Chapter 1: Community Homed

I know there's a problem when I approach my house, and there are people crowding all around it, whispering to each other with ashen faces and thin lips. I don't think I've ever seen this many Seam people gathered around one house. Come to think of it, the only time we come together is when someone dies...

I freeze when I reach the fence that surrounds our little house. I set my hand down on the gate, and it creaks on its hinges, gaping open like a mouth.

All the people conglomerated on the lawn turn to look at me. And no one says a word. The woman nearest to the door lets her hand trail to her mouth, and the faint glistening of tear tracks flash on her face. Suddenly, fearing the worst, I reach out and hug Prim to my side, hoping I can protect her from whatever evil is upon us.

That's when I hear it. Above the steady pounding of my heart, I hear someone hiss, "Her daughters..." like I can't even hear them.

I push the gate open, and the creaking seems overly loud in the silence. I can hear every step I take down the thin gravel path towards the front door, and I even hear Prim's hesitant feet moving behind me. Someone's hand brushes my shoulder as I near the door, but I immediately shrug them off, sending my hardened glare in their direction.

When I see that it's Hazelle Hawthorne and her eyes are sparkling with tears, the bottom of my stomach drops out, and a hollow sort of terror fills me from my feet up. I swallow back the dryness of my throat. I turn around, keeping my gaze away from all the pitying stares, and I think I already know what's inside waiting for me.

But it still hits me like a ton of bricks.

Lying on the kitchen table is a body, pale and stiff with death. They pull a white sheet over my mother's face, keeping their eyes downcast to the ground. Then everyone turns back to me, where I'm standing frozen in the doorway, unable to move.

This whole scene seems so nightmare-ish and surreal that I'm totally lost for a moment. My eyes flash around the gray room at the grieving faces of total strangers. At the flicker light hanging from the roof. But mostly at the white cloth pulled over my mother's corpse on the kitchen table, as it goes in and out of focus in my eyes.

It's Prim's cry of anguish that brings me back to reality. She bursts forth from behind me, and I reach out a second too late to pull her back to my side so that we can cry together. But someone else intercepts her before she can cling to our mother's body like a grief-stricken fool.

And then I take a stumbling step forward as it all comes raining down on me too. Suddenly, the grief and agony pierce into my heart like poison, and my eyes blur over with tears just as my knees strike the ground.

I think I'm about to run forward to my mother like Prim, but someone's hands are gently grabbing at my shoulders. I struggle for a moment, but the touch feels so terribly nice that I can't resist. I start screaming in pain and twisting distress as Gale's arms enfold around me. Sobs rack my body, and agonized noises escape my lips. My knees become too weak to hold me up, and Gale holds me tighter in his arms, letting me hit him and struggle as I cry out, not caring at all what physical harm comes upon him. He just holds me there, keeping me from falling apart completely.

I lose all sense of time as I drown in tortured emotion, but I bridge the gap into madness at some point. The noises coming out of me must become too haunting to listen to because everyone leaves, and it's just pain and then blackness.

The next thing I consciously realize, I'm lying on something soft. There's a blanket tucked around me and a pillow slipped under my head. My whole body feels like it's been hit by a steamroller, and every inch of me aches.

I force my eyes open to see that I'm lying on a couch a few feet from a warm fire. It doesn't take me very long to realize that I'm in the Hawthornes' house. I recognize the hearth reflected in the warm orange glow emanating from the softly dancing flames. But I especially recognize the figure sitting against the base of the couch by my knees.

I roll over onto my side and stare at the fire before me. Gale realizes that I'm awake and turns to face me, but he's having a hard time trying to come up with words. I struggle to determine whether I want him to say something to me or whether his presence is enough to calm me. But my brain is too scattered and wounded to decide.

"Where's Prim?" I whisper softly.

Half of Gale's face is lit up orange by the fire. "Asleep upstairs with the boys," he says in a scratchy voice.

Prim's cries of pain echo through my mind as everything starts to resettle in my mind. Suddenly, the warmth of the fire doesn't reach me. My heart turns to ice and the rest of my body starts to feel just as numb and cold. I pull my knees towards my chest, curling myself into a fetal position.

