Chapter Twenty-Two: Words on the Street
I'm Running Out of Creative Ways to Say "One Day Before Reapings"...
Artesia Alexander, District Ten Female
In the years I've been living on the streets, I've been called a lot of ugly names.
"Street rat" is a pretty common term. "Filthy whore" is another winner for these people, even though I haven't gotten that desperate yet. There are a lot of other things they call me as well, but none of them seem to be nearly as common.
However, the filthy, cowering girl most of them see has learned to live on her own, without a home, without anyone to rely on, and while having the ire of just about every wealthy person in the District fixed on people like me.
And quite a bit of the time, she's the reason their trash cans seem to be empty way more frequently than they should.
However, it wasn't always like this. At one point in my life, I actually was viewed as a person, and not just some random hobo wandering the darkened streets of downtown.
Our family used to consist of four people, before time, misery, and bad luck caused it to dwindle down to one.
My parents had been ranch hands back when they were still around, working twelve to sixteen hours a day just to make sure we had something to eat and a roof over our heads. While quotas were significantly lower, that actually made things worse in some aspects, because employers didn't need to take in anyone with a heartbeat to churn out whatever they could get.
However, one rainy summer night, they tucked my brother Evan and I into bed, just like every other night. However, when we woke up in the morning, they were gone, and neither of us knew if they were alive or dead. All we knew was that we never saw them again, even though we scoured the town from top to bottom searching for any clues that they may have left behind. (There were none.)
At that point, it was just us. Since we couldn't get jobs no matter what we tried, eventually we had to abandon the house and try our hand at living on the streets. It was a little bit of a shock those first two weeks, but after we realized that we weren't going to starve, life got a little bit easier.
The low point was probably during the first winter, when we hadn't thought of storing food for a long period of time. During those weeks, where the trash cans were almost empty, we resorted to eating rope and weeds to sustain ourselves.
After that, though, things weren't too bad for those first few years. At least, until Evan got suckered into going to some demonstration against the Capitol in the town square. He dragged me along, not wanting to lose me at that point, saying that we were just being peaceful and that we were exercising our rights and that nothing was going to go wrong.
Unfortunately, that was one of the few times he was wrong about something. Peacekeepers showed up to try and stop the protest (no big surprise there) but the real tipping point came when they started using tear gas and dragging people off to who-knew-where. One of them grabbed my arm and started taking me away, so he tackled the Peacekeeper doing it. He might have only been sixteen at the time, while the Peacekeeper was at least thirty and had fifty pounds on him, but he knocked the guy to the ground like nothing, and then proceeded to drag both me and himself out of there.
After that, we went into hiding. It worked for a few days, but eventually, we ran into a Peacekeeper, literally, and he put us under arrest. (Sure, he didn't say that, but the point was still made.) He was sentenced to death, despite being a minor (anyone who kills children for a living is evil, no questions asked), and because I didn't actually do the deed, I got the "lenient" sentence of watching them execute the only person that I cared about, and getting sent to the community home.
That fateful day, exactly twenty-seven people, most of them young men, were executed. I looked away so no one else could see that I had broken.
One short stint at the community home later, I was back on the streets. (I didn't give a damn. The girl who got the snot kicked out of her by yours truly should have seen it coming from a mile away.)
And, through more than my fair share of luck, I'm still out here today, trying my best to scavenge for whatever I can to keep living this sorry excuse of a life.
Currently, I'm just sort of aimlessly wandering through the wealthier parts of town, hoping that I can find something of value so I don't go to bed feeling like I'm about to starve.
Fridays are the worst day of the week for getting anything of value, because the garbage men always come on Thursday to empty out the trash bins in this part of town. (I know this because I tried to get a job there. Multiple times. It never worked out.)
Anyway, while it's harder to find food today, I still have roughly the same chance of finding a couple of coins to buy something. Like it or not, some of the vendors at the market have to take business from whoever comes their way. Even if it is a "street rat" like me.
However, that doesn't mean I don't have to be careful in terms of who I get my food from. I found that out the hard way, a few days after being tossed back onto the streets from the orphanage. There was this one guy who was selling meat really cheaply, and he made a point to give me a discount, because, as he said, "you look like you haven't had a decent meal in months."
However, it turned out to be a cruel trick. A few hours after I ate the thing for my dinner, I had to run to an area that was relatively unoccupied so I could attempt to go to the bathroom, but was just unable to do so. Turns out, the meat had chemicals injected into it that essentially made my insides clamp into a firm knot. I didn't have a satisfactory bowel movement for months. (Why would anyone do that? I don't know, but I guess he hated my type, if you know what I mean.)
But, I have to put that aside for now and actual focus on getting something so I can satiate my gnawing hunger.
A few hours of searching later, I've actually managed to find a few coins, even if I had to get very muddy in order to reach some of them.
Either way, it's got to be enough to buy an apple, or some bread, or something. Something to get me through to tomorrow so I can start the daily grind for sustenance all over again.
Thankfully, the market is still open, even if it's getting late. Most of the stalls that dot the place are manned and still operational, turning it into a burst of color against the flatness of the surroundings.
Lucky for me, it's early enough that quite a few of the stalls are manned by kids. Sure, they've aged mentally so that they can handle all the responsibilities the adults are supposed to have, but most of them can't be more than eleven or twelve. The boy closest to me is selling raw vegetables, another boy fifty feet away is pushing chopped-up mystery meat, and a girl with braces, next door to the boy, is waving crackers at people, hoping they'll get taken off her hands.
