half the universe cracked
like a big canyon
and the narrow little bridge connecting
is made out of stained glass
Ezekiel Avira (17)
District Thirteen
Zeke wondered how often the people of District Thirteen were underground. His shift at the mine was just getting over, barely in time for him to run home and get dressed for the reaping. When he made it across town, he'd have to go through the elevator to his parents' apartment in the Underground, where a lot of people continued to live even after the people of Thirteen came out of hiding following the failure of the Second Rebellion. Then he'd hurry over to the Station with his family, where an underground train would whisk them to the square, the only time he'd be spending a significant amount of time in fresh air during the day. It would be depressing if he wasn't used to it. Except that really made things a little more depressing than they already were.
Well, it would if he had a little more time to care.
They reached the surface of District Thirteen and collectively everyone from his shift inhaled. One of the guys who worked alongside him, Bryan Eker, patted his back on the way out of the elevator. "See you at the reaping," he said, and the two of them parted ways. Bryan was eighteen, on the verge of leaving the fear of the Games behind as the youngest in his family. He wondered if the last reaping was the worst or the best. He'd probably make it the worst for himself. He could think, I haven't been reaped yet, so why will my last one be any different? Or, more accurately, he could think, Well, time for it to finally happen. He hoped Bryan was thinking like the former.
Everyone going his direction had their heads hanging low, hands in jean pockets and eyes never leaving the pathway in front of them. Zeke only glanced up occasionally to see how close he was to his house, and wave noncommittally at some of the people he knew better from always walking the same direction after work.
And then he was shooting down the elevator, back below the Earth. Dirt and metal and concrete were layered on top of him as he was sucked back down to the depths of the district. He wished that there was at least better ventilation. Would make him feel less like everything was stale.
Mom and Dad were already ready to go on the couch when Zeke walked inside, and he could hear the bathroom door shut in the hallway. So Amorie had probably just woken up.
He was dusty and dirty from work, but there wasn't much time before they had to be off, so there was no use in showering. He'd wipe himself down and get changed and that'd be good enough. There were first impressions to be made by tributes and all, but the odds of him getting reaped were low enough that it wasn't worth risking him being late for a shower.
"Honey, don't forget your hearing aid," Mom said as he went to his room to grab his reaping clothes. He waved her off like he always did—even little Amorie made a habit of never letting their mom fuss over them too much—but he was grateful for the reminder. He could risk not showering before the reaping, but there was no way in hell he was risking going off to the Hunger Games without a way of hearing out of his left ear.
After Amorie left the bathroom, Zeke slipped in, cleaning himself off and changing his clothes. He put his hearing aid in and went out to the living room where everyone was waiting. Amorie hopped out from behind the couch when he came in to rush over and give him a hug. He opened his mouth to ask what she'd been doing back there, but just shook his head and wrapped his arms around his little sister. There were some things he just let go, and his parents followed suit. She was always getting into something, but most of the time it was just as easy to let her have her fun.
three years ago
Zeke had been babysitting Amorie every day after school for three weeks now. At this point, he didn't believe Mom when she said that they'd find another solution to watching her soon. It wasn't like he couldn't do it anyway. He enjoyed Amorie and kept her entertained, and he wasn't old enough for a job on his own yet. So it was okay, as much as he wanted to spend time with friends after school instead of rushing home to get her from Mr. Delfi before he went to work.
She ran over to him on her stubby little four-year-old legs and collapsed in his lap, leaning against him and wrapping her arms around him in a hug. He smiled at her, feeling something in his heart warm up. His friends at school often complained about their siblings, so much so that when Amorie was born, he resented her in advance. And he wished he could say that that'd gone away when he realized what a cool mini person she was, but some of it lingered. It didn't seem fair that he didn't get to be a kid because he had to help her grow up. But most of that frustration was easily pushed away when he was watching her.
