Trigger warning: Mentions of abuse, neglect, depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide and miscarriage in both characters' POVs. If you think you might be triggered, don't read the chapter. PM me and I'll give you the gist of it. I don't want anyone to be uncomfortable. Please don't say I didn't warn you. Reader discretion advised.
Don't pity the dead. Pity the living.
-Albus Dumbledore
The Hopson Residence, June 16th, 12:00 pm
Marsellus Hopson (18) POV
District 9 male
"Marsellus, get inside! You're letting in all the hot air!"
"Sorry, Mom," I say, giving one last fleeting glance at the makeshift memorial for my younger sister, Portia. "I... Sorry. I'll be right in."
My mother closes the door to our tiny house, and I'm allowed to return to the small plant that I sit with when I miss her; other than my family and I, the plant is the only thing alive on this small plot of land, so I felt it only necessary to use it to honor my sister, the most vivacious and bright person I ever knew. Portia knew what it really meant to be alive. She knew the difference between living and surviving, but one day, she did neither.
My family has always been weak. I'm the oldest of 6 boys, born to a 14-year-old suicidal prostitute and no one to call a father. There was always speculation about who could be the source of half of my genetics, but truth be told, even as a young teenager, my mother slept around too much to know for sure who my father is. Some thought it was a Peacekeeper, some thought of some wealthier citizens; merchants, some even considered the Mayor. We lived on the streets for a while, my mother and I, but I was too young to remember it. Eventually, my mother saved up enough money to buy a small shack. It wasn't much; a bedroom, a common room, and an outhouse with a water well in the back, but it was enough for the two of us. When I was 2, she gave birth to twins, my two younger brothers Kipling and Jayden. Seven years after that, Portia was born.
We were all weak at that point. A 23-year-old mother and her four children all sleeping on the floor under the same blanket can lead to some pretty adverse side effects. Though none of us were in particularly good shape, Portia was the worst due to a throat infection caught from one of her friends. She died when she was 7, and because death and miscarriage were such normal occurrences in our household, I was deemed weird for being the one who mourned her death. Since Portia, my mother has given birth to three more boys, as well as having countless miscarriages. After a while, I stopped grieving. I felt bad, of course, but none of us felt too much of a need to feel bad for things we couldn't change. We all became numb. At least, I thought we did, until a few months after my youngest brother Centen was born.
The other kids were at school, but I decided to skip that day. I couldn't bear the idea of sitting in a classroom; it wasn't even 8:00 in the morning and my ADHD had already gotten the best of me. After going for a short walk around the District, I decided to just go back home. Since everyone was either at school or with the school-provided daycare and Mom was probably working, I figured I would have the house to myself. I opened the front door and went into the bedroom, but my mother was already there, holding a razor blade. There was blood dripping from her wrists, thighs and hips, and tears running down her face. She tried in vain to wipe them away, but all it did was smear blood on her face.
"What the hell are you doing?!" I exclaimed, snatching the razor and smacking her on the back of the head. I know it was harsh looking back on it, but she needed to snap out of it. I sat down next to her. "Are you trying to leave your goddamn kids without a father or a mother?"
She burst into even more tears and laid her head in my lap, sobbing into my pant leg. I stroked her hair as she did, trying not to get more upset. She needed help, not anger. We stayed like that for a while, my mother crying and me comforting her until she shifted to face me, no longer crying as hard.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm so glad you got here. I don't know what I would have done."
After my mother's suicide attempt, she became more fragile and more attached to me. She was grateful, I guess, that I had stopped her. I was happy she was alive, but that didn't mean I didn't resent her. I give one last fleeting look at the plant before opening the front door and going back inside.
When I enter the larger of two rooms in the house, I see Mom stirring a large pot of something- presumedly tessera grain- on the stove. The 16-year-old twins Kipling and Jayden are sitting on the couch together, talking somberly in a hushed tone; unusual for both of them, as Kipling likes to joke around and have fun while Jayden cries at anything remotely sad. Despite being twins, it's easy to tell them apart as Jayden is a bit shorter due to a developmental disability. Picken and Joshun who are 4 and 3 respectively are sitting in the middle of the floor playing with some small plastic figurines that they found on the streets once, both making loud whooshing and beeping noises with their mouths and slamming the figures into each other. Lastly, my youngest brother Centen who's a year old walks up to me a bit unsteadily, clutching my legs when he reaches me. The last time I cried was four months ago when he called me "Daddy," because it reminded me that none of us will ever really know who our fathers are.
I tousle his hair then pick him up, carrying him over to the kitchen area to see our mother.
"Whatcha making?" I ask, shifting with Centen.
"Tessera grain, a little water and some mint leaves," she says, giving the pot another stir with a wooden spoon.
"Sounds great," I say, hugging her with my free arm. "Where'd you get the mint?"
