Chapter Two: Life is Overrated

Same Day

Maxxer "Max" Bent, District Twelve Male

I'm walking along the fence line, hoping to whoever might be listening up there that no one notices me.

Oh, I'm easy to recognize. Maybe it's the all-black outfit. Maybe it's the slightly crazed look in my eyes. Or maybe it's the fact that I haven't been seen with another person outside of family in years.

I'd never bothered asking. Why should I? All it would get me is laughed at. And that happens enough already.

I don't have anyone to turn to, not even family. No one cares. They never will.

Just a couple of months ago, I'd been riding on top of the world. I'd had a steady group of friends. We'd hung out together. Nothing much, just basic stuff. But that was way more than enough for me.

Even with every effort I've taken to blot their names from existence, they're still fresh in my mind. Niko, the archetypical nerd. Matthias, whose father was in prison for selling illegal drugs. Valentine, the socially withdrawn girl the popular girls had bullied mercilessly. Acu, who had a severe stuttering problem. Gidion, who I'd never trusted fully, who had strange "family issues" that caused him to miss weeks of school at a time. And Ignacius.

The thought makes me angry all over again. Why was I the idiot that chose to side with him?

My relationship with the group had already been strained at that point, since I'd come out to them as being gay. They'd always suspected, due to my tendencies, but saying it aloud had just proved it. I'd trusted them with that secret, before my grandmother, aunt, uncle, cousins, brothers, and even my parents. But, there was one event that proved to be the tipping point.

A few months ago, Ignacius had been accused of stealing something. There had been no evidence other than the fact that the object was missing. Ignacius had denied it. Trying to help him, since stealing did not seem like his thing, I'd supported his statement.

Everything went wrong after that.

Ignacius somehow started a rumor that I had stolen the object, set it up so that he'd take the blame, and then sided with him to divert suspicion away from me.

I have no idea why any of my "friends" believed him. Everyone knew I was nowhere near smart enough to pull that off. Myself included.

But they did anyway. From that point onward, I was excluded from everything they did. Whenever they happened to see me, they just turned away and pretended I didn't exist.

That was the day I broke. I always knew something had been messed up with my head, but that was the first time I realized I'd never be normal again.

I didn't have anyone anymore. All that was left was me.

And I'm terrible company.

I've been crouching in a stand of bushes for half an hour.

I want the square to be empty, or at least mostly empty, before I make my move. I don't want to be spotted by anyone.

Eventually, the market closes, and the square slowly empties. Soon, almost no one is there, except for one annoying group of teens hanging out near the edge. I just have to hope they don't see me.

Emerging from the clump of bushes, I start to book it towards the other edge of the square, head down, arms pumping, and breathing hard. I avoid looking towards them: all it will do is trigger them.

Miraculously, I make it to the other side without anyone from their group saying anything, throwing any comments my way, or otherwise being jerks to me. Good. That's better for them, and better for me.

Better for them, I say, because before I learned to rein it in a couple of years ago, I had a real psychotic streak. And I do mean psychotic. When I was eight, I sent one kid to the hospital with bite marks all over his face. He was a huge bully before that incident, but, no surprise, he steered clear of me after that. A year later, another kid had to get a pencil surgically removed from her hip. She'd also bullied me up until that point, but she avoided me after that happened.

My parents hauled me off to psychiatrists each time it happened. They were the literal definition of useless. The bullying didn't stop and the crazy incidents kept happening.

However, due to the combination of my bizarre outbursts towards anyone teasing me and some of my bullies just maturing a bit, most of it eventually stopped. After that ended, I learned to keep my emotions under control. More outbursts would just make everything worse.

It's getting dark. I know I have to go home eventually. But home is not a very happy place for me. In fact, it's no better than anywhere else.

Sometimes, I wish I lived anywhere else. But wishes like that don't get granted.

Groaning, I turn for home, hoping in vain that the house is empty.

No surprise, I return to a not-empty house.

Sure, I'm still outside, so it's hard to tell, but I can see flickering from lanterns- clearly the electricity isn't working again- and hear loud talking coming from the one open window.

I knock on the front door.

The person who comes to the door is not my mother or father, thankfully. Instead, it's Poole, my older brother.

"Oh, it's you, Max," he says. Then he beckons me inside.

"Of course it's me," I reply. I don't need to say that, he already knows, idiot.

He walks me down the hall, to where two of his friends, Karolyn and Erik Gypsum, are sitting together in makeshift chairs. He goes into the kitchen and drags out two more chairs- one for him, one for me- and takes a seat.

I move my seat a considerable distance away from the three of them before sitting. I've never been comfortable around his friends.

Karolyn, surprisingly, makes the first move. "So, what happened today?"

I could, of course, tell them exactly what happened. Jay and Ashley found a hose somehow and got me soaked before school started. I found out I got a C- on my last math test. I told the principal about the hose incident after school, he did nothing, and then I told Mom, who made a crude remark about me needing a shower anyway. After working with Mom and Dad for three hours at the shop, I took a long walk and had to resist the urge to slash my arm before I went home.

