District 2 Male - Crow Bronzevale


I woke up with a bit of sunlight pouring through the windows of the log cabin, and into my small bedroom. Even though I am relatively well rested I cannot forget what kept me up at night yesterday. The Reaping Day, on my 18th year, perhaps in another life it would've meant relief that it would be over, but in this one, I'm the soldier that's heading directly for the Reaping.

I get out of bed and head to the small shared bathroom to do my morning routine, then get dressed before I hike all the way to the centre of District 2 for the Reaping. Even though I'm trained in one of District 2's best academies, I am not an orphan like the others. Instead my family has lived on the edge of District 2, near the outskirts where the city blocks turn into mountains and pine trees, ever since as far back as we could remember. But I was poor like the rest of the orphans, and closer geographically to numerous orphanages in the area, so someone thought to check our humble residence as well when they picked the orphans to train for the Hunger Games and I didn't escape their notice.

Tall for my age, strong, a freak of nature even back then, I can't forget the physical attributes that decided my fate. Despite not being a desperate orphan or whatever people said about them, I turned out to be one of the best candidates from the Training Centre. I was lethal with weapons in my hands, I grew to be one of the biggest and meanest people around, I had the fitness of two people. When it came to my 18th year it was clear I was the best bet for District 2 going forwards, and that's how I came to be preparing for the Reaping.

"Nervous?" my mother asked me as I ate breakfast. I had dressed in a thick brown fur coat, expensively tailored to look like success, thick black pants and dark black boots. I wore a necklace with a bear's tooth on it that I let outside my coat, underneath I was wearing a brown jumper and blue shirt. It was an outfit picked out for me in advance by the supervisor of the 18 year old boys at the training centre, designed to make an impression of wealth and lofty arrogance to the Capitol.

"No," I said. Since I wasn't an orphan I went back home for the summers. Years of growing up by the mountains, doing mountainside activities as well as activities in the woods beside them had given me survival skills in the wilderness, and I was sure I could come back alive if I was reaped for the Hunger Games. How often do you see a career tribute that has also had an entire childhood and past of growing up in the wilderness and fending for themselves? I had found food, water, and camped out for weeks at a time before. I was one of the most prepared tributes for it.

"Did you rent the outfit or keep it?" Valentina, a small brown haired girl with large reflective eyes asked me. She was my sister of 13 years old, named after an obscure tradition (Valentine's) which was more celebrated among the citizens of the city. Perhaps it had been the only sign mother may have wanted to move closer to the city. But otherwise, our family were perfectly content staying in the countryside of District 2 for as long as we could think of. I don't know whether her name rubbed of on her or anything but she was always obsessed with the city, the clothes people wore, the brunches they had, the buildings there were to see. She begged for details every time I returned from the training centre and I'd only felt an incredibly sore sense of frustration as I had experienced and done nothing.

I spent most of my time training underground among weapons and orphans. We did go to a school but it wasn't a very good one so there were no tales of excess or luxury that would've pleased her. The training centre is closer to the city than the orphanages and the few villages that live near the outskirts, mostly because they couldn't afford to live closer to the centre of the District, but it's by no means in the city either.

I hadn't wanted to deal with her, she bothered me with her girlish airs and questions, that I quickly gave the bare minimum answer and then left. I didn't want to waste the precious time I had to spend here by the mountains and the forests, with her and her neverending questions.

"Keep," I said. The training centres of District 2 look poor because they don't care about appearances, but they didn't bother to rent out an outfit for Reaping. They just bought it and I suppose if we came back alive it was ours to keep.

"What's going to happen when you go to the Hunger Games? Will it be kept in your Capitol room the whole time?" asked Maisie, my 17 year old sister. She was tall and strong but not enough to be selected to train for the Hunger Games. I was the only one from the family that was. I was relieved for my family members, glad they didn't have to go through it nor the Hunger Games, but also at times hateful of the fact that I was forced to risk my life. Except I had higher chances than anybody else it felt...not so bad if I dared to say, but I had murky feelings towards it the whole time.

"Probably," I said.

"We'll cheer for you," said Harmonia, my 15 year old sister. She was a light brunette who played the harmonica. Mother loved music and taught her it when I was gone at the academy.

My sibling and I had talked about what would happen if I were to die, if I were to come back disabled (they said they would love me), if I were to win, they'd given me all the tips they could think of about how to win, pledged all the things they'd do to help me win during the Games, what they'll do when I'm gone (mostly try to do their best in life), that we were dry of words on the Reaping day. Everything had been said.

"Yep," I said.

"Teach me more knife fighting!" Raven, my 11 year old brother said. He wasn't picked for the Training Centre because he didn't have the same build as I was, but he'd begged me to teach him all the ways of fighting everytime I came back. Even though mother told him it was my own personal business and that I didn't have to talk about what happened there, or what I had to learn if I didn't want to. But I'd preferred Raven to Valentina and had obliged him a few lessons. He was lousy at most things, he would be the bottom student if he ever enrolled at the Training Centre, but what can I say - I liked having someone look up to me.

"Ok," I said as I finished the last of my breakfast before putting it in the sink and beginning to wash up.

I wasn't close to any of my siblings, not really. I spent most of my life at the Training Centre, I spent almost all of the intense moments of my life there. Summers at my home in the mountains and by the woods were just the 'in betweens' of training. I tuned out most of my siblings, they were just like background noise, and even when I was here, I was always more interested in camping out by the woods, finding food and water, going to the mountains, practicing wilderness survival skills my father taught me, or figuring out new ones for myself. The thing about wilderness survival skills were that eventually they ended, what was in books or knowledge others passed onto you finished, and in order to get what you wanted, brave the next thing, you had to figure things out for yourself. I did a bit of that as well.

Father had already left today. He has to get up early for work, he has no choice, but we'd said goodbye the night before. Mother as well. In fact, she made all the kids go to bed earlier, practically forced them to, just so father and her could talk to me. They said I was the single most likely person to come back out of anyone and to do whatever it took, they would forgive me for anything, murdering people in all sorts of ways. Just as long as I came back. They didn't want to let me go to the Training Centre but they had no choice in the matter. They had always wanted me to come back in every single moment that I had been there and done almost everything they could to make it easy. I felt a bit of anger when I thought to that conversation but I didn't show it because it was too much anger at the Training Centre, the Capitol, the Hunger Games, everything.

If an orphan volunteered, they had no family who would miss them, nothing to lose.

Why did they have to get someone who wasn't an orphan, skim or siphon of someone like that, and force them through it?

I hated being forced to train for the Hunger Games because I wasn't actually an orphan.

Though none of the other orphans knew this about me, I didn't want them to beat me up out of anger or jealousy, and no one in the Capitol would either. It wasn't going to be the image that I played.

"Crow, don't," my mother wrestled the plates from me.

I didn't want to but she won out with a strength I didn't know she possessed. After brief goodbyes I began the long walk to the District. All the people from the Training Centres were required to get there earlier. A neighbour was coming around to drive all my siblings to the city later so they wouldn't have to walk a long way.

The Reaping went as planned. I volunteered as I had been selected to do so, felt the crowd take notice of my size and could practically feel the fear from the other tributes as the cameras panned over me and I shook the escort's hand.

I will come back. Because I'm a trained career and I've got wilderness survival skills. A rare combination. This year is my year. I can feel it.