Nihil Novi Chapter 2: District Two, a hunger games fanfic

Author's Note

I do not own the Hunger Games.

A big thank you to TheAmazingJAJ and Goldie031 for the follows and WolfyRose12 for the favourite!

Strike.

Heave.

The grunts and shouts of the quarrymen echoed around the space, bouncing from the rock.

Heave.

There were machines that could do this much eaier and faster, Augustus was sure of it. But that would make life too easy, and hundreds, if not thousands, of men would be out of a job.

Heave.

While District Two supplied more Peacekeepers than stone these days, the quarries were still critical as the only steady supply of stonemasonry and stonework in Panem. For the poorer thirty to forty percent of the population in Two, they were what they called work, and, for nine hours a day, work.

Heave.

The team of ten men dropped the heavy chunk of stone onto the hove rsled to be taken to the top of the quarry. From there it would be sorted and taken away for use. Augustus turned and marched back to the section of quarry they were working on today. His father had been a stonemason, but he was a third son, one of five, born to the Capitol's demands of 'do your duty for Panem!' He found his new spot and swung the pickaxe from his shoulder.

Strike.

He had had dreams once. When he was young he had dreamed of competing in the Hunger Games and bringing honour home to his family and District. He had trained for eleven years, but when push came to shove he was still beneath average, not good enough for the Peacekeepers and certainly not good enough to enter as tribute. All that time struggling and working, and for what? The dream of a better life?

Augustus smiled.

Fuck that.

Strike.

When he was a little older than young, he dreamed of being a Peacekeeper. He wanted to travel to other Districts, to see Panem, to meet new people. But he failed test after test after test, and with each one his classmates laughed more and more and the knife sunk deeper into his heart. He failed tribute intake at sixteen and Peacekeeper intake at nineteen, and now here he was.

Strike.

He once considered setting up as a stonemason, but they were so numberous in Two that you had to be the best – or extremely lucky – to get any work, and Augustus felt he was neither.

Strike.

The quarries always needed men, now more than ever with the poplation dropping, and they would take almost everyone who applied, so long as they could swing a pickaxe. There were some boys here as young as fourteen, already big enough to lift and use their pickaxes, therefore big enough to work.

Strike.

It took perhaps an hour for the piece of rock to come loose. They lifted it free and began to haul it up the slope.

Heave.

A new sled awaited them at the top. They dropped the slab of rock as the foreman's whistle blew. Shift change. A mass exodas of quarry workers immediately began as they headed for the cold showers to bathe and change. As always, the water was icy cold and unpleasant. Augustus lathered with the cheap soap, washed, and then made his way to his locker for clean clothes and to collect his belongings.

Third shift was arrivingfor the evening as he left, trooping in looking tired and frustrated. It was another month before he would have third shift again.

He took the shuttle bus back to the outskirts of the main settlement in Two. The closest stop was four streets from his home, and he ambled back slowly, stopping to buy some small pastries for dinner as he passé a stall selling them. He ate one as he walked home, filling the hole in his stomach. The Styx twins came racing past him while he was eating, the boy ducking around him with inches to spare and the girl bounding up onto the wall, narrowly avoiding a collision with an old biddy and her toddler.

"Watch it!" Augustus shouted.

"Afternoon Mr Blackson!" the girl called back, holding her hand out to yank her brother up so they could vanish across the rooftops.

Always in a rush those two.

One day one of them was going to break their neck.

He kicked off his boots on the porch before letting himself.

"Don't treck through the house if you're dirty," Jetta called.

"It's fine!"

"Its not fine; you know how hard it is to clean!" She appeared in the common space doorway, Cassial in her arms. Augustus smiled.

"There's my baby boy!"

Jetta turned to the side. "Shower first."

He huffed, but headed through to the bathroom regardless. At least they had warm water here, unlike most of the District when he had been a kid. He washed again, changed into clean clothes and made his way downstairs to join his family.

He might not have been a tribute or a Peacekeeper like he once dreamed of being, but that was okay.

If he had gone another way, he might not have had them.