HERMES DIANORO - DISTRICT 1
One month before the Reaping
Hermes had been in the Academy longer than almost anyone else.
On the day he had arrived, he was a squalling seven-year-old, knees skinned from how his mom had dragged him over the carpet, his arm still aching from where she had gripped onto him. She had dragged all the way to the windowless concrete building of the District 1 Training Academy, and she had left him there. The youngest, smallest child, no matter which way he looked.
On that day, someone had peered over him, one of the few not to sneer as he cried, and had remarked that he was the first of the 'Year 75s'.
At the time, he hadn't understood what any of it meant. All Hermes had known was that each morning his mother would drag him here, a cold building with bare concrete floors where boys twice his age would hit him with sticks and tease him for crying until he would scream with rage and upset and pick up a stick himself. Each night Hermes would come home and curl up in his bed in the room he shared with his little sister Merit, and she would poke at his bruises with a four-year-old's curiosity, then when he wouldn't say anything she would deposit toys on his bed until he would smile. They were all threadbare then- the toys had been his before they had been hers. Eventually, when his baby brother Pluton was old enough to take ownership, the stuffed animals were little more than rags with embroidered eyes.
Never enough money. It took Hermes a long time, longer than it should have, to realise that his mother's divorce had come a month before she took him to the Academy. By the time he realised, when he was fourteen, he didn't have it in him to be angry. Fourteen was when the most trainees would enter the Academy. By the time the majority of the 'Year 75s' arrived, Hermes had spent half his life being one already.
Year 75. Some tried to take a chance at a younger age, but if you were serious about winning the Games, you waited until 18. Hermes' eighteenth year was the Quarter Quell.
Like a little boy turning a stone in his hand, over and over until warm and sticky, Hermes had latched onto being a Year 75. It was a popular year for the Academy. Most years had twenty or so trainees by the time came for their reaping, but Year 75 had forty, and that was just counting people turning eighteen this year. He knew that trainees all the way down to Year 81 were weighing up the risks of volunteering.
It wasn't like winning the Quarter Quell got you a nicer home in the Victors' Village. It was the fame, and the promise of glory. Haymitch Abernathy was the only living Victor of a Quell, and yet despite being a snide District 12 on the far end of anti-Capitol sentiment, he was talked about. A Game didn't go past without Haymitch getting several name checks.
For Hermes, the Quell felt different. It felt like it was his. The sticky little stone in his hand, worn smooth. The prize for coming here so long.
It was a light day today, on account of the Quell announcement later tonight. He'd done some exercise, a little sparring, but his nerves were shot, and he'd misstepped and had received half a dozen kicks to the stomach for it. He had blustered out a few curses and struck back, but he was off his step for the rest of the day, and had slumped into his survivalism training with his ribs smarting and an arm wrapped loosely around his abdomen.
He knew his strengths and weaknesses. Each year he was scored against his fellow trainees, and would spend a day going over with his trainers what needed to improve. He was hugely inconsistent, year on year.
The only positive word out of any trainer's mouth, for a decade, was 'determined'. He'd come to hate the phrase. It made him sound plucky and incapable. He had a tolerance for pain, and he was the last to back down from a challenge. He had stamina, he had strength. 'Determined' felt like an insult clothed in nicety.
His weaknesses were easier to pin down. He'd heard them all from people enough. When he did one thing wrong, he'd spiral and mess the rest up. If he thought about something too much, he'd latch onto it and not let it go, become convinced it was the only thing between him and survival. His scar, for instance.
It's the part of him that doesn't nicely tan, a thick pink worm of a scar curling into his lip and up, almost meeting the juncture of his nose. A sparring session, a loosened wooden handle revealing the metal bar beneath. It wasn't sharp, but his opponent was strong. An accident, almost certainly, his sparring partner had never had anything against him, but disfiguring the face of a trainee was considered as grave as deliberately crippling them. It lowered their odds. His sparring partner had been dismissed from the Academy without a second chance.
He wonders sometimes about odds. How much the scar lowers his chances of sponsorship. Whether this one physical alteration would tip the balance against him.
He lives in the District of luxury. He styles his hair carefully each morning. He takes pride in his appearance. Even here, the scar is enough to make people stare. What would the Capitol think? Will the stares be worse? Will they look at him with revulsion when he sits down to be interviewed?
Sometimes he thinks about these things too much, and it'll crush his chest, and he'll have to sit still and take gulping breaths until his heart doesn't feel like it's stopped, until he can convince himself he's not dying. It happens less these days, and he's prepared for it when it comes, but the fear will sometimes envelop him.
His nerves are constricting his chest as they sit for the Quell announcement. Nothing he can't hide.