"Picken and Joshun brought some change home," she says, putting the spoon down. "I thought Reaping Day was as good a time as any to enjoy it because..."
Because half of her children have a chance at being Reaped.
"I get it," I say. Centen starts to squirm, so I put him down and he runs to the other side of the room to play with Picken and Joshun, who gladly hand him a toy.
"Remember what we talked about last night," Mom says. "I know you're protective of the twins and all but-"
"I know," I say. "Don't volunteer for either of them."
"Good," she says. "I don't know what I would do if I lost you."
They say that parents aren't supposed to have a favorite child, but I can tell that I'm my mother's favorite, and it makes me feel bad. We have a close bond, and while I'm happy we're close, I wish she was this close with all of her children. I promised her that I wouldn't volunteer for Kipling or Jayden, but in reality, if Jayden was Reaped I would volunteer without hesitation. Jayden wouldn't last a day in the arena; he's not like other kids, and just the thought of him in a death match with 23 others makes me incredibly nervous. Kipling and I have a chance to come home, though, and it's preferable for either of us to go in in his place. Though Mom has told me not to volunteer for either of them, Kipling and I decided a long time ago that if Jayden were ever Reaped, we would go in his place. It just wouldn't be fair.
"Can you grab the bowls from the cabinet?" she asks me, gesturing to the cupboard above the counter. We have exactly seven bowls, spoons, knives and cups, and every time there's another child, we buy one more. I take out the bowls and spoons, and Mom spoons some of the grain mush into each. As I'm dropping spoons in the bowls, she calls "Kids, come eat!"
I set aside the three bowls with the most in them for the twins and me since we're substantially larger than the rest of the family. Mom gets the next most, then Picken, then Joshun. I hand the twins their bowls, and the five of them go to the living area to eat while I sit at the counter and feed Centen. When he's done eating, I scarf mine down.
"Alright guys, the Reaping starts in a little bit," Mom says. "We need to leave now if we're going to be on time. Big kids, grab a little kid, we've gotta get a move on."
I pick up Centen since he wouldn't be able to walk fast enough or for this long of a time, but he seems fine with me carrying him to the Square. Picken and Joshun each grab the hand of one of the twins and with Mom trailing behind us, we set off. Mom, the twins and I are all nearly silent on our walk since we understood fully what was to happen when we got there, but Joshun and Picken wouldn't shut up, asking over and over again what the Reaping was and when they would be allowed to know. Though I've always has a strange itching sense of enjoyment towards the Hunger Games, it becomes too real on Reaping Day. I only enjoy it when there's no chance of it being me in the arena.
"When you're older," Mom said.
"How old?" Joshun demands.
"I don't know!" Mom says, getting frustrated. "Older."
"Why?" Picken asks, swinging Jayden's hand.
"Because I said so," she states with finality.
We're quiet the rest of the way to the Square, and when we get there, the twins and I get in line to have our blood drawn while Mom takes the younger ones to the spectators' area. Because we got there with so little time to spare, the line is outrageously long and we wait for what feels like an eternity. Finally, the three of us all get our blood drawn, and we make our way into the Square. I give both of the twins a stiff hug as we go our separate ways, the two of them to the 16-year-old section and myself to the 18-year-olds.
The escort eventually steps onto the stage, and I take a deep shuddery breath as I wait.
Victor's Village, House #2 (The Scalia Residence), June 16th, 12:30 pm
Oneka Scalia (17) POV
District 9 female
The afternoon of the Reaping, I stand in my bathroom, staring critically at my reflection in the cold mirror that guards the medicine cabinet, making careful observations about the girl staring back at me. Pretty to some, ugly to others, but really quite plain to most, her shoulder length brown hair simply hangs, there is no light in her dull brown eyes and her skin is pasty at best.
"Worthless," the voices sneer in my mind. I cover my ears, trying, trying, trying to block them out, but they're still there. "Stupid, ugly, fat, dumb, liar, bitch."
I let out a small whimper of defeat, hoping that they'll take the hint that they've won and that they can go away now. They don't.
"Why don't you just kill yourself? It's not like anyone would miss you."
A tear escapes my eye, and my vision is clouded. I barely register myself reaching to sit down on the closed toilet. My chest heaves, and I clamp my hands over my ears again, trying in vain to block out the voices. But now, they're louder than before.
"No one will miss you," they repeat. "You're such a piece of shit. No one will ever love you, especially not with those scars. They aren't even real; you're a liar, a faker. No one likes a cheat."
Too much. The voices are just too much. I know how to quiet them, but I desperately don't want to. It hurts to silence them; hurts my stomach, my back, my head, my throat. But the voices are unbearable, and the physical pain isn't anywhere near as bad as the emotional pain, so I suck it up. I grab the cup with the toothbrushes in it, and dump them out onto the counter, filling the cup with water.
