Hullo, readers. As you can clearly see at the top of the page, this is Chapter 1 of Rising... and Falling Back Down, which I'll abbreviate RFBD. This part of the story follows almost the same plot as Chiiz Nagoha: Deadly Orphan (CNDO), but it will branch off and become a new but similar story, trust me. Even though the storyline in this part is similar, I hope you can all see the difference in the quality of the writing between this an CNDO. And I realize that this moves pretty fast, but it's meant to be that way in this chapter. This is mostly an introduction to the story, continuing the prologue.
Reaping Day. In District 2, Reaping Day is the day where the top boy and girl from the Happy Hunger Games Training volunteer as tribute. So if you're not in the program, or aren't the top fighter, you're guaranteed to stay out of the Games. Well, almost guaranteed. There have been a few years where no one volunteered, and whoever got reaped went in to the arena, but I can't remember the last time that happened. Most of the kids here see it as an honor to fight for our district. But, as I was saying, you're practically guaranteed to not go into the Games if you're not tops in HHGT. And as a result, kids that aren't in HHGT take out a ridiculous amount of tesserae, which keeps most families from starving. Even the poor ones, like mine.
District 2 being a crowded place, the entire population can't fit into the town square. So the only people that have to attend the Reaping are families with kids from ages 5-18, victors, and their remaining relatives. I say remaining, because the friends and relatives of victors have a habit of meeting their end soon after the Games. Funny how it works that way.
Trust me, this is important later. But, I'm moving on for now.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Chaia Nagoha. I turn 14 years old in exactly one week, meaning that I get to celebrate my birthday during the Hunger Games. Which pretty much ruins the occasion. I live with my cousin, Matt, in a dirty apartment complex that smells like alcohol and is mainly occupied by immature kids that just got out of school and are barely old enough to live by themselves. So, how did I end up here? Well, up until I was 11 years old, I lived in an orphanage. My mother died when I was 5, my father ran off as soon as she got sick, and I didn't have any other family that was willing to take me in. So the Peacekeepers took me to the orphanage.
I ended up rooming with a girl named Clove. We were young, but right from the start, things didn't work out. Clove would make fun of everything about me, my appearance, how I wore my hair, my eating habits, the way I talked, even my pale skin tone.
Exactly five years before we were eligible for the Reaping, the kids in the orphanage were registered for HHGT. Clove was only a few months older than me, but it was enough so that she went into the program one year before I did. Not only did Clove make fun of me, she also would brag about how far, and how accurate her knife throwing was, and how she could take down the strongest kids in hand to hand combat. When I entered the program the following year, Clove was still in the 7-8 age group with me, and she would criticize every single thing I did. Maybe I couldn't throw a knife into a dummy's heart from the other end of the room, but I could run faster than any other kid in the class, and I could swipe my sword faster and stronger than she ever could. And that one fateful day when Clove and I were partnered for combat, I managed to win the match. My roommate, being the asshole that she was, used the oldest excuse in the book: "I went easy on you. Next time, you're dead." But I wasn't dead the next time. Or the time after that, or the time after that. When Clove moved into the next age group, I excelled in training even more, now that I didn't have her stalking me. And when we were once again in the same age group, I beat the little sucker like she was 5 again. And she didn't have any more excuses to give me.
Well, that was the only part of life that went well for me. Despite being no match for me in training, Clove kept her aloof air and never apologized for her actions earlier. The living conditions in that building were terrible. There was enough room in the orphanage rooms for one bunk bed (guess who got the bottom bunk), two desks and chairs, a television that only turned on when the Hunger Games were on and couldn't be turned off, and one dresser, where I kept my school uniform, training uniform, casual clothes, pajamas, and dress clothes (which barely qualified as such). There was about four square yards of floor space. The bathrooms were almost never cleaned and smelled awful, used toilet paper was scattered all over the infinitely wet floor, out of the five sinks, only one wasn't clogged up with who knows what, and there was no soap or towels.
School was terrible; they used the same seats for the eleven year olds that they used for the five year olds, said seats were falling apart and had splinters, the teacher never responded if we raised our hands, and was very vague in her lessons, resulting in me scrapping a C average at my best. Even Clove couldn't make fun of me for that.
We ate the same stuff for breakfast that we did for lunch and dinner. Stuff meaning gray or brown goop that caused more than one outbreak of vomiting. The only time we got half-decent food was on holidays.
