Bexley Ward

District 8 Female, 17
First Night at the Capitol

There's a couple of things people need to know about me. The first is that I really really don't like when things don't go according to plan. The plan being me, living a nice life in a good neighborhood, minding my own damn business. The second thing is that I'm a goddamn master of improvisation, so when said "plan" inevitably goes to shit at every twist and turn, I'm usually able to wiggle myself out of whatever mess that comes up. I've been doing it for seventeen years and counting. Bex's got everything under control. Usually.

The problem with the Hunger Games is that there's not even a pinhole-sized opportunity I can seize which can guarantee the best outcome. That outcome being me winning this shit, with minimal emotional and physical damage. None at all. No goddamn way to ensure this, and it's frankly stressing the living shit out of me. I know it's hectic for all of us, all twenty-four kids that are here.

Jean deals with it by over-compensating on the 'bedazzle' factor, cozying up to our escort as though that'll save his life. I deal by trying to incinerate anything that moves with my eyes. I haven't even met the other tributes properly yet, but I can sense the fear and the misery wafting through our ranks like the stench of charred factory chemicals spilt on the road. I come from District 8, so I'd know.

I've been watching the other tributes at the chariots. I know quite a couple were watching me back, and it's almost comforting to see my own internal struggle reflected right back at me. We're all losing our shit, slowly but surely.

And then there's the grossly unavoidable challenge of me and Jean having approximately zero guidance whatsoever, because our run-down district couldn't even produce a Victor, in all these years that the Games have been implemented. Tough fucking luck for me, it seems!

So, when the President finally stops blabbering about how we all should be grateful for this opportunity we are presented with by our great nation, I can't help but smolder and fume. I'm actively trying not to spontaneously combust under the scalding lights, the stupid makeup caking my face and my internal rage simmering at the surface. The anger, the betrayal registers in spikes in my pulsating brain, as though I'm going to burst in flames right here and now, in front of the thousands of Capitolites watching. I haven't been this angry in a very long time.

The truth is I don't want anyone here to die. I don't want to die. So, I'm at a bit of a fucking impasse, if I say so myself. So, sue me for not being all chippy and jolly and playing the fiddle for these dicks.

I speak three languages, not that that matters anymore. That's really something in a place like Panem, by the way. Can barely write in one, but hey, a girl's trying her best. Despite appearance to the contrary, I'm a goddamn valuable citizen in this backwards country. I'm one of the few people willing to forget the past, move on and just get shit running so we can all have a decent life. I couldn't give a rat's ass about what happened before. My entire family got obliterated during the war, my parents died, my brother died and I'm still here, not blaming anyone strictly speaking…outwardly at least. I know how this dumb fucking game works. I literally fought tooth and nail to secure my stable position in my District, I kept my head down and I worked so that I can provide a good future for the family I found along the way. For my ragtag team of misfits.

It's incredibly infuriating to think that all of this was snatched up and put on a shelf I can't quite reach. It's as though someone took all my dreams and aspirations, shoved them in a shoe box and put it so high up in the closet that little pathetic Bex can only jump up in the futile attempt to get those things back. Or maybe I'm the one trapped on that high-up shelf, unable to get down, soon to be forgotten. The moment my name was called, I was taken away from my kids as though I'm a rag doll and these Capitol assholes all want to play.

My mind races back to Eira, Renzo. To the twins, Helena and Neve. To little Khalon. Under the pretext of me serving my country in order to keep the cogs in this obese and sickening machine well-oiled, my kids are going to lose me. Frankly, it's fucking unacceptable, because I… I've always worked so hard.

This rage, this confusion… it boils down to the fact that my brain just keeps coming back to the irrelevant argument that people like me can't just be snatched up like this. The rational part of my brain understands that this was just dumb misfortune, but the other part rebels with every fiber of my being. If there was even an ounce of justice, my kids wouldn't be stuck without a guardian once again… this is exactly what our government pretends to want to prevent with all their propaganda ads and reforms and shit. Yet, it happens year after year.

