TW: SEX TRAFFICKING

Bariq Fossil - District 5 Male - Age 15

Bariq remembers the day he was adopted by the Fossil family like it was yesterday. He awoke to the sound of clanging pans and heavy footsteps before he opened his eyes to Edwin Bentley, the head of the District 5 orphanage staring him down intensely.

"Bariq!" He was always stern with his tone, which scared Bariq.

"Yes Mr. Bentley."

"You have a home today." Bariq smiled, which was unusual for him.

He was shepherded into the lobby area of the orphanage where two people awaited him. In that moment, he was happy. He was optimistic this would be the start of something new, something better, or at least better than the 11 years he'd spent in the orphanage. The two people, Eleanour and Adam, appeared to be kind. They told Bariq they'd take care of him and give him the best life possible. Fucking liars.

Sure, Eleanour and Adam gave Bariq their last name, Fossil, they also gave him a life that not even the final ring of hell could compete with in terms of despair. To put it lightly, Bariq became a slave. Not the sort of slave that does manual labour, that would be much better, but the kind of slave that was valuable for his body and that only. Bariq was forced to offer his "services" to anyone from Peacekeepers to the ultra-wealthy, and he hated every minute of it. He didn't understand why anyone would want an adolescent prostitute, but questioning it only made it worse.

At least he had Aron and Cosmo, emphasis on had. They had tried to escape a while back, as they too were trafficked, but Eleanour and Adam forced Peacekeepers to retrieve the adopted brothers and when they returned, the unimaginable occurred. Eleanour and Adam said that if the boys returned to live with them, they would face no punishment, and Bariq decided to join them.

"This is your last chance to stay with us," Bariq remembered Adam saying.

Aron and Cosmo shook their heads in disagreement.

"Well don't say we didn't warn you." Adam reached into his back pocket and pulled out a gun. Aron and Cosmo tried to run away but were stopped by Eleanour who had snuck behind them and tied them to a tree. She tied up Bariq too, but instead of pinning him to a tree, she simply tied together his limbs and had him sit on the ground and observe their terror. She took out a gun from her back pocket too, and pointed it at Aron.

"Stop!" Bariq screamed

"Say one more word and you'll be up there too." He started to sob as she shot a single bullet at Aron's head, instantly making his eyes roll back into whiteness and blood start pouring from his head. But she wasn't done yet. She shot another bullet, this time at his chest, and hit the wound with the back of the gun, causing his organs to be exposed. She carefully removed his heart and lungs, then quickly ran into the house then came back outside. Bariq later learned she had put the organs inside the refrigerator because she and Adam had plans to sell them. Adam repeated the same process for Cosmo, who had been screaming throughout Aron's torture. Once Cosmo's organs had been removed, Eleanour and Adam started to hear footsteps.

"Let's go," Adam said, cutting the ropes which bound Bariq. He quickly ran into the house with his wife then locked the door, leaving Bariq stuck outside with his two dead brothers strapped to the tree and two guns at his feet. Bariq debated ending it all for himself, but he didn't have time to make that decision as two Peacekeepers who had presumably heard Cosmo's screams arrived in front of the house, and put Bariq in handcuffs.

"Did you kill those two people?" one asked, gesturing to the bodies.

"No." Bariq was desperate. "My parents did."

"Why should I believe you?"

"Can't you check fingerprints or something?"

"Why would we do that when we know you did it?"

"I didn't! I promise. Are you going to kill me?"

"We can do that," the Peacekeeper said. "Or we can tell everybody what you did and make sure they vote for you."

That option sounded slightly less painful, so Bariq agreed, but deep inside he knew he was so, so fucked.

Wendy Roofer - District 5 Female - Age 18

Wendy could hardly go a day without hearing something along the lines of "Your parents are the reason my dad doesn't have a leg." Wendy had never known her parents, as they were arrested for treason and killed shortly after she was born. She grew up in an orphanage until she was forced on the streets when she was 18, because nobody would adopt "the rebels' daughter." The only thing Wendy did know about her parents was that they fought in the war and were apparently pretty ruthless, as many people blamed Wendy for the pain they caused upon them. It wasn't her fault at all, though, as she was not even conceived when these attacks happened. Apparently, they were really into advocating against the Capitol, and that was honestly something she could get behind considering how badly they messed up her life, despite her never doing anything slightly wrong to them.

Typically, Wendy spent her days scavenging for food, and the day before the Reaping was no exception. She had tried to go the route of hunting for food, then selling it to others, but District 5 was not exactly known for its game, and nobody wanted to buy from her anyways. The workers at the power plants often had scraps of food left over, and she'd fish it out of the dumpster, and wash it off in the well. Was it bad for her? Definitely. But she had no other option if she truly wanted to survive. Speaking of surviving, she was almost certain she'd be forced into the Hunger Games the next day. Obviously she didn't want to but maybe she'd finally be put out of her misery. It's not that Wendy was suicidal or anything, but rather if she was elected, she wouldn't exactly mind all that much. She probably wouldn't get sponsors or anything, but to her that was fine.

The day of the Reaping was also like any other, except she treated herself to a waffle she bought at a café. She had spent two weeks saving up for the waffle by collecting spare change on the ground, and she savored every bite of it. She arrived at the town square early, because she had nothing better to do, and as per usual she was subjected to the vile shouting against her.

"Traitor!"

"You don't belong here."

"I'm glad nobody adopted you."

"Your parents deserved to die."

She was used to all of those insults, but the last one always hit hardest. How could anybody deserve to die for standing up for what they believed in. She imagined she'd probably make a stink about it in the Capitol because of how little she had to lose, but at the same time, she might as well live lavishly. She was sure others had the same opinion.

She wrote down random names, because she didn't know anybody else in the District by name, or well enough, so she took a seat before anybody else did. Once again, the people next to her called her names and were quite awful to her, and once again, she did not care.

Solis Riggs - District 5 Mentor

"Guys! This will be so much fun I promise." Nobody had come to visit the newly elected District 5 tributes, so Solis had decided to use what would be the time for visiting to get a head start on the icebreaker games he would be playing once they boarded the train.

"You really think this is going to be fun, asshole?" It was the first time he'd heard Wendy speak. Sure it was her calling him an asshole, but at this point he'd take what he could get. At least Iphigenia, the District's escort, was getting a kick out of it.

"Solis, there's a 1 in 12 chance they'll both be dead in a week or so." She whispered in his ear, "I don't think they want to play your stupid name game."

"They will," he grunted. "And they'll like it, too."

"I'll start," Iphegenia said after a few more minutes of silence. "Interesting Iphegenia."

She pointed her finger to her head, mocking a teacher. Solis chuckled.

"Silly Solis." He stuck out his tongue and crossed his eyes, "Interesting Iphengenia." He copied her previous motion. She laughed.

"Bariq." She stared at the boy. "Would you like to try?"

He nodded.

"Broken Bariq." He covered his face.

"Oh dear." Iphegenia sighed. Bariq stared her down, and mimicked the previous actions. This was going to be a hell of a few weeks.

Thanks so much for reading Chapter 7 and thanks to Red Castellan and z-fun2001 for Bariq and Wendy. I apologize for the short length of this chapter and how late it is, but I've been going through some personal business and had a lot of work for the end of the school year but I should be good now!

Another thing I did, I created a blog for this SYOT and the link is www . wethepeople25 . weebly . com so I would appreciate you guys telling me what you think.

Best,

Lindsay