Gale understands my reactions so well that I watch him move closer to me just before I shut my eyes against the blurring tears. I feel his fingers brush my forehead, tucking hair behind my ears. His touch is so soft and gentle that I feel the tears really start to burn.

"Your mother's finally been reunited with her love," Gale says quietly. I wonder if he really thinks that will console me. He must know that it won't.

A single tear forces its way out from between my eyelids and slips down the side of my face and onto the pillow.

"Catnip..." his voice comes out in a quiet breath.

But then I can't stop. My throat closes up as I start to choke on my racking sobs. I pull myself into a tightening fetal position on my side, more tears escaping my trapping eyelids. They burn as they streak down my cheek, but that's the only warmth I find. The fire, in my mind, has basically disappeared, leaving an icy chill in my heart.

I feel Gale's thumb brush the tears away from the side of my face with a tender touch, and it elicits a strangled, agonized gasp of pain from me, along with a fresh gush of tears. His thumb brushes across my cheek, and I force my eyes to remain closed to the pain of the outside world.

I hear Gale take in a slow breath. "She's safe, where she is now," he whispers gently. "And so are you. You're safe, Catnip. You're going to be alright."

At this point, my sobs have become so convulsive that there's nothing Gale could say that would calm me down. So he just holds my hand and lets me cry myself out.

There comes a time when my body feels too weak to possibly cry any longer. I've been completely sapped of any energy to display my depression, and I just start shivering as the icy cold begins to freeze my body.

Gale squeezes my hand to let me know he's still there, and then, suddenly, I feel his lips touch my temple with such fleeting, loving pressure that it calms the tears that were still slipping from my eyes.

My heart shatters as he presses his lips to my cheek once before leaning back away. A tiny bit of warmth spreads from the spot his lips touched to the entirety of my cheek, but it doesn't reach the rest of my body. I practically lose consciousness as the grief consumes my soul again.

We bury her the next day. And it rains.

It doesn't just rain, though. It pours. During the middle of the short, small ceremony, the sky opens up, and it lets down a torrential downpour that turns the ground to slick mud beneath our feet.

It's good for hiding the tears at least. If I turn my face towards the ground, I doubt that anyone can tell the difference between a raindrop and my tears. And it's not as if they're judging me anyway.

Prim and I, we've lost everything. I don't know what's more pitiable than us right now. First, we have our father ripped from us, leaving a gaping hole in our family, and now we've lost our mother as well. Soon, we'll lose the house and all our other meaningless possessions, and the only thing we'll have left is each other. Until we can't even keep that.

As the rain charges down hard against us, I hug my little Prim closer to my side, never wanting to let her go. She presses her face into my side, and I wrap my arm tighter around her body. Not a single part of either of us is dry, so our embrace is cold and soggy, but somehow just a little bit of connection makes me feel safer.

The ceremony leader begins to read the poem that is read at most Seam funerals, but I can hardly hear him over the pounding rain and whistling wind. My black clothes are officially soaked through, and they cling to me like a second skin. I look down at the muddy ground, and I can definitely see every single one of my ribs sticking out of my skin like I'm nothing but a skeleton.

And maybe I am one. It's at times like these that I find myself feeling the most dead. The cold, wet rain freezes me to every square centimeter of my bones, and I sure feel like the walking dead. I'm not even sure that I'm breathing because it's the furthest thing from my mind. I've lost all sense of feeling— it's like the pounding of the rain has numbed me, and I just can't be bothered to care about anything anymore. The only thing I know is that I've lost another piece of my heart, and maybe, just maybe, the grief has killed me this time.

Should we be burying me today as well?

I look up from the scraggly tufts of grass that drown in the mud at my feet and muster the courage to look at the family standing across from me. And Gale's eyes connect with mine instantly. I cling to his gaze, just trying to decipher the emotions running through his storm-gray eyes. And I settle on understanding. He understands.

Tears burn at my eyes again, and my throat turns to a desert. I look back down at the wet earth and pin Prim closer to my side. We're orphans now, and we are the only things we have left. That just keeps running through my head as I cry.

The next time I look up, she's been lowered into the earth, and they're shoveling dirt down over top of her. Prim is now outright sobbing against my neck, and all I can do is clutch her to my side. I'm so horrified at this whole situation that I feel like I'm going to throw up.

