i lay down in the grass and tell you
"be careful, my dear," my voice
soft, and quiet, because i know
that no one wants to hear this
"this world collects souls, and ours
are not safe from the harvest"

Natalia Orson (14)

District Five

Natalia woke up in pitch black, and her heart seemed to pick up like an engine revving to life. She couldn't see anything. Couldn't feel anything except the concrete floor underneath her and wall behind her. Couldn't feel anything except the moist, cool air of a basement.

She couldn't remember anything. She couldn't remember how last night went. Shit— Shit—

She stood up and felt for something to hold onto, to guide herself with. The wall was as good as any, and she slowly walked her way around the room. There was nothing for two whole turns, and then she bumped into a little table, and what felt like a wooden chair. She navigated around it, slowly, and then found stairs. Up, quietly, as quietly as possible, because if she was where she thought she was—

Oh, fuck, why was she so sticky? What was this—?

The door. She opened it slowly, grateful that it was unlocked, thank goodness, thank the fucking universe—

She put a hand on her chest, and her shirt was stiff, and wow, it was dark up here, too; blinds all closed on windows, windows far away from her in this hallway. There was no sound. Just the rapid beating heart deep in her chest. It sounded like a drumbeat in this empty house.

Okay, find a way out. Find a way out. She didn't know if she was saying this out loud, she was just reeling, walking, her head dizzy, spinning—

Oh. She could see now. She was covered in blood, that was what was so sticky, so stiff on her shirt. Okay. Okay, get out first. She wasn't hurt—or maybe she was, but it was probably okay right now. She needed to get out. Find Silas. Just find Silas.

Another door. Good. Another door. She went over to it, quickly, and it didn't hurt to run, it didn't hurt to do anything except for think when she was pretty sure she was hyperventilating and she felt pretty certain that something was behind her and she was going to die.

Once she was outside, she felt like collapsing. She was in the outskirts of town, where she figured she was. The woods out back of this house last night had felt safe, with ten other people she knew gathered together by flashlight, waiting for her so they could do something stupid. Something stupid and dangerous, but it was okay, it should've been okay.

Silas didn't live far from here. Just on the other side of this patch of woods. She just had to get there. And it didn't matter what questions they asked her, because she honestly didn't know the answers. So it was okay, she was safe, she'd be okay.

She stumbled through the woods, hardly watching where she was going, hardly seeing tree trunks and limbs laying out in front of her. When Silas's house came into view, she picked up the pace, nearly falling more times than she placed an actually steady footstep, but she got there, she got there.

She barely had to knock on the door before Silas opened it for her, and immediately his eyes widened.

"Natalia…?"

She broke down, gasping between sobs as she tried to tell him she woke up in that basement, but nothing she got out was at all comprehensible.

Silas guided her into the house, brought her into the bathroom before his parents could see what state she was in. She sat at the edge of the tub filled with water and put her face in her hands, trying to breathe deeply to stop the crying. She didn't even know why. She couldn't remember what happened, she couldn't remember.

"Natalia," Silas said, reaching out to her with a wet rag. He must have gotten it wet in the sink, and she didn't even notice. "What happened? Where the hell did you go last night? You scared the shit out of us, and now you're— you're covered in blood, and you're not talking, and you're freaking me out."

"I know!" she said, looking up at him. "I know, I know, I get that, okay? But I don't know what happened. I just woke up down there."

"Everyone was scared shitless, you know," he told her, and his eyebrows were creased in the way they always were when he was scared. Her stomach was twisted in knots. "Fuck, Nat, you can't just disappear on us and come back covered in blood."

"I don't know what happened!" she said. "I don't know why. They must have caught me."

He shook his head. "Nat, if they'd have caught you, you'd be covered in your own blood, and you don't look hurt to me."

"Okay, so, what?" she asked, honestly wondering if he could come up with some kind of explanation. "I go to get the drugs, don't bring them, and a little cloud of blood rain drives me down to the basement?"

He turned a glare at her. "Don't be an ass. Something must've happened on the way there."

She shook her head. That made some sense, but she didn't know what the hell would happen, especially if she didn't come back all night long. They had planned this ridiculous night-before-the-reaping Fuck Everything Party for months, had run through how she was going to sneak in to get their drugs. But they hadn't planned for something happening to her on the way, because that was just ridiculous.

