District 9 remembers.

WELCOME TO THE DISTRICT NINE MOCKINGJAY MEMORIAL. AS YOU WALK THROUGH THE GARDENS YOU ARE WELCOME TO TOUCH ANY OF THE BLUE PILLARS TO ACTIVATE THE HOLOGRAMS. EACH PILLAR INCLUDES A HUNDRED TESTIMONIES, CHOSEN AT RANDOM.

WE ASK THAT YOU TURN OFF ALL PERSONAL COMMUNICATION DEVICES AND KEEP CONVERSATION TO A MINIMUM, SO AS NOT TO DISTURB THE EXPERIENCES OF OTHERS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION.

THE PANEM COUNCIL FOR THE REMEMBERANCE AND PRESERVATION OF ATROCITIES

As we um. Sorry, it's recording? Okay. Um. We were making bread. Ma and Pa and I. My brothers were home. Robin had his girlfriend with him. I think her name was Sara. It's been a while. The baby was in the bassinet in Ma's room.

The Quell had ended the night before. We all knew it there was fighting. Sometimes you could hear the bombs go off. Down south of us. A squadron or two of them hovercrafts went over us. Didn't bother us. Pa told us all to keep inside, don't give 'em a target, and they'll let us be. That's how it was during the Dark Days. District is too big to hold. And the food's too valuable. Figured them that wanted to fight could fight, and the rest of us could just keep our heads down and mind our business and in a few weeks we'd find out who we was working for now.

The sky went orange first. That's when we knew the bad was coming. Didn't know from where. Then there was smoke in the air. Embers raining down. But it was almost nightfall before we saw the line of fire coming in from the south.

It was a dry summer. The barley fields were going up like paper. Pa shouted at us all to run, Ma yelled at me to grab the baby. I did. He was a quiet little thing. Still is.

We started running. There's a watering hole up north of us, spring-fed and all that. We didn't grab anything else, just hauled out of there running. Made it a mile, maybe two. It got so dark. We was calling each other's names in the smoke to keep track of ourselves.

I found myself next to my brother Trent. His girl was done for, she was hacking and coughing. Couldn't run any more. Trent tried to carry her on his back but she was too heavy. I turned back to track them and saw them both go up. Like a big candle. I couldn't stop. I had the baby.

They did that during one of the Games. The one Cashmere won, I think. Smoked up the little girl from Six. And then last year, with Katniss. I remember what the burns looked like. How awful, Trent and I said, to go like that.

I heard a scream or two. I think I remember when Trevor lit up. I fell into the watering hole almost by accident. Fire passed right over us. Baby never even cried. I waited up for the others. Waited for them to come. Never did.

We wandered through the fields for three days. Baby was almost dead. Barely had any strength left, but figured I could dig the grave. So I set me little brother down, started digging in the field. All burned black.

There were potatoes. Baked potatoes. Lived on baked potatoes for another two days until they found us.

Elsie Mahon, age 18.

They're calling it the Battle of the Golden Field. It was a fucking mess, all that. Fate of the district, and all, decided in a cornfield.

The General was exhausted. We all were, you know. But we couldn't stop. We'd been marching for a day and a half, cross half the district, cause the word was the Capitol was holding Granary Row hostage. They held a lot of places like that. And we wasn't no District 10. No one coming for us except for us.

The battle lasted the rest of the day and into the night. And you always hear about the great battles, how grand they were. How noble. Heh. Nine ain't meant for grandness.

Well we shot ourselves out of ammo until half of us were dead on both sides, then we rushed at each other through the field. Was less of a battle than a brawl, but there was no barkeep and no Peacekeepers this time to break it up. Fought like animals. With stones and sticks and hatchets. Some of the kids had scythes and sickles. Saw more kids die that day than I ever did in the Games. Good kids, too.

So we were falling back and looked like it was all lost, and then the General was there, and he was like a beast out of hell. A giant you know, covered in blood, just glowing with rage. It was a sight. It was a sight. And I know you've all heard stories about Abram's last stand, and his heroics, and him throwing Peacekeepers left and right with his bare hands and let me tell you, it was true. All of it. There was a man. There was a man for you. Took a dozen of the whities to take him down and even then he crushed out one of their skulls with his bare hands. His eyes were gone, most of his face, chest ripped up like a hunk of raw meat, and he still went down fighting.

Well we couldn't go back after he did all that, could we? So we fought. Bare hands and rocks and all. It was butchery, at the end. No glory to it. No shame, either. Nah, each one of us would do it again. And again.

Battle of the Golden Field, yah know. Lost an eye myself. Two fingers too. Gets me drinks, though. Even in the Capitol, they buy me drinks for it.

Donovan Haye, age 35

I want to talk about my auntie. I know she's in books, I know the academics are real interested in the 'First Generation,' I've done interviews. But none of them knows the real Evelyn Morris. Not like I did.

