A/N: Today we're in District 6, Panem's poorest and druggiest district, where we'll meet Rodney Cruz and Nissan Tires! This district may have the least Fatality Fiesta victories, but that doesn't mean that they won't put on one heck of a show.
Trigger warning for drug use, drug dealing, death, crippling poverty, sexual references, and about 40 other things that I'm not going to list.
DISCLAIMER: I do not endorse nor do I condone the use of drugs. Unfortunately, District 6 does.
Nissan Tires, 17
District 6 Female
Pshhhh!
Smudge opens the hood of the Head Peacekeeper's car and thick, black smoke pours out of the opening. Head Peacekeeper Jo Shmoe looks around our nasty little shop with a disgusted look on her face. The Capitol officials around here never embrace District 6 traditions whatsoever - she even refused our rat roast!
"That would be the problem," says Smudge, "it's on fire."
Shmoe blinks in confusion before asking, "What? How did that happen?"
I'm quick to throw the can of gasoline out the window before anybody notices that I had it. Thankfully it doesn't make any noise since the glass was smashed out of that window during the Dark Days. I stroll up next to Smudge and shake my head as though I'm unsure of the cause of the fire.
"I'm not sure. Somethin' wrong with the engine prolly," I tell the Head Peacekeeper.
"Can you put it out?" asks Shmoe with an edge of nervousness in her voice.
"Sure we can, ma'am," says Smudge in a respectful tone. "Nissan, round up the fire extinguisher, would you?"
Shmoe's face relaxes at the mention of a fire extinguisher, but I think she's in for a surprise. See, District 6 is the poorest, grimiest, druggiest district in Panem, so we don't exactly have a fire extinguisher. What we do have is a gang of starving, drug-addled workers with plenty of brown saliva in their mouths. I round up all twenty-nine of my fellow workers here at Smudge's Heavenly Auto Repair Emporium, or S.H.A.R.E. for short, and we gather round the flaming vehicle. Shmoe watches in horror as brown spit flies out of all our mouths and onto her precious vehicle. A couple of the workers become parched and elect to urinate on the flames instead.
"Oh mY SNOW, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DISTRICT SAVAGES DO-" Shmoe stops her meltdown mid-sentence as the flames recede.
"There! Good as new!" says Chooch Ooo, Smudge's lover and second-in-command, wiping the saliva from his face.
"I-I can't believe it. Thanks everybody, even if it made me puke a little!" says Head Peacekeeper Shmoe, smiling for the first time since she ate that puppy soufflé a couple weeks ago.
"Of course, ma'am, any time. Remember to share your recommendation of S.H.A.R.E. with all your friends!" shouts Smudge.
The crowd of workers disperses as Shmoe leaves, having paid our fee of six fleas and a drawer of Morphling up front. As Shmoe drives away in her glistening Capitol-issued vehicle, nobody bothers to stop her and tell her of the charred corpse on the rear windshield of her car. As Shmoe speeds up, the scorched corpse falls off the back of the sleek vehicle, and reduces to a black cloud of dust upon contact with the ground.
"Huh. Guess ol' Reggie got too close," I say, covering my mouth and nose so that I don't breathe him in.
"Oh well," says Chooch with a shrug. "More Morphling for the rest of us!" Chooch snatches the portion of the drug that would have been Reggie's, and snorts it through his gangly fingers.
Damn. I wanted that.
Rodney Cruz, 18
District 6 Male
I luv drugz.
They're so much fun! You can snort them, swallow them, inject them, hug them, kiss them, and... spend quality time with them. I'm actually on my way to get some right now!
I saunter through the dilapidated streets of District 6 to the alleyway where my dealer and I meet. It's cloudy today, like it is most days in District 6, which in turn makes the smog a bit thicker than it would be if the sun was out. I walk past countless people without a place to call home, a group to which I belong. My parents died in a factory accident when I was five, and I was sent to the Community Center. When I was thirteen, I ran away from the abusive Center in search of something great. Instead, I found the streets of District 6.
I catch a glimpse of my appearance in a shop window that's only half-smashed. My stringy brown hair sits idle on my head, looking as though it hasn't been washed in six years. In reality, it's been four and a half. I have deep, dark circles under my dark brown eyes as a result of my use of Morphling. I'm bone-thin, and the Morphling has turned my skin a jaundiced yellow color and caused it to sag a little bit. I'm about 5'3" in height, and wouldn't weigh in at 100 pounds soaking wet. I've got this killer footlong rod though, which I'm pretty sure is where my name comes from.
So yuss! I'm big time gorgeous.
Arriving at our usual alley, I plop down on the filthy cement next to a used needle. I lift the needle off the ground, examining it up and down with my eyes that are both really beady and way too big. I point the needle at myself and bring it closer and closer until I can bite it right off. Delicious. You wouldn't believe how out-of-this-world the crunchiness is!
