II.

Icarus Devereux, 17
Applicant #10

"You're sort of an asshole," he says finally, to the headstone.

Is it wrong of him, to be calling a dead girl names? Does it make it more wrong that he just called the girl he loved an asshole, six months after her death?

Well, she is. Was. And he says that with a great amount of love.

Only one Miss. Estella Rosen would pull this kind of shit on him. Only she would think this far ahead, this many months down the line. Long enough that he can deal but not quite long enough that he hasn't forgotten about all of this. It's like she planned this for a year. Close to it, anyway.

Someone had congratulated him, on his walk home from the store this morning. Congratulated him about getting chosen, whatever the fresh hell that meant. It wasn't until he had returned home that he had gotten it, courtesy of a letter in the mailbox. Again, that stupid congratulations! and he had read the thing three times over before it had really sunk in, what it all meant.

Issue being one thing: he had never applied to the New Haven whatever. In fact, he hadn't even watched the broadcast this morning, when they had announced the final applicants.

Apparently he should have. Apparently one of the names they announced was his.

So he calls. He talks to three different people on the other end of the number attached at the bottom of the letter, all of whom tell him that yes, he did in fact apply, and yes, up until six months ago he was actively replying in accordance with the application.

And yes, he's required to go.

In three days there's a bus coming to collect all the accepted applicants from One. He'll have to walk himself there at six in the morning, provide some sort of identification, and get on the bus. The bus will transport them all to the Capitol, and then something else will take them somewhere else. Apparently that information is classified.

But first of all - a bus? That's how they're doing this? Not a hovercraft, not a plane, but a bus?

If he dies before they get to the Capitol, he won't be surprised.

Until then, for three more days, he's stuck in One, talking to no one except a dead girl. And she isn't so polite as to answer him.

She probably did it for his own good. She knew, damn her, that he'd still be in One long after her parents and sister had packed up and moved back home to the Capitol. His own father calls once a week, like clockwork, and tells him every time that he has a ticked booked for him to get back home. Whether or not that's the truth, because Icarus isn't sure it is, he hasn't yet considered it. In the wave of being perfectly honest, there's not a whole lot there for him. At least not things that he can't get here, where he's safe from his parents and their temperaments, always changing at the drop of a dime.

His father is going to keep calling until Icarus comes back. In fact, he should be calling again tonight.

Icarus almost can't wait, until he can tell him that he's coming back, and then leaving immediately after. Bus or not, it'll be satisfying.

But until then, he's stuck right here in the middle of this dreary, very under-kept cemetery, wondering who the hell owns it for it to look like such a mess. Just because it's a cemetery doesn't mean it has to look like you could die just from walking through the front gates.

He honestly doesn't know what to say, besides you're sort of an asshole, which is rude at worst and underwhelming at best. That's exactly what she would have told him, if he had said that to her face six months ago. But it's a little over six months, now, by just a few days, and there's no point in saying anything else because he has to go, and it's all her fault.

He's gonna have to pay someone to take care of this little plot of land while he's gone, and to do it well.

Her parents didn't really give a shit about him either way, and his own parents still disapprove that he followed them here in the first place, so he can't imagine how that money conversation is going to go, but he always gets it in the end. Regardless of her feeble little feelings, his mother will probably cry if she even imagines that his father is with-holding money for him to live on his own.

That's one thing she's good for, if nothing else.

He stands up. There's a couple the row over, a young girl holding onto her sister's hand across the road. Every single one of them turns to look at him as he rises. There's been a lot of bodies, after the war. A lot of graves. Apparently the living are in short supply in One, these days.

People up and walking tend to draw the eye regardless of how much white they're wearing in the middle of a cemetery.

If only they knew how little they mattered, in the grand scheme of things.

"See you later," he says. Sometimes he still waits for her voice to chime back, but not today. If that was the case, he would have been hearing it all morning.

It's like he said, this will probably be good for him. Estella knew that, or she wouldn't have bothered sending in an application with his name on it. It'll get him out of One, anyway. Hopefully far enough away that all of this fades into a very distant little memory.

He's hopeful, but not terribly optimistic

Isperia Martorell, 16
Applicant #17

Ria's really only got two rules, living under her parents roof.

The first is keep the door open, or at least unlocked. She spends so much time alone down in the basement that most people wouldn't see reason to shutting and locking the door, but she likes the privacy. She likes knowing that there's a barrier between her and whatever's just outside, that she'll have warning if something is about to happen.

