Preji Soultier, District Three Male (17)

I hated my job.

The work itself wasn't so hard. I worked quality control checking that the insulation around wires was sufficient and not frayed. It was a long, tedious eight-hour stretch of staring at black or yellow wires. It was just so boring. It was mind-numbingly boring and insultingly easy. For work that mentally infuriating I should have been getting paid twice what I was getting.

Three times, since Mom and Dad take so much… Once I got home it started up all over again. It seemed like every day my parents would ask me to watch Baina and Calla while they went to run errands or pick up some overtime. Funny how they never asked Kariss. He was always allowed to stay late at work and make extra money that it seemed like he always got to keep while so often they hit me up for a bit of cash to stretch the groceries or catch up on bills. I didn't ask to be born and it wasn't fair they made me pay for their mistakes.

If it wasn't the job it was the workplace. Factories were run by greedy fat cats who only cared about the money you could make for them. Every day I had worthless middle-managers breathing down my neck like I didn't know how to check a stupid wire. What, I'm going to miss a giant crack running all the way down a wire? I didn't even know why they didn't have computers do this. I guess managers have to do something to justify their exorbitant paychecks and they settled on enforcing stupid and useless rules that no one cares about. Or at least enforcing them on me. Someone else takes off five minutes early for break and no one cares. I do it and immediately I get yelled at. They were just desperate to get a reason to fire me. They already had half a dozen so-called "incidents" on my record. I only stayed here because everywhere else paid even worse.

Someday I'm gonna get out of here. I didn't know where I was going. Truth be told I didn't even have any faith I'd get there. It wasn't like anyone had any control over their lives in Three. It was just work in a soul-sucking factory job, maybe find someone you could stand living with if you were lucky and probably handsome, then spend the rest of your life locked into your job because you had kids to feed. That was one mistake I wasn't making. If I fell in love with someone that was fine, but we were never having kids, or if we did it would be just one. You'd never catch me forcing my kid to babysit all the time.

You won't get out of here. Not with this many people hell bent on keeping you down. So you might as well get comfortable. This is where you'll be for the next sixty years.

I felt the heat bubbling up in me as I looked down at the tangle of cords sitting in the box on the table, other boxes waiting behind it for me to reach them. I yanked one out of the box and fought a sudden urge to stretch it until it popped. Sometimes it just felt good to destroy things. It wouldn't be the first time. It wouldn't even be the first time i got caught. No, of course the slave drivers had made sure to be looking at me right when I finally snapped. Couldn't have the company losing the three cents these things probably cost.

The cord was frayed. I looked again- I hardly ever saw a frayed cord. It was definitely frayed. There was a crack right at the base of the plug and at its widest there was a visible sliver of metal wiring. Something came over me and I threw it on the inspected conveyor belt. I didn't know why I did it at first. I just wanted to do something bad, I guess. I wanted to take this job and shove it somewhere. I knew I should pull it back off before it disappeared into the packaging machine. Instead I just watched it go. I watched it slide into the machine and wondered about who might buy it. Maybe some factory owner if I was lucky. Then he'd see what it was like when everyone around you was trying to hurt you. Let someone else know how it feels for once. Not my problem. I might even do it again sometime.


Cheyenne Talor, District Three female (17)

Nine years ago

I knew it was something important when my parents were sitting next to each other on the big couch. Usually Dad sat in his chair and Mom sat in the bay window seat.

They're getting divorced? It was completely out of nowhere. Mom and Dad fought sometimes but just normal parent fights. When Aja's parents got divorced I could tell way ahead of time because her mom always did that fake cheerful voice when she picked her up from school and her father never picked her up anymore. Wait. They can't be getting divorced. Ann's not here. Surely if Mom and Dad were getting divorced they wouldn't tell me while Aja was at coding class. And they didn't seem sad, just a little nervous, like they were afraid of my reaction.

"What is it?" I asked, since Mom had just called me out of my room.

"You asked a few days ago why we didn't have any pictures of you as a little baby," my father started.

Somehow I knew what he was going to say before he said it. I was still trying to figure out how I felt when he finished.

"You're adopted," Dad said.

"You're our real adopted daughter," Mom added hastily.

"Is that why I can roll my tongue and Ann can't?" It was the first thing that popped into my head. I still didn't know what to think but my mouth moved faster than my brain.

Dad laughed. "I suppose so," he said.

"How old was I?" I didn't remember getting adopted. For that very reason it wasn't as upsetting as Mom and Dad were obviously afraid of. If I was just a little baby it hardly mattered at all. I didn't remember any other family and my parents knew me almost from the start.

"You were four months old," Mom said as I climbed up on the couch next to them so they knew I wasn't pulling away from them. "We were still deciding whether to adopt or try the other way when we saw your picture and that was it. We wanted you."

"Where was I from?" I asked. "Did my parents say why they didn't keep me?" I wasn't even really upset by it. They were probably just poor or unprepared or something. They made sure another family took care of me and that was probably the best they could do. It would probably bother me more later. I knew I'd definitely be awake most of the night thinking things through.

"It was a closed adoption but they did leave a picture for you. We can look at that later. We do know they were from another District, though. Do you have any more questions?" Dad asked.

My mind went straight to one bit of information. "That's why I'm so bad at science," I pointed out.

"You're not bad at science," Dad said, like a dad is supposed to do.

"I definitely am," I said. Really I was just average but in Three that meant I was bad. "I don't mind. I'm good at other things."

"Even if you were it wouldn't be because you were from another District," Mom said, smiling a little. "Everyone is different in every District."

"I bet I'm from One or Two. They like sports like me," I said, picturing a father with bright pink hair or a mother covered with muscles from working in the quarries.

"I hope you're not like people from One or Two. I don't want my baby running off and volunteering," Dad said, putting his arm around me.

"Ick no," I said. "Definitely not."


PS she didn't volunteer. She got Reaped.