Naturally, I decide to help her out. As I approach, she doesn't look the slightest bit repulsed by my appearance, which is always a good sign. She doesn't say a word to me, but when I give her the meager amount of coins I've collected, she gives me a small handful of crackers without question. Departing quietly, I scarf down my meager dinner, then decide to head for the stream about a mile out of town to get a drink. (Yes, the water might be contaminated. But if that was the case, I'd probably have died a long time ago, right? RIGHT?)
After dunking my muddy face in the water and taking a long sip, I decide that now's as good a time as any to try and get some rest. So, I walk away from town, trying to find some isolated area where no one in their right mind would ever look for a person.
The first- and probably best- option is the big cluster of trees about a mile outside of town that looks like it might have been part of a jungle once. The Peacekeepers here hate to admit that they have weaknesses, but wilderness survival is definitely a skill most of them lack. (I figured that out after another demonstration, similar to the one that got my brother killed, took place exactly where I'm heading now. It took almost the entire force just to get to them because most of the Peacekeepers kept fleeing the woods upon hearing the most mundane of things.)
Due to that, I should be able to sleep in peace for a while.
Once I get as far into the center of the cluster as I can, where the trees block most of the starlight and moonlight, I sit with my back to a broad tree, exhausted and somehow hungry again.
However, as I try to lie down, I feel the familiar weight of something pressing into my back.
Even though it's too dark to really read, I still remember what the words written on the front of the notebook say: "My Journal, The Third." The first one I had came from the orphanage, where I got it handed down from another kid, who'd only filled half of it before getting bored with it. The second one I got from a vendor after saving coins for a few months. For this one, I did the exact same thing.
I wouldn't be able to read most of my entries, even if it wasn't dark out, because I learned to write really tiny in order to save as much space as possible. These things are pretty expensive (by my standards, anyway) and I want to not have to get another one of these for as long as possible.
Laying the thing on top of me, I tip over, and I'm out before I hit the dirt.
I wake up to someone shaking me.
As I moan at having to get up and face the day once more, a hand suddenly slams over my mouth. Before I can scream, they clamp harder, and my head is twisted around to face my assailant.
As it turns out, however, he's a boy who can't be older than twelve or thirteen. His eyes keep darting around, as if he's expecting to be jumped any seconds, and he begins pulling me along as he speeds up to an uneasy jog.
"Sorry about the rough wakeup," he whispers in between ragged breaths, "but I'm supposed to scan this area before the Peacekeepers do so that there's fewer people imprisoned today."
At first, it doesn't click. "Wait, why today specifically?"
He replies with "Today's Reaping Day. I'd make a joke there but I'm really nervous right now- this is the first year I'm eligible."
Huh. I guess all the days really do blend together when you're living like this. I probably could have picked up on some conversations across town and inferred that it couldn't be far, but I had no idea that it was, well, so soon.
As the kid leads me along, I feel around for my familiar journal, and luckily, I find it tucked into my ratty shirt, where it always is, along with a failing pen that barely has any ink left. I haven't been writing that much lately, given that I mostly do it to take my mind off things and there hasn't been much need to do so these past few weeks, but I'm pretty confident Reaping Day is definitely something I want to avoid thinking about.
Therefore, once we get into the endless line to enter the town square for the Reaping, I flip open the journal to the nearest empty page, pull the pen out, and start writing like there's no tomorrow.
I still remember the first Reaping I went to, back when my parents were still around. I was naive enough and sheltered enough that I only had a vague idea of what happened to the boy and girl sent onward to the Capitol.
It was really crowded in the twelve-year-old section, and there was a lot of pushing and shoving as everyone tried to get the best spot to see our ridiculous escort with her insane hairdo and the beak she'd had surgically attached to her face so that she'd look more like a swan.
After that, she read this long, boring speech that everyone zoned out for, and then she pulled out two names. I forget the boy's name. But the girl? She made sure to be as memorable as possible. She looked insane in her all-black outfit and not responding to anything anyone else said just made her even easier to remember.
Her name was Kitty. I'd go on to see her again, about seven months later, while she was on her Victory Tour. It might have been the coolest thing I've ever seen.
However, I'm jerked back to reality when I reach the front of the line. Some Peacekeeper who looks like she should have retired fifteen years ago is monitoring my line, most likely checking to make sure no one tries to sneak away while she isn't looking.
"What's your name, missy?" She spits this out with such disdain that any other day I'd have to stifle the urge to call her a name. However, if I had to sit out in the sun all day, monitoring a stupid tradition that desperately needed to die, I'm confident I would be ticked off as well.
"Artesia. Artesia Alexander."
"At least that's easy to find, given that these things are alphabetical," she mutters. After scanning the massive list that she's clearly been given to keep track of who's going where, she looks up at me and says, "go stand with the seventeen year olds."
Quickly, I find my section, filled with kids who are varying degrees of nervous. Some are trying to shrug it off. A few are crying. One's rocking back and forth, holding her head and humming to herself. If this was any other place, I probably would have thought that she'd lost it for good.
But this is the Reapings.
Everyone here goes a little crazy.
As the ridiculous escort makes her dramatic entrance onto the stage, the world around me vanishes, leaving me to mesh into an exhausted, frightened crowd of terrified children.
Author's Notes:
-Well, that came out fast! Compared to the other recent chapters, anyway.
-Thanks to SparrowBirdEliza for sending in Artesia.
-All that's left is the D9M/D9F chapter, then things get moving (finally!)
-See you all next chapter!