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The TV flickered to life and I stared at it, realizing that we were going to see fifty two faces flash across that screen and I was going to be expected to remember all of them. Yeah... psh... right.
The Capitol's anthem came on and Naevius took the opportunity to introduce the new woman to us as Hadriana. She certainly looked ill, very ill for that matter. Her hair looked dead and her skin was pasty and rough, and she had dark rings under her eyes and a nose red from sniffling. Her shoulders were hunched and she couldn't stop shaking, and after Naevius introduced her she promptly sneezed into her elbow.
She sat down in a chair a respectful distance from the rest of us, trying not to get us sick. "I would be the most horrid person alive if I got any one of you sick right before fighting for your life," she sniffled with an apologetic grin. "You should at least have a fair fight."
I gave her a brief smile and then turned my attention back to the television.
After the anthem, the TV cut to the video they had played before the reaping. I supposed they were replaying it for the Capitol citizens' benefit, but I didn't much care. All it did was make me a little bit more angry than I already was. The video transitioned then to a man and a woman sitting behind a desk with a silent video of the capitol's victories playing behind them. They both looked absolutely ridiculous, and made Aelia's weirdness look like a joke.
The man had neon pink hair and eyebrows to match, and he had a very need little goatee that was died the same neon pink as his hair and his eyebrows. He had huge fake eyelashes that looked like they were made out of mockingjay feathers that swooped off the side of his face until they were difficult to see against the background, and he had make-up on to give him cheekbones that he clearly didn't have as he was a bit too portly. He had a bright pink suit with a bright orange dress-shirt and they DEFINITELY clashed.
The woman had ears that came to a point and twitched every now and then like a cat's, and her eyes were obviously altered (surgically or cosmetically, I don't know) to be a green-gold and slit. She had dots drawn on her cheeks to give her the appearance of whiskers, and her clothes were skin-tight and leopard print. She tapped her fingers in rolling patterns along the desk, showing of nails that were thick and pointed like claws, with black tips to match her black hair, which was cut raggedy and short to look more like fur.
"Hello ladies of Panem," the cat-chick said in a voice that sounded like cream.
"And Gentlemen, Kit, don't forget the gentlemen," the pink man said, his voice deep and rich.
"Of course," she nodded. "People of Panem, we are ecstatic to announce we will be the spokespeople for the Graveyard Games this year, and are looking forward to exciting games."
"We are sure the games will start off with a bang, and this year will be even more exciting than any Hunger Games before it," the pink man added. "I am Nero Othoman, and my lovely coworker is Kit Julius."
The screen behind them flashed to the streets of the Capitol, which were filled with an absurd number of people with various colors of hair, make up, dresses, and so forth.
"Tonight in the Capitol is the Graveyard Games kickoff! The party before the party, you might say," the man continued, and the woman nodded along, purring her agreement. "Before the tributes arrive, our glorious President Pura has thrown a party for the sake of the game itself. How exciting!"
I snorted, and I wasn't the only one in the room to do so. While Pura was technically his name, he was known in the districts as President Sangre simply for how much blood he had shed over the past few years. Although this funny pink man would probably lose his head if he said President Sangre...
"But of course, that's not what any of you really want to see," he chuckled, and in the background a gigantic screen over the street party lit up, with Nero and Kit's faces blown up on them. "Are you ready to see this year's tributes?!"
The people in the streets cheered.
"I can't hear you!" Kit said, grinning to reveal sharpened canines.
The people cheered even louder, and they faded the sound of the party out so they could continue talking.
"That's more like it," Kit said. "Now, let's have a quick recap. In these games, children of rebel forces were put in more times than they would be otherwise. Additionally, two children of each gender will have their names put in. Let's take a look at district one..."
The screen transitioned to a slightly shaky film of the streets of District One, which were filled with sobered people and bright clothes. They were more eager than District Twelve had been, but their faces said they were still hesitant. Many of the parents remembered the honor brought to their district by having a victor, but this time they hadn't been illegally training their kids... This time, it was all a level playing field.
"Ladies first," a scrawny little man on the stage said. "Crystal Pierce." A shaky girl about fifteen walked up with snow-white hair and wide, dark eyes. "Dianna Janson." An older girl, maybe seventeen, walked up with her head held high and her shoulders pushed back, although her knees trembled slightly.
"And now for the gentlemen," the man said. "Blaise Donnel." A bulky guy walked up. "Onyx Cardenian." A younger boy walked up.
They zoomed in on the tributes faces after that, which were relatively unremarkable. Some were more confident than others, but they all had a sort of fear in their eyes.
"District Two..."
This district was filled with lights and laughter, liquor was in the streets and people were grinning up at the stage.
"Ladies... Maroon Ison... Thalia Mahija... Gentlemen... Ty Hawthorne... Otaco Mierez..." I squinted at the first named guy. Ty Hawthorne... he looked familiar. It took me half way through District Three to place him, and when I did I just opened my mouth and stared at the screen. He looked almost exactly like that guy from a picture on Mom's desk... Gale, I think his name was. Gale Hawthorne. Was this guy Gale's son?
After that point, tributes went in one ear and out the other... maybe in one eyeball and out the other?
A few stuck, of course. There was a tiny little girl who obviously just barely made the cut off for the age requirement from district five. There was a girl with flaming red hair and dark brown eyes who didn't shake at all when she went up to the stage, and she was from district seven. There was a huge hulk of a guy who just barely was young enough to compete, who stood a head higher than everyone else on the stage from district eight. A curly haired girl who moved like a cat was called up with her identical twin sister from district ten, although her twin didn't move nearly so gracefully.
Eventually, we reached our district. They got half way through the four of us hugging before they abruptly cut off the tape and went to district thirteen.
The very unfortunate thing about district thirteen is that after the rebellion won, almost everyone went to the other districts. The surface of district thirteen was still pretty much impossible to survive, and many people chose the open space of a new home than the underground areas of district thirteen. The few people that stayed were mostly in their twenties and thirties and didn't have any kids, because once they got kids they had a tendency to move to places with more sunshine and schools. The result was that almost all the kids that were there at all were six and under, born after the war started so the movement was restricted. When they filmed the reaping there, only ten children were in the pins with ages on them. And only three of them were girls.
All four of the kids that were called from that district were thirteen or younger. Three of the kids, both boys and one of the girls, were twelve. The other girl was thirteen, but she didn't have much advantage in size on the other three. The four of them hugged tightly on stage and started crying, then the cameras switched back to Nero and Kit.
"It certainly seems like a lot of tributes, doesn't it Kit?" Nero said, turning his chair to look half way at his coworker and half way at the camera.
"It does. One thing's for sure, these games will be like none before. Fifty two kids -"
"Tributes, Kit," Nero corrected stiffly. I sat up, realizing that the cat woman had tripped up. She wasn't supposed to let us look like people.
"Didn't I say tributes?" she asked. "What did I say? Well, none the less, I meant tributes. Fifty two of them, and only one comes out. This is going to be exciting, bloody, and spectacular."
"And that is all for tonight!" Nero said, grinning. "Tomorrow the tributes should be getting in and the festivities will continue anew. Goodnight, Panem!"