The worst part is that I'm grief-stricken at the idea of me dying, because of the underlying injustice, but also because that means my kids would probably end up on the streets again. Eira, my right hand and probably the most loving girl in the whole of Panem… she's only fifteen. And while I'm a workhorse, the powerhouse or whatever you want to call it, she's a lot more delicate. I've pieced this family together, given it my all. She has as well, but we both know she can't hold it together. She isn't built like me, and she couldn't convince the nearest senile homeless asshole that she's eighteen, let alone the Peacekeepers which would give her a job permit.

I've been eighteen on paper ever since I blew out the candles on the tiny piece of chocolate cake Eira purchased for me with god knows how much money, on my fifteenth birthday. But that's not her. She can't do that, and I'd never ask it of her.

The Parade ends even as my mind is consumed with the faces of my loved ones, memories and fragments of my past. I don't even notice as we are being carted away, off the Parade track and inside. The anger left me hollow and inattentive. Jean somehow manages to catch my arm, as we are segregated by district and led through the stables. I look at Jean and he's still smiling, exhilarated no doubt by the Parade and the attention of the crowd. I gotta admit, we had some pretty rad costumes… I think about how my boss at the factory, Dendric Ventura, might have commissioned the fabric I wore himself. Highly improbable, but it calms me down, stupidly enough. It's weird how the human brain works, you know. Just imagining that someone from home might have had some sort of input for the fabric that was used in our costumes alleviates my worries. It's as though my brain scrambles desperately for any familiarity, fabricated or not. What a fucking world we live in.

As our escort catches up, congratulating the both of us on our demeanor during the Chariot rides, I fall back a little bit. Jean launches himself immediately into a lengthy critique of the costumes, and both him and our escort are clearly absorbed completely by the topic. I've never had any interest in fashion, truth be told. Weird, coming from a chick from the very bowels of District 8, but here it is. I work at the Ventura factory and it's just a means to an end. I like it because it brings in income, and keeps me and the kids clothed and warm and fed. As the conversation drones on about Ankara and bioLace and other materials I am only vaguely familiar with, my mind jumps back to my home, to my district.

We are led through the hangars into a spacious circle-shaped lobby where all the different escorts quickly disperse, their tributes in tow. We are shoved into a small elevator with "D8" written in golden on the doors, and our lift shoots up. I instinctively grasp the handles in fear, and our escort sneers.

"Not so high and mighty now, eh? Smile a little."

Bitch.

I know she's being nice to Jean, and I know that I've made negative effort to actually make myself look sympathetic to her but still. What a dick.

I don't like being reaped into a death-match where I have to kill other children to survive. I don't like being mothered by some alien-looking lady I don't know. I absolutely hate being dressed up and paraded for the entire country to see. If she doesn't get that through her thick metal-reinforced skull, so be it.

We arrive at our floor, and she ushers us into a new lobby. A few couches are tastefully assembled at comfortable intervals, a flat-screen television is seemingly floating near the wall, playing recaps of our chariots parade quietly in the background and a large table with expensive-looking chairs completes the tableau. Quaint.

"We'll have breakfast here, tomorrow morning, before your training begins," she says, a little out of breath from the brief hike from the elevator to the lobby. Stupid cow.

Without waiting for any further probably nonsensical comments, I head towards the hall at the end of the lobby.

"Your rooms are at the end of the hall. Bexley, yours is to the right, Jean, yours is to the left," she elaborates, while click-clacking on her heels precariously towards me.

"I think I'll stay out in the lobby for a little while?" Jean says, ending his sentence in a question, almost as though he's inviting us to stay with him.

"I'll head to bed. Long day and I'm tired," I mumble, giving him a small smile after some consideration. It's not his fault I'm in a shitty mood. He's been reaped, same way as I was, so I want to give him a break.

"Goodnight Bexley, I'll stay out here for a while longer as well, call Lucretia if you need anything," the escort sniffs, addressing to herself in third person, as I leave. I guess that's her attempting to be nice. What a weirdo.

"Gd'night," I mutter back, already on my way out. I didn't realize just how tired I was until I saw those couches.

