructing a façade is...well, I'm blind. I don't know if I'm pretty. I don't know what pretty means.
I know that I'm tall and the last housekeeper used to cluck her tongue at how skinny I was (before I got her fired, of course). My face is thin, my chin pointy in comparison to the those of others whose features I've traced with curious fingers, and my nose is a delicate ski jump.
My hair is apparently somewhere between gold and red—though this has never made sense, because red is the feel and taste of thick, warm, coppery blood and heated anger, while gold is cool and hard and valuable—and a tangled, untamed mess. I chopped it short on a frenzied night I can't exactly remember in a fit of rebellion, and now it falls in thick, choppy curls around my chin.
Daddy's anger was so enjoyable that I couldn't help but tests his limits, see what further wrath I could incur, and so I had spent a considerable sum of money—stolen from Daddy's wallet—and gotten some...enhancements, imported all the way from that glitzy District One.
My eyes were useless as it was, so I'd had a tiny circular piece of smooth obsidian stone inserted in the place of my pupils, as well as tiny flecks of gold scattered across my cheekbones like freckles.
I don't know if it did anything to enhance my appearance, but it certainly made me stand out, and Daddy's anger had been absolutely delicious. He'd actually acknowledged my existence for more than a couple seconds—completely sober, too!—while screaming in my face that I had disappointed him and desecrated my dear, departed mother's memory.
My memories of my mother are a quivering, throbbing tangle of sensations—teardrops on faded ivory piano keys, sudden, blazing fits of rage, the sweet, sour smell of wine on goodnight kisses, a voice screaming fragments of garbled nonsense, and shattered bottles on the kitchen floor—and the facts I have collected about her do nothing to endear these memories to me.
And every time Daddy screams at me or shakes his head in disappointment, I want to scream back at him that doesn't he understand? Doesn't he understand that this is my mother's fault—for drinking and snorting and sobbing her way through a pregnancy, for naming her daughter after a city she will never see, a city that was torched and burned to the ground, for dying from an alleged 'mistaken' overdose of 'prescription medication' and leaving a blind five-year-old to a grieving father and a demented old woman?
And so, really, I am crafting my life to honor my mother. I'm a living testament to the life she led, a life of addiction...simply minus the sniveling.
And when I die—and never before has the 'when' seemed so imminent—I am going to go out in peacock plumes of smoke and flames brighter than the stars.
I allow Daddy to take my hand in his soft, fat one and pull me along, none too gently, once we reach the quietly fearful throng of candidates for tribute. Eventually we come to a stop. I recognize the high-pitched, anxious chatter of the girls in my class.
"Good luck," he says after a long minute, and stretches upward to press his lips to my cheek. He smells like mint toothpaste, masking the remnants of alcohol on his tongue, but I still can't help but pull away. "May the odds b—"
I wrinkle my nose and quell the sudden, rare rush of faint fondness that erupts in my chest. "Oh, God, don't be cheesy, Daddy."
He sighs and lets go of my hand. I don't hear him walk away over the nervous titters of my classmates.
No one talks to me, as I would prefer it. I stand, jiggling a foot to release nervous tension, and wait.
The Capitol representative's accent is most definitely fake, judging from the painfully deliberate way he mimics the harsh angles of the jargon as he greets us. I'm not even entirely sure that he is, in fact, masculine. You never know with these crazy people.
He spouts some patriotic crap that no one pays attention to, each caught in their own panicked, hysterical fantasy of what-if's, and reminds us that it was we who brought about the first rebellion, we who incurred the punishment of the Games, and we who have sentenced today two of our own to almost-certain death, giving them a shard of a chance at glory.
He says it all with a smile in his voice.
"Let's begin with the delicate sex," he says finally, and I feel the crowd around me tense collectively, possibly insulted by the man's sexist slurs, possibly just terrified out of their mind.
The microphone amplifies the quiet rustle of a paper being unfolded, and my heart lurches in a painful jolt of realization.
"Londyn...Au-Auro—"
"Aureole," I correct automatically, and move forward with deliberate steps, breathing deep and oddly unafraid. Haven't I been killing myself every day for years now, each and every star I mark into my arm moving me one step closer to a permanent residence in the heavens?
I allow myself to stumble over feet and irregular cobblestones. A million helpful arms are there to help me regain my balance, to make up for the fact that they'd all rather it be me than them, the fact that they probably all delivered my death sentence.
I can't make myself cry, but I allow myself to whimper audibly as soon as I am within broadcasting distance of the microphone.
"Okay, dear," says the man in a pretense at sympathy, "tell us your name."
"I'm Londyn Aureole," I whisper, addressing the empty air a good foot from his face, making myself look as small and pitiful as possible.
His hands are sweaty and studded with some variety of gemstone that digs into my bare arm as he turns me to face the microphone. "Over here, darlin'."
"I-I'm Londyn Aureole," I repeat, stumbling over my words, "and-and I'm blind."
"Oh, dear," he says in a voice oozing false sympathy. "What a tough situation. I only hope you can look to those who, in the past, have stood in your place and succeeded, and find hope."
I offer him a wavering smile and try not to snort. Last year's male tribute stabbed himself in his sizable gut with his own spear...by mistake.
