Lucent Saccharyn POV:
The next Reaping is going to be District Three. This particular district poses a unique challenge for us Gamemakers, because their tributes fall into three main categories: the sort of nice but very weak one, the highly machine- and computer-literate one who's irritatingly logical, and the scientific one who likes poisons and dissections and sees other tributes as objects to conduct unethical "experiments" on. Often, the tributes end up somewhere in the middle.
The problem is that they have a unique skillset from the other districts. We have to give them some opportunity in the arena, but they aren't physically strong, so we're forced to come up with more logical, pattern-based twists in the arena and incorporate more training stations. The tributes are also normally painfully shy, which creates another problem. I'm in charge of orchestrating the most important sports event of the year, and I might have my favorites, but I always want to give everyone an equal chance of winning.
It's dull for a typical District Two tribute to win a Quarter Quell with no resistance or difficulty. That was one of the major downfalls of my predecessor, Langston Arquette. He didn't engineer any close encounters or artificial disasters for the Careers, and they skated by with no problem as tributes from other districts were forced into hiding and sicced by genetically engineered mutts. There was no balance among the districts. Capitolites love different districts for different reasons. One, Two, and Four for the loyalty, Nine, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve for the underdogs, Seven for the strength, Eight for the style, Six for the drugs, and Five for the nightlife. District Three is the least popular district because they lack charisma, distinctiveness, and a consistent trademark in general.
Luckily for them, I have designed a wide variety of places in the arena and have commissioned a great many weapons, trainings, and specialized stations for them to employ at the Capitol. If the pair from District Three fall into one of the usual archetypes, I can assure the Capitolites it will be a very interesting Games indeed.
Pola Velek, 15, D3F:
I wake up to the metered beeping of my alarm clock. It's early in the morning. Like most teenagers in District Three, I have school today. The Reaping is just a blip in the day, we must always stick to our routine in the factory district. Our industry requires highly technical knowledge that we absolutely cannot make a mistake with in the workforce, so we are one of the only districts with mandatory formal schooling.
I get out of bed with ease. Personal preference doesn't matter here, it's all about how we can contribute to the machine that is our entire economy. We each will play a very specific part in the factories, so we must learn to conform to a strict timetable. We have none of the freedoms afforded to those in other districts. If the Capitol has ordered a shipment of holograph-capable tablets, our programmers and engineers will be welding and coding for days on end.
The nature of our work creates a set of demanding conditions that forbid us from becoming overly dependent on rest. There is little intrinsic value in sleep, food, and recreation. We are only afforded the bare minimum to survive and function at a reasonable capacity. I consider myself to be a logical person, and I much prefer to compress and ignore my feelings than to indulge in them. With no delay, I go to the bathroom to stay on time. I wash quickly, undressing and submerging an absorbent cloth in the water barrel until it's dripping, then proceeding to scrub my skin off with it.
I grasp the bar of carbolic soap and dampen it, smearing the goop on the cloth to remove the remaining dirt from my skin. I allow myself a glance in the glass today, looking at my thin, white frame in the surface. And I do mean white. I'm albino, with red eyes and short white hair and nearly translucent skin. I quickly dry myself off with a towel and turn to my closet. I put on the uniform of dark trousers and polo shirt and sweater. I eat a plain piece of bread on my way to school. I love my parents, but they've already left for work so I obviously can't say goodbye.
They're very nice people, highly affectionate, and very devoted to their jobs and my education. I see the value of it, but being a top student at a hoity-toity school always makes me feel a bit out of place. I do very well and will likely score very high on the next round of testing, and I'll get to pick my specialized field on my own, as opposed to the poorer-educated pupils who will be assigned easier, lower-paying jobs due to their lack of academic prowess.
I sit through a boring school day of repetitive material, proofreading other students' work illicitly right under the watchful eyes of the teacher. I ignore my classmates, except to collect my payment for correcting their essays. I'm technically not supposed to do that, and there are very strict rules against it, but it's one rule I don't mind breaking. I have a tremendous memory and a good head for grammar, and it's my thinking that nobody should be barred from a good job they're well-suited to on account of some spelling errors.
I got a scholarship to the school, unlike the other students, who are among the richest in the district and paid to get in. As bad as I occasionally feel when someone's marks prevent them from following an occupation they'd like, I don't do corrections for free. It's work on top of my school assignments, and I'm only willing to help people on my own time if they fork over something I want. I charge quite hefty prices, true, because half the students in the school depend on me to fix their mistakes, but it gives me money to help me get ahead in life and afford me a few unnecessary pleasures too.