"I've got to go home," she said shakily, although she was sure her parents weren't worried. But her clothes were still stiff and bloodied and it was starting to make her feel sick and dizzy. She couldn't worry about this anymore. She just had to go—

Silas grabbed her arm before she could disappear and sat her back down on the edge of the bath. "No, Nat, I don't think you should." He looked down at her from where he was standing, seeming to tower over her like the skyscrapers you could see in the Capitol, or the crumbling, abandoned ones you could see in mid-District Five. "I'll get you something to change into. If you're not here when I come back, I swear I'll— I'll be pissed."

He left the bathroom and she was alone, staring at the eggshell walls. Her breath was still coming quicker than normal and her heart was slowly digging its way out of her chest like stories of prisoners digging out of their cells with spoons. She shut her eyes and felt it all at once, felt the sticky clothes, felt the way nothing was really cleaned off of her, felt the empty gap from the night before. It swallowed her down a deep pit and she swam in the confusion, the fear.

It'd just be funny. Haha, how'd she end up in a basement? But the fucking blood, the fucking blood—that scared the shit out of her.

She heard talking outside, Silas telling his parents that Natalia had come over before the reapings. Like it was normal, friends just supporting themselves before something terrifying. And they had done this before, the first year they were in the reapings. It made sense, it could make so much sense if she weren't actually panicking, if she weren't actually wondering if she had hurt someone.

She couldn't do that. She was tiny. Scrawny. Fourteen. But some of the people she was trying to steal from, they weren't much better off than she was.

He brought clothes back in to her, from his younger sister. Nat was small enough she'd fit into them. Once he was back out so she could change, she stripped down and scrubbed her skin until it was raw and no longer sticky with the feeling of someone else's blood plastered on her. It reminded her sickeningly of a coat of paint.

She slipped on the button up and skirt when she was clean enough and looked down at herself. Presentable, but she still felt grimy, like the blood was lingering millimeters above her skin, brushing against her when she moved. Kind of like when she felt a bug against her skin, and after that everything that tickled her made her jump thinking it was another one.

She stepped out of the bathroom braiding her hair, wanting it out of her face. It needed washed.

Silas put a hand on her back and guided her into his room. She sat down on his bed and watched him start to pace with his hands on the back of his neck. "Okay, we figure this out after the reaping," he told her. He faced her and pointed at her directly. "But I say we just don't do anything. We don't know what happened, you don't remember. So, hell, nothing must've happened. A weird fluke. Got me?"

Natalia felt like Silas grew up a little bit when they started messing around with things beyond them. He already had to take care of his sister all the time because his parents were never not working to put food on the table.

"How can you just do this?" she asked, her voice small. She wiped at her eyes again. Was it something that came with growing up too soon, making these split decisions, wiping something away like the world was pliable?

He took a step forward and knelt down in front of her, taking her hands. "I just don't want any trouble, Nat. I want whatever this is to go away."

She looked into his eyes for a long moment, trying to see past the irises and into his soul. They were supposed to be a window, after all. But Silas's seemed a little bit more like a brick wall.

The crowd of the reaping was the last thing she needed. Waiting in line to register felt like she was being watched from all angles. Maybe someone out there knew what had happened the night before. Maybe she wasn't safe out in the open like this. As if she could do anything about that, though.

Silas stood behind her the whole way. When they got there, she saw Rose, who gave her a brief smile. Rose was two years older than both of them, and was the one who let two kids into their reckless group. Natalia would have thought that she would be a little more interested in finding out what happened to her after she disappeared the night before.

She didn't think "Rose" was even her name. She was always so shady, but super sweet when she needed to be. Unfortunately, Natalia fell for the super sweet act 100% of the time it was dished out to her.

"Nat," Silas said behind her, and she realized she hadn't seen the line move forward. She came up to the Peacekeeper sitting at the registration table.

"Name."

"Natalia Orson."

One little pinprick and away she was sent into the masses of kids certain today would lead to their doom. They all seemed so naive now when she had more pressing things on her mind. Even with all the tesserae she took, there were thousands of names in those bowls. And she had just woken up in a basement in the woods covered in blood. No deity was that cruel.