"Zizi," she said, her little face still lit up in a grin. He could do without the nickname, but when she first started talking, she couldn't say Zeke. So it came out Zizi, and that just stuck.
"Hi, Amorie," he said, returning her hug with a squeeze. She launched out of his lap when he released her, just as suddenly as she flung herself at him. They'd already said hello when he picked her up, but she always hugged him when she wanted him to play. Mom and Dad said that meant she would know exactly how to get what she wanted when she was older and could even more effectively wrap them all around her finger. "How was your day with Mr. Delfi?"
She turned toward him and took a big breath with wide eyes. She was about to tell him a story, and he was prepared to be on the edge of his seat for the whole thing. "A cat— in the window— and he ran after me, and ran and ran, and I fell down," she explained, all so rapid fire that it bled together. He was good at picking up pieces of stories that she laid out for him, though.
"A cat came in the window?" he asked. He stood up and walked toward the kitchen, picking up her hand along the way to guide her in there. He was hungry, which meant it was snacktime for both of them.
The windows in the Underground apartments led out to the hallways between. In some of the nicer sections, there were common areas with special lights allowing trees and grass to grow, and that was probably where the cat came from. There were a lot of friendly strays that roamed the halls of Thirteen's Underground, surviving off the thriving rat population and scraps given to them by those who enjoyed having a pet who came and went. The common areas with trees and benches were always really warm since the artificial sunlight was on most of the day, and heated the closed-off space up a good deal, so the cats found places to curl up and nap the day away.
"His name was Atty. A-T-T-Y. 'Cause he came from an attic," she explained to him. He grinned proudly. It was really sweet when she learned how to spell new things because she never stopped talking about it. She would spell her name at random to everyone she met.
He got out some bread and even dared to touch the peanut butter. They hadn't had a treat in a while, and she just learned how to spell this random cat's name. So that was good enough for celebration. And even if it wasn't, he was in charge, so he said it was. For Amorie.
The look on her face when she saw the peanut butter on her bread was worth it, even if their parents got mad at him for dipping into it. They wouldn't, especially because he used so little, but even if they did.
Zeke went and opened up one of their windows while they were having their snack, and the two of them sat around deciding what kind of cat they wished would fall through the window. Amorie blurted out that she wanted to see a big fluffy one, and Zeke leaned his head back against their couch and said he wanted to see a spotted calico one. And then they both spelled calico a thousand times, until the letters and the word started to sound weird and not at all like a real word. Again and again, their bread gone, their fingers licked clean of peanut butter. For Amorie.
present day
Zeke stood still in the square, frozen like a deer slipping out of Thirteen's woods and staring right at the barrel of a gun. All he could think about was how long it had taken this morning to convince Amorie she couldn't bring Atty to the reaping.
He remembered the first day the fat orange cat plopped in their window, a year after Mr. Delfi died, and the first time they'd seen the cat since. They had only had him for a few months now, but Amorie was in love with him. When he started hanging around their apartment a lot, she begged their parents to let him sleep in her bed. Eventually they gave in, and after that, Atty always returned to their apartment at least a couple times a week.
He wished he could escape from the reaping and find Atty for Amorie. He knew that she'd be crying here soon, if she wasn't already. The square was quiet, but there was always just enough chatter that he wouldn't be able to tell if his little sister had had time to let it sink in. To let her brother being reaped sink in.
Rachel Powers had been reaped first. She seemed like a quiet girl from the fifteen-year-olds' section. Nothing in particular jumped out about her. He had never seen her before, so he assumed she didn't live close enough to him to go to the same school. In his head, he was already thinking about how the Games were going to go, what comments the announcers were going to make about the plain girl from Thirteen. It was a normal reaping. Sad, but they were always sad.
Except then they called his name. They called his name.
Maybe he didn't actually stay still all that long, because there was no awkward pause when he started moving out toward the center aisle. No shifty glance from an impatient escort, no repeat of his name. He just went up there. Stood on the stage, glancing around. He shook Rachel's hand, and he was sure his eyes looked as dead as he felt inside.