I close the door to my room, and an involuntary sigh escapes my lips as I take in my sleeping quarters. It's uh… fucking majestic, if I say so myself. Thanks Capitol, I hate it.

Even though I'm a grown-ass person who has a job and five people to take care of at home, I run like a lovestruck teenager and fling myself on the bouncy behemoth of a bed. All of my pent-up anger is forgotten momentarily as I feel my entire body absorbed by the marshmallow-heaven beneath me. While it definitely sucks that I'm here under such dire conditions, I gotta say… never in my wildest dreams did I dream I'd be lying in a bed like this!

Something ugly and definitely not Bex-sounding escapes my lips as I'm rolling around, in full-costume and everything. I realize I'm giggling like a madman and I just can't stop myself, the hysteria and fucked-up-ness of this whole situation finally crashing down on me.

It takes a while for me to calm down. I don't know how much time my hysterical giggling fit and-or mental breakdown takes, but I realize that I need to get to bed fast, considering we're training tomorrow. As our escort who-is-apparently-named-Lucretia briefed us, we need to be up there fairly early. Since we don't have a mentor, that's where we'll have to do most of the catching up, so that we hopefully don't have our lives ended by more experienced and better guided tributes. I intend to make most of my time in training.

I get up from the bed, stroke it lovingly like a loyal animal and head to the washroom. It's huge, just like the rest of my suite, and the lights almost blind me. I can feel the roots of my eyes throbbing. I'm more tired than I thought I was.

As I start removing my makeup aggressively, I catch a real good look of myself in the mirror. I rarely do. I'm staring back at myself, but it's as though… I don't know. I look older than I feel. And I feel just about a hundred years old. I look more spent than a teenager has any right to look. From the years of pretending, it finally is coming true.

I fling my costume on the ground. I know what I need now, so I take a quick scalding shower, marvelling at how good it feels. Long fucking day, and all that. I go ham on the soap scents because, why not.

Once I'm done, I stand there in all my glory, admiring the steam that I've released into the bathroom. Eira would kill me for this, I think, smirking.

I toe my discarded costume that is mournfully lying in a heap, before sprinting naked towards the wardrobe on the other side of my room. In this moment, I seriously don't even care if there's cameras in my room, I just can't stand the scratch of the artificial clothes on my skin. Fancy shit… that ain't me. Eira would quietly and politely admonish me for looking half-homeless all the time. But that's just how I roll, baby, and while I'll dance to the Capitol's tune at their parades and their interviews, I'm keeping my comfy dress code until I'm brutally murdered or the president orders to take me out of the arena. Either way.

I finally settle on an overgrown soft T-shirt.

I sit in it for a while. I finally climb into bed, and turn off all the lights except for the one right near my headrest.

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I've been chosen to participate in the Hunger Games. I still can't believe I might die in less than a week.

More than ever, I wish right now that I could write a letter to Eira, to the rest of my little ragtag gang. I've never been too big on feelings, but I've always loved all of the kids so goddamn much. I want to clout Renzo in the ear something proper, and make sure he behaves while I'm gone, the little devil. Lord knows tiny Eira can't do much to drag him away from trouble.

I want to tell little Helena to make sure Neve doesn't overstep it with her snark and sassiness. I want to tell them both to stay in school so that I can retire early, so we can all live off the colossal earnings the twins would wrack up with one scheme or another. I'm convinced that if there's someone who can make it in this cutthroat world, it's them. Most of all, I want to tell them how much I believe in them.

I want to write fancy metaphors and amazing adventure-filled pages for Khalon, who's always preferred reading over any actual human interaction. The kid might not even be in third grade of primary school, he might only reach my hip in terms of height, but he's a little cute bug that's got real classics under his belt. Sometimes I wonder just how a dumbass like me picked up such an array of geniuses.

When I realize no one might ever be able to smuggle Khalon an extra book to read, I want to genuinely cry.

I truly believe all of us were always like magnets to each other, yearning to have a sense of belonging and finally getting it, once we were all together. All of that work, all of that love broken up by this stupid Reaping. What a waste.

