Vladimir Licht,18, District 6 male
I rest my back against the surface of the cold alleyway wall, one of my feet propped up against it and I look up into the dark sky as I exhale smoke from my mouth. The smoke floats up into the sky and disperses becoming a part of the air and I look around the dark alleyway where I'm standing, but still no sight of anything. I let out an impatient grunt and take another long puff of my cigarette before exhaling it into the air. For as long as this fucker is taking, he better have my money or a really good fucking excuse why he doesn't. I'm not playing along with this shit anymore. He's gonna cough something up or I'm ending him right here.
Both of my parents died when I was twelve, I eluded the orphange system unlike my sister Ingrid who's two years younger than me, and survived the next three years by stealing what I needed. I soon got involved with morphine dealing gangs in the district and rose through the ranks becoming the leader of the top gang in this district, The Reapers. I'm also a loanshark, I lend out money often and I set a firm deadline I expect you pay me by. I always demand to be paid in double the amount I lent you aswell and most people get the message and pay me back double before the deadline. Those that didn't though, well let's just say they were found in a cold alleyway like this one with several bullets in their head.
I take another long puff of my cigarette and I hear hesitant footsteps coming towards my direction. I exhale some more smoke and see the person I'm looking for come into view, and I can already tell by the look on his face that he's going to have another bullshit excuse. This guy's name is Tito. He borrowed money from me several times before and always paid me back, but I lent him some more money two weeks ago and set a one week deadline. At the end of the week he told me he needed another week but that he'd give me three times the amount I lent him.
At this point I usually just blast them in the head several times with my silenced handgun, but he paid me back several times before and I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I dab my cigarette on the cold wall putting it out, and I lean off the wall and start walking towards him as i give him a cold look.
"H-h-hey Vladimir…" Tito stutters but I only give him an impatient look.
"Where's my money?" I immediately ask as I walk closer to him and I see him trembling in fear.
"Vladimir, i-I'm working on it, just please give me a little bit more time." he pleads.
I immediately grab his neck with one hand though and he chokes as I slam him against the hard brick wall and he cries in pain.
"I'm going to ask you one last time, where is my money?" I sternly ask.
"P-please Vladimir, I just had a son! please! I had to use the money to take care of him, but I'm working on it, just give me another two weeks, give me another two weeks and I promise you'll be paid in full!" he pleads.
I'm not hearing this anymore. I immediately punch him in the mouth four times as blood begins streaming from his mouth and he cries out as he begins falling to the ground, but I immediately grab him and slam him into the wall again, delivering four upper cuts into his body and he cries out again and falls to the ground where i start stomping his head repeatedly.
"Stop! Stop! Please! Please don't kill me! My little boy! He needs me! He needs a dad!" Tito begs.
I only keep a scowl on my face as I reach into my pocket and pull out my suppressed handgun taking the safety off.
"You think I give a shit about that? Hell right after I finish you off, I'm gonna go pay your lady and your boy a visit, who knows you might even end up seeing them on the other side soon!" I threaten him and he cries out one last time before I put three bullets in his skull and spit on his body before walking away and making my way towards his girlfriend's house.
Another man dead by my hands and I feel absolutely nothing. Took my first life when I was fifteen. It was a hit and a way of proving my loyalty to my gang. The task was simple, just take out a member of a rival gang that competed against us. I stood right outside the nightclub he was in and after he left, followed him into an alley way and put a bullet in his skull. I looted his pockets for whatever cash and drugs he had, and that was it. Even back then, I stlll felt nothing.
I remember one of my gang members telling me
"The first time you kill someone. you either sleep at night, or you don't."
That night I took my first life, I slept like a fucking baby.
I reach the small building his girlfriend Esther lives in and I light up another cigarette and make my way up to the third and last floor of the building she lives in and waste no time banging on the door as I put my cigarette out and throw it on the floor. The banging scared the baby and I can hear him screaming through the door. He found that scary? Oh this little fucker has no idea what he's about to witness.
"T-tito is that you?" I hear Esther ask through the door.
"Where's my fucking money?" I bark through the door.
"Vladimir, oh god, oh god w-where's Tito?" she sputters.
"Open the damn door and give me my money, or I'll just kick it down and raid your place, whatever you prefer!" I threaten.
"W-what did you do to Tito? Where is he? He told me he's going to give it to you in two weeks!" Esther cries but I lose my patience and easily kick through this weak wooden door that's no match for me and I see Esther partially dressed with a knife in her hand as her son is in the crib across from her crying.
