Whoo! Another reaping down. If I'm not mistaken that means we're over halfway done now? Anyways, we're getting there. I'm kind of concerned that these characters aren't coming off different enough. I don't knw if its the monotony of writing reapings or what, but I'm afraid these chapters are coming off as the same thing over and over. I'm just kind of ready to get done and start with some interactions. I feel like once we reach that point the differences between the characters' personalities and storylines will really start to stand out more(I hope!)

Anyways thank you to everyone still sticking with me! I encourage everyone, especially with submitted tributes, to let me knw if you see potential alliances. I obviously already have some in mind but others I'm still trying to work out so suggestions are totally welcome!

As always, I do not own what did not come from my brain. These two lovely characters were created by Moon Melodies and Baby Rue 11 and I certainly do hope I did them justice!

~District 8 Reaping~

~Chiffelle Wayne 15~

I have always loved the way light, especially the soft orangish yellow light of morning, creeps into my home. The way the broken and stained glass shifts and morphs it to create beautiful, intricate patterns along the walls, the floors, my skin. I have recreated these designs so many times, I see the shapes in their exactness when I close my eyes. Spots dance in the darkness behind my eyelids and fill in the spaces that the lines create, and I recreate those colorful patterns on my bedroom walls and floor and ceiling, using what dredges of color I can pull from the dye tubes thrown out at the factory. They often leave behind more useable material than I believe they realize, but when you have as much money and resources to spare as the Capitol, I suppose splitting open the tubes and rubbing away every last drop isn't necessary.

Today, as I watch a pot of soup that will be our breakfast boil, I paint the lights in sad colors. Grey and cool blues and a deep, sorrowful purple lacing its way through and weeping out into the other pale colors.

When my sister shuffles into the kitchen, pushing masses of light blond hair from her face, she looks long and hard at the painting, reaches out and hovers a hand over the surface of the fabric cutting board I liberated from the trash yesterday and am using as a canvas today. For a moment I fear she will touch it and smear the still wet paint, but she only lets her fingers drift there above the place near the center, where the purple lines met, gathered like a tangle of thread, then move on. "These are the tributes? The people who are going to die today?"

I consider the lines for a long moment, then shrug my shoulders. "I don't know. Maybe…or maybe they're everyone else. See the way they bleed? Like they're weeping for what's lost?"

Annena smiles, looks at me with huge, shining bright blue eyes that match my own. "You're so smart," she tells me and I blush, ruffle her hair, and make her help me set the table for breakfast. I can make the soup, but moving it is a little more tricky with one toe missing. You never realize how important those little things are until you try to keep your balance holding something as heavy and shifty as liquid in a pot.

When our mother joins us, she examines my work as well, crouching by where I've propped it up away from the dangerous environment of moving soup and water for cleaning utensils and plates and washing hands. When I notice her looking, brow furrowed, a sting of doubt rushes through me and I tell her, "It's unfinished."

She looks at me. Her eyes are paler than mine and my sister's, and much older, more tired. I paint those eyes a lot too. Sometimes I paint them behind the light, staring our into the hope of day with all the knowledge of life. "It will be beautiful," she tells me.

I smile. She returns it, then makes her way over to take a seat at the table. I limp over as well, with bowls for our breakfast. Annena, who can't stand silence, chatters as we eat and I let the familiar sound of her voice wash over me without hearing what she's saying. It's just comfortable to listen, to have something familiar, on a day so abnormal as today. And anyways, I feel as though I have to soak up everything about her today. Her, my mother, my home. The light slanting through the cracked windows. I have to memorize it all, because maybe today will be the last day. Maybe today will be the day that it is my name they draw.

And I need to be prepared. Because that's what you do when you grow up poor. You work and you improvise and you prepare for the worst. Because the worst also happens to be the inevitable.