All of these guys… I've picked up on the street, one way or another. Eira's parents both died in a factory accident, and she was going to officially be adopted by her creepy touchy uncle. If there's one person I wouldn't write to, it's him. Fuck that guy. Renzo's parents both died in the war, and the kid ended up on the streets. If anyone could pick up the mantel once I'm gone, it's Renzo because he's witty, lightning-fast and most importantly, not a pushover. More than ever, I want to tell him how much I love him too and how strong i need him to be.

I never really got past grade 6 English though, is the deal. Had to drop school when I was thirteen, because it was either learning fancy literature or staying fed, clothed and alive. Truth be told, I'm great at talking, in whatever language you need me to talk. Despite my gruffness over the past hours, I can actually be quite the smooth talker… it's what's gotten me out of trouble more than once. But writing? Fuck, that's kind of out of my comfort zone. I can certainly do it, but even little Khalon puts me to shame. Not going to lie, I kind of hate it, and wish I had gotten the chance to actually get into it. So many things I missed out on, because I was born during this dumb war.

But it is what it is, just like the rest of my life.

There's a lot of good stuff that came out of it too, though. Sure, I lost my parents and my brother, but I was way too young. And I found my new family along the way, and I stand by the fact that I'm the luckiest bastard alive for having them with me. Even though we're crammed into two tiny disgusting rooms that Eira tries in vain to keep tidy.

Without humor, I think about how if I ever get out of here, I'll have enough Victor earnings to get myself a tutor, a library of music sheets, a violin and a whole metric ton of books for Khalon. Maybe I'd even have time to actually learn musical theory, which is also something I've always wanted to do. It's the one thing my mother imbued me with, before she got herself killed in the war. My respect for music is all her. I don't remember her, per say, but I remember her violin I held onto desperately for years when I was still all alone, before Eira and the gang, before I was forced to sell it for a roof over my head and a bowl of soup. Maybe if I win, I can sort-of make up for the fact that I don't even remember my mother's face… her love for music might live on, albeit many years too late. How's that for incentive? Maybe I can finally convince Renzo to take up a hobby other than general fuckery and making Peacekeepers miserable, and we can form our own little band with the other kids. Helena can play the triangle, while Khalon belts out a solo. I know I'm just raving at this point, but it's amusing to invent little scenarios like this. I could get lost in them for hours.

I search for a sheet of paper and pen to write down at least something, anything that could let my kids know just how much I care for them. My searching becomes almost feverish, as though this letter is a lifeline, and I can somehow salvage the situation through it.

With utter dismay, I realize there's no pen or paper in my room. All of this stupid hopeless dreaming for nothing. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe I can ask Jean for help… he seems like the kind of kid who actually can string nice words together to make something sound flowery and beautiful.

I crawl back into bed and pull the warm fuzzy sheets over myself. I'm letting the rising panic in the back of my throat subside, getting back to gripping my heart vicariously. A letter isn't actually going to change everything, Bex.

I've never been a hugely expressive talker, unless the situation required it. I've always considered myself more of a do-er. Tomorrow training starts, and I know exactly what I need to do. I know what hands-on actions I need to undertake to maximize my chances of survival. The things I learn over the course of the next few days might just save me and bring me back to my family, not a letter. My breathing slows a little bit as I repeat these facts like a mantra until my eyes feel like lead.

I am drifting off as I replay many of my most cherished memories from my District, my loved ones swimming behind my eyelids.

I need to come home, I realize that with certainty. Too much depends on it.

I will come home.

Notes: Gah! Happy beginning of school to everyone! Here's Bex from District 8, I hope you liked this mama-bear who can run a house like it's a goddamn commune. She's freaking out a little bit, but she's got everything under control damn it! Let me know what you think of her. I'll be posting chapters as quickly as I write them, which will probably average out to something like once a week, since school started and it's hitting me hard.

Please keep reading though, I promise cool stuff is coming soon.

Next up, the volunteer from District 9, Geoff!

Peace and love.