He wanted the reaping over with. He wanted goodbyes over with. He was going to be sick.
The goodbyes room felt like a fucking coffin. He wanted to hit the walls, leave holes in them, tear up the nice fancy couches. He wanted to punch the goddamn windows and leave shards of glass down on the stage below to be picked up.
But it wouldn't be the Capitol picking it up. It would just be more sad people from District Thirteen, feeling guilt and pity for the poor kid who punched the window out. And his hand would bleed and hurt, and Amorie would be even more upset when she saw that. So he sat himself down on the couch and looked up at the ceiling, reigning himself in.
Nothing was going to fix it. All he could do was try not to make it worse. For Amorie.
Mom and Dad brought Amorie in. She hid behind Dad's legs like she was scared to see him. He wondered if she was trying to pretend this wasn't real. That was how he would feel in reverse. Like maybe he could make it all go away if he just didn't look at it. He had to see it to believe it.
Once she was fully in the room, she ran toward him and hugged him like she always did, but instead of grinning and calling him Zizi like she was still two years old, she finally started crying. He could feel her shoulders shaking even as he squeezed his eyes shut.
This wasn't ripping the bandaid off. This was digging a knife into his stomach and twisting it around a little for good measure. And to make it all worse, he could hear his mother's whimpers, muffled, so he knew she was in Dad's arms.
He could hear what his parents were going to say before they started saying it. They pulled away from the embrace they'd fallen into, and Zeke urged Amorie to sit down next to him so he could breathe again. Not that she was strong enough to squeeze the air out of him with her hugs, but it was a little suffocating every time his brain reminded him, This could be the last time you ever hug her.
"You have a shot," Dad said, while Zeke ran through all the possible ways for him to say that Zeke had a chance of not dying. He hadn't been around his parents much throughout his life since they were always working, but he understood them. "Don't count yourself out, Ezekiel."
That was fair advice, really. He was kind of prone to counting himself out. He knew school was never really important for him—he was pretty solidly stuck in the mines for the rest of his life—so he stopped trying for the most part. But the Ezekiel tagged onto the end was what made it really punch at the ache all of this was causing. His parents never called him by his full name. He just never went by it, even though he got it from surviving premature birth, getting this hearing loss shit, and losing the twin he was supposed to be born with before they could ever meet. Calling him by his full name now was a plea.
"I'm not going to just throw myself off the platform," he told them. He looked down at Amorie and saw that her face was buried down in her hands, a look of grief saturating her. She was too young to look this broken. He swallowed every single realistic, blunt bone in his body and added, "I'll come home."
It didn't visibly change anything in Amorie's demeanor, but maybe later on, when she had to see him on the screen in the Games, it would help. Or at least his parents would be able to remind her that he promised her.
Zeke stood up and hugged his mom as she wiped at her eyes, looking like she was going to fall back into crying. Her hand went behind her head like she wanted him to shrink back down to Amorie's size, where she could hold him tight, away from the reaping and the Games.
"I love you, Mom," he said, and she nodded, whispering it back over and over again.
All their lives, Mom had clung to Zeke and Amorie whenever they would let her. All their lives, she had been one step ahead, making sure they were safe and happy in every way that she could. And now the Capitol was taking Zeke so far away, there was no way she could.
There were more people waiting outside to say goodbye to him, acquaintances that figured they couldn't live with themselves if they didn't wish him good luck before he was gone forever. People he genuinely enjoyed who wanted a little bit of closure before he disappeared. He wanted to tell a lot of them to go away. He wanted to spend his last hour with his parents and his sister. But the Peacekeepers poked their heads in and made his family leave soon enough, and one of the handful of others took their place. Amorie turned to face him as she left, waving one last time, and the door behind her like a coffin.
yeehaw! onto capitol chapters!