The second is to keep the music down. It takes her a long, long minute to realize that the rhythmic pounding is not in fact coming from her headphones.

She pulls them out, and the door shakes again. "Isperia! Door open!"

She forgoes her laptop and scrambles to the end of the bed, leaning precariously over the edge until she can reach the door to unlock it. It comes flying in faster than most normal people would open it - mom, then. Sure enough her mother's face peers in, more excited than anything Ria could ever come up with for her own face. She's not sure how her mother manages it.

"Guess what, sweetheart?"

"What?"

Her mother doesn't say anything, and frantically shakes the manila envelope in her hands. Ria stares at it for a long moment, and finally raises an eyebrow.

"I'm gonna guess that it has to do with whatever's inside the envelope?"

The envelope gets shoved into her hands; the edge is already torn open, and the paper inside crinkled just enough at the edges that it's obvious her parents felt it was their parental right to go rooting through her things. Her name is on the front of the envelope. It's definitely hers. The only issue is she never gets mail, not from anyone. There's no one to send it.

"You got accepted," she announces, her voice too gleeful. Ria doesn't feel an ounce of that glee. "Your father and I we're watching the announcements, and that was in the mail. You've been accepted—"

"What?" she interrupts quietly, a spike of nervous energy suddenly rearing it's ugly head. "Mom, I didn't actually think—"

"Of course we didn't think, but we could hope, Ria. And they chose you! Don't you understand?"

Oh, she understands. She finally pulls the paper out of the envelope. The initial letter isn't all that long, and not the reason for real concern. It's the second paper that gets her going. It's mostly a list of dates and times, locations. Places she'll be going, because she got accepted. Somewhere other than her room and the basement. And to think she didn't even fill out the application herself. Her parents had done most of it, her father's gifted hand at writing and explaining things. She had watched on a a reluctant participant, as they signed a few days of her life away into the middle of nowhere. It still doesn't make sense; nothing her father could make up would sound good enough for a committee to be choosing her. She's a nobody, an outcast, someone that no one likes and that no one bothers with, and for good reason. Even in Three everyone knows where she came from.

She feels like she could throw up. She hasn't left home ever, and certainly not for several days, with a bunch of people she doesn't even know. Just the idea is enough to freak her out; clearly she's not meant for this, and she definitely has no idea how to handle it.

Her mother tugs everything back out of her hands. Knowing her it'll end up framed and hung over the mantle.

"Well, don't dawdle around. You have to get packing, and saying goodbye to your friends."

"I don't have any friends."

"Now, that's not true. What about— um, that boy that lives next door? He's your friend."

"Render's not my friend, mom. Just because he's our neighbor doesn't mean he likes me."

"But he delivers our paper every-day."

"Because that's his job?"

That doesn't appear to do anything to dampen her mother's spirit. "Well, I'll have your father get out one of our extra suitcases. And we're going out for dinner tonight to celebrate - wherever you want."

"You don't have to do that," she starts, but her mom is already gone. If she's going to be spending the next foreseeable amount of days god only knows where, she'd prefer to treasure the time she has with her room while it lasts. Apparently not even that wish of hers can get fulfilled, but what can she expect, when her parents have been ignoring them since the beginning?

It probably won't be as bad as she's making it out to be. There's something to be said about the dramatics of Capitolites even to this day. Maybe she's just making a big deal of it. There will still be things to do for her there, even if actively interacting with the others isn't one of them. Things to learn and to see, things to try. And regardless of her own wishes, it probably isn't the best idea in the world to spend her entire summer holed up in the basement like a human troll. It's definitely not what her parents would like for her to do.

Apparently what her parents what is the number one priority. They filled out the application, and there's no stopping it now. They want her to live her life, fend for herself. Welcome the world with open arms.

She doesn't have to do that, though.

She doesn't have to do anything, not if she doesn't want.

Emmi Langlois, 17
Applicant #13

Emmi can't even remember what school back in the Capitol was like.

It's not even like she's been in Eight that long, either. Only two years, just enough to perfectly adjust to the lifestyle that Eight allowed and to morph it into something better. Into something that wasn't quite so awful as what she went through back home.

Not home. This is home now.

This time of year no one seems to really care in school, no one except her. She's still dressed to the nines - her shirt is a shade of orange that she's sure has been outlawed in one of the outer Districts, topped by her jacket that shifts and sparkles in the sun. And in Eight, no one notices a bit of extra tailoring. No one cares. If you've brought your shirt in to end where you arm does, just at the elbow, no one pays any mind to it.