The fourteen-year-olds were humming with anxious chatting. She could never perfectly see the stage over the heads of all the people older than her, and she didn't want to anyway. Ever since she was little, seeing the faces of the people about to be sent off into the Games had given her nightmares. Even the ones who were stoic, who didn't cry, were so fucking terrifying it sent chills down her spine. She remembered one year when a twelve-year-old cooperated perfectly, walking up to the stage the moment his name was called. He hadn't cried or even had watery eyes. He just looked like he had been called to do an upsetting task at school. He haunted her the most, especially since she remembered him dying first in the bloodbath.

She and Silas never spoke before reapings, not since the first year when they were stunned into silence by being guided into roped-off areas like livestock from District Ten. Now it was just routine for them to be silent, to just exist in the same space: shoulders touching, immovable against the writhing, whispering hoard of people around them.

This year, it felt different. There was a secret in the small space that kept their shoulders from touching as they normally did. There was the sound of Got me? echoing in her head, a reminder. Don't say anything. Let it slip away, like Silas said, like Silas wanted.

She daydreamed all through Mayor Grantwood's reading of the Treaty of Treason, and his softspoken words to the tributes soon to be reaped for the Quell. He always seemed like the kind of man who had a warm heart—a little piece of the sun, she always said.

That sun was extinguished with the excitable voice of Dmitri Waterfell taking the reins. He looked as striking as he always did—and of course, striking was more about a fucking shock to the eyes than anything quite fashionable. This year's outfit was bright yellow, the v-neck cut very low down on his waxed, muscled chest. She had heard that Rose's best friend, Lex, had a huge crush on Dmitri. Everyone got a huge laugh from that.

She felt like she was watching herself laugh about Lex's crush on Dmitri from afar. She could see herself at the party last night, grinning and slipping into conversation with the older kids like it was her favorite shirt. It fit just right, even as they asked her to risk her life for a little something to drink.

"Well, my lovely District Five," he called, and his voice danced in her ears like sounds did when she was high. She put a hand on her chest and it kind of felt like someone was tapping at a wall that she had placed her hand on. But it had slowed down and she could think again, however disconnected her brain was from her thought process. "I've missed you this last year! You think we can start a winning streak here?" He grinned like he was telling a joke. Behind him, this year's mentor grimaced.

Owen Eleksi had only been out of the Games for a year and was already going to be training another set of kids to die. And this year, deaths were almost certain. No way they were lucky enough to win two years in a row. Maybe that was the reason why he was ushered straight into the business.

Natalia looked over at Silas, feeling him stiffen and realizing that at some point they had pushed together instinctively as they had done from the day they were sentient enough to want friends.

"Does he ever know what he's saying?" he whispered, and her chest tightened with the smallest chuckle. The Capitol may have had resources and may not have had to send their children off to die every year, but the districts still had one thing over them: the power to make fun of how absolutely fucking ridiculous they were.

"Everyone cross your fingers for a winner!" Dmitri cried as he stepped over to one of the bowls without announcing who would go first. But the righthand side was always boys, to account for District Five's forgetful escort. He stuck his hand in the stack of names, looking up at the clouds. The sky was really blue, but it was still kind of sticky out in the air that day. She felt grounded as she realized that the humidity was making her feel a little bit like she was breathing in syrup.

Dmitri drew a name out of the glass and opened the piece of paper. Then he looked out into the crowd with a confident glint in his eyes. "Everyone, this feels like one lucky slip of paper. Aren Turing!"

Silence was even harder to breathe than the thick air, but soon a quiet shifting occurred in one of the older groups of people. Natalia could hear a choking sound, and realized that the boy who stepped out into the aisle was crying. He walked very slowly because she didn't see his head pop up above the older kids for longer than usual. He was quickly trying to wipe the tears out of his eyes, but also was producing enough that it was a waste of time.

Crying wasn't the worst. She could see this guy's tears and rest better knowing that the quiet look in that twelve-year-old's eyes years ago would still bring her worse but more familiar nightmares.

Maybe that was horrible, but maybe she was a murderer, too, so Natalia decided that she didn't play in maybes today.