"This is good, Oneka. Keep going, Oneka. You know how to make us leave, Oneka."
The words hurt earlier, but now, they fuel me. They give me the reassurance that what I'm doing is right. I delve further into the medicine cabinet and pull out everything I can; pain killers, diet supplements, laxatives, cough medicine, sleep aids, everything. The trick is to take a few from a lot of bottles; no one's going to notice five pills from a few bottles missing, but they'll sure as hell notice an entire bottle of sleep aid gone. Leaving the cabinet open, so as not to see myself in the mirror, I pop a few pretty pills into my mouth at a time, chasing each team with a gulp of bathroom sink water. I stop counting how many pills I've swallowed after 20, but I know I've done more than that. I decide to stop when the water runs out because I've never been especially good at dry-swallowing pills.
With shaking hands, a lurching stomach and a pounding head, I screw the caps back onto the pill bottles. I grab a few in my hand to put back into the cabinet. Just as I'm putting the bottles back, my vision goes almost completely black, and my stomach turns. I drop the bottles and turn on a dime, barely being able to open the lid to the toilet before I throw up. It hurt my already sore throat because it was really just a combination of water, whole pills, and stomach acid since I haven't eaten anything since breakfast yesterday. It's not that I purposely starve myself, it's just that sometimes, I go an entire day without really thinking to eat, or wanting to leave my room. Yesterday was one of those days.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not ungrateful. I recognize the fact that since my stepmother won the Hunger Games, I'm one of the most financially privileged people in the District, and I always feel horrible when I don't eat, but I always get to thinking "What's the point of eating to stay alive now when we're all just going to die eventually anyway?"
My stepmom, Lesidi, won the 207th Hunger Games when she was 16. Now she's 36 and married to my 48-year-old abusive asshat of a father because... Well, we're not really sure why. I've always thought that she did it to protect me, but never admitted it because I'd feel horrible if she married him because of me. Lesidi and my dad got married a few years after she won her Games, a year after my mom died in childbirth. My dad always said it was my fault, that if I had never been born, she never would have died. He always used to say that when he would hit me, that he was only hurting me because he loved mom so much.
But I don't think she loved him. There were always rumors going around the District about how my dad had basically forced her into marrying him because she had money and he had a knife- in hindsight, it's probably why he went for Lesidi; the money. I wouldn't know for sure, though, and I'm certainly not in the place to ask anyone. Aside from Lesidi, I don't talk to, well, anyone really. I used to have a pet bird named Peke, but he escaped when I was fourteen. That's when I started to really truly feel alone.
As I'm getting up off the bathroom floor, I hear a soft knock on the door, and a cautious feminine voice say "Oneka, are you almost ready?"
"Yeah," I stammer. "Yeah, just... Just getting dressed. I'll be ready in just a few minutes."
"Your dad's getting impatient," she says, quieter. "Try to hurry up if you can."
"Okay," I say, softly.
I hear her footsteps retreat and pull on my Reaping outfit; a thick gray sweater with sleeves extending far past my wrists, a knee length skirt of the same material and gray ankle boots. It's not the most fashionable thing in the world, but Lesidi wore it to her Reaping when she was Reaped, and it covers all of my self-inflicted wounds; each and every time I've traced my wrists, thighs, and hips with a blade is hidden by this outfit. Quickly, I brush my teeth to get rid of the taste of bile from my mouth, then exit the bathroom.
The closer we get to the Square on our drive, the happier I get. Because the closer to the Square we are, the closer we are to the Reaping. And the closer we are to the Reaping, the closer I am to getting out of this hellhole, because I made up my mind this morning, while I was popping all those pills.
This is the year that I volunteer.
Numbly, I walk to the Square alongside my father and stepmother. None of us speak, because, despite our differences, we can all appreciate that today will be horrible no matter who's chosen. The walk goes surprisingly quickly, and as soon as we get there, Lesedi takes her spot in one of three chairs designated for the Victors. She didn't mentor last year, so she's supposed to this year, but if I volunteer, she'd probably request a substitute.
I get in line to enter the Square, and when the Peacekeeper pricks my finger, I don't even flinch. Worse things have happened to me. As I walk to the 17-year-old girls' section, I move with a slight purpose, trying not to draw attention to myself and hating the feeling of other people's eyes on me. How am I going to volunteer when I hate people looking at me?
If you die, people will never look at you again.
I stand alone, waiting as patiently as I can for the Reaping to begin, but simultaneously just wanting to get it over with. District 9's escort climbs the steps to the stage and gives the same spiel that we hear every year. I tune it out, just staring at the girls' Reaping bowl, waiting for a name to be picked so that I can volunteer. Eventually the escort- Bubble, I think- crosses the stage to the glass ball and selects a slip, carrying it back to the microphone and unfolding it as she goes.
"Oneka Scalia?" she says, with a fake sounding giggle. "Um, did I say that right?"