The hours pass quickly. Midday, I go into the school bathroom and change into my ceremonial outfit. It's a pure white dress, almost exactly the color of my skin. I follow my classmates out into the district plaza to prepare for the Reaping. It's not something I fear, just another temporary fixture of life that comes and goes. It's at least nice to break up a dull day at school. Nothing of interest has happened so far today, so perhaps the Reaping will bring some excitement.
The Peacekeeper pricks my finger and I go to stand in my section. The escort scampers onto the stage, foregoing the rigamarole of long speeches and instead just showing the usual video before going over to the female bowl. Her long, slender fingers select a slip and she reads out the name.
"Pola Velek!" She says my last name wrong, but I don't correct her. Instead, I walk to the stage, devoid of fear. I am not afraid, and if I am, I quash it promptly with a reminder that it is not logical to be scared of an inevitable occurrence. I hold my head high, a slender figure against the backdrop of the ample-bodied escort as she once again dips her fingers in a fishbowl, preparing to select my male counterpart.
Soren Ventra, 15, D3M:
Matron wakes me up, along with the other nineteen boys in the dorm, by banging two metal trash bin lids together. "Get to it!" she shouts, and there are assorted groans from everybody stretching and getting up slowly. Matron is quite the unpleasant person. She's short and chubby and her gray hair is yanked back in a bun so tight her hairline has receded several inches back on her forehead. She wears a navy dress and white smock, with what she calls "sensible" shoes, and her personality is just as drab and ugly as she is."Quickly, people! In five minutes I want you in full uniform, room cleaned, beds made, and marching to morning assembly. Understood?"
"Yes, Matron," we all chorus together. She scuttles out quickly, little white cap bobbing up and down on her head, ready to go harass somebody else. I yawn in exhaustion-welcome to the hell that is the Franklin Reformatory School. There are a lot of dreadful people here, and Matron is only the third-worst. Numbers one and two are Corinth and Miss Marlowe, the headmistress. She's bad enough, but at least she's preferable to Corinth, who manages to make every single class, task, and punishment worse for the rest of us by irritating the hell out of the teachers. And in a juvenile detention center, that's not exactly something to be taken lightly.
I'm quite a snarky, unfriendly person but even I understand that purposefully antagonizing someone who has authority over your entire world and regulates every slight comfort you're allowed is a stupid idea. I hate other people, and I certainly don't trust them, so living with other people is understandably not my favorite thing. Because of this, I like taking advantage of every extra moment of rest I can get. Unfortunately, I can't afford to miss the deadline today. I haven't ticked off Matron for a while, and if I'm dressed in record time, maybe she'll help me weasel my way out of a beating when Corinth inevitably decides to make trouble.
I've barely gotten out of bed when Matron pops her head back in. "Thirty seconds gone!" she yells. I hurry to untangle the clothes I stuffed under my cot last night, praying I can make it in time. I make sure to put on the uniform carefully. It consists of underclothes, a white button-up shirt, sweater, blazer, tie, trousers, belt, socks, and shoes. The clothes are not good quality. They're all made of heavy, itchy material, and they have to be put on in a certain order.
I pull on the button-up and look in the scratched-up wall mirror to put on my necktie, then tug on my trousers. Then comes the belt and socks and shoes, hopping around crazily on one foot. I hastily tie the laces and then turn the attention to my bed. Someone looks at the clock on the wall and, in a panicky voice, wails "One minute left!" I strip my mattress completely, yanking the fitted sheet over the corners of the bed and pulling the top sheet taut over that. I put the quilt over the sheets and smooth out the few wrinkles left. I run a finger through my greasy hair like a comb, trying to smush it into place before time runs out.
When it does, there's no klaxon or bell or alarm ringing. Only the ticking of the watch on Matron's wrist is audible as she inspects up and down the line. The silence is broken occasionally by her sharp voice cutting through the air as she breezes across the room.
"You there! Fix that tie!"
"Does this bed look made to you? Do it over again until you have hospital corners. Absolutely unacceptable, young man."
"Is that a midriff I see? Cover it up. Now! And tuck your shirt into your belt this time." She passes by me with no comment and I breathe a sigh of relief. Then she clicks her fingers and we all follow her in a single-file line to the auditorium, a large industrial room reminiscent of something you'd find in one of our factories. Most old ones are turned into schools, with uniforms made of the same itchy crap we have to wear. The only difference is that they aren't to punish young criminals like me, but teach maths and science to normal students.
We filter in the side door and line up along the wall. The girls from the other wing are sitting on the benches today. I stand quietly and try to avoid fidgeting as Miss Marlowe, the headmistress, lectures us about the importance of reforming our young minds. The girls are inspected and dismissed, and Miss Marlowe comes around to us. When she turns her back to scold someone about rumpled trousers, Corinth, recognizable by his brown hair (much lighter than the rest of ours), makes an obnoxious slurping noise with his teeth. Miss Marlowe stiffens up and turns around, trying to catch the troublemaker. She reluctantly turns around again, and Corinth loudly smacks his lips together. Miss Marlowe once again whips around.