But, I don't. I don't deserve anyone's pity. So, instead, I say "Nothing much."

"That's great!" Karolyn again.

My younger brother, Mirkin, darts into the room at top speed, then stands in front of me, stares at Poole, and frowns.

"Them again?" Mirkin's trying to make it seem like he's pitying Poole for not having more friends over, but everyone knows he's just jealous about how he can't pick up friends as easily as Poole does. None of us have seen him with anyone except Justin Cleave, his best friend, for years.

"Oh, brother dear, of course them again," Poole replies. Then, he resumes talking with the two of them.

Mirkin frowns, tears coming to his eyes, then storms out of the room. Oh, relax. It's not like someone died or anything.

As soon as Poole's conversation with Karolyn and Erik seems to stop, I ask him the inevitable question. "Where's everyone else?"

"You just saw Mirkin, Mom and Dad are closing up shop last time I checked, Grandma Roa's asleep in her room, Aunt Lara just left for her shift at the mines, Uncle Damien's coming home from his shift, and Norton and Oliver are cooking dinner." Poole says this all without pausing for breath.

Then, I hear two near-identical voices call out from the kitchen. "Dinner's done!"

"Uh, Poole, we gotta ditch," Erik says. "We know dinner's going to be tight for you guys as is, and we probably have our own dinner waiting at home."

Karolyn nods, and the two of them head for the front door.

The two of them are nearly flattened by the appearances of Uncle Damien, Mom, and Dad, conveniently timed to intercept dinner. The three of them wash up in the bathroom, then all of them say something different to me.

"Hey there, Max," Uncle Damien says.

"Your hair's all messy again," my mother says.

"Would you mind waking up Grandma Roa?" This coming from my father.

I don't respond, but I do climb up the creaky ladder to the second floor and walk to Grandma's bedroom.

She's asleep, just as Poole said. Shaking her gently, I call out, "Grandma, dinner's done."

She blinks herself awake, says "Thanks for telling me, Max," and shambles over to the ladder.

Following her down, I seat myself at the splintered table in the kitchen, where a meager meal is laid out for the nine of us. It's just an assortment of vegetables left over from my parents' shop, along with a loaf of bread we'd bought from the town baker, who I don't remember the name of.

As expected, it's gone in minutes. There isn't even a trace of an opportunity for seconds. Food is a precious commodity here. There isn't much, and whatever there is mysteriously vanishes as soon as it's discovered.

As soon as I'm done eating, I scrape the flecks of stuck-on food off my plate with a dirty knife, then vanish from the table into the room I share with Norton and Oliver.

That room holds some nasty secrets of its own, but I haven't shared those with anyone, and Norton and Oliver haven't found out about them. Yet.

I crawl under the bed, where the worst parts of myself, the parts I don't share with anyone, are kept. A bloodstained pair of scissors I use when I can't take my life anymore. Crude drawings of my friends Valentine made for everyone before I was excluded from my former friend group. The tiny handful of achievements I actually have to my name- I don't feel like I earned any of those. Finally, a cheesy romance novel I mock to cheer myself up whenever the scissors just don't seem to do the trick.

Then, I take off my long-sleeve shirt. The scars that keep me sane are revealed once more.

"Max? You in there?"

Crap. It's Dad. I throw my shirt back on and pull myself out from under the bed just as he enters the room.

He frowns within seconds. The first thing he says is "Your side of the room is a mess."

No duh. I don't have many clothes, but most of the ones I do have are on the floor. I just don't see the point of picking them up if I know I'm going to just throw them on the floor again. I have enough problems to deal with in my life already, and in terms of importance, cleanliness is pretty far down.

"I expect a response when I say something to you, you know."

"Sorry, Dad." Stop getting lost in your thoughts and start answering him, numbskull!

"Clean it up," he growls before leaving the room.

I groan and toss all the clothes into the box that serves as my dresser. What to wear tomorrow?

Then, the recognition comes to me. Tomorrow's the Reaping.

I don't care too much if I get picked. My life is meaningless anyway. I just hope it doesn't get Poole, who's eighteen, or Norton, who's just turned twelve.

But, I can just file the Reaping away on a long list of things I don't worry about.

I just haven't cared about much of anything for quite a while.

And no amount of fortune or misfortune is going to change that.

Author's Notes:

-I don't have much to say this time around. Thanks for bearing with me until inspiration hit. I banged most of this out in an afternoon, then ran it past the creator of the tribute to make sure he was OK with a couple of liberties I'd taken.

-Thanks to 20 again for Maxxer. Coming up is his third and final tribute, the D1F.

-After the D1F, the order is D2F, D2M, D3M, D10M, D4F, D4M, D3F, and D8M. All other spots are still open for those who wish to submit and haven't done so already!

-Two down, twenty-two to go. Hopefully, this next update will be sooner rather than later.