"Yes," I whisper to myself. So I don't have to volunteer. The eyes would be on me anyway. It's relieving, to be honest, and a slight smile creeps to the corner of my mouth. I close my eyes briefly to stop the happy tears from falling. I meet my stepmother's eyes on the stage. Her face is troubled, and I almost feel bad for wanting this, but once I'm dead, she can divorce my dad.
Once I finally get to the stage, I stand in one place, feet planted firmly on the ground, hands clasped behind my back and staring straight ahead. Bubble starts to ask for a volunteer and I wave her off. She crosses the stage to the boys' Reaping bowl and selects a name from the very bottom. She goes to the microphone and reads off "Marsellus Hopson!"
A boy steps out of the 18-year-olds' section, walking up somewhat calmly and I feel immediately bad because I recognize him. He lives in a shack on the edge of the District- a structure that you could barely call a house- with several younger siblings and no father. I've seen some of his younger siblings around Victor's Village, sitting on the edge of the street with empty cups. I try to give them money when I can. He has so much worth coming home to, and because of his District, he probably won't. It makes me sad, but I get over it, trying to keep the facade of not caring.
"There you have it, District 9!" Bubble screeches. "Your tributes for this year's Hunger Games; Oneka Scalia and Marsellus Hopson. May the odds be ever in your favor."
The Justice Building, June 16th, 2:30 pm
Marsellus Hopson (18) POV
District 9 male
I'm alone in the waiting room for a fair amount of time before I'm allowed visitors. While I wait, left to my own devices, I'm incredibly antsy. I try sitting on a couch, shaking my leg and nodding my head to the imaginary music that's forever playing in my mind, but I find myself still jittery, so I start pacing around the room. I walk to the window and try to open it. It's sealed shut. Understandable. I take a step backward then run forwards and punch the window as hard as I possibly can, trying to see if it will break. It doesn't so I try stepping even further back and punching it once more. It still doesn't budge, and the window refusing to break is making me extremely claustrophobic.
My body starts itching all over with a strong desire to get out of the room. I don't know where I want to go, but I need to breathe fresh air and think; to be away from here. I grab a heavy looking paperweight from the shelf, and when I pick it up it weighs down my arm. I hold it for a moment, getting used to its weight before throwing it as hard as I possibly can at the window. It still doesn't break, and the paperweight falls to the floor with a thud.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream, wondering what's going on with me, and why I suddenly have no control over myself, why I suddenly need to be out of here. As I do so, a Peacekeeper comes into the room and jabs a needle into my arm.
My last thought as I fall to the floor with the paperweight is that I never got to say goodbye to my family.
The Justice Building, June 16th, 2:30 pm
Oneka Scalia (17) POV
District 9 female
When I sit down in the stiff wooden chair in the room of the Justice Building, I'm oddly calm. Even though I planned on volunteering anyway, I thought I would be anxious, panicking and crying. But I'm okay. I'm okay because I know that the arena is going to kill me, and I'm absolutely fine with that. It makes me feel like I'm finally doing something worthwhile; my pain will be over, Lesedi can leave my dad and it will be his turn to suffer. Maybe I'd even get to meet my mother. I've aways wondered what comes after death, and pretty soon I won't have to be curious anymore.
The dark wooden door opens and a Peacekeeper stands in the doorway with my father and stepmom. I immediately look at the Peacekeeper and say "I don't want him here." Wordlessly, she grabs my father by the arm and escorts him out, all the while he's glaring at me with hatred. I run to Lesedi and she envelops me in a hug while crying and stroking my hair.
"You need to leave him," I murmur. She breaks the hug, holding me at arms' length.
"What?" she asks.
"I know you're only with him for me," I say. "That's why you take the beatings. But I'm going to die in that arena-"
"You're not going to die Oneka, I can keep you safe."
"And when I die, there's no need for you to stay with him. He's nothing but abusive and you deserve better."
"I can get you sponsors-"
"We both know that I won't make it past the bloodbath," I say. "But that's okay. I don't need to be around anymore. Everyone has their time and mine has run out. I'm accepting it."
The hugs me again, crying, and we stay like that until the's asked to leave.
"Are you mentoring me or Marsellus?" I ask.
"No," she says. "The only family allowed to mentor is siblings and cousins." I nod. "I love you."
"Love you too."
Merci BUCKETS to Lulubell2495 for Oneka and YesmyLordCiel for Marsellus!
Note: Generally, the POVs will have similar themes. Again, if it's triggering, PM me and I'll tell you what happens.
Guys I haven't done this much narrative in a long time. Narrative and sad characters are the reason this took a while to get out.
Questions!
1) Who do you like better, Oneka or Marsellus?
2) What did you like about them?
3) What didn't you like about them?
4) Any predictions?
-No one says no to Gaston!