~Rollag Denim 12~

It's inevitable, really. My reaping, if not this year than one of the other six years I'll be eligible. I know it, and so does my father. If he didn't why would he insist on eating breakfast together today. Or on spending what little money we have on little cupcakes from the bakery. Nothing too fancy, but sweet and rare, which makes it special. If he wasn't also aware of the likelihood of my reaping today why make it any different from the other days. Because when you're as poor as us, you can't afford to splurge to make up for what might happen.

I push brown hair from my face as we walk the streets of our sad little district, the factories looming over us and, great grey teeth that tear and grind us down day after day. Those that aren't killed by machine accidents can expect to come to an end from the heavy smog that fills the working space from running so many machines. Sometimes I think that the nearly constant overcast is actually just the smoke from the factories, gathered up above our heads and blocking out the sun so that all of the inhabitants of our district look pale and sick. It was the smog that destroyed my mother's lungs and took her away from us, and someday it will probably do the same to me, if the Hunger Games doesn't get me first.

We pass an alleyway and a little boy-younger even than me, who was digging in a trash can- bolts back into the shadows. If he was caught by peacekeepers he would probably be beaten. They would call it stealing or trespassing or some other sad little crime. Just last week the girl who works at the station next to me in the factory came to work so raw from a whipping that she could barely move, because she had picked up a dead cat to bring home and they had called that hunting. She had told me sobbing that it hadn't even had much meat on it. It probably wouldn't have fed her alone, much less her family. But one mouthful of meat apiece would have been better than nothing.

"It'll be okay," I had assured her hollowly, the same words my father always uses to try and cheer me up when I'm in a particularly put out mood, "Tesserae rations come in a week then there will be some food and the wounds will be healed and things will be better."

Later that day she collapsed. She hadn't properly healed from her injuries and standing all day had pushed her past the point of exhaustion. She should have stayed home, but people like me and her can't afford to heal. So we push and, sometimes, we push too hard. She fell right into the fabric cutting machine. No more worrying about her next mouthful of food for her.

Some part of me knew I should have been horrified to have witnessed such an awful thing, that's certainly what the rich kids-those kids that have never starved or had to work for their food- thought when they pressed me for all of the gory details the next day. I hadn't felt horrified though. I had just notified a supervisor and moved to a new station while they cleaned up the mess. And I envied her a little bit. How nice would it be to no longer have to worry about my next mouthful of food?

"It's nice to have a paid day off work every once in a while, don't you think kid?" My father tries when the silence grows to powerful for him. He thinks the silence is a sign that my depression is bad today. In his mind, there's a direct link between my speaking and my happiness. This isn't true, of course. My life is just as horrible when I'm talking as it is when I'm quiet, but why should I drag him down with me? So I talk and I pretend it helps.

"Yeah, I guess so."

"And no school," he adds when I contribute no more to the conversation. "All for standing in the square for less than an hour. Not a bad exchange, huh?"

I shrug. "I guess not." As long as you don't think about the fact that two kids are going to be sent away to fight to the death. As long as you don't think about the fact that I have two slips in that bowl this year. Two chances to be chosen. And with my luck that's two too many chances to tempt fate with.

"I was thinking after the ceremony we could head down to Knit Square and see if we can't get some roast for a cheap price." Knit Square used to be where women would weave and knit until their fingers bled before the Capital developed machines to do that for them and opened the new factories in the Northern edge of the district. Now Knit Square is filled with abandoned buildings in which merchants set up illegal stalls in a new place every night and sell sketchy items for low prices. It's risky and you have to bring something to sell to someone in the market. That's how they keep business growing and it's the tricky part, finding something worth trading. Most of the time traded items are stolen goods to be sold to other districts so that they can't be traced back to anyone. My father thinks I don't know how it works and I don't press it because he does it very rarely. But it still worries me when he does and that only makes the overwhelming sense of helplessness worse.

"Yeah, I guess that would be okay."

We reach the square, where the stage is being erected for the reaping, and my father leads me into the bakery. I've never even been inside this building and despite how much I know we shouldn't waste money here, I still wander the store, taking in everything in fascination as my father approaches the counter and orders two plain but fluffy little cakes. It's quite possibly the most incredible thing I've ever eaten, but after only a few small bites my stomach rolls uncomfortably. The richness is too much I suppose.