"Get away!" She screams as she tries to stab me but I grab her arm with one hand and slap her in the face with my other and she shrieks in pain as she falls to the floor and I stomp on her forearm, hearing a pop before she lets out a bloodcurling scream. I'm drawing a lot of noise but I don't give a flying shit if an army of peacekeepers show up. I'll take them all on. No matter how stacked the odds are against me, I will fight, no matter if it kills me or if I can live another day because of it. Only weak cowards run away when faced with adversity and I have no respect at all for those kinds of people.
I notice she's wearing a gold necklace with a matching ring though. She wasn't wearing this two weeks ago, so this is where my money went. He wanted to treat his lady like a queen, heh how "cute."
"So let's try this again, where is my fucking money!? Say something I don't like and I'll put a bullet in the skulls of you and your son, think I give a shit about either of you?" I raise my voice.
"T-take it! Take it! The necklace! The ring!" and she pulls off her jewelry and throws it on her floor. Well I can pawn this and it should be enough to cover for everything he owes me. I quickly scoop up the jewelry and put it in my pocket.
"If only Tito was as cooperative as you, he'd still be drawing breath!" I say in a sinister tone, and before she can fully react, I pistol whip her in the face knocking her unconscious and leave the apartment. The door to her next door neighbor's apartment swings open but I quickly punch him across the face and his body goes limp as he falls to the floor, and his head slams against it with a crack. He should've just stayed inside and pretended he didn't hear anything.
I march my way towards the pawn shop and just curse under my breath as I think about the world I live in. This fucking world, just nothing but death, violence and hate. There's no changing it, there's no way of making the world a better place. There will always be hate and that always leads to violence and death, so why not become part of the problem? Why should anyone even try to give a shit? Wanna "cure" cancer? Become cancer! Yeah I'm a monster, but if you want to survive in this world, a monster is what you need to be!
I storm into the pawnshop as I slam the jewelry on the counter. I frequent this place often whenever I loot jewelry off my many rivals. The owner of this shop though, he never tries to make small talk with me. I give him the jewelry, he gives me the money. It's not any different now. He examines the jewelry, test it, goes into his register and hands me the money for it. This'll cover Tito's debt. I count the money again and put it in my pocket before leaving and head towards my sister's house.
My sister remained in the orphange while I roamed the streets. We both chose our separate paths. I make my living off the streets, while she's in school and working as a mechanic. Me and her aren't close, but I visit her sometimes where we just exchange a few words and i leave her some money before we go our separate ways again. I knock on the door and my sister Ingrid opens it several moments later.
"Oh…Vladimir." She mumbles.
She know the things I do, and whenever someone goes missing or is found in an alley full of bullets, she knows I'm behind it.
"Vladimir, you have blood all over you, did anyone see you?" Ingrid asks as she pulls out a chair for me at her table and I sit down.
"What's it to you? You act like this is anything new." I grumble and she only sighs.
"Look you chose your path Vladimir alright? Mom and dad got killed for the same shit you're doing, but apparently that doesn't matter to you. Now I'm actually trying to live a decent life, I don't want any of this…stuff you're doing being traced back to me, just be aware of your surroundings when you come here to visit me." she scolds me and I only snort in response as I split the money I earned in half and put one half in my pocket and the other half on the table.
"I don't want your blood money Vladimir, i heard about what you did to that gang the other day, how you and your buddies just gunned them down!" she dismisses the money on the table and I begin lighting up a cigarette before taking a puff of it and exhaling.
"Heh! You live by the sword, you die by the sword. They killed one of my best men and i just showed them what happens when you mess with me or my gang. you're right though, you don't want it, but you need it. Just accept it, It's just the world we live in." I take another puff of my cigarette.
"Yeah and just how much longer are you going to blame the world for the things you're doing? At some point you need to start taking responsibility for your own actions!" She scolds me again and I only disregard her as I take in another puff.
"Anyways Vladimir, you're my brother. I'll still always have some love for you, but I think it'll be for the better if we just stop seeing each other, you just bring nothing but negativity and death whenever you come here. I don't need that in my life Vladimir, not any more." she confesses and I only give her an irritated look.
"So what are you saying?" I growl as my dark blue eyes burn into her light blue eyes.
"I'm saying you need to leave, and I don't want to see you again!" she says impatiently, I quickly jump to my feet and get in her face, I can see fear starting to spread across her face as she trembles slightly but stands her ground.
"And if I don't?" I hiss in her face.
"What're you gonna do Vlad? Are you going to hit me? are you gonna fill me up with bullets like I'm some rival in the streets?" She hisses back at me and I lose my patience as i throw a punch and she quivers in fear as it lands on a flower vase that was on the counter next to her and it immediately shatters and falls all over the floor as she gasps. This was our mom's favorite flower vase...
