Callie Springer, District 9
"Everybody put your best suit or dress on,
Let's make believe that we're wealthy for just this once."
Death Cab for Cutie, The New Year
District 9
The fridge is broken again.
It's the third time this month. How I'm supposed to pay for another repair is beyond me, but without the fridge we can't sell the milk we get from Juniper, and without Juniper's milk we won't be able to pay for anything, food, water, rent, let alone a working fridge. I've already taken out as much tesserae as they'll let me, but that's barely keeping the littles from crying at night, even with the extras I give them from my portion. Mat's always in the fields nowadays, leaving who to take care of the family? Me. Of course. The district officials scam him every day, paying him half his rate, but what choice does he have? Put in more hours? He's already gone 16 hours a day.
Payments on Dad's surgery were due last week, and interest is only going up. They can't exactly take away his new heart, but if it fails again, and fail it will, we'll be up a creek. And to make things worse, Mat can't work tomorrow because it's Reaping Day. A full day of wages lost to some stupid ceremony.
All of that flies out of my head when the escort calls Mat's name.
Capitol
Seated next to Tiberius, the hugely popular Games emcee, still feels surreal, even though it's the second time. Watching twenty-three kids be murdered in high definition, however, is much stranger, especially considering I killed three.
I shake myself out of my thoughts to see Tiberius staring at me.
"Huh?" I ask, dimly aware he's just asked me a question. He smiles.
"I asked how you felt after you won. Knowing that you'd get to see your siblings again," he said, calmly understanding what had just happened. I frown. The moment flashes behind my eyes again, standing over the body of that tiny boy from Five, his blood on my sickle. I wince.
"I was just happy to be alive," I answer, partially honest. I don't say anything about the guilt that had nearly caused me to claw my own eyes out in remake after waking up.
Tiberius only smiles. "Of course, that's only natural. Do you have anything you'd like to say to your sponsors, the ones that almost gave you your victory?"
Yeah, go screw yourselves. "Only my absolute gratitude," I say with a forced, fake smile.
District 9
Gabe's dead.
Winters are always hard, but this is the first one since Mat died. No more money means no heating, so of course one of the babies died. I don't feel anything anymore. And even worse, watching Beatrix Carmen with that self-important smug grin on her face during the Victory Tour only made things ten times worse. All I could see was her spear pinning Mat to the ground during the bloodbath, his blood leaking onto the grass of the prairie arena. Making ends meet is getting even harder. Six mouths are left to feed, not including mine, and I genuinely don't know how much more of this I can take.
Capitol
The first day back is hard. I can't talk to anyone without seeing the chatty girl from Eight next to me in training. She was such a happy person.
The monster from Two skewered her through in the bloodbath.
Every shadow is the sole survivor of that lizard attack on the Careers, the girl from One, jumping out of the darkness on top of me. And every creak is the snap of her neck as she fell from that cliff into the abyss. The girls, Georgia and Sammie, help. Sammie likes to sleep in my bed at night, even when I throw her off the matress in my sleep, the nightmares are so vivid. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night, she's sitting at my side, a cup of cocoa in one hand and my own trembling fingers in her other.
We get a dog, too. His name's Felix. He's a tan little Cocker Spaniel, and he loves chewing up old toys. None of us really know how to stop him, so we more or less just let him have run of the house, causing whatever trouble he can. I don't know why, but there's something calming about cleaning up after him. Maybe it's the reassurance that there's always gonna be another mess to take care of when I'm done.
District 9
My last Reaping Day, it rains. Hurrah. But something so trivial as weather won't stop the Capitol, so, the escort looking very disgruntled indeed, the Reaping continues as planned.
The rain is the least of my concerns when my name comes out of the ball.
I'm terrified at first. Of course I am, who isn't when they get Reaped? Mat sure was. But it's sitting in the Justice Building, watching Sammie and Georgia cry about how much they'll miss me do I finally realize that if I don't win I'll never see them again. Ever. And who's going to keep them alive now?
My last words to them before the Peacekeepers rush them out isn't proclamations of how much I love them, or last wishes for my body or anything so trivial as that. My last words are simple. "Keep my bed warm, and don't forget to feed Juniper until I get back."
The kids think I'm just trying to reassure them. All except Sammie. She can tell I mean it.
Capitol
Mentoring sucks. One would think that from a District of strong field workers District 9 would get more than two Victors in seventy years but no, the Careers have it out for 9's tributes, ever since that crazy one from the 21st Games upstaged them all in training and then stole the show in the Games by promptly suiciding on his platform just to make a statement. He was an idiot.
She had one success, a somewhat mentally unstable boy from the rich part of 9 named Garner. Nobody really knew what his deal was, but he had a thing about drawing pictures on every surface and talking to them. Not particularly concerning until he started disembowling kids and talking to what was left of them. Definitely not the greatest partner every year, but hey, it could have been worse. She could have gotten Lorelei.
District 9
Training is, in a word, weird. The Careers went nuts, as was tradition, but thankfully their hazing of tributes passed her over for the most part, maybe because she was 18. She scored a seven, which wasn't bad, but wasn't great, either. The boy from Seven was the real highlight among the outliers, though. His ten had even the Careers whispering nervously.