Some people did, at first. A girl from the Capitol with only one forearm would bring attention anywhere she goes, but Emmi made sure to quell that the second it started. She shut them up. Shoved the negativity away with her existing hand. People in Eight seem to only care about a few things at a time, and usually the eccentricity of her jackets took precedence over the missing forearm.

She sees Ms. Hackett outside her office long before she gets there despite the crowd of people, stapling the list to the corkboard. She had nearly stayed home this morning when she found out she was going to miss the broadcast, only until she had found out about this instead. Of course the school's guidance counselor would care about how they were getting their knowledge - of course she would post it the second she knew.

"Walk any faster and you might overshoot it," Idalia says, nudging her from behind. Trust Idalia to be waiting for her. "Excited, are we?"

Idalia knows that's not the truth of it, and being such a good friend shouldn't have to ask. Emmi only speeds up even more, dragging Idalia along with her to where the paper is pinned. A few people are glancing at it as they pass by, but most of them here aren't Capitol kids. Most of them here couldn't apply in the first place.

Idalia spins her around just before they make it there and gets to the list before she does, cupping her hands over it and giggling obscenely. Emmi sighs and bides her time, letting Idalia look through her hands, giggling all the while.

"So?" she asks. "What's the damage?"

"Well," she says slowly. "It appears that Nadine is going to have to crawl her way up the totem pole some other way. You on the other hand—"

Emmi shoves her friend out of the way, refusing to listen and scrolls a finger down the list. At #13 she finally sees the bright, bolded Emmi Langlois, smack dab in the middle. She forces herself to finish the list even though that's more than enough. She was so worried. She couldn't sleep last night. Everything in her brain kept telling her there was no chance, that there's no way in hell they'd let her go. She didn't even have a reason.

There's definitely no Nadine Quintana on there, though, and Emmi finally allows herself a laugh as well.

"I'm not blind, right?" she asks. "It's really me on there and not her?"

"It really is!" Idalia says. "Dude, this is awesome. You get to go and she doesn't. Serves her right, that bitch. After what she said to you last week? If she had gotten accepted I would have thrown up in my mouth."

Any other person and she would be telling Idalia to shut up, but this is Nadine they're talking about. Nadine who torments everyone and everything that gets in her way, anybody deemed littler than herself. Nadine who won't make a comment about her arm but who will mutter about everything else. She's the definition of a bully, of a true pampered Capitol girl, of someone who says what they wants and doesn't think there will be repercussions.

And maybe this isn't a repercussion, not really, but it's karma coming to serve justice to someone who finally deserves it.

"Did she get in? Did she get in?" she hears from behind her, and Neve dodges around two younger boys ogling the list to shove her way in-between them. She nearly crashes face-first into the list herself, flattening her hand along it and managing to cover up half the names in the process. Emmi draws her back and holds onto her arm so she can't go elsewhere.

"Em!" she cries. "The universe listened to us!"

"The universe listened to you," she insists. "The universe is bullshit to me."

"Not anymore! They chose you!"

And maybe that's the karma of it all. The good karma. She thinks she's been through enough. Not having half an arm from the time she was born, losing her mother, trying to adapt to a new and cruel world that chewed her up and spit her out - maybe this is finally her time. She's spent so much time trying to just be okay with herself, with her situation. Blossoming into someone that could handle it all, unlike the Emmi that existed back in the Capitol.

She has friends now. A school that she can walk the halls of and look people in the eyes without a sense of fear. A home and environment that supports what she does even on the worst of days.

And now she has several days free of Nadine Quintana, even if she would never think of rubbing it in.

Jahaira Aurelion, 16
Applicant #23

Here's the thing about Plainview: it's very plain.

Shocking, right?

She only woke up at the crack of dawn to get a good view of the sunrise far off in the distance; she hopped onto the windowseat at the end of the hall, edged carefully out onto the windowsill, and crawled her way up onto the edge of the sloped roof, where she now resides. It badly needs to be replaced - she's sure Dad knows this, but the stray flecks of shingle are starting to cling to her bare legs every time she sits down up here.

The house isn't very big, anyway. Five or six feet to the ground, low and spread out like a ranch even though there's nothing good to farm. She can dangle her legs off the edge and not fear breaking something if she were to slip off.