She wasn't part of the Quell plot. She wasn't, and I know that some people, some people, like to make her out to be a coward. But Aunt Evelyn never was. Some people called her cold, and bitter, but that's cause she didn't owe anyone nothing. Everything she gave was out of her own heart, and she gave so much. She raised me, you know. After my ma and pa died. I wasn't allowed to live in the Victor's Village so she put me up in an apartment in Central Row. A nice one, and all that. Never went cold. She brought my groceries every week. Even that last spring, when she know she was going back into the arena. Aunt Evelyn came by, brought me bread and veggies and chicken and peach cobbler from Eleven because she knew it was my favorite. Found out later she baked it herself. Seeder was smuggling her the peaches.

We from Nine, we don't owe no one. No one did shit for us. Not the Victors. Not the Rebellion. Not the Mockingjay. They made sure they had Eleven for food and then let Nine burn. Left us to ourselves. They left Nolan and Evelyn to themselves in the arena too. Ben died trying to arm them, and they still didn't even mention him at the memorial.

Evelyn was good. She was a good woman. A good aunt. A good Victor, if that sort of thing matters any more. And I just…I just didn't want people to forget her.

Shaleena Morris, age 27

It wasn't worth it. I lost everyone. They're not coming back. They're not ever coming back.

Wheaton Glover, age 13

Okay. So you aren't going to mention my name, right? No names. Okay.

I shouldn't even be talking to you people, but I gotta tell someone. Tell someone what we did. It's eating me up.

We caught a Peacekeeper. Round about the start of September, I think. It was before the Mockingjay showed up again on the cameras. He'd gotten separated from his unit. Lost. And you know, on the prairies, there's nowhere to hide. We scooped him up right away.

He was a kid. Probably eighteen or nineteen if he was a day. Maybe even younger. I know they were recruiting the kids at the end, if they could catch them. Reaping age, maybe. He was District 2, obviously.

And we didn't know what to do with him, cause he didn't have any information, and we was cut off from the main rebel cells, no radio, nothing. Couldn't haul him with us. He was a liability. We'd have to kill him. We knew we had to kill him.

And he was begging, you know. Crying. Told us his name. His parents. Brother and sister. Even his dog. Wouldn't shut up about that damn dog.

We kept passing around the gun, trying to find the courage to commit murder. Ain't none of us Careers, didn't come natural. But then he vomited, and he leaned over, and his tags fell out from around his neck. Gold tags. From Murder High. The ones they give the kids who are trying to make tribute. Go into the Games.

And old Jonah, and that's not his real name mind you, he just lost it. He lost two of his little girls in the Games, the one Finnick Odair won and then the one a few years ago, with all the maces. He lost it. He grabbed a knife and started screaming, started carving the kid up, bit by bit, like a ham at Wintermas.

And the others of us, you know , we just sat back and let him. Cause we'd all seen the Games. Even with the rebellion, even with all the war, ain't nothing matches the Games, even now. We let him go, and he made it last a whole hour until he hit the femoral artery and the kid just bled out.

Anyway, just had to say it. I guess. If the family of Fabius Kip ever hears this. We buried him under an oak tree. Hour north of Greenwood Hamlet. On the sharp curve of the Greenwood River. He's there.

Anonymous

I saw the first flowers today. Spring here is lovely now. Less than half the fields have been reclaimed. I suppose they all will be, someday. But for now, spring and summer and autumn is awash with flowers. I could get used to it, I think.

I don't think the district is ever going to heal. Not in the way some people talk about. There's too much. And District Nine is too big. It was useful, for the Capitol to keep us all under their thumb like that. But the district is city, town, villages, wilderness. Nothing binds us together except the fence, and the fence is long gone. I think we'll be two or three districts within fifteen or twenty years. Or maybe people won't even talk about districts at all, by then.

There's still a lot of pain. It's hard for immigrants to assimilate here, and hard for people to see newcomers from different districts come in, especially the old folk who felt abandoned during the war, and all those years before. I think Capitoltown will fold, eventually. Capitol folk don't do well here, as a rule. There's just not enough for them to do, even the well meaning ones. The amusement park will stay, though. That's ours now. *Laughter*

But I'm a teacher. It's my job to hope. Each new class that walks through my doors is a fresh start. A fresh slate to etch something other than hate, than resentment, than fear. There are kids who have never lost siblings to the Games now. Teenagers who don't dread their next birthday. We don't use tesserae to learn the multiplication tables anymore.

That has to could for something. I have to believe it counts for something. We lost too much for it to not count. Please, whoever is listening to this. Tell me it counted. Tell me we mattered.

Barleya Clemens, age 47

I don't have any empty platitutes to give. I don't have any words. I don't have comfort, and I don't have speeches. All I have is my grief, which is yours. My loss, which is yours. My hope, which is yours. My freedom, which is yours. All we have is each other. And I believe, I do believe, that will be enough for us.

Katniss Everdeen, age 20