"Get out! Get the hell out! Just go out there and fucking die!" She yells at the top of her lungs as her eyes water and I shoot her a glare before walking out of her house. She slams the door behind me and I can hear her sobbing as i start walking back to my house that I share with my friend Seth, who introduced me to this ordeal.
It's for the better that ingrid cut me off. She now knows how to survive on her own. She doesn't need anymore of my blood money and negativity, shes ok now and I no longer have to worry about her well being. If i died, I'd atleast be at peace knowing she's ok.
Rylee Turbin,16, District 6 female
My breathes get heavier and heavier as I can feel sweat beginning to exit my pores and my cravings begin. My eyes suddenly shoot open as I breathe heavily and lean over to my dresser and grab my bottle of morphine which only has one capsule left. I quickly ingest the last capsule and lay back down on my bed as my breathing begins slowing down and I'm finally relaxing again. This is my life, this is how I live everyday, doing morphine and doing whatever I can to get more. I turn my head to look out the window and I see it's daytime. Those reapings are today… it's going to be real hard to get some morphine later so I should probably go and try to get more right now.
I slowly sit up on my bed, still in the same oversized white T-shirt and dirty stained jeans I've been wearing for the last few days. I go into the restroom and look at myself in the mirror and I just feel like crying. I'm of average height, but my once pale skin is now wrinkled and darkened. My hair is very messy, short and dyed red, I'm extremely skinny as I rarely ever eat and my eyes are a bloodshot red. Tears stream down my eyes and I begin bursting out crying. I used so be so beautiful.
My mom gave me and my brother up for adoption shortly after he was born. I was five at the time. No one would adopt us so we were sent to the orphanage instead and we remained there until I was thirteen. That's when I started getting involved in illegal activities and I eventually joined a gang called the crazy eights. It was around this time that me and my brother got kicked out of the orphange as I was affiliated with a gang and they had a zero tolerance policy for that. We just went back to my mother's old abandoned house and lived there ever since. The crazy eights were just a small gang that committed petty crimes like vandalism, we grew more popular though and we eventually started selling morphine, doing home invasions and we were able to compete against other gangs in the district. Each gang intially had their own territory in the district, but morphine is addicting and sells like crazy. It was only a matter of time before rival gangs started crossing into each other's territories and a huge gang war broke out just a few days ago. My gang was quickly gunned down by the the number one gang in this district, after my stupid gang members killed a high ranking member there and stole his morphine.
I've been with the gang for about three years, but I didn't even know a single one of their names as we called each other by numbers. The gang was strictly business, we never hung out or got to know each other better. I was number eight and I have tattoos of the number eight covering both of my arms to flaunt it. It all happened so suddenly, we were just at our hideout celebrating our first big catch as we literally had pounds of morphine from the bag that the guy we killed was carrying. We were going to get high with most of it but we were also going to sell some.
We were all in the hideout getting high and suddenly gunshots started piercing our door. A bullet immediately landed in our leader's head and killed him instantly and the rest of the reapers stormed in, gunning everyone down. I got a look at one of them before I escaped through the window. Vladimir who's the leader of the reapers. I saw that scowl on his face as he filled my gang members with lead.
After escaping through the window, I ran for my life. They chased me for a little while but they eventually just let me escape. Afterall they had all of our drugs, money and I was left with nothing. These last few days have been tough, having to choose between getting high or feeding my brother. I love my brother so much, but I can't control myself, I need to get high, I need to feel it...
I sneak out of my house not wanting to wake my brother up and I can feel my body twitching as I walk as quickly as I can to the morphine guy. I see a girl around my age passing by me and she only gives me an odd glance.
"W-w-what? H-huh? T-t-the fuck you're looking at? H-huh?" I struggle to get out of me with my hoarse voice. Due to using morphine for so long as I can hardly speak a coherent sentence. I usually always stutter like this when I try to speak.
"Oh please no one's even worried about your morphead ass!" The girl spits at me.
"W-what y-you said? I'll kick y-y-your f-fucking ass you d-dumb ass!" I yell at her with my hoarse and strained voice.
"You sound real stupid you know that? Go back to school, they might teach you how to talk right!" The girl laughs at me.
"Y-y-you know who I am? D-d-do you know w-what g-gang I used to r-r-run with!? Y-y-you b-better stay in your f-fucking lane!" I threaten her but she only rolls her eyes and walks away. I only hold my head down, feeling my eyes water as I continue walking. I don't know how I should act around people. My physcial and mental weakness made me extremely insecure and gave me a low self-esteem. Trying to act tough on the streets like I just did with this girl, it's the only thing i could do to hide how weak and helpless i truly am. I do want a friend though, someone I can hang out with and talk to, but no one wants to be friends with an addict…
I reach the morphine guy who's standing in a corner and slaps a five with another guy who just bought off him and he looks at me.