We sit together on the curb outside the bakery, nibbling at our cakes, my father filling the silence with stories and reassurances and all the things people use to fill silence. It's a bit of a relief when the square begins filling with people and my father stands and offers a hand to help me up. "Better go sign in," he tells me and when I take his hand and he pulls me too my feet I find myself in a tight hug. "Good luck," he says quietly into my hair. Again I remember my thought from before.

He knows as well as I do what will probably happen today.

I sign in and duck into the gathering crowd of my peers. Most of the kids around me are as emaciated as I am. Most share my bone and skin body and sunken, grim eyes. We almost all have pale skin, even those with naturally dark skin you can tell they're not as brown as they should be. Our district gets too little sun for that. Most of them share my ragged cloths and many probably have more slips in the bowl than I do. Those with large families probably have more than the rich eighteen-year-olds in the crowd.

Telling myself that the odds are in my favor helps. Reminding myself that my name isn't in there that much, that today some starving eighteen-year-old will die and not me, it soothes my nerves. I even start to believe it, almost. I need it to be true. I need something go right. To turn my life around.

I don't listen to the mayor or to the escort. I repeat the mantra in my head and watch there mouths move, intently waiting for the moment of truth. Then, finally, the bowls are brought out and the escort selects the first name.

"Chiffelle Wayne!"

There's no sound for a long moment. No one moves. People begin to look around, searching for something that will give away the chosen girl. In front of me, in the section of thirteen-year-olds, a girl bursts into tears. I think for a moment it must have been her, and the peacekeepers seem to think so as well for they begin moving towards her, but then there's a stirring in the section of fifteen-year-olds and and girl stumbles forward. She and the crying girl share long waves of blond hair and great blue eyes. They must be sisters.

The older girl makes her way to the stage, slowly and awkwardly. I thought at first the shock had made her legs weak, or maybe they were just shaking badly, but when she mounts the stage and walks to the escort I can tell it's more than that. She probably is having trouble standing from the shock, but I've seen enough people limping about to know when someone has something actually wrong with them and when it's just fear or exhaustion.

When she has taken her place the escort moves on quickly to the boys' bowl and the moment of truth is finally here. I hold my breath and the mantra plays in my head. The odds are in my favor. He'll pick someone with more slips. He has to pick someone with more slips. My family needs something good…

"Rollag Denim!"

And as easy as that, a thousand times faster than the hope came everything is as I knew it would be. I collapse, my legs unfit to carry all of this weight the world continues to toss onto my back. It's crushing me, suffocating me, and the breath rushes out of me in great, shrieking sobs. I kneel there amongst my peers, screaming and crying, until the peacekeepers come. Or at least I think it's peacekeepers. I can't see anything through the tears drowning my vision, but they seem like peacekeepers, the way they grab me up roughly and drag me to the stage.

When they plop me down beside Chiffelle I manage to stay on my feet. I stand there gasping desperately for air that just rushes back out as soon as I take it in. I wonder if this is how my mother felt in those last months when her breath was shallow, her lungs too damaged to take in much air at all.

I hear the escort speaking vaguely, see his blurry face staring expectantly at me, but I don't know what he wants. Can't he just leave me alone? He's already chosen me to die. Isn't that enough?

Then arms wrap around me and for one panicked moment I think the peacekeepers are back. Here to drag me away. I scream and try to jerk away. They won't drag me around like a doll this time…but it's only Chiffelle and she's not trying to drag me away. She's hugging me.

I collapse again in her arms, a new wave of tears that I didn't know were possible washing over me. I turn my face into her tattered, checkered dress and sob into the fabric, which smells strong. Like dye used in the factories for cloths. It makes my stomach roll, but I ignore that. I just sob, unabashedly, into her shoulder.

"Deserve? Be careful with that. You start trying to work out who deserves what and before long you spend the rest of your days weeping for each and every person in the world."