And then a hand settles on my shoulder. I turn my head to see Gale standing there, his eyes soft and gentle, and he's silently pleading for me to come back with him. In the numb state that I'm in, I force myself to turn and follow him. In the distance, I can barely make out the rest of the Hawthorne family through the sheeting rain. Gale slips an arm around my shoulders, and I keep Prim right next to me.

They can't bury me yet.

My heart is still beating, but there's another part of me that has perished.

The man sitting on the other side of the counter doesn't care about us at all— and I know that. I know that neither Prim nor I could win any kind of pity from this uncaring, uppity man. The only thing he cares about is how clean his pressed white shirt is compared to the dirty dress that I wear.

He looks up indifferently from the paper, pen swiveling in his hand. "Name?"

Two can play at this game, if it could be considered a game. Lucky for him, I can't summon enough energy to care about him or anything besides Prim really at the current time. "Katniss Magenta Everdeen," I reply.

"Age?"

"Seventeen."

His eyes look up from the paper for a moment to size me up and decide whether or not I really am the age I claim to be. He appears to be satisfied and scribbles something on his paper. "And your sister's name?"

"Primrose Cyan Everdeen."

"Age?"

"She just turned thirteen."

He knows why we're really here now. Both of us are minors, and we're here alone, which makes us orphans. He knows now, and I think somewhere in the recesses of his soul he finds a sick enjoyment in knowing that we're completely alone.

"Any living relatives?" he asks. His pen is hovering over the paper.

I swallow my pride. "No."

He scribbles that down on paper and folds his hands across his desk. "That means you're headed to the Community Home, ladies. You've got until the end of the week." He gives us a cheery smile that I return with unfailing indifference. I won't let him see the torture sentence he's just given both of us.

I won't let him see the pain he's caused.

I am unsurprised to see that all our possessions fit in a small cardboard box.

I'm reluctant to allow Prim to take much with her (Prim being the more sentimental, clingy one between the two of us) because I know anything of value that's not on our persons at all times will be stolen off of us within a week.

Whatever we don't take, I sell.

Clothes, furniture, kitchen utensils- all those useful things that Prim and I could never take with us to the community home go for lots of money in the Hob. As satisfying as it is to have this amount of money in my possession, I know it's very little. For one thing, I know the Community Home works this way: you get one free meal and a roof over your head for free. The rest you have to wrangle up yourself. This is why people starve and die in the community home. This is why people become desperate.

For another thing, there is the matter of the felony problem. Carrying large amounts of money (or any money at all) makes you a target of anyone who's desperate, and the entire population of the community home is desperate. I suppose it's a good thing I've learned the art of paranoia over these years my father has been dead. At this point, it's not entirely uncomfortable for me to sleep with money sewn into my clothes.

On my way home from the Hob, I pass the Community Home. I've made this walk a million times before, but this time, I have to stop myself and stand in front of it.

The rusting wrought iron gate hangs off-kilter from the black fence that surrounds the entire building like jail bars. The home itself is huge, the biggest house in the Seam. It sits like a massive box in the center of a dirt plot of land, and each of its windows seems to be the dead, blank eyes of a disturbed child. Occasionally, something will move in one of those windows: a stick-thin child with bones that stick out, a hunched old woman who waits for death, or even a scantily-clad girl trying to seduce a stack of cash out of a semi-intoxicated Peacekeeper.

All in a flash, I see what I'm destined to become. Sooner or later, I'm sure I'll fall below the surface like a swimmer who's too tired to stay afloat, and I'll disappear into the desperation that says I can do anything for money. In the next year or so, I could be that girl with the Peacekeeper.

A crack of thunder shakes the gray sky, and I jerk my attention away from the Community Home— or what I'll call my prison for the next year or so until I turn eighteen and can drag both Prim and myself out of there. I hug my dad's jacket tighter around my shoulders and practically run back to our house.

The only thing left in what used to be our home is a single pallet for both Prim and I to sleep on for the next few days. The man in the Justice Building said we had until the end of the week, and I plan on dragging that out as long as possible.