Dmitri put a hand on Aren Turing's back and rubbed for a second as he asked for volunteers, which only seemed to send him into worse hysterics. Oh, poor guy. He would have an awful time getting sponsors like that. She wondered how showing up to the reaping covered in blood would fare with sponsors, and with that she wanted to laugh and throw up at the same time.

"And for the ladies now," Dmitri announced, with a dramatic flare and a show of sticking his hand into the girls' bowl. Every single one of his movements was a production. He drew out a name and unfolded it, reading it over again before announcing to the crowd. The name sang out as loud as the first, but she couldn't hear it. Her ears were ringing too loud, and for a moment she wondered if a bomb had gone off right next to her.

No, the bomb just sounded strangely like the name "Natalia Orson."

Silas's shoulders crumpled and he sank against her almost, a hand around her elbow, begging her not to go.

She couldn't hear anything at all now, except for little snippets of what Silas was saying. Everyone in the square would be able to hear him crying to her. Even Aren Turing had calmed enough to listen.

"Natalia, no— no, someone volunteer— Nat—"

A bigger boy next to Silas pulled his hand off of her arm and the girl in front of her started to make a path for her to go up to the stage. People parted around her, made a path to her grave.

The stage happened before she noticed she had walked up to it, and once she was next to Dmitri, she sat down. In the middle of the reaping stage, she sat down, hyperventilating so hard she was dizzy and sick to her stomach with it.

"Oh… Miss Orson?" Dmitri's hand was outstretched, and he anxiously wiggled it. She didn't take it, but when Aren Turing offered a hand to help her up, she took it with both of her own.

Slowly she came to her feet and shut her eyes, focusing on staying upright as Dmitri droned on. It could have been millennia before he finished speaking so she could be ushered off to the Justice Building, but if it was, she was tucked securely into the black pit she made inside her own mind. It looked suspiciously like the silent blackness of this morning's basement surprise.

The goodbyes would last up to an hour, so she hoped that all of her other friends would come before Silas. He was the only one she wanted to say goodbye to.

She was on the couch, her hands crossed on her lap. She felt like she was about to be reprimanded by an adult at school, her heart pattering in the same way. As long as it didn't start a sprint as it had this morning.

She realized with a sinking feeling that her numbness had made her exactly the kind of tribute that gave her nightmares.

Silas was the first into the room and she sunk even further into that pit she had created for herself. Their time would be limited this way.

"You should've let someone go in front of you," she told him before he could say anything. He was already kneeling down in front of her, taking her hands out of her lap. "I want to spend the most time with you."

"Nat…" He looked up into her eyes, and she thought he was going to ignore her comment and go straight into their goodbyes. "Nat, there's no one else coming."

She frowned at him. She felt like she'd been punched. "No, Rose'll come. Or Len." She didn't say it aloud, but she had also had the smallest of hopes that her parents would be outside. That they would care.

Silas's breaths were choked. He leaned his forehead on her knees and shook his head. "Just you and me," he whispered.

She looked down at the top of his head for a long time, her breaths starting to pick up again. But she swallowed it down and shifted him out of that position. "Well, don't waste it, you dick," she said, trying for playful, but the tears in his eyes and the rumble in her chest told her that the feeling was lost to the moment. She took Silas's hand and placed it over his heart. "You're the only asshole who could put up with me apparently." She choked out a laugh, but he didn't return it.

He nodded and moved up to the couch with her, wrapped her up in a hug.

She shut her eyes with Silas's arms around her. The walls seemed to be painted with dead eyes up on a reaping stage. Now she understood that boy's face. He was just silently preparing for the mark of his death. For a canon over a bloody arena.

wahoo this bitch natalia was made by me a long ass time ago and i adapted her a little bit and used her for this bc i really like her story

also the poem is by me although i wrote it for a finnpoe fic i never got around to writing lmao but if you like the poems let me know bc i'm going to try to write one for every chapter to flex my poetry bones... i love poetry but i haven't written it in months so the ghost stories poem made me really happy

so this was the natalia chapter, same as before except i'm changing the a/n past this point. if you wanna review the new filler in chapter 2 but already reviewed natalia's, you can just do it here!

other than that here's nat's chapter question: any ideas what happened to her?