My dealer arrives, looking ready to puke. "Rodney, what are you doing?"
"I'm just having a snacc. I do it all the time," I say with a bloody smile.
"Only in District Six," my dealer, Nissan, sighs. Idk why but when she does it she seems rlly familiar for a minute.
"Yeah, only here," I agree, licking the syringe clean. "Do you have the stuff?"
"Sure do," says Nissan, revealing a buttload of Morphling in her jacket. "Do you have the money?"
My dandelion yellow teeth show as I smile in response. I pull a massive wad of cash out of my left pocket and remove the rubber band holding it together. My recent business ventures have rendered me one of, if not the number one, richest person in District 6. I slide my fingers over the money, cash falling to the cracked cement below. Nissan stares at me, unmoving, with her mouth hanging open. I grab the discarded cash off of the ground before some ho comes along to steal it.
"So, where did you get all of that money?" asks Nissan after we make our trade.
"Oh, that. I started an OnlyFans and I made over a million bucks in six hours! Beat some fake redheaded girl's record by a buck fifty-three!" I say proudly, remembering the hate mail the girl's descendants sent me afterwards.
"Wow that's crayzy!" hollers Nissan. "I'm dumb I guess. I always thought Danny DeVito had the top spot on there."
Nissan Tires, 17
District 6 Female
I'm dressed in my finest rags as everyone waits for the Reaping to start. I wish I could have my parents, my brother Ford Fusion, or maybe even Smudge with me right about now but they're all over eighteen and are ineligible. Lucky trucking bastards. I'm quite nervous atm because District 6 is a very poor district so I've taken 725474275413087324819836332 Tesserae since I turned twelve. My family still has to eat the rubber off of old tires for sustenance, but the Capitol still gets to enter my name in the Reaping all those times.
I sit behind the counter of my Morphling concession stand in the seventeen-year-old section. My line is so long it must extend halfway to the Capitol! If only the people here in 6 had real money to give me, rather than rotten fruit, herpes, and copies of Grease 2 on DVD that absolutely nobody wants.
It must be about time for the ceremony to start, but my business shows no sign of slowing down whatsoever. Two boys from school, Jeff Gordon and Hyundai Mitsubishi, order twenty vials of liquid Morphling. I'm happy to place their order on my makeshift counter until I'm greeted by the atrocity that is their payment method.
"Honestly, guys? Not even somebody from District Six would eat Rachel Ray Nutrish!" I holler in anger. But I am forced to accept the payment. We have to take what we can get here in Panem's poorest district even if it's food too shitty for a dog to eat.
The Square falls silent as our mayor, Lightning McQueen, rolls onto the stage. After a couple of preliminary kachows, Mayor McQueen describes the end of the world as people knew it, the creation of Panem, the Dark Days, and the rules of the Hunger Games. I begrudgingly accept a sea-bear protection circle from a girl as payment before looking back to the stage. Mayor McQueen introduces District 6's whopping total of two Victors, Leonora Anderson and Dougie Druggie. The older Leonora waves politely to the district while Dougie starts eating a used needle like one of my customers did earlier.
Leonora snatches the needle out of Dougie's hands, telling him that it isn't food. In response, Dougie begins to cry, before he finds another discarded needle under his chair and starts eating that one instead. District 6's new escort, Cinderella Princessa, ignores the Victors as she steps out of a carriage made out of a fruit I've never seen before. Cinderella has been assigned to our district this year, after our old escort quit because the stench of the district was too much for her to handle.
"Ewwwww, Romana Greece was right, this district is nasty!" whines Cinderella in her Capitol accent. She brushes off her expensive ball gown before continuing. "I'm excited to help the citizens of my fourteenth favorite district select their representatives for this year's Fatality Fiesta!"
"District 14 was destroyed though," says a man in the audience.
"Yeah, but it's still nicer than this godforsaken dump!" chortles Cinderella. "Let's pick this year's District 6 female tribute!" Cinderella plunges her hand deep into the girls' Reaping Ball and pulls out a slip. She lets out a nervous fart that we all ignore before shouting, "Nissan Tires!"
"SON OF A BITCH!" I shout from my concession stand. I notice everyone's eyes are wide and staring at me. "I mean, okay." I make my way to the stage, the eligible kids clearing a wide path for me to walk through. Princessa asks for volunteers, and is met with the expected silence. I know I'm totally gonna die unless I can get a good business going during the pre-Games. Princessa doesn't even look at me before selecting the male tribute.
"Rodney Cruz!"