I didn't have any friends either. In my early years in the orphanage, I was good friends with one girl named Marita, but when we were 8, she came down with leukemia. The orphanage sent her to the infirmary, but the medicine the Capitol gave them wasn't strong enough, and my only friend went on to a better place, where I was stuck in virtual hell. When I had Marita, I felt that I didn't need anyone else, because I thought that she would always be there for me. While she was sick, I was counting on her getting better, so I still didn't try to make more friends. Which meant that while I was mourning Marita, I didn't have anyone to comfort me. Clove would talk me off for crying at night, years after my friend's death. "Get over it," she would say to me while I buried my face in the thin, musty pillow. "She's dead and gone, and there's nothing you can do about it. Now shut up so I can sleep." Though I still miss Marita, at some point I stopped crying over her and started crying over the fact that there was no one left who needed me.
One of the most minor, and yet one of the things that irked me most, was that orphans were expected to cut their roommate's hair, and their roommate was supposed to do the same for them. Of course, I refused to cut Clove's, and there was no way I was letting her anywhere near my hair, so the two of us cut our own hair. Clove always wore her hair in two braids, so she just put her hair in pigtails when she cut it. It looked strange in the pigtails and it looked strange down, but once she braided it, it looked almost as good as it did when cut evenly. My hair, on the other hand, was a different story. I couldn't stand the feeling of ponytails or braids, so however I cut my hair would be clearly seen by everyone. And let me tell you, I was not born to be a hairdresser. My coffee brown hair, so smooth and soft, was completely ruined by its cut. Every strand of hair was a different length from the one next to it. Not only did Clove tease me about it, but almost every kid in my class did.
By my eleventh birthday, I had had enough. I remember my last day in the orphanage like it happened yesterday. Clove and I were watching the Hunger Games, which meant that we had no class, so I had been in the room for a total of 9 hours for the 11 hours that I had been awake.
"Ha, see that?" Clove said, as District 2's female tribute, Serana, pinned down District 10's. The two had been butting heads for a while, and it was clear that whatever followed would be brutal. "Someday, that'll be me. Right there. I'll be the one they choose to volunteer."
"No you won't," I said softly. I always spoke softly those days. Otherwise, my voice cracked, which made me cough and look retarded. Nonetheless, my voice still had some power left. "We both know I can beat you in a fight, knife to sword or hand to hand." Serana started tugging on Ten's hair, with a wide smirk across her face.
"Even if you are better, you'll chicken out if they choose you. Leaving me, the runner up, to take your place. When I win, you'll look like a fool because you didn't do it."
Clove was right about one thing. If I won, she'd definitely be the runner-up. The two of us had always been the best girls in the 9-11 age group. "I won't chicken out. I won't volunteer because it's the smart thing to do. Twenty three kids die in there. The odds aren't in your favor." By this point, Serana had slowly and deliberately tore out half of Ten's hair, and was working on ripping her clothes off so she was just in her undergarments, and carving flowers on every exposed inch of skin, which was probably a reference to the floral dress. I think this might have been a reference to how Twelve had said in her interview that even if she didn't win, she wanted to make her district proud, and didn't want to be called a failure. "Besides," I add, gesturing to Serana, who was humming a tune as she carved up her victim, "You don't want to be like that, do you? You're a sadistic bitch, but not like that." It was typical of us to swear at each other, but never once had either of us suggested that there were limits to the other's stupidity.
Clove shrugged. "How different can it be than training?"
I winced at Serana's next move. "You don't cut of the dummy's hands and feet."
Clove paused for a moment. "It's no different," she said after a moment, but her voice wasn't as sure as it had been before.
And as if on cue, Serana finished cutting off Ten's foot, spat in her face, and left her to bleed to death. It didn't take long for the death cannon to fire.
For some reason, this one cannon made something inside of me change. Every death left me feeling that something wasn't right, but this girl's was different. This one made the gears in my brain turn.
In school, they taught us that the Capitol was good, that they were the definition of perfect. They said the Hunger Games were necessary to prevent a repeat of the Dark Days. But for the first time, I saw these statements as something besides common sense. I saw that they were lies.
That night, I snuck out of the orphanage. I was caught by Peacekeepers in a few weeks. They whipped me ten times in front of the whole district, including orphanage kids, which meant that Clove saw me punished. I located her immediately, the smirk spread wide across her face. In an eerie way, she reminded me of Serana. Who, for the record, ended up as the victor.
But some good did come out of that pain. The mayor let me live with my cousin, who had been living by himself for a while, but was so poor that they hadn't considered putting me in his care until now. Matt's apartment was as bad as the orphanage, when it came to living conditions, but it meant that I didn't have to see Clove anymore.
All in all, the beating was worth it. Because it taught me that the Capitol isn't as good as it's cracked up to be. I didn't know it at the time, but by escaping, I'd sealed my fate in becoming part of a rebellion. A big one.