And then he calls the male tribute, a name I vaguely recognize as one that was often said in a whisper, accompanied by unpleasant giggles and the word weird. Today it is greeted with actual applause, malicious and unapologetic.
Edrick Quillheart's voice, as he pronounces his name, is not one I have heard often, and for this reason I am wary.
It's the quiet ones that often prove lethal.
We shake hands and then the Capitol representative links our hands and raises them to an unenthusiastic, vaguely sorrowful crowd, displaying my galaxy of puncture marks to the world.
They sit me on a couch covered in a luxurious brushed velvet that reminds me of the sky. I amuse myself by puncturing holes in the perfect fabric with the sharp-edged back of my earring, marking the constellations Gran made me memorize so long ago.
The door opens. I don't look up as Daddy enters.
"Londyn," he says breathlessly, takes my spare hand and refuses to let go. "Londyn, I'm so sorry—"
"Sorry for what?" I disagree bluntly, stabbing the final chink into Orion's belt. Orion was a mythical hero from an ancient civilization that fell millions of lifetimes ago, that only Gran can seem to remember. "Did YOU vote for me?"
"Well...No, but—"
"Then don't apologize. Like you're even going to miss me," I scoff.
"I will," he says firmly, and flips my hand to expose my scarred, starred underarm. I try to pull away, but he holds tighter, uncurling my fist and pressing something cold and metallic into it. A ring. "It was your mother's wedding ring," he says. "I want you to—to...You're just like her," he begins tearfully.
This is too much. I try once more to jerk away from him. "Oh my god, stop insulting me."
He emits a choked, tearful laugh and presses his lips to the crook of the Big Dipper on my arm. "I love you."
"Liar."
His footsteps echo even after the door has closed.
The Peacekeepers have to help Gran into her chair, suffering blow after blow from her diamond-tipped cane as she protests all the while.
"Unhand me, you fiends! I am old enough to be your great-grandfather's young, gold-digging mistress, and I deserve to be treated better!"
I can't help but crack a grin. "Hi, Gran."
"Don't you 'hi' me, young woman!" she snaps. "Insolent young things, don't know how to respect their elders! Didn't your mother teach you better, young missy?"
My smile fades. It's one of her irate days. And she doesn't remember me.
"Gran, it's me. Londyn. I-I've been reaped. For the Hunger Games. Gran, I'm probably not—"
"The Hunger Games!" she interrupts. "Why, I don't know what that newfangled Capitol thinks it's doing, trying to harness their inner Julius Caesar! Rome fell, you know!" Gran barks, rapping at my knee with her cane. "To those crazy Germans, with their tight jeans and unpronounceable designer brands...Or was that the French?"
"Gran—"
She keeps talking, ranting on about the unattractive way that men are wearing their pants 'nowadays'—"puddling 'round their ankles like gym socks!"—and some "plastic surgery balloon" named Kim Kardashian.
And it makes me want to cry, because the only person who loves me, who I actually love, doesn't remember me. If I go off and die, she'll never even remember me saying goodbye.
I seize her gnarled, wrinkly hands in mine and grip as hard as I dare, willing her to remember. "Gran, please! It's me! It's Londyn, your Londyn! I play piano for you every day, remember? Only I couldn't come today, and I'm sorry. And we have tea, remember? And you tell me stories. About—about lights and the city before the rebellion and that crazy deaf guy, Beethoven? Remember?"
Tears spring to my eyes for the first time in forever. "Gran, please!"
"You need a token," she says abruptly, pulling back and rustling about in her familiar old coat that smells like old people and flowery perfume. "If you're going to go play gladiator, you'll at least need something to make yourself presentable."
She presses something into my hands, a plastic, fine-toothed comb, and then pats my head kindly. "I don't know who you are, but I'll tell you this—the secret to getting ahead in life is a good hairdresser and a daily vitamin supplement, you hear?"
I nod as a tear spills over my gold-flecked cheek. They taste salty on my lips. "Yes, Gran."
The doors swing open and the wary Peacekeepers confiscate Gran's cane before escorting her out of the room. As the door closes, I can hear her howling and smacking at them with her hands. "Goddamnit, you insolent thugs, that young woman was about to give me a manicure!"
I stare at my hands unseeingly as silence rolls back in like the tide, weighing the heavy circle of some variety of precious metal against the plastic comb.
Eventually I go back to stabbing stars into the velvet cushion beneath me. As the door opens once more, revealing only the Peacekeepers, here to escort me to the train, I worm my mother's wedding ring into the hole corresponding with the North Star.
I tuck the comb into my pocket and allow the big men to trundle me along to my doom, stumbling over my sandaled feet and whimpering occasionally for effect.
I wish I had a cigarette.
1Styx and Stones1's A/N:
Ahem. Hi, everyone! Um. Welcome to the Quarter Quell? Anyway, I'm so excited to be working with everybody (especially my awesome district partner who doesn't find me creepy!), and I hope that you like my character... in the same way that you sorta like the bad guys in stories...except she's a girl. And I think that's it. I'm Styx, and I approve this message. Please review and don't do drugs. You might end up in the Hunger Games. Or falling off a roof. :)