When I walk in, Prim is sitting on the pallet, hugging her knees tightly to her chest. She looks up at me, and I see a pitiable, heart-wrenching terror in her eyes. I try to make myself the strong one, the one who doesn't cry and isn't afraid. I kneel down next to her and, without a word, pull her into my arms.

The storm really takes up then. Raindrops beat down on the roof like a constant, fierce drum. Occasionally, lightning lights up the entire room, and then the thunder splits our eardrums.

I lie down and pull Prim tight against my chest where she immediately starts to sob. I stroke her hair because that's all my tired body can offer, and eventually the rain becomes so loud that I can't even hear my own thoughts any more.

Prim drifts off after what seems like a terribly long eternity, and that's when I finally allow myself to cry.

It's hard to find a reason to keep going when you're too afraid of where you're heading.

The last few days before Prim and I will be forced to move into the house of the desperate and dirty tick down far too quickly. There's only so much of a distraction that mindless hours of school can provide for my endlessly wandering mind. Besides, every Seam kid in the school now looks at me with that look that you give those people that have no hope. They know what it means to be considered an orphan. And, mostly, they know of loss like I do.

Grief is a close friend of mine. Or shall I call it something else because friend seems like far too kind an adjective to describe the emotions that boil inside me. I'll call it a disease.

Even when I'm able to slip away into that numb, daydreaming state when I'm staring out the window at school or when I'm focused solely on stalking a deer across the forest, there's always that darkness in the corner of my heart. There's always that aching depression that says I can't have more pleasure in my life. It tells me I deserve nothing less than a life in the community home where I will be defiled and beaten and pushed beyond my normal boundaries. Because that's where I've landed myself.

Or, at least, that's where Fate has landed me.

For some reason, I find thinking about that really funny, and I actually start to laugh out loud. The squirrel I was about to shoot scurries off to safety, but I find it hard to care because everything's just so ironic and evil that I'm laughing.

I look up at the sky, and this Mockingjay streaks across the sun and flutters down onto a branch just above me. It cocks its head at my hiccupping laughter, but doesn't start mocking me for some reason. And then I think about how when I was little, the Mockingjays would go silent as my father sang. And ever since the day my father stopped breathing, my mother would watch those Mockingjays and wait for them to go quiet.

The laughter turns to tears.

Then screams.

Then silence.

The next day is Sunday. That means Prim and I have two more days to move our box of possessions to the Community Home.

Somehow, maybe during my panic attack yesterday, I came to terms with the idea of living in the community home. Well, maybe "come to terms" isn't the best way to describe it. Perhaps I've learned to accept the idea and acknowledge that I have to prepare myself to leave behind my past in that house. The aching wound left by that man in the Justice Building has finally turned to a scar over my heart.

It's barely dawn as I slip through the trees. I reach into the hallow tree and pull out my bow as silently as I can. I don't want to disturb the pristine quiet. When things are quiet, I can calm myself down enough to at least partially block the emotional turmoil of reality from my mind while I'm in the forest.

I sit down on the rock where Gale and I always meet, and, not five minutes later, Gale materializes out from between two trees, silent as ever. This is the first time I've seen him since the funeral. He gives me a faded grin as he reaches into the tree to retrieve his own weapons, but I know he's just trying not to set me off.

I hop down from the rock, and we head off in silence. I love the fact that we don't even need to say a word to each other while we're hunting. It's taken less than five years to learn each other so perfectly that we almost know what the other is thinking.

Which is, I guess, how I know that he's dying to ask me something.

The sun is high over our heads by the time he actually gets down to the question he wants to ask. Besides idle chatter, this is the first we've spoken all day.

"How much longer?" he asks, and I know what he means.

"Two more days," I reply. "The guy in the Justice Building said we have until the end of the week."

There's silence for a few seconds.

"You can't go to the Community Home," he says in a hard voice.

I feel my shoulders sag. "It's not like I have a choice."

Gale closes his eyes in frustration and squeezes the bridge of his nose. "I just wish there was a way we could keep you out..." he says.

"Well, there's not, so let's just drop that," I bite quickly. "Besides, I'll be eighteen in, like, eight months, and then I can get Prim out too, and—"

"Katniss, there's no way you can remain untouched for eight months!" Gale says, his voice rising just a bit.