Her camera wouldn't suffer such a fate, but she holds onto that more closely than she holds onto herself.

Plainview is plain, that much is true. It also has some of the best sunrises she's ever seen. The only ones, really. She doesn't remember much of them in the Capitol, young as she was, but she knows that their full brilliance was often obscured by the shadows the skyscrapers cast over their homes and the mountains far out where she couldn't see. Even her camera can never quite nail down just how pretty it is in person, no matter what she changes. Her settings, the angles, the time... it'll always look better to the naked eye.

But that doesn't mean she can't try. The Haywood's down at the register expressed interest in publishing some of her pictures in the paper, something about tourism on their lips, and she had instantly tuned it out in favor of thinking where she should head. Perhaps the old restored bank just around the corner, or the golden fields just outside of the city limits, or those towering sunflowers Mrs. Nunez grew out in her front garden three houses down. She could make anything look good.

Most things, anyway. Some days Plainview tried its hardest to ruin even the best of them.

Like today, almost. The sky was slightly clouded over, the wisps of them in the sky. It was like she was looking at it through glasses fogged up by a heavy dose of steam. She still raised her camera up to take a few quick shots anyway. Sometimes the best shots came from the times you least expected; some of her favorites came from moments in time she hadn't expected to capture anything at all.

If she could become a big-time photographer that was a job, and one that she could love - if she could find the beauty in things that people normally didn't find beautiful at all then that was a dream.

A few of the kids at school had teased her for that, at how she talked about the New Haven Program like it was a single part of a larger dream, but that was it, wasn't it? This was the chance to make one of the most horrific things in history worth looking at. She wasn't stupid - there would be no making something like the Games look beautiful, no way in hell. But even the worst things deserved to be captured. Remembered.

"Are you up here again, JJ?" she heard, and the voice floated all the way up from the window and into the wispy pink sky. She tucked her camera away into the cranny behind the chimney and crawled back to the edge of the roof, where she could reach her little sister's struggling hands. She pulled Raelle up onto the roof next to her and far away from the edge.

"Don't tell mom and dad," she insists, and Raelle nods like always. "How are you this lovely morning, Raerae?"

"Good," she answers. "Are you excited?"

"If the time ever comes, sure."

Another problem with Plainview: their broadcasts were always last to show up. It must be hard to get such information out to a place like this. Maybe she'll never know if she got accepted to the Program, and they'll only figure it out when they have twenty-three people show up instead of twenty-four.

She leans back against the chimney and Raelle flops over her legs like a cat, stretching out her pajama clad legs into the sun. She takes another picture, this time of her sister's face turned up to the sun, eyes becoming slits as she looks towards the horizon.

"It's pretty," she decides.

"You think so?"

She can see the beauty in anything where most people can't, but even Raelle must be outshining her this morning brighter than the sun itself, because this sunrise isn't one of the best. There's too many clouds, a few dark ones gathering right where the sun would normally start to pour over the outer fields.

Then again, when has six year old Raelle seen anything other than Plainview's sunrises? She never saw the rays reflect off the glass buildings of the Capitol, the shards of light raining down on the streets people. She's never seen the sun from the tallest building in Panem, peeking up in-between two mountains.

Chances are she never will.

"Yeah, it is," she repeats, resting her head on Jahaira's leg. "I like the pink."

A six year old response, beautiful and simple. Jahaira doesn't have the heart to tell her that the pink is slowly starting to bleed away into red and that it won't be her favorite color for much longer. It's all she can do not to think about their father's business trips to Four back in the day and all the trinkets he brought back for them. Pieces of sea glass and shells strung up on twine, the painted empty home of a hermit crab.

And the phrase that he never seemed to stop saying, something that she guaranteed she would hear when the two of them finally returned inside.

"Red sky at night, sailor's delight," she murmurs. "Red sky at morning, sailor's warning."

"What's that mean?" Raelle asks, not lifting her head up. She combs some of her sister's hair away from her face and lets out a deep breath, letting the sun soak into her skin. It may not be the prettiest thing in the world, but she'll enjoy it. For Raelle. For herself.

It's not the worst thing in the world to look at.

"Nothing," she replies. "Nothing at all."

I named a chapter Red Sky At Morning, once. I also killed three people in it so I'm not entirely sure what that says about me.

Let me know your thoughts on this one, as well! Started bloodbath organization these past few days, whew. Forgot what a ride that was.

Until next time.