I recognize the hollow-eyed, yellow-skinned boy on sight: Rodney's one of my customers, and I sold to him earlier today. He stumbles on his way to the stage several times. Leonora gasps and Dougie laughs when Rodney falls flat on his face halfway up the steps. As a Peacekeeper guides Rodney to his place, I realize how hopeless he is. There's no way in Snow he's surviving the Fiesta. Cinderella doesn't even bother to ask for volunteers, which I'm pretty sure isn't allowed, but nobody says anything cause Rodney's too high to know and the rest of us don't care.
"District 6, your tributes for the 74th Annual Fatality Fiesta: Nissan Tires and Rodney Cruz!" shouts Cinderella. Dougie is the only one clapping as the two of us shake hands. I slide Rodney a bit of Morphling before the handshake is over. He rewards me with a yellow smile and by stepping on Dougie's toes.
Rodney Cruz, 18
District 6 Male
I turn the vial of Morphling that Nissan gave me onstage over and over in my hands. It's fun to watch the clear liquid slosh around and around. The Morphling makes the tiniest sound when it does so, and every time that happens it makes me crack up like I haven't already done it a hundred times.
I'm lying down on one of the fancy Justice Building couches, waiting for the time for the Goodbyes to be over. I don't have any family left or any friends to speak of, so nobody's gonna come visit me. Nissan might have, if I was lucky, and she wasn't going to the arena with me. I lift my head off of the pillow and put it back down slow, making the pillow make a noise that sounds vaguely like a fart. I lose my shit. This is the funniest thing since the Morphling vial! I think of doing both things at once but I'm sure it would kill me if I did.
The door opens, and a Peacekeeper stares into my eyes. I'm confused, since it's been about ten minutes since I got here, and we're allotted an hour for goodbyes. The Peacekeeper moves, and Leonora Anderson drags Dougie Druggie into the room by his hand. The Peacekeeper nods at District 6's only Victors, and closes the door behind them.
"Hi, Rodney," says Leonora. "We heard you don't have family to visit you, so I thought we'd stop by before heading to the train. How are you feeling?"
I look from Leonora to the wall a couple times while deciding my answer. "Thirsty."
"I've got just the thing for that!" yells Dougie, revealing two giant slurpees, one in each hand. "Red or blue?"
"Where did you get those?" asks Leonora. "Why didn't you drink one of those earlier instead of... never mind. Which one, Rodney: red or blue?"
"Blue!" I holler, snatching the blue one out of Dougie's hands. Blue has always been my favorite color, but it's rare to see such a vibrant hue in a place as ugly and bleak as District 6. Dougie's mouth drops open and Leonora turns somewhat green as I chug the entire blue slurpee in ten seconds. Then slurp the straw like spaghetti and finish off by savoring the plastic cup, even though it cuts my mouth open as I eat. I use my shirt to stop the bleeding, and once I achieve this, I lick the shirt clean.
Dougie snickers and shakes his head while Leonora dry heaves. "You're like me. People like us will eat anything!" says Dougie, slapping me on the back with approval.
"Well, then you'll enjoy the train. It's got plenty of stuff to eat, things that are actually food," says Leonora between dry heaves. "It's been great seeing you, Rodney, but Dougie and I must catch our ride to the train."
"But you've just gotten here!" I protest. Dougie and Leonora don't listen. They get up from their seats and make their way to the door. "Wait. Aren't you guys gonna visit Nissan?"
"Well-" begins Leonora.
"Nope!" interrupts Dougie. "She's not an orphan loser like you." Somewhere in District 5, a boy has his feelings hurt by the comment. As for me, I shrug it off.
"K. See you on the train then." Leonora and Dougie leave the room as quick as they came, closing the door behind them. I can hear Dougie slurping his red slurpee all the way down the halls, until an agonized cry about something called brain freeze.
I'm disappointed to be out of slurpee, as well as visitors. I turn back to my vial of Morphling, shaking it back and forth, and losing my shit at the little sloshing sound the liquid makes. I'm wondering if we'll have Morphling in the arena when I realize it's been a whole hour since I've had any drugz! I look to the clear liquid in my vial. If only I had a needle.
Or maybe I don't need one...
A/N: Hello, sorry it's been a month. But it's ok, cause I'm back now. Yay! This chapter was very drug-heavy, but it's District 6 so what can you do ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Anyway, even though it was a pretty x-rated chapter sometimes, I hope it was fun. Thoughts on Nissan and Rodney? What exactly was Rodney going to do with that Morphling? And kudos to Leonora for being the only nearly-normal person in this chapter.
The next chapter is going to be a POWERful one. It's District 5 baby! See you there.
P.S. Happy early Birthday to me (it's Friday). Feel free to celebrate or despise my existence that day: I'll be doing both! Happy birthmonth to all the other April birthdays.