The last night before the Games, I'm lying in my bed, staring at the roof. What's going to happen when I die? No, if I die, I say to myself. If.
The truth is, I don't know. Life won't stop, that's for sure. The girl's will figure something out. Sammie's smart, she'll know what to do to keep the littles alive. If she has to steal to survive, so be it. Anything to keep her from taking tesserae.
Sleep doesn't really come that night, but I know that's the same all up and down the building. Possibly the last time any of us will sleep passes by with almost none at all.
Capitol
The 74th Hunger Games end quickly for District 9, just like every year. Neither of them were particularly strong, but I'd hoped that would keep us off the Careers radar. It doesn't.
The boy goes for 12, a mistake. Maybe they would have forgotten him if he hadn't ran at the strongest non-Career in the Games. The girl? Yeah, she died even quicker. Brutus' monster from Two had a spear in her throat barely a minute into the Games.
By the end, I'm seated with Nina, Camila, and Stitch in a high-end Capitol bar, watching the lovers from 12 duel it out with that psycho, Cato. As soon as Cato grabs Peeta and holds his head in his massive arms, I can see it in Katniss' eyes. It's over. Cato doesn't stand a chance.
I glance over at the others and I can see Camila shaking her head. She whispers something about 'It's Jack all over again.' I sigh, knowing exactly what she's referring to. Two Victors won't end well for anyone, let alone those two. Maybe the tabloids are right. There really is no happy ending for them.
District 9
The Arena's a desert. Hallelujah. First a forest, then a canyon, a prairie, a mountain, and a ruined city. I was hoping for perhaps a beach, maybe a jungle. Instead I get a wasteland of sand, rocks, cacti, and poisoned plants. Hurrah.
The gong sounds and the Careers jump off their platforms, sprinting towards the pile. I hang back, letting them pick their targets and go to work on the tributes. At least four bodies have already collapsed to the sand by the time I'm even off my pedestal. The Careers barely notice me sprinting in, grabbing two backpacks and a stray knife before fleeing.
Ten deaths. No Careers among them. As I watch the faces in the sky that night, I don't feel anything. Emotion is past me now. Maybe when I got reaped it was there, but now I know what I have to do. All I see are ten out of twenty-three down.
The girl from Ten makes a berzerker rampage on the Careers, kills the girl from Four, but doesn't make it out with her life. She does manage to get her knife into the Careers' water supply, making these Games a heck of a lot shorter. The survivors know that they've got to get moving if they want to even stand a chance of making it out. A lizard attack two days later, though, shows them who's really in charge. Only the violently beautiful girl from One survives, and I find her the next day, mad with thirst, every trace of the stunning body that had the Capitol drooling gone, and replaced by someone who only wants to survive.
It's only when she careens off a cliff do I finally lose the last bit of emotion I have left. I know what I have to do now. There are only five people left. The boy from Twelve dies later that day of thirst.
The other three die by my hand. I will see my family again.
Capitol
When Snow announces the Quell twist, I'm not surprised. Something had to be done about the star-crossed lovers from Twelve. It just seems unfair that we have to pay for it. The Twelves won't lose anyone but each other. Me, I'll be going in next to my friends, people I've known for years. Hell, Garner's been my neighbor for over two decades!
I'm not really surprised either when Woof and Stitch approach me the day we arrive in the Capitol about the rebellion. Half the tributes this year are already in on it, they tell me, and most of the mentors. I ask Stitch what Nina and Camila, our closest friends in the Center said. She just shakes her head. I tell them I'll think about it, knowing full well that I won't say yes.
The day of the Games, I can feel something different in the air. Riding over to the Arena, I'm seated between Volta, who can barely keep his head up, and Gloss, who only stares ahead, stone-faced. Across from me, Blight only shakes his head. We all know what's coming. It's highly likely that half of us will be dead in two hours. The rest probably won't survive the week.
I'd resigned myself to my fate weeks before I saw the Arena, but once I do, I know it's over. I've never been able to swim, plus the fact that I'm standing between Finnick, who looks like he's begging for blood, and Enobaria, who's probably actually begging for blood. As soon as the gong sounds, I jump off my pedestal, furiously kicking just enough to keep myself afloat. After what feels like hours and at least two cannons, I reach the sand. As I climb up, I'm briefly reminded of my old Arena. It's somewhat ironic, actually.
I can already see Volta dead at the mouth, and poor Woof's body draped over one of the spokes. I look around and see my fellow Victors, my friends, either sprinting away or trying desperately to kill each other. I see Johanna and Cashmere crossing axes, Enobaria bearing down on old Seeder, Chaff running for his life from a bloodthirsty Brutus, and even Garner crossing swords with Blight. I turn and see Gloss walking towards me. I sigh.
"Come to finish me off, kid?" I ask, my head held high. He nods.
"Don't talk, old lady. It's over."
I snort. "It's been over since the twist. Heck, it's been over since we all won! You think you're going to change anything by killing me?"
He pauses, clearly hesitant now. "I don't know. But I know my sister's going home. And that means you need to die."
I know he's right. And I do. I die with my head held high, and his sword in my chest. It's quick and painless, nothing like how I thought it would be from him. His last gift of mercy, a painless death. How ironic.