The Academy has a television for the Games and they've rolled it out for this. It's small, but it gets good signal here. He knows mom and Merit and Pluton will be watching at home, on the television that flickers, but this is an event he wanted to see here, at the Academy. Most of the trainees have come. All of the Year 75s. Some are taller than him, or more aggressive than him, or smarter than him. None of them have the experience. None of the men will win against him in the Reaping.
There's going to be a real crush this year, when everyone volunteers. Sometimes there are deaths. Less in District 1 than other Career districts, usually it's a matter of speed to the front rather than violence, but about once every three years a trainee will kill another in the rush to the front.
He'd rather not kill anyone, but if he has to, he has to.
They are all crushed in around him, all sweating into the same simple black shirt and pants as him. They're sat so close together in the room; it's the largest in the Academy, but it's rare that this many trainees are all in the same place without a fight occurring. Some of them are excited, or quiet, or loudly discussing their predictions so they can get bragging rights if they're correct.
Hermes is nervous. He reckons most of them are nervous too. Loud, excitable, quiet: they all know that the 25th Quell had been a ballot vote. Should the selection of tributes not come down to volunteering, any Year 75 that waited until 18 will have lost their chance at the Hunger Games forever.
Hermes takes as quiet of a breath in as he can, holds it to feel the fullness in his lungs, and exhales. In, one two three four. Out, one two three four five. Exhaling longer than he inhales is an old trick for calming himself, and it doesn't attract attention.
He's been sweating all day, it's a stifling summer evening and the air feels wet and thick, but now it's trickling in drops, down his temple, matting his hair, buzzing against the scar on his lip. His palms are damp. He rubs them slowly against his pant leg, slowly enough that nobody around him will notice how much of a mess he is. He sets his hands against the concrete floor. Even in summer it's cold. It calms him.
The television crackles. The Capitol broadcast starts with the usual fanfare. Today it makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
A sweeping shot across the City Circle, slowly closing in on the balcony of the Presidential palace. A small boy in a simple white suit is standing on the balcony, on President Snow's left. The small boy is holding a large wooden box.
"On the twenty-fifth anniversary," Snow says, "As a reminder to the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it."
An uncomfortable murmur flows through the room. Hermes presses his palms harder to the concrete floor and stares straight ahead at the screen, looks at the little boy in white.
"On the fiftieth anniversary," the President continues, "as a reminder that two rebels died for each Capitol citizen, every district was required to send twice as many tributes."
The little boy in white looks to be struggling to hold the box. He can't be older than seven. He shifts his arms a little under the wood. The President tilts his head down to the boy, and the boy steps forward, presenting the box. The screen cuts to a close up of the President's well manicured hand, encircled by his well-tailored shirt cuff, encircled by his immaculate white suit sleeve. The lid of the box is marked 'I'. The President lifts it.
Rows of yellow envelopes. There have to be at least a hundred in the box. Hermes wonders how long the leaders sat after the Dark Days, considering each one, placing each so neatly in the envelopes.
The President slides an envelope from the box. The envelope is so old, the flap comes open with just the slightest pressure. Snow reads from the card.
"On the seventy-fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that the Capitol citizens showed mercy on those that showed them violence, no tribute may harm another. The Capitol shall vote for its Victor."
Hermes lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, and the air escapes in a tight, shocked noise, high and strained.
Half of his life's training had just been negated by a small white card.
I can still volunteer, he tells himself as a blistering argument begins in the hall. It could have been worse, it could have been like the 25th. He stands, dusting off his hands on his thighs, and walks quickly from the room. There's no point in staying. It'll be an argument that'll end in a fistfight, and he has no interest in it right now, not while his chest is slowly crushing inwards, his scalp prickling, his mouth dry. He needs a moment alone. A moment to think.
He can hear the trainers trying to stem the arguments. Most of them are ex-Peacekeepers, greying walls of muscle who usually do not go ignored, but the trainees are so angry that Hermes can hear the arguments starting to escalate into shouts, ricocheting around him on the concrete walls.
No tribute may harm another. In the Hunger Games? How is he supposed to win? He has trained for a decade to harm other tributes. He's learned which places in a body will cause the most blood loss the fastest. He's learned how much pain a teenager can take before they collapse. He knows how to break bones, slice flesh, win fights.
And now what does he have?
He walks out into the summer evening. The air is warm. There is a gentle breeze.
He sits in the grass and closes his eyes. Places two fingers neatly on his wrist, feels the flutter of his pulse.
My heart hasn't stopped, it's just the panic. My heart hasn't stopped, it's just the panic. In, one two three four. Out, one two three four five. In, one two three four.
Out.
He exhales.
He'll have to find a way.
Thanks to chthonic python for Hermes! He's a lot of fun to write.
Three slots are still available; so long as you don't submit a D1M or a D4M, you can have at it!