"Which one of you is making that noise?" she snaps. I briefly consider telling, but Corinth glares angrily at me and I don't dare speak out. She turns once again and Corinth makes another sound, a particular very inappropriate high-pitched noise. Miss Marlowe turns back, angry eyes flicking back and forth.
"Who is it?!" she seethes. "This is not funny! It is ignorant and disgraceful!" I swear I can see smoke coming out of her ears. It might be funny if it didn't involve us getting in trouble.
"Very well," says Miss Marlowe, "If none of you tell me I shall punish you all. How d'you like that?" Along with a few other boys, I involuntarily shrink into myself a little. That's not a nice prospect. Miss Marlowe is a big believer in inflicting pain on us if even just one boy back-chats her. As she scales up the line in search of the perpetrator, her glasses twitch on her nose and her blonde ponytail gives an angry twitch of its own, like a disgruntled furry rodent. Even Corinth seems to realize the seriousness of the situation, and for once, shuts his mouth, putting on his best poker face.
Until he doesn't. He accidentally lets a poorly stifled laugh out, and his face, along with that of every boy in line, freezes in fear. Miss Marlowe settles her vehement expression of fury on him.
"Was that a laugh?" Her voice is dangerously soft, a rhetorical question shrouded in a sweet, coaxing tone.
"No, Mi-"
"In no universe do you say that to a teacher!" If possible, she sounds even louder and more frightening than before. Every person in the room knows exactly what's about to happen, and we all cringe in unison as Miss Marlow stalks over to her lectern and produces a ruler.
"Hand out!" she barks, and Corinth reluctantly extends his arm with his palm up.
"Crack!" There's an audible thwapping noise when the ruler hits him. He yelps and clutches his hand to his chest, willing the pain to disappear as Miss Marlowe pulls his hand back out. There's a flurry of noises as she continues to smack his hand with the ruler, then continues down the line so she can torture the rest of us. The next boy slowly reaches out his upturned hand, and the next and the next until she gets within a few people of me. I look desperately at Matron, standing at the end of the row. She, thankfully, catches my pleading glance and decides to rescue me from certain doom.
"Lithzy," she says, looking down at the timepiece on her wrist, "I hate to interrupt but we're running quite late for the Reaping. Perhaps we'd better get going." Miss Marlowe checks her own watch.
"Oh! You're quite right. We can finish this later." I haven't escaped punishment totally, but it's at least been postponed until later in the day. Matron leads our line out of the school, waving goodbye to Miss Marlowe as we leave. She herds us into the district square, and we have to watch the old grainy video before the fat, ugly escort picks the girl tribute. It's somebody named Pola, who walks with a quick, metered stride to the stage. She's almost robotic in her manner, looking totally emotionless.
I'd bet she's just another sheep who's completely unfamiliar with the concept of individuality or bending the rules, who would go to her death without question. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of "The Man." I hate the Capitolites, the Hunger Games, and especially that nasty new Head Gamemaker who acts all sweet and prissy in her press conferences but then will go turn around and kill two dozen children for her entertainment.
I see the overfed escort dip those skinny toothpick fingers (the only thin part about her) into the male bowl, and I have a brief moment of terror. But I can't get picked. Right?
"Soren Ventra!" Wrong. No. I refuse to acknowledge this. There must be another boy she's talking about, but I know there isn't. Life is too cruel to give me two miraculous rescues in a day. I trudge slowly, spitting curse words under my breath. I ignore the people around me, some of whom look glad to have me gone. I catch a glimpse of Genevieve Fitzgerald looking at me with pity from the girls' pen, but I don't much like to think about what happened with her, so I turn away. Still swearing, I ascend the stage, huffing in anger.
"Your tributes, District Three!" she announces. "Shake hands, please."
"Of course, ma'am," says Pola. Her grip is positively icy.
"Stupid Capitol bootlicker bitch!" I whisper.
"Shut your mouth and don't do anything stupid," she whispers back. To be honest, that's pretty much my motto at this point, but now I don't have to obey Miss Marlowe anymore, so I insult her again. I'm proud to say that she and the fat escort practically have to drag me to the Justice Building, because I kick up such a fuss. Enter my new hellhole: the road to the Hunger Games.
Hey y'all! I'm so delighted to tell you that all tributes have been submitted or reserved! I'll be updating with the next Reaping chapter soon, so please stay safe and take care of your mental health in the meantime. Love you!
~LC