"We'll be fine—"

"Katniss, girls get raped in the Community Home. Desperate girls turn into prostitutes! You're already walking a fine line of starvation!" Gale practically shouts.

"I can take care of myself, and you know that!" I retaliate.

"Desperation does terrible things to people. We've seen it happen."

"You act as thought I'll be willingly selling myself, Gale!" I scream. "It's like you have no faith in me!"

Gale seems really frustrated now. "Katniss—"

"Just leave it alone, will you?" I say, my anger with him slowly evaporating. He's only acting out of concern. "At this point, Prim and I have no choice but to move into the community home."

"But—"

I hold up a hand. "The only ways you can get out are to move in with relatives, become a legal adult, or get married, and I don't see any of those happening real soon."

My sister and I walk solemnly to the cart, and I take Prim by her waist and lift her into it. I accept morosely when the Peacekeeper officer dispatched to fetch us gallantly takes me by my waist and hoists me into the cart as well.

When all our things are loaded (it really isn't much), the Peacekeeper cracks a whip, and an old mule lugs us down the dusty streets towards our new home: the Community Home. I turn for one last look over my shoulder, at the house I was raised in, which will surely now go to some newly married Seam couple, per Justice Building housing policy.

When the cart arrives at the Community Home, Prim and I are met by a stern-looking older woman with a leathery face. She turns her head to the Peacekeeper in charge.

"Ages?"

"Katniss Magenta Everdeen, aged 17. Primrose Cyan Everdeen: aged 13. They're fine ladies both, Mrs. Merwick."

The older woman, Mrs. Merwick, sighs. "Well, only one will be my problem in months' time, I suppose. Come on in."

Lifting Mother's old trunk in my arms, Prim and I warily follow Mrs. Merwick up the stairs. Everything is gloomy and grey; my blue Reaping dress is probably providing the most color in this whole place.

Opening the door to a large, expansive room, I freeze when I see close to fifteen other girls hovering over beds pushed against one wall. Mrs. Merwick points to a cot in the far corner.

"That one's for you." I cross over to it gloomily, depositing the trunk at the foot of my cot, Prim following me dutifully.

Suddenly, there is a cry, and I wheel around to find Mrs. Merwick grabbing Prim's arm and yanking her back. My sister shrieks and dissolves into tears, struggling furiously.

"What are you do…? Let her go!" I snarl, baring my teeth like the sister bear I am. I try to dash forward, but the other girls suddenly congeal and form a barrier, blocking me. It does them little credit that many of them look sad for me. A few are glaring at Prim hostilely, perhaps out of jealousy for her beauty and Merchant looks.

"Fifteens to eighteens in this room… twelves to fourteens across the hall!" Mrs. Merwick growls out, picking my sister up and having to carry her, kicking and flailing, from the room. Mrs. Merwick is quite a buxom woman, and I curse her commensurate strength.

"Katty! KATNISS!"

"PRIM….. PRIM!"

I smooth Prim's hair nervously. It looks fine; I just can't stop worrying over her. It has been too long here at the Community Home, even if it's only been a few weeks. She has to get out of here, with or without me.

Those first weeks were the hardest.

When they put us in separate rooms, by age, it was a suffocating prison. I screamed for her, awake, in my sleep, always. Finally, two days later – and probably to shut me up - they gave us a room together. I'm sure I made an excellent impression on the other girls. Even in these awful, chilled, moldy-walled rooms, we are at least together. At least we have some food, despite it's stale and spoiled smell and taste. It takes me back to my regret, that we're in this situation, each time we taste those disappointing meals.

By law, I only have to be here until my eighteenth birthday – just under a year away. Then I will be cast out into the street to fend for myself. Prim will have to remain here until she is 18 – four years, almost to the day.

Orphans who have to stay in the home… their chances of being Reaped for the Hunger Games go up exponentially. The district government rationalizes that orphans being sent in to die is less painful, risks less discontent. After all, they're children whom no one will miss.

I refuse to let that happen to Prim.

She's in my arms, curled against me on this tiny cot we share in a room all our own. The moon is full, its beams shining in through the window above our heads.