"Damn girl! you looking worse and worse each day." He insults me but I pay it no mind.
"L-l-look, I n-n-need some, I need some morphine, I need it right n-n-now p-please!" I beg him.
"Damn calm down, I got the morphine, but what kind of money you carrying on you?" he asks with a look of disgust. My body twitches and I sniff and rub my nose before sticking my thins arms into my pocket and feel a little bit of loose change. I quickly pull it out and offer it to him. I could buy a piece of bread for my brother with this, but I can't…
"T-this is all I h-h-have!" I stutter and he keeps a disgusted look on his face as he hesitantly pick the coins out my hand.
"This is only enough for two capsules." He informs me.
"C-c'mon you can't give me five a-a-atleast? P-please! I-i'll do anything!" I beg.
"Anything like what?" He asks with an even more disgusted face as he knows where this is going.
"I-I'll let you d-do anything to me, A-anything, I'll get on m-my k-knees and g-go down on you r-r-right now if you w-want!" I continue begging.
"Eww bitch! take these two capsules or get the hell outta here! I'll slap dogshit out of you if you ever speak to me like that again!" he threatens and tears run down my eyes.
"O-o-ok I'm s-sorry, j-just give me the two capsules." I cry and he throws the two capsules on the ground before walking away. I immediately get on my knees and scrape up the capsules and ingest them.
I walk back home to my brother Scrap and see him on the couch, dressed in a white button up shirt and black pants I bought for him, back when I had some money.
"G-g-good morning!" I greet Scrap as I hug him and he only groans.
"Rylee I'm so hungry…" he cries and my heart drops. I don't have anymore money and I don't know when's the next time I can get food for him. I might have to take out tesserae afterall.
"I know, me too." I sniff as I wipe my eyes.
"When can we eat? Please, it's been days!" he cries.
"I k-know, I k-know. I-i'll t-try to find us some f-food t-today! I promise!" I hug him tightly.
I'm going to have to steal from a store or invade someone's house, my brother needs to eat. Right after the reapings, I'm going to try and find some food for him.
We head to the square afterwards and i give Scrap another hug before I get my finger pricked and go off into the sixteen year old female section. I make sure to glare all of the girls next to me so they won't see how weak I am.
"Gosh she smells." I hear a whisper behind me and I immediately turn around to the girl who just said that.
"W-w-what you just said?" I bark at her.
"I said you smell, when's the last time you washed your clothes?" the girl curled her nose and I quickly punch her across the face as she falls on the ground and begins crying.
"Who e-else w-wants s-some! H-huh!? I-I'll f-fuck all of you up! T-try me!" I threaten and the girls seem intimidated as they back up and give me space. I can already see peacekeepers making their way towards me and they immediately grab both my arms and start dragging me to the stage. I'm too weak to fight back, but why are they dragging me to the stage?
The peacekeepers literally throw me onto the stage and I jump back up to my feet and I look around me. I can hear my little brother crying and I see the escort Perona and the five living victors only giving me an odd look.
"So you're Rylee Turbin! Any volunteers?" Perona peeps but the only response is my brother's crying.
I was reaped? No…no who is going to take care of my brother scrap? How is he going to survive all by himself? My eyes begin watering and soon tears start coming down my face.
"Time for the boys!" Perona peeps again as she hops over to the boys bowl in her rabbit costume and pulls out another name.
"Vladimir Licht!" she calls and my eyes widen, No it can't be! Vladimir?
Within moments I see Vladimir emerge from the eighteen year old male section with a confident look on his face, like he just know he's going to be able to win this. He's 6'1 tall, Jet black hair which frames his face and is slightly longer on the left side with his dark piercing blue eyes. He's wearing a black leather jacket, a plain red t-shirt, ripped jeans with black boots and walks up to the stage glaring me. I feel my entire body trembling, He recognizes me…he knows who I am.
"Wow a very strong man! District six might have a victor this year!" Perona compliments him, but he only continues glaring me. Even when I try to look away from him, I can still feel his eyes burning right through me.
"No need to ask for Volunteers! Shake hands you two! You're representing district six this year!" Perona shouts in joy, but Vladimir only lights a cigarette and blows smoke in my face before walking away and I can still feel my body trembling. I know he's going to come right after me and there's not going to be anything I could do about it. He's going to kill me…I'm going to die!
Here's district 6! Vladimir and Rylee! Let me know what you think! We're now officially over half way done with the reapings and i love each character I've introduced so far! Anyways i have no idea which district is up next, I'm just gonna draw a number from a hat and take it from there. I still haven't introduced everyone yet obviously, but so far who do you think has the best chance of walking out alive?
I'm gonna continue plowing through these reapings! Till next time!